Alaska Native Arts & Culture

Juneau’s planning commission has approved the Douglas Indian Association’s request to build a cultural learning center in South Douglas. 

The single-story building will overlook Sandy Beach, the site of the former Douglas Indian Village, which Douglas’ city government burned in 1962. It will also overlook Mayflower Island, a traditional subsistence site now owned by the federal government. Classes will focus on Lingít language and food sovereignty. 

“The goal is to actually have a sense of belonging within the community that we do not currently have,” Dionne Cadiente-Laiti, the association’s education director, told the planning commission on Tuesday.

Seven nearby homeowners spoke at the meeting. Most said they were concerned about more traffic near the site, which is close to one of the trailheads into the site of the Treadwell Mine.

“It has been out of sheer concern for the safety of the residents, children, pets, daycare facilities that the neighborhood has always been overwhelmingly opposed to adding traffic and congestion,” South Douglas resident Erica Simpson told the commission. “The construction alone will be a significant and dangerous burden to the residents of the neighborhood.”

Others said the Douglas Indian Association should build the center somewhere else, like on a property they own on North Douglas. But Sean Boily, an architect working on the project, said the North Douglas property’s zoning wouldn’t allow for a learning center. He also pointed out that the South Douglas location is culturally significant.

“There’s a deeper vein than just buying a piece of property and developing it here,” he said. “It has a lot to do with the history of our community that we, and they, don’t want to see forgotten.”

Other residents said they were worried about noise and hours of operation at the center. Cadiente-Laiti said most of the classes would be fairly quiet.

“Our song and dance sessions do not usually go longer than an hour,” she said. “And they’re certainly not daily activities, because we’re conscientious of our high schoolers’ schedule.”

Some commissioners said they shared the neighbors’ concerns about traffic safety.

“I’m in support of the project itself,” Commissioner Adam Brown said. “I just don’t think it’s the right property to put it on.”

Commissioner Mathew Bell spoke in favor.

“In listening to my fellow commissioners, it’s difficult to sit here and listen to what all is being said when we see the value of this project,” he said. “Yes, it’s a very congested, difficult area, but this is Douglas Indian Association’s land. This was where their village was burnt.”

The commission approved the request in a 5-3 vote. 

They denied the Douglas Indian Association’s request to put angled parking spots along the front of the site, where drivers would back out directly onto St. Ann’s Avenue. Instead, they’ll have to put six parking spots on the site itself.

Boily said they hope to start site preparation work this year and begin construction in spring. They hope to finish construction in early 2025.

Alaska is the center of the universe. At least it is to James Dommek Jr., who hosts a podcast of the same name.

In the new podcast, on the streaming service Audible, Dommek traveled around the state to collect stories from various Alaska Native cultures, dealing with mysterious creatures, folklore and traditions.

Dommek says the idea behind calling the podcast “Alaska is the Center of the Universe” comes from the notion that, while many view Alaska as a final destination, for its Indigenous people, it’s where life begins.

Listen:

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.

James Dommek Jr.: Alaska is referred to by outsiders as “The Last Frontier.” It represents the wild, the wilderness, the unknown. But to Alaska Natives, it’s not a frontier. It’s home, and has been home for a long time. And so we’re comfortable in this wild. It’s not a frontier and a wilderness to us, it’s home. And to us, it’s the center of our universe. And I took the name from an Unangax̂ — or sometimes Aleut — story.

Their creation story involves these two hairy beings that fall from the sky and they land on one of the islands down in the Aleutians, and the beach grass breaks their fall. And these are the first people in their creation stories that have been passed down from who knows how long. As far as they’re concerned, this is the center of the universe. And I took that and I wanted to use that because you know, the word “Alaska” is an Unangax̂ name. Our state is named after one of their words. So I was like, I’ll name this after one of their stories.

Wesley Early: So episode one deals with the Hairy Men, or inuqpisuaq. It’s described as a lot like Bigfoot or Sasquatch and lives up north in Utqiagvik. You’re Iñupiaq and you grew up in Kotzebue. What was it like to essentially search for confirmation of stories I imagine you’ve heard for a long time?

James Dommek Jr.: It was really interesting. You know, Utqiagvik is a little bit bigger than Kotzebue. But it was really interesting to talk to someone who I knew was just a very seasoned hunter, knows the difference between a lot of things out there. And just to hear, you know, them talking about things they can’t really explain. I mean, the word itself, “inuqpisuaq”, if you break it down in our language, “inuq” means person and “pisuk” means walk. So if you flip it around, it means “walks like a person.” Why would they call something that, you know? If it was an animal, they would have called it the name for it. They wouldn’t call it, “that one’s name is ‘walks like a person.’” What does that mean, you know?

So I wanted to see what, you know, these elders had to say. I wanted to hear what these hunters… just to hear them tell their experiences out in the real wild, in the true wilderness. And so, they never had microphones in front of them. And a lot of them felt really relieved to kind of talk about it, and have someone interested in it.

Wesley Early: As the type of person who cares so much about these stories, and puts a lot of stock in the importance of storytelling, do some of these sound more reasonable than, you know, it’s just a myth?

James Dommek Jr.: Well, you know, I’m the great grandson of one of the last great Iñupiaq storytellers. And I’m born and raised in Kotzebue, and he was from Noatak. And I grew up studying his stories and realizing that, within all these ancient stories that have been passed on, there’s usually a sliver of truth in there somewhere. And I wanted to take these stories out and take them and look at them and find “where’s the sliver?” Some of them could be, you know.

I mean, talking to these hunters who spent a lot of time way out in the middle of nowhere, places most Alaskans won’t ever, ever set foot. And to hear them, you know, talk about their reality and their experience, and what they’ve seen… who am I? I can’t judge their reality. I’m just here to hear their story and just be captivated by it. And you just try to help share it. But I mean, I’ve always loved stories of the unknown. Alaska is a big, wild place. It’s a very magical, mystical place even to this day, and I think it always has been. And our stories reflect that.

Alaska is the Center of the Universe is available exclusively on Audible.

It started with a tweet asking when the world would get a collection of horror stories by Indigenous writers.

Authors Ted Van Alst and Shane Hawk answered the call — and soon found themselves with over a hundred submissions from new and established writers.

Van Alst and Hawk are the Indigenous editors of “Never Whistle at Night,” published in September by Penguin Random House. KTOO’s Yvonne Krumrey spoke with them about the instability at the heart of the horror genre, and how Indigenous authors have used that to tell their stories.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Listen here:

Shane Hawk: I mean, at first, it was merely a tweet. And they basically said, “Hey, when are we going to get an Indigenous horror anthology? You know, it’s time.” And so we were just kind of going back and forth. I think Ted came across it first. And we’re kind of like mulling it over — who’s going to step up and make this cool, new thing? 

I don’t think either of us thought it was really going to be us at first, we’re just kind of looking around. And slowly, but surely, it kind of came together by just asking other Indigenous writers if they’d be interested in the idea — behind the scenes, in DMs and emails — and just everyone kept saying yes.

Yvonne Krumrey: What does horror mean in the Indigenous context?

Ted Van Alst: I did an interview talking about horror and why horror and what. Because I think, because the foundations of horror are inherently unstable, and I think the lives of folks post-contact — if that’s what we want to call it — have a lot of instability. There’s a lot of, you know, on the other side of settling, there’s a lot of unsettling and how people respond to that. 

So, this sort of post-apocalypse that we’re living in lends itself to those ideas, and how do you express those? And they’re horrific, right? But how do you deal with them? Do you deal with them in humorous ways? Do you deal with them in really graphic ways? And I think that this collection reflects a real broad spectrum of how folks deal with horror, how folks project horror, or what that looks like.  

Shane Hawk: The basis of horror is kind of like being able to peek in vicariously into this kind of safe playground of, okay, these people are going to be placed into an awful situation, and we’re going to see how it plays out. And speaking about the post-apocalyptic part, I think what’s somewhat different about Indigenous horror is that the people aren’t necessarily placed into horrible situations. The horror is kind of already sinking in, intergenerationally.

I don’t know, it’s been very interesting reading all these stories and seeing how we all, in some ways, we have shared histories, we have shared experiences. But then there’s just a beautiful diversity to how we handle it. You can make something really beautiful, that really engages with the reader, whether they’re Native or non-Native.

Yvonne Krumrey: Can I ask a little bit about how the process of this anthology and gathering these stories happened? Were these all stories that were not published before this anthology?

Shane Hawk: They’re all original. That was one of our major stipulations for contracts that we sent out to people. There are 12 established names in here and 12 new voices. And then there’s Ted and me. And so it was a nice, even split between the two. It was very important for us. Our main mission was to increase the number of people writing Indigenous horror. And I think our open call kind of sparked that. 

It was July 27, 2021, and we gave people until November 1, 2021. And basically, it was just Ted and I sharing out the link on all the social platforms saying, “Hey, if you’re an Indigenous writer — maybe if you’re not a writer, and you want to try — send us your best story.” And it was a really fun process, really hard to really break it down because we had to say no to so many terrific stories. That’s why we’re hoping that there’s a volume two, volume three, volume 27. Keep it going forever.

Yvonne Krumrey: How many stories did you get from the open call?

Shane Hawk: We got over 100. I think it was like 105 or so.

Yvonne Krumrey: I even noticed in the first ones I got to read, the interesting blend of so many different ways to tell stories and ways to tell horror from more historical, you know, mid-19th century Alaska as it’s being actively colonized by industries. And then stories that are set now in modern Texas suburbia. And I’m wondering, what themes did you not expect to see that rose out of these stories?

Ted Van Alst: There’s everything you know, haunted people, haunted houses. There’s monsters and monstrous people. And there are themes and concepts throughout. But I think it’s important to remember, it’s not an ethnography, you know. It says Indigenous dark fiction.

Alaska-based storytellers will take the stage Wednesday at the Crystal Saloon to share what diaspora and belonging mean to them. The event, called “Displaced,” will feature writers of color from Juneau and Anchorage.

The idea came to Juneau musician Daniel Firmin about 10 years ago, in a poetry workshop. While his friend wrote about displacement of water, he immediately thought of his experience growing up in both Fairbanks and Fort Yukon, having a white father and an Alaska Native mother.

“I’m not quite sure what everyone else is going to do,” he said. “What I want to do is to talk about that feeling of not being accepted between two worlds that really are one.”

Firmin said that he never quite felt like he belonged — that he wasn’t ever white enough or Native enough for either community. After Unceded, an event this spring that featured musicians of color, Firmin pitched organizer Tripp Crouse the idea of doing a storytelling event.

For Crouse, the idea struck home, too. They’re Ojibwe and grew up in Illinois with the non-Native side of their family. Now, they’re in Alaska, with friends who have their own experiences with diaspora.

“A friend of mine calls Juneau the Island of Misfit Toys,” Crouse said. 

Crouse says this mix of identity and belonging fosters Juneau’s rich arts scene.

“It’s a place where we all sort of get together and hang out and do fun things and put on really cool events,” they said.

Crouse said there’s no cover because they want anyone to be able to come without a financial barrier. Any donations will go to the artists.

They haven’t reviewed any of the stories or poems the speakers will read, either, and there’s just one rule: It must be original.

“I really want it to speak from who you are,” they said.

Other storytellers will include Ernestine Shaankaláx̱t Hayes and Na Mee. Displaced is Wednesday at the Crystal Saloon at 8 p.m. 

Editors note: Tripp Crouse is a former KTOO employee. 

A totem pole carved over half a century ago by Chilkoot artists is coming home. It has started on a cross-country trip and will arrive in the Chilkat Valley in the near future, after spending decades in Delta Air Lines’ museum.

Work on the totem pole was documented in an old black-and-white photo. It shows a group of carvers hunched over the pole, apparently putting the finishing touches on a large face. A sign reads “Chilkoot Indian Carvers,” and the picture is dated March 1969.

Chilkoot Indian Association Tribal Administrator Harriet Brouillette said this week that she recognizes the carvers in the picture.

“I see Wes Willard in the photo, and John Hagen, and Carl Heinmiller,” Brouillette said.

Delta sent Brouillette the photo, when the company contacted her about the totem pole last summer.

“They said that they had a pole that was made by AIA,” Brouillette said.

According to Brouillette, AIA refers to Haines nonprofit Alaska Indian Arts.

“They believe in the ’60s, the pole was built in California during a tourism conference,” she said. “And the pole has been sitting in a warehouse in Georgia.”

The pole has been at the Delta Flight Museum in Atlanta, Georgia. Museum staff contacted Brouillette wanting to return the pole.

On the museum’s website, exhibits director Nina Thomas wrote that museum staff felt the pole was out of place in an aeronautics museum, and should be interpreted by a “cultural institution with expertise in Western indigenous people’s history.”

Museum staff told Brouillette they would ship the totem pole to Haines, where she said the association now has a home for it at Haines’ Fort Seward.

“And this couldn’t have happened at a better time, because we had just received the parade ground back with the tribal house,” she said.

The association has also recently received National Park Service funds to rebuild the tribal house on the parade ground, which has been decaying for years. Brouillette said it will be a great place to display the pole.

The pole is 14 feet tall. Two faces are carved at the bottom, and a beaver sits on top of them.

Lee Heinmiller, the director of Alaska Indian Arts, has some insights into how Delta ended up with the pole. In his youth, Heinmiller was part of the Chilkat Dancers, a traditional dance troupe. They would travel far and wide to showcase ‘Lingit culture.

“When we used to travel with the dancers and the carvers, we used to take a pole that was partly finished to the World’s Fair, or to trade and travel shows, and dance and carve on the pole and finish it there,” Heinmiller said. “And then the airline would end up keeping the pole for providing us with the transportation.”

According to the Delta museum’s website, the pole was a gift to Western Airlines. It sat in front of Western’s headquarters in Los Angeles until 1987, when the airline merged with Delta. Delta then shipped the pole to its museum.

In photos, the pole appears well preserved. The red paint seems faded. Heinmiller said it has probably been repainted.

“It’s got some green on it, that looks way more forest green than the blue-green that we would use normally,” Heinmiller said. “So I’m guessing somewhere along the line, over 30 or 40 years someone must have repainted it, or at least they repainted the blue, because the blue is the color that fades out the fastest.”

Brouillette said she has been making arrangements with the Atlanta museum to ship the totem pole.

“Once we settled on transportation and crating, we picked a date,” she said. “And the pole was packed up yesterday, and is now on its way.”

The pole is currently on a truck to Seattle, from there it will travel by barge to Haines. Because it is relatively short, Brouillette said it will fit well in the tribal house once it is renovated.

Heinmiller said there are other poles like the one headed to Haines around the country, with a similar history.

“I know there’s a couple of smaller ones, and the big one that we did that Alaska Airlines kept — I’m not sure where that one is,” he said. “In the last couple of years a couple of poles we’ve done over the years have resurfaced in somebody’s possession and they’ve written to us and said, ‘When was this done? So-and-so bought it in the early ‘70s.’ So I end up going back through the files and trying to trace that.”

According to Heinmiller, materials on hand in Haines can show when a pole was carved.

“We have pictures of most of that stuff, and details on who worked on them,” he said. “They are all labeled but it’s kind of a huge pile to go through for 50 years’ worth of boxes.”

Brouillette said structural work on the tribal house should be completed by the end of next summer. After that, replacing its carvings should take another year or two.

The Douglas Indian Association hopes to build a new learning center in South Douglas. The Juneau Planning Commission will consider permitting the project later this month.

According to information submitted by NorthWind Architects, the proposed facility is a single story building with a basement. It would include a classroom and a teaching kitchen. The Douglas Indian Association owns the proposed building site at the end of St. Ann’s Avenue near the Treadwell Mine Trail.

Kamal Lindoff, the Douglas Indian Association’s property management and transportation director, said classes would focus on Lingít language learning and food sovereignty. 

“It’s going to be on a small scale – probably no more than 20 students,” he said.

Right now, the Douglas Indian Association teaches tribal members about processing traditional foods like salmon and crab at Tlingit and Haida Community Council’s bingo hall.

The location is also culturally significant, he said. It overlooks Sandy Beach, the site of the former Douglas Indian Village, and Mayflower Island, a traditional subsistence site.

“It’s a pretty historical and important site for the Douglas Indian Association,” Lindhoff said.

The lot is about 13,500 square feet. Its zoning allows for an educational facility with a conditional use permit. The Douglas Indian Association is requesting a permit for up to 4,000 square feet for the building and up to 1,000 square feet of covered outdoor space. The planning commission will review the request on Nov. 14.

One major question is how to provide parking for the new facility. Because of the proposed size of the building, the architects are likely required to put in at least six parking spaces.

One option is to put angled parking spots along the front of the lot. Drivers would back out of those spots directly onto St. Ann’s Avenue. That design would allow for nine spaces.

“The DIA would consider posting some of these spaces as shared for public use, thereby expanding public access capacity at the trailhead at no cost to the City,” the architects wrote.

Another option is to put a small parking lot on site. “Due to challenges in site development and subsequent cost,” the architects wrote, the Douglas Indian Association is requesting a waiver to reduce the required parking from six spots to five.

Lindoff said he’s heard concerns about increased traffic or difficulty parking in the area. But he emphasized that the building wouldn’t be big enough to host large events.

“I can understand people’s concern, but I don’t think we’re going to be pushing that limit to where it’s going to be a problem,” he said. 

If the planning commission approves the conditional use permit for the overall project, their next step is to approve or reject the angled parking spot proposal. If they reject it, they’d consider the five-spot parking waiver instead. If both parking plans are denied, the planning process ends unless the Douglas Indian Association appeals.

Lindoff said he expects construction would take two to three years.