On the road in Alaska: The Secretary’s travel journal

(Click  to read the first installment of the Secretary’s Alaska journal. Click here for the next in the series.)

May 22
Weather: Cool and brilliantly sunny, allowing the snow-covered mountains around Anchorage to be displayed to best effect.

Decorated bentwood vessels were used for serving food at festivals and feasts. The ivory carvings represent adult bowhead whales, yearling bowheads, a beluga whale and other animals. Iñupiaq, 1935.

The headline in the Anchorage Daily News for May 23 will read “Amazing” in describing the new Rasmuson wing of the Anchorage Museum. On May 22, we arrive independently at the same conclusion during the preview visit we are privileged to have before the new wing and its remarkable exhibition is opened to the public. The exhibition, Living Our Cultures, Sharing Our Heritage: The First Peoples of Alaska, is new in many ways, including the Smithsonian’s contribution, the loan of 600 Alaska Native heritage objects from the collections of the National Museum of Natural History and the National Museum of the American Indian. The objects, most of which have not been seen by the public before this exhibition, were chosen and interpreted through the joint work of Smithsonian curators and more than 50 Alaska Native elders and scholars, representing collaborative research and community participation on an unprecedented scale. The exhibited works are on long-term loan to the Anchorage Museum and represent a return of heritage objects to the land from which they were collected.

This man’s tunic, made of moose hide with long fringes and colorful beadwork, is a style that Alaskan Athabascans stopped making around the end of the 19th century. Before glass beads became available from fur traders, women embroidered tunics with dyed porcupine quills. Athabascan, 1882

The objects are among thousands that were acquired during the early days of our national museum, beginning with the first forays of Smithsonian scientists into Alaska in the 1850s. The names of those who helped create the collections are legendary in Smithsonian lore, including Robert Kennicott, William Dall, Lucien Turner, James Swan and Edward W. Nelson.  Many of these collectors were naturalists who were trained or recognized by Smithsonian Secretary S. Fullerton Baird, who then arranged for them to be hired by the Army Signal Corps and other government agencies charged with exploring and documenting the newly acquired Alaska lands. The agencies paid their salaries, while Baird provided the funds  for shipping and purchasing trade goods to use in bartering for native objects.

These men were passionate about natural history and the people and the cultures they believed to be disappearing before them. Nelson, who was especially successful because he adopted Alaska Native clothing and modes of transport and gained a working knowledge of the Yup’ik language, became known by local people as the “man who buys worn-out things .” He understood the need to save even items the people considered ordinary or easily replaceable, but which he knew to have deep artistic and cultural value. We are fortunate that he did, because many valuable objects would have been otherwise lost to history.

During a research trip for the Alaska Collections Project, Peter Jack and Clarence Jackson examine a Tlingit clan hat at the Cultural Resources Center of the National Museum of the American Indian in Suitland, Md. (Photo by Donald Gregory, Sealaska Heritage Institute, April 2005)

The exhibition, curated by the Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center’s Alaska director Aron Crowell and Assistant Curator Dawn Biddison, features beautifully designed and richly ornamented heritage objects from all of Alaska’s First Peoples—Yup’ik, Athabascan, Eyak, Haida, Tsimshian, Tlingit, St. Lawrence Island Yupik, Sugpiaq, Iñupiaq and Unangax (Aleut). Geographically, these groups cover the entire state of Alaska, some are island-dwelling, others live primarily along the coast or inland.

The exhibition also shows how the respective cultures changed over time as trade developed both among themselves and with the Russians, English and Americans. What is clear is that the Native peoples have always lived in harmony with the land and sea and their creatures. Their traditions honored the animals that gave themselves as food and clothing to the community, using essentially every part of the bodies and decorating the skins, ivory and bone with designs and colorations that highlighted the relationship between animals and humans. It is a story that provides a lesson for all of us who desire to leave a planet to our children, grandchildren and great-grand children that is alive and well.

David Robert Boxley of the Git-Hoan (People of the Salmon) Dancers performs at the Opening Day celebration for the expanded Anchorage Museum. (Photo by Brian Adams for the Anchorage Museum)

The remarkable diversity of the heritage objects in Living Our Cultures creates an outstanding exhibition and the effect is enriched through the use of technology. Representatives of the different Native communities introduce their cultures, histories and ways of life on large, high-definition video screens. The objects are arrayed in glass cases that can be seen by the viewer from every side, supplemented by touch-screen kiosks that display close-up images and information about each item, including elders’ commentaries. The objects can be expanded onscreen so that incredibly fine details are visible, and they can be rotated so different angles of viewing are obtained. Through the Sharing Knowledge website, accessible on the Web and in the gallery’s Learning Center, viewers can leave comments about the objects and the impressions they have of the exhibit.

From left, Smithsonian National Board alumnus Michael McBride, Aron Crowell, Secretary Clough and Bill Fitzhugh listen to remarks by James Pepper Henry at the Opening Day of the expanded Anchorage Museum. (Photo by Brian Adams for the Anchorage Museum)

Following our tour of the exhibition we participate in a ceremony with Museum Director James Pepper Henry, who before coming to the Anchorage Museum worked at our National Museum of the American Indian. It is a proud day for those who have worked for more than five years to see the exhibition come to fruition.

After the ceremony I am honored to meet a group of Yupik elders for a discussion that will help prepare me for my visit to St. Lawrence Island on Tuesday. This meeting was arranged by Aron Crowell who knows many of the elders personally. They explain that their art and the decoration of objects was a way of recording their history and traditions in a culture without writing. When Europeans and Americans later restricted their ceremonies, songs and dances, many of these ancient traditions were almost lost to future generations. The stories of the elders kept the traditions and the cultures alive.  An incident is recalled, when a walrus ivory carving was found covered with designs intended to convey ideas about the traditional Yupik way of life to succeeding generations. We agree that education of the youth in a modern world is a challenge but vitally important if the unique Yupik way of life in the Bering Sea is to continue. The urgency of the challenge cannot be overstated as only about 1,500 Yupik people remain.

From left, Shannon Kovac of the National Park Service, archaeologist Rita Eagle, Aron Crowell, Wayne Clough and Bill Fitzhugh examine artifacts in the Gillam Archaeology Lab at the opening of the new Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center exhibition and research facility in Anchorage, Alaska. (Photo by Donald Hurlbert)

Later in the day we participate in a reception with about 300 guests to commemorate new quarters for the Arctic Studies Center at the Anchorage Museum. These include state-of-the-art facilities and ample space for Aron, Bill and their colleagues to do their work. It is gratifying to see this come to pass, through the generous cooperation and support of the Anchorage Museum, as another step in the long commitment of the Smithsonian to the study and preservation of the cultures and traditions of the people of the North.

May 23
Weather:  Cool and sunny.  Another beautiful day.

The day begins with a visit to the Alaskan Native Heritage Center located on the outskirts of Anchorage in a wooded area covered with aspen trees. The Heritage Center is new and well designed. It contains a small collection of heritage objects from each of the major Native peoples. It differs from a museum in that the center provides for performances and is surrounded by a trail along which traditional Alaska Native structures and homes are displayed. Youthful indigenous presenters at each stop along the trail explain how extended families lived and survived the harsh winters. Natural materials were used in ingenious ways both to decorate the dwellings and to create a living space for groups ranging from 10 to 30 people. Each speaker is proud of his or her heritage and enjoys sharing stories with us.

Returning to the center, we are greeted with a hearty brunch and treated to dance and singing performances. The joy on the faces of the performers is striking.

An exhibition case at the new Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center at the expanded Anchorage Museum. (Photo by Donald Hurlbert)

Afterwards, we repair to a conference room where supporters and potential supporters of the National Museum of the American Indian are assembled. We are blessed by the first speaker who reminds us of the Native American ethic to work in concert with nature and to protect it for future generations. Kevin Gover, director of NMAI, makes an appeal for support for the activities of his museum, which is working to accommodate new approaches to telling the stories of the Native peoples of the Americas. I make a short presentation in which I note that one of the Smithsonian’s grand challenges—to “understand and preserve the biodiversity of the planet”— is consistent with the ethic of the Native Americans and their longstanding respect for nature.

The evening brings us to a wonderful dinner featuring Alaskan delicacies with David and Betsy Lawer. They have arranged for us to meet with some of their Anchorage friends, many of whom are Smithsonian supporters. We hear from Bill Fitzhugh about the history of the Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center and its expected future here in Alaska, particularly in view of the new facilities in the Anchorage Museum. We bid the dinner party adieu and return to the hotel in time to begin preparing for a long and exciting day tomorrow when we fly down to the Kenai Peninsula.