Alaska Native Arts & Culture

Allison Mills manually drilled a bit into the base of a massive yellow cedar tree on Prince of Wales Island, in Southeast Alaska. The drizzly August day filled with the dull squeak of metal rubbing against wood. Once she reached the center of the tree, she gently pulled the delicate core sample free, lifted it to her face and inhaled the wood’s slightly spicy, medicinal scent. “I love the smell so much,” she said. 

Mills, 16, is Lingít and Haida, and had enthusiastically volunteered for the task. She is part of the Prince of Wales Island chapter of the Alaskan Youth Stewards, or AYS, a collaborative program that provides job experience, teaches leadership skills and gives rural youth a chance to support their communities and cultures. For 10 weeks this summer, her crew worked on natural resource and cultural stewardship projects serving their community. The session culminated in a four-day camping trip in a remote forested area, where the crew members searched for trees that might someday be transformed into totem poles or dugout canoes. The search — and the program itself — are part of a regionwide revitalization of carving and other cultural wood practices.  

The crew was exploring the Tongass National Forest, the largest national forest in the United States and the largest intact temperate rainforest in the world. At 16.7 million acres, it stretches across more than a thousand islands and encompasses 32 communities in Southeast Alaska. The forest sequesters carbon, provides drinking water and hydropower for thousands of people, and supports large fish and wildlife populations. It’s the foundation for sustenance, culture and a way of life for the Lingít, Haida and Tsimshian, who have lived in the region for millennia.

Over the last several centuries, Russians, Europeans and Americans colonized the region, and between 1902 and 1909, the U.S. government established the national forest on Lingít, Haida and Tsimshian homelands. The logging industry boomed a few decades later, with the first large-scale mills built in the 1950s. Global, state and national interest in Southeast Alaska’s timber intensified, peaking in the 1990s, when thousands of loggers clear-cut about 800,000 acres of productive old-growth forest, according to a 2013 study in the journal Conservation Biology, taking out a quarter to half of the region’s stands of large old-growth trees.. Clear-cutting remains a threat, since federal management of the national forest changes with each administration. Tribal nations and local residents have sought more involvement in managing the forest, but tribal governments have at times felt that federal agencies have discounted or overlooked their expertise. 

The AYS program may be helping to change that. Founded in 2017, it’s a partnership among tribal governments, tribal corporations, conservation groups, federal and state agencies, nonprofits and community organizations. 

After letting her fellow crew members smell the core, Mills carefully placed it in a protective container to be shipped to the College of Wooster Tree Ring Lab, in Ohio. Scientists will analyze it to better understand the decline of yellow cedar in Alaska and Canada, and how much of it is driven by climate change.

Meanwhile, four other crew members got to work assessing the tree. They measured the trunk’s circumference and height, looking for a minimum of 34 inches around and a height of at least 36 feet. They perched on fallen moss-covered logs to observe the twist of the trunk and the number of limbs and knots that obscured its face, factors that can hamper carving. They shouted the numbers to another crew member, who sat on the damp, spongy forest floor, recording data on a U.S. Forest Service-issued tablet. The information will join a database of trees that have the right characteristics for cultural uses.

It’s not clear how many of the rare forest giants known as monument trees are left. This inventory is part of an effort to shift away from unsustainable logging toward long-term management that supports cultural needs and new growth. “I love learning about our forest and our village, and learning how I can help protect it,” Mills said. “So even someday when I’m older, I can show my kids and grandkids everything, and just be able to have this beautiful place stay alive.”

Charlene Wolfe (Haida name: Jaat Gíigangaa), a Haida and Lingít carver from Craig, joined the search for totem trees on the last day of the campout, sharing her knowledge of trees suitable for carving. Wolfe told stories about growing up on the island and about her art, and she spoke of the hope local youth inspire. “I think it’s pretty phenomenal to see these kids out here, learning the things that they’re doing,” Wolfe said. “They’re the future. … We lost out on a lot of this because our culture, our native language, was taken away from us.” Forced assimilation included federal bans on cultural practices. “But we’re coming back stronger now. These kids here already have two steps ahead of what we had back in the day.”

After breaking camp, the crew traveled to the town of Klawock and met with Jon Rowan Jr. (Lingít name: Tooyeek), a Pueblo and Lingít carver and teacher, to get an idea of the possible fate of the trees they cataloged. Still in their muddy camp clothes, they gathered around a half-carved log inside Rowan’s carving shed, a large shop filled with loud rock music, the scent of cedar and piles of wood shavings. Rowan talked about the spark he felt the first time he saw a totem pole being carved in Klawock, in the 1990s. At that time, the practice of carving was rare in the area. “Now it’s happening all over the place,” he said. “It’s really cool.”

The recent resurgence is part of a larger push toward community and cultural healing. Healing is happening in the woods where AYS crews work on rehabilitation projects and catalog cultural-use trees, in the carving sheds where the doors are always open, and at the pole-raising events that bring everyone together to celebrate. 

“I feel like it’s a really cool thing that we’re doing, being able to look at all the different cedars and decide which ones are good for people in the future,” Mills said. “Maybe they won’t be used, but it’s still cool to have those trees noticed so that carvers could maybe one day be like, ‘Oh, yeah, that is a good tree.’”

 

Carving a future for the Tongass National Forest was originally published July 20, 2021 at High Country News.

Editor’s note: Photographer Bethany Sonsini Goodrich is an employee of the Sitka Conservation Society, a member of the Sustainable Southeast Partnership, a collaborative of community organizations, tribal governments, native corporations, land managers and others that supports the Alaskan Youth Stewards program.

Correction: This story has been updated to correct statistics on logging in Southeast Alaska. About 800,000 acres of productive old-growth forest were logged, not 1 million acres; and a quarter to half of the region’s stands of large old-growth trees, not half of all old-growth, were lost.

Bethany Sonsini Goodrich is a Southeast Alaskan writer and photographer who is deeply passionate about the power of story to inspire positive social and environmental change. When she’s not behind the camera, you’ll find her hunting, fishing, foraging, surfing, playing or sharing all sorts of tasty wild foods in the Tongass National Forest — her home.

Victoria Petersen is a freelance journalist living in Anchorage, Alaska. Previously, she was a reporting fellow at The New York Times and a High Country News intern. Follow her @vgpetersen 

As holidays go, Thanksgiving is fairly new, far removed from a time when expressing gratitude was a bigger part of daily life.

Speakers of Alaska’s Indigenous languages say they feel more ties to those times, due in large part to their close connection with the land.

For Ossie Kairaiuak, the word quyana, which means thank you in his Yup’ik language, Yugtun, has deeper layers of meaning – one with roots to a culture of sharing food, gathered from the land and the sea.

Kairaiuaik is part of Pamyua, one of Alaska’s most popular Indigenous music groups, known for its blend of traditional Yup’ik songs and drumming with African American harmonies.

Kairaiuaik’s music is inspired by his childhood in Chefornak, a community that sits on top of an expanse of tundra in Southwest Alaska. He says one of his first lessons on gratitude followed a successful seal hunt.

“As I got older, I was able to help my father more,” he said. “And I watched him butcher seals that my brothers had caught. And then he would hand me the choice parts, which are the shoulders of the seal, and he would say, ‘Kita,’ which means ‘here’ in Yup’ik. Kita would be followed by instructions to deliver the meat to an elderly couple.”

Kairaiuaik set out to their home with his hands full of seal meat and a heart that overflowed with joy.

“And I gently used my feet to knock on their door,” said Kairaiuaik, who was greeted by an outpouring of gratitude in Yugtun. “Quyanqvaa! Thank you so much.”

Kairaiuaik says, every quyana he heard was like a blessing that multiplied throughout his life, inspiring him and other hunters to return with food to share. It was a reciprocal, cyclical relationship that was almost sacred – that elders, when gifted with a piece of meat would often say, “Oh, boy. The one we never see has given us a gift,” — a reference to the Creator.

X̱ʼunei Lance Twitchell says the word for thank you in Lingít was also an expression of love and humility.

“I think the word has ancient origins,” said Twitchell, who has dedicated his life to preserving and sharing knowledge about the languages and cultures of Southeast Alaska.

He says the word gunalchéesh is related to a verb about making something possible, as in “Haa tóoch lichéesh,” which means “We believe it’s possible.”

Twitchell says he and other language experts have a theory that gunalcheésh was shorthand for a longer phrase, “It would not be possible without you,” which also makes it a gesture of acknowledgement – a way of making someone feel loved and valued.

Twitchell says the word gunalchéesh also brings to mind elders he’s worked with and clan relationships.

“I think about the ways we can show gratitude and help one another, and the ways that we support each other, through our actions and through respect and love,” said Twitchell, who says the essence of gunalchéesh is kindness and love.

“Some of our elders like the late Kingeestí, David Katseek, used to talk about the power of this phrase, sometimes by dragging out the last syllable.”

The last syllable of the Gwich’in word, mahsi’choo, is also drawn out.

“It isn’t just a casual thank you. It’s mahsi’ choo,” says Kay Wallis, emphasizing the last syllable. “It means so much to me, your kindness.”

Wallis is a traditional healer who was born in Fort Yukon but raised in various foster homes around Alaska. She says mahsi’choo is a word that always connects her to her cultural identity.

Wallis believes mahsi’choo is a word that radiates spiritual energy. She says her people’s long history of persevering through long, harsh Interior winters requires a spirit of gratitude – which her people have drawn upon to survive sickness, trauma and famine.

“I’m 78, and so when I talk about my elders, most of them have passed. But they all remember hunger. They remember the starvation period,” she said. “And then when somebody would just share a bone with them, a moose bone, a caribou bone, a piece of fish.”

Wallis says most of us today have never known such hardship and the importance of sharing whatever you have to give, no matter how little it is.

“Mahsi’choo,” she repeated for emphasis. “It meant so much. You’re keeping me alive. You’re keeping my family alive. Thank you from my heart.”

Wallis says gratitude was once a way of life, where thanks were given at every opportunity.

“You thank the sun for going down and coming up,” she said. “Thank you for the light. We’re so grateful for the light. Thank you, Creator. Mahsi’ choo, Creator.”

Wallis says Thanksgiving is the forerunner of the solstice on December 21, when the sun’s rays return to warm the earth and infuse words like mahsi’choo, quyana and gunalchéesh with love, light and life.

The Yáadaas pole is massive. It’s too old to stand now, having been carved in the 1880s, but when it did, it stood 52 feet tall and 4 feet wide. It even has a steel core, and had to be barged up on a flatbed truck because it was too big for a box.

Mike Jones is the president of Kasaan’s tribe. He said the village turned out on Nov. 5 to see the first piece of clan property to come back to Kasaan.

“I feel like the pole (has) been displaced for a long time and wanting to come home — and had to have some kind of recognition,” Jones said.

The last few years have seen similar efforts around the state, from bringing objects home to Wrangell to long-gone loved ones back to Kodiak.

Jones explained it’s a symbol of pride for the people of Kasaan, a Haida village on the eastern shore of Prince of Wales Island.

“We are the original totem pole people,” Jones said. “We’re the first. Totem pole carving for us goes back to mythical times. We are the only culture in the entire world to have monumental sculpture in front of every single house. Nobody else did that — none of our neighbors did that. So it really became a symbol of bringing our culture back.”

The Yáadaas pole spent more than 100 years away from the village. Jones said it left with then-chief Saanaheit (Wilson Peele), who was taking the pole down to California for the 1906 Indian Crafts Exhibition in Redondo.

Jones noted that he also took a dismantled house and other poles with him.

“And he actually took 200 tons altogether, including the house, the poles, and other paraphernalia — rattles and masks and things like this,” Jones said.

The pole was split into two pieces for the journey. After the show, it moved into a private collection. In 1951, the pole was found in a lumber yard, waiting to be made into pulp.

The pole was then placed in the courtyard of the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center until 2006, when it became too old to stand up and was put into storage. Jones said the pole was filled with cement and steel in an attempt to make it sturdier for display, and it was struck by lightning.

Then, in 2010, Jones said the idea of bringing it home started to reach Kasaan — where more than 100 years ago, it fronted the house of the chief.

“The Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center reached out to the Organized Village of Kasaan in 2010, expressing that they wanted to repatriate the pole,” he explained. “And at that time, we did not have our café or the carving shed. And there was some concern as to where to put it. And the main thing was the funding was not available at the time. So it stayed in storage.”

But when Jones took his job as tribe president in 2019, it also sparked his desire to dive deeper into his Haida culture. And he started thinking about the pole again. It was then that he got an email from Richard Rinehart, the CEO of the Central Council of Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska’s business center, who also wanted to make the repatriation happen.

“I first started going through this reawakening of our culture — because we went through what we call ‘the silent years,’” he said. “There’s been a cultural genocide through the boarding schools, and things like that, so a lot of us, my generation — I mean, I’m in my 50s — we didn’t grow up really knowing who we were and our history and our culture and stuff.”

Sealaska Heritage Institute helped pay for the repatriation, along with more help Tlingit and Haida.

Jones said that’s an important gesture.

“It’ll affect the way that I carry myself because I know that my village is important and it was shown that we matter,” he said. “We’re such a small tribe here, and Sealaska really stepped up to help us and bring our history back.”

It’s not just Kasaan that’s benefitting from the repatriation. Jones said he’s heard from Haida people in Haida Gwaii who admire the pole.

“And that’s the ripple effect of touching people from so far away,” he said.

Jones said the pole was placed on a site where the tribe hopes to one day build a cultural center.

“Metaphorically, we have something really solid to build on and work towards more repatriation,” Jones said.

The PBS Kids television show “Molly of Denali” has been nominated for Children’s & Family Emmy Awards in two categories: Outstanding Preschool Animated Series and Outstanding Writing for a Preschool Animated Program.

Vera Starbard is one of the show’s writers who lives in Alaska. She now also writes for the ABC show “Alaska Daily.”

But “Molly of Denali” is special to her because of its role informing young people about what it means to be Alaska Native. 

“We’re dealing with racism, we’re dealing with identity, we’re dealing with really serious Alaska Native issues,” Starbard said. “But in the context of educating small children, there’s just an inherently fun thing about that.”

Starbard is Lingít and Dena’ina. She said she often thought of “Molly of Denali” as a show about Alaska for Alaskans, but the Emmy nomination makes her think more about how people outside the state value the show.

“Alaskans in general kind of do that to themselves,” Starbard said. “You know, we love what we put out there to the world. But we don’t think anyone else will take it seriously or care about it. And this shows people ‘Oh, people do.’”

Juneau resident Frank Henry Kaash Katasse is a Lingít writer who is listed on the Emmy nomination. He thinks about people in the Lower 48 watching “Molly of Denali” often, because his family does.

“You know, this is something that my nephews can watch in Minneapolis, and my brother can go ‘This is our home,’ and they get a glimpse of what it’s like to grow up here,” Katasse said. “And that’s their connection to the place that my nephews’ ancestors have been since time immemorial.” 

For Katasse, writing for a children’s show means he can help create representation that he didn’t have as a kid.

“When I was little, I thought the Ultimate Warrior, the professional wrestler, was a Native guy, because I just didn’t have any representation that I knew of in the media,” he said. “Turns out he’s like, Italian from New Jersey. I was like, ‘he’s a Lingít.’ He wasn’t. But you know, we were grasping at straws at that point.”

Now, Katasse points to shows like “Spirit Rangers” and “Reservation Dogs” that give young Indigenous people a view of themselves on television.

When television creators submit shows to the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences for Emmy review, they send in a few episodes in a package. 

In one of the submitted episodes, called “Molly and Elizabeth,” Molly and her friend Tooey encounter uninformed white tourists who tell them they don’t “look Native” because they’re not wearing regalia.

Molly and Tooey then learn about Elizabeth Peratrovich and the work she did to advocate for Lingít people in Juneau in the 1940s. The kids then use this inspiration to educate the tourists about the harm they caused.

“Molly and Elizabeth is such an impactful episode,” said Yatibaey Evans, the show’s creative producer.

“Molly of Denali” has between seven and 10 Alaska Native writers on any given episode, according to Evans, who is Ahtna Athabascan. 

“I just leapt for joy and happy tears came down,” Evans said. “I’m so grateful to be recognized along with our incredible team of people that have been working tirelessly on the show since about 2016.”

The nominations were announced in early November. This is the first year of the Children’s & Family Emmys, which will be presented on Dec. 11. 

Vera Starbard is a member of KTOO’s board of directors.

Sol Neely used to give lectures around a fire at an outdoor pavilion on the campus of the University of Alaska Southeast –— even on cold and wet November days. On Saturday, dozens of people gathered at that same spot to remember Neely at a fire dish memorial, a Lingít cultural ceremony.

Neely was a professor at UAS for more than a decade. He taught English literature and was a community advocate for criminal justice reform through programs like the Flying University, a higher education program inside Lemon Creek Correctional Center.

He died in October on a backpacking trip in Washington state, where he was living. Even though he left Juneau in 2020, there was still a large group of people left at UAS and throughout the community who wanted to gather and celebrate his life here.

Alaska Native Languages professor X̱’unei Lance Twitchell was a close friend of Neely’s. He led the fire dish ceremony, which serves as a way to give those who recently died food and messages of strength to prepare them for their long journey after death. The offerings are passed through the fire. 

“For our guests that are here that we share love with and courage, sometimes we offer abbreviated versions of our cultural ceremonies with them,” Twitchell said. “The way that we grieve, the ways that we move on as Lingít peoples. So we thought we’d offer a fire dish.”

Twitchell invited those in attendance to write names of anyone else they would like to honor on notecards to be added to the fire.

“Because we’re inviting them to come. The things that we offer to our ancestors we give to the fire,” Twitchell said.

Fellow educators and former students say Neely always approached his work with love for people and for place.

Éedaa Heather Burge was a student of Neely’s who now teaches Lingít language classes at UAS.

“He started reconnecting with his own Indigenous family identity and understanding at the same time I did,” Burge said. “He was an incredible example for what that looked like, as an adult, to build that community, to build those places, to build those relationships with people, both where you were transplanted and where you where you came from.”

She asked all of his former students to stand with her, and a dozen or so rose. 

“I’m not quite sure what we’re going to do now that he’s gone,” Burge said. “Aatlein gunalchéesh, Sol, for everything you’ve given us. You’ve laid a foundation, we’re going to keep building on it.”

Will Geiger said it was fitting that Neely’s memorial be held at the Noyes Pavilion, when he attended each class of Neely’s postcolonial literature class outside, even on cold November nights like this one.

“I’ve been thinking lately that Sol often talked about how, based off something Cornel West said, he considered time to be a gift and a giver, rather than a limitation placed on what we’re able to accomplish,” Geiger said. “And so I’ve been thinking about what a gift we all received, having Sol here with us, rather than an impediment it is that he left us sooner than we would have wanted him to.”

Many people talked about how much Neely loved his daughter. Neely’s wife and daughter were at the ceremony, but neither spoke.

This summer, Cook Inlet Tribal Council took young people out berry picking as part of their addiction prevention programming. 

CITC is a tribal nonprofit that calls itself a “culturally-responsive social service organization.” Dr. Angela Michaud is the organization’s senior director of recovery services.

“With our wild blueberries, we didn’t get enough to make [the jam] for the 50 people that were in the room,” she said. “So we went over to Costco and got some blueberries and mixed it in with the wild blueberries and made our jam that way.”

She said adapting village traditions to a city like Anchorage helps youth tap into their culture to improve their health outcomes and decrease rates of addiction. 

“Anchorage is a huge village,” Michaud said. “It is [about] getting out there and having that feeling of connection.”

Prevention through youth engagement 

CITC has found through surveys that participants are consistently not using substances when they’re doing cultural activities. 

“That’s a five-hour period of time that they can say ‘I didn’t drink, use alcohol or drugs,’ and that they were happy,” Michaud said. 

With these promising outcomes, CITC is using two new federal grants to put Alaska Native cultural education at the forefront of its addiction prevention programs. 

“What we do is we implement culture for healing [to] prevent tobacco, alcohol, substance use and suicide,” Michaud said. 

With some of the money, they’re able to run monthly cultural events targeting Alaska Native youth and their family members.

Chris Delgado is from an Inupiaq family and serves as the prevention supervisor, running these activities for CITC. He grew up in Anchorage.

“I missed some of the cultural activities being raised,” Delgado said. “It’s going to be slowly forgotten if we don’t stop and do something about it. As long as we can engage the youth, then I think we’re in good shape.”

CITC’s prevention activities include more conventional trainings, like how to use the opioid overdose-reversing drug naloxone. But it also offers dance lessons, carving walrus ivory, berry picking, traditional story-telling, ice fishing and fishing with hooligan nets. 

These programs aim to boost Native youths’ confidence and teach life skills that the participants can learn and share, Michaud said.

A case for connectedness

A recent paper published in a leading medical journal outlined that adolescents who feel more connected to their community, their peers and their families have up to 66% less risk of substance use. 

Robert Blum from Johns Hopkins University is an expert on adolescent health and the primary author on the paper. He emphasized that studies have long shown that conventional, information-based addiction prevention strategies for youth have no effect on young people – and sometimes even have negative effects. He advocates for treating “young people as resources, rather than problems.”  

CITC has a program that utilizes young people in long term recovery as a resource, hiring them to help teach their peers.

“They’re able to share with others what their experiences were to help them be successful in the program,” Michaud said.

Small details, like offering food options that are part of traditional Native diets, brings these peer communities together.

“People started getting used to eating the salmon, and then this year we were finally able to get them out there to be able to fish for it,” she said. “And they got their own fish and brought it back. It’s just the excitement and the stories that came out of it.”

As a result of this program, she cites a decrease in recidivism rates and an increase in participants completing the program and securing jobs and housing. 

“We don’t want to just survive,” Michaud said. “We thrive [when] we brought this stuff to the table. We were overcoming our adversities, and that has a different feeling to it.”

A flipped model

Michaud says that many prevention programs take a Western medicine curriculum and just add Native words to them. But the CITC team has built its entire curriculum on culture. She says the Western models are secondary.  

“You’re teaching them how to connect with nature and getting people outside—away from distractions, drugs, alcohol and abuses,” Michaud said.

And these events aren’t just one-off get-togethers. Many youth participants join one event and then continue to sign up for others, even getting involved in other programs CITC offers to bolster employment and high school graduation rates. 

One group gathered seeds and planted them in a community garden. Once ripe, the food went to the Alaska Native Health Center so patients could eat traditional foods. 

“And how that relates with our culture is we’ve had so many traumas in the past two, three generations that a lot of the culture has been taken away,” Michaud said. 

She says Indigenous and Alaska Native people led healthy lifestyles for thousands of years, and only in the last few hundred years have had these health issues related to addiction.

“We were okay and then we weren’t,” she said. “And now we just go back to what we know and we’re okay.”