#024 Sew Yup'ik: Story Behind the Stitches - Nikki Corbett

In this episode of The State I Am In, I sit down with an Alaska artist and respected indigenous voice, Nikki Corbett, the creator behind Sew Yup’ik. 

Nikki grew up in Bethel, Alaska, in a childhood marked by both deep cultural roots and real personal hardship. She opens up about navigating family trauma, finding safe spaces in school and community, and how those early experiences shaped the way she sees the world today. 

We talk about her journey back to Yup’ik culture as an adult—learning to sew kuspuks, mukluks, and fur hats, rediscovering the Yup’ik language, and turning those skills into something far bigger than she ever imagined. What began as personal healing became Sew Yup’ik: a platform where Nikki shares her creations, lifestyle, and now teaches workshops across Alaska and beyond, helping others reconnect with traditional art forms using materials like seal skin, otter, beaver, and fish skin. 

Nikki shares stories from teaching in rural villages, traveling to places like Greenland and Canada, and how social media unexpectedly turned her into an ambassador for indigenous culture. She also speaks candidly about mental health, grief, parenting after trauma, and the importance of staying busy with your hands and heart when life gets heavy. 

This conversation is about more than sewing—it’s about identity, resilience, and the powerful stories carried in every stitch. 

Click here to see where you can follow Nikki and keep up with her work.

www.sewyupik.org

Transcript

Manny (00:00)
I'm excited we finally got a chance to do this. You know, the first video that I saw, you know the way Facebook works, right? I wasn't even following Sew Yup'ik at the time. I'm just scrolling through my Facebook and I saw the ⁓ Quyana Chuck Norris video and the whole thing made me laugh ⁓ just cause your humor, your approach to Yupik culture and sharing that with others and.

And then I started following all the other stuff that you were doing and then actually learning some stuff along the way. And I thought that's what is pretty cool about what you're doing is you're not just like talking about Yupik culture, but you're sharing it in a way that's funny, relevant by the ways that you're doing it on social media and TikTok. Like you're using all the platforms available out there to share it. And then the amazing stuff that you make.

and the cuspicks and the hats and all the furs. then the more I learned, was like, holy crap, like you're doing a lot. It's like, for me on the outside, it looks like a full-time job. So yeah, I'm really happy that we were able to do this. And I'm excited just to learn more about you and how Sew Yup'ik started and just if this is what

you thought this would become or if you had no idea, Thanks for being here.

Nicolette Corbett (01:27)
Yeah, thanks for having me. it's, uh, it's fun. You can see I've got my furs in the back here, so I've got some stuff I've got to do. And I've been sewing a lot and, um, yeah, it's Christmas break now. So usually the sewing and things that I can do are not as, um,

Manny (01:32)
Yep, totally.

Nicolette Corbett (01:46)
I don't have like a time set because my time is what the kids want me to do. usually if I'm doing something, they've been pretty good about playing. Like, you know, we're trying to raise kids to just play, you know how kids used to just play. just play, you'd play until you were hungry and nobody made sure you had a coat on and nobody made sure you had a hat or gloves. Like you just got yourself ready and you went to go play.

Manny (01:48)
Mm.

Yeah. Yeah. Go outside.

Nicolette Corbett (02:16)
So obviously we can't, we don't do that now, but ⁓ you know, we're trying to raise a generation of kids that can play. So with that being said, my sewing and all of the other stuff is limited to when they're either sleeping or they're playing.

Manny (02:24)
Yeah.

Which makes it even more impressive. I mean, if someone that's listening and knows you, watches your stuff on social media, Facebook, TikTok or whatever. ⁓ Yeah, like I said, you're busy and the fact that you do that around raising kids is even more impressive. But I do want to find out just your story of growing up ⁓ here in Alaska. Everyone's story kind of starts a little bit differently. And I'm interested to know where you grew up and

like what daily life looked like for you growing up in Alaska.

Nicolette Corbett (03:06)
so first I'm gonna start off by introducing myself in our culture. ⁓

So in our Yupik culture, the way that we introduce ourselves is by our Yupik name. So my Yupik name is Kulukak. I'm named after my apa's first cousin from Kuinukak. And then it's customary that we also introduce who our parents are, where our parents are from, and then our maternal and paternal grandparents and where they're from. And then we just add the like Yupiugua, which is like, am Yupik. And then...

Manny (03:50)
Okay?

Nicolette Corbett (04:02)
I'm also Polish too. So in the government standards, I'm 50-50, but we don't go based off of those. You know, we just say, I'm Yupik and I'm Polish. So, but with the government introduction of blood quantum, some people will say, I'm 50-50 or I'm half and half. So that's how we introduce ourselves. And usually when you introduce yourself, like growing up, I grew up in Bethel.

Manny (04:16)
Hmm.

Thank you.

Nicolette Corbett (04:32)
⁓ And so I when we would travel people would always be like get doozit like who are you and you'd say your name and then they'd be like in Yupik they'd say who's your mom or like who's your mom and dad and they you know you would tell them and they'd be like I'm your auntie or they'd be like I'm your cousin and then they'd like and you'd like

be introduced to all these people and they'd like, then you have a family in this village that you went to go play basketball or something. so, and then also of course, you know, we joke and say, you always want to introduce yourself because you don't want to date your cousin. You want to make like, this is not your third or fourth cousin because in our culture, my mom's siblings, all of their kids are my brothers and sisters.

Manny (05:11)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Nicolette Corbett (05:24)
So they're not first cousins, we're brothers and sisters and then they're kids or nieces and nephews. And so, and then we branch out to first cousins. And my grandmother's siblings are all my grandparents. So like we have a lot of grandparents on both sides. ⁓ Yeah, so our family systems are so, ⁓ they're so like, I don't know.

Manny (05:26)
I see.

Interesting. I didn't know that.

Nicolette Corbett (05:52)
They're just so elaborate. Like it's not like, all right, you're my first cousin, you're my second cousin. It's like, no, we have specific cousins where it's like, we have a teasing cousin that would be my grandmother's, my other grandmother's kids here. We would have a specific teasing cousin. So like you could only tease between those two. ⁓

Manny (05:55)
Mm-hmm.

Interesting. Yeah. The introduction

that you gave, is that like a formal introduction? Like if you were meeting someone for the first time or

Nicolette Corbett (06:21)
in our culture, if you're meeting someone who's Yupik. But you wouldn't say that whole thing. You would just say like, or like I would say my mom's name and then like is like I am her daughter. And so then you'd like, or you would say like, like I am his granddaughter. And so then they would be like, oh, I was your up as.

Manny (06:24)
Gotcha. Cool.

I see.

Mm-hmm.

Nicolette Corbett (06:50)
Second cousin, I'm your uncle.

Manny (06:53)
Introducing yourself is like an immediate connection between your heritage, your family, like right off the bat. It's this is who I am and this is who I'm connected to. That's pretty cool.

Nicolette Corbett (07:00)
No

Yeah,

but when they ask you, it's not ever who you are. You're connected through your family. So it's like, you're always, your intros are when you're introducing yourself, they don't know you by who you are, but they might know your mom or your grandparents. And then, you know, then they'll share a story. And so usually, like sometimes when I would be traveling, I would go up to someone and I'd be like, hi, what guy, remember me? And they're like, no. And then I'd tell them who I am and they'd be like, ⁓

Manny (07:09)
Hmm.

Nicolette Corbett (07:32)
They would be like, I thought you were because I am a light skinned Yupik. So like a lot of when I'm home or when I'm in my home region, I look light skinned when I'm out of my home region. I look native. like there was the the in between like it's like walking between two worlds. But

Manny (07:50)
Hmm.

Hmm.

Nicolette Corbett (07:59)
I grew up in Bethel, it was a small town. ⁓ There's no roads in, so you can drive around. You can only drive in a circle, like when you could drive the loop in the wintertime. You can drive on the Kuskokwim River up and down the river, so you can go down to my mom's home village, which is Nenopichuk. You can go fishing at the, ⁓ you can go fishing ⁓ ice river, or on the river, ⁓ and you can drive up the river.

And ⁓ I grew up how do I put this? It was very chaotic. I'll put it that way. It was very chaotic. My mom struggled with addiction and alcoholism and... ⁓

Manny (08:38)
Hmm.

Nicolette Corbett (08:48)
When she was under the influence, she struggled and so she wasn't very kind. And I took a lot of that. So my earliest traumatic memories were when I was three. And it just continued until I had to put a restraining order on my mom. Well, I shared a story. I had to put a restraining order. My first one when I was 18, I was in high school. ⁓

Manny (08:58)
Hmm.

Nicolette Corbett (09:18)
I was just got done working lunch break shift. I worked my lunch break and then ⁓ I went to go to work on the job training. So I went to my second job after I worked lunch and in between that I was going to fill out our straining order paperwork. ⁓ And so that's how I kind of learned how protective orders work and all that kind of stuff. And so it was really kind of just, you know, my mom, I don't know, for whatever reason, just when

she just couldn't leave us alone. And so unfortunately, like a lot of the anger and brunt and like, you know, just all of that was, was a lot of it was directed at me and my other parent. And ⁓ like starting at a young age, like, like nine or 10, I think I started writing in my journal, just like, you know, but ⁓ I recognize that she wasn't very healthy, like as a four year old, you know, I looked at her and I was like, you're not.

Manny (10:02)
Yeah.

Nicolette Corbett (10:16)
you're not healthy, I can't trust you. And she didn't really live with us, she was kind of in and out. yeah, so it was just, it was a lot of just chaos. I had to, she stopped kind of bothering me when I had to put my restraining order on her when I was 25 and so.

And then, you know, she passed suddenly last year in a house fire. ⁓ And so, you know, we had had, I had been in my mom's home village a couple of years ago and I had seen her and you know, like there was no animosity. There was no nothing like that. You know, I had forgiven her and forgiven myself for the behaviors that I created, like my own coping mechanisms that I developed, which were negative.

Manny (10:45)
Mm-hmm.

Nicolette Corbett (11:10)
⁓ And so it was, know, it was Bethel was a nice town to grow up in and, you know, sometimes it was, you know, we were, we were not, you know, we knew the cops and we knew them and they knew us and, know, and so, you know, they were, we'd have to call them quite a bit. And so sometimes we'd be dealing with my mom on a school night and then I'd have to get up the next day and I'd have.

basketball practice at 5 a.m. or 6 a.m. and so was like that was just a normal thing in our household and so it was like that quite a bit. ⁓ So my safe spaces were obviously at school. I felt safe at school and I had an aunt who kind of took me under her wing as her own kid ⁓ and so but you you you cling to your friends and

You we don't talk about anything, but you just kind of cling to your friends and lean on each other. And you know, my teachers kind of knew what was going on. And even though like things were crazy, I was still a straight A student and I worked two jobs and I played sports and I would go shopping on Sunday for groceries for the week. And it was, you just have to do what you have to do. And yeah, so I think.

Manny (12:33)
Hmm.

Nicolette Corbett (12:35)
It was crazy, ⁓ but you know everyone in this town, so you grow up knowing everybody, and it's kind of somewhat safe, I think, because you know everybody sort of thing.

Manny (12:42)
Bye.

Yeah. So your aunt was, ⁓ would you say that your aunt was like a big influence on your life? Did you gravitate towards this aunt specifically because you saw something in her that maybe you didn't see in your mom? You mentioned that, you know, being just a small child, you kind of realized that, you know, she was unhealthy. And did you find people in your life that were like, I don't know, that you wanted to emulate after? Yeah.

Nicolette Corbett (13:18)
Yeah, so my aunt kind of just, she just took me under her wing and she just, think she saw, she'd kind of seen what was going on and so she just took me under her wing and just kind of raised me like her own and so she would bring me to fish camp. So I'd go to fish camp as a kid with her and I would spend all summer with her. We would live up there, come down for, I don't know, change of clothes or maybe take a shower or whatever and then we would go back up to fish camp and so I would be up there with her helping. ⁓

Manny (13:22)
Hmm.

Nicolette Corbett (13:48)
I cut one fish, but you know when I was a kid the king salmon were so huge you'd walk up and they're as tall as you are. So was like I cut one and that was my last one. So I was always the fish cleaner and the gut dumper and like I would help you know just whatever you know holding the strips in the bucket for the timer and then pulling them out and then you know I would be helping and so.

Manny (14:11)
Yeah.

Nicolette Corbett (14:13)
She took me on trips too. She brought me to San Francisco when I was young and San Diego. I got to travel with her and she just kind of took me under her wing and she was like my mom and she passed when in 95 I was 9 or 96. She might have been 10. I might have been 10. So when I was 10 she suddenly passed and

You know, there was people in my life that, you know, a lot of my friends' parents I gravitated towards, especially their moms. You know, I think they kind of knew what was going on, so they would, you know, like try to be a positive role model for me. ⁓ But, you know, it's just when you have a parent who's supposed to protect you and they're supposed to love you and, you know, ⁓ fill your cup with love and kindness and you don't have that, ⁓ you're just kind of somewhat lost. I mean, I don't...

I was kind of, I was very stoic, so I was just kind of pretended like everything was okay. When deep down I was just this angry kid. I started chewing tobacco at 16. We had a friend who had passed by suicide, and so we all started chewing, and that was sort of my coping mechanism. and Lincoln Park.

Manny (15:30)
Hmm.

Did say N Lincoln Park?

Nicolette Corbett (15:35)
And Lincoln Park, yeah, chewing

tobacco in Lincoln Park. that was like a, and then of course, you know, you're a kid, you gravitate towards really negative things, like, you know, drinking and like, I don't know that behavior, but I was so lost and I just was trying to just lose myself and whatever. ⁓ And yeah, you know, I look back and I just think, you know, I, for there was a shame for a long time, but then I recognized like, you know, I was,

Manny (15:46)
Yeah.

Nicolette Corbett (16:04)
I was in survival mode and I was trying to figure out a way to just numb the pain. So I obviously don't drink anymore and I don't chew tobacco and I don't do any of that. Linkin Park is still there. It's a good coping skill. But I, you know, it's, yeah I don't know. It just was, it was, and you know I didn't grow up sewing.

Manny (16:06)
Mm.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Nicolette Corbett (16:33)
I didn't grow up doing any of this stuff. I didn't grow up, I didn't grow up speaking my language. mean, you my mom was the Yupik one. So there was no Yupik in the house. You know, as a kid, my goal was to have a native freezer. Like that was my goal. was like, I want to need a freezer. I want like native food in my freezer. And now I have three, which I feel so rich, but it's like, it's funny when you're a kid and you're just like, I just want native food in the freezer.

Manny (16:35)
Okay, interesting. I'm gonna ask about that.

Mm.

Nicolette Corbett (17:02)
But I didn't grow up any of this. My first hat I made when I was in kindergarten, I had Yupik teachers, my incredible Yupik teachers. We had a whole class and they taught kindergarten kids how to make a fur hat. So. ⁓

Manny (17:13)
That's awesome. That's so cool.

Nicolette Corbett (17:17)
I learned Yupik in school and it was very, like, you know, like it was very minimal, like it wasn't a whole lot. Now they have the Yupik immersion programs, which is incredible, but my friend's mom told me, she was like, do you remember when you were in elementary school? You went to the student board and you were like, we want more Yupik in schools. And I was like, I don't remember that, but I probably did. But I didn't grow up doing any of this. I learned this as, you know, my cousin, my aunt's daughter.

Manny (17:38)
Yeah.

Nicolette Corbett (17:46)
when my aunt passed, kind of stepped in, you know, and she was a role model too. And so when I was like 11 or 12, I made my first bus book, which is like one of these. It's just a couple over. But I started learning as I became a young adult and I just kept taking classes and I kept trying to ask questions, but I didn't grow up doing any of this stuff. So it was all learned along the way. I started like getting interested.

Manny (17:56)
Mm-hmm.

No.

Nicolette Corbett (18:15)
in maybe like my mid-20s maybe, like my early 20s I started getting interested because when I was a kid it wasn't cool to be Native so like we wanted to be white so like but now it's cool which is awesome but I'm like when we were kids you wanted to be white you didn't want to be Native so I stopped Yupik dancing because it wasn't cool you know

Manny (18:23)
thing.

Hmm.

Sir, exterior.

Ow.

Nicolette Corbett (18:39)
And so I really wish I would have just kept at it. anyways, yeah. So I have learned over the years to, like, I started taking classes at the college. They would have instructors that would make fur hats. ⁓ Like, anyone that would be willing to share with me, I would ask them. But yeah, I didn't do it for a long time because I I was... ⁓

always worried what people would say, like they would judge my stitches. Now I look back and I'm like, well, I wish I would have just kept trying, you know?

Manny (19:10)
Yeah, that's really interesting. I wonder if that's why when I watch your videos about language and what you sow, there is an excitement there about it that seems fresh and new. it's now learning this, what you're sharing, it's because it relatively is because of where it intersected into your life. You know, usually, guess, if you were doing this when you were younger,

and it was a part of your life, maybe the newness would have worn off or like you were saying, it wasn't cool to do those things. So maybe the excitement would not have been there, but because of where it came into your life and the way that you're sharing it now, it does feel like there's a fresh excitement about Yupik language and culture. And for someone like me who is not as familiar with...

with indigenous culture. It's exciting to learn from someone that's excited about Yup'ik culture. So that's really interesting. I'm glad that you shared that.

Nicolette Corbett (20:14)
Yeah, no, it's and that's why I'm so like that is why I'm always advocating like just start Just start you have to start from somewhere like you can't just wait some If you wait for someone to come and take your hand and show you you're gonna be waiting forever like and that's I'm always advocating like Go get a sheet cut up a sheet if you don't like if you've got an old sheet start cutting it, you know if you've got

If you can go to a thrift store and you find an old coat, tear it apart and start making stuff. And so, like you don't have to have everything, you just have to get started. so, ⁓ yeah, and that's why I'm always like, just keep trying to speak your language, however it is. Like I remember when I would try to speak and I would get made fun of and I would stop. That's why I stopped as a young kid was because I was like, I would get made fun of because I wasn't saying stuff right. But I also hadn't learned the right way. So.

Now I don't care. I'll say it wrong. And then I'm like, just teach me if I'm saying it wrong. Don't laugh at me or don't make fun of me. Like, that's not how you learn.

Manny (21:17)
Yeah.

Mm hmm. Do you think or I guess what do you think kids that are growing up out in the villages out in the rural Alaska areas and they're growing up in a modern tech driven, you know, world around them? What is their from what you see, at least just from your perspective, what is the attitude towards culture, protecting indigenous culture or sharing?

Is it the same as when you were a kid? Has it evolved? Is it cool? Or, you know, what's your opinion on that?

Nicolette Corbett (21:57)
So I think social media and like everything technology, I think it's a double-edged sword, right? So it's like it's positive but it's also negative because there's so many other negative aspects on there. But the really cool thing about like having everything online is like you can go and pull up a video on YouTube and find a tutorial on how to make a qasbq or you can go in there and how to make a gudak which is Eskimo ice cream. So like there are things that you can do if you're not sure you can go and pull up a video.

and find out how to make it. Now, as far as like the thinking goes of like culture, you know, I'm not sure, you know, I have been, you know, I moved away from my hometown 10 years ago. I go back, you know, and I travel. ⁓ And I guess it's different for me because when I'm traveling, everyone is so excited to meet me. Like they're like, my gosh, it's so you back, you know, and they want a picture and they want to say hi.

They want to come up and say, Qwiyanaqchek Norris. And so I guess for me, for me that's fun because it's just like, ⁓ I don't know, it's fun to be like, for me I just think it's so fun to be Yupik. We have such a beautiful culture and it's so rich and it's so deep and we have such beautiful family systems and our connection to the culture and to the land and the animals and everything. It's just so

fun and then you think about the stuff that like my grandmothers have been sewing, you know my great grandmothers, like they have been sewing seamstresses, fashion designers, whatever you want to call them, like they have been making clothes since forever and so like I just think like we have such a ⁓ rich culture so I don't really know it's hard for me to say because like I said when I'm traveling everyone's just like my gosh so you

Manny (23:50)
Yeah, yeah.

Nicolette Corbett (23:52)
So, or people want to take a picture with me or they're like, you know, they'll be like, hey, you know,

was dropping off some stuff a couple months ago, you know, after the typhoon and then somebody I heard, somebody was like, hey, it's that TikTok girl. And I like looked over and she was like eight or nine and I just chuckled and I was like, that, that's hilarious. And I was in Greenland and when I was in Greenland in August, I was leaving the store and there was an older gentleman.

Manny (24:01)
I

Yeah.

Nicolette Corbett (24:19)
Elderish, I don't know, he was maybe 16 and I was walking out and he goes, so you pick and I like looked over and I was like what and he knew me and I was just like what the heck? So for me, it's hard to say just because I just get recognized kind of in wherever I travel a lot of rural places. ⁓

Manny (24:30)
Yeah, that's awesome.

Sure.

Yeah.

So, you know, this is where we're gonna talk. I wanna talk about Sew Yup'ik and how that is kind of started and how it's evolved to where it's at now. But did you think like as a young girl growing up in Bethel,

I don't think, my thought is that you didn't have this on the radar at all. So what did you think, like, what am I gonna be when I grow up? What were your interests or what, you know, what did you see your future becoming?

Nicolette Corbett (25:13)
I thought I was gonna be a teacher. So that was my initial pattern of life. I got out of high school, I went to school to be a massage therapist. So I was a massage therapist in my early adult life ⁓ and I practiced for a while. And so my goal was to be a teacher. So I was gonna be a teacher, cause I ⁓ had a really great teacher when I was in first and second grade. And she kind of like, she was...

Manny (25:14)
Yeah.

Nicolette Corbett (25:40)
just really incredible. And I was like, I want to be that for young kids, right? Like I want to be that person for young kids. And she just really was created this like beautiful, loving space in her classrooms. And so I wanted to do that. Well, I was going to school and was working as a massage therapist. And then I started working the emergency room and I was like, I like this.

I like this. And then I got to go on medevac rides and I was like, this is so much fun. And I didn't realize I was addicted to the chaos. It was madness in there. And I was like, I'm comfortable in here. Like I'm so comfortable in this space and the ER is incredible. And I was like, I'm gonna work in the ER. I went off to school to be a nurse. Well, I was in the ER, you know, as techs we had a lot of... ⁓

Manny (26:18)
anymore.

Nicolette Corbett (26:33)
We got to do a lot, a lot of hands-on stuff, and so I went off to be nursing school. Well...

We had a nursing instructor and it was one of those nursing instructors that would bail out a student. I was that student. So I had a hard time keeping my mouth shut because I had learned so much in the ER and I just want to share and I'm like, let me share all this stuff. Well, that was not a great idea. anyway, so I was bailed out of nursing school. So I worked all these jobs. ⁓

Manny (26:47)
Hmm.

Mmm.

in

I'm

Nicolette Corbett (27:06)
OCS, nicotine control, like I worked and in the meantime, I'm still working at this restaurant. I had worked at this Greek restaurant for about 15 years. I started working there when I was 16 and so, ⁓ but I had no idea. I, when you grow up in trauma and chaos and all that stuff, you find your purpose with a job, like your purpose is a job and so I was like, you know, really

figuring out like I need to do X, Y, Z, I need to do this because this defines me as a person. Sort of the Western way of thinking. ⁓ At any rate, I decided to go back into nursing because I want to help people. I knew I wanted to be a nurse practitioner. I want to help people. didn't want to go to MD school. I had applied for PA school. I didn't get in. So we moved away.

and I applied for nursing school. had a new instructor. I got in and I didn't get in down here on the Kienai Peninsula, but I got in down back home in Bethel. So I was going back and forth for school and I started school and I was six months pregnant. ⁓ And I had my daughter the first semester. She came with me when she was two days old. She came to our final study session. I brought her in.

Manny (28:32)
Wow.

Nicolette Corbett (28:33)
This was in April, so it still kind of chilly out. And she came with me at two days old to our final study session for the semester. And at five days old, she came with me to the school. And she came and took my final exams with me. And my husband had worked, my husband worked shift work, so he was working ⁓ seven on, seven off. And so like,

Manny (28:51)
Wow.

Nicolette Corbett (29:02)
We had other kids down here and so he was coming back and so it was just, you know, I was basically kind of raising her and going to school. And so she graduated nursing school with me. We would go back and forth for nursing school. We stayed at my dad's house in my old bedroom, my high school bedroom, which was hilarious because I'm there with my daughter and I have my dog. Finished nursing school, she was 18 months old. And I decided to start Sew Yup'ik in 2015.

Manny (29:22)
Yeah.

Nicolette Corbett (29:31)
I had started taking sewing classes, kuspik sewing workshops with other instructors and I had been taking so many because I was going to school and they were like, alright it's your turn to teach classes and that was the fall of 2015 and so that year, 2015, I applied for a grant and I got it. So I bought some new sewing machines and then I started teaching workshops and that was, you know, I had started my Facebook page, my Instagram page.

I think I started making tutorials at that point. I have no idea. There's some really old tutorials where I'm like, what were you wearing?

Manny (30:06)
you

Nicolette Corbett (30:07)
don't wear a robe while you're making tutorials, like fix your hair, like what is going on? So anyway, so ⁓ I started, but honestly, like when I was starting everything, I was like, I don't care how I look, I'm just gonna share whatever I know. Like I really don't, I had never cared about that. So I started it with the goal of like just wanting to teach people and I had a lot of imposter syndrome. was like, I'm not, I don't know enough, you know, like I don't know enough to be able to teach, I shouldn't be teaching, but I got over that and I was like,

Manny (30:31)
Hmm.

Nicolette Corbett (30:36)
just teach, know. ⁓ But I never thought that it would evolve around to this and I never thought that I would be in a psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner program. know, know, psych has always been something that, psych and mental health has always been something that I have, has been a part of my life since I was small.

Manny (30:57)
Hmm.

Nicolette Corbett (30:59)
And I just felt so comfortable in it and I switched from family to psych just this last year, two years ago or something, because I was originally going for family. But I never thought Sew Yup'ik would take me to Greenland or Whitehorse last year or Seattle or like I never thought it would take me to these places. And so when it does and when it did, I was just like, OK, you're exactly where you need to be and what you're doing. And

I don't know, it's been, it's interesting. It's been an interesting ride. ⁓ And you know, in that time, my business partner and I, created a coloring book. So we created the Yupik Alphabet coloring book. You know, we did that together and that's been, you know, that was fun. And just a bunch of other stuff along the way that we've, that I've done with So Yupik sort of thing. So ⁓ it's funny, cause my husband's like, you're So Yupik here, but you're.

your Nikki at home or your like mom or wife or like it's there's two different.

Manny (32:04)
Yeah,

there's a lot of layers going on right there. I do have some questions about those different, you brought up a lot of good things that I do want to talk about. just starting, wrapping up the family portion of it. So you expressed how your upbringing was chaos. You shared about the relationship with your mom, the importance of your

you know, your aunt and the family that kind of filled in those gaps in your life. I guess what are you bringing in to your role as a mother with your own family with that ⁓ upbringing? I kind of had a similar experience with my father and addiction. And I think about it often as a dad now and as a husband trying to be aware of what I'm doing.

with my kids? I okay? Am I them in the right direction? I don't want to show them what I experienced as a kid. How do you take what you experienced and then lead your family or in your role as a mother in your own house with your kids?

Nicolette Corbett (33:19)
that one hit me really hard. I was not expecting it. So I had done a lot of healing before I had kids. I waited a while. I was like, I'm not ready. I'm not, you know, mentally, emotionally, like anything. I was not ready. So I really worked hard on like, you know, my like therapy and that sort of, just, you know, like understanding. like researching, like adult children of alcoholics and adult children of emotionally immature parents. And I started doing a lot of research and like,

coping mechanisms and trauma responses and all of those things. So I had done a lot of research and I was like, all right, I'm ready to have a kid now. And then when you have kids, it's like, nope. It's Pandora's box opens of all that shit. And you're just like, it's stuff that you didn't remember. There are so many things when my daughter had reached certain ages, when my son, cause they're about the same age apart as my younger sibling and I. So when my daughter would reach certain ages and my son would,

Manny (34:01)
Yeah.

Nicolette Corbett (34:18)
there was memories that would come up to the surface and I'm like, why are these coming? I'm like, why is this happening? Why am I remembering these things? I don't remember that stuff. And so it'd be traumatic memories that would be coming up and ⁓ it was hard. I just was like, I wasn't ready for it. I, as a mom, I suffered from postpartum depression, postpartum anxiety, postpartum rage, postpartum OCD, not real bad, but like...

my postpartum rage was really bad. And it was like, you know, there's a time when I kicked a hole in the wall and I was like, okay, you're not okay, you know? And so, and that sort of got me in check. ⁓ but it, you know, I was able to kind of start diving more into it and like understanding and learning.

Manny (34:57)
Hmm.

Nicolette Corbett (35:15)
But it was also at the same time as like, I'm reparenting myself. And then, you know, then there was that sort of like comparison, right? Where I'm just like, man, like, you know, I'm looking at my kids and like, you have no idea. Like you have no idea how good you have it. Like, are you kidding me? You know, and then I had to switch it to like, man, what a beautiful life I can give you. Like what a beautiful thing I can do, reparent myself. And I can give you this beautiful life because I've worked so hard. And, ⁓

Manny (35:35)
Hmm.

Nicolette Corbett (35:45)
And how beautiful is that? Not how lucky, but just how beautiful of a life that I can provide you. ⁓ And with my upbringing, the one thing that I will stick to with my kids is boundaries. If there are a-holes, if there are not nice people, family or not, they're not a part of our lives, period. Like, at all. Like, I will never let my kids be around anybody who is unkind.

Manny (36:07)
Hmm.

Nicolette Corbett (36:14)
disrespectful anyway towards me, my husband or anybody. Like, cause I'm like, I've already dealt with that. We've done my whole life. We've had unkind, my mom was unkind my whole life. I don't put up with that period and I won't let my kids deal with that. And so, you know, I think that there were so many lessons that I've learned in my mom. ⁓ Obviously at the time I didn't understand it, but now looking back, you know, I'm able to see and, ⁓

Manny (36:24)
Yeah.

Nicolette Corbett (36:43)
I don't know, it's just, it was hard. It was really hard, but at the same time it was really beautiful, because then it was also allowing me to recognize where I wasn't healed still, like where I wasn't okay. And so was like, all right, you need to work on this. Like you keep coming back to this. And there's a lot of things in my suitcase that I have not picked up yet. Like there is a lot, like a lot.

Manny (36:55)
Thank

Nicolette Corbett (37:13)
There's still so much more that I have to work through. And at some point, I'd like to go on an ayahuasca retreat or something like that to sort of help me reprocess those memories. I did therapy, I've done therapy. But there's a lot of deep stuff that my body was like, no, you're not safe, we're not going there. So my goal at some point is to go on.

Manny (37:23)
Yeah.

Nicolette Corbett (37:42)
you know, try to use psychedelics in a way to see if it can help open and help me to see like, hey, you're safe.

Manny (37:53)
Yeah, and that might be huge for you going into work as an ANP, especially in that psychiatric mental health realm, because that those psychedelics and all those treatments are kind of I think they're cutting edge now. They've probably been around for a while. But at least for me, I just heard more stories within the last few years of people having these experiences and like a lot of progress made in their past traumas through this. so that might just for you.

personally, of course, could be helpful, but then it might open up your eyes to these people that you help in the future as well. I think that's pretty cool.

Nicolette Corbett (38:30)
Yeah, so and I

just, you know, as Indigenous people, as you big people, like we've, we've always used the land and our food and our music and gathering and family as like medicine, you know, like we've never turned to a pill. And so like we have the poss, we have the tools to heal ourselves. So.

Manny (38:57)
Yeah. What is your kid's view of what you're doing with Sew Yupik and, you know, Indigenous culture and, you know, what are they taking from it all? I know if your kids are like mine, anything that I'm like all about, they're either going to love it or they're going to be like, I don't want to do it because dad likes it. Where do your kids fall in with that?

Nicolette Corbett (39:21)
They kind of just like, ⁓ mom's doing her thing, you know, like, like, you're making another video.

go, you know? So like, they have no idea. I'm just mom. So it's just kind of like, I don't know, I chuckle because like, I want to make them all stuff. Like I want to make them a parka and I want to make them a hat. I want to make them all these things and they're not going to wear them. And I'm just like, you have no idea. Like you have no idea like how cool your mom is to be able to make you like a whole wardrobe and you don't even want to wear it. So all together,

Manny (39:28)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

What's the age range of your kid?

Nicolette Corbett (39:58)
There's six, so from like 28 to five. Yeah, but the last two here are eight and five.

Manny (40:00)
Okay.

Gotcha, okay.

Okay, and they're just like, meh.

Nicolette Corbett (40:11)
Yeah, no, they just, mom, they're like, mom, you know, but they love it when they get to travel because they have traveled with me. Like, so they've gone to Nome and Fog Mac Island and they've gone to Bethel with me and they've gone to Anchorage and, you know, they travel with me. You know, like I said, when my husband worked shift work, I was doing workshops and so I would bring the kids with me and, you know, we would just get drive up.

Manny (40:16)
Yeah. Yeah.

Nicolette Corbett (40:40)
Get on the plane, go teach a sewing class, go pick berries, go to the beach, like go do fun stuff and then come home. And so like it was, they miss it. You know, my husband's retired now. And so they're just like, when are we gonna travel again? You know, they're like, they're not used to this disruption of their travel plans. Cause like I said, they've been traveling with me. My son is five.

They've been traveling with me for the last five years now. And even before my daughter was traveling with me, she went to her first sewing class. She was like three months old. So like they have been, they've been with mom when mom's traveling and teaching sewing workshops and they just, they would go with me wherever I went. So.

Manny (41:12)
Hmm. Wow.

It's taken you all over the place. I mean, you shared some of these places. mean, Greenland, that just seems like an amazing opportunity. I can imagine the type of people that you're able to meet doing this. And I assume these people are reaching out to you and like, Hey, Nikki, come do a workshop, ⁓ you know, with us. Can you talk about like some of those places that you've been to, maybe cool stories from people that you've met or things that have come of those trips or workshops?

Nicolette Corbett (41:53)
Some of the places that I've gone to, I've just sent a cold email. So like I've gotten really good at like how many nos can I get? So I kind of look at the nos when I send out emails and like, let me see how many emails I can send out how many people say no, you know, and how many people will say yes. And so, you know, the Greenland trip happened because somebody purchased a bag from me and you know, you know, and sending it there was like.

took I don't know how long it took to get there three weeks or something but anyway so he received it and it was gonna be a birthday gift for his wife who worked at the Gatok Cultural Center which is where I ended up teaching the sewing workshop so anyway so I sent her a cold email I'm like hey you know I said told him I would really love to get to Greenland sometime my wife works here send her an email you didn't hear you didn't hear it from me so I send her an email and

She sends me a message back, we would love to have you, can we talk? And so I was like, ⁓ and in the meantime, her husband had bought her a birthday bag. It wasn't her birthday for like six months later. He's still holding onto this and we have this meeting and I don't say anything. So that's how this Greenland trip came to be. and just somebody purchasing something from me and being like, hey, I'd love to come there. Can I come, you know?

Manny (42:57)
Well.

Nicolette Corbett (43:10)
And you know, I had the opportunity to go to Montreal this year and I wasn't able to go because I was in clinicals and it was like this, it was like artists from all over Canada and Greenland and Alaska coming together in Montreal and I was really bummed I didn't get to go. But they were like, we want to pay your way, we want you on an artist panel, like can you come? And it just didn't work out and so.

When I went to Whitehorse last year, I had applied to be a teaching artist and I had gotten it. So a lot of these opportunities when I'm traveling is me applying ⁓ or me just saying, I want to go here or making a video and being like, hey, I want to go this place. And so if I have friends or family down in the States, I'll be like, ⁓ what's an art center down there that I can email? And I'll start sending out emails.

Manny (44:04)
Yeah.

Nicolette Corbett (44:05)
I want to go see them. if I want to see friends or family, I'm like, hey, let me send this email out. I have made, I used to get discouraged, but now I turned it the other way. And I'm like, this is a game now. How many nos can we get and how many yeses can we get? And then when I get the yes, I'm like, shoot, now I have to go. so like, but yeah, so I, so those trips and then I was down, I went to Washington. taught a workshop down at UW.

Manny (44:10)
That's awesome.

Nicolette Corbett (44:32)
down there and so that was really fun because I got picked up by somebody. There was somebody standing there with a sign and it had my name on it and I got shuttled to the place I was staying and I was like this is crazy because usually like two weeks ago I was on the I was on a four-wheeler like going to the clinic or going to the tribe so like it's such a crazy difference to see like being on the back of a four-wheeler till like two weeks later somebody's at the airport with a sign for me so it's like

Manny (45:00)
That's awesome. I think that's good advice too, or at least a good perspective for people that are looking to whatever their craft is, whatever they're doing, don't view it as just because you get the no's, don't be down on yourself, view it as how many no's can I get because eventually I'm going to get to the yeses. I think that's a solid perspective for sure.

Nicolette Corbett (45:24)
Yeah, I mean, it's anything I go into it. It's like if if I'm putting, you know, I'm trying to monetize my TikTok now. So let me see. Like, let me just try. But for me, it's a game. Like, all right, let's see. Can we go viral? Can we make enough videos? Can you know, is it possibility? Like not the not like, I'm only getting a thousand views like, you know, darn. It's just like, all right. Like, so how do I need to put more? But so I look at everything in a way that it's like

how like it's a game, but it's a fun way. It's not in a negative way of like, darn, you know, getting discouraged, like don't get discouraged.

Manny (46:00)
Yeah, and not taking it personal.

Yeah. And I think that's, that's a really good, that's a really good perspective. I feel that just in, doing podcasting like this and like, what is, you know, this video didn't do well. I wonder what the problem was. maybe I'm not good enough or maybe the content's not good enough, or maybe I need this or that. But if you view it as a game, if you view it as like, I'm going to keep plugging in and figuring it out, it may, it takes it, it makes it less personal. And you're just like, this is, I'm doing it because I love it. So if it.

If it takes off, awesome. If it doesn't, whatever.

Nicolette Corbett (46:34)
Yeah, I'm gonna share this anyway. So like either

it does great or it doesn't. I reach, so where my thing is, like if I reach one person, I'm happy. I am happy. It's worth it. It's worth it. If I find somebody out there who's like, man, I can do this. Like, you know, I see Nikki was so you pick, like she came from a shitty, excuse my language, but she came from a crazy background and she was able to push through and.

Manny (46:46)
Worth it, yeah.

You bet.

Nicolette Corbett (47:03)
You know, she had to put a restraining order on her mom and you know, like all this stuff. if she can do that, like, anything is possible.

Manny (47:11)
That's really cool.

Nicolette Corbett (47:12)
And that's what I tell kids, like when I would travel and teach sewing classes, I would tell kids, you know, they'd be like, they'd be sitting there and they'd be like kind of pissed off. And I'm like, look, I get it. I was in your shoes. I listen, my background, you know, and I would share and I'd open up and the kids would instantly like relax. And that's, I love teaching kids cause you know, you can get them, like if you have one positive role model and ⁓ you know, I would just, they would kind of relax and then be like, okay, like she's one of us. Like she's not just this like.

my passing native who's coming here and is trying to teach us something. She's actually like, I grew up with honey buckets and no running water. I'm telling these kids, I get it. My favorite thing was going to the dump and finding treasures at the dump. I get it. I understand. I know what it's like.

Manny (47:54)
Yeah.

That's really cool. so you mentioned the making the Cuspix earlier and then you have these fur hats that you do. What kind of materials do you use in what you create at Sew Yup'ik?

Nicolette Corbett (48:18)
So with Bilugux muclux, Bilugux gamuxux, we use bearded seal for the base. That's the sole. And so you have to crimp them. And they're waterproof. So that's the sole. We have calfskin. We have river otter. And then we have river otter tail for the jivagot. Jivux are like the houseflies. So we call them the houseflies. We call the ones on the front jivagot, which is like little houseflies.

And then we've got yarn, the colors of the yarn, know, they used to traditional colors in our in our Yuppit culture are red, white, blue and black. And so those are like they all have a symbolic meaning. And then we use Wolverine tassels and we also use beaver. And so those are that's for the mucklucks. When we make for hats, we use anything. Martin, Fox, Rabbit, Beaver, Sea Otter, Sealskin. ⁓

Mouton like you know like we use any all these sort of things when we make you know that stuff and then parkas are you know like my grandmother Made all her kids parkas and they were all made of ground squirrel like so many different ground squirrels that they would piece together and hand sewed and And then they were decorated and they had the calfskin and they had beadwork

Manny (49:28)
Hmm. Wow. That's a lot of ground squirrels.

Nicolette Corbett (49:39)
They had yarn and they were intricate and they had a story and some of the parkas tell a story. So there's like a qalq and there's another one and so like there's a story. You can see the chest of the calf's skin and there's like red and black. It's the story. There's a tall man. I forgot. I can't remember the full story, but he's running. The village had given him ugly food to eat and he's puking. So it's blood and black. And so you can see the lines. There's two. There's like

black and red lines to symbolize like I don't know his name but he's puking and so like there are some things that have a story and so like like I said my grandmother made all her kids parkas all out of squirrel and they're like intricate and the coolest thing about this was my grandma's parka was in the quilt folk so I was in the quilt folk magazine for the August edition and my grandma's parka was in there and I was just like that was the coolest

Manny (50:31)
Yeah.

Awesome.

Nicolette Corbett (50:36)
But

you're in it. And I'm like, I know, but look at my grandma's parka. ⁓ But yeah, there's just, know, we've fish skin, seal gut, ⁓ like everything, everything has been used, you know, and I tan fish skin. I've taught fish skin sewing workshops.

Manny (50:39)
Yeah.

Nicolette Corbett (50:58)
And I've sewed with seal gut and we've used everything.

Manny (51:03)
How does fish

skin sewing work? How does that process go where it can be sewn?

Nicolette Corbett (51:11)
It's just like sewing anything else. It's like sewing leather, you You tan it into a leather and then you soften it enough and then it's just like sewing with leather basically. Yeah.

Manny (51:16)
OK.

Okay,

that's awesome. What would you say is the most like...

requested item or what you spend the most time sewing. I guess the most demand.

Nicolette Corbett (51:39)
⁓ Well, probably gusbeks because I've been sewing those for 10 years and I recently just started expanding my ⁓ I recently started expanding with skin sewing and fish skin and this summer I learned how to grass basket weave which that is a whole nother thing as well and it's crazy, but it's really awesome ⁓ but you know I ⁓ Mostly gusbeks. That's what I've been doing for the last 10 years, but within the last couple years. I just you know

I've been, I had been skin sewing, but I just hadn't really ⁓ expanded on it. so then winter time is when we sit down and we just sit. So watch your trash TV, just, you know, sit by the fire cause it's cold. So ⁓ I just started skin sewing again recently. So, but yeah, no, it's all of it. I mean, people want me to make anything. I don't take orders, but you know, people ask.

Manny (52:33)
Okay.

Yeah.

Nicolette Corbett (52:34)
I

took orders back way back when and it was stressful because people are like, are you almost done? I want this color. I want it like that and I want this and I want that. And so usually like for me, it's just fun to be able to make. And if people want it, they want it. If they don't, know, they don't, somebody will take it.

Manny (52:38)
Mm-hmm.

Hmm.

One of the things that you, and we touched on it briefly, was, ⁓ you know, mental health advocacy. It's something that you're, you know, professionally working on now. You've done some videos where you talk about grief and dealing with grief and loss. ⁓ Do you want to talk about that topic and just what you've learned or what you want people to, I know you could probably say a lot on that topic, but, you know, we live in a place

where mental health and depression, it runs rampant all across the state for a variety of reasons, you whether it's the location of if it's the darkness, whatever it is, the cold. What is your advice, I guess, to people in this time of year, you know, that's the darkest and, you know, to help get them through into the brighter days ahead or some advice that is just solid no matter what time of year?

Nicolette Corbett (53:49)
So my grandmother's always said, like, stay busy. Keep busy. Keep your hands busy. Because if you don't, your mind will wander. And so like just staying busy and not in an unhealthy way. Like don't like overwork yourself to the point where it's like you're exhausted now. But it's just like keeping busy. And so like, you know, they say, you're,

As Yup'iks, like we say, umyok, like your mind is so powerful. Your mind is a powerful thing. And if you give it, if you let it fester or sit or allow it to go wherever, it's gonna take you wherever. And so you have to be really careful to not give your mind that much power to be able to, you know, just keep busy. Keep your hands busy. Keep working. ⁓

The one thing that I always talk, so there's a lot of things that I always talk about, know, you know, as we're in Alaska, right? And so we don't, we probably don't get the best of supplements and nutrients in our diet. And of course, you know, we're also don't have the largest food choice unless you have the opportunity to eat your traditional foods, which are packed with so many things. And of course we have to supplement it now with Western foods. And so really taking good care of your, your like health.

like nutrients, supplements, you know, all of those things. And then water, movement, you know, like really moving, like if you can just move your body, if you can get outside, you know, even if it's just for five minutes, if you can get outside to just, but not to like get stuck on your phone or not to get stuck on like...

social medias, like to just to be moving and doing stuff. We were not designed to be staring at a phone all day. like, just to get moving and to keep your body in motion moving forward. ⁓ You know, and really just trying to nourish your body, you know, with grief. ⁓ The one thing that I was really

like I stressed about was at least getting one nutritious meal a day. You know, you can't eat when you're in that moment, but really just focusing on getting one meal a day and then just getting water in. ⁓ But you know, the one thing I always encourage is like, just keep moving and to keep your hands busy, like, know, however that be. And I recognize, I recognize. So this is I tell people. If you see me doing 700 million things, I'm not okay.

But that's okay because I, in those moments, I need it. At some point it's gonna stop. But if I'm on social media pages and I'm doing 875 million things, it usually means, because I don't wanna, you know, like I'm not ready to feel and so I'm just trying to keep busy and just keep moving forward. But the other part of that is you have to be careful when you're working on stuff that you don't transfer your energy. Because you don't wanna transfer that into the stuff you're working in.

Manny (56:57)
Hmm.

Nicolette Corbett (57:02)
⁓ But yeah, I don't know. ⁓ And just becoming self-aware. Like the one thing I'm always encouraging is just to be aware of yourself and aware of your feelings. You know, everyone comes to the table.

with the lens of what they've been through. And so they see things the way of what they've been through. So they're gonna look at things totally different from what you've been through and how you see it. And it also depends on like the levels of how much inner work you've done and like how much you've, you can recognize and see like when you come to the table. And I really, there was a really good book I read, What Happened to You by Oprah Winfrey and Steven Perry. And it really helped to shift the lens of like,

not why are you behaving this way, like what happened to you. It was almost in that curious sense of like what happened to you and why are your patterns of behavior, you know, why are you behaving this way to not like, not why are you behaving this way to like what happened to you for you to behave this way and you know, create these patterns of behavior that keep you safe.

Manny (58:12)
Hmm. you read the book, you mentioning that book and that topic, I'll be honest, I haven't finished this book, but it was recommended to me along the same lines. It's called The Body Keeps the Score. Have you heard of that book before?

Nicolette Corbett (58:27)
I started reading that and it's very dry in the beginning. It's very dry. You have to get past the dryness. But it does. Your body will hold your trauma and I know for a fact myself because there were some things when I was younger that had happened to me that my body still holds on to and I haven't been able to get to those spaces yet.

Manny (58:31)
Yeah. Yeah. OK.

Nicolette Corbett (58:53)
I know it because I feel it. And there are times when I feel unsafe and it's just my kids. And I have to remind myself that, you're okay. Like you're not five years old right now. You are 39 and this is your child that's hugging you. And so the body keep score is a really good one.

Manny (58:56)
Hmm.

Nicolette Corbett (59:15)
⁓ Anything by Gabor Mate is incredible, like any of his podcasts, anything. The way that he talks about trauma and how trauma is, you know, because trauma will change your, it'll change those neural pathways and it'll develop things and it'll allow you to create these patterns of behavior that you think are safe, where it's just like.

People pleasing is not a normal thing. Like that is, or like being hypervigilant and watching people's emotions, that is not a normal thing. know, like planning for something that's gonna happen, like the worst possible case scenario that's gonna happen, that is not a normal thing. That is a trauma response. And that's your body's way of saying like, hey, if XYZ happens, I'm gonna be ready, because I've already gotten this plan in place. I know what I'm gonna do. When it's like, you don't have to do that.

Manny (1:00:07)
Yeah, gosh, that's so relatable for me, if only you knew.

Nicolette Corbett (1:00:13)
Like you don't have to like and I'm always like you are safe like you don't have a plan for someone's funeral like no no no we're not there yet no no stay right here and so my therapist really helped me to be like when you have those dumb thoughts you walk it to the garage and you put it in that tote you imagine you're you're you're walking it back there and you're putting it in the tote and you're shutting it and you're leaving that thought

So it is not, you don't need to, you're safe. You can stay right here. You don't have to go like six months, six years into the future.

Manny (1:00:41)
That's awesome.

Yeah. I wanted to, the other thing that you mentioned earlier was with language. So you have kind of had this new motivation for the Yupik language, you know, in your young adult life ⁓ or mid twenties, I think you said. How did the idea to do the Yupik ⁓ coloring book, alphabet ⁓ coloring book come about?

Nicolette Corbett (1:01:14)
So we, there's not anywhere you can buy anything like that online. And unless you're in a community that has a Yupik immersion program. So you can, your child can learn the language through a Yupik immersion program, but there's not really anything that you can go online and purchase a coloring book. And so when I was pregnant with my daughter, I was starting to, and I didn't know, we didn't know what we were having. So she was a surprise. And so,

Manny (1:01:14)
Hmm. ⁓

Nicolette Corbett (1:01:42)
When I first got pregnant, was like, okay, I want to start gathering like ⁓ Yupik things that I can kind of teach my kiddo, you know? And I couldn't really find anything. And I was like, I'm not finding anything. There's really not much out there. And so I had gotten this idea, you I'd seen things, I'd seen them for Espanol and like French and Germany, like you can see them all. They're all over. And I was like, why don't we have them for Yupik? And so that's when I kind of started thinking about it.

started looking into grants, asked my friend who's now my business partner. I was like, hey, would you be interested in doing this with me? We couldn't really figure out the rights, you know, with the images and that kind of stuff. So we're just like, let's just be partners. Cause I was like, I don't know how to do it with rights. If I'm paying you for the work, it my work or is it your work? And so we're just, we'll just go in at 50 50. So at any rate, we applied for a grant, Rasmussen grant. We've got it one year. And so we were able to create that.

Manny (1:02:28)
Mm-hmm.

Nicolette Corbett (1:02:38)
and bring it to life. But it had been a long time in the works, you know, I had been working on, I have my Yupik dictionary here in my sewing room. So like it's anywhere in here. So like if I'm thinking of something, like I pull up my Yupik dictionary and I read it. ⁓ And you know, I had taken Yupik classes when I was in college and I had taken Yupik classes at the college back home and I had taken classes at UAA with my aunt who was the Yupik teacher. And so...

I've been able to write and I can understand and I can speak. I'm not fluent. I can understand more than I can. so the hard part about the Yupik dictionary is we don't have a language like A to Z. We have like, ah-cha-eh-ook-ee. then like, but there's like double, you know, we have double ones. We have like double letters and we have stop consonants and we have voiceless fricatives and we have nasals and we have like, and so it's like,

Manny (1:03:20)
Hmm.

Nicolette Corbett (1:03:35)
There's a lot of things and so trying to figure out how do we do this? Because there's some that are like, mm, and I'm like, okay, ha, we can't do mm, because it's really hard to like, have mm, and then we have mm. And so it's like, trying to figure out, so we kind of went with the basics, ⁓ but there's so much more, because it's like, we could go into it, that would be a whole thing of trying to figure out, all right, have, how do we?

Manny (1:03:39)
Yeah.

Nicolette Corbett (1:04:03)
How do we tell people who don't speak Yup'ik what a fricatives is? And a voiceless fricatives and a nasal, like how do we tell them these things? so, and then of course with the endings, our endings are kind of like a Espanol. So like it's, if we have like, when it ends in a Q, it's one. When it ends in a K, it's two, but not always. As you could say, Dulucaruc. Yeah, but we say Dulucaruc and that's one or Duntuac.

Manny (1:04:24)
of life conjugations.

Nicolette Corbett (1:04:32)
that's one and so like trying to figure out a way to explain like there so there's exceptions and then when it ends in a T it's three or more and in our Yupik language we don't have there's no masculine or feminine if you say something it's he she it so like we would say akfagalu well let me see trying to think of a word

But anyways, if it ended in a Q, it would be like, he, she, it is running. Like, it's just that. And we don't have he or she. And you hear elders when they tell a story, they'll be like, he was something, something. And we're like, no, mean, ⁓ she. And so it's because there's not the languages that was like he, she, it.

Manny (1:05:21)
Yeah, it covered all. Yeah, that's really cool. But I can see how that would be a challenge in trying to put that in, you know, in a coloring. Yeah, to try to teach people. Yeah, that would be a huge challenge.

Nicolette Corbett (1:05:23)
Yeah.

And a coloring book. Or kids. Like that would be so

confusing. Like what, mom, what is a voice that's fricative? Like, I don't know.

Manny (1:05:43)
What did you just say? Did you just cuss? Where can you find this coloring book?

Nicolette Corbett (1:05:46)
Yeah.

on Amazon. Yeah, so it's on Amazon. Just Yupik Alphabet coloring book. Yeah.

Manny (1:05:53)
sweet. Cool. What do people search?

Awesome.

I'm gonna have you put, I'm gonna put myself on the spot here. We already talked about the very first time I saw your video about the Quyana Chuck Norris, which comes from Quyana Chucknuck, is that correct? So what other words could you teach me right now?

Nicolette Corbett (1:06:14)
Yeah.

⁓ Fuck off.

Manny (1:06:23)
So, waka, is it waka?

Nicolette Corbett (1:06:27)
Like, wha, whaqa. Uh-huh, but like the qa is like a raven. You know how the raven makes the qa sound? Qa, qa, qa, yeah. So, whaqa, you can say jangachit.

Manny (1:06:28)
Hua. Huaca. It's back here, huh?

Okay, yeah. What the? What the?

Janajit?

Nicolette Corbett (1:06:49)
John, nga, nga is like nga.

Manny (1:06:51)
Yeah,

nasally a little bit. And what word is that? What does it mean? How are you?

Nicolette Corbett (1:06:55)
Yeah, how are you?

Manny (1:07:04)
Jung-ah Chit. Okay.

Nicolette Corbett (1:07:05)
Yeah, good. And then

you would say, somebody asked you, you would say, a sick door.

Manny (1:07:12)
Okay, you're gonna have to break that one down for me.

Nicolette Corbett (1:07:16)
So

the sound is like your tongue is in the middle of your mouth going.

Manny (1:07:22)
⁓ my god. ⁓

Nicolette Corbett (1:07:23)
Assichter!

⁓ It's it's

the one we would get scolded they would go That is how you knew you were getting scolded. So it's that sound

Manny (1:07:40)
and you

I see. Okay. The Waka is probably the coolest greeting that I am aware of. I'm fluent in English only, but I grew up around Spanish, Portuguese. I know a little bit of Tagalog and Hindi and they all have their own greetings. ⁓ I love hearing you.

Nicolette Corbett (1:07:47)
Fucker.

Manny (1:08:09)
Oh God, it's Nikki, who is so Yupik. It is the freaking best. It is so cool. just has it. It has such a cool. Hola is so boring to me. There's no, I don't know. just, yeah, the Yupik greeting is so cool. So yeah, thanks for tolerating my attempt at speaking Yupik. So.

Nicolette Corbett (1:08:30)
That's okay, that's okay, at least you tried. At least

you tried.

Manny (1:08:35)
One of the last I mean there's a couple things that I wanted to touch on mostly with how people can follow you and keep up with so you pick and and and what you have going on, but one of the things that That came up recently that I saw you were really involved in at least on social media and I know that you were you're transporting supplies and trying to get supplies for the ⁓ families and people that were displaced from the the typhoon earlier this year

What was your experience in being involved with that? And like, what did you see? What stories have you heard? You what do people need now that they could still do? I was thinking just with, you know, the weather and the temperature and this whole, these whole communities that are just abandoned and destroyed and what those families must be going through now, you know, living in Anchorage or whatever community is that they're in.

What was your experience with after all that happened with the typhoon?

Nicolette Corbett (1:09:39)
So I initially started sharing about it because I wasn't seeing much on the news, like nationally. Like initially, like initially there wasn't much about it. you know, when you hear about hurricanes and you hear about, you know, all this stuff, like they'll be projecting it and they just talk about it and they're like, hurricane so-and-so is making its way and hurricane so-and-so has now shifted and hurricane, you know, like, you hear it and there wasn't much about here in Alaska.

And you know, like, and so I just kind of saw that as an opening of like, okay, let me just share about this. ⁓ And I'll just kind of share what it's like, you know, I've been out to, know, I've been out to those communities, you know, in in stopping on the way home from another village. And so, you know, not spending time, but I know a lot of people from those communities. And so I knew it was ⁓

like devastating and so and then of course I had worked in the ER and so I knew a lot of people you know that had been impacted by it and so I just kind of was like all right I'm just gonna share about this and you know like just get word out you know I've got this following and there's all these people on here and I was like let me just and people want to genuinely help and so I was like let me just start making videos and sharing all this stuff

⁓ And so I was just doing that just to kind of just share for other folks to like, hey, you know, this is that or I would share other messages from the Heritage Center or South Central Foundation or ANTHC or, you know, like the Western anything. So I was just kind of getting the word out and sharing info and then, you know, having family and friends out there, you know, they reach out and they'd be like, you know, we're not seeing, you know, there's not enough coats here.

the Egan Center, can you let somebody know? And they're not letting us get stuff that we need. Can you let somebody know that we want to be able to have access to go get clothing if we need it, or snacks, or food? And so I just kind of was like, all right, let me just share. And it was just basically to just kind of help spread the word. I had 40,000 followers on Instagram.

Manny (1:11:46)
Hmm.

Nicolette Corbett (1:11:58)
know 10,000 on or 40 on Facebook and 10 on Instagram. I was like that's 50,000 people that can reach out to and then it gets shared out to others. so yeah I mean it's just it's they're all in uncharted territories so this is all something very new and it's gonna be a long it's gonna be a long road.

And like, you know, in the initial, they had all this help, but they're going to still continue to need it moving forward. ⁓ And they're, you know, they're working with, there was a fireweed foundation got started actually. And so that's a foundation that was created in Anchorage because they saw this need that there was nowhere in Alaska who could kind of jump in and, you know, get all this stuff. so Adam, who I

at AFN and I was like making videos and I was like, you know, he was kind of helping in the background. Well, now Adam helped create this fireweed foundation. He saw a need that was needed, you know, in a disaster time and so now he created this foundation that, you know, can gather coats and winter gear and boots and all that kind of stuff and it was really awesome to see because it was like, you know, he was just kind of like, I want to start something and I was like, that would be so needed and now it started and so he's working with

Manny (1:13:13)
Awesome.

Nicolette Corbett (1:13:24)
Heritage Center and all these other places and you know working to try to get you know winter gear and all that kind of stuff for folks And you know because they had to uproot two villages and other other villages, you know other people from other villages whose homes got damaged And they're not livable right now. And so it's gonna be a really long road ⁓ What they don't talk about though is like our people we lived by the seasons

We didn't live in one spot. And I don't know necessarily if they would have chose those spots to live year round where the communities were because our elders were so smart, you know, and they moved. We moved. We went summer camp, spring camp, fall camp, winter camp. We weren't in one spot at one time. And so what a lot of people don't understand is when the government came in,

Manny (1:14:15)
Hmm.

Nicolette Corbett (1:14:23)
they were like, the school is here, you live here now, where it's like, maybe if they would have asked them, and I don't know, because obviously, you don't really know what happened back then, but maybe if they would ask, like, hey, you know, where would be the best spot to live year round, they may have said, we need to be up high ground, we need to be up here, because of the elements and the weather and everything. ⁓ And so like,

where these schools were placed. Like the people had no choice. I don't know if folks are familiar with Molly Hooch, the Molly Hooch case. ⁓ Kids were forced into schools. There is a case. I gotta look it up. I think it's Molly Hooch. But there was this case where was like everybody, all the kids had to be in school. And I could be totally wrong. I'm trying to think. I think it's Molly Hooch case. But

Manny (1:15:00)
Hmm.

I have heard about this.

Nicolette Corbett (1:15:21)
It was in the early 1900s, want to say, or 19, 1920s, 19, I don't know. Anyways, my math is all wrong. I could be totally wrong. But basically, what they said was every kid needed to be in school. Well, these parents were going to get punished if the kids weren't in school. And you're talking about people who lived off the land. Like, that was their school. It's like, ⁓

Manny (1:15:41)
Yeah.

Hmm, yeah. Interesting.

Nicolette Corbett (1:15:48)
But these communities where they were placed, I don't know if they would have said, let's put the school right here because there are places that they're eroding so fast. mean, Newtok eroded. They had to move to Mkhtavik, which is on a higher ground. But Newtok is down here where the river just eroded. My mom's home community in Nunafetjok, they're eroding. The river's eroding. The permafrost is thawing and houses are literally sinking into the ground.

So I don't think people really understood that. And a lot of people were like, why don't they just get on a plane? I'm like, you don't understand. A plane ride is $600 one way. And you've got a family of however many. They don't have that luxury of just get our people like, why don't they go to high ground? you're not understanding. I don't think you know Alaska geography.

Manny (1:16:18)
⁓ yeah.

Yeah, that's a really good point to make. I'm glad you said that because I don't think people do understand. I, you know, you bring up a good point, too, with the way the news works. You know, it's all over the news or it was slow to be on the news in the beginning. And then, you know, then it's all in it's on the news. But then these people are still adjusting and and in uncharted territory, like like you said, and that process is still going to be long and there's going to have to be a plan.

Nicolette Corbett (1:16:58)
It was very slow.

Manny (1:17:13)
you know, in order to restore those communities and you know, that's the long road that kind of no one really pays attention to. And so it's something that I was curious about and I've kind of kept my eye open for that foundation that you mentioned, the fireweed, is it called the fireweed foundation? I think that's such a great idea. I'm really happy to hear that because I think the response in the beginning was that Alaskans wanted to do something and everyone was

Nicolette Corbett (1:17:31)
foundation yeah

Manny (1:17:39)
kind of doing their own thing, but it wasn't really like, there wasn't a good centralized, like.

response for it or response to it. It was kind of fragmented. Like the National Guard was involved, but like there was other communities, was other individuals doing stuff. So to know that there's something now that could be more centralized to respond to something like that is awesome news.

Nicolette Corbett (1:18:02)
Yeah, and there was a lot of red tape because with the Red Cross, you know, they have so many things they have to do. And so it's not like you could just, you know, they're even just bringing native food was kind of something that was like uncharted territories. You know, they're not really familiar with native food. It's not canned. It's not, you know, it's not in a you can't just open it out of a. Yeah, you can't go buy it at the store like.

Manny (1:18:20)
processed.

Nicolette Corbett (1:18:25)
Not in Greenland, you can go to Greenland and buy native food out of the freezers, but we don't have that luxury here in Alaska. So there was a lot of things that they kind of were not familiar with. And just the language barrier. They did have translators, but the way that we are in our culture is like... ⁓

you don't really make a fuss, you know, like, and so there's a lot of just things that like, you know, they're not going to go and immediately just, you know, I need this, this and this. Like they're just going to sit there quietly and wait till someone is like, here, here's something, you know, like, and so, ⁓ yeah, I don't know. It's interesting, but yeah, it's going to be a long road and it's just going to, I don't know what they're going to do. I mean, it's, it's, they have been, they have all come from very like,

I don't know, it's, they came from a quiet life, you know, they come from just quiet, hardworking, packing water, going out and getting your food, you know, and they go and prep all year for getting food, to now they're thrown into the city where a lot of plate, like, you know, these communities, they don't have vehicle, they have four wheelers and snow machines, and they don't have trucks and cars and buses and all that kind of stuff, and so.

Manny (1:19:31)
Yeah.

Nicolette Corbett (1:19:44)
It's just like a totally new world they're navigating in.

Manny (1:19:48)
Yeah. Well, I appreciate appreciated your work in filling the gap and raising awareness ⁓ for those Western communities that were displaced using your platform for good. And I'm sure many others appreciated that as well. So thank you for that. I want to see if there's anything that you're looking ahead to with Sew Yup'ik any trips or any

exciting stuff in the future. You did mention that, you know, the TikTok shop is something new, something newer for you. ⁓ But yeah, just anything that you're looking ahead to that people can be excited for or expect in the future.

Nicolette Corbett (1:20:29)
I am working on, well, so TikTok, I'm working to monetize it. I've monetized my Facebook and my Instagram. So this coming year is like, I'm trying to figure out a way to monetize TikTok and then also monetize ⁓ YouTube, right? So to have those passive income streams, I don't have to do much that maybe, maybe they generate, maybe they don't. It's honestly, I'm already making videos. So it's like, I'm just, all I'm doing is uploading them. So, ⁓

The other thing, so the things that I'm looking forward to, ⁓ I am gonna be working on a pattern. So I'm hoping to make a vest, a pattern that I can put on Etsy. It's something that I've been wanting to do for quite some time. I have just gotten into the mindset of it needs to be perfect. Well, it doesn't need to, I just need to put something out there. So that's my own trauma response of needing the perfection and just being letting go and being like, all right, put whatever out there.

And people will either be happy or not happy, but honestly, like some people just want a pattern. And so ⁓ I've got three more semesters in my master's program. So until I'm a psych nurse practitioner and ⁓ you know, I ⁓ my husband's recently retired. And so it's just fun to have us home, all of us home with the kids now.

⁓ You know, he worked shift work and so a lot of times, you know, he was at work and I was home with the kids and then he came home and I went to go do a workshop and then I'd come home. So now we're in this new sort of ⁓ balance of figuring out like how to live together at home. You know, I have worked really hard so that I can be home with my kids all the time now. And so I work at home and then I travel and teach sewing workshops. And it's just really neat that I

have worked so hard to get to this point that I'm always home with my kids. And it's funny when I have to go do a workshop, they're like, no, we don't want you to leave, you know? And so like, we're all just always together now, which is amazing, like to be able to give that to my kids, because, you know, I didn't have that as a kid, especially even just having a present mom, like, who's always there, like every day. And so

Manny (1:22:35)
Yeah.

Nicolette Corbett (1:22:49)
just I ⁓ don't know it's I you know it's not lucky because we worked hard but it feels lucky like because we worked so hard to get to this point but ⁓ you know I there'll be workshops on the horizon and you know I'm hoping to just continue to keep sharing I guess.

Manny (1:23:14)
Yeah, I appreciate you sharing. I've got to learn a lot from you. I know many others have as well. At one point this summer, was like, So Yupik is my favorite follow on social media right now. Just because you're genuine, you're funny, you share knowledge, you share culture, tradition as an Alaskan, I feel like I didn't grow up here. And so I feel like a guest in this land anyways. And so I want

to learn as much as I can about the cultures and the traditions that were in place long before, you it was ever called Alaska. And to find these voices and people that are sharing that, I gravitate towards that and I appreciate it. And it's something that I definitely wanted ⁓ to learn more about. And so it's been fun to follow you, Nikki, for sure. And I know other people enjoy it as well. You mentioned a couple of them.

where is the best place for people to follow you right now? It sounds like TikTok might be your newest ⁓ platform that you're trying to grow. You mentioned YouTube and then you have a website as well, correct? Like if someone wanted to schedule a workshop or reach out to you, what's the best way they can do that?

Nicolette Corbett (1:24:29)
Yeah, Have my website so it's so you pick org There's also an old website that I had started. It's so you pick comm so those are both me I just had to upgrade it to make it look more Professional because my other one was just like a blog where I just shared a bunch of stuff And then I'm just so you picked on Facebook Instagram YouTube tick tock

I have X, I don't really use it anymore. ⁓ And then that's just my email, it's just soupic at Gmail. And then I have my podcast, All Things So Yupic, and that's on Apple and Spotify. We've only done two seasons, so there's not much there. Actually my first season I did a lot, I think I recorded like 20 or something. But then I also have the Yupic Alphabet Coloring Book that is on ⁓ Amazon as well.

Manny (1:25:24)
Cool.

Nicolette Corbett (1:25:24)
That's where everyone can find me. And then if you just go out and you do smoke signals, you can find me that way.

Manny (1:25:31)
that's awesome. I'll make sure to link all those in the descriptions as well. ⁓ I always ask all my guests, this show is about Alaska, it's about the unique people in Alaska with unique experiences or expertise. Who do you have in mind that would be a cool guest to have on the show?

Nicolette Corbett (1:25:54)
Ooh, yeah, so I don't know if you follow AKMosie, Heather Duville. She's down in Southeast. She's incredible. She just has been doing some stuff with MeatEater. And she shared, she shares quite a bit. She shares a lot. ⁓ And I don't know if you follow Abayuk. She inspired by Bristol Bay. So she shares a lot.

She's done a lot of artwork and she shares a lot about ⁓ just the walking between two worlds of like the Western world and the traditional world, you know, going back to our traditional way sort of thing while also having to be in a Western world and make money. And so, you know, and ⁓ I think, you know, maybe talking with Adam with the Fireweed Foundation because he ⁓

Manny (1:26:39)
And

Nicolette Corbett (1:26:49)
you know, that's just got started up and just the, I think that would be interesting. ⁓ Kelsey Wallace, she's the director of Alaska Native Heritage Center. ⁓ And she's a young Yup'ik woman. Her family is from my mom's hometown family. And so she is, I want to, I don't know how she might be the youngest CEO of the Alaska Native Heritage Center. So I don't know. But yeah, there's a lot of folks out there. So.

Manny (1:27:19)
I appreciate those suggestions. Yeah, some of those I am following already and I'll look up these other ones as well. So thank you for that. Well, Nikki, thank you so much for spending ⁓ your morning with me and sharing your story, all the things that you've done from where you started in Bethel and the experiences there to what's evolved ⁓ over time and a lot of effort, a lot of creativity.

A lot of nos, but a lot of yeses. Your story is encouraging. I think, like I hope with every person that I share on this podcast would resonate with other Alaskans and ⁓ people everywhere to find the good in the world, to put in that work and the effort to make it better and to, keep hope alive.

Nikki Corbett, Sew Yupik, Quyana Chuck Norris.

Manny (1:28:23)
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Manny (1:29:05)
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