Door 15

2012 General Grants Announced

Hoonah’s Heroes

Women Make Movies

New York/Hoonah

$10,000

 Hoonah’s Heroes is a feature-length documentary profiling the extraordinary stories of Vietnam War veterans from the village of Hoonah, a Tlingit community on Chichagof Island in southeast Alaska, about 30 miles west of Juneau. Thirty-nine Tlingit men from Hoonah experienced combat in the Vietnam War, adapting their outdoor survival and hunting skills to become expert snipers and infiltrators. All but one of the 39 men survived, making Hoonah not only the American town with the highest per capita enlistment rate in the war but also the town with the highest survival rate of combat soldiers.

Before they went to war, the Hoonah men made their living as commercial fisherman. While they served their country in Vietnam, a law was passed that prohibited fishermen from catching more fish than they had the year before – so when the men returned home, they were robbed of their livelihoods as their old jobs were taken over by white men.

Hoonah’s Heroes traces the tension between the soldiers' tremendous pride in service abroad and the racism they encountered at home. It’s being directed and produced by New York City independent filmmaker Samantha Farinella.

For more information on the film click here.

ICEBOUND

API Arts and Outreach Inc.

New York

$10,000

This 90-minute documentary tells the story of the 1925 Serum Run, in which at least 34 mushers and 150 sled dogs relayed antitoxin across the Alaska wilderness to save the people of Nome from a deadly outbreak of diphtheria. ICEBOUND will be broadcast nationally on PBS as well as on German and French television. The filmmakers interviewed more than 30 elders, scholars, mushers, journalists and descendants of those who participated in the Serum Run.

Kodiak’s Filipino Community Stories

Kodiak Historical Society/Baranov Museum

Kodiak

$8,500

Although Filipino-Americans have lived on Kodiak Island for more than 150 years and now constitute 35 percent of Kodiak’s population, until this project there have been no museum exhibits or published research on the island celebrating and exploring their culture and stories.

The Baranov Museum, in collaboration with the Filipino American Association of Kodiak, is engaging high-school students in ethnography and digital storytelling about the history of Filipino-Americans on Kodiak, culminating in a museum exhibit during National Filipino American History Month in October 2012. A digital story kiosk will permanently display the stories at the museum after the temporary exhibit is completed.

The Alutiiq Word of the Week Book

Alutiiq Museum & Archaeological Repository

Kodiak

$8,483

This project will result in the publication of a 276-page paperback volume compiling the complete set of 458 cultural lessons from the Alutiiq Museum’s award-winning education program, Alutiiq Word of the Week. The book will also include an introduction to the Alutiiq language plus about 50 previously unpublished historic photographs from the museum’s archives.

THE DEFENDERS OF ALASKA NATIVE COUNTRY

Perseverance Theatre

Juneau

$8,000

Supports the development of “THE DEFENDERS OF ALASKA NATIVE COUNTRY,” a new play by Tlingit/Inupiaq playwright Ishmael Hope that focuses on the story William Paul, an Alaska Native leader who for more than five decades was instrumental in the Native civil rights and land claims social justice movements in Alaska.

Dena’ianq’ Huch’ulyeshi: The Denai’ina Way of Living Catalog

Anchorage Museum Association

Anchorage

$8,000

Dena’ianq’ Huch’ulyeshi: The Denai’ina Way of Living will be a catalog to accompany the first-ever comprehensive exhibition on Dena’ina history and culture, organized by the Anchorage Museum in partnership with the Alaska Native Heritage Center and scheduled to open in May 2013. One thousand hardcover and 3,000 softcover copies of the catalog will be printed.

Documenting Art Technologies

Friends of the Sheldon Jackson Museum

Sitka

$8,000

Through interviews and photography this project will document three Alaska Native artistic technologies – fish skin processing, gut processing, and bentwood hat processing – during public workshops held in Sitka by master artists. This will form the basis for three new technical papers in the “Concepts” series published by the Alaska State Museum.

Traveling By Story Through Copper River Country

Copper River Watershed Project

Cordova

$8,000

This grant funds the recording of oral history interviews of individuals living in the Copper River basin, including original homesteaders and the last generation of Ahtna language speakers. Interviews will be posted to the Copper River Watershed Project’s Tour Our Watershed website.

Alaska Statehood Pioneers: In Their Own Words

KTOO – Capitol Community Broadcasting

Juneau

$7,500

In 2004 noted Alaska historian Dr. Terrence Cole conducted extensive on-camera interviews with living delegates of the Alaska Constitutional Convention (November 8, 1955 – February 6, 1956) as well as individuals who worked at the convention. Alaska Statehood Pioneers: In Their Own Words will digitize and archive these interviews as an oral history collection at the University of Alaska Fairbanks Alaska Film Archives. Additionally, Juneau-based public broadcasting network KTOO will use the interviews to create a ten-part television series that will be broadcast statewide, added to the Alaska Film Archives collection, and housed on the web as free video-on-demand programs along with the full interview transcripts. DVD copies of the interviews will be made available for libraries, schools and state agencies.

People, Place & Parkland: Oral Histories of Pre- and Post-Park Wrangell St. Elias National Park

Wrangell Mountains Center

$7,550

McCarthy

This project will help complete the oral history record of Wrangell St. Elias National Park & Preserve, the largest national park in the United States, by focusing on perspectives that are underrepresented in the existing record. Specifically, the project will focus on individuals whose familiarity with the area predates the establishment of the park in 1980.

Moose Jaw’s Cabin

Alaska Children’s Institute for the Performing Arts

Kenai

$7,305

“Moose Jaw’s Cabin” will be a four-episode children’s television series with each episode exploring a different time period in Alaska’s history and highlighting important events and individuals. The episodes will cover, in order: Russian America (The Baranov era); the Alaska Gold Rush; the history of Alaska aviation; and the contributions of Alaska Natives to the state’s development. The episodes will be hosted by Moose Jaw, an old sourdough who lives in a cabin that has a magic door leading back in the time. “Moose Jaw’s Cabin” will air on KTUU-TV on Saturday mornings during NBC’s children’s programming.

To view a trailer for the series click here.

Formline Interpretation Project

Sealaska Heritage Institute

Juneau

$7,000

Sealaska Heritage Institute is creating a 30-page booklet titled An Interpretive Guide to Northwest Coast Formline. Using a combination of new illustrations and archived photos, the booklet will teach basic interpretation of traditional Northwest Coast art produced by Tlingit, Haida, Tsimshian and other indigenous people of the Northwest Coast of North America, from pre-European contact to present. It will cover the history of formline as well as characteristic shapes and colors, and clan crests as proprietary intellectual property. The booklet will be distributed free to regional schools and libraries. A PDF version will be available for free download on the Sealaska Heritage Institute website.

 

Kachemak Bay Writer’s Conference

Kenai Peninsula College

Homer

$7,000

The annual Kachemak Bay Writer’s Conference provides writers, students and literary enthusiasts with an opportunity to explore the art and process of creative writing and contemporary literature while fostering connections among writers, editors, agents and the reading public. The 2012 conference will be held June 8-12 in Homer and will feature 18 nationally recognized authors of nonfiction, poetry and fiction from Alaska and the Lower 48. Barry Lopez, arguably the nation’s premiere nature writer, will be the keynote presenter. Lopez won a National Book Award for his non-fiction work Arctic Dreams: Imagination and Desire in a Northern Landscape.

The Peratrovich Legacy

League of Women Voters Alaska Educational Fund

Juneau

$7,000

This project will purchase DVDs of For the Rights of All: Ending Jim Crow in Alaska for distribution to middle and high schools, University of Alaska Southeast facilities, and libraries in Juneau and throughout Southeast Alaska. This 2009 PBS documentary film, which was funded in part by the Alaska Humanities Forum, brings to life the remarkable story of Alaska’s civil rights movement – the inspiring story of Alaska Natives who, through non-violent social change, overcame prejudice and bigotry to win justice for all Alaskans. The Peratrovich Legacy (named after civil rights activists Elizabeth and Roy Peratrovich) will also provide a discussion guide for teachers and moderators to be collaborative with the film.

Koyukuk River Traditional Place Names: Hughes to Koyukuk

Yukon River Drainage Fisheries Association

Anchorage/Husila

$7,000

This project will map traditional Koyukon Athabascan place names and document their meaning and history of use. Place names and their significance were gleaned from numerous oral history interviews conducted in the Athabascan villages of Husila and Koyukok last September. These interviews will be transcribed, summarized and then archived by individual and community. Follow-up interviews for needed clarification will be conducted in Husila. Final products will include a coffee table atlas to be distributed to communities, schools and organizations in the region.

20^th Annual Last Frontier Theatre Conference

Prince William Sound Community College

Valdez

$6,000

Every summer the Last Frontier Theater Conference gathers around 300 playwrights, actors, directors and theater enthusiasts from near and far to spend a week immersed in classes, readings of new plays, panel discussions, and performances. Featured artists at this year’s conference will include internationally produced Australian playwright Timothy Daly; Artist Director of the William Inge Center for the Arts Peter Ellenstein; University of Alaska Fairbanks Assistant Professor of Directing Stephan Golux; Founding Artistic Director of the Circle Repertory Company Marshall Mason; and Alaska playwright Dawson Moore;

Homer Communities of Memory Project Jukebox

University of Alaska Fairbanks

Fairbanks/Homer

$5,000

In 1996 the Alaska Humanities Forum sponsored the Communities of Memory Project that held meetings in towns across the state where residents shared their remembrances about the history of their community and the qualities that made life there special. This 2012 grant will support the production of an on-line interactive program using ten oral history testimonies form the 1996 Homer Community of Memory project. These stories will be added to the existing Communities of Memories Jukebox website and available in digital form in the Oral History Collection at Rasmuson Library, University of Alaska Fairbanks.

Prince William Sound Museum Exhibit Model Construction

Prince William Sound Economic Development District

Whittier

$5,000

Funds the construction of state-of-the-art scale models of aircraft, warships and submarines pertaining to the history of World War II and the Cold War in Alaska, 1941 - 1991. Models will include a 1/72^nd scale Soviet Tupolev TU-95 Bear long-range strategic bomber and a 1/48^th scale model of a U.S. F4E Phantom fighter jet for the “Cold War Over Alaska” exhibit, and a 1/350^th scale model of the WWII-era U.S.S. Hornet aircraft carrier made of 433 highly detailed parts.

Sharing Our Knowledge: A Conference of Tlingit Tribes and Clans

Tlingit Readers, Inc.

Sitka/Juneau

$5,000

Bringing together Native and non-Native cultural experts, students and scholars in a multi-disciplinary and cross-cultural atmosphere, the “Clan Conference” concept was pioneered by the late writer and educator Andy Hope III in 1993 in Haines/Klukwan. The 2012 conference will feature presenters speaking on linguistics, archaeology, cultural anthropology, ethnohistory, indigenous law and other topics.

Sitka Lutheran Church Oral History Project

Sitka Lutheran Church

Sitka

$4.536

 In the 1970s and 1980s, project director Harvey Brandt interviewed Sitka Lutheran Church congregants to record an oral history of Sitka. This project will preserve this oral history by digitizing 30 VHS tapes and 40 audiocassette tapes of edited interviews onto archival quality DVD/CDs. Mr. Brandt will also conduct follow-up interviews to clarify selected issues concerned the 1966 fire that destroyed most of downtown Sitka, including the Sitka Lutheran Church archives. Copies of the DVD/CDs will be sent to the Alaska Historical Society, Sitka Historical Society, Kettleson Library, Sitka Lutheran Church Archives and the Library of Congress.

Alaska History Ledgers Digitizing and Transcribing: Lost Aleutian Logbooks 1875-1907

J. Pennelope Goforth

Anchorage

$4,470

Alaska Commercial Company (ACC) agents in the Aleutian Islands kept detailed logbooks chronicling their maritime fur trading with the Aleutian people. As part of this project about 700 fragile pages contained in six tattered ACC ledgers will be scanned, digitized, transcribed and archived in keyword searchable PDF format. Each page will also be scanned and saved as a high-resolution tagged information file (.tiff).

Traveling Exhibition of “When Crab Was King: Faces of the Kodiak King Crab Fishery 1950 – 1982.”

Kodiak Maritime Museum

Kodiak

$4,000

The photography exhibit “When Crab Was King: Faces of the Kodiak King Crab Fishery” had a highly successful run at the Kodiak Maritime Museum last year. This grant supports the creation of a traveling version of the exhibit, including a cell phone audio tour, which will be shown at museums and cultural centers throughout Alaska.

Alaska Native Hybrid (working title)

Rob Kinneen

Anchorage

$2,000

Directed by Tlingit chef Rob Kinneen, a proponent of using local, indigenous foods in groundbreaking Alaska cuisine, Alaska Native Hybrid will be a documentary based on a series of webisodes (short online documentaries) designed to inspire young Alaskans around the issue of cultural identity, using modern takes on traditional food as a means of opening dialogue.

 

“The Blue Bear” Opens in Anchorage

Juneau-based Preservation Theatre, the largest and most acclaimed theater company in Alaska, launches its first-ever Anchorage season this weekend with “The Blue Bear.” The play chronicles the friendship and adventures of Juneau wilderness guide Lynn Schooler and renowned Japanese wildlife photographer Michio Hoshino.

PT’s production of “The Blue Bear” will be performed at 7:30 p.m. on Friday and Saturday, February 10 and 11, and at 4 p.m. on Sunday February 12. Performances continue next weekend with shows again on Friday and Saturday (February 17 and 18) at 7:30 p.m. A Sunday matinee on February 19 begins at 2 p.m. 

For tickets click here.

“The Blue Bear” is presented in conjunction with the Anchorage Concert Association and is based on Schooler’s 2002 book, The Blue Bear: A True Story of Friendship, Tragedy and Survival in the Alaskan Wilderness. The Alaska Humanities Forum supported PT’s adaption of the book. “The Blue Bear” debuted last year in Juneau.

Here’s a description of the play from the Anchorage Concert Association:

Lynn Schooler was guiding in Juneau when he met Japanese photographer, Michio Hoshino. Both loved writing, photography, and Alaska's wilderness, and searched to find and photograph the rare glacier bear. Before they could find a blue bear, Hoshino was tragically killed by a 700-pound grizzly, and Schooler dedicated himself to getting their photograph to honor his friend. THE BLUE BEAR stages Schooler's achingly intimate portrait of a remarkable friendship, and combines Schooler's words with Hoshino's photographs in a stunning production.

For more background on the subject matter and creative process of “The Blue Bear,” click here.

A scene from "The Blue Bear."

Let's Learn Tlingit!

The Tlingit alphabet is almost twice as big as the English alphabet, and four of its 50 characters stand for sounds not found in any other language.  As with other Alaska Native languages, the number of birth speakers of Tlingit is decreasing, threatening its survival.

To help young Alaskans enjoy learning the Tlingit alphabet, the Sealaska Heritage Institute sponsored the interactive learning tool  “Let’s Learn Tlingit!” a set of whimsical flash cards with accompanying audio CD and web page. The project was funded by a grant from the Alaska Humanities Forum.

New Publication Details History of Alaska's State Parks

The February 8, 1970 edition of the Anchorage daily paper then called the Daily News carried an op-ed by local conservationist Art Davidson headlined “It’s a Great Place for a State Park.” In it, Davidson argued in favor of a controversial proposal to shield from development roughly half a million acres of land in the backyard of Alaska’s largest city by creating Chugach State Park.

“The Chugach State Park would protect the area from changes that will diminish its value, especially its recreational value,” Davidson wrote. “It will allow protection for some of the animals and birds of the area, assuring that children 10, 30, 80 years from now will be able to see the same wildlife we enjoy seeing today.”

More than four decades later, it’s hard to imagine life in Anchorage without Chugach State Park. The city’s wilderness playground comprises 40 percent of Municipality of Anchorage land and draws roughly 1.3 million visitors per year.

But in early 1970, Chugach State Park was little more than a daydream put forth by a grassroots coalition of outdoors enthusiasts determined to stop a looming timber sale in what is now one of the park’s most popular hiking areas.

Later that year, the Department of Natural Resources established the Division of Parks and the state legislature established the Division of Parks and designated the first three parks in the state park system: Chugach, Denali and Kachemak Bay. (Photo of Chugach State Park dedication ceremony, 1970, below right.)

“I think if we were to try something like that today, it would have a very hard time passing [the Legislature],” recalls Sharon Cissna, one of the early advocates for the park system and now a state representative for Anchorage. “But those were the days when we made things happen without money. We saw things that needed to be done, and you just did them.”

Cissna and Davidson’s recollections are just two of dozens of individual accounts of the early days of the Alaska State Parks system collected in the recently completed publication Alaska State Parks: Recollections from the People Who Shaped Alaska’s State Park System.

Sponsored by the Friends of Eagle River Nature Center and researched and written by veteran Alaska journalist Melissa DeVaughn, the 100-page collection of memories and photographs captures the history of the Alaska State Parks system as experienced by the Alaskans who helped create and care for it from 1970 through its 40^th anniversary last year.

The Humanities Forum supported the publication with a $7,500 general grant in 2010. It will soon be available for download on the Alaska State Parks website and will be given to all present and future state park employees.

F Magazine Covers Forum-Supported Hip-Hop Artist

The current issue of Anchorage-based monthly F Magazine, which covers arts, music and culture throughout Alaska, is a hop-hop theme issue inviting readers to "explore Alaska's urban culture with our in-depth look at the 49th state's hip-hop and rap scene."

It features a four-page spread on Inupiaq performance artist, playwright and rapper Allison Warden, who is creating a Forum-supported hip-hop album titled Inupiaq Ingenuity Through Time—An Oral History Made Fresh for the Youth.

For the project Warden is interviewing Inqupiaq elders and then transforming their traditional stories into hip-hop tracks.

“Before, the elders were in charge of passing on history, but now they are focusing on other things. They’re worried about hunting and subsistence instead. There are very few voices now to relate to our perspective,” Warden told F Magazine contributor Riza Brown.

“We’re like an endangered species. We have a responsibility to fight for our culture, to actively learn the language and the ways of the land, because if we don’t, we will lose all of that.”

Also in the story, Warden relates the mind-bending experience of being one of only two Inupiaq she knew to be living in New York City.

What tripped me out was that out of eight million people, there were only two Inupiaq. Me and Andrew MacLane [a well-known filmmaker and playwright from Barrow]. He lived on the other side of town so we rarely got to see each other. I felt, more than ever, that I had to be the most village I could possibly be. I would call my cousin three times a week so I wouldn’t lose my accent. It was really scary for me because it put into perspective how small my community actually is.

In addition to working on Ingenuity Through Time, Warden is finishing up “Calling All Polar Bears,” a 30-minute performance art show that addresses global warming and the resulting loss of sea ice in the Arctic.

Earlier this year Warden previewed a hip-hop piece from the show Chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities James Leach during his May visit to Alaska. In the song, “Where Did All the Ice Go?”, Warden raps from the perspective of a drowning polar bear.

Leach praised the piece as “haunting, powerful, thoroughly original work.”

 

"Blue Bear" To Launch Perseverance Theatre's Debut Anchorage Season

After 32 years in Juneau, Perseverance Theatre, (PT) is expanding its season to Anchorage in 2012 by remounting two well-received productions from its most recent season, “The Blue Bear” and “A Raisin in the Sun.”

Both offerings will be presented at the Sydney Laurence Theatre at the Alaska Center for the Performing Arts.

PT is Alaska’s largest and most acclaimed professional theatre company. Paula Vogel’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play “How I Learned to Drive" was written while she was a PT artist in residence. More than 50 new plays have debuted on its stages.

Presented in conjunction with the Anchorage Concert Association, “The Blue Bear,” which debuted earlier this year in Juneau, will feature its original cast in Anchorage next February. Lorraine Hasberry’s landmark 1959 play “A Raisin in the Sun” will follow in April 2012.

PT’s artistic director, Art Rotch, is excited to bring the shows before a new audience. “We turned 30 a couple of years ago and we had a change in leadership. It was time to take stock, look all the way back and then look forward more than a few years,” Rotch says. “To achieve our long term vision we needed to stretch and grow a little bit and reach more Alaska audiences.”

With support from the Alaska Humanities Forum, “The Blue Bear” was adapted from author Lynn Schooler’s 2002 book The Blue Bear: A True Story of Friendship, Tragedy and Survival in the Alaskan Wilderness. It chronicles Schooler’s friendship with Japanese wildlife photographer Michio Hoshino and their quest to find and photograph the elusive glacier bear.

When Crab Was King

“When Crab Was King,” an innovative exhibit featuring oral histories and photos from the Kodiak Island king crab fishery's storied heyday, closes June 1 after a monthlong run at the Baranov Museum. The exhibit will then be available online for the foreseeable future on the Kodiak Maritime Museum website.

The collection offer a fascinating look into what the fishery meant to Kodiak as seen through the fishermen, cannery workers, bartenders and other who lived through the island's greatest boom, which peaked in the mid-1960s and then gradually tapered off until the fishery was exhausted in 1982.

Visitors are presented with large black and white photos of two-dozen of these individuals as they are now, holding color photos of themselves taken 30 to 40 years ago. An audio tour of the exhibit is also available via cell phone by dialing a number and entering a certain code for each portrait. The audio portion consists of oral histories corresponding to each of the photos. The combination provides an intimate, personal perspective on the not-so-distant past through eyewitness accounts of men overboard, sinking ships, and piles and piles of king crab massing on the ocean floor visible even from airplanes.

“When Crab Was King” was supported by 2007 and 2011 grants from the Alaska Humanities Forum for $7,500 and $3,500, respectively.

The exhibit is an important piece of Alaska's maritime history that the Kodiak Maritime Museum's executive director Toby Sullivan, a former king crab fishermen himself who spent many years fishing the Bering Sea, is excited to be able to share with the public. Here, Sullivan talks with Door 15 about “When Crab Was King,” then and now.

You arrived in Kodiak in 1974. What drew you there and what was Kodiak like then as opposed to now with other fisheries replacing king crab?

I was 19 and had always wanted to come to Alaska. I hitchhiked cross-country from where I grew up in Connecticut to work on the pipeline, that was my vague plan, but it was not up and running yet. So I worked in a cannery in Kodiak and ended up fishing crab for 20 years in the Bering Sea.

The king crab fishery was a huge part of the community in those days. This was a wild and crazy place in the '60s and '70s, with a lot of young fishermen and cannery workers. It really was a boomtown, and a lot of fun to be a young person here during those times.

In the old days everyone competed for a set quota and chased those crab until they were caught, so it was highly competitive. Now each boat has their quota and fishermen can fish when they want, they don't have to go without sleep, and people don't die as often as they used too.

Time Immemorial Tour Closes Out With Four Anchorage Shows

A touring production of Time Immemorial, a play co-written by Yup’ik storyteller Jack Dalton and Inupiaq performance artist, playwright and rapper Allison Warden, winds up in Anchorage later this week with four shows at the Sydney Laurence Theater in collaboration with Out North Contemporary Art House.

Time Immemorial has garnered national acclaim since it was originally produced in 2009 at Cyrano’s Theatre Company in Anchorage as part of a program funded by the Alaska Humanities Forum.

A recent Arctic Sounder article summarized the plot: “It is the story of Miti and Tulu [Eagle and Raven], who are two souls born into different relationships through many different lifetimes.”

One lifetime they are brother and sister, another they are elder and child, and so on. These two souls interact through all of Alaskan Native history, and together they weave a beautiful story of our people moving forward through time, through change and retaining our strength and identity.

In a cover story profile of Dalton published last week in the Anchorage Press, he credited Warden with inspiring the project: “The [original] idea was to write a play about Alaska Statehood, and when I mentioned this to Allison, she said, ‘Well, statehood for Natives is just a blip in our history. We've been here for 10,000 years, so 50 years is hardly anything," Dalton says. "At that point I said, ‘Would you like to help me write this play?'"

 Dalton and Warden in Time Immemorial. Jamie Lang Photography.

After a successful first run, Time Immemorial was selected to undergo a rigorous dramaturgical process with Native Voices at the Autry in San Diego last spring and summer. The workshop led to substantial revisions, all of them positive, says Dalton.

“The last scene in the play used to be 12 minutes long; now it’s two minutes long,” Dalton said in a recent interview in the Alaska Humanities Forum offices. “They told us, ‘You have to trust your audience; your audience is smarter than you think. They get it.’ So instead of having the last scene be a complete retelling of the first scene, just from different points of view, we chopped it down to the essentials, and it’s much, much better.”

A full equity production of Time Immemorial is scheduled to open in Los Angeles next March, starring notable Hawaiian television and movie actor Kalani Queypo (Bones, Nurse Jackie, The New World) as Raven.

Dalton and Warden, who starred in the original 2009 production as Raven and Eagle, respectively, will reprise their roles for the Anchorage shows in what may be the final time they share a stage, at least in Time Immemorial.

 “Our careers are going strong and another collaboration such as this will be difficult,” Warden told the Arctic Sounder. “We are the writers and the original actors. Seeing us on stage together like this is a rare opportunity."

SHOW & TICKETS INFO:

Time Immemorial is scheduled to be performed in the Sydney Laurence Theatre April 21-23 at 8 p.m. and April 24 at 6 p.m.

Tickets are $20, available at www.centertix.net, or by calling 263-ARTS.

 

 

"Sailing for Salmon" Documents History of Bristol Bay Fishery

“Sailing for Salmon: Celebrating 125 Years of Commercial Fishing in Bristol Bay” is a collection of photos and artifacts documenting the rich history of the Bristol Bay commercial fishing industry, starting with the first cannery opening there in 1884. The exhibit has already shown at museums in Dillingham and Homer and will be presented at the Anchorage Museum beginning April 14 and continuing through September. Co-curators John Branson and Tim Troll are collecting exhibit material for a 50 to 70-page book of historical photographs and accounts cataloging the project. Their project is funded by a $4,000 Alaska Humanities Forum 2011 general grant

In this excerpt from a recent interview, Troll discusses how the collection came together, the importance of the commercial salmon fishery industry in shaping our state, and how lessons learned many years ago about the conservation of Alaska's richest fishing grounds still ring true.

The complete interview will appear in the upcoming issue of The Forum, a quarterly publication from the AKHF.

What inspired Sailing for Salmon?

For me the impetus for the exhibit was the realization in 2006 or so that the 100th anniversary of Bristol Bay fishery had long since passed without notice, but that the 125th anniversary would occur in 2009. Few Alaskans, including many in Bristol Bay, were really aware of the history of the Bristol Bay fishery. For that matter few Alaskans, especially those who came after oil started flowing in the pipeline, are aware of the fact that the foundation of Alaska’s economy for most of the state’s history since the purchase from Russia has been commercial fishing. I think part of the reason for that lack of knowledge is our failure to celebrate our ties to commercial fishing in the same way that we have recognized other industries. For example, the centennial of the Klondike gold rush in 1998 was honored with a state license plate and a major exhibit that traveled the state.  We have also preserved our mining history in places like Skagway and Kennicott, but have not preserved even one cannery. This is an oversight that I hope this exhibit in some small measure helps correct.  After all, salmon is probably Alaska’s longest and most consistent commercial export.

What are the scope and nature of the materials that make up the exhibit?

The exhibit is primarily photographs that focus on the sailboat days of the fishery, a period we generally date from 1884, the year the first cannery went into operation, to 1951, the first year in which power boats were allowed to fish.

The photos are a mix of those that John Branson and I found in museums and in personal photo albums. Some were taken by serious photographers and are quite compelling. A great example is a photograph by Ward Wells in the Anchorage Museum of a line of sailboats heading out to the fishing grounds at sunset. But even some of the photos taken by fishermen for their own record can be quite good. In fact, I think the most striking and iconic photograph in the exhibit was taken by [fisherman] David Carlson around 1939. It jumped out from his photo album. Composition, light, feel – it’s all there quite accidentally.

John and I looked for images that were representative of the sailboat days and captured the various activities of the typical sailboat fisherman. There are photos of getting ready, sailing, setting net, pulling net, delivering fish, and relaxing. Also in the mix are photos of some early canneries and tall ships. We didn’t include too many photographs of cannery operations and cannery workers because that is a whole other story.

We also spent a considerable amount of effort finding and getting quotes – some quite colorful –  from sailboat fisherman to describe the activities in the photos and to help convey to the viewing public and reader of the book a sense of what is was like to be a fisherman in those days.

What has the public's reaction been so far in Dillingham and Homer? 

In Dillingham we opened the exhibit on the day scheduled for the blessing of the fleet and the day the fleet was launched for the 125th time. The cannery cooked up salmon chowder, we flew in some traditional Italian hard-tack biscuits and had a community feed. We also gave special honors to the surviving sailboat fishermen. It was a fun, sunny day and lots of folks came out.

The opening at the Pratt Museum in Homer was, I am told by their staff, attended by more people than they had seen for an opening in years. Many people who live on the Kenai [Peninsula have fished Bristol Bay so the ties to that region are strong. We had some lively exchanges during the evening lecture and slide presentation. We hope to have the same for the Anchorage opening on Thursday evening April 14.

 

Kachemak Bay Archaeologist Documents Remote Sites

On a blue-sky day last August, a helicopter took off from Homer and flew northwest over Kachemak Bay. On board with the pilot were two photographers and Janet Klein, a longtime Alaskan and one familiar with the archaeology, history and culture of the Kachemak Bay region.

Funded by an Alaska Humanities Forum mini-grant, Klein had the helicopter for the better part of a day. Her goal was to document remote archaeological sites with aerial and ground photographs.

The locations included Silver Creek, a shallow, narrow and winding streamlet that runs from a small, unnamed freshwater lake at the end of a tidal flat to China Poot Bay, located in traditional Dena'ina Athabascan fishing and hunting grounds, about four miles from the Homer Spit. Although just a mile in length, Silver Creek supports a healthy annual run of silver salmon, as it has for many centuries.

 
The abundance of natural resources in the Kachemak Bay region has sustained human populations for more than 8,000 years, making it a wilderness trove for field archaeologists like Klein, the Homer-based author of The Archaeology of Kachemak Bay as well as dozens of scholarly articles.

“The cultural resources of this region include evidence of previous human settlements and activities,” Klein wrote in a catalogue of university and museum collections of Kachemak Bay artifacts.

“These resources, such as village sites, rock paintings, shell middens, refuse piles, and fish traps are unique and finite. They provide a fascinating chapter in the story of Kachemak Bay.”

In The Archaeology of Kachemak Bay, Klein predicted that someday a fish trap would be discovered “in a creek like Silver Creek.”

Interviewed via E-mail this month, Klein cited James and Priscilla Kari's classic reference book Dena'ina Elnena, Tanaina Country as one of the reasons for making her Silver Creek prediction. "They stated that in the old days the Dena'ina people caught salmon by damming small creeks with rocks or stick fences called hchit," Klein said. 'And, Shem Pete said about the same in his book: 'Salmon were also caught in basket traps and weirs in small streams and lake outlets. The Dena’ina especially used these latter methods for harvesting silver salmon in late August and September during fall hunts.'"