On the road in Alaska: The Secretary’s travel journal
Click to read the second and third installments of the Secretary’s Alaska journal.
May 21
The Great Alaska Earthquake
Without my being aware of it, my connection to Alaska actually began before I had ever traveled west of the Mississippi river—with the Great Alaska Earthquake in 1964. This earthquake caused tremendous damage in Alaska and was measured as 9.2 on the Richter Scale. The Richter Scale is a marvelously simple way to think about the size of an earthquake because it measures them on a scale of one to 10, but most people don’t appreciate that the scale (and it is not actually a scale, but that’s another story) is based on a logarithmic concept that relates to the power of an earthquake. For every increase of one on the scale, the power of the earthquake goes up by 30. So, compared to the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake, which was 8.3 on the Richter Scale, the Great Alaska Earthquake was about 30 times more powerful—what some people call “the big one.” The quake caused some portions of the Alaskan shoreline to rise more than 30 feet and in Anchorage, portions of which are built on sediment, entire neighborhoods slid several hundred feet into the waters of Cook Inlet.
The Great Alaskan Earthquake of 1964 was so bad it created tsunamis all along the North American coastline, from San Francisco to British Columbia. (Composite via webecoist.com; images via Popular Mechanics, wvdshem.gov, P. Scott Cummins and NOAA)
When all of this was happening, I was finishing up my master’s thesis at Georgia Tech, not thinking much at all about Alaska or the Great Alaskan Earthquake. I was preparing for my first real job and planning for graduate school to get a Ph.D. in my field, geotechnical engineering.
In 1966, my wife Anne and I set off for California so I could undertake my doctoral work in civil engineering at University of California, Berkeley. A lot was happening at Berkeley in the 60s, but not in the way it was portrayed by the press at the time. While there were certainly demonstrations from time to time that entertained folks watching TV and gave politicians a bone to chew on, more importantly, the real intellectual endeavors of the university were thriving. For civil engineers, the Great Alaska Earthquake presented the perfect opportunity to learn why the very last dermis of the crust of the earth responded as it did to earthquake motions. I could not have been luckier than to be at Berkeley when a new era in science and engineering was beginning and to be able to learn from some of the best faculty in the world.
Lupine in Denali National Park, Alaska. (Photo by Kent Miller)
In time, I became a faculty member myself and worked in the 70s and 80s at Stanford University teaching about earthquake issues and doing consulting work that led to my first visit to Alaska. My work in Alaska took me not only to Anchorage, but also to more remote places above the Arctic Circle, such as Kotzebue and Red Dog. I was fascinated by the cultures I saw and the people I met. I was mesmerized by the book Arctic Dreams by Barry Lopez, who masterfully described a world apart that was at once both fragile and, at the same time, amazingly resilient in the face of extreme weather conditions. Over the years my career took me away from Alaska as I moved east and ultimately became president of Georgia Tech, but I was able to return twice by taking tours that took us into Denali Park and by ship through the Inner Passage. Each visit only reinforced my awe at the stunning beauty of Alaska.
The Smithsonian connection
Spencer F. Baird, ca. 1850 (Image courtesy of Smithsonian Institution Archives)
When I became Secretary of the Smithsonian, I was intrigued to learn that the National Museum of Natural History is home to the Arctic Studies Center. Although the center itself was created only in 1988, it represents the Smithsonian’s longstanding interest in the Arctic. Not long after the Smithsonian was authorized by Congress in 1846, Spencer Baird, then Under Secretary to Secretary Joseph Henry, began his lifelong efforts to encourage scientific work in the Arctic. Baird was intrigued by the unique flora and fauna and the diversity of Native cultures of this land. Did the people come from Asia as some suggested? Why were there differences in the indigenous cultures and languages? What were the motivations of the people to create remarkable art in even the utilitarian objects of everyday life? How many distinct life forms existed in the Arctic? These and other questions stimulated study by the Smithsonian and many other scientists.
As described by Smithsonian scientist Bill Fitzhugh of the Arctic Studies Center, in the excellent 1988 publication, Crossroads of Continents: Cultures of Siberia and Alaska, Baird led the Smithsonian efforts in the Arctic in the 1850s when the young Institution had few resources to bring to the table. He was able to “piggyback” onto expeditions undertaken by explorers and adventurers as well as those who were laying telegraph lines in the remote regions of the north. Eventually, these efforts evolved into a formal scientific endeavor with expeditions to document the people, animals, plants, fish and insects of the Arctic. Baird knew that the explorers, trappers, missionaries and entrepreneurs who were pouring into the northern lands would change everything.
This Tlingit war helmet depicts a wrinkled human face once embellished with bear fur whiskers and human hair. Helmets were carved from hard, dense spruce burls to withstand blows from clubs and even shots fired from Russian muskets.
From these beginnings, the Smithsonian amassed a deep collection of scientific specimens and heritage objects from Alaska. Baird initiated what turned out to be 150 years of work in Alaska and other northern lands that continues today. And this is what has brought me back to Alaska for this trip. Our itinerary for May 22 involves a celebration of the opening of a new exhibit at the Anchorage Museum about the culture of the Native peoples of Alaska . Simultaneously, we will celebrate the opening in the Anchorage Museum of a branch of our Arctic Studies Center. The trip will also include visits to the Alaska Native Heritage Center, a meeting with supporters of our National Museum of the American Indian and a dinner hosted by Smithsonian friends Betsy and David Lawer. I will also have the opportunity to observe the ongoing field work of our scientists and meet with some of the Native peoples. I will be fortunate to be travelling with Bill Fitzhugh and Aron Crowell, two Smithsonian scientists and colleagues at the Natural History Museum, who have been working on Arctic issues for almost the whole of their careers.
The People of Alaska
Beringia, the land bridge that spanned the Bering Strait between eastern Siberia and Alaska. (Map courtesy Illinois State Museum)
The peopling of this part of the New World is a fascinating story told far better in the Fitzhugh and Crowell publication, Crossroads of Continents and Aron Crowell’s catalog for our new exhibition at the Anchorage Museum, Living Our Cultures, Sharing Our Heritage: the First Peoples of Alaska, than could possibly be covered here. Because the story is important to the purpose of my visit to Alaska, I will provide a highly condensed version.
From what we know, people first came to these lands from Asia about 15,000 years ago. They were the vanguard of an ongoing eastward migration of people across what we now know as Siberia. The immigrants likely benefitted from the last ice age 20,000 years ago. Sea level was believed to have been lowered by 300 feet at the peak of the ice coverage and the Bering Strait became a land bridge known as Beringia as wide as 1000 kilometers. People could have entered Alaska and North America by walking across this flat tundra expanse, which was rich in animal life, or by using boats along the rim of the North Pacific. After the land bridge submerged about 11,000 years ago, all passages would have been made by boat or on foot across the winter pack ice of Bering Strait, which was then narrower than its width of 56 miles today. We do know there were many subsequent migrations across the Bering Strait after the first crossings.
Portrait of Koksuk or Iser in Native dress, 1894, by Willliam Dinwiddie. (Image courtesy Smithsonian Institution Archives)
What seems clear is that people from Asia came to what would become Alaska in a series of migrations over thousands of years. There is evidence some of the immigrants returned to Asia in reverse migrations while others moved further east and south, populating the North American continent.
The immigrants that stayed in Alaska settled in different parts of the new lands, some along the coast, some in island arcs, and some in the wooded inland regions. Over time, the different groups developed their own distinct cultures and languages although trade between them often existed and there were continued interactions with the related peoples who remained in Siberia. Today, 20 Native languages survive in Alaska, along with many more dialects. Individual Native groups developed cultural differences depending on how they adapted to the unique environments of their homelands. Alaskan Inuit (Eskimos) along the coast hunted marine animals such as seals, whales, walrus and sea birds. In the inland forests, Indians hunted moose, deer and caribou and fished the freshwater streams. Other Native peoples lived a maritime way of life along the southeastern coast of Alaska. All of these groups created cultures with highly developed art that focused on nature and the creatures of their home ranges.
Irrevocable change came with the arrival of white men from Russia and Europe. At the prodding of Peter the Great, the Russians began to send expeditions in search of the new world in the early 1700s. Russia laid its first claim to Alaska in 1741 with the landing of Vitus Bering, a Dane who sailed in the employ of the Russian government . The Russians made formal claims to Alaskan territory in stages as subsequent expeditions explored the coast and interior north into mainland Alaska and south as far as northern California, where they built Fort Ross in 1812.
Portrait of Su-Ku-Uk in Native dress and holding pipe, 1894 by William Dinwiddie (Photo courtesy of Smithsonian Institution Archives)
Russian claims did not prevent the British from playing the role of spoiler, with an early vanguard that included none other than Captain James Cook on one of his historic circumnavigations of the globe. The Americans also came in numbers, including scientists from the Smithsonian, as noted earlier. In the mid 1800s, Russia was distracted by wars on its western front with Britain and France, and it eventually realized it could not defend its Alaskan colony and decided to sell the land to the United States as a way of preventing the British from gaining advantage. In 1867, the sale was consummated and Alaska became a territory of the United States.
In all of these comings and goings, it was little noted by the whites that the claims and sales were of lands that actually belonged to the Native people. It was not until the 1970s that the land claims of the Native Americans were settled, at least legally.
The Native people were not treated well by the new arrivals and some were pressed into service to work for them. The white settlers also brought with them diseases against which the Natives had no immunity, and pandemics caused wide loss of life. Christian missionaries arrived in numbers and sought to convert the Indians and Eskimos to their religion. The work of the missionaries diminished the Native cultures and in some cases, government policies suppressed the use of Native languages, celebrations, and traditional song and dance.
The intermixing of the Native cultures and that of the later immigrants continues, but fortunately, today there is recognition of the inherent value and beauty of Native cultures and arts and of the need to preserve and celebrate them. With its extensive collections, the Smithsonian is positioned to help sustain our understanding and appreciation of diverse cultural traditions that otherwise could be lost to future generations. I, for one, am proud that the Smithsonian can serve in this important role.
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Posted: 14 June 2010
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