Sealaska Heritage Institute Press Release

SEVENTH ANNUAL TRADITIONAL ALASKAN GAMES TO KICK OFF THIS WEEKEND IN JUNEAU

Public invited to attend, watch livestream

April 1, 2024

(Register) (Schedule) (Volunteer) (Games Website) 

The seventh annual Traditional Alaskan Games will kick off this Friday in Juneau for athletes from 29 teams across Alaska, Canada and the Lower 48.

More than 260 middle school, high school, college and adult athletes from more than 20 communities will compete in 12 events that are based on ancient hunting and survival skills of Indigenous people.

The event will feature visiting teams from Seattle and Whitehorse and from across Alaska, including Hoonah, Metlakatla, Ketchikan, Sitka, Petersburg, Kake, Klawock, Thorne Bay, Anchorage, Seward, Sterling, Homer, Chickaloon Village, Utqiagvik and Nome. Students will represent teams from across the University of Alaska system, as well as Haskell Indian Nations University in Lawrence, Kansas.

It will also feature Juneau teams from Dzántik’i Héeni Middle School, Floyd Dryden Middle School, Juneau-Douglas High School: Yadaa.at Kalé, Thunder Mountain High School, Yaaḵoosgé Daakahídi High School, University of Alaska Southeast (UAS) and the Tlingit Culture, Language and Literacy Program.

The games are different from most other sports in that athletes competing against one another in the same events also encourage each other to reach new personal bests. Coaches give helpful tips and guidance to athletes from opposing teams.

The result is an uncommon comradery and respect among athletes who find a new network of supporters and friends through the games.

Coach Kyle Worl, who resurrected a high school team in Juneau after a near 30-year lull, has competed in the games for the past 16 years and describes it as a “life-changing experience.”

“The games helped build my confidence. I felt like I belonged, and that Native identity was acknowledged and embraced. It was a way to connect with my culture and come out of my shell,” said Worl, a Tlingit tribal member. Worl explained that Juneau’s event is open to parents and adults and that non-Native athletes are also welcome to compete.
The free event is scheduled from 5:30-9 pm on Friday, April 5; 9 am-6 pm on Saturday, April 6; and 9 am-5 pm on Sunday, April 7 at Juneau-Douglas High School: Yadaa.at Kalé. Event organizers are looking for volunteers. To volunteer, register here or contact Coach Kyle Worl at kworl@tlingitandhaida.gov or 907.227.4998.

The games will be livestreamed from noon to 6 pm, Saturday, April 6, and from 11 am to 5 pm, Sunday, April 7, on Sealaska Heritage Institute’s YouTube channel which will be accessible through the Traditional Games website. Spectators are also welcome to attend in person at Juneau-Douglas Yadaa.at Kalé High School at 1639 Glacier Ave. in Juneau.

Athletes who have questions should contact Coach Kyle Worl at kworl@tlingitandhaida.gov or 907.227.4998.

About Traditional Games

The Traditional Games includes a variety of athletic events that test skills of strength, agility, balance, endurance and focus. These games are based on hunting and survival skills of the Indigenous peoples of Alaska and across the Arctic going back hundreds of years. Athletes strive to perform at their personal best while helping and supporting their fellow competitors, no matter what team they represent. This is the spirit of the games: to work together toward common goals and learn from the skills and values that have allowed Alaska Native people to survive and thrive in some of the harshest conditions.

Sponsors and Partners

The Traditional Games and Juneau’s NYO teams are a community collaboration made possible by the following major sponsors:

One Foot High Kick Level

• Central Council Tlingit and Haida
• Sealaska
• Sealaska Heritage
• Select Physical Therapy

Two Foot High Kick Level

• Juneau Tlingit and Haida Community Council
• University of Alaska Southeast

Alaskan High Kick Level

• Juneau Community Foundation
• SEARHC
• Trickster Company
• Worl Family

One Hand Reach Level

• Thyes Schaub
• Pat Tynan and Rick Harris

Partners

• Goldbelt Heritage
• Juneau School District
• UAS Wooch.Een student club
• Zach Gordon Youth Services (BAM afterschool program)

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; Kyle Worl, Director of the Traditional Games Competition/Coach, 907.227.4998, kworl@tlingitandhaida.gov

Sealaska Heritage Institute Press Release

SHI TO SPONSOR LECTURE SERIES ON SOUTHEAST ALASKA NATIVE LANGUAGES

Free event to be offered in-person, and via livestream.

March 6, 2024

Sealaska Heritage Institute (SHI) will sponsor a free lecture series on the challenges and successes faced by language students learning Lingít (Tlingit), X̱aad Kíl (Haida) and Shm’algyack (Tsimshian).

The series, “Honoring Our Ancestors and Future Generations” (Haa Shuká in Tlingit; Íitl’ Kuníisii in Haida and Na Łagigyetgm in Tsimshian), is part of an effort to unite language learners and culture leaders so they can focus on language instruction, programs and resources available to students.

“We have learned through our ongoing Language Scholars program for Lingít, X̱aad Kíl and Shm’algyack students that the journey has its challenges. We want to support our students and ease their way, as the work they are doing is so important to revitalizing our ancient languages,” said Dr. Rosita Ḵaaháni Worl, president of SHI.

Lecturers will share the challenges and successes of their work to demonstrate to other language learners what is possible and to assure them they are not alone.

All lectures will be held in-person at noon (Alaska time) at the Walter Soboleff Building in Juneau. SHI will also live stream the series on YouTube, where the recordings will be viewable immediately after. Viewers are encouraged to pose questions in-person and online.

The three-part series is scheduled as follows:

Thursday, March 14
Linda Schrack (Skíl Jáadei): Honoring Our Speakers: Past, Present, and Future

Skíl Jáadei Linda Schrack is a Haida language teacher and an assistant professor of Alaska Native languages at UAS. She has been teaching the Haida language at the university since 2014 and holds a Master of Arts in Indigenous languages and linguistics from Simon Fraser University. Skíl Jáadei worked for the Ketchikan Indian Community Johnson O’Malley program beginning in 2006. In 2008, she initiated the program’s shift from a culture and arts focus to Tlingit, Tsimshian and Haida language mentor-apprentice programming. While Haida is Skíl Jáadei’s focus, she continually advocates for Tsimshian and Tlingit languages and culture.

Tuesday, March 19
 Robert Yates (Dag Júus): Enduring Language Work has its Rewards

Dag Júus Robert Yates is a Haida language teacher and a former student of SHI’s language scholars’ program, through which he completed his Indigenous Teaching Certificate in Haida. Since then, he has been teaching community classes through Outer Coast and Tlingit and Haida Central Council. He has also taught Beginning Haida language classes through UAS.

Friday, March 22
Anna Clock (Neelaatughaa): Scholar to Teacher – Building your Mentor Team

Neelaatughaa Anna Clock is a Tlingit language teacher and a former student of SHI’s Language Scholars program. She teaches the Tlingit language at the University of Alaska Anchorage. She also hosts an online study group, transcribes, and translates recordings from Tlingit to English and creates instructional videos of her own. In 2022, Anna completed her Indigenous Teaching Certificate in Tlingit as an SHI Language Scholar.

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.

Sealaska Heritage Institute Press Release

SHI PUBLISHES LANDMARK BOOK ON SLAVERY IN ALASKA THAT ENDURED AFTER FEDERAL ABOLISHMENT

Book explores Haida man’s courageous quest for freedom that ended slavery in Alaska

Get The Book

Feb. 8, 2024

Sealaska Heritage Institute (SHI) has published a landmark book on the era of Indigenous slavery in Alaska that endured more than two decades after passage of the 13th Amendment to the federal constitution, which abolished the practice two years before Alaska became part of the United States in 1867.

The book tells the story of Sah Quah, a Haida man who embarked on a courageous quest for freedom from his Tlingit owner, and the trial that ultimately ended human bondage in 1886 in what was then known as the District of Alaska.

The book, Sah Quah, was researched and written by journalists Jeff Landfield and Paxson Woelber and attorney Lee Baxter. The investigative special feature first appeared on the political news site The Alaska Landmine and was reprinted through SHI’s Box of Knowledge series.

Books on the topic are rare because the issue is still sensitive, and many Native people do not want to address it publicly, said SHI President Rosita Worl, Ph.D., who was interviewed for the piece and wrote the foreword to the book.

“Although we honor our culture, we are not proud of all aspects of our history. We cannot dismiss the reality that slavery was a part of Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian cul­tures and played a critical role in their development. We have yet to honor Sah Quah for having the courage to challenge the practice of slavery and for fighting for his own freedom and that of others held in bondage,” Worl wrote.

The book opens with Sah Quah entering a federal court in Sitka, alleging that he had been captured by the Flathead Indians (also called Salish) and sold into slavery as a child. Sah Quah said he was trafficked up a Northwest Coast slave-trading network and was, at the time of the trial, enslaved by a Tlingit man in Sitka named Nah-Ki-Klan. Sah Quah had come to the American court, he said, to seek “papers” freeing him from his bonds.

The book explores how slavery came to exist and persist in Alaska despite the federal act that banned it and examines the Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian property laws that Native and some non-Native people believed preempted the United States’ constitutional edicts. The Tlingit also asserted they were a sovereign nation and not subject to the laws of the United States.

The practice of slavery was widespread in the region. Early Russian fur traders noted that many Tlingit slaves were Flathead Indians who had been enslaved and traded far up the coast. Individuals were enslaved as far north as Dena’ina territory, which encompasses the Cook Inlet region and present- day Wasilla, Palmer and Anchorage, and trafficked south to the Chugach on the Kenai Peninsula, the authors wrote.

Though reliable data is sparse, most estimates put the presence of slaves between ten and thirty five percent of most Northwest Coast populations.

The wealthy and complex societies developed by the Indigenous people of Southeast Alaska were due in large part to the existence of slaves, Worl said.

“To try to explain our society and the wealth we were able to accumulate you have to acknowledge that there was a slave pool that was doing a lot of that labor. As an anthropologist and as a proud Tlingit, I want to acknowledge our society, and to do that you have to acknowledge slavery,” she wrote.

The existence of slavery in Alaska came as a surprise to the authors, who are non-Native. They spent years painstakingly ferreting through various archives to unearth Sah Quah’s story and the judicial ruling that set him free.

“What started as an internet search kicked off by a meeting with Paxson Woelber (who first educated me about the Sah Quah court decision) ended as a multi-year investigation with Paxson and Jeff Landfield that took us to the National Archives, the pages of 1800s newspaper articles and obituaries from Alaska, Virginia and Missouri, and historical personal papers held by Yale University,” wrote Baxter.

Notably, the team found the original trial transcript, and the text is included in the book.

Woelber said the story of slavery in North America is incomplete without an understanding of slavery in Alaska.

“The practice of legal chattel slavery in Alaska is notable not only because it likely continued longer here than anywhere else in North America, but also because it was so distinct from the form of slavery practiced, for example, in the American South: slavery in Alaska was almost exclusively a product of Indigenous law and customs, did not have a racial component per se, and ended as part of the messy and painful process of American colonization,” Woelber wrote.

“Our investigation suggests that, taken as a whole, slavery in North America is a much more varied, nuanced and complicated topic than is widely believed.”

Landfield came to view Sah Quah as a civil rights champion with a rightful place in American history.

“Sah Quah, a slave who was subjected to a brutal life, had the courage to seek his freedom in the nascent Alaska federal court. Unfortunately, very few people have ever heard of Sah Quah,” he wrote.

“Sah Quah should be celebrated as a hero who had the fortitude to fight for his freedom against an owner who, by all accounts, could have easily had him killed.”

About Box of Knowledge

SHI’s Box of Knowledge Series consists of essays, reports and books that the institute considers should be made available as a contribution to studies on Tlingit, Haida, and Tsimshian cultures, history, and languages. They may be based on work carried out by researchers working in collaboration with SHI, contributions prepared by external experts, and work by staff. People interested in publishing through the series should contact SHI’s Senior Ethnologist Chuck Smythe at chuck.smythe@sealaska.com.

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 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; Jeff Landfield, Editor in Chief, Alaska Landmine, jeff@alaskalandmine.com; Paxson Woelber, Special Features Editor, Alaska Landmine, pwoelber@gmail.com; Lee Baxter, Attorney, leebaxter@gmail.com

Sealaska Heritage Institute Press Release

BABY RAVEN READS BOOK WINS AWARD FROM AMERICAN INDIAN LIBRARY ASSOCIATION

Book singled out for illustrations, story by Tlingit artist and author

Jan. 23, 2024

Sealaska Heritage Institute’s book “Celebration” has won a 2024 American Indian Youth Literature Picture Book Honor from the American Indian Library Association (AILA).

AILA, an affiliate of the American Library Association, gives biennial awards to identify and honor “the best writings and illustrations for youth, by and about Native American and Indigenous peoples of North America.”

The book, which was illustrated by Tlingit artist Jaax̱snée Kelsey Mata Foote and authored by Tlingit writer and artist Da.áat Lily Hope, was published through Baby Raven Reads, a Sealaska Heritage program for Alaska Native families with children up to age 5 that promotes language development and school readiness.

“Celebration” is one of five books in North America to receive the honor this year.

“Once again, we are astounded and humbled by the extraordinary reception our Baby Raven Reads books have received,” said SHI President Rosita Worl, Ph.D. “It’s so important for Native children to see their cultures accurately reflected in books and school materials. We are grateful to the AILA for elevating books across the continent that achieve this goal.”

The book, which was published in 2022, tells the story of the institute’s biennial dance-and-culture festival, Celebration, as seen from a young girl’s point of view.

The story brings readers into the life of one particular child, who has already learned about Celebration and who eagerly anticipates the event, wrote SHI President Rosita Worl in the foreword.

“We see how grandparents in our society play an important role in teaching our youth about our traditional culture and the songs and stories of our clans. She clearly sees that Native culture and Celebration will continue to play an important part in her life,” Worl wrote.

The story begins with a ferry trip to Juneau and culminates with the young girl’s dance performance at Centennial Hall, before she attends some of Celebration’s associated events, including the Toddler Regalia Review, the Native Artist Market and the Indigenous Fashion Show.

“Celebration” received this honor because of the illustrations, which were made by Mata Foote, who is Raven of the Taakw.aaneidí clan, and the story, which was written by Hope, who is Raven of the T’aḵdeintaan clan.

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 and clan leaders, 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 11,000 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, many of whom are children.

About Baby Raven Reads
SHI sponsors Baby Raven Reads, an award-winning early literacy program that promotes a love of learning through culture and community. The program supports families with Alaska Native children up to age 5 living in Southeast Alaska. Participants attend family events and receive free books and literacy kits through the program.

Baby Raven Reads was first piloted in Juneau in 2014. Through partnerships with Tlingit and Haida Head Start, Alaska Native Heritage Center, Chilkat Indian Village, Ketchikan Indian Association, Metlakatla Indian Association and the Organized Village of Kake, the program has expanded to serve 17 communities in Alaska.

The program is based on ample research showing that Alaska Native students do better academically when culturally relevant content is incorporated into learning materials and classes. Books published through the program also help educate non-Native families about Alaska Native cultures, place-based storytelling, and traditional oral literature.
In recognition of SHI’s success in promoting literacy through Baby Raven Reads, the Library of Congress selected the program as a 2017 Best Practice Honoree, making it one of only 15 programs in the world to receive the honor that year. In 2018, the American Indian Library Association gave SHI’s book “Shanyaak’utlaax̱: Salmon Boy” its American Indian Youth Literature Best Picture Book Award, and in 2020, recognized “Raven Makes the Aleutians” with a Picture Book Honor Award.

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 and advocacy 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.; Lily Hope, author, 907.957.8774, lilyhopeweaver@gmail.com, www.lilyhope.com; Kelsey Mata Foote, illustrator, 505.614.6236, kelseyfootey@gmail.com, https://www.instagram.com/kelseymatafoote