Alaska Native Arts & Culture

Indigenous game designers, coders, and artists will be in Santa Clara, California on Friday, May 22nd, to talk about the future of the Native gaming industry.

Self-determination is the notion behind the Natives in Game Dev Gathering. Elizabeth LaPensée is an Anishinaabe, Métis, and Irish game designer. She says this is the first event of its kind and she’s excited about it.

“This event is really for us to be able to step up and speak from our own genuine perspectives without spending a breath on any negativity or any of the things we’re up against.”

Presentations range from incorporating Native hip-hop into games, to using indigenous science teachings in game mechanics.

“We get to have these really robust, really exciting topics because we don’t have to just be talking about what’s out there already in commercial game industries,” says LaPensée.

Alaska will also be represented by Ishmael Hope, one of the lead writers for the groundbreaking 2014 game, “Never

He asks: “How do we learn to reorient ourselves into honoring Native perspectives?”

That question has been the driver behind a number of recent advances in Native gaming.

Gloria O’Neill is the president and CEO of Cook Inlet Tribal Council, or CITC, which is behind “Never Alone.” She says a few years ago, her board of directors came to her looking for new ideas for a project and an investment that would follow the council’s mission.

“The board also said, be thoughtful of how we think of ourselves in the world, meaning, let’s look at our greatest asset,” says O’Neill. “And our greatest asset is people and our stories and the culture that we have had in the state of Alaska for so many years. And at the same time, be thoughtful about technology and push yourselves to be progressive.”

She says CITC sought partners with industry experience which resulted in collaboration with E-Line media and the creation of Upper One Games.

Since it was released, “Never Alone” has been lauded as a sophisticated, thoughtful, and intelligent game. It’s received international awards and O’Neill says, brought generations of Alaska Native families together to have fun, tell stories, and learn.

“We see that through Never Alone, that it’s inspiring for example, a whole new genre of video games, and that is telling stories that we’ve had in communities for thousands and thousands of years and using technology to bring those stories alive in today’s modern world,” says O’Neill.

LaPensée says “Never Alone” was a huge leap forward from older games, which rarely included Native characters and when they did, were fraught with racist stereotypes. And it was the next step from smaller, self-published, indie games. It had a decent budget, professional designers, and the voices of elders. It showed it could be done.

“It’s not about taking from the culture. It actually really is inclusive game development. And how actually involving the people you are representing can influence the design and make it stand out and make it better. So, I think it’s an incredible example for inspiring youth, for inspiring other people who are working in film or other areas of media, to look at game development as something that is feasible for us.”

Ishmael Hope says by bringing his experiences from “Never Alone” to the conference, he hopes to open up honest conversations about where Native game developers can go from this point on.

“We spend so much time focused on educating, trying to break down reified structures that disempower non-Western people,” says Hope. “That’s a constant theme. But in this case, working with the Natives in Game Development, it’s going to be neat to just kind of bond and talk about what’s exciting and what direction we want our art to go as a self-determined people.”

The goal, say both Hope and LaPensée, is for indigenous gamers, developers, and designers to recognize their own potential. Someday, they’d both like to see totally independent Native game companies, publishing companies, studios and more. Independent from code to console, says LaPensée.

“I hope that future generations will look back at this moment and see this work and will still carry on the ways in a way that they can respect the position we’re in now and where they’re going to be then will be much more vast, is my hope,” says LaPensée.

The gathering is co-sponsored by the University of California Santa Cruz Center for Games and Playable Media, the International Game Developers Association, and the Initiative for Indigenous Futures.

Families and young children mill around tables in the lobby of the Walter Soboleff Building. There’s a station for coloring, one for science. Margaret Katzeek and her 2-year-old niece Elayna are at the snack table.

“Do you want some water?” Katzeek asks Elayna. “Do you remember what it’s called? Heen. Let’s say heen.”

This is their second Baby Raven Reads family night. The free early childhood program run by Sealaska Heritage Institute builds on the strengths of Alaska Native culture in teaching early literacy. Katzeek says they’re a fun way to learn the Tlingit language, for her niece and herself.

“They say the best way to learn something and get to know something is trying to teach it,” she says, “so I definitely work on the words that I do know, I work with her on it lot.”

But Katzeek says Elayna picks up songs better and, lucky for her, there are several that evening with language learner and teacher Mary Folletti.

Inside the clan house, about 30 children, infants to 5-year-olds, start off sitting on small rugs or on the laps of family members. Moments later, many of them are on their feet, singing, laughing and dancing along. About 40 adults sitting on the periphery watch their children, smiling. Some join in the singing.

Folletti leads the group in Tlingit songs to the tunes of “If You’re Happy and You Know It” and “The Hokey Pokey.” She helped translate these songs several years ago.

“Those songs are great because the kids are already familiar with them and they are the same idea. We do things different, like, ‘Dance like a Tlingit,’ but it is like, ‘Turn yourself around,’ so it’s got a lot of the same ideas,” she says.

Folletti says exposing children to the sounds of the Tlingit language is important for development.

“I know people who learn the Tlingit language when they were older and because they had never tried to make those sounds before, they’d never heard those sounds before, they physically could not make the sounds, so I think it’s important for them to hear it,” Folletti says.

Early education specialist Karen Larson is working with Sealaska Heritage Institute. She says the Baby Raven Reads program emulates other successful early learning practices. It gives out a free children’s book at each session, like the Dolly Parton Imagination Library. It brings families together, like events organized by the Association for the Education of Young Children. And it’s all done in ways relevant to Alaska Native families.

“People are really craving cultural experiences for their children and language exposure. And then people bring their own culture to it and it grows from there,” Larson says.

Parent Pamela Craig is one of those people. She’s with her 2-year-old son.

“This is exactly the kind of thing that I think he needs, to be able to meet up with his Native peers from an early age and be able to work with them and have people to talk to, especially learning language,” Craig says.

The Baby Raven Reads events are good for her as well.

“Just looking around, I have family here, my relatives and other people I’ve met through the years going to different Native events, and so it’s a good opportunity for me,” Craig says.

That’s part of the early childhood program – creating community.

Jackie Kookesh is the education director for Sealaska Heritage Institute. She hopes people like Mary Folletti will be an inspiration to parents and relatives.

“To sing along with Mary and their children and try to pronounce the Tlingit words that are in the song, that takes a lot of courage,” Kookesh says. “And so if that’s an outcome we come away with, I say that’s phenomenal, creating those safe places for the language to be in the air and to be heard and for everybody to do it together.”

Kookesh hopes the program will make more parents comfortable singing “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” in Tlingit with their children. 

The Sealaska Heritage Institute unveiled its new structure in downtown Juneau today. It’s called the Walter Soboleff Building after the late Tlingit scholar, elder and religious leader. Inside stands a full-sized replica of a traditional red cedar clan house.

At the opening ceremony, the Aangun Yatx’i dance in their regalia in front of the Walter Soboleff building.

Davina Cole is the arts assistant here. She clutches her four-month-old baby girl tightly to her chest.

“We’re Yanyeidí from the T’aaku Kwáan area. We’re little wolves. She’s my baby pup,” she says.

Cole says she’s looking forward to what the Soboleff Building will offer her daughter. They’ve already gone to a Baby Raven Reads class before the grand opening. It teaches pre-literacy through Native stories.

“So even right now she’s benefiting from the center because it’s going to be really good for her to be surrounded by that and even have a place to go and learn that,” she says.

The building is a museum for Tlingit, Haida, and Tsimshian artifacts, a space for cultural ceremonies and it houses a gift shop. The building is part of an initiative to turn Juneau into the Northwest Native arts capital. But designing a space that could serve all those functions and reflect the past was difficult.

“When we got the responses, the designs were all very traditional,” Rosita Worl says.

Worl is the president of Sealaska Heritage Institute and a Tlingit from the Eagle moiety. She says the Native artist committee wanted a structure that was more “traditionally inspired.”

“They don’t like the word ‘contemporary,'” she says.

SHI sifted through submissions and picked architect Paul Voelckers’. The design was influenced by the form of ceremonial clan houses with chunky beams of yellow cedar. It has an open feel and a wall of glass at the entrance.

“I will tell you that we made the right decision in selecting Paul. It might not have even been the lowest bid. But we all said we got to go with him,” she says.

Voelckers is the president of MRV Architects. The firm’s founder Linn Forrest Sr. specialized in totem pole and clan house reconstruction.

“The firm has sort of tried to maintain that legacy of involvement in the cultural design issues from Southeast ever since,” Voelckers says.

Most recently, MRV worked on a clan house in Kasaan. For the Walter Soboleff Building, Voelckers looked at old photos of clan villages. Some were covered in moss from age.

“But it would have the angles of the house. You know, the big massive beams on the front. And sometimes the old house post inside. That became the essential element that was left in these villages. And so what we tried to do in the new design was capture some of that heavy framework,” he says.

The basement level floor houses the research lab and mechanical room. The whole building is heated using wood pellets.

“It simply flows down like grain or something,” he says.

The building was designed to meet the U.S. Green Building Council’s gold standard for energy efficiency. The wood pellets come mostly from the Sealaska Corp. land on Prince of Wales Island. Rosita Worl says that’s part of keeping the core cultural values in the design.

“Haa Aani: our relationship to the land,” she says.

On the main floor is a full-sized replica of a clan house. It can seat 300 people and fits with tradition: pitched roof, windowless and built with adzed red cedar. The floor is tiered with sunken-in seating. Worl says she knew it would a special place.

“But what we hadn’t counted on, what I hadn’t thought about was this almost sacred feeling that you get when you go into that clan house.”

Worl says she has a strong connection to her ancestors.

“And it was almost like they were saying to us, ‘Rosita, you know you’re talking about being progressive, you want to move into the 21st century.’ It almost became like their space and they said, ‘This is where we are.’”

At the the Walter Soboleff’s closing ceremony, the clan house was given the name Shuká Hít.

The Native American Fish and Wildlife Society meets in Juneau May 20-22.

Tribal and other government officials and staff will discuss climate change, subsistence, Arctic policy and dozens of other issues.

Norman Jojola is natural resource manager for the Bureau of Indian Affairs’ Northern Pueblos Agency in New Mexico. He’s also one of the conference’s planners.

He says the conference will address the role of traditional knowledge in resource management.

“A lot of the Western knowledge tends to have them tell you what a certain species wants, what a certain species needs, this is how they’re going to survive,” he says. “Instead … traditional knowledge would go out, look at the species, live with the species and let the species tell you what it wants rather than you telling it what it’s supposed to do.”

Some sessions will focus on fish hatchery operations and lead ammunition poisoning wildlife. Others will cover more recent issues, such as policing fracking and dealing with meth labs.

Another focus area is cooperative management.

Jojola says that’s important when tribes share borders.

“These animals have no sense of boundaries. And they’re going to move wherever they want to move and whenever they want to move. It’s always good that you have this cooperative effort in managing these resources because if you don’t, then you’re just fighting each other,” he says.

The society began in the 1980s as a way to share information. That includes educating tribal youth about resource issues.

Tlingit glass artist Preston Singletary was chosen as one of three people to contribute monumental art to Sealaska Heritage Institute‘s new Walter Soboleff Building. In this video he explains the inspiration for his glass screen and his take on contemporary indigenous art.