SHI to sponsor 2025 lecture series for Native American Heritage Month

Sealaska Heritage Institute (SHI) will sponsor a lecture series on Southeast Alaska Native history and culture in November in honor of Native American History Month.

All lectures will be live streamed on SHI’s YouTube channel. The talks will also be available in-person at Shuká Hít (clan house) within the Walter Soboleff Building in Juneau. Viewers are encouraged to pose questions in-person and online.

The series is schedule as follows:

Monday, Nov. 3

Lecture: Xenia Kashevaroff Cage by Dave Hunsaker Skaay’adaháich and Jim Simard Kóoshdaak’w Eesh

The artist Xenia Kashevaroff Cage was born in Juneau in 1913. She was the youngest daughter of Martha Bolshanin Kashevaroff, who was Kiks.ádi from Sitka, and the Russian and Alutiiq Orthodox priest, Father Andrew P. Kashevaroff. The lecturers will present a brief overview of their research on Xenia’s life and work. Xenia was an important contributor to 20th century avant-garde music and was considered to be a major artist in the Surrealist movement.

Dave Hunsaker is an Alaskan screenwriter and playwright based in Juneau, Alaska, and Venice, California. He has written for major studios including Fox 2000, Fox Searchlight, Sony, Warner Bros, Disney and HBO, and worked with directors Robert Redford, Norman Jewison and Guillermo del Toro, among others. For ten years he was artistic director of the Juneau-based Naakahidi Theatre, an international touring company of Native Alaskan artists. He is a recipient of the Alaska Governor’s Award for the Arts and received an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Alaska in May 2014. He is a Fellow of the Sundance Institute, a member of the Writers Guild of America and is an adopted member of the Lukaax.ádi clan.

Jim Simard, a librarian and archivist, is retired from the Alaska State Library where he was the head of the Alaska Historical Collections. Simard’s work with the Alaska State Library included the development of Alaska’s Digital Archives. He was a contributor to Sealaska Heritage Foundation’s Naa Kahidi Theatre and produced and directed Ishmael Hope’s play Gunakadeit, which was invited to the National Museum of the American Indian in 2006. Jim is an adopted Lukaax̱ .ádi clan member.

Wednesday, Nov. 12

Lecture: Kéet Ooxhú Hít Kooteeyaa by Shgendootan George

On August 1, 2025, the next in a line of Killer Whale totem poles was raised, followed by a ku.éex’. In this lecture, George will share the history of the poles that came before and the cultural knowledge, artistry and community collaboration that went into preparing for the raising of the most recent pole.

Shgendootan George is the daughter of Gabriel and JoAnn George, and the granddaughter of Jimmy and Lydia George and Kelly and Olive Callahan. She was raised in Angoon, Alaska, in her clan house, Kéet Ooxú Hít (Killer Whale Tooth House). At nine years old, she was brought out by her grandfather as the next leader for her clan house. She continues to maintain and live seasonally in the Killer Whale Tooth House with her partner Jason Frank and their two daughters. George graduated from Angoon High School in 1991 and earned a bachelor’s degree in fine arts from the University of Puget Sound in 1995, followed by study at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico. She completed her teaching certificate through the University of Alaska Fairbanks and spent 22 years blending teaching with culture and art, creating meaningful learning experiences for her students. Now retired from classroom teaching, she is a co-owner of T.I.D.E.S. Education Associates where she collaborates with local Native organizations and school districts to design, implement and provide training in cultural education.

Thursday, Nov. 13
Lecture: The Life of Byron Mallott

A lecture on the life of Byron Mallott, who was a major Native leader, will be held on November 13. Edward Thomas will serve as the moderator. Chris McNeil will speak about Byron’s tenure at Sealaska and Bruce Botelho will discuss Byron’s political life while Anthony Mallott will provide an overview of his personal life. A model of Mr. Mallott dressed in his Tlingit regalia is currently featured in an exhibit case in the SHI lobby. Additional information will be provided in the forthcoming weeks.

Tuesday, Nov. 18

Lecture: The Tlingit in Sitka: The Photographs of Elbridge W. Merrill by Sergei A. Kan

This lecture will focus on the recent written work of Sergei A. 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 ku.éex’) by Elbridge W. Merrill. He 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.

Sergei A. 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 Dakl’aweidí clans and given two names, and has participated in most Sharing Our Knowledge clan conferences, starting in 1993.

Sealaska Heritage Institute is a 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