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Pushing Past Disease & Decolonization

Kathy Bue

Last month, I began a periodic series on Northern Soundings that celebrates remarkable people who move past hardship to fully embrace life. This episode I talk with Kathy Bue. I met Kathy through Nordic skiing. For years she ran the adult lessons program for the Nordic Ski Club of Fairbanks and she and Maria Bray have their own business: Alaska Health and Fitness. Kathy is a natural teacher. She pays close attention to her students and you can see her mind ticking away trying to help them get better at their sport or just become more fit. I invited her to share her story when I learned she has been battling multiple sclerosis for years, and she recently fought an intense battle with breast cancer – the outcome of which still isn’t clear. As you’ll hear in our conversation, both these diseases, far from slowing her down, only intensified her commitment to aid others and fully engage life.

And the University of Alaska Museum of the North opened a new exhibit called Decolonizing Alaska. The show brings together some of Alaska’s most distinguished artists, indigenous and otherwise, to address the implications of one culture appropriating the land and imposing a narrative on another. I had the opportunity to talk with the exhibition’s curator Asia Freeman who is Artistic Director at Homer’s Bunnell Street Art Center. She was joined by one of the artists in the show Joel Isaac.

And Chris Lott on Katexic Clippings examines the language our culture uses when discussing cancer.

Click here to listen.