Alaska Native Arts & Culture

Dozens of Cup’iq artifacts like masks, harpoons, and dance regalia ended up in the village dump. The artifacts had been kept in a traditional sod house that was owned by the Kashunamuit School District, a one site district in the village. The school had built it in their cultural heritage program to show students the traditional ways of living.

Superintendent, Larry Parker, says in recent years it had become a safety concern and a liability issue.

“We had at least one student that had fallen through it. Fell through the roof of it and the police had to come and get him out,” Parker says.

The sod house was erected on the school’s softball field and when the school tried to relocate it they found out it had a lot of mold inside. Parker says the school district talked to the tribal council and the city of Chevak but neither one wanted the sod house, so the school decided to trash it with all its contents.

Chevak resident, Earl Atchak, says he didn’t know that was the fate of what was in the sod house. He helped retrieve some of the objects from the dump including stories from elders about being Cup’iq. He says that knowledge is invaluable.

“How to do anything,” Atchak says. “How to be a Cup’iq. Who are you? Who am I? Where do I come from and where am I going?”

But Parker says the community had notice. He says over a year ago, the school’s principal and new cultural director went through the sod house, removed the school’s belongings, and notified a man named John Pingayak of the dilapidated state of the house. Pingayak had retired from being the cultural director for decades and had collected the artifacts over the years.

Pingayak did not want to interview with KYUK because he used to work for the school.

Atchak says even though Pingayak had gathered the artifacts over the years for the cultural program, they belonged to the whole community. To him, it was clear that the artifacts should not have been trashed no matter the situation. He says they included videos of elders, ivory carvings, books and drawings that are one of a kind and irreplaceable.

He wasn’t able to salvage all the items but did retrieve a written interview with an elder who had passed away.

“There were pages and pages of hand written notes,” Atchak says. “If it was ruined and burned, how can we get those things back? Those were historical and those were the very who I am and where I come from.”

School Board member, Ignatius Chayalkun, says that he’s heard only a few complaints from the community about the school’s decision. He says the residents had time to do something about it if they wanted.

“They had plenty of opportunity to address this, address this matter,” Chayalkun says. “Now, after neglecting all this stuff, totally forgetting about them all this time, they suddenly want to make noise about this whole thing and try to blame the school district for the demise when they themselves should be blamed for this whole thing.”

Superintendent, Larry Parker, agrees that the school shouldn’t take the blame.

“I’m sorry if we destroyed somebody’s property but the school cannot be responsible for abandoned property and we can’t keep something unsafe around,” he says.

Atchak says he’s asking the Alaska Commissioner of Education to come to Chevak to address the issue. He would like to see a community wide meeting that includes the school board and all residents.

Astute observers of the State Library, Archives, and Museum project in downtown Juneau may have just noticed that the structure is now being built higher, much higher than this summer’s construction efforts.

“The community is going to start seeing that second floor wall section go on, which is as tall as the first floor,” said Bob Banghart, Deputy Director of the Division of Archives, Libraries, and Museums.

So, people are going to start paying attention. This is really a large building.”

Banghart has a suggestion for estimating the expected size of SLAM:

If you look at the crane, you look at the cab where the operator sits, count down three sections of the crane frame, that’s the approximate height of the building.”

On Wednesday, a pumping vehicle with an articulated boom pipe reached into the interior of the structure to pour concrete for the second floor slab as a chain of cement trucks came and went from the construction site.

Concrete form panels are already being erected to extend the walls even further up for the vault that will become the main storage area for artifacts.

The first of the current Alaska State Museum’s permanent exhibits on the second floor will be dismantled and packed up starting on October 7th. That will continue through February 28th when the Museum closes to the public.

Once (the current Alaska State Museum) is empty, it will be removed. Then they will add the other two-thirds of the construction project.”

The current Alaska State Museum includes about 24,000 square feet of space. By comparison, the new SLAM structure will be nearly 116,000 square feet. The parking lot will add another 64,000 square feet of space.

We’re pretty much on-schedule, on-budget, where we hope to be.”

Meanwhile, the Eagle Tree will return in the new structure. Banghart suggests that patrons and community members were very adamant about continuing with that exhibit.

Also planned for installation in the new building or on the grounds will be Science on the Sphere, the sculpture Nimbus in a restored form, and — hopefully — two of the current museum’s distinctive exterior side panels with the Pacific Northwest Native formline design. Banghart said that the recovery of two complete panels may be difficult.

We’ll have more on the project coming up next week on KTOO’s Morning Edition.

Sealaska Heritage Institute Art Director Rico Worl rubbed his fingers against the 26-foot tall Raven totem pole in front of the Gajaa Hit building off Willoughby Avenue on Wednesday.

Small bits of the soft wood flecked off.

“The wood is decaying,” Worl said.

And that’s just the beginning of his damage report.

“You can see this pole … the wing that fell off, a beak fell off,” he said, gesturing upwards. “Multiple parts have fallen off.”

A few feet down the sidewalk, he points out how the powerful Taku winds flow down Willoughby and strip the paint from the Eagle totem pole.

The Tlingit artwork has seen better days. And yet, flanking a similarly weathered Tlingit screen, the 35-year-old woodwork collectively still creates the imposing façade of a traditional clan house.

Around the corner, the project led by the Sealaska Heritage Institute has begun to replace the two aging Tlingit totem poles and the screen.

Wednesday was the first day of work outside the Gajaa Hit building in the Indian Village area of Juneau. Red cedar was in the air, and sawdust and wood chips piled up. Brothers Joe and T.J. Young were chain sawing, hammering and axing a cavity into the first of two massive logs.

The Haida carvers came from Hydaburg on Prince of Wales Island. They’re the same brothers responsible for the Eagle totem pole at the University of Alaska Southeast campus.

There’s an aggressive, but tentative timeline to have the first pole finished by October 1^st, before the weather turns, Worl said. The second pole and new screen are scheduled for next summer.

Worl wasn’t ready to disclose the exact cost of the carving project, but said a $150,000, one-to-one matching grant from the National Endowment for the Arts was a major part of it.

To retire the existing poles, a lowering ceremony is in the works. Traditions can vary, Worl said, but old totem poles may be “returned to the forest” – that is, put out to decay naturally—or they may be burned. He says it’s a decision that will be made with the Indian Village community later on.

The Sealaska Heritage Institute donated the cedar logs and hired the carvers. Additional grants came from the Juneau Arts and Humanities Council and the Juneau Community Foundation. And the Tlingit-Haida Regional Housing Authority, which owns the building, is paying for apprentice carvers.

After the Young brothers complete some initial work at the Gajaa Hit building, their carving operation will move to a more prominent work zone at Sealaska Plaza.

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to correct Joe and T.J. Young’s tribe. A previous version said they are Tlingit. They are Haida.

Six traditional canoes have retraced a historic Tsimshian route from British Columbia’s northern coast to southern Southeast Alaska.

About 100 people  paddled from the Canadian village of Metlakatla to the Alaska village of the same name. They arrived this morning (Aug. 7). Watch a video of the ceremony celebrating their Alaska arrival.

Kelly Bolton is organizing events on the American end of what’s called the Gathering Strength Canoe Journey.

She says it’s been a safe trip.

“Flat and calm. It couldn’t have been better. The weather was on their side. Everything was on their side,” Bolton says. 

Southeast’s Metlakatla was founded about 120 years ago by followers of Anglican missionary William Duncan. They canoed from their old home to a newly created Indian reservation, following a religious dispute.

The contemporary Canadian paddlers are in their eighth year of journeys. But this is the first time they’ve traveled between the two Metlakatlas.

Bolton says most of the canoers are teen-agers.

“We’ve even had several of our youth and three chaperones from Metlakatla who took part in this journey. So that is very historic, having our own people take part in this journey,” she says.

Watch a video of the canoes being greeted at Metlakatla, B.C.

The paddlers stopped at an isolated beach on Tuesday. They pulled into Metlakatla today as part of the community’s Founder’s Day celebration.

Bolton says leaders are planning a feast.

“It’s just been amazing the way the community of Metlakatla has all come together as one and how everybody has helped prepare for this. The amount of food that has been donated, the Native traditional food that’s been donated, it’s just amazing,” she says.

Bolton says the trip began July 31st. Canoers also stopped in Prince Rupert and several nearby Native communities.

The final stop is Thursday in Saxman, next to Ketchikan. Paddlers will then board an Alaska ferry for the ride back to B.C.

See more journey photos and information on Facebook.

Local, state, and Native officials, and Native elders donned hard hats and picked up shovels on Thursday afternoon to break ground on a new cultural center planned for downtown Juneau.

The Walter Soboleff Center will be erected at the corner of Seward and Front Streets with Shattuck Way running along the rear of the building.

The 29-thousand square foot space will be devoted to the research and study of the Tlingit, Haida, and Tsimshian cultures. The building will house education, arts and language programs, archives and artifact collections, and offices of the Sealaska Heritage Institute.

Former Juneau mayor and former Sealaska corporation chairman and CEO Byron Mallot heads up the group raising funds for the center’s construction.

This is what ANCSA is all about. To create another giant step in Alaska’s Native peoples contributing their strength and their essence, their beauty, their values, their traditions, and their heritage to all Alaska and even to the nation.”

First Lady Sandy Parnell spoke on behalf of Governor Sean Parnell who attended the event, but who could not speak because of laryngitis.

“Like Dr. Soboleff himself, let this center stand for peace and understanding, for mutual respect and honor, for working together to lift all people up. That, by lifting people up, it will communicate to the world the values of Alaska and the values of Dr. Soboleff.”

Dr. Soboleff’s sons Ross, Walter Jr., and Sasha also participated in Thursday’s groundbreaking.

And for those things which we hold dear in our hearts, it is so grateful to have this unfold before us in the name of our dad, Dr. Walter Soboleff.”

Selina Everson, past Grand Camp president, represented the Alaska Native Sisterhood:

We have progressed from our Tlingit box of culture to a building that will carry on Dr. Walter Soboleff’s legacy. We have come a long way. We have a long way to go.”

Other speakers included Albert Kookesh, Chairman of the Sealaska Board of Directors; Chris McNeil, Sealaska CEO and President; Juneau Mayor Merrill Sanford, Juneau Representative Cathy Munoz; Ed Thomas, President of the Central Council of Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska; Eagle Clan Leader David Katzeek, and Paul Marks who provided the Raven response. A letter from Juneau Representative Beth Kerttula and Juneau Senator Dennis Egan, who could not attend the groundbreaking, was read during the ceremony. The Yees Ku Oo dance group performed before and during the event.

Sealaska Heritage Insititute officials say they have raised about 75-percent of the funds needed for the $20 million project. Some of that money included state and CBJ appropriations, or grants from the Alaska Native Education Program or the Cruise Industry Charitable Foundation.

Completion is expected for the end of 2014.

The center’s proposed site, previously known as “The Pit” or the “Hole in the Ground,” was turned into a temporary park after Sealaska corporation acquired the vacant lot and donated it to the Sealaska Heritage Institute. The space used to be site of the Endicott Building or the Skinner Building which burned down almost exactly nine years ago.

The Reverend Doctor Walter Soboleff was a Presbyterian minister, and spiritual and cultural standard bearer of the Tlingit people. He passed away two years ago at the age of 102.

A Southeast Alaska cultural organization has hired a contractor to build a large Native arts and education center in Juneau.

The Sealaska Heritage Institute announced Monday that it awarded the contract to build the Walter Soboleff Center to Dawson Construction.

The contractor is headquartered in Bellingham, Washington, with an extensive history of work in Alaska.

Institute Project Manager Lee Kadinger says the bid process began with about a half-dozen contractors.

“We scored each of those proposals and selected the top three to move on to develop a full bid proposal. I guess you have the cream of the crop by doing it in that fashion,” Kadinger says.

Dawson’s contract is for $14 million.

The Soboleff center is estimated to cost $20 million, including land, design, artwork and furnishings. Officials say they’ve raised about three-quarters of that amount.

The center will be a 29,000-square-foot, three-story building in downtown Juneau, across the street from Sealaska regional Native corporation’s headquarters.

Kadinger says Dawson must follow Alaska-preference rules, since some of the funding comes from the state.

He also says the contractor must try to hire Alaska Natives.

“There’s not a requirement to use (a certain) number. However, there is language in there encouraging Native hire on the project,” he says.

Ground-breaking is scheduled for later this month.

The center is named after the Rev. Dr. Walter Soboleff, a Tlingit cultural, political and spiritual leader who died about two years ago.

It will house education, arts and language programs, as well as the institute’s archives and collections, and heritage institute offices.

Dawson Construction’s many regional projects include a shop for Ketchikan’s shipyard, veterans’ housing in Haines and a cultural heritage center for Klukwan.