2017 Video: Sitka, October

Opening Prayer, followed by welcomes from: Kathy Hope Erickson, Chairman – Sitka Tribe of Alaska Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins, Alaska State Representative, House District 35 Rachel Roy, Executive Director – Sitka Chamber of Commerce Gerry Hope, Executive Director – SOK Organizing Committee

Plenary address: Marianne Pember and Jeremy Braithwait, Intergenerational & Historical Trauma, Yesterday and Today: Moving… Read More

How can the trauma of language loss lead to negative health effects? How is poor health transmitted across generations? How are these negative effects being reversed? We’ll consider eyewitness accounts and scientific studies that shine light on the positive health effects of Indigenous ancestral language use for individuals and communities.

Bringing New Partnerships and Perspectives to the American Museum of Natural History’s Northwest Coast Hall

The American Museum of Natural History, New York, NY,  is planning to renew its historic Northwest Coast Hall, which currently displays ~500 Tlingit items. We invite your perspectives on two key questions: What are important themes, objects, history, and current… Read More

Urban Eskimo Language Revitalization Project Success and Challenges

Project Goal has been to develop an Inupiaq and Yup’ik Language Program promoting culturally-based fluency, through teacher training in three different methods and development of multi-generational immersion classes and activities. Participants will learn the successes and challenges of our language program in Anchorage and how we have… Read More

Revitalizing Cultural Knowledge as a Universal Right of Indigenous Peoples

Members with strong cultural identity are essential for sustainability of a community. The goal of this session is to examine the process of recasting school curricula by reclaiming complex cultural knowledge of STEAM. This will be an opportunity to educate the learners by decolonizing their… Read More

“Tlingit, American/Canadian? The 150 Year Old Question”  

3D Digitization & Replication

3D digitization of Tlingit objects using photogrammetry will be demonstrated as well as 3D printing.

Recording healing in SE languages

Each culture encapsulates in its language how to live a healthy life; language is the wellness resource for that particular culture. We will audio record language related to the wellness teachings embedded in Tlingit/Sm’algyax/X’aad Kíl. Everyone is welcome to participate with ideas, questions, language, or just to listen as we… Read More

The History of the Teehiton Raven hat. Shquindy’s hat (William Lewis Paul) as presented by his grandson Benjamin Starr Paul, koo-nuX-nuhsti, Teehiton Raven.

Recognizing and Reviving an Ancient Tool: The Tlingit Spearthrower

Spearthrowers were critical tools for Tlingit survival for thousands of years before the bow and arrow. Only a handful of examples of Tlingit spearthrowers survive in collections around the world, representing elaborate examples of Tlingit carving. 3D printed replicas of spearthrowers allow an opportunity to study… Read More

Native Americans and the Film Industry

Presenters will discuss their films on Native Americans they are either in the process of making or have made, and the potential for Native Americans to be in the film industry.

Voices Across the Water: Telling Our Stories, Gathering Strength

Our stories shape us and those who hear us. We sustain Tlingit culture through telling personal histories, community histories, and traditional stories. What songs and stories did your mother, father, grandparents sing and tell you that give you strength? What do you want your great, great… Read More

Healing through Humour with Gramma Susie

Healing Through Research and Education

Tlingit-led research and education are helping Tlingit people articulate history and language in our work and in our lives. This work with our Tlingit Elders and emerging Elders is healing.

RUSSIANS ENVISIONING ALASKA

The Tlingit Spearthrower: A Hands-on Experience

Spearthrowers (Shee aan) were critical tools for Tlingit survival for thousands of years before the bow and arrow. Participants will throw with spearthrowers and darts from around the world. We expect to have 3D printed Tlingit spearthrowers available for throwing.

Shx’éi Nancy Douglas, Kaaxh’áxhooskhaa Lillian Young, Kaasdahéen Yeil Phil Burdick, Chookán Lakrisha Johnson, Hint’eich Tristan Guevin, “Wooch.een-ing”

Working to Heal Historical Trauma in Sitka’s Education System

Since 2009, the Sitka School District, Sitka Tribe of Alaska, and the Sitka Native Education Program have been working together, Wooch.een, to heal historical trauma resulting from the education… Read More

The Seward Pole: Indigenous Claims in Alaska’s Sesquecentennial

How does the Tlingit shame pole erected at Tongass Village in the 1870s (to ridicule U.S. Secretary of State William Seward for failing to repay the gifts he received from Taant’a Kwáan leaders) complicate the 2017 celebrations of the Alaska Purchase that Seward helped to orchestrate and… Read More

3D Digitization & Replication

Incorporating Emerging Technology into Communities, Schools, and Homes

3D technologies allow access to fragile, unique, or remote cultural artifacts. We will describe scanning methods that can be used by everyone from high-school students to professors and will explore the applications of these emerging tools. Examples of applications to Tlingit culture will… Read More

Cultural Misconceptions about Alaska Natives

Communications basics… A veteran of Alaska’s media, Estus will provide advice on how to get your message across and at the same time, how to fight stereotypes with the truth.

Recording Healing in SE languages

Each culture encapsulates in its language how to live a healthy life; language is the wellness resource for that particular culture. We will audio record language related to the wellness teachings embedded in Tlingit/Sm’algyax/Xaad Kíl. Everyone is welcome to participate with ideas, questions, language, or just to listen as we… Read More

Overview of the Tribal Historic Preservation Officer Program

The National Association of Tribal Historic Preservation Officers will provide a history and overview of the Tribal Historic Preservation Officer (THPO) program created in the 1992 amendments to the National Historic Preservation Act. Since 2012 only one tribe in Alaska, the Organized Village of Kake, operates a… Read More

Juneau Tsimshian Language Learners

An overview of the Juneau Sm’algyax Learners Group shows how it has brought healing to learners and how we use technology to bring us together.

The Art of Clarissa Rizal and Teri Rofkar

Discussing the works of Clarissa Rizal and Teri, demonstrating how they transformed Tlingit artistic traditions of Ravens tail and Chilkat weavings into expressions of their own identities, values, and creative geniuses. How weavings are as culturally meaningful and spiritually healing as carvings and paintings.

Kiks.ádi Clan Houses and Names from Sitka

Clan house names from Sitka and the names of Kiks.adi ancestors are all used to demonstrate a lineal descendant’s perspective on the connection to places and stories, and house names are shared to begin documentation for future generations.

Full Circle: A portraiture Study of Three Successful Indigenous Educators and Leaders Who Experience Personal Renewal In Their Practice of Cultural Restoration

A qualitative inquiry using the narrative methodology of portraiture explores how the experiences and work of three successful Southeast Alaska Indigenous teachers and community leaders contributes to cultural sustainability and personal meaning.

Integrating Haa Kusteeyí into a Modern Tlingit Government

The need for healing our people today is traced to attacks on Haa Kusteeyí by governments and churches in Canada and the United States. Teslin

 Tlingit Council has taken 3 initiatives to integrate Haa Kusteeyí into modern Tlingit Government; our Constitution and Clan Governance, the Citizenship Code,… Read More

HANDS ON 3D Digitization and Replication: Converting a Physical Object to a 3D Model

Participants will be guided through the process of digitizing objects and converting them into high-resolution 3D scans that can be shared, printed, and preserved. Tools, including laser scanners, 3D printers, and VR viewers, will be demonstrated and participants will depart with… Read More

Tlingit Spearthrower: A Hands-on Experience

Spearthrowers were critical tools for Tlingit survival for thousands of years before the bow and arrow. Participants will throw with spearthrowers and darts from around the world. We expect to have 3D printed Tlingit spearthrowers available for throwing.

Kiks.adí Cultural Event

Russians and the Tlingit: Conflicts, Contacts, Legacies

 Andrei Grinev

Interethnic Marriages of the Tlingit During the Russian American Era and Their Significance

This paper deals with marriages and other forms of intimate relations between the Tlingit people and the newcomers from the Russian Empire as well as with Alaska Natives during the era of… Read More

Third International Tlingit Spelling Bee and Language Learning Activities.

Win a cash prize in the Third International Tlingit Spelling Bee. Practice new language learning games.

Sitka’s Lost Decade: The Story of 1867-1877

Explore how Sitka Tlingit and “Creole” people, the fur trade, missionaries and soldiers, “hootch,” and stereotypes shaped Alaska as we know it today from an historical and regional context and a detailed exploration of actual interactions and perceptions on the ground.

Recovering Tlingit ancestors and places in Louis Shotridge’s photographs

This work-shop will introduce and share copies of Louis Shotridge’s photographs, and will ask participants for their help in identifying photographic content. ALL are welcome and we would be most grateful for your participation! Gunalchéesh!

Canoe Making, A Journey: Sitka 2016

An oral and visual description of carving a 28-foot Northern Ceremonial canoe in Sitka, with four apprentices — Jerrod and Nick Galanin, Tommy Joseph, and TJ Young. Visuals will include historical photos and pictures of the work in various stages of progress. The carving of the canoe strengthened the… Read More

History and the making of the button blanket

Views and photos of early button blankets. My own sudden discovery of why we make the blanket the way we do. Instructions from my mother. Materials colors, and measurements. What anthropologists say.

Digitizing the Box of Knowledge – Developing a Sustainable Fire of Digital Data

The knowledge of our elder speakers has transformed from the spoken word to printed material and from printed material to various digital formats. The internet and other digital technology has given us the tools to increase the usefulness of this information. This… Read More

Held-In-Trust Collections at Sitka National Historical Park

Q & A on how the NPS can assist with caring for at.óow and other objects of cultural patrimony.

The park museum curator and other staff will provide an overview of the park loan process; how loan documentation is used and modified, preservation practices, access to personal objects…. Read More

“The film spends time with families whose works are present and of today, yet they’d make their ancestors proud, and their stories speak to the future.” Kaagwáask’

Screening of the documentary Lineage: Tlingit Art Across Generations

Du een yooxhwali.át – I’m going to visit him

A selected group will sit and discuss in a forum past and current cultural issues as other people around listen in.

Supporting Southeast Alaska Arts and Culture – Views from Sitka National Historical Park

The history and current efforts of Sitka NHP to support Southeast Alaska Native arts and culture, detailing the history and development and providing a highly-successful case study.

Tlingit Spearthrower: A Hands-on Experience

Spearthrowers were critical tools for Tlingit survival for thousands of years before the bow and arrow. Participants will throw with spearthrowers and darts from around the world. We expect to have 3D printed Tlingit spearthrowers available for throwing.

Wood Chips, Metal Shards and Beads: How Alaska Native Demonstrating Artists Create Authentic Connections with Park Visitors.

For more than five decades, the sight of adzes carving cedar, needles sewing skin and fabric, and chisels gouging metal could be seen while traditional Native songs resonated from the park’s Cultural Center.

100 Years: One Woman’s Fight for Justice.

Conclusion to 2017 Conference.

Peter Metcalfe, Stephen Haycox, Sergei Kan, David-Russel Jensen, Joaqlin Estus, Andrei Znamenski, Ilya Vinkovetsky, Andrei Grinev, Aaron Leggett, Dionne Brady-Howard

Panel Discussion: “Treaty of Cession: Causes and Consequences”