Storied lives — Alaska Native Oratory Society opens mic on diverse cultural experiences

Photos by Joseph Robertia, Redoubt Reporter. Thomas Alakayak speaks in Yupik, while Ryan Richert, a non-Yupik speaker, did his best to translate what he was saying into English, as part of the humor category presentation of the Alaska Native Oratory Society’s regional gathering at Alaska Christian College last week.

By Joseph Robertia

Redoubt Reporter

Storytelling. Whether around a campfire or around the dinner table, talking, telling tales and verbally exchanging ideas have been part of the human experience for as long as humans have used spoken language.

In part of celebrating the richness of oral traditions here, the Alaska Native Oratory Society held its fifth annual regional gathering last week at Alaska Christian College. Natives and non-Natives came together to speak publicly on a variety of topics important or meaningful to them.

The soft-spoken Alice Pauline, originally from Hooper Bay, led off the evening with a presentation about leaving past hardships of her village behind, and what it was like to travel from the tiny coastal community to larger and more populated areas in the Lower 48, specifically Iowa.

“If you ever have to travel with Natives to the Lower 48, I think you’ll have fun, especially if it’s their first time,” she joked about how overwhelming it all was at first.

However, getting away from all that was familiar helped her to better understand the things that had happened in her life.

“It changed me as a person, helped me see things for what they are … you see a bigger picture,” she said.

Learning from legacy — Dena’ina speaker Peter Kalifornsky still teaching through book, village left behind

By Naomi Klouda

Photo by Naomi Klouda, Homer Tribune. Kenai Peninsula College anthropology professor Alan Boraas leads a tour through the now-abandoned Kalifornsky Village.

Homer Tribune

An indentation in the earth indicates a home site dating back to A.D. 1200, a clue left behind by ancient Dena’ina peoples who once inhabited a now-abandoned village.

Semi-subterranean homes were used by all Native Arctic and sub-Arctic peoples of Alaska, said anthropologist Alan Boraas, leading a village tour for his Kenai Peninsula College anthropology students. The house site is made more impressive by a square offshoot on the back of the earthen home, giving modern people a more intimate glimpse.

“It could have been a back bedroom, or a bathing room where steam was used,” he said.

The main room had benches on the side, a fire crib filled with sand and firewood at the center for what people craved: “Fireside therapy,” Boraas said.

This is the first year Boraas has taught a long-distance education course available to students at KPC’s Kachemak Bay Campus, as well as students at Soldotna’s Kenai River Campus. Distance education was an experience that didn’t always sit right.

“I couldn’t see my students’ eyes,” he lightly complained, standing now before most all of his 20 students at an abandoned graveyard. He had just read a story told by Peter Kalifornsky at the side of Kalifornsky’s grave.

If ghosts are real, then it seemed amongst the drooping spruce boughs and dried leaves, at least one might be listening. This would be the preferred way to teach a class that focused on the Kenai Peninsula’s indigenous peoples — in person, around the actual sites, respectfully calling up stories heavy with meanings and now preserved, thanks to Kalifornsky’s memorizations.

The long-distance class involved Boraas sitting at a table under the eye of a video camera while teaching his Kenai River Campus class. A television monitor in Homer broadcasts the lecture to students at the Kachemak Bay Campus. The tour was the first time they all met in person.

That’s a lot different from oral tradition the anthropologist has enjoyed: his work with one of the last speakers of the Kenai Dena’ina.

Kalifornsky, known as Uncle Pete to tribal members, was born in 1911 at Kalifornsky Village and died in Kenai in 1993. In addition to being a fluent speaker, he was a prolific writer. His 1991 “A Dena’ina Legacy: K’tl’egh’i Sukdu,” edited by James Kari and Boraas, is a collection of his writings between 1972 and 1990 and was a winner of the 1992 American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation.

Dyed delights — Native tufting craft turns hide hair into fancy, colorful affair

By Jenny Neyman

Photos by Jenny Neyman, Redoubt Reporter. Amy Rogde trims dyed caribou hair into a flower shape in a hair tufting workshop March 20 in Kenai. The craft involves hollow hair, such as from moose or caribou, pulled through knots stitched into hide, then trimmed into shapes.

Redoubt Reporter

Who knew moose could be so stylish? If the ungulates walked around with their hair dyed such vibrant hues of red, blue and pink and as artfully arranged as it becomes in the craft of hair tufting, they would no longer blend in as large brown lumps in the landscape.

Hair tufting in Alaska and Western Canada traces its roots as a Native craft back to the Yukon, where it was used as embellishment on all manner of hand-sewn skin garments, such as dresses, baby carriers and mittens.

“It originated over in the Yukon Territory about 100 years ago. We’re not sure what kind of scissors they used at that time,” said Emma Hildebrand, an artist and craftsperson in Anchorage.

The finished product results in soft, nubbly bundles of hair usually arranged into flower shapes, which creates a vivid textural juxtaposition to the small, delicate beadwork that usually accompanies the tufts.

“It’s just really unique and really cool,” Hildebrand said. “The beads and the tufting together, they make such a nice finished product. One without the other just doesn’t quite look right.”

New year, old culture in ceremony — Nanwalek annual festival shared with state audience in TV documentary

By Joseph Robertia

Photos courtesy of Paul Gray, Exploring Alaska. The Nanwalek community’s annual Alaska Native Russian program, held Jan. 14, is a celebration of renewal. Performers present the new year and 12 new months, with an old year and three old months trying to sneak back into the performance.

Redoubt Reporter

When it comes to celebrations, the cultural traditions of Alaska Natives are as interesting as they are elaborate. At no time is this more apparent than during New Year’s celebrations in Nanwalek, which is why videographer Paul Gray has chosen to focus on these festivities for his newest show in the “Exploring Alaska” series.

“I want to help people understand Alaska better, so one of the things I’m doing this year is focusing on shows that tell the story from an Alaska Native perspective,” Gray said. “There’s no narration to the documentary by me. I let the people tell their own story. It’s a new and better process,” he said.

Learning to lead — Native Youth Council fosters links between in teens, communities

By Joseph Robertia

Photo by Joseph Robertia, Redoubt Reporter. Bill Holt assists Jordanne Wilson with the correct knot before Wilson climbed the rock wall at Skyview High School on Friday. Wilson was one of several members of newly formed Kenai Peninsula Native Youth Council, and the rock wall exercise was a bonding activity for them on their first meeting.

Redoubt Reporter

As Dyann Lauret-Wik clung to the rock wall at Skyview High School on Friday, she may have been the only one suspended vertically, dozens of feet from the ground. But she was not alone.

The climb was difficult, she admitted she was frightened, and more than once she lost her grip and slipped. But, motivated by the words of encouragement from the other teens she had only recently met, she kept on trying until she succeeded in making her way to the top.

“I always wanted to try,” Lauret-Wik said.

In many ways her experience, meant to bond her and her fellow teens, mirrored the goals of the larger activity of which it was part, the newly formed Kenai Peninsula Borough School District Native Youth Council.

“It provides an opportunity for Native student leaders to work together to help solve community problems,” said Teresa Kiffmeyer, KPBSD Native youth coordinator.

“Young people who are involved with youth councils learn to accept responsibility. They grow through achievement and in the knowledge that they are making a real contribution to their community and to Native America,” she said.

Speaking of history — Class preserves Dena’ina Kenai dialect

By Joseph Robertia

Photos by Joseph Robertia, Redoubt Reporter. Yuzhun Evanoff, a student in a Dena’ina language course at Kenai Peninsula College, speaks what he has written in Dena’ina as part of his final exam April 28.

Redoubt Reporter

From the tales of elders long passed to more modern poems of still-living members, the Kenaitze Indian Tribe continues to share its stories and rich oral history as a way to pass on knowledge.

In recent decades, the tribe had worked with anthropologists and others to put those words to paper in an effort to keep the endangered Kenai dialect of the Dena’ina Athabascan language alive. The culmination of all this linguistic preservation work was demonstrated last week when Kenai Peninsula College anthropology students — some of whom had no knowledge of the language just 16 weeks ago — wrote and spoke in Dena’ina for their final exam.

“Taking students who knew little about Dena’ina to writing sentences in a very complicated language has been 30 years in the works,” said Alan Boraas, instructor for the Dena’ina language course.

Dena’ina is to language what differential calculus is to mathematics. It’s difficult to learn, and even more so when there are no speakers of the Kenai dialect alive and willing to share their linguistic knowledge through typical methods, such as immersion sessions.

“I’ve been studying the language for years now, and I’ve seen the passing of several elders I’ve worked with,” said Michael Bernard, student and Kenaitze Tribe member. “I’ve seen our language disappearing firsthand, so I know the relevance of what we’re doing.”

Instead of relying on living speakers, the class uses noun and verb dictionaries and grammar derived from linguists like Boraas,

Trish Magnusen gets help from Sonja Barbaza with putting on her Ojibwa jingle dress. Magnusen decided to share and honor her own Ojibwa culture by wearing the garment while she read her Dena’ina story.

University of Alaska Fairbanks professor James Kari and the writings of deceased Dena’ina elder Peter Kalifornsky.

“The idea isn’t for them to learn fluency through speaking,” Boraas said. “The goal is for them to understand the structure of this very difficult language, to empower them to read something that has been written in Dena’ina, to decode an ancient story or to write something new.”

It is only after the students can perform these tasks that fluency of the language can be a realistic goal, Boraas added.

“Once these verbs are imbedded in our heads, the next step would be to produce the language without the dictionaries and other tools,” he said.

To understand how the language came to nearly be lost, the clock must be turned back to the first half of the 20th century. The United States, in an attempt to accelerate assimilation of indigenous people into the mainstream, washed mouths out with soap or perpetrated other harsh forms of punishment on school children caught speaking in their Native tongue. It didn’t work as well as the government hoped.

“This proves our language is not lost, or dead or caught in a moment of time. This shows we’re still here,” said Sasha Lindgren, a Kenaitze elder and student in the course. “Our language is being renewed and adapted to this time. People in this class are writing about things happening now, and that was the goal of all the elders who went before, who spoke it, kept it and worked on it.”

Student Scott Schaedler gets some last-minute instruction from professor Alan Boraas before reading his story, which dealt with various concepts, including cheating at poker.

Student Yuzhun Evanoff originally hails from the Nondalton area, across Cook Inlet. He said there are only about 12 elders that still speak Dena’ina — albeit a different dialect — back where he calls home.

“The language stopped being taught in my home area during my father’s generation,” Evanoff said. “This class was a unique opportunity for me to connect with my culture.”

In addition to cultural identity, Boraas said the Dena’ina language offers a different way of thinking and viewing the world. This alternative perspective was also being shared with the class participants, to be taken back to their places of origin, some of which were quite far from the Kenai Peninsula.

Student Trish Magnusen moved to Kenai from Wisconsin last summer. She is of Ojibwa heritage, but said taking the Dena’ina language course and working on her story has inspired her to continue learning about the language.

“Before I came here in June, I didn’t know anything about Dena’ina,” she said. “I’ve learned a lot and would like to keep going by doing an independent study through the college to translate Native stories into Ojibwa and Dena’ina.”

Student Dana Vergoossen came to Kenai in August as a foreign exchange student from the Netherlands, and, like Magnusen, she developed an appreciation for this place, its people and language.

“I took the class because I wanted to learn more about the Natives of this area,” she said. “I’ve really enjoyed it much more than I thought I would. I’ve learned a lot about the culture though studying the language and stories.”

Vergoossen’s feelings about the Dena’ina language were also expressed in the language, as she closed her final exam story by writing “ch’u nughu ch’u ch’ehden et tghesyu,” which she translated into, “With happiness and sadness I go.”

The stories written and read by the class covered a gamut of topics, from traditional ideas, such as hunting moose by bow and arrow, to more modern concepts, such as cooking hamburgers, falling off bicycles and cheating at poker.

Boraas recorded to video all of the students’ works, but it pained him to erase their Dena’ina words from the board.

“I hate doing this,” he said.

Bernard comforted him by stating a few choice words that any instructor would love to hear. Tapping the side of his head he said, “It’s still in here.”

Talk about technology… Web site out to preserve, spread area’s Native dialect

A Dena’ina language Web site allows visitors to explore the Kenai Peninsula’s Native tongue with interactive pages including peninsula maps. Native place names on the map link to pictures of local places and audio recordings of how to pronounce the Native place names.

Patrice Kohl
Redoubt Reporter

People have spoken Dena’ina on the Kenai Peninsula longer than any other language, but the chances of hearing anyone speak Dena’ina on the peninsula today are slim to none. Fewer than 50 Dena’ina speakers remain, and the last speaker of the Kenai dialect of Dena’ina, Fred Mamaloff, died in 2006.

Of the few remaining Dena’ina speakers, most live west of Cook Inlet in the Nondalton area. All but one are over 60 years old. Having lost its last speaker, the Kenai dialect of Dena’ina — Kahtnuht’ana Qenaga — faces the threat of being forgotten, but Kenai Peninsula College, Kenaitze Tribe and Cook Inlet Tribal Council have launched a project to help preserve Kahtnuht’ana Qenaga.

The project has opened access to Kahtnuht’ana Qenaga study guides and archived audio files on a newly created Web site, http://qenaga.org/kq. Audio files include pronunciation samples, vocabulary and stories. For words that may appear daunting, such as niłqun qegh’utda (meaning, day after tomorrow), audio samples help open Kahtnuht’ana Qenaga up to peninsula residents and others wanting to learn more about the area’s Native tongue.

Helping hand-me-down — Collaborative research, years of effort turn donated family heirloom into cultural display

By Jenny Neyman
Redoubt Reporter

Kenai Peninsula College’s newest cultural artifact was a long time and distance coming.

Not only is the Native Eskimo, black-and-white, bird-skin parka probably around 100 years old, it took about 25 years for Gwen Gere’s parents, and then Gere, to decide what to do with it, and another two to three years for the parka to be repaired, researched and readied for display in the Kenai River Campus commons area.

These days the family heirloom parka that was made in a region at least 1,000 miles away from where Gere lives is on display where she works.

Gere’s parents, Russ and Doris Riemann, lived in Anchorage since the early 1950s, running Book Cache stores and a magazine and book wholesale distributor around the state. The business would take Mr. Riemann to Nome and Kotzebue periodically.

“A lot of time people didn’t pay their bills,” Gere said. “In the ’50s and ’60s he was his own collections agent. He’d fly to Kotzebue and say, ‘OK, give me my money.’ A lot of time they’d say, ‘We don’t have any money, but here, would you like this ivory carving or a baleen basket?’”

Helping hand-me-down — Collaborative research, years of effort turn donated family heirloom into cultural display

By Jenny Neyman
Redoubt Reporter

Kenai Peninsula College’s newest cultural artifact was a long time and distance coming.

Not only is the Native Eskimo, black-and-white, bird-skin parka probably around 100 years old, it took about 25 years for Gwen Gere’s parents, and then Gere, to decide what to do with it, and another two to three years for the parka to be repaired, researched and readied for display in the Kenai River Campus commons area.

These days the family heirloom parka that was made in a region at least 1,000 miles away from where Gere lives is on display where she works.

Gere’s parents, Russ and Doris Riemann, lived in Anchorage since the early 1950s, running Book Cache stores and a magazine and book wholesale distributor around the state. The business would take Mr. Riemann to Nome and Kotzebue periodically.

“A lot of time people didn’t pay their bills,” Gere said. “In the ’50s and ’60s he was his own collections agent. He’d fly to Kotzebue and say, ‘OK, give me my money.’ A lot of time they’d say, ‘We don’t have any money, but here, would you like this ivory carving or a baleen basket?’”

Once in a while, Gere and her two sisters would take turns accompanying their dad.

“It’s one of those things you don’t get to appreciate at the time. He told me to take your shoes off and go wade in the Bering Sea, and I didn’t appreciate it. I just felt like a dork then,” she said.

On one of these trips about 25 years ago, he came across a historic bird-skin parka, worn by Natives of the region because of its waterproof, insulating qualities. The owner was considering selling it to someone from the Lower 48, but Riemann didn’t want it to leave Alaska, Gere said.

“A gentleman wanted to buy it for a collection someplace on the East Coast, but my parents didn’t think it should leave the state,” she said. “I don’t know how they ended up with it, if my dad bought it before the other gentlemen did or what, but they bought the coat then spent 25 years trying to figure out what to do with it.”

Gere said her parents wanted the parka to be preserved and displayed. Mrs. Riemann contacted the Smithsonian Institute, but didn’t get a response. And the Anchorage museum said it’d end up in storage, since it already had similar parkas. When her parents died about four years ago, Gere took on the task of finding the parka a suitable home.

“It was something my family really wanted to do because my parents really wanted it to be something where people could see it and enjoy it and learn form it, and they hadn’t been able to find that spot,” Gere said.

Gere is the bookstore manager at KPC’s Soldotna campus. She thought the University of Alaska system might be interested in the parka, so she approached KPC Director Gary Turner about it, with somewhat mixed feelings. She wanted the parka to be displayed and cared for, but she knew by donating it she was giving up her say in where it ended up and risking losing track of her family’s heirloom.

She was happy to hear that not only was the university system interested in displaying the parka, but that the parka would stay at KPC.

“He had the vision to see that it was something that was valuable and a learning instrument in the university, so I’m delighted that it’s down here because if you give it away, you give it away and you don’t know what will happen with it,” Gere said. “They realized the worth of it and the value of it. It really is a dream come true for me.”

The parka is now on display in the commons just outside the bookstore, with information about the parka, historic photos and a plaque about Gere’s parents, with their picture.

“My parents were visionaries. They really had a love for the state of Alaska,” Gere said. “That’s why they did what they did, why they tried to keep Alaskan things in Alaska and why they promoted reading and literature. It was their vision and they loved the state, so I think if that comes through, then I think it’s wonderful.

“It meant so much to my parents, all this time they hung onto it and tried to figure out what to do with it. It’s nice for me because I get to see it every day and people have appreciated the quality of it and its legacy, because it’s from a time that is no longer.”

The display itself took a long time to prepare — two to three years, Gere said.

Holly Cusack-McVeigh, a cultural anthropologist with the Pratt Museum in Homer, was teaching a course on Alaska Native cultures when the parka was brought to her attention. Her class just happened to be studying cultures of the Bering Sea region, where the parka was made.

“It was a wonderful opportunity for my students to learn about identifying an object, trying to connect it to a specific cultural group, and be able to follow all that research, as well, and learning how to handle objects,” she said.

Cusack-McVeigh took on the task of researching and preparing the display. First, the parka itself needed tending.

“Based on how long the family had it, and when it may have been made, it’s in really excellent condition for its age,” Cusack-McVeigh said.

A conservator from Anchorage mended a tear in the seam of a sleeve and created a museum-quality, custom-fitted mount that would support the parka, and a case design and the commons location was determined to protect it from harm.
“It’s fairly fragile and fairly delicate. It’s sensitive to light, in that bird feathers are one of the more light-sensitive organic materials,” Cusack-McVeigh said.

It took a few years to finish studying the parka and doing research for the display information — and there are still questions left unanswered.

Cusack-McVeigh figures the parka probably dates from the early 1900s, if not earlier. There were three district Eskimo groups of the Bering Sea region that made similar hooded, bird-skin parkas — the Inupiaq, Siberian Yupik and Central Yup’ik cultures — so she wasn’t able to determine where, specifically, it came from. Such parkas were worn as daily outerwear, since bird feathers are so water-resistant.

Murre, puffin, cormorant, loon, auklet, goose and duck skins were traditionally used to construct the parkas. Biologists with the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge helped identify the birds in this specimen. The main black-and-white pattern comes from murres, with a greenish sheen from pelagic cormorants.

The director of Arctic studies for the Smithsonian branch in Anchorage shared parkas from the Smithsonian’s collection with Cusack-McVeigh for comparative studies. And a linguist from the Alaska Native Language Center at the University of Alaska Fairbanks helped Cusack-McVeigh make sure she had the correct words for the parka — “atkuk” for Central Yup’ik and Siberian Yupik, and “atigi” for Inupiaq — for the display, since the region’s cultural groups had different names for different types of parkas.

“There was actually quite a bit of research over the course of two or three years as we worked on putting the exhibit itself together,” she said.

Cusack-McVeigh said it’s a relief to have the parka protected and the display complete, so everyone at the college can appreciate the piece, just as she had.

“One of the most amazing things about this parka is the skill with which it was made. I feel that in part it survived and it’s in the condition it is in because the original maker was highly skilled — highly skilled in cleaning skins, highly skilled in preparing skins and just a meticulous sewer,” she said.

“This really is a legacy piece and there’s just an incredible amount of knowledge and skill that went into making a piece like this.”

Helping hand-me-down — Collaborative research, years of effort turn donated family heirloom into cultural display

By Jenny Neyman
Redoubt Reporter

Kenai Peninsula College’s newest cultural artifact was a long time and distance coming.

Not only is the Native Eskimo, black-and-white, bird-skin parka probably around 100 years old, it took about 25 years for Gwen Gere’s parents, and then Gere, to decide what to do with it, and another two to three years for the parka to be repaired, researched and readied for display in the Kenai River Campus commons area.

These days the family heirloom parka that was made in a region at least 1,000 miles away from where Gere lives is on display where she works.

Gere’s parents, Russ and Doris Riemann, lived in Anchorage since the early 1950s, running Book Cache stores and a magazine and book wholesale distributor around the state. The business would take Mr. Riemann to Nome and Kotzebue periodically.

“A lot of time people didn’t pay their bills,” Gere said. “In the ’50s and ’60s he was his own collections agent. He’d fly to Kotzebue and say, ‘OK, give me my money.’ A lot of time they’d say, ‘We don’t have any money, but here, would you like this ivory carving or a baleen basket?’”

Once in a while, Gere and her two sisters would take turns accompanying their dad.

“It’s one of those things you don’t get to appreciate at the time. He told me to take your shoes off and go wade in the Bering Sea, and I didn’t appreciate it. I just felt like a dork then,” she said.

On one of these trips about 25 years ago, he came across a historic bird-skin parka, worn by Natives of the region because of its waterproof, insulating qualities. The owner was considering selling it to someone from the Lower 48, but Riemann didn’t want it to leave Alaska, Gere said.

“A gentleman wanted to buy it for a collection someplace on the East Coast, but my parents didn’t think it should leave the state,” she said. “I don’t know how they ended up with it, if my dad bought it before the other gentlemen did or what, but they bought the coat then spent 25 years trying to figure out what to do with it.”

Gere said her parents wanted the parka to be preserved and displayed. Mrs. Riemann contacted the Smithsonian Institute, but didn’t get a response. And the Anchorage museum said it’d end up in storage, since it already had similar parkas. When her parents died about four years ago, Gere took on the task of finding the parka a suitable home.

“It was something my family really wanted to do because my parents really wanted it to be something where people could see it and enjoy it and learn form it, and they hadn’t been able to find that spot,” Gere said.

Gere is the bookstore manager at KPC’s Soldotna campus. She thought the University of Alaska system might be interested in the parka, so she approached KPC Director Gary Turner about it, with somewhat mixed feelings. She wanted the parka to be displayed and cared for, but she knew by donating it she was giving up her say in where it ended up and risking losing track of her family’s heirloom.

She was happy to hear that not only was the university system interested in displaying the parka, but that the parka would stay at KPC.

“He had the vision to see that it was something that was valuable and a learning instrument in the university, so I’m delighted that it’s down here because if you give it away, you give it away and you don’t know what will happen with it,” Gere said. “They realized the worth of it and the value of it. It really is a dream come true for me.”

The parka is now on display in the commons just outside the bookstore, with information about the parka, historic photos and a plaque about Gere’s parents, with their picture.

“My parents were visionaries. They really had a love for the state of Alaska,” Gere said. “That’s why they did what they did, why they tried to keep Alaskan things in Alaska and why they promoted reading and literature. It was their vision and they loved the state, so I think if that comes through, then I think it’s wonderful.

“It meant so much to my parents, all this time they hung onto it and tried to figure out what to do with it. It’s nice for me because I get to see it every day and people have appreciated the quality of it and its legacy, because it’s from a time that is no longer.”

The display itself took a long time to prepare — two to three years, Gere said.

Holly Cusack-McVeigh, a cultural anthropologist with the Pratt Museum in Homer, was teaching a course on Alaska Native cultures when the parka was brought to her attention. Her class just happened to be studying cultures of the Bering Sea region, where the parka was made.

“It was a wonderful opportunity for my students to learn about identifying an object, trying to connect it to a specific cultural group, and be able to follow all that research, as well, and learning how to handle objects,” she said.

Cusack-McVeigh took on the task of researching and preparing the display. First, the parka itself needed tending.

“Based on how long the family had it, and when it may have been made, it’s in really excellent condition for its age,” Cusack-McVeigh said.

A conservator from Anchorage mended a tear in the seam of a sleeve and created a museum-quality, custom-fitted mount that would support the parka, and a case design and the commons location was determined to protect it from harm.
“It’s fairly fragile and fairly delicate. It’s sensitive to light, in that bird feathers are one of the more light-sensitive organic materials,” Cusack-McVeigh said.

It took a few years to finish studying the parka and doing research for the display information — and there are still questions left unanswered.

Cusack-McVeigh figures the parka probably dates from the early 1900s, if not earlier. There were three district Eskimo groups of the Bering Sea region that made similar hooded, bird-skin parkas — the Inupiaq, Siberian Yupik and Central Yup’ik cultures — so she wasn’t able to determine where, specifically, it came from. Such parkas were worn as daily outerwear, since bird feathers are so water-resistant.

Murre, puffin, cormorant, loon, auklet, goose and duck skins were traditionally used to construct the parkas. Biologists with the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge helped identify the birds in this specimen. The main black-and-white pattern comes from murres, with a greenish sheen from pelagic cormorants.

The director of Arctic studies for the Smithsonian branch in Anchorage shared parkas from the Smithsonian’s collection with Cusack-McVeigh for comparative studies. And a linguist from the Alaska Native Language Center at the University of Alaska Fairbanks helped Cusack-McVeigh make sure she had the correct words for the parka — “atkuk” for Central Yup’ik and Siberian Yupik, and “atigi” for Inupiaq — for the display, since the region’s cultural groups had different names for different types of parkas.

“There was actually quite a bit of research over the course of two or three years as we worked on putting the exhibit itself together,” she said.

Cusack-McVeigh said it’s a relief to
have the parka protected and the display complete, so everyone at the college can appreciate the piece, just as she had.

“One of the most amazing things about this parka is the skill with which it was made. I feel that in part it survived and it’s in the condition it is in because the original maker was highly skilled — highly skilled in cleaning skins, highly skilled in preparing skins and just a meticulous sewer,” she said.

“This really is a legacy piece and there’s just an incredible amount of knowledge and skill that went into making a piece like this.”

Winding road — Life’s twists hold many surprises for Kenai resident

By Clark Fair
Redoubt Reporter

The year was about 1950 and Fiocla Wilson and her husband, Philip, were driving south of Soldotna on a recently opened section of the Sterling Highway. Suddenly, Wilson spotted something puzzling.

“We were going for a ride toward Kasilof, and I said, ‘What’s a horse doing back there in the woods?’ I only saw the back end, you know,” she said. “He said, ‘That’s not a horse. That’s a moose.’”
For Fiocla, that sighting was a first.

“I never saw a live moose until the highway was built to Homer,” said Fiocla, who was born in Kenai in 1916. “I never knew what a moose looked like.”

This may seem like a strange proclamation from someone who began life in Alaska 92 years ago and who subsisted, in part, on a diet of moose meat, along with salmon and wild berries, and some store-bought goods. Philip regularly hunted moose during open season, but Fiocla said that she never accompanied her husband on his hunts and never saw a moose wander into town prior to that drive to Kasilof.

Of course, Wilson knows that life can be full of surprises.

Born Fiocla Sacolof to a part-Russian father and a half-Russian, half-Athabascan mother, she found herself an orphan at the age of 9. Because of her young age then, Wilson said, she was unsure what caused her parents’ death, but she did realize that her life was about to change.

Her older sister took in her younger siblings, but could not afford to take in Fiocla, too. Since there was no road yet to Kenai, Fiocla was sent by boat to Anchorage to live with a relative. She attended school in Anchorage until she turned 12, at which point she decided to receive vocational training at the Eklutna Industrial School for Natives.

She arrived by train in Eklutna and stayed at the school until she was 16, attending regular classes in the mornings and training sessions in the afternoons. Wilson said she learned to work in a kitchen and a laundry, learned to sew and learned how to be a waitress, among other skills.

At the school, she was surrounded by more than a 100 other Natives from villages scattered throughout Alaska. Despite the many different cultures and languages represented there, only English was allowed to be spoken. If they were caught speaking Russian or any Native tongue, they were punished.

“There was another girl from Kenai, and I said something to her in Russian and the matron heard it,” Wilson said in a 1985 interview, recorded in a book called Our Stories, Our Lives. “We both had to wash our mouth out with soap! I don’t remember what I said. Wasn’t anything bad or anything.

“That’s how strict they were. And that’s why I can’t understand now why everything’s getting back so that they want us to talk our Native language.

“At that time the government wouldn’t allow us to talk in those languages. And now, they’re giving funds to get back to our heritage.”

Despite the strictness, however, Wilson — who was called “Fanny” by the matrons — said she was pleased that she had the opportunity to attend the school, and she fondly recalled one particular home-economics teacher who taught her an important lesson.

“I had a teacher that always told me, ‘Never be ashamed of your nationality.’ And it wasn’t your nationality that counted as much as your character and your personality. And she always told me that I would go a long ways if I would just be the way I was with my personality and character. Because she said I had an awful sweet personality.”

When Wilson left the school in 1933, she had a surprise waiting for her. A man she had always known as “Uncle Dan” met her at the train station in Eklutna, where he handed her $25 and an envelope containing a photograph of himself. He said he had written something on the photo, but he did not want her to read it until she had boarded the train.

On board, she learned that “Uncle Dan” was her biological father, who had run off to Anchorage with another woman when Fiocla was too young to remember. The man she had believed was her father had actually been a stepfather.

On the eve of her first steps into adulthood, “Uncle Dan” had reached out in his own way to let her know the truth.

A few days after leaving the boat in Kenai, Fiocla turned 17. Before the year was out, she was married to her first boyfriend, Philip, in a ceremony officiated by the Rev. Paul Shadura at the Russian Orthodox Church.

Philip, the son of a Caucasian father and a half-Russian, half-Athabascan mother, had been born in Kenai in 1912. He fished commercially in the summers and trapped in the winters. By the time the Wilson family had grown to six children in 1949, he also had an airplane, a single-engine Piper PA-12 Super Cruiser, which he used occasionally to fly out men on hunting trips.

One of Fiocla’s favorite times of year occurred when the family ventured down to their setnet site below Wildwood.

“I enjoyed that, taking the kids out on the beach,” she said. “Living in tents. It was just like a vacation for my children. They really enjoyed that.”

Fiocla smiled as she remembered the work involved in commercial fishing. “I liked picking fish. I used to think that was fun. I used to see how many I could carry. I could have 10 fish, you know — you put your fingers in their mouth and carry ’em like that.”

As she explained, she held out both hands, palms up, fingers and thumbs curled like hooks.
“And I used to run to (Philip’s) dory to put the fish in.”

From the dory, the fish went to a scow, and then on to a tender that carried them to the Libby, McNeil and Libby cannery across the wide river mouth. She said that when they began fishing in 1934, a single sockeye salmon fetched 7 cents, while a single chinook fetched a dollar. At the Kenai Commercial store at the same time, a pound of butter cost 25 cents.

Fiocla and her family fished the site until the early 1960s, when Philip decided to sell the place and buy a drift boat, which he named the Kenai. In her home today, Fiocla has a Jim Evenson painting of Philip’s plane on skis in the winter, and another painting, by one of her daughters, depicting Philip’s boat on choppy water, with the Kenai bluffs stark in the background.

Philip, who suffered from diabetes, died in 1975. Several years later, Fiocla moved into the home that she still maintains by herself, although one of her daughters lives right next door. She keeps busy with her large family — including 16 grandchildren, 16 great-grandchildren, and several great-great-grandchildren — and as a member of both the Kenaitze tribe and the Kenai Bible Chapel.

These days, the moose are more plentiful in Kenai. Some of them even wander into the neighborhood.

Winding road — Life’s twists hold many surprises for Kenai resident

By Clark Fair
Redoubt Reporter

The year was about 1950 and Fiocla Wilson and her husband, Philip, were driving south of Soldotna on a recently opened section of the Sterling Highway. Suddenly, Wilson spotted something puzzling.

“We were going for a ride toward Kasilof, and I said, ‘What’s a horse doing back there in the woods?’ I only saw the back end, you know,” she said. “He said, ‘That’s not a horse. That’s a moose.’”
For Fiocla, that sighting was a first.

“I never saw a live moose until the highway was built to Homer,” said Fiocla, who was born in Kenai in 1916. “I never knew what a moose looked like.”

This may seem like a strange proclamation from someone who began life in Alaska 92 years ago and who subsisted, in part, on a diet of moose meat, along with salmon and wild berries, and some store-bought goods. Philip regularly hunted moose during open season, but Fiocla said that she never accompanied her husband on his hunts and never saw a moose wander into town prior to that drive to Kasilof.

Of course, Wilson knows that life can be full of surprises.

Born Fiocla Sacolof to a part-Russian father and a half-Russian, half-Athabascan mother, she found herself an orphan at the age of 9. Because of her young age then, Wilson said, she was unsure what caused her parents’ death, but she did realize that her life was about to change.

Her older sister took in her younger siblings, but could not afford to take in Fiocla, too. Since there was no road yet to Kenai, Fiocla was sent by boat to Anchorage to live with a relative. She attended school in Anchorage until she turned 12, at which point she decided to receive vocational training at the Eklutna Industrial School for Natives.

She arrived by train in Eklutna and stayed at the school until she was 16, attending regular classes in the mornings and training sessions in the afternoons. Wilson said she learned to work in a kitchen and a laundry, learned to sew and learned how to be a waitress, among other skills.

At the school, she was surrounded by more than a 100 other Natives from villages scattered throughout Alaska. Despite the many different cultures and languages represented there, only English was allowed to be spoken. If they were caught speaking Russian or any Native tongue, they were punished.

“There was another girl from Kenai, and I said something to her in Russian and the matron heard it,” Wilson said in a 1985 interview, recorded in a book called Our Stories, Our Lives. “We both had to wash our mouth out with soap! I don’t remember what I said. Wasn’t anything bad or anything.

“That’s how strict they were. And that’s why I can’t understand now why everything’s getting back so that they want us to talk our Native language.

“At that time the government wouldn’t allow us to talk in those languages. And now, they’re giving funds to get back to our heritage.”

Despite the strictness, however, Wilson — who was called “Fanny” by the matrons — said she was pleased that she had the opportunity to attend the school, and she fondly recalled one particular home-economics teacher who taught her an important lesson.

“I had a teacher that always told me, ‘Never be ashamed of your nationality.’ And it wasn’t your nationality that counted as much as your character and your personality. And she always told me that I would go a long ways if I would just be the way I was with my personality and character. Because she said I had an awful sweet personality.”

When Wilson left the school in 1933, she had a surprise waiting for her. A man she had always known as “Uncle Dan” met her at the train station in Eklutna, where he handed her $25 and an envelope containing a photograph of himself. He said he had written something on the photo, but he did not want her to read it until she had boarded the train.

On board, she learned that “Uncle Dan” was her biological father, who had run off to Anchorage with another woman when Fiocla was too young to remember. The man she had believed was her father had actually been a stepfather.

On the eve of her first steps into adulthood, “Uncle Dan” had reached out in his own way to let her know the truth.

A few days after leaving the boat in Kenai, Fiocla turned 17. Before the year was out, she was married to her first boyfriend, Philip, in a ceremony officiated by the Rev. Paul Shadura at the Russian Orthodox Church.

Philip, the son of a Caucasian father and a half-Russian, half-Athabascan mother, had been born in Kenai in 1912. He fished commercially in the summers and trapped in the winters. By the time the Wilson family had grown to six children in 1949, he also had an airplane, a single-engine Piper PA-12 Super Cruiser, which he used occasionally to fly out men on hunting trips.

One of Fiocla’s favorite times of year occurred when the family ventured down to their setnet site below Wildwood.

“I enjoyed that, taking the kids out on the beach,” she said. “Living in tents. It was just like a vacation for my children. They really enjoyed that.”

Fiocla smiled as she remembered the work involved in commercial fishing. “I liked picking fish. I used to think that was fun. I used to see how many I could carry. I could have 10 fish, you know — you put your fingers in their mouth and carry ’em like that.”

As she explained, she held out both hands, palms up, fingers and thumbs curled like hooks.
“And I used to run to (Philip’s) dory to put the fish in.”

From the dory, the fish went to a scow, and then on to a tender that carried them to the Libby, McNeil and Libby cannery across the wide river mouth. She said that when they began fishing in 1934, a single sockeye salmon fetched 7 cents, while a single chinook fetched a dollar. At the Kenai Commercial store at the same time, a pound of butter cost 25 cents.

Fiocla and her family fished the site until the early 1960s, when Philip decided to sell the place and buy a drift boat, which he named the Kenai. In her home today, Fiocla has a Jim Evenson painting of Philip’s plane on skis in the winter, and another painting, by one of her daughters, depicting Philip’s boat on choppy water, with the Kenai bluffs stark in the background.

Philip, who suffered from diabetes, died in 1975. Several years later, Fiocla moved into the home that she still maintains by herself, although one of her daughters lives right next door. She keeps busy with her large family — including 16 grandchildren, 16 great-grandchildren, and several great-great-grandchildren — and as a member of both the Kenaitze tribe and the Kenai Bible Chapel.

These days, the moose are more plentiful in Kenai. Some of them even wander into the neighborhood.