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News Articles

The following recent articles feature programs and people sponsored or supported by Sealaska Heritage Institute:

Bill would help preserve Alaska Native languages
Alaska Public Radio Network (APRN)
Ben Matheson
The Alaska Senate State Affairs committee heard testimony Tuesday on Senator Donny Olson’s bill to create an Alaska Native Language Preservation and Advisory Council. Annette Evans Smith, the President of the Alaska Native Heritage Center, says the time for action on keeping languages alive is now...(more) (2-1-12)

Scholar donates Haida archives
CAPITAL CITY WEEKLY
An anthropologist who studied the city of Hydaburg and the Haida history and culture has donated his field work and doctoral papers to Sealaska Heritige Institute (SHI). Dan Vaughan, Ph.D., worked in Hydaburg as a cultural anthropologist for the University of Washington from 1974 to 1984...(more) (1-25-12)

SHI to sponsor formline workshop
The Sealaska Heritage Institute will sponsor an all-levels workshop on formline design taught by Steve Brown on Saturday and Sunday, Jan. 21-22 in Juneau. According to a release from Sealaska, Brown is a master of formline and Northwest Coast art history..(more) (1-19-12)

Sealaska gets papers, fieldwork on Haida culture
Associated Press
JUNEAU--The papers and fieldwork of an anthropologist who worked in the Southeast Alaska city of Hydaburg studying the Haida culture have a new home. Dan Vaughan, a former cultural anthropologist for the University of Washington, has donated his work to the Sealaska Heritage Institute...(more) (1-18-12)

Sealaska offers scholarship bonus
Ed Schoenfeld
CoastAlaska
Descendents of Sealaska shareholders have until March to apply for corporate scholarships. But those submitting applications this month will receive an extra $50. About 400 college, university and vocational school students receive the scholarships every year. The money comes from Sealaska, the regional Native corporation for Southeast. It’s distributed by the Sealaska Heritage Institute, the businesses’ cultural arm...(more) (1-6-12)

SHI opens scholarship application period
JUNEAU EMPIRE
Sealaska Heritage Institute is accepting applications for the 2012-2013 college and vocational school year. Awards will be made to Sealaska shareholders and descendants enrolled in accredited colleges, universities and voc-tech schools. About 400 students receive the scholarships each year..(more) (1-4-11)

Native culture topic of last lecture in SHI lecture series
By RUSSELL STIGALL
JUNEAU EMPIRE
“Our Tlingit tradition is an oral tradition, said state Sen. Albert Kookesh as he introduced Sealaska Board Vice Chair and President of Sealaska Heritage Institute Rosita Worl — the final speaker in the Native American Heritage Month lecture series. “And she is very, very versed in that area,” Kookesh said...(more) (11-30-11)

ANCSA: Assimilation or cultural survival?
Ed Schoenfeld
JUNEAU
Is the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act a path to assimilation or a means of cultural survival? That’s the question posed by Sealaska Heritage Institute President Rosita Worl. She spoke Monday (this week) as part of a Juneau lecture series focusing on ANCSA, which has its 40th anniversary next month...(more) (11-29-11)

Sealaska president urges unity in development of Southeast resources
McNeil featured at SHI brown bag lecture series
By RUSSELL STIGALL
JUNEAU EMPIRE
Sealaska Corp. President and CEO Chris McNeil told a full house in Sealaska’s fourth floor conference room that Native corporations, tribes and villages must work together to manage the use of the region’s natural resources over the long term. McNeil spoke on the legal status of Alaska Native corporations and economic self-determination during the latest in Sealaska Heritage Institute’s noon lecture series...(more) (11-22-11)

Native leader seeks stronger ties between tribes, corps
By Russell Stigall
JUNEAU EMPIRE
The room on the fourth floor of Sealaska Plaza was packed with more than 30 people. They’d gathered as part of Native Alaskan Heritage Month to hear Edward Thomas, president, Central Council of Tlingit and Haida Indians of Alaska and a director on Sealaska Corp.’s board speak about tribes and Native corporations...(more) (11-18-11)

SHI Native American Heritage Month lecture series begins Friday
JUNEAU EMPIRE
The first lecture in Sealaska Heritage Institute’s November noon lecture series will be held on Friday. “ANCSA: Good or Bad?” led by First Alaskans Institute Fellow Byron Mallott begins at noon in the boardroom at Sealaska Plaza. The series, organized to celebrate Native American Heritage Month in November, focuses on the impact of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, passed by Congress 40 years ago...(more) (11-3-11)

SHI to host  brown-bag lecture series on Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act
JUNEAU EMPIRE STAFF REPORT
Sealaska Heritage Institute will sponsor a noon lecture series to celebrate Native American Heritage Month in November. The series will focus on the impact of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, or ANSCA.Congress passed ANSCA 40 years ago...(more) (10-27-11)

Sealaska Heritage Institute to sponsor lecture series for Native American Heritage Month
ALASKA BUSINESS MONTHLY
Sealaska Heritage Institute (SHI) will sponsor a noon lecture series to celebrate Native American Heritage Month in November.The brown-bag lunch series will focus on the impact of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA) which was passed by Congress forty years ago, said SHI President Rosita Worl, adding Tlingit and Haida and Sealaska Corporation also will sponsor a November luncheon in recognition of ANCSA...(more) (10-25-11)

Worl named Citizen of the Year by AFN
By Emily Russo Miller
JUNEAU EMPIRE
The Alaska Federation of Natives on Friday awarded its highest honor, the Citizen of the Year award, to Juneau Resident Rosita Worl, president of Sealaska Heritage Institute. AFN President Julie Kitka lauded Worl, an Eagle from the Shangukeidí Clan and the House Lowered from the Sun in Klukwan whose Tlingit names are Yéidiklats’okw and Kaahaní, for her lifelong dedication to helping Native people throughout the state during the AFN annual convention in Anchorage...(more) (10-23-11)

SHI receives grant to study historic Tlingit recordings
By Russell Stigall
JUNEAU EMPIRE
From the early 1900s to the present, audio recording technology has undergone several major advancements. From vinyl records to magnetic tape to optical disc and most recently magnetic disc drive and Flash memory...(more) (10-20-11)

SHI solicits articles for Box of Knowledge
JUNEAU EMPIRE
The Sealaska Heritage Institute is soliciting essay-length articles for its new “Box of Knowledge Occasional Papers” series. The institute welcomes submissions dealing with all aspects of Alaska Native life, including history, anthropology, archaeology, art history, political science, linguistics, sociology, and literature...(more) (10-20-11)

Grant allows Sealaska Heritage to digitize historic recordings
ALASKA DISPATCH
According to a press release, Sealaska Heritage Institute (SHI), a regional nonprofit representing the Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian people of Southeast Alaska, has received a federal grant to research and migrate old Tlingit language recordings to a format that will make them more accessible to modern-day Native language students and scholars...(more) (10-19-11)

Basketry's renewed popularity seen at Indian Market
SANTA FE NEW MEXICAN
The Chippewa and Potawatomi use the bark and wood of black ash trees in southwest Michigan — the same tree that the Seneca and Onondaga Iroquois harvest in upstate New York. Navajo basketmakers in New Mexico and Arizona harvest sumac for their colorful flat vessels...Holly Churchill's family has been part of the basket renaissance among the Haida people. She learned from her grandmother and from her mother, who taught uncountable others the traditional methods for collecting cedar and shaping it into baskets...(more) (8-20-11)

Alaska Native art, culture to be showcased
By Klas Stolpe
JUNEAU EMPIRE
A group of Southeast Alaskan Native artists will be showcasing this region's indigenous art and culture at New Mexico's Santa Fe Indian Market in an effort to educate and attract art enthusiasts and collectors and develop a similar gathering in Juneau...(more) (8-11-11)

Teaching vanishing Native languages
By Jonathan Grass
JUNEAU EMPIRE
Tlingit speakers and educators are fighting to keep that language alive. As those at Sealaska Heritage Institute (SHI) put it, creating new speakers will be key in accomplishing this. In fact, the Native institute has just introduced a new Tlingit language card program as part of this mission. The program is a set of flash cards and audio CDs to help gain efficiency in the alphabet...(more) (8-1-11)

Former Kake family heirloom ordnance dearmed, deactivated
By Klas Stolpe
JUNEAU EMPIRE
The Organized Village of Kake (OVK) with the assistance of the Sealaska Heritage Institute (SHI) diffused the historic Civil War Parrott Shell ordnance that a Kake family had passed among family members for decades. “It has been in our family over 100 years,” Kake elder Michael Jackson said when State Troopers and Elmendorf Air Force explosives experts had first traveled to Kake to investigate the shell on June 23, 2011...(more) (7-30-11)

Language tool teaches Tlingit alphabet
Ed Schoenfeld
Do you want to learn Tlingit? You could start with the 50 letters, including some sounds that are not found in other languages. A new online tool, plus a note-card-and-audio system, is aimed at children. But it can help students of any age...(more) (7-25-11)

SHI releases Tlingit alphabet cards, online tools
JUNEAU EMPIRE
Sealaska Heritage Institute has released flash cards, an audio CD and an online interactive tool designed to teach the Tlingit alphabet to young people. The materials feature original, whimsical art and are meant to provide a fun way for kids to interact and become familiar with the Tlingit alphabet. Each card includes a character in the Tlingit alphabet, a Tlingit word that uses that character and an image depicting the Tlingit word, said Linda Belarde, who writes curriculum with a focus on the Tlingit language for the institute...(more) (7-21-11)

Sealaska Heritage Institute awards second Judson L. Brown leadership award
INDIAN COUNTRY TODAY
SHI recently awarded a $5,000 scholarship to Helen Dianne Dangel to assist her in her pursuit of a master’s degree in psychology at Lewis & Clark Graduate School of Education and Counseling...“I think my uncle would be very proud of Helen and her vision to serve Native people with her life’s work,” Chris McNeil Jr., president and CEO of Sealaska Corporation, said in the release. He and his wife Mary established the Judson L. Brown Leadership Award in 2006 with an endowment of $100,000...(more) (7-21-11)

Ancient, moss-covered canoe found in Alaska forest
By Yereth Rosen
Reuters
An unfinished Indian canoe, apparently abandoned 500 years ago, has been discovered in a remote section of an Alaska rain forest, according to officials. The canoe, carved from cedar, was discovered under a thick layer of moss and is surrounded by trees that are several hundred years old, Sealaska Corp., the Alaska Native corporation that owns the land, said in a statement...(more) (7-14-11)

Canoe found in Southeast may be 500 years old
Ancient tools were used to hew wood in 34-foot craft
By MIKE DUNHAM ANCHORAGE DAILY NEWS
A centuries-old Haida canoe has been discovered near the Prince of Wales Island village of Kasaan, Sealaska Corp. announced Tuesday. Work on the nearly 34-foot vessel may have stopped around the same time that Columbus sailed from Spain...(more) (7-13-11)

Foresters find historic canoe on Prince of Wales Island
Partially-complete artifact could become model for modern craftsmen
By Pat Forgey JUNEAU EMPIRE
Sealaska foresters working on Prince of Wales Island have unearthed a partially complete Haida canoe from the forest floor, and are estimating its age at more than 100 years old. A Sealaska Timber Corp. surveyor working in the area during the winter discovered the canoe. Later, when snow melted, it was confirmed to be an ancient canoe, the company said. Several cedar trees in the area appear to have been felled with traditional tools, and the canoe was constructed with traditional tools, said Sealaska Heritage Institute officials...(more) (7-13-11)

Sealaska Heritage Institute gets support from Legislature
Additional fundraising needed to complete downtown center
By Pat Forgey JUNEAU EMPIRE
The Sealaska Heritage Institute’s Native cultural center, named after Dr. Walter Soboleff, is expected to give a big push to the study and preservation of Alaska Native history, culture, art and language. The center’s building is located across from Sealaska Corp.’s headquarters on a site that once was a downtown eyesore. It is also expected to give a boost to the city’s center. Sealaska officials are showing off a new architect’s model of the $22.5 million building, as they continue fundraising to get it built...(more) (7-12-11)

Aged bomb in Kake gets official inspection
Family heirloom a reminder of clashes with government
By Klas Stolpe JUNEAU EMPIRE
Della Cheney remembers playing with a family heirloom growing up, a rather strange looking metallic object that wasn’t easily moved about. “It was very heavy,” Cheney said. “At least 25 pounds.” The heirloom? A roughly 12-inch long, 30-pound unexploded round of ammunition that struck the village more than 140 years ago. Or in the words of one of the descendants who found the shell resting on the other side of a hole in a Southeast rainforest soaked stump, “It was an annoying object when you stubbed your toe on it but a great conversation piece...(more) (6-23-11)

Students encouraged to sign up for STAR program
Capital City Weekly
Summer is here and it is time to get those kids, grandkids, and neighbors signed up for Perseverance Theatre's Summer Theatre Arts Rendezvous (STAR). Rehearsals and classes begin July 11. This five-week program is perfect for students ages 10-18 who are enthusiastic about theatre. A limited number of full scholarships for Alaska Native students are available thanks to the support of Sealaska Heritage Institute...(more) (6-22-11)

New internship seeks to get Native students involved in museums, preservation work
By Jonathan Grass JUNEAU EMPIRE
Sealaska Heritage Institute has just joined with the University of Alaska Southeast in an internship program to encourage more Native archivists and museum curators. SHI archivist said that more Natives are needed in these fields that are devoted to the preservation of their cultures. “This field certainly needs diversity. Especially with museum materials, it’s important to have Natives working in their museums...(more) (6-21-11)

New internship program fosters more Native archivists
SitNews
Sealaska Heritage Institute (SHI) has joined with a state university in an internship program designed to foster more archivists and museum curators. SHI’s first Tlingit intern under the program, founded this year by the University of Alaska Southeast (UAS), was just accepted into graduate school to pursue a career in archives and given a full scholarship...(more) (6-20-11)

360 North plans Soboleff coverage Friday
JUNEAU EMPIRE STAFF REPORT
360 North is planning an evening of programming dedicated to Walter Soboleff on Friday. The celebrated Tlingit elder, educator and Presbyterian minister died May 22 at the age of 102...(more) (Web Link) (6-8-11)

SHI awards nearly $450K in scholarships
JUNEAU EMPIRE STAFF REPORT
Sealaska Heritage Institute (SHI) has awarded approximately $447,000 in scholarships to Sealaska shareholders and descendants and given a leadership award from a separate endowment to a student pursuing her master’s degree. The awards, funded mostly by Sealaska Corporation, will help students pursuing graduate and undergraduate degrees and vo-tech training for the 2011-2012 school year. A portion also will fund heritage studies, language studies and culture camps. SHI President Rosita Worl said the scholarships for university and voc-tech studies went to 356 Alaska Natives...(more) (5-25-11)

In honor of Dr. Walter Soboleff, who has left after more than 102 years amongst us
By BILL HESS
Yesterday afternoon I learned that Dr. Walter Soboleff had passed away in Juneau Sunday at the age of 102. So I have postponed for tomorrow what I had planned for today in order to dedicate this post solely to his memory and honor. I am not going to write much about him right now, save to say that he was truly one of the most honorable, decent, and gentle men that I have ever met and that he was truly a giant in shaping those parts of modern-day Alaska that are good. It did not matter if one was Native, white, black, Asian or other - in the presence of Dr. Walter Soboleff, one felt only love and warmth - and this was true even if what Dr. Soboleff was doing was fighting for Native rights. I know, because I personally felt that warmth and love and I could see that all who came into his presence also felt it...(more) (5-24-11)

Murkowski remembers reverend Dr. Walter Soboleff
www.akbizmag.com
Mr. President, it was only a few short years ago, in October of 2008, that I stood before this body to honor one of Alaska's most cherished elders, the Reverend Doctor Walter A. Soboleff, in commemoration of his 100th birthday. Today, I come before you with a heavy heart, to share with you news of the passing of that distinguished and revered Tlingit elder and leader.  On this day I ask that we honor the life of an extraordinary man and remember his inspirational journey...(more

Tlingit leader Soboleff, dead at 102, celebrated tolerance
By KLAS STOLPE
Juneau Empire
JUNEAU -- Longtime Juneau and Alaska Tlingit spiritual leader, elder statesman and Native icon Walter Soboleff died early Sunday in his home, surrounded by family. According to daughter Janet Burke, Soboleff died from bone cancer and prostate cancer. "Memorial services are pending," Burke said. "No date is set yet. This very quickly can get out of our hands because we know the scope of our father's influence on so many people. When we think of him we think of the knowledge he had, the knowledge of his culture and the love for his family. That was so important to him. ...(more)

Soboleff's efforts for Natives spanned a century
The Bristol Bay Times
A Tlingit elder known for his wisdom, attentive ear and reassuring smile - all underscored by deep faith - has died Sunday.The Rev. Walter A. Soboleff Sr. was 102. Soboleff was born on Nov. 14, 1908, in Killisnoo a village that once existed in Southeast Alaska. He attended two schools in Sitka before getting his attended the University of Dubuque in Iowa, where he earned a bachelor's degree in divinity.He returned to Alaska, this time Juneau, where he began a career in ministry with messages that eventually reached Southeast villages and even small Yukon towns. "I sat in front of the radio and listened to Walter every Sunday," said Bill Thomas, a state representative who grew up in Haines. "He always said, 'I'm proud of you.' He meant it"...(more) (5-23-11)

Noted Tlingit elder Walter Soboleff dies
By Klas Stolpe JUNEAU EMPIRE
Editor's note: Information from the Empire's archives contributed to this report.
Long time Juneau and Alaska Tlingit spiritual leader, elder statesman, and native icon Walter Soboleff died early Sunday morning in his home, surrounded by family. According to daughter Janet Burke, Soboleff died from bone cancer and prostate cancer. “Memorial services are pending,” Burke said. “No date is set yet. This very quickly can get out of our hands because we know the scope of our father’s influence on so many people. When we think of him we think of the knowledge he had, the knowledge of his culture and the love for his family. That was so important to him.” Soboleff had turned 102 years old on Nov. 14, 2010...(more) (5-22-11)

City museum to offer annual workshops on local history and culture
Contemporary Expressions of Traditional Tlingit Culture: Learn about Tlingit culture, social structure and contemporary issues with culture and language specialist Linda Belarde from the Sealaska Heritage Institute. This workshop will be offered by the Juneau city museum from 6-8:30 p.m. on Monday, May 2, from and will be repeated at the same time on Tuesday, May 3...(more) (4-27-11)

Worl receives lifetime achievement award
By Jonathan GrassJUNEAU EMPIRE
Sealaska Heritage Institute President Rosita Worl received the Lifetime Achievement Award at this year’s Tlingit and Haida Tribal Assembly. Worl has a long and varied history as an authority in tribal matters.“It’s a great honor to be recognized by your tribe and your people,” said Worl. “My mother always taught us that we don’t need to speak about ourselves because if you’re worthy of being known, people who you are. I guess I’ve arrived at that point in my life"...(more)

Sealaska Heritage Institute Accepting Applications for Latseen Leadership Academy
INDIAN COUNTRY TODAY
Sealaska Heritage Institute is accepting applications through June 10 to attend its Latseen Leadership Academy held in Juneau, Alaska.According to SealaskaHeritage.org, the academy “is designed to provide engaging culturally-based education and activities for youth in support of their future academic and personal success with a focus on rigor, relevance, and relationships.” Participants can make traditional drums, learn how to fillet salmon and prepare traditional foods, as well as learn Native languages.The academy is for Sealaska shareholders or shareholder descendants entering sixth, seventh and eighth grades...(more) 3-17-11)

Sealaska Heritage Institute opens applications for academy
JUNEAU EMPIRE
Sealaska Heritage Institute is accepting applications to attend its annual Latseen Leadership Academy in Juneau. This year’s camp is for incoming sixth- to eighth-grade students who are Sealaska shareholders or shareholder descendants. Full scholarships are available...(more) (3-17-11)

Cultural objects returning to Hoonah after 80 years
By Jonathan Grass JUNEAU EMPIRE
Eight Native cultural objects are returning home after a long struggle following an even longer absence. The University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology has sent a letter to the T’akdeintaan Clan, Snail House, of Hoonah, saying it plans to return eight objects the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Review Committee recently deemed the rightful property of the clan under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, or NAGRA. The clan has been trying to reclaim 50 objects from the museum for 16 years...(more) (2-8-11)

Sealaska buys 100-year-old Haida mat using PFD donations
Anchorage Daily News
Sealaska Heritage Institute (SHI) has acquired a rare, cedar-bark Haida mat traditionally used as bedding or as room dividers in clan houses plus two old halibut hooks...(more) (1-4-11)

Sealaska scholarship program goes online
Ed Schoenfeld
Applications are now available for Sealaska's college scholarship program. For the first time, shareholders and lineal descendants can apply online...(more) (1-4-11)

Anonymous donor gives collection of Native objects to Sealaska Heritage Institute
INDIAN COUNTRY TODAY
An anonymous donor who wanted his collection of Native cultural objects to go home has given 15 pieces that date at least to the early 1900s to Sealaska Heritage Institute. The collection includes some very important ceremonial pieces, said SHI President Rosita Worl...(more) (12-22-10)

Angoon leader concludes Sealaska lecture series with historical bombardment account
By Jonathan GrassJUNEAU EMPIRE
As Native American Heritage Month has come to a close, Sealaska Heritage Institute concluded its lecture series Monday with a lecture on the importance of Tlingit communications and understanding. Cyril George Sr. spoke to a packed room on how failure to communicate led to problems between Angoon Natives and the federal government that last to this day. George is a clan leader of Deisheetaan of Angoon and Kaakáak'w Hít. He spoke on how proper communications and cultural understandings are integral to Tlingit relations, both in the past and today...(more) (12-14-10)

Some Native donations may not be so Native
By Jonathan GrassJUNEAU EMPIRE
Sealaska Heritage Institute received a collection of 18 Native cultural objects and tourist items from an anonymous donor last month. However, studies on these objects have led SHI researchers to believe three of them may not be Native made. SHI President Rosita Worl said a beaver crest clan hat and two rattles among the collection may have been made by a non-commissioned non-Native. Worl said the researchers came to this conclusion because, while the items look old, the wear and tear on them was not consistent with the apparent age...(more) (12-8-10)

Native leader explains Tlingit education's relevance for all societies
By Jonathan GrassJUNEAU EMPIRE
Tlingit educational values have kept its clans alive since before European contact in Alaska, and Tlingit leaders recognize how the pillars of that education are important to Native and non-Native students alike, a speaker discussing Native education said Monday. David Katzeek, who goes by Kingeisti, is a leader of the Eagle Thunderbird Clan of Klukwan. He's spent years discussing education with students across Alaska for years, and shared the insights of that journey as part of Sealaska Heritage Institute's lecture series...(more) (12-7-10)

Alaskan clan says it may sue University of Pennsylvania to get items back
By Tom Avril Inquirer Staff Writer
PHILADELPHIA - A federal advisory committee has recommended that the University of Pennsylvania return a trove of native artifacts it acquired nearly 90 years ago from a clan of Tlingit people in southeast Alaska. The recommendation last month regarding the collection of more than 40 items, among them headdresses, carved masks, and ceremonial horns, is not binding on Penn's Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. The museum has offered instead to turn over eight of the objects, allowing the clan to serve as cocurator of the rest...(more) (12-6-10)

Spokesman: 'We proved ... that we owned it'
By Jonathan GrassJUNEAU EMPIRE
Years ago, two different Native clans made claims for the ownership of certain objects in museums in Alaska and Pennsylvania. Those claims are now one step closer to fulfillment, and the clans couldn't be happier about it. The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, or NAGRA, Review Committee in Washington, D.C. found a Native object in the Alaska State Museum and several in the University of Pennsylvania Museum are actually the property of the Teeyhíttaan Clan of Wrangell and T'akdeintaan Clan of Hoonah, respectively...(more) (12-1-10)

Pennsylvania museum told to return Alaska Tlingit artifacts
A shaman's owl mask. A brass Loon Spirit hat. A faded hide robe that memorializes ancestors of the
Hoonah T'akdeintaan clan wiped out by a tidal wave in Lituya Bay.
These items and dozens more belong to clan members, not the Pennsylvania museum where they've been stored for decades, a federal committee ruled recently. Marlene Johnson, a T'akdeintaan elder, has been trying to return the objects to Alaska ever since watching a slideshow of the collection in the mid-1990s. As long as there's one of us around, it belongs to us," she said...(more) (11-29-10)

Anonymous donor returns Tlingit treasures to Heritage Institute
Speaking of museum quality art, the Sealaska Heritage Institute in Juneau is walking in the clouds over the recent gift of 18 Native cultural objects dating at least to the early 1900s. The unnamed donor, from Michigan, gave the collection to a Native woman in the Lower 48 with instructions to send it home -- to the Native people of Southeast Alaska, according to a press release...(more) (11-27-10)

An interview with Southeast writer Vivian Faith Prescott*
By Katie Spielberger Capital City Weekly
"I come from many generations of storytellers. Poetry is the medium I use to tell our stories." So Vivian Faith Prescott introduces Slick, her collection of prose poetry recently published as a digital chapbook by White Knuckle Press...(more) (11-24-10)
(*This story touches on work by Vivian Mork, a Tlingit woman who had participated in SHI's language program and is now teaching Tlingit in Wrangell)

Mystery donor bestows new cultural objects to Sealaska
By Jonathan GrassJUNEAU EMPIRE
Folks at the Sealaska Heritage Institute may not know the person's name, but are grateful for his or her philanthropic spirit. An anonymous donor has given the institute 18 Native cultural objects and tourist items. SHI President Rosita Worl said the collection contained sign<<Selection in Document>>ificant ceremonial pieces and would provide important research opportunities. Worl said such donations are unusual. Those who part with such collections most often do so for a price. "What I was most amazed about the donor is he wanted it to return home," said Worl, noting she was only assuming the donor was a "he"...(more)  (11-24-10)

A new look at an old battle
By Pat ForgeyJUNEAU EMPIRE
"It was called the "Kake War" of 1869 but few people today know of it, said Zachary Jones, archivist with the Sealaska Heritage Institute. Among those who are aware of it are the Kéex' Kwaan Tlingit of the Kake area, as well as other areas where related battles were fought, including Sitka, Wrangell and Cape Fox. Jones spoke of his research as part of a series of talks held at the Sealaska Building during Native American Heritage Month. He's been using Tlingit oral histories to add to the official record of the clashes, and has been filling in a picture that's been bases mostly on Caucasian written records...(more) (11-16-10)

Thanks for making way for dancers
On Nov. 5, the Git-Hoan Dance Group traveled to Juneau for special performances to honor Native American Heritage Month. Auke Bay Elementary School is grateful and honored by the help and willingness of the Sealaska Heritage Institute and the Git-Hoan dancers to provide an opportunity for Auke Bay students to experience this extraordinary performance...(more) (11-14-10)

Archeologist discusses pre-contact Tlingit warfare as part of Native American Heritage Month lecture series
When Sealaska Heritage Institute invited anthropologist Madonna Moss to speak during the Native American Heritage Month lecture series, she didn't want to talk about war. "I wanted to talk about herring and herring bones!" she told the several dozen people filling the Sealaska boardroom last Friday...(more) (11-10-10)

Sealaska Heritage Institute among Alaskan recipients of Native Arts and Cultures Foundation grants
The Native Arts and Cultures Foundation (NACF) recently awarded its first grants to 26 American Indian, Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian artists and organizations. This year's recipients include three Alaska Native artists and three Alaska Native arts and cultural organizations...(more) (11-10-10)

National Heritage Month: Professor discusses warfare in ancient Tlingit times
By Jonathan GrassJUNEAU EMPIRE
The Sealaska Heritage Institute's second annual lecture series for Native American Heritage Month opened Friday with an in-depth look at what warfare meant to ancient Tlingit cultures. Madonna Moss, a professor of anthropology at the University of Oregon, brought her studies of Tlingit warfare to Juneau. She said her purpose was to expose locals to the differences between researched data and preconceived notions of Tlingit warfare, since it's quite a sensitive topic...(more) (11-7-10)

Heritage Month gets off to a busy start
JUNEAU EMPIRE
November is Native American Heritage Month, and here in Juneau there's plenty of opportunities to honor, celebrate, and learn more about the rich Native cultures of Southeast Alaska. The month gets off to a busy start Friday, with a full schedule of activities planned by Sealaska Heritage Institute, including a lunchtime lecture, dance performances and a Native artists market...(more) (11-4-10)

Local lectures, dances, artist market scheduled for Native American Heritage Month
JUNEAU EMPIRE
Sealaska Heritage Institute will sponsor a noon lecture series, dance performances, and a Native art market to celebrate Native American Heritage Month in November. The brown-bag lunch series will focus on topics such as Tlingits and combat and Native history and language. The program this year will include dance performances at the Juneau-Douglas High School, plus a Native artist market, which will be set up in the commons of the school during the afternoon of the performances...(more) (10-21-10)

Sealaska Heritage Institute receives donation of recordings of Native elders
Local radio host Cy Peck, Jr., has donated to Sealaska Heritage Institute a major collection of recordings capturing the words of Native Elders and leaders. The recordings, which have been digitized, include interviews with many Native Elders and leaders, including Cy Peck, Sr., Matthew Fred, Austin Hammond, Charlie Jimmie and Walter Williams to name a few. "I think it's found a home here," said Peck at a recent ceremony in Juneau where the collection was formally presented to the institute. "I want everyone to know where to come and hear the Elders speak in their original way they spoke at potlatches and ceremonies and honoring people"...(more)  (10-07-10)

Photo: Native 'Jam Session' (08-31-10)

Shocking story behind Sealaska art show winner
Powerful start: Alder left Juneau in dark; war helmet proved its mettle
By Mike Dunham
The "Best of Show" piece in the traditional category at the fifth Sealaska Juried Art Competition, a Tlingit war helmet by carver Wayne Price, came with an electrifying back story. The wood came from an alder tree that knocked out the power in Juneau for half a day when it came down, the artist said. "That wood has had twenty-five thousand volts go through it," Price said, "and it didn't crack when I carved it. So it really had a really good start”...(more) (06-09-10)

Grand Entrance (06-04-10)

Finding Long Lost Relatives
By Kim MarquisMany people have some idea where they come from, but Brian Kemp's research branches out much further than any family tree. The anthropologist used DNA samples he collected in Juneau two years ago to draw genetic connections not only among Native Southeast Alaskans but also to regions in other parts of the Americas. Kemp found maternal lineages to Southern California and, surprisingly to him, a high frequency of genetic connections to the American Southwest...(more) (06-03-10)

Celebration 2010 begins Wednesday
It's time to Celebrate. Celebration, Southeast Alaska's largest cultural event, is expected to draw 5,000 people when registration starts here Wednesday. The biennial gathering, held June 2-5, will include 51 dance groups and more than 2,000 dancers from Alaska, Canada and the Lower 48 states, according to Sealaska. The Sealaska Heritage Institute started the popular dance-and-culture festival in 1982 to celebrate Tlinit, Haida and Tsimshian cultures...(more) (05-31-10)

Southeast languages focus of books
NATIVE: Haida, Tlingit and Tsimshian words, phrases are included
BY MIKE DUNHAM
MDUNHAM@ADN.COM

Sealaska Heritage Institute has published a new series of learners' dictionaries for the Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian languages and the first-ever Alaska Haida phrasebook. "We've been working on language restoration for nearly 10 to 12 years, and I would say for a greater part of this we've been working on these dictionaries," institute president Rosita Worl said in a press release. The new books incorporate some important innovations...(more) (05-29-10)

Sealaska Heritage Institute releases dictionaries for Tlingit, Haida, Tsimshian
for the juneau empire
Sealaska Heritage Institute has published a new series of learners' dictionaries for the Tlingit, Haida, and Tsimshian languages and the first-ever Alaskan Haida phrasebook. The dictionaries are the product of years of documentation with assistance from Elders fluent in Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian. The phrasebook was written by Dr. Erma Lawrence, one of the few remaining fluent speakers of Alaskan Haida. "We've been working on language restoration for nearly 10 to 12 years, and I would say for a greater part of this we've been working on these dictionaries. So, they're pretty broad in scope, and to have three of them released all at the same time I think is fairly significant," said SHI President Rosita Worl...(more) (05-27-10)

"All Things Eagle and Raven" exhibit opens
CAPITAL CITY WEEKLY
The Juneau-Douglas City Museum will open its summer exhibit, "All Things Eagle & Raven," on Juneau Museum Day, May 15 with a free public reception from noon to 5 p.m. This exhibit is a celebration of these two birds and their connection to our lives...A life-size replica of an eagle and raven's nest will be on exhibit with information about mating, nesting and parenting habits. Eagle and Raven Tlingit phrases supplied by Sealaska Heritage Institute will also be displayed...(more) (05-12-10)

Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center restores pieces of the Alaska Native story
By Fran Golden
Special to The Washington Post
A
$40 million Alaska Native collection is debuting in Anchorage this month, representing a homecoming for 600 rare objects, most of which have never before been seen in public, much less touched. Paul Ongtooguk, an Iñupiag from the north of Alaska, said in an interview at the Anchorage Museum that he is looking forward to the "family reunion...(more) (05-09-10)

Sealaska institute awards scholarships
The Associated Press
JUNEAU, Alaska - The Sealaska Heritage Institute has awarded about $356,000 in scholarships to Sealaska shareholders and descendants. Institute President Rosita Worl says scholarships for university and vocational studies went to 386 Alaska Native students. The scholarships will aid students for the 2010-2011 school year...(more) (04-27-10)

Eagle totem brings 'balance' to UAS campus
By Klas Stolpe   JUNEAU EMPIRE
Native legends say that forever ago, long before their ancestors walked, the Raven and the Eagle shared the skies, forests and streams of Alaska, bringing a balance to the world as they would jest, joust and shout above the winds and sun. That balance was brought to the University of Alaska Southeast campus Saturday with an Eagle pole-raising ceremony. It came 18 years after a Raven pole was erected there. The Eagle totem symbolizes a school united with the community, Native peoples and their ancestors. "We have been looking forward to this for a while," Hydaburg's TJ Young said. "We hope everybody is proud of it"...(more) (04-25-10)

33 cultural objects repatriated
INDIAN COUNTRY TODAY
Sealaska Corporation has repatriated 33 cultural objects from a Massachusetts museum on behalf of Tlingit clans in southeast Alaska. Most of the objects were repatriated on behalf of the Yakutat Tlingit Tribe and title will be officially transferred to them at a future ceremony, said Sealaska Heritage Institute President Rosita Worl, an anthropologist who assisted in the repatriation. The collection underscores the creativity and talent of our ancestors, Worl said...(more) (04-06-10)
 

33 Native cultural objects repatriated through Sealaska
For the Juneau Empire
Sealaska Corp. has repatriated 33 cultural objects from a Massachusetts museum on behalf of Tlingit clans in Southeast Alaska. Most of the objects were repatriated on behalf of the Yakutat Tlingit and title will be officially transferred to them at a future ceremony, said SHI President Rosita Worl, an anthropologist who assisted in the repatriation. The collection underscores the creativity and talent of Tlingit ancestors, Worl said...(more) (04-01-10)

Preserving cultural knowledge
Tlingit carver Rick Beasley releases step-by-step guides to a traditional art form
By Amy FletcherA new series of books on traditional Tlingit carving offers an innovative approach to learning the art, by providing a detailed description of the techniques in printed form. Traditionally, the cultural knowledge inherent in the creation of the artwork has been passed down through master-apprentice relationships and workshops, and the books' introduction makes clear this is still the best way to learn. But for those without access to a teacher or a class, and for those who live outside Southeast Alaska, the series offers a way in...(more) (01-14-10)

(Listen to a radio story about SHI's books on the Developmental Language Process)
A Southeast Alaska cultural organization is releasing a series of books it hopes will increase students' success rates. Sealaska Heritage Institute is presenting the books on what's called the Developmental Language Process to educators in four of the region's communities. CoastAlaska's Ed Schoenfeld reports from Juneau...(more) (01-05-09)

Sealaska Heritage Institute implements book series on language development
Staff holds training sessions across Southeast, works on new middle school set
By Kim Andree"A child who is language-delayed is going to fail. He or she does not have a chance to succeed in academics. They can succeed elsewhere, but not in academics. ... My heart goes out to anyone who is in high school and who is language delayed, because they face failure everyday. And we wonder why they drop out of school. ... This sense of failure due to language delay is incredibly powerful"...(more) (01-03-10)

SHI releases book series on language development
Sealaska Heritage Institute (SHI) has released a series of books to help students overcome a common problem in schools today: a delay in academic language development. The series was funded through a grant from the Alaska Native Education Program and includes books on science, math and literature for high school students, plus books on Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian for all grades. The books outline a method called the Developmental Language Process, which was pioneered by SHI Curriculum Director Jim MacDiarmid, a longtime educator in Canada and Alaska and author of "Replacing Thinga-ma-jig: the Developmental Language Process."...(more) (12-16-09)

Celebrating 101 Years
Tlingit elder's wishlist includes world peace and the wild game stews of his youth

Walter Soboleff has done a lot in his 100-plus years on Earth, but his family's gift of a cruise through the Panama Canal is something new. "I've never been on a vacation cruise," Soboleff said last week before leaving town for the trip. "Never out on the ocean in warm weather. I think I will just be taking a rest, seeing the canal and the gates open and the ships passing through. I know I will be leaving my wool shirt at home."...(more) (11-13-09)

Professor says most Natives supported statehood in 50s
History lecture highlights contrast in state vs. federal subsistence debate

From the days before statehood, Native elders passed down stories of "being able to walk across rivers on the backs of salmon," which seafood suppliers for large out-of-state companies devastated by using fish traps. At the time, most Natives believed that statehood would protect their fishing rights and their way of life from outsiders who they watched discard less desirable species and overharvest top dollar species, University of Alaska Anchorage associate professor Jeane Breinig said Wednesday...(more) (11-4-09)

A potato revival
Tuber cropping up in community gardens probably several hundred years old
A potato that Native Alaskan communities grew hundreds of years ago is making a reappearance in Juneau. The heirloom Tlingit potato takes almost too well to Southeast Alaska's moist climate, said Merrill Jensen, manager of the Jensen-Olson Arboretum. He expects as many as 1,500 pounds of the vegetable to be harvested next month from four rows of plants sprouting in the city-owned garden...(more) (Click here to hear the Tlingit word for potato and other items) (08-06-09)

Sealaska announces first youth board advisor position
Juneau's Megan Gregory, originally from Kake, to serve for a year in inaugural position
By Kim Andree  JUNEAU EMPIRE
Sealaska's Board of Directors recently elected 22-year-old Megan Gregory, originally from Kake, to serve in its inaugural youth board advisory position.
The new year-long position was announced during Sealaska's 2009 Annual Meeting on June 27 in Sitka. As youth advisor, Gregory will provide input on youth perspectives and gain board membership training...(more) (07-19-09)

Sealaska Heritage Institute acquires photo collections
CAPITAL CITY WEEKLY
Sealaska Heritage Institute (SHI) has acquired two photograph collections documenting Southeast Alaska Native cultures from circa 1883 to the 1990s...(more) (07-15-09)

Sealaska institute acquires photography collections
Empire photographer donates hundreds of ANB/ANS images
JUNEAU EMPIRE
Sealaska Heritage Institute has acquired two photographs documenting Southeast Alaska Native cultures from circa 1883 to the 1990s. Longtime photojournalist Brian Wallace donated several hundred images, including photos of the founding fathers of the Alaska Native Brotherhood (circa 1912) and past Alaska Native Sisterhood presidents...(more) (07-13-09)

Inland Tlingit Celebration to be held July 22-28
B

TESLIN, Yukon - Just because there's no Celebration in Juneau this year doesn't mean there's no Celebration this year. The Teslin Tlingit Council is planning the first ever Ha Kus Teyea Celebration in the small community of Teslin, Yukon Territory, for July 22-28. "Has Kus Teyea" means "our culture" or "the Tlingit way." The event will be the largest Inland Tlingit gathering ever held in Canada...(more) (07-08-09)

Summer Theater: Where STARs are Born
By Amy Fletcher | Juneau Empire
The only prerequisite for participating in Perseverance Theatre's Summer Theatre Arts Rendezvous (STAR) program is a willingness to put your heart into the experience, says Director of Education Shona Strauser. Shy kids, gregarious kids, inexperienced and experienced, all can - and do - find their place and flourish...(more) (Sponsored by SHI) (07-02-09)

Unique Haida curriculum series distributed
Sealaska Heritage Institute hopes curriculum will help weave more Native lessons into schools
Sealaska Heritage Institute (SHI) has produced a unique collection of Haida curriculum for distribution to schools with Haida language programs, in hopes of weaving more Native lessons into the public school system...(more) (07-01-09)

Unique Haida Curriculum Series Distributed
JUNEAU EMPIRE
Sealaska Heritage Institute has produced a unique collection of Haida curriculum with audio CDs for distribution to schools with Haida language programs in hopes of weaving more Native lessons into the public school system...(more) (06-28-09)

Photo: Uncovering an eagle
See a photo in the Juneau Empire of Joe Young and his brother TJ working on an Eagle totem pole at the University of Alaska Southeast. (News Photo) (06-16-09)

Artists chosen to carve Sealaska Heritage Institute, university
Traditional welcoming ceremony to be held Thursday at UAS
For the Juneau Empire
Artists Joe and TJ Young, residents of Hydaburg on Prince of Wales Island, recently won a contract to carve a totem pole for Sealaska Heritage Institute on behalf of the University of Alaska Southeast. A selection committee comprised of SHI and UAS representatives chose the brothers from a pool of applicants last week...(more)

Ketchikan Indian Community Partners with Sealaska Heritage Institute to Provide Language Workshop
SitNews
Ketchikan Indian Community (KIC) has partnered with Sealaska Heritage Institute (SHI) to present a Heritage Language Development Workshop for language teachers and curriculum developers on April 30 and May 1, 2009. The language workshop is one example of the kinds of efforts the Tribe is making to ensure the survival of the Haida, Tlingit, and Tsimshian languages...(more) (04-29-09)

Sealaska Heritage awards $446,000 in scholarships

JUNEAU - Sealaska Heritage Institute has awarded approximately $446,000 in scholarships to Sealaska shareholders and descendants. The awards, funded by Sealaska Corporation, will help students pursuing graduate and undergraduate degrees and voc-tech training for the 2009-2010 school year. A portion also will fund heritage studies, language studies and culture camps...(more) (04-24-09)

Sealaska seeks proposals for totem pole
T
he Associated Press
Sealaska Heritage Institute is seeking proposals for the creation of a traditional-style totem pole. Sealaska has extended the deadline to Friday for proposals for the 36-foot pole. Officials say the pole is to include the Eagle crests of Eagle, Shark, Wolf and thunderbird...(more) (04-22-09)

Workshop aims to boost Native languages
Education director says new process will provide framework for teachers

Sealaska Heritage Institute is looking to reinvent the wheel of how the indigenous languages of Southeast Alaska are taught. New education director Jim MacDiarmid is hosting a two-day workshop Wednesday and today on a developmental language process he has created to help educators instill the Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian languages into the long-term memories of their students. The nonprofit educational and cultural arm of Sealaska Corp. has been at the forefront of Alaska Native language curriculum development in recent years, but MacDiarmid said incorporating this new process will help provide a better framework for teachers to present the languages to the students...(more)

Sealaska posts collections database online
Holdings include about 25,000 photos, 1,000 cultural objects

Sealaska Heritage Institute is hoping a newly posted searchable catalog on its Web site will help spur more research on the Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian cultures. SHI, a Native nonprofit that administers educational and cultural programs for Sealaska Corp., says it is a "major breakthrough" that will give researchers a better understanding of the many thousands of objects the institute houses...(more)

DNA tracks ancient Alaskan's descendants
10,300 YEARS OLD: Tests of Southeast Natives challenge prior anthropological results
By GEORGE BRYSON
An ancient mariner who lived and died 10,000 years ago on an island west of Ketchikan probably doesn't have any close relatives left in Alaska. But some of them migrated south and their descendents can be found today in coastal Native American populations in California, Mexico, Ecuador, Chile and Argentina...(more)

Book on Tlingit battle wins national award
Among the 14 winners of the Before Columbus Foundation's 28th annual American Book Awards was "Anóoshi Lingít Aaní Ká: Russians in Tlingit America, The Battles of Sitka 1802 and 1804" - a book by Juneau residents Nora Marks Dauenhauer and Richard Dauenhauer and the late Lydia Black, of Fairbanks. The fourth volume in the award-winning series "Classics of Tlingit Oral Literature," jointly published by Sealaska Heritage Institute and the University of Washington Press, this book describes the historic battles between the Russians and Tlingits in the early 19th century...(more)

Annual Native Arts and Crafts Fair
Capital City Weekly
JUNEAU - The annual Native Arts & Crafts Fair will be held at the Juneau-Douglas City Museum on Dec. 5 from 4:30-8 p.m. and Dec. 6 from 12-4 p.m. . Meet local Alaska Native artists and learn as they demonstrate techniques and sell their wares...(more)

Celebrating An Alaska original
Native leader Walter Soboleff marks 100th birthday today
One day when Bill Martin was 14 and working at a grocery store in Juneau, a man he knew for his Tlingit radio broadcasts spotted him and said, "Tell your father I said, 'Hi.'" Martin had never met the man and wondered how he'd made the connection. "All he had to do was see you, and he knew," Martin recalled his father telling him. Martin, now 65, is president of the Central Council of Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes...(more)

Historic perspective: 'Russians in Tlingit America' book sheds new light on Sitka battles of 1802 and 1804
By Eric Morrison
JUNEAU EMPIRE
The historical battles between Tlingits and Russians near present day Sitka at the dawn of the 19th century were more significant than most people likely acknowledge, linguist and author Richard Dauenhauer said. "I think the battles of 1802 and 1804 are part of that history that ultimately shaped the entire American map of the United States in later years," he said...(more)

Juneau home to southeast Alaska Native research center
INDIAN COUNTRY TODAY
The Sealaska Heritage Institute in Juneau recently opened its doors to the redesigned and expanded Special Collections Research Center. The center holds extensive archival recordings of traditional Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian ceremonies as well as historical documents, photographs and cultural objects. Renewed interest in the facility has brought with it an increase in donations. ''We have a small but growing ethnographic and archaeological collection. Now that we have the facility to care for these objects, we have noticed that more people are starting to come to us with donations,'' said Rosita Worl, SHI president...(more)

Tlingit canoe makes maiden voyage ... to the Smithsonian
by: Rob Capriccioso
WASHINGTON - A traditional Tlingit dugout canoe made by contemporary Indians sailed grandly through gleaming Potomac waters in a ceremony celebrating its forthcoming inclusion in the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History. The June 19 event was attended by a group of Tlingit tribal members young and old who were overjoyed to explain the significance of their contribution...(more)

Sealaska looks to educate future leaders
Twelve days of classes include physical fitness training, Tlingit, Haida language instruction, etc.
By Erik Stimpfle

High school students from communities throughout Alaska have converged in Juneau to participate in the Lasteen Leadership Training Program, which blends the study of western subjects such as math and science with the study of traditional Native ways...(more)

Whipping up soapberries
John Ryan, KTOO-FM
The translucent red berries known as soapberries... are tiny, bitter, and soapy to the touch. But in the right hands, soapberries can be whipped into a frothy treat. At Southeast Alaska's largest Native gathering, women from Alaska and northern Canada competed to make the tastiest version of the rare delicacy. John Ryan reports from the first-ever soapberry contest at Celebration...(Listen)

News Articles and photos of Celebration 2008
Native women whip up soapberries, fond memories
Youth light up cultural festival
Photos: Celebration 2008
Natives give DNA samples to see if they match ancient remains
Photo: Grand entrance
Lead group unveils new dance today
Photo: Carving culture
Artist weaves Native values into baskets
Photo: Traditional display
Celebrate award-winning Native artists on First Friday
Juneau's Natives Welcome Guests

Saliva samples could reveal ancient Alaskan's descendants
Natives' DNA may match cave man's
By GEORGE BRYSON
gbryson@adn.com
Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian Indians gathering in Juneau today will get a chance to prove they're directly related to one of the very first Alaskans -- a 10,300-year-old mariner whose bear-chewed bones were discovered a decade ago in a cave on Prince of Wales Island. In return, molecular anthropologists collecting the participants' DNA hope to add to their knowledge about how the earliest Americans spread across the western hemisphere -- possibly along a coastal sea route -- in spite of the ice-choked plains...(more) (06-06-08)

Rare Tlingit warrior's helmet captures $2 million at auction
By Eric Morrison l JUNEAU EMPIRE
A Tlingit warrior's helmet previously unknown to exist was recently sold to a private collector for what is believed to be a record amount for a Native American artifact at an auction. On May 18, Fairfield Auction of Newton, Conn., hosted an auction that fetched $2,185,000 for the helmet that experts believe originated in the late 18th or early 19th century. An anonymous woman brought the piece to the company during an appraisal clinic several months ago, not realizing the value of the artifact, auction house owner Jack DeStories said...(more) (06-02-08)

Sealaska searches for descendants of 10,000 year old man
Ed Schoenfeld, CoastAlaska - Juneau
A Southeast cultural organization is looking for relatives of a 10,300-year-old man whose remains were found in a remote cave. The Sealaska Heritage Institute plans to collect DNA samples from Southeast Natives. They will be compared to DNA from the ancient man’s bones, found in Prince of Wales Island’s On Your Knees Cave in 1996. (Listen) (05-23-08 )

Canyon Country family linked to iceman
By Jerry Berrios, Staff Writer
LOS ANGELES DAILY NEWS
CANYON COUNTRY_Dorothy Rosenberg's sister called her recently to give her some news about a long-lost relative - a really, really long-ago-lost relative. Rosenberg, 80, who belongs to the Alaskan Tlingit tribe, learned through DNA testing that an iceman who died 200 to 300 years ago in the wilds of British Columbia is one of her ancestors...(more) (05-06-08)

DNA link answers life's big question for Juneau man
By Kim Marquis l JUNEAU EMPIRE
Fernando Rado's family got a whole lot bigger Thursday, when he found out through the results of DNA testing that he is a descendant of an ancient man whose remains were found in a glacier nearly 10 years ago. The news also answered a question many people ponder throughout their lives: Where am I from? "There's a globe of the Earth and there's a point right there where you come from ... it's a lock in the picture for me," Rado said...(more) (05-4-08)

DNA tests support Alaska-Yukon tribal connections
Ed Schoenfeld, CoastAlaska - Juneau
JUNEAU, ALASKA  Remains of a centuries-old man found in a receding Canadian icefield have been linked to Southeast Alaska Natives. Organizations based in the Yukon and Juneau say DNA testing demonstrates the close historic connections between tribal groups on both sides of the border.
..(Listen) (04-30-08)

Smithsonian Bound
By Eric Morrison
JUNEAU EMPIRE

The copper sun embedded in the mouth of the raven carved into the canoe's prow glistened Wednesday as the paddles from nine men rhythmically sliced through the water of Twin Lakes. Observing from the dock on the lake's edge, lead artist Doug Chilton noted that many of the men testing the unnamed 26-foot canoe bound for the Smithsonian Museum had never paddled before...(more) (05-01-08)

Acknowledging differences creates accepting society
Speaker explains misconceptions about Alaska Natives
Mary Lochner
THE NORTHERN LIGHT (University of Alaska Anchorage)

Issue date:
2/19/08 Section: Features
Sealaska Heritage Institute president Rosita Worl gave a talk about the history and reconstruction of Alaska Native identity Feb. 13 in the Student Union. She spoke of the need for Natives and non-Natives to understand cultural differences in order to promote understanding and harmony, rather than ignoring differences and allowing misunderstandings to fester.

Institute posts Soboleff documents online
More than 1,000 papers documenting Alaska Native history by Tlingit elder Walter Soboleff have been posted on the Internet by Sealaska Heritage Institute in what officials are calling a unique and priceless collection. Running from 1929 to 1995, the documents provide insight into the Native land claims struggle and the Alaska Native Brotherhood, institute President Rosita Worl said. The ANB was a key player in the land claims fight...(more) (02-07-08)

Sealaska's historical photo collection grows
Newest donation from Juneau architectural firm includes 150 pictures from the 1930s
KIM MARQUIS
JUNEAU EMPIRE
While Southeast Alaska Natives traditionally passed history down by sharing elaborate stories, the Sealaska Heritage Institute is finding out that handing on the culture these days requires more than just a good ear. Artifacts are being donated with increasing frequency to the Juneau-based institute, and floor plans are under review for a new storage space, reading room and office that will be dedicated to making historical items and information available to the public...(more) (01-16-08)

Web-based class to offer Haida instruction
Course aims to help resurrect language
ALAN SUDERMAN

JUNEAU EMPIRE
The area's first Web-based Native language course is scheduled to start later this month. The Sealaska Heritage Institute will offer an elementary Haida class to interested participants solely on the Internet. The idea, said Dr. Rosita Worl, president of SHI, is to use the Internet's ease and availability to help resurrect a dying language. She said previous attempts using a traveling teacher or video conferencing had been too cumbersome...(more) (01-14-08)

Southeast Native students vie for Sealaska scholarships
Ed Schoenfeld, CoastAlaska - Juneau
January 7, 2008 
Alaska Native students with roots in Southeast have another chance to get financial assistance for their studies. The Sealaska Heritage Institute is taking applications for its annual scholarship program...(Listen) (01-07-08)

Ancient stone objects donated by Juneau man
SitNews
A Juneau man has donated four ancient stone objects to Sealaska Heritage Institute (SHI), marking one of the most significant donations of cultural items received by the nonprofit in recent years...(more) (12-26-07)

New online venture strives to preserve Tlingit language
JOHN RYAN

KTOO-FM
Everybody talks about the weather, but not many people do it in Tlingit. That could change a bit with some new online learning tools produced in Juneau...(Listen) (11-26-07)

Sealaska releases new language tools
Interactive Web program helps teach Tlingit skills
ERIC MORRISON

JUNEAU EMPIRE
Seventy-year-old Tlingit teacher Ruth Demmert has seen firsthand how the Internet and computer technology can inspire the younger generation of Alaska Natives to embrace its culture. "I believe it sparks the interest of the younger people, and I know there's a lot more younger people out there showing pride in the language," she said...(more) (11-22-07)

Forest Service returns ancient human remains to Tlingit tribes
RACHEL D'ORO
The Associated Press
ANCHORAGE - Human remains estimated to be more than 10,000 years old that were found in a cave in the Tongass National Forest rightfully belong to the southeast Alaska Tlingit tribes, the federal government said. Now, 11 years after they were found during a U.S. Forest Service archaeological survey, the remains will be returned to the tribe, agency officials announced Friday. It will be the first time a federal agency has handed custody of such ancient finds over to an indigenous group under the 1990 Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, they said...(more) (10-21-07)

SHI Sponsors Latseen Basketball Camps
Some Southeast students are learning to play basketball in Tlingit. Sport camps sponsored this summer by the Sealaska Heritage Institute are mixing language skills and court time. More camps may be offered next year. CoastAlaska’s Ed Schoenfeld reports...(Listen) (08-02-07)

Office closure could halt return of artifacts
Southeast Native groups join protest against university's decision
KORRY KEEKER
JUNEAU EMPIRE

Groups around the country, including some in Southeast Alaska, are protesting the University of California-Berkeley's decision to eliminate the unit that restores Native artifacts to their original owners...(more) (07-27-07)

Sealaska begins national canoe project for Smithsonian Institute
By Abby LaForce

For CCW

Juneau's own Sealaska Heritage Institute will be providing a special addition to the Smithsonian Institute in Washington D.C. In renovating a hall at the National Museum of Natural History, the Smithsonian is creating a new permanent exhibition on the ocean. Featured in the exhibit will be a 26-feet long traditional wood canoe, commissioned by Sealaska. "It's going to be called Oceans Hall. I just visited it last week (and) it's going to be phenomenal," said Rosita Worl, president of Sealaska Heritage Institute...(more)

District sets Tlingit curriculum
Plan provides resources to teach Native language, culture to Southeast students
ERIC MORRISON
JUNEAU EMPIRE
Sealaska Heritage Institute and the Juneau School District have co-produced what they say is the first broad-scale Tlingit language and culture curriculum that meets state academic and cultural standards. The curriculum, composed of 18 units, has been distributed to every public school district in Southeast Alaska with the intent of providing more tools to teach the Native language at a time when the number of fluent speakers is dwindling, said Yarrow Vaara, Tlingit language specialist for the institute...(more) (07-16-07)

'Macbeth,' North by Northwest
By Nelson Pressley

Special To The Washington Post
Monday, March 12, 2007; Page C01

The Southeastern Alaskan language Tlingit -- pronounced "klinkit" -- isn't especially full of sound and fury in the "Macbeth" of Juneau's Perseverance Theatre. But that's because in this production, which has been carefully imbued with Tlingit symmetry and ceremony by director Anita Maynard-Losh, the most bloody-minded speeches are rendered in English...(more) (Sponsored by SHI)

Tlingit Macbeth in Washington, D.C.
By WAMU-FM (public radio in Washington D.C.) (Sponsored by SHI)
(Listen) (03-16-07)

Perseverance to Do 'Macbeth' in Tlingit
Associated Press Writer
Jake Waid rubbed his bloodshot eyes, blankly stared at a script for Shakespeare's "Macbeth," then resumed an unfamiliar struggle with a set of lines. "Tleil tsu tlax yei l kusheek'eiyi ye yageeyi kwasatinch, ch'a aan yak'ei," he read slowly of what would normally be, "So foul and fair a day I have not seen."...(more) (Sponsored by SHI)

Exploring Cultural Ties
Perseverance Theatre's Tlingit version of 'Macbeth' to open in Washington, D.C.
By ANNE SUTTON
The Associated Press
Battles are waged to the beat of drums, witches slink across the stage as land otters, and Banquo's ghost dons a raven mask in a Tlingit language adaptation of Shakespeare's brutal and bloody tale of a murderous Scottish lord. Sprung from the rain forests of Southeast Alaska, this Washington, D.C., bound production of "Macbeth" marries the Elizabethan tragedy with an ancient indigenous culture - an elaborate conceit that its players say brings new life to both worlds...(more) (Sponsored by SHI)


Hoonah Artists
Linking to their past, providing for the future; 15 students learn Tlingit weaving and carving

By BRITTANY RETHERFORD
JUNEAU EMPIRE
Fifteen Hoonah residents have been busy honing skills that not only connect them to their past, but also help ensure their financial futures. They have been learning Tlingit weaving and carving as part of a three-year art program under the auspices of the Sealaska Heritage Institute, the nonprofit arm of the Juneau-based regional Native corporation, Sealaska...(more) (01-07)

'08 Celebration days announced
By BRITTANY RETHERFORD
JUNEAU EMPIRE

Juneau residents and business owners, prepare to mark your 2008 calendars - the Sealaska Heritage Institute has set the dates for its biennial bash, Celebration, for June 5-7.
The three-day cultural event will take place in Juneau, as it has since it was first kicked off in 1982, Institute President Rosita Worl said. The board of trustees officially set the dates in a meeting last week...(more) (10-06)

Young Natives go to culture 'boot camp'
Sharing Heritage
By ELIZABETH BLUEMINK
JUNEAU EMPIRE
About 40 young Alaska Native recruits are finishing up an intense, two-week leadership camp in Juneau this week. The students - all descendants of Sealaska Corp. shareholders - stretched their knowledge with rigorous lectures about Native heritage...(more) (08-06)

SHI Announces Juried Art Competition Winners
A former Juneau weaver now living in Colorado has won a major Southeast Alaska Native art contest. Clarissa Hudson’s “Copper Man,” a set of regalia including a Ravenstail robe, earned Best of Show in the third Sealaska Juried Art Competition. Other winners include David Boxley of Washington State and Lani Hotch of Klukwan. CoastAlaska’s Ed Schoenfeld attended the competition’s awards ceremony, spoke with the artists and filed this report. (Listen) (6-06)


Williams Wins Seaweed Contest
Who makes the best dried black seaweed in Southeast Alaska? Ivan Williams of Angoon, according to a panel of traditional food experts. Williams won the third biennial black seaweed contest sponsored by the Sealaska Heritage Institute as part of Celebration ’06, which wrapped up over the weekend. Karen Bernhardt of Hydaburg placed second, Peggy Williams of Angoon won third place and Katherine Smith of Kake was given an honorable mention. CoastAlaska’s Ed Schoenfeld attended the judging and prepared this report on what the experts say makes the best dried black seaweed. (Listen) (6-06)

Celebration 2006 Kicks Off
By Ed Schoenfeld, CoastAlaska Radio
(Listen) (6-06)

Celebration 2006 to Start
By Ed Schoenfeld, CoastAlaska Radio
(Listen) (6-06)

Time for Celebration
Making a grand entrance...(more) (06-02-06)

Welcoming the Celebration
A few minutes after 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, four canoes swung around the hulking hull of the Veendam and came into view of Marine Park, passing the boat ramp before circling wide to their left...(more) (06-01-06)

New movies bolster Native language
Seven films allow students to hear, see and interact in Tlingit
By ERIC MORRISON
JUNEAU EMPIRE
Sealaska Heritage Institute has created seven interactive Tlingit-language movies with Flash Media software to help engage students at a critical time for the Native culture, officials said. "It's kind of taking this old knowledge and using the modern technology to pass it on," said Daphne Wright, a Tlingit-language teacher for the Hoonah School District...(more) (4-16-06)

Efforts to aid Native students succeeding
Forum notes need to still raise retention rates, reduce dropouts and increase test scores
By ERIC MORRISON
JUNEAU EMPIRE
It may be a long road to travel to reach its destination, but the University of Alaska Southeast Native Education Working Group is heading in the right direction, said Joe Nelson. "When you look at the statistics, the retention rates, the dropout rates and performance on tests, there is a long way to go still," said Nelson, the director of Preparing Indigenous Teachers and Administrators for Alaska Schools (PITAAS) program at UAS. "But, the good thing here is that there is discussion among key entities that are committed to improving to making progress....(more) (4-9-06)

New exhibit in Washington includes Tlingit and Haida objects
By Joel Southern, APRN
WASHINGTON, DC (2006-02-03) Tlingit and Haida objects are part of ``Listening to Our Ancestors,'' an exhibit of art by North Pacific Coast tribes that opened Friday at the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C. © Copyright 2006 APRN (Listen) (2-7-06)

Kake fisherman curates for Museum of the American Indian
'Listening to Our Ancestors' exhibit will include more than 400 items from Alaska
By KORRY KEEKER
JUNEAU EMPIRE
Longtime Kake fisherman Clarence Jackson, 71, has served on the board of Sealaska Heritage Institute for almost 20 years and is a respected elder and oral historian. But he was humbled when the National Museum of the American Indian invited him to curate the Tlingit section of "Listening to Our Ancestors: The Art of Native Life along the North Pacific Coast," an 11-community exhibit that opens at noon Friday in Washington, D.C...
(more) (1-30-06)

TRAPPED: Juneau residents build a replica of a centuries-old fish trap found in 1989
By KORRY KEEKER

JUNEAU EMPIRE
Basket-type fish traps played a crucial role in the foundation of Northwest Coast culture. They allowed people to gather pounds and pounds of fish for the winter, and therefore, establish semipermanent villages. This was hundreds of years ago, and most of the traditional knowledge it took to construct such a trap is long since gone. Nevertheless, Steve Henrikson, the curator of collections at the Alaska State Museum, and Jan Criswell, an experienced weaver of spruce-root and cedar-bark baskets, are creating a replica this month at the Juneau-Douglas City Museum of a basket-style trap found in Montana Creek in 1989. That trap, 500 to 700 years old, was painstakingly restored and now sits in its own display case at the City Museum...(more) (1-19-06)

Dancing in honor
Miranda Worl, 8, a member of the Auke Bay and Mendenhall River Tlingit Dancers performs on Saturday during a ceremony to present two painted Tlingit panels that will be hung at the Auke Bay Shelter next summer...(more) (12-11-05) (Photo of art project sponsored by SHI)

Native art shines at Ninth Annual Arts and Crafts Fair
By ERIC MORRISON
JUNEAU EMPIRE
Chilkat blanket weaver Anna Brown Ehlers understands the true meaning of patience. One of several artists at the Ninth Annual Arts and Crafts Fair at the Juneau-Douglas City Museum, Brown Ehlers spent Saturday putting the finishing touches on a commissioned blanket that has taken her a year and a half to complete...(more) (12-4-05)

Sealaska, UAS join to shore up Haida language
Many agree existing number of fluent speakers is very low
By ERIC MORRISON

JUNEAU EMPIRE
The survival of a language needs your help. A free Haida language course, sponsored by Sealaska Heritage Institute and the University of Alaska Southeast, will begin Monday at 6 p.m. in the fourth-floor conference room at the Sealaska building downtown. The 52.5-hour course will be split up over a three-week period - Oct. 17-21, Nov. 7-11 and Dec. 12-16 - with three-and-a-half-hour classes each night. "The whole goal of the classes is to really get the people who are interested in the language and to give them a grounding in the language - to give them enough ability ... that they can begin to use it on a daily basis," said Jordan Lachler, a linguist for Sealaska Heritage Institute who will be teaching the course...(more) (10-16-05)

Prized tunic on its way home to Chilkat Valley
By TOM MORPHET
CHILKAT VALLEY NEWS
A Chilkat Brown Bear tunic is scheduled to arrive in Klukwan Friday, brought by clan leader and former village council president Joe Hotch. When it arrives here, the woven, full-length garment will be only the ninth tunic in Tlingit possession, said Harold Jacobs, cultural resource specialist for Tlingit-Haida Central Council in Juneau. "It’s a beautiful tunic," said Jacobs. Ceremonial tunics are considerably rarer than Chilkat blankets, as not as many were made, he said...(more) (October 2005)

Bringing history home
Historic Klukwan tunic repatriated to clan
By ERIC MORRISON
JUNEAU EMPIRE
The spirit of Kudeinahaa has come home to Alaska. The Kaagwaantaan Clan and Sealaska Heritage Institute celebrated the repatriation of a Chilkat Brown Bear tunic and its return to Alaska Thursday morning at the Sealaska Building in Juneau. In accordance with the Native American Graves and Repatriation Act of 1990, the ceremonial property, or at.
óow, was returned by the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology in Berkeley, Calif. "It's a really joyous occasion for us whenever we can bring any of our at.óow home, and usually it is followed with great celebration," SHI President Rosita Worl said...(more) (10-07-05)

Klawock raises seven totem poles
By LEILA KHEIRY

KETCHIKAN DAILY NEWS
KLAWOCK - Even with about 60 people working together, 2,000 or more pounds of carved wood is really heavy, especially when it has to be carried uphill, carefully lowered, spun, pulled upright, readjusted and then held steady as it's bolted into place. Even so, citizens of Klawock and visitors from all over Alaska, the Lower 48 and even a few from overseas were on hand for the raising of seven totem poles over a three-day period...(more) (08-23-05)

Photo: Start of a totem pole
Brian Wallace

Juneau Empire
Juneau carver Jim Markes uses an adze to carve a rough form of a seven-foot-long totem Tuesday at Sealaska Plaza...(more) (08-17-05)

Carving of totem focus of Web cam
JUNEAU - Sealaska Heritage Institute is hosting a live camera on its Web site showing master carvers Ray Peck and Jim Marks carving a totem pole at Sealaska Plaza. The Web site is www.sealaskaheritage.org. The Web venture marks the first time the institute has broadcast a Native art project live on the Internet, said Dr. Rosita Worl, president of the institute...(more) (08-12-05)

Strength of mind, body, spirit
Sealaska presents Latseen Leadership Training to bring students to culture
By I-CHUN CHE
JUNEAU EMPIRE
Jamie McDonald considers herself an Alaska Native. But she didn't speak Tlingit and knew little about the culture until she participated in the Latseen Leadership Training at the University of Alaska Southeast. Between Aug. 3 and Aug. 13, McDonald will learn topics from Tlingit language to Tlingit law to Tlingit history. "For me, the most important part of the program is to know other kids are in the same situation, just getting started to learn the language and heritage," McDonald, 20, said. Sealaska Heritage Institute, the cultural arm of Sealaska Corp., is offering the program for the first time. "Latseen" means "strength of mind, body and spirit" in Tlingit. Sealaska Corp. is the regional for-profit Native corporation for Southeast Alaska...(more) (08-10-05)

Learning Tlingit language is challenge and joy for children
Camp weaves education with whale and animal activities
By ANDREW PETTY
JUNEAU EMPIRE
On a clear Friday afternoon, third-grader Michaela Martin told her camp teacher "it's sunny outside" in Tlingit. Children, who are learning how to speak the Native tongue, really shine at the Juneau School District's summer culture camp, said parent Mariana Goodwin. "We've got books at home," Goodwin said. "But kids seem to listen more to strangers." The camp is funded by a federal grant to Sealaska Heritage Institute and passed on to the school district...(more) (07-24-05)

Sealaska Heritage to collect migration stories, songs of Tlingits
By ERIC FRY
JUNEAU EMPIRE
When Clarence Jackson Sr. is alone at the wheel of his seiner, he sometimes turns on a recording of his grandfather's voice and listens once again to stories about Tlingits returning to Southeast Alaska after an absence. Jackson's great-grandfather, who was 100 in 1948, also talked about migrations down the Taku, Stikine and Nass rivers. One story speaks of elders rafting on a river under a glacier to get to the coast. "As they went, they sang a mourning song for themselves as they disappeared under the ice," Jackson said...(more) (07-08-05)

Shim-al-gyack (Tsimshian) Talking Circle
(Radio story by Coast Alaska reporter Ed Schoenfeld)
Nancy Barnes stands in her living room holding a Shim-al-gyack language book. A pot of stew bubbles in the kitchen behind her as she leads the Tsimshian language talking circle she helped organize. The group uses a technique called total physical reponse...(more) (06-28-05)

Study to focus on migration of eight Southeast clans
Songs, dances, oral histories to be collected from elders with $40,000 from federal grant
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

The migration of eight Southeast Alaska clans will be documented through a federally funded project planned by Sealaska Heritage Institute. A $40,000 grant from the National Park Service will pay for collecting clan songs, dances and oral histories from elders and other clan members...(more) (06-28-05)

Dictionary preserves language of the Haida
By ERIC FRY
JUNEAU EMPIRE
Scholar John Enrico has compiled the first comprehensive Haida dictionary, the fruit of years of living among the last generation of people who spoke the language regularly at home. About 40 people speak Haida today, not all fluently, Enrico said. The Haida Dictionary was recently published by Sealaska Heritage Institute in Juneau and the Alaska Native Language Center at the University of Alaska Fairbanks...(more) (06-26-05)

Program is 'nest' for Native languages
By ERIC FRY
JUNEAU EMPIRE
Learning Tlingit has changed the lives of the 10 or so young adults in Juneau who have dedicated themselves to the language, one student says. "We had fairly life-changing experiences when we took it to heart to keep the language going, because of the Tlingit concept of respect," Vivian Mork said. Mork said Tlingit wasn't spoken fluently in Wrangell when she grew up there. She began to study Tlingit after moving to Juneau in 2002 to enroll in a summer language program, Kusteeyí, sponsored by Sealaska Heritage Institute. She also enrolled at the University of Alaska Southeast, which has a Tlingit program...(more) (06-16-05)

 "Meet Lydia" now available at local bookstores
The author of new book about a native girl from Southeast Alaska and her subject were guests on KINY's Capital Chat this morning. (Wednesday) Miranda Belarde-Lewis wrote the book about her cousin Lydia Mills...(more) (04-06-05)

Elders help USFS make over book on Tlingit food
Publication features recipes, preparation, detailed descriptions of how to dry fish
By ERIC FRY
JUNEAU EMPIRE
When the U.S. Forest Service approached Southeast Alaska elders about how to revise a booklet on Tlingit food, the elders asked that "subsistence" not appear in the title. "Subsistence" connotes handouts, but putting up food isn't an easy job, elder Ray Wilson said Tuesday. The word seemed to be a regulatory term and didn't convey Native respect for nature and food, elders told the agency...(more) (03-23-05)

Juneau wins bid to keep Celebration
City's pledge of $10,000 swayed board to choose capital city for biennial event
By I-CHUN CHE
JUNEAU EMPIRE
Celebration is coming back to Juneau in 2006. After reviewing offers from Ketchikan and Juneau, Sealaska Heritage Institute, the event's organizer, has decided to keep it in Juneau. This was the first time the institute solicited bids outside of Juneau, and Ketchikan made a play for it. The capital has hosted the biennial Native cultural event since its inception in 1982. Rosita Worl, president of the institute, said the board of trustees chose Juneau for the city's financial contribution...(more) (03-11-05)

Sealaska Heritage considers archival center
(Radio story by Coast Alaska reporter Ed Schoenfeld)
A Juneau-based cultural organization wants to create a home for historic and traditional items belonging to tribal groups. CoastAlaska’s Ed Schoenfeld reports on the Sealaska Heritage Institute’s plans for an archive and cultural center...(more) (02-07-05)

Heritage Institute seeks to connect education to Native experience
The Associated Press
JUNEAU (AP) - When Amelia Rivera attended high school, she didn't hear much about her Native heritage from her teachers. "It's something that I never studied. To be honest, it was something that I was taught to be ashamed of," she said. "It was just a little while ago that I started learning about my culture."...(more) (02-04-05)

Institute says book teaches language, values
Sealaska linguist: children's book not like 'Dick and Jane'
By ERIC FRY
JUNEAU EMPIRE
When a Tlingit boy is rude to his mother and contemptuous of a piece of salmon, it's an opportunity to teach respect. A new illustrated book published by Sealaska Heritage Institute tells a shortened version of an old story as a way to teach the Tlingit language and Tlingit values to young children...(more) (12-24-04)

Sealaska Heritage Develops Culturally-Relevant High School Curriculum
(Radio story by CoastAlaska reporter Ed Schoenfeld)

Tlingit language expert Nora Marks Dauenhauer shares a table with about a dozen teenagers in Juneau’s alternative high school. While discussing the history of
Glacier Bay, the storyteller, poet and author talks about sub, migration, alienation and respect for elders...(more)

Artists learn to engrave
Master carver teaches locals about traditional NW form line
By ERIC FRY
JUNEAU EMPIRE
In short, confident strokes of pencil on paper, master carver Steven Brown drew a killer whale design for Steve Griffin. "Just make that kind of a broad bevel," Brown said Saturday of one line that would become an engraved notch on a silver bracelet. "The dorsal fin is up and bend it back, like that. This OK?" Griffin was one of several students who took a six-day course last week in silver engraving at the Riverbend Housing community center. Brown also taught a three-day class in Northwest Coast form line for Sealaska shareholders the previous week at the Tlingit-Haida Regional Housing Authority offices. A $3,000 grant from the Alaska Native Arts Foundation, and help with travel expenses from Sealaska Heritage Institute, made the classes possible...(more) (12-05-04)

Celebration up for grabs
Sealaska Heritage Institute will consider other communities
By ELIZABETH BLUEMINK
JUNEAU EMPIRE
Celebration - one of Juneau's largest and most lucrative events - may be leaving town. Juneau's Sealaska Heritage Institute, which sponsors Native cultural programs throughout Southeast Alaska, has hosted the cultural festival in Juneau since 1986. But this winter the institute will solicit competitive bid proposals for Celebration 2006 from other Alaska communities such as Ketchikan, Sitka and Anchorage. A decision will be announced in February, said Rosita Worl, the institute's president..(more) (12-02-04)

Indian Point may be listed on National Historic Register
Area would be first traditional cultural site in Alaska on list

By ERIC FRY
JUNEAU EMPIRE
The state will ask the federal government to list Indian Point on the National Register of Historic Places, officials said. The roughly 78-acre site, just north of Juneau's state ferry terminal, is considered sacred by Tlingits, said Rosita Worl, president of Sealaska Heritage Institute, which prepared the application for listing...(more) (11-19-04)

Sealaska Heritage develops Woman Who Married a Bear
(Radio story by Coast Alaska reporter Ed Schoenfeld)
David Katzeek
heard about the Woman Who Married a Bear when he was a child. The traditional Tlingit tale was familiar to families headed out to the woods and fields looking for food...(more)

Juneau scholar, poet wins award from First Peoples fund
Nora Marks Dauenhauer is one of five recipients nationwide of 2005 Community Spirit Award
By ERIC FRY
JUNEAU EMPIRE
One day, subway riders in New York City, looking up from their tabloids and reading the ads that run above the cars' windows, saw this poem: "Granddaughters dancing,/ blossoms / swaying in the wind." The Streetfare Journal, which places poems in streetcars and subways, wasn't the only anthologizer of Nora Marks Dauenhauer, but it may be the oddest. Dauenhauer, a scholar and poet in Juneau, has won a 2005 Community Spirit Award from the First Peoples Fund, a Native American organization that supports the arts. She is one of five recipients of the award, which includes a $5,000 stipend...(more) (11-14-04)

Web site offers Tlingit language pronunciation
By TONY CARROLL
JUNEAU EMPIRE
Hearing accurately spoken Tlingit is now just a matter of going to the Internet. On Thursday, Sealaska Heritage Institute launched a new audio language resource on its Web site to help people learn Tlingit sounds. "There are a lot of sounds in Tlingit that aren't present in English," said Rosita Worl, president of the institute...(more) (11-08-04)

Sealaska Heritage lauded for language program
Sealaska Heritage Institute is one of two organizations to receive the Governor’s Humanities Distinguished Cultural Service Award this year for its Native language program. The award recognizes organizations for making significant contributions to the cultural heritage in Alaska through their efforts in revitalization of Alaska Native languages, according to the Alaska Humanities Forum, which sponsors the program with the Alaska State Council on the Arts...(more) (10-27-04)

Sealaska Heritage Institute Holds Tlingit Immersion Retreat in Hoonah
HOONAH SCHOOLS NEWSLETTER
During the month of August, Sealaska Heritage Institute sponsored a ten-day Tlingit Immersion Retreat in Hoonah. Out-of-town retreat participants stayed at the Icy Strait Lodge, where daily classes in Intermediate and Conversational Tlingit were held...(more) (October 2004)

Alaskans stand out in crowd for museum's opening
By SEAN COCKERHAM
Anchorage Daily News
WASHINGTON -- The Yup'ik funk harmonies of Pamyua flowed between the U.S. Capitol and the Washington Monument on Tuesday. Tens of thousands, including Robert Redford and Teresa Heinz Kerry, bopped to the unique Alaska beat that began the opening celebration of the National Museum of the American Indian...(more) (09-22-04)

Playwright adapts Native story for kids
Summer Theatre Arts Rendezvous performances conclude today, Saturday
This March, Perseverance Theatre and Sealaska Heritage Institute invited local playwright Merry Ellefson to adapt the Native story "The Woman Who Married The Bear" for its Summer Theatre Arts Rendezvous children's program. Ellefson had never adapted a play before, nor was she very familiar with the mores and history of Tlingit culture...(more) (08-06-04)

Sealaska Heritage looks to HS curriculum
By ERIC FRY
JUNEAU EMPIRE
Sealaska Heritage Institute has received an $850,000 federal grant to develop a Native-oriented high school curriculum in math, science and history. The institute is a private nonprofit founded in 1981 to administer cultural and educational programs for Sealaska Corp., the Southeast regional Native corporation...(more) (08-02-04)

Sealaska Heritage gets grant to identify Native clan hats
A Juneau-based cultural group wants to identify Southeast Native clan hats in museums across the country. The goal is to repatriate the hats to the descendents of the people who created them. CoastAlaska's Ed Schoenfeld reports...(Radio Story)

Sealaska Heritage gets federal grant to help reclaim clan hats
$71,000 will go to document, establish ownership of cultural treasures
By TARA SIDOR
JUNEAU EMPIRE
The Sealaska Heritage Institute in Juneau can reclaim culturally significant Tlingit clan hats from museums in the Lower 48 with the help of a new federal grant. The National Park Service awarded the institute a $71,000 grant to document and establish ownership of Southeast Alaska clan hats held by museums outside of the state...(more) (07-07-04)

Immersion retreat helps students learn Tlingit language
By Vanessa Orr
CAPITAL CITY WEEKLY
A century ago, it would not have seemed strange to hear Native Alaskans speaking in Tlingit as they went about their daily chores. Now an endangered language, it is rarely spoken by anyone other than elders, or those who have chosen to study and learn this unique mode of communication...(more) (06-22-04)

Group wants plan for Native students
By ERIC FRY
JUNEAU EMPIRE
Local educators and Native organizations are working on a plan to improve Native achievement in the Juneau schools. The group met for the first time Tuesday at ANB Hall. The effort is sponsored by the Sealaska Heritage Institute, the Alaska Native Sisterhood Camp 70 and the Tlingit-Haida Central Council...(more) (06-07-04)

Director of Native museum visits Southeast
By KORRY KEEKER
JUNEAU EMPIRE
Rick West had been invited to Celebration before. But his day job, as director of the National Museum of the American Indian, had always kept him preoccupied. This year, he made Celebration a priority. West participated in Thursday's opening ceremonies, offering remarks and a brief speech about the museum's upcoming grand opening...(more) (06-06-04)

Documentary film to preserve oral traditions
Former Juneau residents produce Dance Regalia Documentary Project

By KORRY KEEKER
JUNEAU EMPIRE
Under a white tent Saturday afternoon in front of Centennial Hall, Ken Hoff, a raven of the Tongass Tribe, shared the story of his Uncle Sonny...(more) (06-06-04)

It's time to celebrate tradition
Event expected to draw more than 5,000 people across the country

THE JUNEAU EMPIRE
Forty-seven dance groups, five more than in 2002, will star in Celebration 2004, Thursday-Sunday at Centennial Hall, the Alaska Native Brotherhood Hall, Sealaska Plaza, the Mount Roberts Tramway and Marine Park.

The Sealaska Heritage Institute expects the biennial Native dance-and-culture festival, conceived in 1980, to draw more than 5,000 people from Alaska, the Lower 48 and Canada...(more)

Canoe races could be competitive
By KORRY KEEKER
JUNEAU EMPIRE
Respect will be the name of the game when five canoe teams compete at Sunday's 2 p.m. Gathering of the Canoes at Sandy Beach. The traditional races, with canoes of 10 paddlers and a rudderman, are held in conjunction with the biennial Celebration...(more) (06-04-04)

Rangimarie brings 'peace and harmony'
By KORRY KEEKER
JUNEAU EMPIRE
The 14 members of Maori singing and dancing group Rangimarie walked about 100 feet from their arrival gate Wednesday at Juneau Airport, before they had their first experience with Alaska Natives...(more)  (06-04-04)

Contest celebrates food from the sea
By CATHY BROWN, Associated Press Writer
JUNEAU (June 4, 5:24 pm ADT) - Rose Gerber tastes black seaweed the way some people taste wine. "Relaxing," she says after savoring an entry in Sealaska Heritage Institute's black seaweed contest. "That one's good for boiled fish," she declares of entry No. 2. And No. 4 is "like eating chips."...(more)  (06-05-04)

Sitka Kaagwaantaan to lead this morning's grand parade
By KORRY KEEKER
JUNEAU EMPIRE
Ed Mercer and the Sitka Kaagwaantaan are honored to be the lead dance group for today's 8 a.m. Grand Entrance and Saturday's 8 a.m. parade in Celebration 2004. The group, formed by Mercer and Naomi Kanosh 10 years ago, is expecting 90 to 95 members to show up this year. The Kaagwaantaan is one of a record 47 dance groups performing at Celebration...(more)

Seaweed contest to feature new rules
Elders will be able to vote for their favorite varieties; results to be tallied Friday

By KORRY KEEKER
JUNEAU EMPIRE
On the rocks of Cone Island and Hole-in-Wall, due west of Craig, Klawock's Henrietta Kato finds what she's looking for. Those are good spots for black seaweed - often called laak'ask, wild celery or yanaide. It's a shimmery green in the water, a rich black when dry. It grows in clumpy blades, two inches wide and sometimes 20 inches long. During minus tides, often in early May, it's time to pick...(more) (06-02-04)

Preserving the Tlingit 'fringe about the body'
Jennie Thlunaut was entrusted with Chilkat weaving technology, and she was prolific
By ANN CHANDONNET
FOR THE JUNEAU EMPIRE
Jennie Thlunaut may be not a household name, but if she had lived in Japan she would probably have been declared a national treasure...(more) 04-21-04
(This article was derived from materials produced by Sealaska Heritage Institute, including the video “Jennie Thlunaut, Chilkat weaver” and "Haa Tuwunaagu Yis, for Healing Our Spirit," Vol. 2.)

"SHI Prepares for Celebration 2004"
(Radio story by Coast Alaska reporter Ed Schoenfeld)

SHI Posts Job Announcement in Tlingit
by Dixie Hutchinson, KNBA-FM
The Sealaska Heritage Institute would like to see the Tlingit language used every day. The regional non-profit is backing that initiative by posting a job announcement for a language specialist in Tlingit. Sociolinguist for the Institute Roy Mitchell says there are a number of Tlingit speakers but finding people who are literate in both Tlingit and English is challenging. Mitchell says part of the message is that there are employment opportunities for people who have those abilities...(more) (Audio)

(KRBD-FM story on SHI's new office)

(KTUU-TV story about SHI's new Native art web,  www.alaskanativeartists.com)
  l  Windows Media or RealOne

Meet the Tlingit
By Pat Chargot
YAK'S CORNER
(SHI President Rosita Worl helped a reporter write about the Tlingit for Yak's Corner, a newsmagazine for kids)...(more)  11-09-03

Web site works to promote Native artists
By TARA SIDOR
JUNEAU EMPIRE © 2003
Tommy Jimmie Sr. put away his wood-carving tools more than 15 years ago, but he is coming out of retirement thanks to a new Web site that markets Native art. "I just want to get back to carving," said Jimmie, 75. "I figure I'm just as good an artist as those other guys out there." Sealaska Heritage Institute recently launched the Web site, www.alaskanativeartists.com, to help Natives such as Jimmie, who is Tlingit, capitalize on the tourism market...(more)  10-21-03

Kanen accepts job in Washington, D.C.
Dale Kanen, U.S. Forest Service district ranger for Craig, has been selected to oversee the agency’s national Office of Tribal Relations in Washington, D.C...(more) 10-01-03

Corporations: Alaska Natives exert control
Part one (Indian Country Today)
A camel is a horse designed by committee. That’s how a modern-day proverb puts it. To listen to Rosita Worl, the Alaska Native corporation is a similar animal, drafted by Congressional committees to reinvent Native life in our largest state...(more) 10-01-03

$14.5 million in federal funds to boost Native school programs across the state
By ERIC FRY
JUNEAU EMPIRE © 2003
The office of Sen. Ted Stevens announced this week that $14.5 million in federal funds will go to Native education programs in Alaska. In Juneau, the money will help expand a Tlingit-oriented elementary school program, continue a popular science summer camp that has a Native focus and provide home educational and social services to preschoolers...(more) 10-01-03

Grant helps Sealaska Heritage go digital with photo archive
By TIMOTHY INKLEBARGER
JUNEAU EMPIRE © 2003
Sealaska Heritage Institute, a nonprofit organization that promotes Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian culture, is set to digitize and post thousands of historical photos on the Internet. The Institute of Museum and Library Services, a federal agency that invests in libraries and museums, awarded Sealaska Heritage a $147,639 grant to post photos owned by Sealaska Heritage and the regional Native organization Sealaska Corp...(more)  09-29-03

Hear our words
Language retreat at Glacier Bay Lodge affords an opportunity to speak Tlingit 24 hours a day
By SCOTT FOSTER
For the
Juneau Empire © 2003
Study German or French in school and you can look forward to a European trip as a reward and an opportunity to further develop language skills in the real world. "Unfortunately, there's not a Tlingit-speaking world for us to go to," said Roy Mitchell, a sociolinguist at the Sealaska Heritage Institute. "We're trying to do the next best thing, which is make one ourselves." That next best thing was a 10-day Tlingit language immersion retreat...(more) 09-28-03)

Tlingit culture camp prepares kids for school
By ERIC FRY
JUNEAU EMPIRE © 2003
The young children, led by teacher Kitty Eddy's voice and her fingers, chanted in unison as they counted in English from one to 100, pausing to stretch out the nines - "thirty-niiiiine" - before gathering speed on the next set of numbers. Then they counted, with the same vigor, the numbers in Tlingit...(more)   08-17-03

Learning by doing
Native language institute works to stave off decline of traditional tongues
By ERIC FRY

JUNEAU EMPIRE © 2003
Students in Donna May Roberts' class in Shim-al-gyack, the language of the Tsimshian Indians, point to the ground in unison, walk in place, rub their stomachs, make kissy sounds and generally do whatever she says. It looks like an aerobics class, but that's the way Roberts teaches language, and it's becoming an important element in the Native language courses at Sealaska Heritage Institute's Kusteeyi program...(more)  08-14-03

(KTOO-FM story about P.I.T.A.S.)
Reporter intro: "Thirty-five Alaska Native students – fourteen of them freshmen - will be at the University of Alaska this fall working towards education degrees under full federal scholarships.  It’s the fourth year of a program that aims to get more native teachers into rural schools.  As Anne Sutton reports, incoming students gathered on campus last week for prep classes and orientation." (Click here to listen to a story about P.I.T.A.S. by KTOO-FM reporter Anne Sutton)  08-12-03

Tlingit classrooms - a good report card
Emphasis is on English, Tlingit language instruction, Native culture
JUNEAU EMPIRE © 2003
Students in Tlingit-oriented classrooms at Harborview Elementary generally perform as well as other students in the school district, and do better than Native students on average, a recent study shows...(more)  08-11-03

Native leader wins Women of Courage Award

JUNEAU EMPIRE

Rosita Worl of Juneau, comedian Rosie O'Donnell and former U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno were among nine women awarded the 2003 Women of Courage Award on June 14 in Washington, D.C. ...(more)  06-20-03

Heritage Institute awards more than $1 million in scholarships
JUNEAU EMPIRE
Sealaska Heritage Institute will award $1.013 million in scholarships to 678 Sealaska shareholders and descendants. The awards, funded by Sealaska Corp. and by grants, will go to Southeast Alaska Natives pursuing educational opportunities during the 2003-04 school year...(more)   05-02-03

A forum for Native voices
Oratory society presents a new generation of speakers
By ERIC FRY
JUNEAU EMPIRE
Ernestine Hayes, who was raised by her grandmother in Juneau while her mother was hospitalized, said she never doubted her mother missed her. When she gave an oration recently, she linked her story with that of people who have been separated from the land, "and the land still misses them." An Alaska Native oratory society founded last year is providing an audience for a new generation of speakers, say local educators and students...(more)  04-28-03

User-friendly Tsimshian-language curriculum is basis for courses
Perhaps only a few dozen in Alaska can speak fluent Shim-al-gyack
By ERIC FRY
JUNEAU EMPIRE
Debi White, a Tsimshian Indian in Ketchikan, said her mother remembered elders speaking their Native language when they didn't want the children to understand what they were saying. "So when I was growing up, a few words were spoken but not the language," said White, who runs a cultural program in the schools for the Ketchikan Indian Community...(more)   04-21-03

Queen honors Sealaska employee
By CHRISTINE SCHMID
JUNEAU EMPIRE
Bessie Cooley used to get punished for speaking Tlingit. Now, she's receiving an award from the queen of England for using her Native language...(more)  01-24-03

Cave reveals 10,500 year old remains
By KRISTIN PRICE
CAPITAL CITY WEEKLY
Anthropologist Jim Dixon believes that the first humans in North America populated the continent via the Northwest Coast. Dixon, author of Bones, Boats and Bison, and the principle investigator on an excavation project on Prince of Wales Island, spoke December 18 at the Sealaska Building in Juneau...(more)  12-25-02

Repatriation conference helps clans learn about bringing their past home
By RILEY WOODFORD
JUNEAU EMPIRE
Thousands of objects made by Tlingit and Haida people - artwork, tools and sacred religious items - were taken from Southeast Alaska during the past 200 years. Some of these artifacts will remain in private collections and public museums. Others may be returning to Alaska, thanks to a federal law that allows Native Americans to reclaim cultural objects and even human remains... (more) 12-09-02

Sealaska to kick off new lecture series in Juneau
FOR THE JUNEAU EMPIRE
Distinguished Tlingit linguist Jeff Leer will be the inaugural speaker featured at the new Sealaska Heritage Lecture Series, scheduled Tuesday, Nov. 12. The lecture series is a new project by Sealaska Heritage Institute meant to tap expertise of Alaska Native language and culture scholars for the benefit of the public, said SHI President Rosita Worl...(more) 11-08-02

More funds for Tlingit language immersion
THE JUNEAU EMPIRE
An ongoing Tlingit language immersion effort run by a Juneau-based nonprofit group has won another large federal grant. The Sealaska Heritage Institute program is receiving $864,000 from the U.S. Department of Education's Alaska Native Education Program. The institute was awarded a $446,000 grant from the federal Administration for Native Americans in September...(more)  10-10-02

Sealaska Heritage Institute wins $600,000 for language programs
FOR THE JUNEAU EMPIRE
The Administration for Native Americans has awarded a grant to Sealaska Heritage Institute for Native language immersion programs in Southeast Alaska. The funding bodes a major step forward for SHI's Tlingit language program, said SHI President Rosita Worl...(more)  9-18-02

Empire editorial: Remembering Stella Martin
The measure of a community is more its people than scenery or commerce. For all its beauty, a forested mountain does not bestow dignity on the residents below; trade may create jobs and generate wealth, but it does not of itself address the problems of human relationships. People extend dignity and respect to one another. People resolve conflicts among those with differing interests, values and cultures. Or they don't. Because we all depend on good people to help make us better people, Stella Martin will be missed...(more)  9-1-02

SE loses Native leader
Stella Martin remembered for community activism
By KRISTAN HUTCHISON
THE JUNEAU EMPIRE
Stella Martin is being remembered today by the community she dedicated her life to helping. Martin, who died Monday at age 79, had been active in Native and civic organizations for most of her life, including the Alaska Native Sisterhood and Alaska Native Brotherhood, Tlingit and Haida Community Council, and the Salvation Army...(more) (See also Obituary)   8-30-02

Creating a habitat for Tlingit
Total immersion language camp puts students in touch with another time
By KRISTAN HUTCHISON
THE JUNEAU EMPIRE
Last week Tlingit language students made the equivalent of a trip abroad, or back in time, to a place where only Tlingit was spoken. While students of French would fly to Paris, the seven Tlingit-language students and five fluent speakers spent a week at a camp near Berners Bay. There they created what they couldn't find elsewhere, a community where they would hear and speak only Tlingit...(more)   8-25-02

Juneau Tlingit institute expands to Ketchikan, Sitka
By KRISTAN HUTCHISON
THE JUNEAU EMPIRE © 2002
It's the first year for Sealaska's Tlingit immersion retreat, but the fourth for the annual summer Tlingit institute. The Sealaska Kusteeyi Institute teaches Tlingit-language students and their teachers. Shirley Kendall came down from Anchorage for the two-week program in Juneau. As a Tlingit-language teacher, she found the teaching-methods class useful...(more)   8-25-02

Sealaska receives artifact gift
Donation is largest from private collector
By GENEVIEVE GAGNE-HAWES
THE JUNEAU EMPIRE
Sealaska Heritage Institute has received a gift of more than 50 Native artifacts from an Oregon businessman, its largest donation by a private collector to date. Bob Bowlsby, chief executive officer for Oregon's Spacesaver Specialists, said he received the objects 35 years ago from an 80-year-old woman who traveled throughout Alaska as a teacher in the early 1900s...(more) (Click here for photos!)   7-28-02

Institute works to preserve Native languages
By LEILA KHEIRY
Daily News Staff Writer
Ketchikan recently was host to an annual program that aims to preserve Native Alaska languages by increasing the number of fluent speakers. On Friday, the Sealaska Heritage Institute’s annual Native Language Institute wrapped up two weeks of intensive classes during which students learned the basics of Haida, Tlingit and Shim-al-gyack — the Tsimshian language... (more)   7-22-02

Free Tlingit language class offered every week
THE JUNEAU EMPIRE
Hans Chester, a language student and assistant instructor of Tlingit at the University of Alaska Southeast, is offering a Tlingit language class from 2:30 to 4 p.m. every Saturday in the Naa Kaani Room at the Goldbelt Hotel... (more)   7-5-02

Inspired by tradition
The state museum's juried art show includes traditional Native art and new interpretations of ancient forms
By RILEY WOODFORD
THE JUNEAU EMPIRE
Native artist Clarissa Hudson took influences from Hawaii and Jamaica, the Seminole and her own Tlingit heritage to create "Copper Woman," a regalia dance outfit that won Best of Show at the Sealaska Juried Art Show...(more)  5-30-02

Traditional rattle seized, returned to Southeast
Raven rattle was confiscated in undercover operation by the National Park Service
By BEN MURRAY
SITKA SENTINEL
SITKA - After 200 years and an extraordinary journey, a piece of Alaska Native heritage came home last weekend. A traditional Raven rattle, or Yeil Sheishoox, dating back to the early 1800s, returned to Southeast several years after being seized in an undercover operation by the National Park Service. The ceremonial rattle was repatriated under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act of 1990 and was unveiled Saturday in Juneau as part of Celebration 2002, a biennial gathering of Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian tribes...(more)   6-11-02

Celebration: Making the connections
Event's cultural resources, performances revive individual ties to tribal communities
By RILEY WOODFORD
THE JUNEAU EMPIRE
Toni Welch experienced an epiphany at her first Celebration in 1998. "Coming and seeing the dancers, the pride and traditions and togetherness, I was just overwhelmed," she said. "You can be brought up totally aside from the tradition and you come to this and it reaches down so deep inside you - and it's there." Welch is a Tlingit from Whitehorse, Yukon Territory. She returned to Celebration this year with her parents. She said she grew up with some elements of her Tlingit traditions, but not a lot. Her mother and grandmother had been distanced from their heritage. Celebration is part of a process in recent years that has reconnected them...(more) 6-9-02

Celebration seaweed contest highlights traditional food
By RILEY WOODFORD
THE JUNEAU EMPIRE
Black seaweed - laak'ask - has been a valuable resource for the Native people of Southeast Alaska for thousands of years. Alaska families have developed their own methods for drying and flavoring the nutritious wild food. Friday afternoon, it will prove to be a particularly valuable resource for three people who provide three judges with the tastiest sample of laak'ask...(more)  6-6-02

New book documents Celebration
Juneau-raised photographer captures Celebration moments since 1982
By RILEY WOODFORD
THE JUNEAU EMPIRE
As a child in Juneau in the 1960s, Samuella Samaniego pored over art books in the Juneau Public Library. Now a fine-art and commercial photographer, she's about to see a book of her own work on the shelves of Alaska's libraries. "Celebration," a 50-page volume of black and white photographs, documents the dancing and ceremony of Sealaska Heritage Institute's biennial culture gathering...(more) 5-30-02

Tlingit classroom increases enthusiasm
Harborview students perform 'The Great Táay'
By GENEVIEVE GAGNE-HAWES
THE JUNEAU EMPIRE
Students dressed as flowers, birds and berries filled Harborview Elementary School's Tlingit Language and Culture Classroom on Tuesday night. The classroom's year-end play, "The Great Táay (Garden) Party," told the story of a girl named Amy who journeyed through the forest and across the beach searching for food. The children mixed Tlingit and English easily, counting, singing and dancing with enthusiasm...(more) 5-29-02

Haines: Chilkoot association hosts Harvard visitors
CHILKAT VALLEY NEWS
The Chilkoot Indian Association showed off its assets last week to a group from Harvard University School of Government. The tribe was recently nominated for one of Harvard's 16 tribal nation-building awards for community development...(more) 5-26-02

Tlingit immersion students making the grade at Harborview
By MARY LOU BERRY
CAPITAL CITY WEEKLY
When Harborview Elementary first grader Bradley Wright started kindergarten in 2000, he was virtually unaware of his heritage. “My boy didn’t know he was an Indian!” says his father, Richard Wright, of Juneau. "Well, he knew, but he wasn’t knowledgeable." Bradley’s perception was soon to change, however, because the class Richard had enrolled him in was Kitty Eddy’s Tlingit immersion class, in which students learn both academics, and the culture and language of the Tlingit people...(more)  4-17-02

Cards encourage Gold Medal fans to cheer in Tlingit style
By ANDREW KRUEGER
THE JUNEAU EMPIRE
Basketball fans attending Gold Medal Tournament games this week can urge their favorite teams to Gashàat wé kooch'éit'aa - get the rebound - and play tough Yan yeené - defense - with the help of a pocket-sized listing of Tlingit yells. Sealaska Heritage Institute has printed 2,000 copies of the list, which includes 17 basketball-related Tlingit cheers and their English translations, to distribute to spectators...(more) 3-28-02

Native spoons draw anthropologist to Southeast
Harvard scientist seeks out elders to learn history, rituals linked to elaborately carved utensils
By RILEY WOODFORD
THE JUNEAU EMPIRE
A bear cradles an otter in one carving. In another, a mysterious beast rests head-to-head with a human, their tongues connected. The elaborate Tlingit, Tsimshian and Haida carvings decorate the handles of 40 antique ceremonial spoons. The spoons were carved from goat and sheep horn, probably between 100 and 200 years ago. They have been in the collection of Harvard University's Peabody Museum for decades, but virtually nothing was known about them...(more(Photos)   3-22-02

Class to provide Native language overview
By ANDREW KRUEGER
THE JUNEAU EMPIRE
A new summer course at the University of Alaska Southeast will offer a wide-ranging overview of Alaska's indigenous languages. The three-credit class, Anthropology 393: Alaska Native Languages, is being offered as a cooperative effort between the university and the Sealaska Heritage Institute...(more) 3-21-02

Native place Names
Offering clues to Juneau's past
By ANN CHANDONNET
THE JUNEAU EMPIRE
The city of Juneau is fortunate to have retained some of its Tlingit place names, and, in certain cases, to have revived others. Newcomers soon master the pronunciation of "Dzantik'i Heeni" or "Kowee" and come to relish each syllable as proof they're not just passing through, but settling in... (more)   3-3-02

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