VERA (Kingeekuk) METCALF

• Advocacy For Native Peoples
Inducted: 2019
VERA (Kingeekuk) METCALF
Vera K. Metcalf is an educator, researcher and effective advocate. She steadfastly works to protect the subsistence lifestyles of Alaska Native people and preservation of their traditions and languages, plus for the resources that are fundamentally important for the rural Arctic communities.
Since 2002 Metcalf has been the executive director of the Eskimo Walrus Commission and is in that position today. In 2010 she became an executive committee member of the Inuit Circumpolar Council. She is widely respected among her people and by state, national and international colleagues and decision-makers for her knowledge of Arctic wildlife resources and national and international wildlife laws and regulations. For both groups, she works with northern Native people to document traditional ecological knowledge and promote research for responsible decision-making. She represents the two commissions at national and international forums, including the Indigenous People’s Council on Marine Mammals, the Arctic Marine Mammal Coalition, and the Arctic Waterways Safety Committee. She is a former commissioner on the U.S. Arctic Research Commission, a former advisory panel of the North Pacific Research Board, a member of the Alaska Center for Climate Assessment and Policy, and an advisor on Native affairs for the Marine Mammal Commission.
Born in 1951 and raised in Savoonga on St. Lawrence Island, she was a good student, and was hired to be the kindergarten teacher’s aide at the school there. For the early grades, the teacher prepared the lessons, and the aides taught the students in Yupik.
Metcalf met her husband Bob while attending an education conference, and several years later moved to Nome and married him. They have a son, Matthew. She earned her bachelor’s degree in rural development from UAF.
Of special importance to Metcalf is what she has done for her people by coordinating the repatriation of over 1,000 ancestral remains.
View Extended Bio