Proof The Hospital That Serves Wild Game
Dec 24, 2025
Tim Ackerman, Tlingit hunter and teacher of traditional hunting and survival skills. Cynthia Davis, Alaska Native Medical Center food services manager who launched its traditional foods program. Otis Gray, reporter who chronicles the story on site. They explore serving moose, caribou, salmon, and seal in a hospital. Conversations cover hunting, donation systems, kitchen scaling, and how Indigenous foods bring comfort and cultural continuity.
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Protect Food Sovereignty Through Practice
- Protect access to traditional foods and harvesting skills to preserve culture.
- Teach family members to harvest and prepare foods to keep practices alive.
Diet Shift Drove Health Declines
- Colonial disruptions introduced processed rations that worsened Indigenous health.
- Reintroducing ancestral diets counters chronic diseases tied to processed foods.
Scaling Traditional Foods In Hospital
- The kitchen serves about 600 inpatient meals and 3,000 retail customers daily.
- Cynthia Davis expanded the traditional-foods program to scale these offerings.