I’m Tis Peterman. I’m Executive Director of the Southeast Alaska Indigenous Transboundary Commission, otherwise knows as SEITC. My Tlingit name is Tleek’. I was named after my Grandmother. I am a Raven. My clan is Kaach.ádi. We are Kaach.ádi yadi, which means ‘children of the Kaach.ádi’. I was born and raised in Wrangell at the mouth of the Stikine River. My great grandmother "Tahltan Susie" came downriver in the late 1880s when she was 14 to marry Charlie Jones, who later became Chief Shakes VII. I have four children. I’ve never thought about moving from Wrangell. I tried it once, when I was about nineteen: I didn’t like it. This is my place.

The river came to me first in 2014 when I was a rep for the Tribe…that’s when I first realized these threats to the river. [With the SEITC work] the river came back to me a second time. I’m hoping we can make a difference.