SHI lecture to showcase historical Sitka Tlingit photographs
Anthropologist to discuss Elbridge W. Merrill's photography, collaborative research
Nov. 12, 2025
Sealaska Heritage Institute (SHI) will sponsor a presentation next week as part of its November lecture series honoring Native American Heritage Month.
Sergei A. Kan will present his talk, “The Tlingit in Sitka: The Photographs of Elbridge W. Merrill,” on Nov. 18.
This lecture will focus on the recent written work of Kan: The Tlingit in Sitka: The Photographs of Elbridge W. Merrill, which itself focuses on the photographs of the Sitka Tlingit people (including the famous 1904 Kaagwaantaan ḵu.éex’) by Elbridge W. Merrill. Kan plans to briefly discuss Merrill’s life and work, showcasing some of his most valuable photographs. He will also discuss his own experience with his Tlingit teachers and colleagues and their work to identify the clans, houses and names of the many people Merrill photographed.
Kan was born in Russia in 1953 and came to America as a refugee in 1974. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1982. For his doctoral thesis he spent a year in Southeast Alaska from 1979-1980, focusing on traditional Tlingit ceremonies and the history of the relationship between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Tlingit people. His published works include Symbolic Immortality: The Tlingit Ḵu.éex’ of the Nineteenth Century (1989), Memory Eternal: Tlingit Culture and Russian Orthodox Christianity Through Two Centuries (1999), and A Russian-American Photographer in Tlingit Country: Vincent Soboleff in Alaska. He was adopted into the Kaagwaantaan and the Daḵl’aweidí clans and given two names, and has participated in most Sharing Our Knowledge clan conferences, starting in 1993.
The lecture is scheduled for noon Tuesday, Nov. 18 in Shuká Hít (clan house) within the Walter Soboleff Building, 105 Heritage Way, in Juneau. The event will be livestreamed and posted on SHI’s YouTube channel.
Sealaska Heritage Institute is a non-profit tribal organization founded in 1980 to perpetuate and enhance Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian cultures of Southeast Alaska. SHI also conducts scientific and public policy research that promotes Alaska Native arts, cultures, history and education statewide. The institute is governed by a Board of Trustees and guided by a Council of Traditional Scholars, a Native Artist Committee, a Southeast Regional Language Committee and a newly formed Education Committee.
CONTACT: Therese Pokorney, SHI Communications Officer, therese.pokorney@sealaska.com