Summaries of 2007 Winning Proposals

Forget-Me-Not-Alarms - Memory By Design, Award Amount: $15,000, Project Representative: Sherri Adams, Juneau, Southeast Region

Forget-me-not Alarms-Memory By Design will sell and design cell phone covers and carriers, and later add purses, key rings, and wallets fashioned after various Alaska Native regalia (kuspuks, parkas, mukluks, etc.) with an optional built-in alarm system. Additionally, each product will be accompanied with literature explaining Alaska Native regalia, history, and use. This innovative product combines traditional arts and crafts while utilizing contemporary technology. The company will provide a product and service that is both practical and functional while supporting Alaska Native people and culture by buying quality products from them.

Tava View Adventures, Award Amount: $15,000, Project Representative: Karen E. Stickman, Eagle River, Southcentral Region; www.taraviewadventures.com

Tava View Adventures (TVA) goal is to offer an authentic and simple rural Alaskans eco-tourism company catering to women customers. The business will be operated from June -mid-September. It will be located at Quizjeh Vena in the Lake Clark National Park. The camp will be remote, comfortable with log cabins for rest, a steam bath for refreshing and the highlights of the experience will include: hiking, photography, boating, berry picking, fish camp and Denaina Athbascan cultural education. Fishing opportunities will be provided upon request. Arts and crafts will be sold and provided by local womens cooperative. Marketing will be offered to women both in and outside the state of Alaska.

St. Lawrence Ivory Exchange, Award Amount: $25,000, Project Representative: Isaac Kulowiyi, Savoonga, Bering Straits Region

St. Lawrence Ivory Exchange in Savoonga seeks to sell ivory at an affordable price to Alaska Native artists statewide; excluding the middleman who typically sellf for an increased price. Raw ivory is available year round and sold to Alaska Natives; and fossil ivory is available in the summer. It has an established website through the Alaska Native Arts Foundation, and be used as a method to sell the product. As the business grows and develops, it will hire young people in the community to prepare for their education and ultimately their futures.

The Yukon Adventure Company, Award Amount: $25,000, Project Representatives: Jon & Tanya Korta, Galena, Interior Region; www.yukonadventurealaska.com

The Yukon Adventure Company will be an ecotourism business located in the Yukon River village of Galena. Traveling by sea kayak in the summer and dog sled in the winter, the Yukon Adventure Company will offer small groups guided wilderness adventures on the Yukon River and the surrounding area. Optional side trips will include riverboat and small airplane sightseeing trips. The knowledgeable guides (who are themselves rural Alaskan residents), will offer visitors a unique insight into life in rural Alaska that cannot be found on other tours. Its interactive, slow paced wilderness trips, with comfortable overnight accommodations ranging from small trapper cabins and yurts, to local bed and breakfasts.

40 BELOW INK, Award Amount: $30,000, Project Representative: Barbara Farris, Fairbanks, Interior Region; www.40belowink.com

40 BELOW INK, an independent publishing company, is committed to producing books and books-on-tape by Alaskan authors and illustrators, emphasizing stories about life in Alaska and Alaskan cultures. In Alaska, there are many talented writers and artists, but few publishing opportunities for residents. By publishing books about and by Alaskans by taking advantage of the strong interest in living and preserving its histories and stories. It will not only provide jobs, but work to promote tourism, especially in Alaska's rural areas.

Airport Pizza, Award Amount: $30,000, Project Representative: Geraldine Tomter, Nome, Bering Straits Region; www.airportpizza.com

The goal of Airport Pizza is to meet the increased business and service needs in Nome. It currently employs 27 people, half of which are Alaska Native. Growing up in an Inupiaq family that strongly embraced Inupiat values, has influenced the owner to to respect Elders, to cooperate, work hard, and share with others. The values-based approach to working with the employees is directly related to the success of a business in Rural Alaska.

Alaska Educational Tours, LLC, Award Amount: $30,000, Project Representatives: N. Jill Wheeler and Tonia Gilkey, Anchorage, Southcentral Region; www.akedtours.com

AkEdTours offers high quality, customized, educational land tours to educators and special interest groups. Our company showcases Alaska unique ecology, cultural heritage and history by immersing our clients in Alaska-off the beaten path rural communities. In Year 2, AkEdTours will expand tour options to include winter tours by a multi-faceted marketing effort, providing incentives, decreasing tour costs by providing own transportation, and providing educational opportunities for travelers, workshop facilitators and guest service workers. The essence of AkEdTours is culture. Our tours immerse travelers in daily lives of rural Alaskans not by merely visiting, but by staying in small inland and coastal communities. It is through these cross-culture experiences that our travelers learn about Alaskan cultures, and Alaskans will learn about the world.

Alaskan Pride Seafood, Award Amount: $35,000, Project Representatives: John Skan, Klawock, Southeast Region

Alaskan Pride Seafood seeks to create a locally owned specialty seafood plant in the Prince of Wales Island community of Klawock. The seafood industry in the region is dominated by large, salmon-focused, non-resident companies. The goal of Alaskan Pride Seafood is to focus on resources such as prawns, geoducks, sea cucumbers, urchins, whelks, and octopus. It will establish a processing facility designed specifically for these species that will include live-hold and flash-freezing facilities, a packing line and both freezer and chilled storage rooms. Marketing will be conducted through established domestic and international dealers for each of these specialty items.

Commercial Organic Greenhouse, Award Amount: $30,000, Project Representative: Connie Fredenburg, Nikolski, Southcentral Region

Nikolski IRA Council owns and operates the local store. Fresh produce is expensive, if available. Our tribally owned electric utility has installed a wind turbine that will provide surplus electricity. The Council will use the excess electricity to heat and electrify a small greenhouse operation that can grow produce for use within our community and market to a lodge on island jointly owned by APICDA and Chaluka Corporation. Secondly, the Council has looked into the possibility of already expanding. We do not have a tsunami shelter on our island. A geodesic dome structure will withstand high winds - ulitlizing this structure with a root cellar in the design, for storing canned foods and bulk drygoods, a second level will be a sleeping shelter and a woodstove will provide heat and cooking capability in the event of a power outage.

Dineega Specialty Furs, Award Amount: $30,000, Project Representative: Diana R. Burton, Sitka, Southeast Region; www.dineegafurs.com

Dineega Specialty Furs is an Alaska Native owned skin sewing business that specializes in making professional and traditional style garments and artwork out of Seal and Sea Otter fur. Skin sewing is an art, as well as a necessity, that has been passed from generation to generation in our family. Dineega Furs uses a mix of traditional and contemporary materials and patterns with the cultural values and beliefs passed down to us. We respect our resources and pactice subsistence, non-wasteful take, as well as fine quality in our products. To view our artwork or learn more about Dineega Furs, please visit www.dineegafurs.com.

Island Heritage Tours, Award Amount: $30,000, Project Representative: Theresa Squartsoff, Ouzinkie, Kodiak and Aleutian Islands Region; www.spruceislandcorporation.com

Ouzinkie has access to some of the best fishing grounds in the Kodiak Archipelago. There are several charter operators, but lacks a regular marine transport schedule to and from Kodiak. The community of Ouzinkie, working with the Kodiak Island Convention and Visitor's Bureau, has identified culturally based tours. The objective is to provide: a culturally based day tour of Spruce Island and Ouzinkie for the summer season; a centralized booking service for all of Ouzinkie's tourism related businesses; a regularly scheduled marine transport service using existing charter operators to and from the City of Kodiak and Ouzinkie.

Sensible Heating for Alaskans, Award Amount: $30,000, Project Representative: Ben Johnson, Petersburg, Southeast Region

The objective of Sensible Heating for Alaskans is to create a company that can reuse burnable waste items such as wood waste and cardboard by pressing the processed components into briquettes that can then be sold as an efficient, and clean burning heating fuel. The benefits to the local economy will be a cheaper, cleaner heating source and the elimination of the need to ship the waste off island as well as the creation of new employment.

Growing Wild! Copper River Salmon Soil, Award Amount: $30,000, Project Representative: Kristin Smith, Cordova, Chugach Region; www.copperriver.org

Growing Wild! Copper River Salmon Soil, an initiative of the Copper River Watershed Project, is a composting venture that uses waste products of a local salmon processor and a small sawmill to transform a hand labor operation into the commercial production of a high quality gardening retail product. It will create employment opportunities, generate income that the CRWP can re-invest in its community economic development mission, and create a value-added product that is not currently available in the Copper River/Prince William Sound. Growing Wild! will be a profitable business, demonstrating a model for sustainable economic development in small, coastal Alaskan communities.

Kiita Adventures, Award Amount: $35,000, Project Representative: Jason Evans, Anchorage, Northwest Regions

Kiita Adventures objectives are to promote Northwestern Alaska as a premiere tourism destination for Fishing, Hiking, Camping, Rafting and Hunting by working with local guides and lodges to market their existing products and services; provide eco-tourism equipment; assist local entrepreneurs in developing a tourism business or expanding their current products and services; develop guided tours that focus on sharing our culture with clients that are tied to Alaska but have outside operations like Alaska Native Corporation SBA 8(a) firms in the lower 48.

Raven Frog Fibers, Award Amount: $35,000, Project Representative: Ms. Bobbi Daniels, Sitka, Southeast Region

To teach under-employed women to spin yarn, supply them with spinning wheels and wool, and pay them on per/skein basis by Raven Frog Fibers of Sitka. Spinning yarn is a traditional southeast Alaska Native skill that has largely been lost. Raven Frog Fibers will supply the wheels and wool, and market the finished product. It will keep 10-12 spinners working at least 20 hours per week and they work out of their homes. A one time investment is sufficient as the market for this product and the business infrastructure exists; and benefits communities both economically and culturally for generations to come.

Sea Otter and Seal Products, Award Amount: $35,000, Project Representative: S. Roger Alexander, Ward Cove, Southeast Region; www.softgoldfurs.com

Soft Gold Furs is a hunting, sewing, and marketing business of seal and sea otter fur. IWith our award, we seek to hire 1-2 young people to teach how to hunt and flesh; buy furs at current market price from village independent hunters; buy a fur sewing machine; train and pay people on the Prince of Wales Island how to sew; purchase food, fuel using POW businesses; hire processors of seal meat and blubber, a new revenue source for its business; and outsource website marketing. Visit www.softgoldfurs.com.

Winter Taxi, Award Amount: $35,000, Project Representative: Walter "Sonny" Russell, Kotzebue, Northwest Region

Winter Taxi Sledcoach© will provide an inter-village shuttle service during the winter to eleven Northwest communities. Winter Taxi will use the Sledcoach©, a four person lightweight enclosed aerodynamic cabin mounted on shock absorbing runners. The heated and enclosed Sledcoach© is towed behind a snow machine with GPS navigation. Employees will be needed as dispatchers, drivers, mechanics and construction of the sleds in Kotzebue. Sales of the Sledcoach© could augment revenues for Winter Taxi. The long term vision is to increase the winter transportation in Nome, Bethel, Unalakleet and Barrow.

Alaska Glacial Mud Co., Award Amount: $40,000, Project Representative: Lauren Padawer, Cordova, Chugach Region; www.alaskaglacialmud.com

In Year 1, Alaska Glacial Mud Co. has successfully formulated Alaska glacial mud based skin care products and packaged for resale in exclusive spas, skin care boutiques and natural products stores in and out of Alaska. Feedback from retailers, service providers and end consumers has been positive. In Year 2, the intent is to expand the product line, invest in harvesting equipment and develop a more aggressive marketing program. Since starting to fill wholesale and retail orders in March 2007, the sales have proven to generate a profitable business that promotes Alaskan heritage, supports local and regional economy and advocates for a sustainable environment.

Cordova Community Cold Storage, Award Amount: $40,000, Project Representative: Dune Lankard, Cordova, Chugach Region

Community Cold Storage seeks to meet community needs for processing and storing subsistence foods. To create opportunity for community members to teach locals, youngsters and outsiders about rural susbsistence lifestyle and commercial fishing products. To create educational materials including tide book, canvas bags, labels and boxes to meet the needs of users as well as to educate. To create a reproducable model for satellite cold storage for other communities, which then could sell and share high-quality traditional foods across geographic distances, reducing regional hunger and improving health and connection to culture.

One Man's Trash is Another Man's Treasure, Award Amount: $50,000, Project Representative: Joseph A. Afcan, St. Mary's, Yukon/Kuskokwim Region

Almost every yard in rural communities has broken-down ATVs, outboards, snowmachines and cars. One Man's Trash is Another Man's Treasure will purchase these machines at low prices to rebuild or salvage, and resell at a higher price. Alaska Native values stress to take care of the lands that we hunt and occupy. There is no better place to start than the villages from which we live.

ArXotica, Inc., Award Amount: $60,000, Project Representative: Michelle (Macuar) Sparck, Bethel, Yukon/Kuskokwim Region; www.arxotica.com

As Year 1 winners, ArXotica was able to finance the value-added supply chain of harvesting, shipping, drying and extraction of first generation of their choice tundra botanicals. Laboratory analysis of the actives have since validated Yup'ik/Cup'ik Traditional Ecological Knowledge of Yukon Kuskokwim flora. At the Year 2 Alaska Marketplace Competition Event, ArXotica's project objective to finalize product formulation for a line of skin care to launch in the socially conscious luxury consumer market. With a private label contract manufacturing company selected, forecasting the volume of plants and berries needed each year to produce for market will be possible. ArXotica has a 5-year plan to hire agents and cultivate sub-regional gatherings and take steps to build infrastructure within the region to avoid the majority of outsourcing needs.