Remembering Niki Raapana - Publishing New Titles

Hi, my name is Nordica Friedrich. Many of you may already know that in June 2022, my beloved mom Niki Raapana passed away suddenly and unexpectedly at our home in Wasilla, Alaska. We lived and worked in Alaska as a family from 2004 until 2022, when my momma left us to walk with her sisters in pure energy and light.

It is with a very heavy heart that I attend to the work of honoring my mother's life's work by updating our educational publishing catalog with a body of media that would make her proud. In 2023 it is my intention to print 6 total titles:

First - the two publications that have made up the ACL Books library ("2020: Our Common Destiny" and "The Definitive Anti Communitarian Manifesto" - combined into one 300+ page book since 2012) will be getting a complete reboot. I am splitting them back up into their original (separate forms) and adding them to a box-set with two more unpublished titles, which will memorialize my mom and honor her efforts, and also complete the ACL Books library. My goal with the new box-set is to streamline the printing process, reach a greater audience, and provide a comprehensive look at over thirty years of my mother's grassroots research and original writings (and mine as her co-author, editor and reluctant publicist).

Second - I plan to publish the following titles that were in our "Works In Progress" file at the time of my mom's passing:

1. The Green Virgin: All Hail Pachamama Rising. Educational format to compliment and provide the final puzzle piece to 2020 and TACM. An exploration of the religious and spiritual origins of communitarian law. The Green Virgin was going to be my mom's final academic effort in the field of communitarian opposition research. She believed that understanding of the subject would be most enriched by an update that focused on the spiritual aspect. I was very hopeful for her health to remain stable so she could finish this important work. In her absence, I feel strongly it should be published in honor of her commitment to knowledge and freedom. I have recruited a team of 6-10 of my mom's trusted friends, colleagues and collaborators to complete The Green Virgin and complementary media assets like videos.

2. Living Outside the Dialectic. A collection of notable posts and research entries from my mom's blog that she maintained for many years.

3. Make Yourself At Home: A DIY Guide to Gertee and Other Indigenous Inspired Dwellings. We planned to feature a step-by-step guide to building a Gertee from scraps using just the facts and including very little of our personal story. We also wanted to feature indigenous structures and dwellings from around the world/through the ages, and raise awareness of the usefulness and applicability of Indigenous math, engineering and architecture - especially in the face of modern social challenges such as affordable housing and homelessness.

4. Zen and the Art of Gertee Maintenance: A Photo Journey with The Extreme Climate Housing School and Team Gertee Ridin' Dirty (2003 - 2023). Full-color, photographic coffee table style book to compliment the "Make Yourself a Home" guidebook featuring family scrapbooks of our adventures camping year-round for the last two decades, hand-drawn sketches, designs, notes, personal stories and more behind-the-scenes silliness.

Thank you very much for your time and attention to this project.

It would mean the world to myself and my children if we could get a boost in funding in order to continue our matriarch's tireless efforts, to properly commemorate and honor one of the finest teachers we have ever known, and share the value that she added to our lives.

We love you and miss you, Momma.

A brief background of ACL Books:

In 2002, my late mother Niki Raapana and I published an article called "WTF is the Hegelian Dialectic?" and then a follow-up paper called "The Historical Evolution of Communitarian Thinking" in 2003. I was a senior in high school and had been writing articles and essays with my mom on the topic of communitarianism for several years, anonymously. A few years earlier, in 1999, we had formed an organization with several other concerned citizens called the Anti Communitarian League. The ACL formed in response to local community development actions in our North Seattle neighborhood. Our initial premise began for this purpose which has always remained the same: to provide grassroots research and analysis of the Ultimate Communitarian Third Way, and to alert an unaware public as to the historical and philosophical roots of modern gentrification actions under the sustainability banner.

Background on Gertee:

Between 2002-2003, my mom's interest in yurts grew. We knew we could never afford one of the prefab yuppie versions, but we still loved them and found them adorable. In 2004 the inspiration struck - she built her own out of scraps using what she could scavenge from a gig in the Denali Wilderness in Alaska where she was a caretaker for a large, mostly abandoned lodge. The cute little hut made out of old airplane covers and metal castoffs was nicknamed "Gertee" and the name stuck forever. She believed that put into the common people's hands Gertee could be an authentically sustainable solution for so many struggling individuals for whom housing is unaffordable and inaccessible. I'd like to make it so.

One final note- Please contact me if you would like to help or contribute essays or reflections, literature, art and comics, poetry etc to any of the projects mentioned here or even a new project! One of my mom's dreams was to have a literary and art journal where she could publish original works from many unheard creatives, philosophers, thinkers, writers and artists. Submissions are open. Anything done in the name of improving our lives through knowledge and connection to our birthright and cultural heritage will honor my mom's memory.

Much Aloha and many thanks from all of us at Team Gertee.