Oceans In Peril

(Final 3 of 3 Painting - Found a new home in Pennsylvania)

Have We Forgotten What Our Ancestors Taught Us?

Our ancestors taught us to respect the land, the water, and the generations yet to come — to take only what we need and protect the balance that sustains life. That wisdom carried our people through thousands of years of abundance.

Today, communities around the world are witnessing mass die‑offs of ocean life. Even deep‑sea creatures are washing ashore. We’ve become an insatiable, disposable society — buying, tossing, forgetting — as if the consequences vanish once they’re out of sight.

And here in Alaska, millions upon millions of fish are being wiped out every year by monstrous trawler ships, killing the very resources that sustain the Bering Sea and the Gulf of Alaska. These vessels dump thousands of metric tons of unwanted catch, breaking the ocean’s balance and destroying the sustainability our ancestors protected.

Pollution, radiation, pesticides, plastics — all of it is now inside our bodies. Forever chemicals and microplastics are already here. The harm is real, and it is ominous.

We were given the gifts of harvest and gathering by our Creator, yet new inventions and distractions pull us away from gratitude and responsibility. We take, consume, and discard — rarely pausing to remember the sacredness of what we’ve been given.

Our Elders said, “The weather will change to the way man thinks.”   Only now do we see how greed and excess unravel the natural order.

The consequences are everywhere — oceans in crisis, wildlife struggling, the cycle of life under threat. Every one of us has a duty to think beyond ourselves and remember the generations who will inherit what we leave behind.

All creatures already know how to live in balance. It’s humans who must relearn the sustainability our ancestors practiced for thousands of years.