Juneau

A recently donated collection of letters, essays, photographs and newspapers is shedding new light on the history of Alaska Native civil rights. One particularly controversial figure in the documents spent half a century advancing Alaska Native causes. He’s the namesake of Sealaska Heritage Institute’s new William Paul Archives.

SHI President Rosita Worl stands over a table of photographs of ancestors in regalia, Alaska Native Brotherhood meetings and less formal gatherings–relaxing around a table for dinner.

“Here look at this. ANB people and traditional leaders. Ooo, I see my grandmother over there!” she exclaims.

The collection spans from the 1940s all the way to the 70s and was donated by brothers Ray and Cy Peck. The sons of Cyrus Peck Senior, who published the newspaper Voice of the Brotherhood.

“Remember at this point and time we don’t have social media. We don’t even have TV,” she said. “So the newspaper print is really important in terms of educating people about what was going on, coalescing people into political action.”

Some of the photos were taken by Ray Peck. He remembers his father giving him a Polaroid camera when he was a teen and asking him to take pictures of the Alaska Native Brotherhood.

“I used a Polaroid ‘cause I could always tell and take another one right away. And they were black and white and they’d turn out perfectly for printing,” said Peck.

At the time, he didn’t know he was capturing history. He would paste the photos on the freshly typed sheets from his dad’s typewriter and run them off to the printer at The Juneau Empire. After his dad passed away, he found boxes full of old newspapers and letters and thought, “Get ‘em to a safe place instead of sitting in my house. And maybe people will get some information out of it.”

Peck turned over the boxes to the William Paul Archives in the Walter Soboleff Building. He donated correspondence between his dad and Paul, who was an important but sometimes divisive leader in the brotherhood.

“He had progressive ideas and he stepped on a lot of feet,” said Peck.

You might not know attorney William Paul by name. But you’re probably familiar with some of stuff he did: fighting for voting rights and the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act.

Rosita Worl calls him the father of land claims.

“He really brought it to the forefront,” she said.

A Tlingit, Paul was the first Native elected to office when Alaska was a territory, and he was a leader in the Alaska Native Brotherhood. The organization formed in 1912 to combat segregation and racism. Paul was later instrumental in this.

Worl knew him. She says he was a mentor growing up but recognizes he was also controversial.

“Both within the Native community and the non-Native community. The non-Native community thought he was arrogant and brash.”

She even calls some of his political activity unethical.

In the 1920s, a historian says Paul became politically powerful by helping Alaska Natives vote — for exactly whom he wanted them to vote for. He prepared cardboard cutouts that covered ballots and left only his picks. With the cutouts, literacy wasn’t a barrier.

He was also accused of taking campaign donations from salmon canneries, an industry whose unsustainable practices he vilified. Worl says tactics like this might be part of the reason he’s not more well known. Still, he’s an important figure.

“Here you have an indigenous population taking the laws of the oppressor to protect themselves,” she said.

Worl reads a letter to Cyrus Peck Senior from Paul dated March 1, 1949.

“I should begin ‘The storm has broken,'” the letter about Native boarding schools and education begins. “… From there we went on and considered the entire problem of Indian education and what we consider to be the policy of the Indian office.”

With the newly acquired materials, Worl hopes scholars and individuals can piece together a complex narrative of Alaska Native Civil Rights.

“More often when you read histories, Native people are seen as passive recipients of Western culture, they aren’t viewed as the active individuals in pursuing these rights,” she said. “With these documents, we’re able to demonstrate that. We’re able to portray history from our perspective.”

Worl encourages the public to donate items as they find them. Ray Peck says he may have a few more boxes to rummage through back home.

It’s been seven years since Perseverance Theatre has done Shakespeare, but that’s ending this week as “Othello” opens. Director Tom Robenolt and Jamil Mangan sat down with me on A Juneau Afternoon to talk about the play.

Listen to the the 11-minute interview here:

Robenolt says the play is about the outsider.

“The entirety of the title is called ‘The Tragedy of Othello: The Moor of Venice,’ and when he writes the ‘Moor of Venice’ he’s saying the outsider of Venice. And that it’s easy for somebody who is the outsider to be vulnerable and manipulated and that’s exactly what happens in this play,” says Robenolt.

Othello is played by Jamil Mangan who you might recognize from his performance as Joseph Asagai in Perseverance’s 2012 production of “A Raisin in the Sun.”

“It’s almost every black male’s dream role to play Othello. To have this opportunity. It’s so great that Shakespeare, being ahead of his time, wrote a character like Othello, a main character who happens to be yes, of African descent,” says Mangan.

Despite being written in the 17th century, Mangan says the play tackles themes that are still relevant today.

“It’s relatable today, the play, in that we often fear what we don’t know, or don’t really understand. And here is this individual, like Tom said, was the outsider and at the same time was a man that everybody revered but then also feared to integrate within their society. And so it’s interesting how some of those … social issues, we’re still plagued with those today,” says Mangan.

The play officially opens Friday at 7:30 p.m., but you can attend a pay-as-you-can performance Wednesday and Thursday at 7:30 p.m.

Smithsonian Magazine has listed Juneau’s Mendenhall Glacier ice caves on a list of “25 Great New Places to See.”

It’s number six on the “life list” or “bucket list,” beaten out by the largest cave located in Vietnam, gorilla trekking in East Africa and the Alma Telescope in Chile.

Because the Mendenhall Glacier is melting, the magazine says there’s “less time to see one of the most breathtaking visions available.”

It says the melting also “reveals astonishing ice caves where blue water runs over blue rocks, creating surreal lava-lampish images.”

Director of the glacier’s visitor center John Neary says images of the ice caves have gotten a lot of media attention in the past few years causing more and more visitors to seek them out.

“People are drawn to the beauty of those photos and they want to experience that. The only disappointment is that 99 percent of them can’t. It’s not feasible in the time frame or the skill or the athletic ability needed,” Neary says.

Hiking to and from the ice caves can be an all-day affair and Neary recommends going with a guide.

The ice caves were heavily photographed in the earlier part of 2014. That particular one has since collapsed and is a remnant of what it was, but other smaller ones have formed.

A hurricane working its way toward Haida Gwaii could mean heavy rains for the panhandle’s southernmost communities and nicer weather for Juneau.

Hurricane Ignacio originated north of Hawaii Friday morning. It’s expected to pass south of Dixon Entrance. Another low pressure system coming across the gulf from the Bering Sea is headed toward the southern third of the panhandle; it’s expected to pull some of the hurricane’s moisture north.

Heavy rains are expected Monday for Prince of Wales, Ketchikan and the southern tip of Baranof Island — but not Sitka. Nicole Ferrin, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Juneau, says the low pressure system will travel through the region over the next five days.

“If people down there notice the heavy rain, they might think that it’s Ignacio but it’s really not,” she said. “The low will still be quite a way to the southwest from our area at that time.”

Ferrin said residents of the affected communities should see typical fall weather, but don’t expect tropical storm force winds.

“We get influence from tropical systems frequently. The unique thing about this is we can see it on the map and that’s pretty unusual,” she said.

The weather service may issue a special statement if the heavy rains warrant it.

Ferrin said Juneau would be “marginally affected” by the storm and may even experience nicer weather as a result. Typically when a low pressure system passes south of the capital city it results in drier weather.

Tropical storms are hard to predict once they leave they tropics, so this forecast could change over the weekend. You can find the latest forecast on the National Weather Service’s website.

There have been 10 confirmed cases of salmonella infection from Limited Edition brand pole cucumbers, the Alaska Department of Health and Social Services reported Friday.

Fresh Produce, a company based in San Diego initiated a voluntary recall. The cucumbers, packed by Rancho Don Juanito in Mexico, may still be for sale throughout the state.

Symptoms from salmonella poisoning can include diarrhea, fever and abdominal cramps. Health care providers should call the Alaska Section of Epidemiology at 907-269-8000 or 800-478-0084 after hours to report suspected cases.