Sealaska Heritage Institute Press Release

SHI TO SPONSOR LECTURE ON HISTORY OF THE T’AKDEINTAAN CLAN

Free event to be offered in-person, virtually

Nov. 17, 2022

Sealaska Heritage Institute (SHI) will sponsor a free lecture next week on the history of the T’aḵdeintaan clan.

The lecture will be given by Tlingit Ken Kaax̱ḵaatuklag̱é Grant, who is the spokesperson for the clan and the chair of SHI’s Council of Traditional Scholars.

Through the talk, Grant will explore the history and the clan crests owned by the T’aḵdeintaan. Grant is from Hoonah, and many Native residents there trace their ancestry to Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve, which was their homeland until an advancing glacier displaced them.

Grant, as a clan member of the T’aḵdeintaan, carries the oral histories of the clan, and he also worked for many years for the National Park Service in Glacier Bay.

The lecture is scheduled for 12 pm, Tuesday, Nov. 22, in Shuká Hít within SHI’s Walter Soboleff Building, 105 S. Seward St. in Juneau. The lecture will be livestreamed and posted on SHI’s YouTube channel.

Sealaska Heritage Institute is a private nonprofit founded in 1980 to perpetuate and enhance Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian cultures of Southeast Alaska. Its goal is to promote cultural diversity and cross-cultural understanding through public services and events. SHI also conducts social 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 and a Southeast Regional Language Committee.

CONTACT: Kathy Dye, SHI Communications and Publications Deputy Director, 907.321.4636, kathy.dye@sealaska.com

Caption: Photo of Ken Grant by Nobu Koch, courtesy of Sealaska Heritage Institute. Note: news outlets are welcome to use this photo for coverage of this story. For a higher-res version, contact kathy.dye@sealaska.com

Sealaska Heritage Institute Press Release

SEALASKA HERITAGE DIGITIZES, POSTS CELEBRATION 1992

Video series shows sixth Celebration, more years to follow

Nov. 16, 2022

(Watch)

Sealaska Heritage Institute (SHI) has digitized and posted online video of Celebration 1992.

Celebration is a dance-and-culture festival first held by SHI in 1982 that has grown into the world’s largest gathering of the Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian people.

With more than 30 dance groups, Celebration 1992 was the largest event since it began in 1982, and that year marked the tenth anniversary of the festival.

One new event in 1992 was a Children’s Grand Entrance.

“Our Elders conceived of Celebration as a way to pass on some aspects of our culture to our children, and the first Celebration, hardly any children were there,” said SHI President Rosita Worl. “By 1992, you can see the event had taken hold, and children were coming from all over Southeast Alaska to Celebration.”

The event also featured a symposium on clan at.óowu, sacred objects.

SHI sought grants to digitize and share past Celebration tapes so the footage could be used as a resource for dance groups wanting to learn from past performances, language learners wanting to hear Elders speaking, people wanting to learn more about their culture and to teach others about Southeast Alaska Native cultures.

The rest of SHI’s Celebration footage, up through Celebration 2016, will be posted online. Celebration 2018 was the first Celebration posted on YouTube in its entirety in 2019.

The Celebration: 10,000 Years of Cultural Survival project has been made possible in part by a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and by the Institute of Museum and Library Services.

About Celebration

SHI held the first Celebration in 1982 at a time when the Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian were in danger of losing knowledge of their ancient songs, dances and stories and the meaning behind the crests depicted on their regalia and clan at.óowu (sacred objects). It was held at the urging of Elders, who worried the cultures were dying after a period of severe oppression, during which time Native people did not sing their songs and dance their dances in public. The first Celebration was meant to underscore the fact the cultures had survived for more than 10,000 years.

The event proved to be so profound, SHI’s board of trustees decided to sponsor Celebration every other year in perpetuity. Celebration sparked a movement that spread across the region and into the Lower 48 — a renaissance of Southeast Alaska Native culture that prompted people largely unfamiliar with their own heritage to learn their ancestral songs and dances and to make regalia for future Celebrations. Today, Celebration is one of the largest events in Alaska, drawing thousands of people to the four-day festival, including thousands of children.

Sealaska Heritage Institute is a private nonprofit founded in 1980 to perpetuate and enhance Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian cultures of Southeast Alaska. Its goal is to promote cultural diversity and cross-cultural understanding through public services and events. SHI also conducts social 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 and a Southeast Regional Language Committee.

CONTACT: Kathy Dye, SHI Media and Publications Deputy Director, 907.321.4636, kathy.dye@sealaska.com

Sealaska Heritage Institute Press Release

SHI TO SPONSOR PANEL DISCUSSION ON CONTROVERSIAL CLOSURE OF WALTER SOBOLEFF CHURCH, RECENT EFFORTS TO ATONE

Event held in honor of Walter Soboleff Day

Nov. 10, 2022

Sealaska Heritage Institute (SHI) next week will sponsor a panel discussion on the controversial closure of a Juneau church 60 years ago that was ministered by the late Tlingit spiritual leader Walter Kaajaakwtí Soboleff.

The discussion will examine recent efforts to atone for that decision by Kuneix Hidí Northern Light United Church, Northwest Coast Presbytery and Presbyterian Church U.S.A.

The discussion, scheduled in honor of Walter Soboleff Day, will be led by the Kuneix Hidí Northern Light United Church’s Native Ministries Committee, which organized in recent years to research the sudden and unexplained closure of Soboleff’s facility, Memorial Presbyterian Church. The committee led a successful local and national campaign to share the results of their research and reveal the injustice done to Soboleff and parishioners.

The group’s effort addresses a very old wound delivered to Soboleff that was also suffered by his widespread congregation, said SHI President Rosita Worl.

“I think Dr. Soboleff would be proud of the work done by the committee, particularly the Native people who took up this quest to address what was one of the most painful chapters of his life,” Worl said.

Soboleff, who was Tlingit of the Raven, L’eeneidí clan, was wildly successful in his calling as a pastor. He was the Presbyterian Church’s first Alaska Native ordained minister, and he assumed the pulpit at Memorial Presbyterian Church in 1940 at the age of 32. At the time, Juneau had two Presbyterian churches: a Native one and a non-Native one, which was later named Northern Light.

At his first service, only three people attended, but his congregation grew and soon the church became the communal heart of Juneau’s Indian Village, where it accommodated many functions and events in addition to sermons.

To reach other Southeast Communities, Soboleff also took to the radio to give sermons delivered in-part in Lingít. He grew a great following across the region during a painful time for Native people when racism was rampant and Juneau was segregated. Soboleff himself opened his church to all people—Native and non-Native alike—and his voice and messages were a source of comfort.

And so it was with shock that his congregants received news of the church closure from Soboleff in 1962. The moment was summed up in October by Tlingit Lillian Petershoare, who grew up in Juneau Indian Village during that period.

“Standing alone before his congregation, Pastor Walter Soboleff announces the closure of the memorial church. Silence from the Alaska Presbytery and National Board of Missions. No words of remorse. No explanation from the Presbyterian officials. They are absent. Just an abrupt closure,” said Petershoare, a member of the Northern Light United Church and one of the activists who pushed the church for reparations at a national level.

Soboleff himself was a kind and humble man, and he did not publicly criticize the Presbytery for its decision. But, he disclosed to family members the anguish it caused him. One day he opened up to his nephew, the late Tlingit leader Albert Kookesh, who had inquired about the closure.

“He said to me ‘That was the worst political thing that ever happened to me, and I should have said something. I should have said something,’” Kookesh recalled in 2019 at a SHI event celebrating the life of Soboleff.

Kookesh also said it was clear the Presbytery closed Soboleff’s church because it was growing too popular with non-Native people.

In 2021, the Native Ministries Committee wrote an overture, basically a resolution laying out the injustices that were done, and the group was successful in working with the Northern Light church to endorse it, eventually moving the issue through the Presbyterian hierarchy all the way to the national Office of the General Assembly in June.

SHI’s panel will consist of Barbara Searls, Chairperson of Native Ministries Committee and Overture Advocate; Petershoare, former Church Council Member, former Council Liaison to Native Ministries Committee and Co-leader of the Overture Subcommittee; Maxine Richert, Overture Subcommittee Member, Healing Task Force Committee Member, Council Member and Overture Advocate; and Myra Munson, Overture Subcommittee Member, former Council Member and Healing Task Force Chairperson.

During the discussion, panelists will recount their journey to rectify a wrong that until now stood for 60 years and came too late for Soboleff to witness. He passed away in 2011 at the age of 102.

The discussion is scheduled at noon, Nov. 14, which was Soboleff’s birthday and now Walter Soboleff Day. The panel will speak at SHI’s Walter Soboleff Building at 105 S. Seward Street. The talk will be streamed live through SHI’s YouTube and also posted there for later viewers.

Sealaska Heritage Institute is a private nonprofit founded in 1980 to perpetuate and enhance Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian cultures of Southeast Alaska. Its goal is to promote cultural diversity and cross-cultural understanding through public services and events. SHI also conducts social 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 and a Southeast Regional Language Committee.

CONTACT: Kathy Dye, SHI Communications and Publications Deputy Director, 907.321.4636, kathy.dye@sealaska.com

Caption: Dr. Walter Soboleff giving a sermon to part of his congregation at a harbor. After his church closed, Soboleff took his ministry to Southeast villages by boat. Photo from SHI archives. Note: News outlets are welcome to use this photo for coverage of this story. For a higher-res image, contact kathy.dye@sealaska.com. This piece was informed by writings by Steve Quinn, Joaqlin Estus and the Gastineau Heritage News.

Sealaska Heritage Institute Press Release

SHI TO RE-OPEN DOORS TO ALL SECOND-GRADE JUNEAU SCHOOL DISTRICT STUDENTS FOR ARTS INITIATIVE

Program part of partnership with Any Given Child Juneau, local group initiative

Oct. 31, 2022

Sealaska Heritage Institute (SHI) next week will open the Walter Soboleff Building to all second-grade students in the Juneau School District as part of a national program to provide experiences and learning in the arts to all children.

The excursion is part of the Ensuring the Arts for Any Given Child initiative established by the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts to create equitable access to arts education programs and resources for K-8 students. The Kennedy Center works with 25 sites in the country. Juneau was selected as the eleventh site in 2013.

The program provides an opportunity for SHI to expose children to Southeast Alaska Native cultures, said SHI President Rosita Worl.

“One of our goals is to promote cross-cultural understanding, and this program provides a way for us to share our culture and our arts with children,” Worl said.

Sealaska Heritage first participated in the program in 2015 and the arts excursions are slated to occur annually each November. Because of the pandemic, for the past two years the arts excursions were held online.

This year’s arts excursion to the Walter Soboleff Building is scheduled for Nov. 8-10. Students will attend a 60-minute session, which will include cultural stories told by Lily Hope and Mary Daaljíni Cruise, and a visit to the Nathan Jackson Gallery. An art kit developed by elementary art specialist Nancy Lehnhart was used to prepare and teach all second graders in the school district about clan houses and the glass house screen in Shuká Hít made by Tlingit artist Preston Singletary. As part of the lesson, the students made a miniature replica of the screen.

The Any Given Child Walter Soboleff Building Excursion is offered by Sealaska Heritage Institute in partnership with Juneau Arts and Humanities Council and the Juneau School District.

Sealaska Heritage Institute is a private nonprofit founded in 1980 to perpetuate and enhance Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian cultures of Southeast Alaska. Its goal is to promote cultural diversity and cross-cultural understanding through public services and events. SHI also conducts social 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 and a Southeast Regional Language Committee.

CONTACT: Kathy Dye, SHI Communications and Publications Deputy Director, 907.321.4636, kathy.dye@sealaska.com

Caption: Lily Hope telling stories to children at SHI’s Any Given Child event in 2017. Photo by Nobu Koch, courtesy of SHI. Note: News outlets are welcome to use this photo for coverage of this story. For a higher-res image, contact kathy.dye@sealaska.com

Sealaska Heritage Institute Press Release

SHI TO SPONSOR LECTURE ON CO-PRODUCING ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE WITH COMMUNITIES

Free event to be offered in-person, virtually

Oct. 24, 2022

Sealaska Heritage Institute (SHI) will sponsor a lecture on working with Indigenous communities to foster meaningful environmental research as part of its fall series.

In his lecture, Co-producing Environmental Knowledge with Communities: Prospects and Reflections, Professor Thomas Thornton will discuss an evolving approach to developing effective science and policy to address complex problems at the intersection of environment and society.

The practice of co-production emphasizes engagement with local communities as partners in research, monitoring and other knowledge-building activities, Thornton wrote. As a process, co-production holds the potential to build more relevant, accurate and credible scientific research by engaging diverse Indigenous and local expertise in the design, implementation, application and assessment of research to ensure that its products are meaningful and responsive to societal needs, thereby improving buy-in and impact.

Thornton’s presentation will draw on personal reflections of co-production processes in Southeast Alaska and describe a new study to be undertaken by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine to assess the co-production of environmental knowledge models and practices to provide guidance for researchers, communities and funders to best employ this promising approach.

Thornton was trained in environmental anthropology at the University of Washington, where he received his Ph.D. in 1995. Since then, he has taught at the University of Alaska, St. Lawrence University, Trinity College, Portland State University and Oxford University. He was also a visiting scholar at Beijing University, Beijing Normal University, the University of Hokkaido and the University of Kent.

He is currently the director of the Board on Environmental Change and Society at the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine and an affiliate faculty member of the University of Alaska Southeast Alaska Coastal Rainforest Center. He has collaborated on many research projects and publications on human-environmental interactions, mainly in Alaska. Thornton has authored/edited seven books and numerous articles on topics from a sense of place to hunting, gathering and fishing knowledge and practices to climate change and adaptation.

The lecture is scheduled for 12 pm, Thursday, Oct. 27, in Shuká Hít within SHI’s Walter Soboleff Building, 105 S. Seward St. in Juneau. The lecture will be livestreamed and posted on SHI’s YouTube channel.

Sealaska Heritage Institute is a private nonprofit founded in 1980 to perpetuate and enhance Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian cultures of Southeast Alaska. Its goal is to promote cultural diversity and cross-cultural understanding through public services and events. SHI also conducts social 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 and a Southeast Regional Language Committee.

CONTACT: Kathy Dye, SHI Communications and Publications Deputy Director, 907.321.4636, kathy.dye@sealaska.com

Caption: Photo of Tom Thornton, courtesy of SHI. Note: News outlets are welcome to use this photo for coverage of this story. For a higher-res image, contact kathy.dye@sealaska.com

Sealaska Heritage Institute Press Release

SHI TO SPONSOR LECTURE ON TLINGIT CULTURAL AND ECOLOGICAL KNOWLEDGE OF WOLVES

Free event to be offered in-person, virtually

Oct. 20, 2022

Sealaska Heritage Institute (SHI) will sponsor a lecture on Tlingit cultural and ecological knowledge of wolves as part of its fall series.

In his lecture, Gooch: Wolves in Tlingit Culture and Experience, professor Steve Langdon, Ph.D., will explore Indigenous people’s engagement with wolves in Lingít Aaní dating back thousands of years ago.

Wolves are palpably present in Tlingit cultural practice as “Wolf People” and in many daily experiences with Tlingit people, Langdon wrote. Wolves are central to Tlingit social organization, as the totemic representative of half the society, with Ravens on the other side. When a person is born of a mother who is a Wolf, they too become a Wolf and this status echoes throughout life in many ways, including in oral traditions, at.óow (sacred objects), regalia, ceremonial behaviors, names and art objects. In more recent history, Tlingits have adopted or shifted to the use of “Eagle” instead of Wolf as being the moiety or clan opposite of Ravens.

Recent traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) interviews with Tlingit experts extending from Yakutat to Prince of Wales Island identified an enormous and sophisticated range of understanding about wolves and their behavior. Some of this information includes pack locations, territories, movements spatially and seasonally, litter size, diet, hunting patterns, interactions with other animals and crossbreeding with dogs. 

The information presented in the lecture comes from a report to the United States Fish and Wildlife Service that biologists are using to conduct a Species Status Assessment for the Alexander Archipelago wolf under the Endangered Species Act.

About the Lecturer

Langdon is professor emeritus of anthropology at the University of Alaska Anchorage, where he taught from 1976 until June 2014.

Over his 45-year career, Langdon has conducted research projects on many public policy issues impacting Alaska Natives. He has advocated for policies that enhance and promote rural Alaska Native communities and their cultures in such areas as fisheries, lands, tribal government, cultural heritage, customary trade and co-management. 

Langdon has specialized in research on the history and culture of the Tlingit and Haida peoples of Southeast Alaska from pre-contact conditions through the historic period of 19th and early 20th century US governance. He has conducted extensive research on traditional ecological knowledge and uses of salmon by the Tlingit and Haida demonstrating the complex and rich relations between the people and salmon that sustained their cultures for centuries.

His book The Native People of Alaska is a widely used introduction to Alaska Native people.

The lecture is scheduled for 12 pm, Tuesday, Oct. 25, in Shuká Hít within SHI’s Walter Soboleff Building, 105 S. Seward St. in Juneau. The lecture will be livestreamed and posted on SHI’s YouTube channel.

Sealaska Heritage Institute is a private nonprofit founded in 1980 to perpetuate and enhance Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian cultures of Southeast Alaska. Its goal is to promote cultural diversity and cross-cultural understanding through public services and events. SHI also conducts social 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 and a Southeast Regional Language Committee.

CONTACT: Kathy Dye, SHI Communications and Publications Deputy Director, 907.321.4636, kathy.dye@sealaska.com

Caption: Photo courtesy of SHI. Note: News outlets are welcome to use this photo for coverage of this story. For a higher-res image, contact kathy.dye@sealaska.com

Sealaska Heritage Institute Press Release

SHI AWARDED GRANT TO EXPAND CAPACITY FOR ONLINE DIGITAL COLLECTIONS

Oct. 19, 2022

Sealaska Heritage Institute (SHI) has received a federal grant to expand its storage capacity for online digital collections by more than 600 percent.

The grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) will expand SHI’s storage capabilities to manage more than 300 terabytes of materials, including digitized photos, videos and other archival documents.

The new system will also streamline the process of uploading digital materials to SHI’s online database, making them more readily accessible to researchers worldwide at any time.

Under the award, SHI will also revamp its digital preservation policy to ensure archival practices are based on the most current professional standards and incorporate the next generation of preservation guidelines, said SHI President Rosita Worl.

“We currently operate a state-of-the-art facility and employ professionals who use best practices to care for our collections. But, technology is always evolving, and we’re evolving with it to ensure our methods are founded on the most up-to-date standards,” Worl said.

SHI’s capacity to store and manage archival documents is an essential element of its mission to perpetuate and enhance Native culture, art and history. 

“Our collection of documents, videos and media material related to language instruction and education curriculum has been growing exponentially in recent years and we want to be certain educators and instructors have access,” Worl said.      

This project was made possible in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services MN-251880-OMS-22.

Sealaska Heritage Institute is a private nonprofit founded in 1980 to perpetuate and enhance Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian cultures of Southeast Alaska. Its goal is to promote cultural diversity and cross-cultural understanding through public services and events. SHI also conducts social 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 and a Southeast Regional Language Committee.

CONTACT: Kathy Dye, SHI Communications and Publications Deputy Director, 907.321.4636, kathy.dye@sealaska.com

Caption: SHI’s Director of Archives and Collections Emily Pastore in the institute’s archives. Note: News outlets are welcome to use this photo for coverage of this story. For a higher-res image, contact kathy.dye@sealaska.com

Sealaska Heritage Institute Press Release

SHI TO SPONSOR LECTURE ON MIGRATION STORIES AND CRESTS OF THE YANYEDÍ CLAN

Free event to be offered in-person, virtually

Oct. 10, 2022

Sealaska Heritage Institute (SHI) will sponsor a lecture on the migration stories and crests of the Yanyedí clan on Thursday as part of its fall series.

In her lecture, The Place Where Your History Came Into Being Through Us, Lillian Petershoare will provide an overview of published information about the Yanyeidí clan of the T’aaku Kwáan.

Petershoare recognizes her mother, Kotchkei Dorothy Peters Coronell, as her most influential teacher and mentor. Through her lecture, Petershoare hopes to lift up the voices of Tlingit cultural leaders and scholars, as demonstrated by the use of the title of her talk, which was derived from a quote by Tlingit Elder Elizabeth Nyman of the Yanyeidí clan.

Petershoare cultivated a deep respect for Tlingit values taught by her mother, aunties, uncles, grandparents, cousins and neighbors as she grew up in the Juneau Indian Village. This strong foundation motivated her to pursue academic goals and earn a bachelor’s degree in history from Yale University, with a year at the London School of Economics, an education credential from the University of Alaska Southeast, and a master’s degree in library science from the University of Arizona, Tucson.

After a 22-year career with the U.S. Forest Service, 10 years as a research librarian and 12 years as a tribal relations program manager, Petershoare enjoys engaging in the arts, research, writing and social justice work.

Petershoare has been a contributor to several significant programs in the Juneau community.  Her contributions include: an audio walking guide to downtown Juneau, serving on the Native advisory committee for the city’s interpretive signs for downtown Juneau, and a number of productions related to Alaska Native culture and history including the effort to seek an apology and reparations related to the Presbyterian Church and the late Dr. Walter Soboleff. 

The lecture is scheduled for 12 pm, Thursday, Oct. 13, in Shuká Hít within SHI’s Walter Soboleff Building, 105 S. Seward St. in Juneau. The lectures will be livestreamed and posted on SHI’s YouTube channel.

Sealaska Heritage Institute is a private nonprofit founded in 1980 to perpetuate and enhance Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian cultures of Southeast Alaska. Its goal is to promote cultural diversity and cross-cultural understanding through public services and events. SHI also conducts social 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 and a Southeast Regional Language Committee.

CONTACT: Kathy Dye, SHI Communications and Publications Deputy Director, 907.321.4636, kathy.dye@sealaska.com

Caption: Photo courtesy of Lillian Petershoare. Note: News outlets are welcome to use this photo for coverage of this story. For a higher-res image, contact kathy.dye@sealaska.com

Sealaska Heritage Institute Press Release

SHI TO SPONSOR LECTURE ON HISTORIC STATE PRACTICE OF BANISHING “MENTALLY ILL” ALASKANS TO ASYLUM

Free event to be offered in-person, virtually

Oct. 6, 2022

Sealaska Heritage Institute (SHI) will sponsor a lecture today on the so-called “lost Alaskans” who were sent to an out-of-state asylum for the mentally ill, often never to return.

In their talk, Morningside Hospital: The Lost Alaskans, retired Alaska judge Niesje Steinkruger and amateur Oregon historian Eric Cordingley will discuss how, for 50 years, the state of Alaska sent “mentally ill” people to a private asylum called Morningside Hospital in Portland, Oregon.

Many of the detainees were Alaska Natives.

Initiating this process, a jury trial in Alaska would decide if a person were “really and truly insane” and if the trial resulted in a guilty verdict, a Federal Marshal would transport the “prisoner” south by dogsled, stage, boat or train. These Alaskans were gold miners, bankers, traders, basket weavers, fishermen, young mothers and children, the team wrote.

For the last 10 years, volunteers have been gathering the “prisoners’” names, identifying their villages and towns and finding the graves of those who died at Morningside Hospital. They have searched through the Department of the Interior quarterly reports at the National Archives in Washington, D.C., Territorial Court records in Alaska, death certificates in Salem, Oregon, and the cemetery records in Portland looking for marked and unmarked burial sites.

“The goal has been to collect the names of the people who were sent to this asylum and find the resting places of more than a thousand who died there,” the researchers wrote. “Many of the people shipped out to Morningside Hospital were Alaska Natives who were never returned to their families nor their villages. We have been seeking to find the names of these Alaskans and detail their stories. These are the ‘lost Alaskans.’

Niesje Steinkruger is a retired Alaska Superior Court judge from Fairbanks. With the help of the Alaska Mental Health Trust Authority, she and other volunteers spent a decade working in the Alaska State Archives, the Federal District Court Archives and the Nome Court Vault searching “sanity cases” to find the court orders that sent Alaskans to Morningside Hospital.

Eric Cordingley is an amateur historian living in Portland, Oregon. He has worked with Metro Pioneer Cemeteries documenting interments where records are missing. He has volunteered with the Lost Alaskans Project for 10 years, collecting and collating information, and is very honored to play a small part in its success.

The lecture is scheduled for 12 pm, Thursday, Oct. 6, in Shuká Hít within SHI’s Walter Soboleff Building, 105 S. Seward St. in Juneau. The lecture will be livestreamed and posted on SHI’s YouTube channel.

Sealaska Heritage Institute is a private nonprofit founded in 1980 to perpetuate and enhance Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian cultures of Southeast Alaska. Its goal is to promote cultural diversity and cross-cultural understanding through public services and events. SHI also conducts social 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 and a Southeast Regional Language Committee.

CONTACT: Kathy Dye, SHI Communications and Publications Deputy Director, 907.321.4636, kathy.dye@sealaska.com

Caption: Photos courtesy of Niesje Steinkruger and Eric Cordingley. Note: News outlets are welcome to use this photo for coverage of this story. For a higher-res image, contact kathy.dye@sealaska.com

Sealaska Heritage Institute Press Release

SHI TO SPONSOR LECTURE ON HISTORICAL TRAUMAS EXPERIENCED BY INDIGENOUS PEOPLES

Free event to be offered in-person, virtually

Sept. 27, 2022

Sealaska Heritage Institute (SHI) will sponsor a lecture by a molecular anthropologist on the historical traumas felt by Indigenous peoples, as part of its fall lecture series.

In his lecture, Epigenetics and Historical Trauma in Alaska Native Peoples, Ripan Malhi, Ph.D., will discuss how historical traumas experienced by Indigenous peoples of North America is correlated with health disparities, including increased risk for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), substance abuse and cardiovascular disease. Massive group traumas such as genocide, loss of land and foodways and forced conversion to Western lifeways may be embodied and affect individuals, families, communities, cultures and health.

His research was co-sponsored, in part, by SHI, under a memorandum of agreement with the Carl R. Woese Institute of Genomic Biology (IGB) and University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

“We used a community-engaged approach, designed to create mutually beneficial partnerships, including capacity building and data care. After obtaining permission from local Indigenous governments, this study involved Indigenous participants from two regions in Alaska,” Malhi said of the project.

SHI President Rosita Worl called Malhi a person of great character and a role model for his students and younger generations.

“It has been my great honor to meet and work with Ripan Malhi, a scientist who can see and accept Indigenous People as humans, equals and colleagues and not merely as objects of study,” said Worl, who is an anthropologist. “I can say this after decades of meeting with other scientists who were not able to break out of this mold.  I have the utmost respect for this noble person who has been most respectful to myself, our staff and our tribal members who have participated in our research projects.”

The objectives were to investigate if measures of historical trauma response were associated with epigenetic patterns from Alaska Native participants. Also, the study sought to investigate if cultural participation was associated with general well-being and potentially provide a buffer to and aid in the healing process of historical trauma.

Ripan Singh Malhi, Ph.D. is a professor in the Department of Anthropology, School of Integrative Biology, American Indian Studies program and Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. 

He earned his Ph.D. from the Department of Anthropology at University of California, Davis, and then completed a postdoctoral fellowship in the Department of Human Genetics, University of Michigan Medical School.

Malhi is a molecular anthropologist who collaborates with Indigenous nations to study the impacts of European colonization and the evolutionary histories of Indigenous peoples of North America. He co-founded the Summer Internship for Indigenous Peoples in Genomics (SING) Program, he currently co-directs the Center for Indigenous Science at the University of Illinois and is the executive editor of the journal Human Biology.

The lecture is scheduled for 12 pm, Tuesday, Oct. 4, in Shuká Hít within SHI’s Walter Soboleff Building, 105 S. Seward St. in Juneau. The lecture will be livestreamed and posted on SHI’s YouTube channel.

Sealaska Heritage Institute is a private nonprofit founded in 1980 to perpetuate and enhance Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian cultures of Southeast Alaska. Its goal is to promote cultural diversity and cross-cultural understanding through public services and events. SHI also conducts social 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 and a Southeast Regional Language Committee.

CONTACT: Kathy Dye, SHI Communications and Publications Deputy Director, 907.321.4636, kathy.dye@sealaska.com

Caption: Photo courtesy of Ripan Malhi. Note: News outlets are welcome to use this photo for coverage of this story. For a higher-res image, contact kathy.dye@sealaska.com