Alaska Native Arts & Culture

Alaska Native activist Etok Charlie Edwardsen, Jr. has died.

In the years leading up to the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971, Edwardsen testified before Congress on behalf of the Arctic Slope Native Association, saying that a land deal between Russia and the United States didn’t affect Iñupiaq ownership of their lands. He also led protests calling the land settlement “robbery.”

Edwardsen died in his sleep Friday night while at whaling camp. He was 71.

Alaska’s largest tribal government has joined an international effort to boost Native influence in the United Nations.

The Juneau-based Central Council of Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska wants a larger forum to address its concerns.

The U.N. has focused attention on indigenous issues in recent years, such as returning artifacts to tribes and preventing violence against women.

Jacqueline Johnson-Pata is executive director of the National Congress of American Indians, as well as part of the central council’s leadership.

She told a recent tribal assembly that a more formal arrangement is needed.

“Tribes and governments, elected representatives of indigenous nations, should have a voice in the United Nations. We shouldn’t just go as an organization. But we should go as a representative government,” she says.

Central Council First Vice President Will Micklin agrees.

“We are a nation with longstanding international relations with other countries and have issues that cross boundaries,” he says.

Micklin is also CEO for an Indian band near San Diego and executive director of the California Association of Tribal Governments. He’s a strong advocate of United Nations involvement.

“The only way to address these issues like climate change, like water resources, like fisheries, like the environmental impacts of extractive industries is to engage in the international arena,” he says.

The 30,000-member central council is part of a nationwide movement pursuing increased involvement in the United Nations. It’s been active for several years.

Micklin says the effort stems from the U.N.’s 2007 Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which also targets discrimination and human-rights violations.

“We envision and have proposed to the secretary general all rights and privileges for indigenous governments the same as a member state,” he says.

That would put tribal members on committees and allow them to submit reports.

“The only distinction is we would not be able to vote as a member state in the general assembly,” he says.

He says tribal governments have met with U.N. and federal officials, and they’ve found support.

Terry Sloan is director of the New Mexico-based group Southwest Native Cultures. The Navajo-Hopi, who already serves on United Nations committees, says more outreach is needed.

“What’s happening is that a lot of the tribes aren’t fully aware of this declaration, what it means and what it contains. So there is going to be some sort of an educational process throughout the country,” he says.

He also says many indigenous groups outside the U.S. aren’t aware of the effort. Many have faced violence when attempting any form of organization.

Sloan just returned from a meeting following up on the U.N.’s World Conference on Indigenous Peoples.

He says there was no consensus and years could go by before formal recognition happens. But he remains optimistic.

“When and if and how long it takes to get the implementation process through, we will see great gains for the Native Americans of the United States,” he says.

Sloan says despite differences, the Obama administration is very supportive of the U.N. effort.

He says the U.S. could become a model for other countries’ tribal government roles in the international organization.

A group in Kodiak recently completed an Alutiiq boat that was last seen in the mid-19th century. Alutiiq people once used the angyaq to travel over long distances and through rough seas. It’s an open boat, like a dory, with a flat bottom and bulbous bow.

The artist leading the effort says the boat builders aren’t just recreating the past. They’re reviving a piece of Alutiiq history for use now and in the future.

CJ Christiansen saws the curved edge of a seat he’ll install in his angyaq.

This is the first time Kodiak has seen an angyaq in about 150 years. Christiansen says the last record of it was from a stranded British sailor’s first-hand account of his rescue in 1850.

The boat’s 21-inch frame sits on supports in the back room of a former grocery store that’s now mostly used for storage.

Christiansen, who has carved everything from masks to harpoons, says his interest in building the angyaq came from his desire to recover a piece of Alutiiq culture. He says angyaqs were a big part of Kodiak life.

“Anybody should be able to do this. It’s not that hard,” Christiansen said. “It just takes a lot of dedication and pride in what you’re doing. Making sure everything fits. It’s really just taking art to the next level, going from one small art form to something bigger.”

Christiansen says kayaks were the everyman boat, but angyaq were special to Alutiiq people.

The flat bottom and rounded bow would have helped it float up strong waves.

“They had winter and summer habitations here,” Christiansen said. “So in the summer when they went to put up all their fish and all their food for winter supply, they would pack up the village in one of these boats and move it down to their summer habitation and then be able to bring back all the fish they put up and everything.”

Christiansen says villages took the boat hundreds of miles, from the mainland to Southeast, all around Kodiak and the Aleutians.

He says there are only a few sources that prove the angyaq’s existence, which makes building it a challenge. The group partially used the Yup’ik boat, the umiak, as a guide.

“Cause our people are related to the Yupik, we’d looked at their boat designs and had a book on how they were building their boats, and we kinda took their designs and modified them to what our boats looked like,” Christiansen said.

But, they also used one of the last remnants of the angyaq – wooden models Russian settlers took back home with them.

The models not only provide physical representations of the boat, but also reveal who might have owned them. Christiansen believes one family may have been responsible for the boat.

“Let’s see, there’s this picture of the boat, so you got the guy up there with the drum, the guy steering, and these guys all paddling, and then you see this guy here, see his hat?” Christiansen said. “Each one of these little rings is how many potlucks he gave. So, you know, three potlucks, he was a rich man, so he probably owned the boat.”

Christiansen says he and the other crafters put about 300 hours into the frame, but he says he was reluctant to track their progress from beginning to end. He didn’t want to fail.

But he says trial and error is the key to building a boat that hasn’t been seen for so many years.

“We might not got it 100 percent right, right now, but if more people start building ‘em and we start putting these in the water and taking them out and trying them, we’re gonna refine the design back to Russian time, pre-contact,” Christiansen said. “They were probably still refining it when they had contact…”

Christiansen says he wants to make this a boat for Alutiiq people now, not just recreate a relic from the past.

“To be building one… it’s just… an amazing journey for me to see this thing come to life,” Christiansen said. “You know, I don’t want to be the only one who makes one of these. Ten years down the road, I want to see everyone building them.”

He says he hopes people will even race angyaqs.

But first, they need to find a place for this one. Alisha Drabek is the Executive Director at the Alutiiq Museum. She says they’ll exhibit the boat outside the museum in mid May and then look for a permanent space. She says she’s proud to be able to showcase the boat.

“For the first one to be built in over a century, it’s amazing that it came together as quickly as it did, and they’re living the culture,” Drabek said. “They’re not doing this as part of a museum project. They’re doing it out of their hearts.”

Back in the old grocery story, one of the group members is putting a finishing touch on the boat- securing part of the frame with twine.

Christiansen and his team are excited to see their work on display later this month. And eventually they hope to test out an angyaq in the waves around Kodiak.

Iñupiaq artist Ross Schaeffer spent most of his life hunting, trapping, and fishing around Kotzebue, Alaska. Only in recent years has he transformed his lifestyle into creating artwork and carvings that blend traditional and modern techniques. Using age old materials such as woolly mammoth bone, Ross works on carvings inspired by his culture and natural environment, and encourages young folks to try artwork themselves.

Gov. Bill Walker was recently adopted into the Tlingit Kaagwaantaan Clan. The ceremony happened during the 80th Assembly of the Central Council of Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska, where Lt. Gov. Byron Mallott was also given a lifetime achievement award.

In a video of Gov. Bill Walker’s adoption ceremony into the Kaagwaantaan Clan, a Tlingit tribal member places a $5 bill on the governor’s forehead to symbolize a payment for the name.

Then the crowd chants the governor’s Kaagwaantaan name four times. He’s now a member of the Eagle’s Nest House within the Kaagwaantaan Clan, which means Wolf Clan. The clan is part of the Eagle moiety. Walker said being adopted by the clan was a complete surprise.

“It was exciting. Something I’d not been a part of before. It was all brand-spanking new to me and was such an honor. … My adopted name now is Gooch Waak,” Walker says.

Leona Santiago is a tribal delegate from the Kaagwaantaan Clan. She says she came up with the name in 2008 for an adopted family member. And now it’s the name given to the governor: Gooch Waak, which means “wolf eyes.”

She says tribal elders wanted to adopt Gov. Walker into the Kaagwaantaan because of the lieutenant governor’s Native roots.

“Because Byron Mallott is Raven and the Tlingit way, Eagle/Raven is a balance,” she says.

This 10,000-year-old tradition creates equal representation for Tlingit families. Few Alaskan leaders have been adopted into Native clans. Lt. Gov. Byron Mallott says it makes the relationship between him and the governor more whole.

“It was special to me. It is special for Tlingit people and I know it’s special for Alaska. The more we can bring those lives across this incredible state together, the stronger we are a state, so it was a good step,” Mallott says.

Recently, Gov. Walker introduced emergency regulations for the Indian Child Welfare Act. It would create lower barriers for extended family or tribal members to adopt Native kids. Essentially, less bureaucracy. Leona Santiago said the timing had nothing to do with adopting Gov. Walker into the Kaagwaantaan clan.

“No, that isn’t what we did. We did it to set the balance because Byron Mallott is a Raven,” Santiago says.

In the video of the ceremony, Gov. Walker dances to a traditional Kaagwaantaan song. He says being governor, you have a lot of one-and-done moments.

“And that wasn’t. That was a life changing moment for me and I knew that,” Walker says.

Gooch Waak or Gov. Bill Walker says he will continue advocating on behalf of all Alaskans.