Newsletter

Smithsonian Institution National Museum of Natural History

May 2022 https://naturalhistory.si.edu/research/anthropology/programs/arctic-studies-center Number 29

NOTES FROM THE DIRECTOR

By William W. Fitzhugh

Another covid year has come and gone leaving 

us a bit surprised and bewildered. Breaks in the 

COVID-19 waves in 2021 had us launching field 

plans, experimenting with office returns, and getting 

‘boosted’. The jabs promised a return to normalcy, 

or at least a new normal, fortified by zooming 

technology and hybrid conferencing. Now we’re able 

to talk and listen instantaneously around the world 

with few or no conference fees. The sky was clearing, 

and the future looked bright—that is, until Omicron 

appeared, and we were hauled back into lock-down.

The ASC survived a 

second covid year, and 

thanks to the miraculous 

appearance of vaccines 

and diligent isolation, 

none of us fell ill. You 

might say we thrived 

in our capsules. We’ve 

grown closer to our 

immediate and distant 

families and had fewer 

distractions. Meetings 

are shorter and more 

productive, and 

commuting has been 

replaced by a couple of 

clicks, leaving those of 

us with empty nests more 

time to read and write. 

In this respect, our ‘mature’ ASC crowd may have 

advantages not available to colleagues with youngsters.

This year our major activity surrounded the hundredyear anniversary of the Danish Fifth Thule Expedition 

(FTE) of 1921–24, a research enterprise that laid 

an extraordinary foundation for all subsequent 

anthropological research in Arctic North America. For 

the past several years, Igor Krupnik, assisted by Aron 

Crowell, laid the groundwork for an FTE retrospective, 

beginning with a 2019 centennial symposium in Nome, 

Alaska, bringing together colleagues from Denmark, 

Canada, Alaska, and the Lower 48, including Inuit 

whose ancestors hosted the expedition. Crowell and 

Krupnik edited the Nome proceedings for a special 

double issue of Alaska Journal of Anthropology (19:1-2) 

released in September.

To initiate the first year of the FTE centennial, we 

invited Dr. Mari Kleist, a Greenland Inuk assistant 

professor at Ilisimatusarfik/University of Greenland, 

Nuuk, to give our annual Tiger Burch Memorial 

Lecture. Delivered on 15 December, her talk, “The 

Expedition Would Not Have Succeeded Without 

Them”, demonstrated the crucial role played by 

the Inuit/Inughuit participants in the expedition. 

Heretofore, credit for this 

mammoth undertaking 

has been attributed to its 

scholarly leaders, especially 

Knud Rasmussen. Kleist’s 

talk and the papers of the 

AJA volume document in 

detail, for the first time, 

the contributions of Inuit 

participants as translators, 

knowledge providers, and 

full expedition partners.

In his third year as 

anthropology department 

chair, and in addition to 

his FTE activities, Igor 

finished editorial work on 

Volume 1 (Introduction) 

of the Handbook of North 

American Indians series, and Arctic Crashes: People 

and Animals in the Changing North (2020) received 

the museum’s book award for 2021. In addition to 

scholarly activity and supervising staff and operations, 

Igor led the Department of Anthropology’s response 

to changes in our relationships with constituents, 

particularly with Indigenous communities. In 

addition, this year, responding to the national dialogue 

concerning racism, equity, and endemic issues of 

disrespect, our physical anthropologists conducted a 

Knud Rasmussen visiting Washington DC with 

Arnarulunnguaq (“Little Girl”) and Qaavigarsuaq (“Eider 

Duck”) after completing the Alaskan leg of the Fifth Thule 

Expedition. Smithsonian Archives photo
2 ASC Newsletter

comprehensive review of African American human 

remains held at NMNH. Concern about institutional 

involvement in colonial attitudes and issues of 

representation resulting from past collecting practices, 

and appropriate research and exhibition activities, have 

brought new challenges to the museum. Our collections 

are no longer inaccessible; their images and histories 

are available for all to see. Curators, conservators, 

collection managers, and museum officials are 

discovering Smithsonian collections have attracted 

the interest of others besides scholars, students, 

and indigenous groups. Many sectors of the public, 

especially source communities and media, are taking an 

interest in Smithsonian collections for the first time. 

As a result, across the museum world we need more 

transparency and new collection 

policies to redress errors of the 

past and strengthen Indigenous 

and constituent relationships. 

Anthropology is not unique 

in this regard. Other NMNH 

departments and Smithsonian 

museums are also engaged 

in introspection, establishing 

standing committees and 

working groups, discovering 

issues the Institution never 

adequately considered. This 

is, in fact, a remarkable 

time, one full of discussion, 

rehabilitation, and hope. Covid 

demanded physical isolation, 

but it also encouraged new 

ways of thinking, stimulated 

connectivity, awakened 

sensibilities, and is producing 

institutional change.

Along these lines, Aron 

Crowell completed his third 

year of service on the Advisory 

Committee for the NSF Office 

of Polar Programs and joined 

its Subcommittee on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, 

which will make recommendations to NSF on 

initiatives to increase participation by underrepresented 

groups in Arctic and Antarctic research. Crowell 

joined the NMNH task forces on Science Culture and 

Structure, aimed at changing the institutional culture 

of science at NMNH. He also completed a draft report 

on his NSF-funded archaeology and Indigenous 

knowledge research at Yakutat in Southeast Alaska. 

The project exemplifies multidisciplinary collaborative 

research and knowledge co-production with Indigenous 

communities. Dawn Biddison received the 2021 

Museum Award from Museums Alaska for work 

since 2012 on the Material Traditions' series with 

Alaska Native artists, students, and communities. She 

organized webinars with the Inuit Art Foundation 

and others on Alaska Native land acknowledgment 

and cultural appropriation. Her “Voices from Cedar” 

materials are on the “Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center 

in Alaska” website on the SI Learning Lab.

Covid isolation gave me a chance to complete several 

long-term projects. With Gracie Ramsfield, I finished 

editing Wilfred Richard’s autobiography, Northern 

Light: My Life Behind a Lens, co-published with 

IPI Press in Vermont. Illustrated with Will’s photos 

from a lifetime of northern travel, the book argues for 

environment sanity and cultural sustainability. Assisted 

by Olivia Box, I edited an English translation of

Jamsranjav Bayarsaikhan’s 

monograph Deer Stones of 

Mongolia, and with Bayaraa 

published an article on 

Mongolian deer stones. My 

report on an 1820s homestead 

in the Fairlee VT forest 

appeared, and I began work 

at a second site and produced 

a small exhibit for the local 

school and town. In Canada, my 

absence on the Quebec Lower 

North Shore was filled by 

SSHRC-SI Fellow Francisco 

Rivera, who conducted 

industrial archaeology of 

the St. Paul 19th century cod 

fishery. In February 2022, 

Jesse Casana, Aron Crowell, 

David Nordlander, and I 

re-submitted a revised Arctic 

Digital Library proposal to 

NSF with Dartmouth College, 

Anchorage Museum, Sealaska 

Heritage, and the Kitikmeot 

Heritage Society of Cambridge 

Bay, Nunavut, as partners. Burch 

2020 lecturer Brendan Griebel

provided our link with Kitikmeot. Aron and I submitted 

a parallel ADL proposal to NMNH. 

Meanwhile, the ASC doubled down on several exhibition 

projects. Stephen Loring collaborated with Elisa 

Palomino Perez to produce a traditional Alaskan fishskin technology display for the Smithsonian’s “Futures” 

exhibition in the renovated Arts and Industries Building. 

Stephen and I, along with Rob Mullen and others, 

provided guidance for a SITES (Smithsonian Traveling 

Exhibition Service) exhibition coordinated by Carol 

Bossert on boreal forest ecology and preservation titled 

Knowing Nature: Stories of the Boreal Forest. Stephen 

Special Issue: From Greenland to the Pacific: 

Centennial of The Fifth Thule

Expedition 1921–1924
 ASC Newsletter 3

also served as anthropologist on the forthcoming NMNH 

exhibition, Lights Out: Recovering Our Night Sky. 

Our research associates kept us connected to Arctic 

colleagues and fellow institutions. Amy PhillipsChan published her book Our Stories Etched in Ivory, 

designed by Igor Chechushkov, in our Contributions 

to Circumpolar Anthropology series. John Cloud and 

Elisa Palomino Perez conducted research at the Museum 

of Anthropology in Florence, Italy, established in 1868, 

becoming the world's first museum of anthropology. 

John published an article on Indigenous cartography 

in Calafia, the journal of the California Map Society. 

Our former SI colleague Susan Rowley was appointed 

Director of the Museum of Anthropology at the 

University British Columbia. Ted Timreck finished a 

film featuring forty years of ASC research titled Ancient 

Sea Peoples of the North Atlantic. Ann Fienup-Riordan

published All the Land's Surface Is Medicine: Edible 

and Medicinal Plants of Southwest Alaska with coauthors Alice Rearden, Marie Meade, Kevin Jernigan, 

and Jacqueline Cleveland, as well as a second book, 

Ircenrraat/Other-Than-Human Persons in Southwest 

Alaska with Alice Rearden, Marie Meade, and Mark 

John. As editor of the Alaska Journal of Anthropology, 

Ken Pratt oversaw production of the Fifth Thule 

centennial volume described above. He also conducted 

research on former boarding schools in Alaska for a 

report responding to the “Federal Indian Boarding 

School Initiative” issued by the US Secretary of the 

Interior in June 2021.

Our archaeology associates have also been busy. Chris 

Wolff took on editorship of Northeast Anthropology 

and wrote reports with Donald Holly and Stephen 

Hull on Newfoundland Dorset and Beothuk 

archeology, and on subsistence and longhouses in the 

Archaic of the Far Northeast. After a 2-year covid 

hiatus, Bill Honeychurch will continue his interrupted 

NSF-supported study of climate, human, and ecosystem 

interactions during the Turkic and Mongol Empires in 

Mongolia. In Labrador, Anthony Jenkinson continued 

work at the Shukapesh site in Sheshatshit (North West 

River) and an Early Archaic Mistanuk caribou ambush 

site at Kamestastin.

As this issue is being printed, we face new challenges 

triggered by the Russian invasion of Ukraine that 

began on February 24, 2022. The ASC itself is a child 

of the ‘Crossroads Era,’ an outcome and a symbol of 

the new spirit of partnership built in the aftermath of 

the opening of Siberia and the Russian Arctic since the 

late 1980s and early 1990s. We have achieved much 

in the following decades, thanks in part to our strong 

connection to colleagues across the Arctic, including 

in Russia. Since the war started, many links have been 

put on hold; the Arctic Council and IASC suspended its 

collaboration with Russian agencies and institutions, and 

the future of many research projects is in doubt. How 

these events will affect us and our Russian and Ukrainian 

colleagues will be reviewed in our 30th year issue.

Sad news came from Anchorage, Alaska while we have 

been preparing this issue for printintg. Dr. Gordon L. 

Pullar, age 78, passed away on April 18, 2022, after 

a long illness. As we do not have enough space in this 

issue, we will do proper respects for Dr. Pullar in our 

2023 Newsletter. 

And with this round-up, we encourage you to explore 

“ASC 2022” in the following pages!

INCREASING DIVERSITY, EQUITY, AND 

INCLUSION IN SCIENCE: CURRENT 

INITIATIVES AT THE SMITHSONIAN AND 

NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION 

By Aron L. Crowell 

The underrepresentation of women and minoritized 

communities in science, technology, engineering, 

and mathematics (STEM) is a persistent and widely 

recognized issue in the United States (Bernard and 

Cooperdock 2018; National Academies of Sciences, 

Engineering, and Medicine 2019, 2020). In a 

recent report to Congress, the Committee on Equal 

Opportunities in Science and Engineering (CEOSE) 

compared sectional representation in STEM to shares 

of the U.S. population, employing U.S. Census Bureau 

categories (CEOSE 2021). According to the study, 

underrepresented groups include Black women (1.8% 

of the STEM workforce vs. 6.7% of the population), 

Black men (3.3% vs. 6.3%), Hispanic women (2.4% 

vs. 9.1%), Hispanic men (5.1% vs. 9.5%), and White 

women (17.7% vs. 29.6%). 

Similar findings were reported by the Pew Research 

Center (Fry et al. 2021), which in addition documented 

sizeable pay differences in STEM fields by gender, 

race, and ethnicity. Disparities in STEM arise from 

social attitudes, discrimination, harassment, explicit 

and implicit biases, differential access, and systemic 

racism that can hinder scientists at every stage of their 

education and careers.

At the Smithsonian, equity issues have been brought to 

the fore by Secretary Lonnie Bunch, whose initiatives 

include the national forum “Our Shared Future: 

Reckoning with Our Racial Past” and the SI Civil 

program for reporting and mitigation of workplace 

bias and harassment. Other current efforts focus on 

raising awareness and seeking solutions within the 

Smithsonian scientific community, which includes 

personnel in all roles and departments at the National 
4 ASC Newsletter

Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Tropical 

Research Institute, Smithsonian Marine Station, and 

other research branches.

In 2021, the NMNH Advisory Council for Inclusion, 

Diversity, Equity, and Accessibility (IDEA Council) 

conducted an employee survey which found generally 

encouraging results, including that more than 90% of 

respondents felt that “my coworkers/

peers treat me with respect” and “I 

value inclusion, diversity, equity, and 

access (IDEA) in the workplace.” 

However, 18% disagreed with the 

statement that “At NMNH, my 

identity characteristics have never 

been a barrier to professional growth 

opportunities,” signaling a perception 

of biases in hiring, promotions, full 

equity with peers, and advancement 

to leadership roles. About the same 

number (17%) reported having 

experienced unacceptable identitybased treatment in the workplace and 

24% had witnessed such behavior. 

The IDEA Council is developing 

recommendations to address these 

concerns, including training for 

museum leadership and staff. 

The NMNH Senate of Scientists’ 

Committee on Diversity, Antiracism, 

and Belonging (CDAB) is also 

contributing to this effort. In 

February 2021 CDAB sponsored a 

webinar on equity, inclusion, and 

institutional change, led by consultant 

Desiree Adaway and attended by 

nearly 200 NMNH staff members. Adaway received 

widespread praise for the inspiration, clarity of ideas, 

and transformational strategies she presented. In a 

CDAB discussion in March 2022 speakers addressed 

issues of racism and exclusion relating to collections at 

NMNH, including ethical responsibility for repatriation 

of African American human remains in the biological 

anthropology collections (Amanda Lawrence); 

colonial legacies and shared stewardship of the national 

fossil collection, largely extracted from Indigenous 

lands in the Great Plains (Kathy Hollis); and the 

role of Indigenous knowledge, science, and cultural 

practices in research and collections management 

(Dorothy Lippert).

NMNH task forces on Science Culture and Science 

Structure, initiated in response to an external Visiting 

Committee evaluation in 2019, were also launched 

in 2021 under the executive leadership of NMNH 

Associate Director for Science Rebecca Johnson. 

The task forces designed a peer-to-peer process to 

share experiences and gather suggestions for cultural 

and structural reform, including more than 30 small 

group listening sessions led on Zoom by task force 

volunteers. The NMNH Anthropology Department was 

represented on the Science Culture group by Dorothy 

Lippert (co-lead with Nick Pyenson of Paleobiology), 

Josh Bell, Laurie Burgess, Amanda Lawrence, and 

Mark White; I also played a small role. 

Insights from the listening sessions 

will shape recommendations to NMNH 

leadership on building a culture of 

mutual respect, increasing diversity, 

improving communication, transparent 

decision making, and ensuring equity 

in opportunities for professional growth 

and advancement. For me, the listening 

sessions clearly demonstrated how much 

those who work at NMNH take pride in 

their institution but also want to see it 

grow and change.

On behalf of the Smithsonian and the 

Arctic Studies Center it has also been 

my honor to serve since 2018 on the 

Advisory Committee for the Office of 

Polar Programs (OPP) at the National 

Science Foundation, and since 2020 

on the OPP diversity, equity, and 

inclusion (DEI) subcommittee. As 

the lead science funding agency, NSF 

accepted the challenge of increasing 

diversity in the nation’s scientific 

community more than four decades 

ago when it established CEOSE to 

encourage “full participation of women, 

minorities, and persons with disabilities 

in scientific, engineering, and professional fields.” 

In subsequent years NSF investments under the 

umbrella of Broadening Participation have included 

funding for STEM education at all levels, research 

and fieldwork opportunities for undergraduates and 

emerging scientists, partnerships with minority-serving 

institutions of higher learning (for example, historically 

Black colleges and universities), and other initiatives, 

with an annual budget that currently exceeds $1B. 

NSF recently set up INCLUDES, aimed at increasing 

diversity in STEM education through alliances of 

educational institutions, professional organizations, and 

communities, and ASPIRE, aimed at building diverse 

university faculties.

The DEI subcommittee on which I now serve is 

reviewing the extent to which NSF’s efforts to 

build diversity in science can be more widely and 

effectively implemented in Arctic and Antarctic 

research, which includes virtually all scientific 

Mellisa Maktuayaq Johnson
 ASC Newsletter 5

disciplines from anthropology to atmospheric science, 

geosciences, deep space research, biology, zoology, 

and ecology. Notable current grant programs include 

Navigating the New Arctic, which funds convergent 

research often involving collaboration with northern 

Indigenous communities. At the same time, a review 

of proposal submissions and other indicators of 

participation and leadership in the polar sciences 

over past years indicate some of the same patterns of 

underrepresentation that are evident in the national 

statistics. The subcommittee is now preparing its 

report and recommendations for innovative strategies 

to ensure that the polar research community offers 

opportunities to all and benefits from the creative 

input of scientists of all backgrounds.

The Arctic Studies Center in Alaska is also pleased 

to welcome Mellisa Maktuayaq Johnson, who is 

now based in our Anchorage office as the Indigenous 

Engagement and Communications Specialist for 

the Interagency Arctic Research Policy Committee 

(IARPC). Mellisa’s work will focus on research 

coordination between Alaska Native communities and 

agencies such as the Eskimo Whaling Commission with 

federal bodies including the Department of the Interior, 

Environmental Protection Agency, National Oceanic 

and Atmospheric Administration, and Bureau of Ocean 

Energy Management. Coming from a professional 

background in community health, education, nonprofit management, and Iñupiaq language teaching, 

most recently with the Bering Sea Elders Group and 

University of Alaska Anchorage, Mellisa’s appointment 

represents another welcome step toward diversity and 

Indigenous engagement in Arctic science.

Bernard, Rachel E. and Emily H. G. Cooperdock. 

2018. No Progress on Diversity in 40 Years. Nature 

Geoscience 11:292-295.

Committee on Equal Opportunities in Science and 

Engineering (CEOSE). 2021. Making Visible the 

Invisible, Bold Leadership Actions. CEOSE 2019-

2020 Biennial Report to Congress. National Science 

Foundation, Washington, DC.

Fry, Rick, Brian Kennedy, and Cary Funk. 2021. STEM 

Jobs See Uneven Progress in Increasing Gender, 

Racial, and Ethnic Diversity. Pew Research Center, 

Washington DC.

National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and 

Medicine. 2019. Minority Serving Institutions: 

America’s Underutilized Resource for Strengthening 

the STEM Workforce. The National Academies Press, 

Washington, DC.

National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and 

Medicine. 2020. The Impacts of Racism and Bias on 

Black People Pursuing Careers in Science, Engineering, 

and Medicine: Proceedings of a Workshop. The National 

Academies Press, Washington, DC.

THE FIFTH THULE EXPEDITION 

CENTENNIAL

By Bent Nielsen and Igor Krupnik

The Danish Arctic Institute (Arktisk Insitut) in 

Copenhagen launched a new website in 2021 

dedicated to the centennial of the Fifth Thule 

Expedition at www.5thule100.dk. The site in Danish 

and English provides updates on the FTE centennial 

program, primarily in Denmark. It includes: 1) 

a report on an FTE anniversary exhibit at Knud 

Rasmussen House in Hundested north of Copenhagen 

(May 1 to October 24, 2021) displaying photographs, 

documents, and maps from the Rasmussen archive 

at the nearby town of Frederiksvaerk; 2) a Northern 

Lights (Nordlys) Festival (September 17–19, 2021) 

organized by the National Museum of Denmark that 

included podcasts, films, exhibit tours, crafts, music, 

and food related to the Arctic and Inuit culture; 3) a 

preview of the forthcoming 2023/2024 FTE exhibit 

planned by the Danish Arctic Institute celebrating the 

expedition with their voluminous collections; 4) an 

overview of Danish FTE archival holdings by Bent 

Nielsen; 5) a new teaching unit titled Discovering 

New People describing life in the Arctic during 

FTE and today, for release in March 2023; and 6) 

new publications including the Alaska Journal of 

Anthropology (2021, Vol.19), the new book by Knud 

Michelsen, Ambassador on Dog Sled (2021, see this 

issue), and another book in Danish, Rejsen til det 

Oprindelige Folk/Journey to the Original People. 

Read more about FTE in this and next year’s 2023 

Newsletters.

EDITORIAL NOTE

If you are receiving this Newsletter

in the postal mail and would prefer 

getting it electronically, and in 

color, send your email address to: 

NMNHArcticStudiesCenter@si.edu
6 ASC Newsletter

NOTES FROM THE DIRECTOR.....................................1

Increasing Diversity, Equity, And Inclusion in Science: 

Current Initiatives at The Smithsonian and National Science 

Foundation ............................................................................3

The Fifth Thule Expedition Centennial .................................5

THANKS TO OUR 2021/2022 DONORS and 

PARTNERS ..........................................................................7

BURCH ENDOWMENT ....................................................8

Ernest S. Burch Endowment Support for ASC Activities in 

2021........................................................................................8

Burch Lecture. “The Expedition Would Not Have Succeeded 

Without Them”: The Crucial Role Of The Inuit/Inughuit 

Participants Of The Fifth Thule Expedition Across Arctic 

North America, 1921–24........................................................9

When Did the FTE Actually Start: New Clues From an Old 

Photo? ..................................................................................14

ASC ANCHORAGE, ALASKA OFFICE ........................16

Major Endowment Gift From Jo and Peter Michalski.........16

Generous Support from Laura Brouse-Long .......................16

Why Glacial Fiords Are Great Places to Live, Part 2: The 

Cultural Ecology of Cook Inlet, Alaska...............................17

The CIRI Foundation’s Alaska Native Museum Fellowship 

Program: Annie Wenstrup....................................................20

Conversations Webinar Series: A Collaboration with The 

Inuit Art Foundation.............................................................21

Intergenerational Creativity and Learning Through 

Indigenous Comic Art: Chickaloonies.................................21

Voices From Cedar Digital Learning Project.......................22

Media ...................................................................................24

Nome Celebrates Our Stories Etched in Ivory.....................24

NEWS ..................................................................................26

Susan Rowley Appointed Director of UBC Museum of 

Anthropology .......................................................................26

Further Note on Rowley Family History .............................27

Norse in Newfoundland in 1021..........................................28

Yale Analysis Unlocks Secret of The Vinland Map—It’s A 

Fake......................................................................................29

Meet Allison Willcox, NMNH Deputy Director..................30

Arctic Crashes Volume Wins NMNH 2021 Science 

Achievement Award.............................................................31

RESEARCH .......................................................................31

Archaeology of the Industrial Frontier in St. Paul River, 

Lower North Shore, Quebec ................................................31

Cross Mountain North: More Archaeology in the Vermont 

Hills......................................................................................34

Tshikapisk Labrador Research in 2021................................36

Shell Island: a Reduction Station on the Ramah Chert Trail....38

Labrador Radiocarbon Date-List Update.............................40

Captain Herendeen and The Herschel Island Parka.............41

Preserving Mongolia’s Past..................................................42

Climate Change in Oymyakon: Perceptions, Responses, and 

How Local Knowledge Can Inform Policy .........................43

COLLECTIONS ................................................................44

The Lost Skull from Ungava................................................44

Building Birch Bark Canoes in Siberia................................47

A Japanese Mystery Object Solved by Team Effort ............49

The Artic Viewed from Florence, Italy ................................51

Up-Dating “Polar Observer: The Arctic Digital Library”....54

Re-Presenting Archival and Library Collections Through the 

Voices and Languages of First Nations, Inuit, and The Mėtis 

Nation in an Interctive eBook..............................................54

OUTREACH ......................................................................56

Knowing Nature: Stories of the Boreal Forest.....................56

Native and American Ethno-Medicine at Lebanon Springs...57

Integrating Inughuit and Greenlandic Traditional Knowledge 

With Ecotourism Development in Greenland......................58

North by Nuuk: Greenland After Rockwell Kent ................60

Inuit Tik-Tokers: Spreading Knowledge in 60 Seconds or 

Less......................................................................................61

Sounds of the Arctic.............................................................62

INTERNS AND FELLOWS..............................................64

Using Media to Enhance and Communicate Archaeological 

and Environmental Research ..............................................64

Editing a Deer Stone Book ..................................................65

BOOK REVIEWS ..............................................................66

Water—a Biography, by Giulio Bocaletti............................66

Northern Light: My Life Behind a Lens, by Wilfred E. 

Richard.................................................................................67

Our Stories Etched in Ivory / Qulip’yugut Iksiaqtuumaruat 

Tuugaami. The Smithsonian Collections of Engraved Drill 

Bows with Stories From the Arctic. Edited by Amy PhillipsChan .....................................................................................67

The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity, by 

David Graeber and David Wengrow....................................68

Knud Rasmussen: Ambassador on Dog Sled, by Knud 

Michelsen.............................................................................69

Mensch und Natur in Sibirien (Man and Nature in Siberia), 

Erich Kasten, ed...................................................................70

Yukagirskie Tosy (“The Yukaghir Tos’es”), by Nikolai 

Vakhtin .................................................................................71

TRANSITIONS ..................................................................72

Lyudmila Ainana, Yupik Educator and Activist (1934–

2021).............................................................................. 72

Robert Petersen (1928–2021) ..............................................73

Tatiana P. Roon (1961–2021)...............................................74

Jacques Cinq-Mars (1942–2021).........................................75

Floyd Kuptana (1964–2021)................................................75

Edith Dietz (1924–2022)......................................................76

Sergei Serotetto: Reindeer Nomadism as Profession, 

Lifestyle, Passion and Love (1954–2021) ...........................77

2021 ASC STAFF PUBLICATIONS ................................78

TABLE OF CONTENTS
 ASC Newsletter 7

Alaska Anthropological Association

Alaska State Council on the Arts 

Anchorage Museum Foundation

Robert W. Baird & Co. Incorporated

Betsy Baker

Laura Browse-Long

Ernest “Tiger” Burch Endowment

Carlson Family Trust

The Honorable Morgan Christen and Jim Torgerson

The CIRI Foundation

Cook Inlet Tribal Council

Perry and Arden Eaton

Fairlee VT Town Select Board

Richard and Janet Faulkner

Peggy and Greg Favretto

Susan M. Ferguson

First National Bank Alaska

William W. and Lynne D. Fitzhugh

Heather Flynn

Stephen W. Haycox

Hintz Family

Dr. and Mrs. Donald Holly

Inuit Art Foundation

Innu Nation

Betsy and David Lawer

John Levy

Lynden Family of Companies

Margaret A. Cargill Philanthropies

Jo Michalski and the Honorable Peter Michalski

Mid-Coast Marine

The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation

Rika and John Mouw

National Endowment for the Arts 

National Resources Defense Council

National Science Foundation

Government of Newfoundland and Labrador

Newfoundland Provincial Archaeology Office 

Robert and Diana Paulus

Rasmuson Foundation

Rivendell Elementary School, Orford NH

The Frances and David Rose Foundation

Jeanine St. John / Lynden Transport

Sealaska Heritage Foundation

Gail Sieberts

Smithsonian Legacy Challenge Fund

Smithsonian Office of the Provost

Smithsonian Office of the Undersecretary for Education

Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibit Service

Smithsonian Recovering Voices Program

Fran Ulmer

University of Montreal

Whiteley Museum, St. Paul River, Quebec 

James Vanstone Endowment 

Douglas W. and Kathie Veltre

STAFF

William Fitzhugh, ASC Director, and N. America Arch. 

Curator: fitzhugh@si.edu

Aron Crowell, Alaska Director and Arctic Archaeologist: 

crowella@si.edu

Igor Krupnik, Curator and Ethnologist: 

krupniki@si.edu

Stephen Loring, Museum Anthropologist, and Arctic 

Archaeologist: lorings@si.edu

Dawn Biddison, ASC Alaska, Museum Specialist: 

biddisond@si.edu

Nancy Shorey, Program Specialist: shoreyn@si.edu

RESEARCH ASSOCIATES AND COLLABORATORS

Bruce Bradley, Archaeologist, Cortez, Colorado: 

primtech@yahoo.com

Noel Broadbent, Archaeologist, Washington DC: 

nbroadb@pipeline.com

John Cloud, Geographer, Washington, D.C.: 

cloudj@si.edu

Bernadette Driscoll Engelstad, Ethnologist, Kensington, 

MD: bengelstad@aol.com

Ann Fienup-Riordan, Ethnologist, Anchorage, AK: 

riordan@alaska.net

Norman Hallendy, Author/Photographer, Carp, Ontario, 

Canada: tukilik@icloud.com

Scott Heyes, Geographer/Cartographer, Australia: 

scott.heyes@monash.edu

William Honeychurch, Archaeologist, Yale University: 

william.honeychurch@yale.edu

Anthony Jenkinson, Archaeologist, North West River, 

Labrador: shaputuan@hotmail.com

Martin Nweeia, Dentist/Narwhal Researcher: 

Martin.Nweeia@hsdm.harvard.edu

Elisa Palomino-Perez, Fashion Designer, London, UK: 

e.palomino@csm.arts.ac.uk

Kenneth Pratt, Anthropologist, Anchorage: 

kenneth.pratt@bia.gov

Wilfred E. Richard, Geographer/Photographer, 

Georgetown, Maine: 34pondroad@gmail.com

Ted Timreck, Film Producer, New York: 

ttimreck@gmail.com

Christopher B. Wolff, Archaeologist, SUNY, Albany, NY: 

cwolff@albany.edu

The Smithsonian Arctic Center (ASC) is sustained through a 

public-private partnership. Philanthropic donations provide 

funding for essential community-based collaborations, 

impactful educational programming for the public, and 

continuous research in the ever-changing Arctic region.

To make a tax deductible contribution, please contact the 

NMNH Office of Development at 

202-633-0821 or NMNH-Advancement@si.edu

THANKS TO OUR 

2021/2022 DONORS AND PARTNERS*

We extend our sincerest gratitude to the donors and partners who support the Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center. 
8 ASC Newsletter

BURCH ENDOWMENT

ERNEST S. BURCH ENDOWMENT SUPPORT 

FOR ASC ACTIVITIES IN 2021

By Igor Krupnik

The Ernest S. (‘Tiger’) Burch Endowment with the 

Arctic Studies Center (ASC) was established in 2012 by 

the family of our late colleague and long-term research 

associate Ernest S. (‘Tiger’) Burch Jr., with the aim 

to support, promote, and interpret the study of Arctic 

Indigenous peoples and their cultures. The fund ensures 

that our work and the legacy of Tiger’s many decades 

of collaboration with the Smithsonian continues. As in 

previous years, the Burch Endowment remained the 

prime source of funding for various ASC operations 

in 2021. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic restrictions, 

many regular activities by the ASC staff were put on 

hold. For the entire 2021 (actually, since March 2020), 

all activities were conducted via teleworking, online 

conferences and other electronic channels. That, in turn, 

allowed the ASC to re-direct some of the Endowment 

funds to support other activities, such as publications, or 

to save it for future use as soon as travel and fieldwork 

restrictions are lifted.

As in the previous years, the Burch Endowment 

supported the ASC main annual public event called 

“Tiger Burch annual lecture” that promotes Arctic 

anthropological research to wider audiences and to 

our colleagues worldwide. Beginning in 2014, the 

“Tiger Burch Lecture” has emerged as one of the key 

events that ASC hosts for the Museum community 

and the public. The 2021 annual ‘Burch Lecture” 

was delivered on December 8, 2021, by Greenlandic 

scholar, Dr. Mari Kleist (see below). The lecture 

explored the role of several Greenlandic Inughuit 

and Kalaallit participants whose contribution to 

the Fifth Thule Expedition of 1921–1924 has been 

underappreciated.

In 2021, the Burch Endowment also provided muchneeded matching funds to the production of two 

publications stemming from research by the ASC 

members, as well as their associates and partners. The 

first book, Our Stories Etched in Ivory / Qulip’yugut 

Iksiaqtuumaruat Tuugaami: The Smithsonian 

Collections of Engraved Drill Bows with Stories from 

the Arctic (2021, Amy Phillips Chan, ed.—see this 

issue) is an illustrated catalog of precious decorated 

objects (engraved bow drills) from the Smithsonian 

collections. The book features numerous illustrations 

and includes comments by Indigenous Alaskan carvers 

(with their portraits), who shared their experience in 

heritage ivory carving. The second collection was a 

special volume of the Alaska Journal of Anthropology 

edited by Aron 

Crowell and Igor 

Krupnik, titled 

From Greenland 

to the Pacific: 

Centennial of 

the Fifth Thule 

Expedition, 

1921–1924. Like 

Dr. Kleist’s lecture, 

this was a part of 

the ASC “Fifth 

Thule Expedition 

Centennial” program 

that began in 2018; 

its many elements 

have been funded 

primarily by the 

Burch Endowment. 

For the two 

publications, the 

endowment funds covered graphic work and portions 

of the distribution expenses.

The Burch Endowment continued to provide funds for 

other ASC operations, such as the publication of the 

annual ASC Newsletter (No. 28 published in summer 

2021), the ASC membership in the Arctic Consortium 

of the United States (ARCUS), and research work for 

other ASC-based projects. We plan to continue using 

Burch Endowment funds to advance our research and 

public programs, in conference travel and fieldwork 

for the ASC staff and associates, and to promote Tiger 

Burch’s legacy to the international Arctic research 

community via publications, conferences, professional 

exchanges, and our annual Newsletter.

BURCH LECTURE

The 2021 Ernest S. Burch Jr. Lecture was 

presented by Dr. Mari Kleist. Mari is Assistant 

Professor at the Department of Cultural and Social 

History, Ilisimatusarfik (University of Greenland). An 

Inuk from Nuuk, Mari holds a PhD in Archaeology 

from the University of Copenhagen and has worked 

on archaeological projects across Canada and 

Greenland. Her research interests include developing 

greater community involvement and full Inuit 

partnership in research projects. Mari is currently codirecting a research team partnered with the Inughuit 

people of Avanersuaq (Northwest Greenland) on a 

project about Inughuit Creativity and Environmental 

Responsiveness. A shortened version of her Burch 

Lecture is presented below.

Mari Kleist
 ASC Newsletter 9

“THE EXPEDITION WOULD NOT HAVE 

SUCCEEDED WITHOUT THEM”: THE 

CRUCIAL ROLE OF THE INUIT/INUGHUIT 

PARTICIPANTS OF THE FIFTH THULE 

EXPEDITION ACROSS ARCTIC NORTH 

AMERICA, 1921–24

By Mari Kleist

I would like to begin by recognizing that the Inughuit 

and Inuit who have come before me are the very reason 

I am presenting now. I express my deep gratitude for 

the Kalaallit members of the Fifth Thule Expedition 

(FTE) whose vast knowledge and incredible skills were 

essential to the expedition’s success, which brought 

international attention to what we now know as Arctic 

North America and the peoples that call it home. I 

would also like to express my sincere gratitude for the 

descendants of the Fifth Thule Expedition participants, 

the Inughuit of Avanersuaq. I am grateful to share part 

of their ancestor’s stories.

Background

I will start by introducing my objectives and provide 

some background on the FTE and exploration in 

Arctic regions and will then move on to the Kalaallit 

participants and what we know about them. I use 

Kalaallit to refer to all Inuit from Kalaallit Nunaat, and 

Inughuit when referring to the unique histories and 

lifeways of those from northwest Greenland.

My goal is to draw attention to the Kalaallit members 

of the expedition, recognizing their contributions and 

sacrifices on an equal level to their Danish counterparts. 

The popularized narrative of the Fifth Thule Expedition 

has been shaped by colonial tendencies and value 

systems and the focus has been on the accomplishments 

of Danish members trained in Western Science. This 

has produced a white-washed version of history which 

marginalized Kalaallit experience. It is time to change 

this narrative. 

To gain a more holistic and accurate understanding of 

the expedition it is important to deconstruct the common 

narrative, to acknowledge the social context in which it 

has been shaped and whose voices have been missing— 

the Kalaallit participants. We must look at their roles, 

their intentions, recognize their agency, and ensure they 

are credited. To do so not only is significant for our 

understanding of historic events; it helps to break the 

colonial legacy of our discipline. Rasmussen has been 

hailed as the “undisputed king of the long-haul Arctic 

expedition”, and Danish crew members are celebrated as 

expedition heroes for their scientific and anthropological 

“discoveries”. Inuit deserve the same opportunity to pay 

tribute to our own expedition heroes.

It is discouraging to realize that there is little 

documented about the Inughuit and other Inuit 

participants. Their stories, for example their reasons 

for participating or their experiences or views are 

more or less unreported in expedition history. It 

is time to dig deeper into the archives and collect 

Inuit oral histories. In this paper, I share some of 

the histories of the Kalaallit participants that I have 

collected from various sources, including knowledge 

shared by their families.

Why do we know so little of the Inuit and Inughuit 

expedition members? The Arctic has been a place 

where long-distance trade took place between preInuit and Inuit groups. Inuit knowledge derives 

from intimate familiarity with the changing trends 

in the Arctic landscape including seasonal changes. 

Later the Arctic became a place of interaction with 

Europeans, Euro-Americans, and Russian explorers 

and colonizers. Explorers needed guidance and help 

from Natives to ensure successful expeditions. Inuit 

provided fundamental skills and knowledge that 

enabled the explorers to survive and navigate the 

Arctic environment. But these Inuit, as crucial as they 

were, were often overlooked, and their contributions 

were minimized or excluded from public discourse 

because the results were written by non-Arctic people 

following Western standards, people who were 

products of their time and contextualized their history 

of exploration and colonization from a European and 

Euro-American point of view, choosing what they saw 

as important to disseminate. 

As geopolitical interest in the Arctic grew, exploration 

of natural resources, including ethnographical, 

anthropological, and archaeological investigations, 

rapidly advanced. Knud Rasmussen initiated the FTE to 

seek and document the origins and connections between 

all Inuit groups, based on their “ancient Inuit” way of 

life, from Greenland to the Bering Strait. With the FTE, 

systematic Danish research became established and saw 

an immense amount of data collected, making the FTE 

one of the best-known and most successful scientific 

expeditions to the North American Arctic. These 

advances, including the FTE, could not have succeeded 

without the help of Inuit who constantly lived their lives 

in these regions. The assessments and decisions Inuit 

made every day enabled these expeditions to survive and 

succeed, and without the Inuit role we would not have 

our current knowledge the Arctic. 

Who Were They and What Were Their Roles?

The crew from Kalaallit Nunaat provided expertise 

for fundamental logistical tasks like navigation, 

dog sledging, hunting, procurement of animals and 

materials, and mending and making skin clothes and 
10 ASC Newsletter

INUGHUIT FEMALE EXPEDITION MEMBERS

Navarana

Photo: N.P. Sørensen. 

Danish Arctic Institute

Arnannguaq

National Museum of Denmark

Arnarulunnguaq

National Museum of Denmark

Aqattaq

National Museum of Denmark

INUGHUIT/INUIT MALE EXPEDITION MEMBERS

Aajako

Danish Arctic Institute

Iggiannguaq

Source: Mathiassen 1945 

Nasaatsorluarsuk

National Museum of Denmark

Aaqqioq

National Museum 

of Denmark

Qaavigarsuaq

National Museum 

of Denmark

Jakob

National Museum 

of Denmark

Inughuit female expedition members

Inughuit/Inuit male expedition members

kamiks (boots), translating, and assisting in many other 

ways that ensured the survival of the crew.

Rasmussen had a great knowledge of the Inughuit 

lifestyle and knew how skilled they were at hunting 

prey and driving their sledges. Rasmussen made a wise 

decision to travel with Inughuit. In 1920 he selected 

Inughuit and had them prepare for the journey by 

producing skin clothes, sleds, tools, dog food, and 

assembling the dog teams. The four Inughuit women 

included Navarana, Arnarulunnguaq, Arnannguaq, 

Aqattaq, and the men included Aajaku, Iggiannguaq, 

Nasaatsorluarsuk, Aaqqioq, and Qaavigarsuaq—all 

are names we should remember and know. Rasmussen 

selected Jakob Olsen (Jâkúnguak), whom he knew 

to be an excellent kayaker and dogsled driver, to act 

as translator/interpreter. Unfortunately, three Inughuit 

passed away before leaving Kalaallit Nunaat. While 

traveling to Nuuk, where the expedition journey would 

start, the Inughuit came down with pneumonia and 

were hospitalized in Upernavik and Nuuk. Navarana 

passed away in Upernavik Kujalleq, and Iggiannguaq 
 ASC Newsletter 11

in Nuuk. When they reached the expedition’s Canadian 

Arctic base camp “Blæsebælgen” at “Danish Island/

Danskeøen” called Ullersuaq by Inuit in Nunavut, the 

Inughuit were still convalescing. 

Arnarulunnguaq wife of Iggiannguaq

(Arnarulúnguak and Iggiánguak), also called Fokina 

by the Danes, was born around 1896 in Avanersuaq. 

Her father passed away when she and her three older 

brothers were only young children, leaving no adult male 

provider. According to the norms of the time, bereaved 

mothers would be forced to kill their youngest children 

or female children to spare them from starvation when 

survival was threatened by famine. This fate almost 

befell Arnarulunnguaq, but her brother, Aajako, came to 

her rescue and begged his mother to let her survive. 

Arnarulunnguaq’s husband Iggiannguaq was born around 

1883. Like Arnarulunnguaq, he was lucky to survive 

as when he was only around eight years old his mother 

Sujuluk lost her husband, leaving her without a provider. 

She had no other option than to kill Iggiannguaq’s 

younger siblings. Later, Sujuluk had another son, Ivik, 

with her second husband. Iggiannguaq on his mother’s 

side was a cousin of Minik (Wallace) who travelled with 

Robert E. Peary in 1897. Iggiannguaq began traveling 

with Rasmussen in 1903. Iggiannguaq was a local 

hunter in Avanersuaq and had travelled with Peary. It 

came as no surprise when Rasmussen chose him to 

take over his deceased brother-in-law, Aajaku’s, place. 

But then, tragically, Iggiannguaq died from pneumonia 

while in Nuuk on September 6, 1921, the day before 

the expedition left for Inuit Nunangat/Arctic Canada. 

Iggiannguaq had to be baptized before he could be 

buried, and the priest, Gustav Olsen, and Rasmussen 

agreed they would baptize him the next day, right 

before his funeral. The rest of the unbaptized Inughuit, 

except for the youngest participant, Aqattaq, were also 

baptized. Rasmussen tells how Arnarulunnguaq insisted 

on participating rather than being left among strangers 

in Nuuk. Probably she knew the journey would keep her 

from dwelling too much on the loss of her husband and 

brother. Rasmussen recalled: “she had to travel to forget.” 

Arnarulunnguaq and her cousin Qaavigarsuaq 

accompanied Rasmussen until the end of the expedition 

in Alaska. She was one the most experienced in 

processing skins and had many other talents that 

received high praise. In addition to cooking and 

clothing maintenance, she was an accute observer and 

assisted scientific collecting and care of botanical and 

zoological materials; helped excavate house ruins at the 

Malerualik archaeological site on King William Island; 

collected information from locals; and documented 

female tattoos. Upon arrival in Denmark in November 

1924 she was hospitalized in Copenhagen, diagnosed 

with tuberculosis. She returned to Uummannaq in 

1925. On April 9, 1928, she married Karl (Kâlipaluk) 

Peary, Robert Peary’s son by his Inughuaq wife, 

Aleqasina. Arnarulunnguaq never fully recovered 

from her illness and died in 1933 in the hospital in 

Uummannaq. She and Kâlipaluk never had children, 

and Kaalipaluk later said Arnarulunnguaq never talked 

about her 3.5 year-long expedition.

Aqattaq and Nasaatsorluarsuk (Akátak and 

Nasaitsordluarssuk). Aqattaq was the youngest 

expedition member and was Nasaatsorluarsuk’s wife. 

Aqattaq’s parents were Talilánguak and Nujaliánguak, 

and her only sister was Kiajúnguak. She was born 

around 1907 in Uummannaq and was only about 

14 when she left Avanersuaq to participate in the 

expedition. She was the least experienced female 

expedition member and often tended camp while others 

were traveling. Her husband, Nasaatsorluarsuk, also 

called Boorsimaat/Bådsmand, meaning boatswain, was 

born around 1897 in Uummannaq. Knud Rasmussen 

knew him since he was a small boy and treated him 

like a foster son. As a young man, Nasaatsorluarsuk 

participated in Rasmussen's Second Thule Expedition 

(1916–18) as guide, hunter, and sledge driver. 

Rasmussen described Nasaatsorluarsuk as one of the 

best seal hunters he knew. Although he often was the 

last one to get up in the morning, he would always 

make up the lost time working late in the evenings 

From right: Nasaatsorluarsuk, Arnannguaq, Navarana, Arnarulunnguaq, Aqattaq, Nasaatsorluarsuk, Qaavigarsuaq. The Royal Danish Library

Photographer Peter Freuchen

Courtesy of Navarana Freuchen 

Jakob Olsen. Danish Arctic Institute

ALLIT MEMBERS OF THE FIFTH THULE EXPEDITION

Jakob Olsen
12 ASC Newsletter

after everyone else had retired. On their return from the 

expedition, Nasaatsorluarsuk and Aqattaq lived in Sukat 

in Avanersuaq. They had a son, Talilánguak Ajorssalik 

Minigssuak Daorana, born on March 30, 1925. When 

their son was only seven years old, Akátak died on 

August 8, 1932, from tuberculosis in Siorapaluk. In 1935 

Nasaatsorluarsuk married Nadúk but they later divorced, 

after which he lived with a woman named Helene for the 

rest of his days. Nasaatsorluarsuk passed away in 1975 

in Qaanaaq.

Arnannguaq and Aaqqioq (Arnánguak and 

Ârkiok) were the oldest and most experienced couple. 

Arnannguaq was born between 1894 and 1896. She was 

the most experienced in domestic chores, excellent in 

making and mending skin clothes. She was very cheerful 

and lifted everyone’s spirits. Her husband Aaqqioq was 

born around 1891 in Avanersuaq and had travelled on 

expeditions, sometimes with Peter Freuchen, whom he 

had known for 14 years before the FTE. Aaqqiorsuaq 

was known as a skilled hunter and sledge driver, pleasant 

and encouraging.

Arnannguaq and Aaqqioq had a daughter on August 

9, 1923 at Ullersuaq/Danskeøen whom they named 

Navarana. She was baptized when they returned home 

on March 1, 1925, in Uummannaq and later had a 

second daughter, Mikivsuk, born on May 17, 1927. 

Aaqqioq took part in another expedition in 1930 led by 

the German geologist, Hans Krüger, and his Danish 

assistant, Åge Rose Bjare. The project investigated 

western Umimmaat Nunaat (Ellesmere Island), but 

the expedition failed, and neither Krüger, Bjare, nor 

Aaqqioq were ever found. It is suspected they died 

in an accident on Meighen Island. Arnannguaq was 

left with her daughters Navarana and Mikivsuk, but 

Navarana died from pneumonia on August 26, 1933, 

just after she turned 10 years old. Arnannguaq also died 

from pneumonia, in 1955, in Qeqertat, where she is 

buried. Her second daughter Mikivsuk had six children. 

Qaavigarsuaq Miteq (Kaivigarssuak Mitek) was 

born in 1899 while his parents lived, together with other 

expedition members, on board Robert Peary's ship. 

Qaavigarsuaq's mother was Inaluk and was married to 

Angutikavsak, but Angutikavsak passed away when 

Qaavigarsuaq was only a little boy. His mother then 

married Akumalik who raised Qaavigarsuaq as his own. 

Qaavigarsuaq never found out who his biological father 

was, other than being European. His descendants thought 

Qaavigarsuaq's father was probably Robert Bartlett, the 

well-known Newfoundland captain who traveled with 

Robert Peary for the first time in 1898. Qaavigarsuaq’s 

mother Inaluk died shortly after Qaavigarsuaq 

left for the FTE, leaving behind her sons Ulloriaq, 

Inukitsorujuk and Qaaviagrsuaq. 

Rasmussen first met Qaavigarsuaq as a young boy 

during the Literary Expedition in 1904. Danes referred to 

him as Edderfuglen (eider), as his second name Miteq

means “eider.” Rasmussen knew Qaavigarsuaq had 

become a great hunter and was eager to have him join 

the FTE, but Qaavigarsuaq initially refused because he 

had fallen in love with the catechist Enok Kristiansen's 

young daughter, Bebianne Kristiansen, and feared 

she would marry before he returned. However, 

Qaavigarsuaq's parents had already given Rasmussen 

their consent, and Qaavigarsuaq had to accept. At 22, he 

became the youngest male expedition member. After he 

returned to Avanersuaq, he married Bebianne Kristiansen 

on November 29, 1925, in Uummannaq. Qaavigarsuaq 

later took her surname, becoming Qaavigarsuaq Miteq 

Ijaja Kristiansen. Qaavigarsuaq and Bebianne had eight 

children. Qaavigarsuaq passed away in Qaanaaq in 

August 1978, the year after he lost his wife. Both are 

buried in Uummannaq. 

Jakob Olsen (Jâkúnguak) was born 1890 in Sisimiut. 

His father was a chief catechist, and his brother was 

Rasmussen’s friend Gustav Olsen, the missionary priest 

in Avanersuaq. Before the expedition left Kalaallit 

Nunaat for Inuit Nunangat, Olsen was approached 

to join it. He was given barely a day to make his 

decision and accepted. Like the rest of the scientific 

crew, Olsen kept a diary, writing accounts of songs, 

customs, archaeology, and material culture. Olsen was 

an excellent hunter and skilled at handling dogsleds. As 

a catechist, he taught in Kalaallisut (Greenlandic) when 

among the Inuit in Danskeøen. Olsen traveled with 

Birket-Smith collecting ethnographic objects during 

the first period of the expedition; later he traveled 

with Mathiassen for archaeological investigations at 

Naujan, Repulse Bay, and Southampton Island. He also 

recorded Inuit customs and transcribed data collected 

by other expedition members. After returning home, he 

traveled back and forth between Kalaallit Nunaat and 

Denmark helping Rasmussen organize and interpret 

the collected folklore material. In 1925 Olsen took a 

position at the South Greenland County Council in 

Nuuk as an interpreter and secretary. He died from 

scarlet fever on July 10, 1936, in Nuuk, at age 45.

Navarana Mequpaluk, also known by her nickname 

Mequ, was the daughter of Kassaaluk and Angulluk

and was born around 1898. Her father and her oneyear-old brother died from famine when she was only 

about 3 years old. Her mother’s second husband was 

Ulloriaq, who gave Navarana three brothers and two 

sisters. Navarana met Peter Freuchen in 1911 and 

became his wife. In 1916 Navarana and Freuchen 

had a son Merkussâk and in 1918 a daughter named 

Pipaluk. When Navarana was pregnant with her 

daughter Pipaluk, she suffered from pneumonia. 
 ASC Newsletter 13

The illness lingered, and three years later she died 

in Upernivik Kujalleq on August 2, 1921, just a 

month before the FTE began. Freuchen wanted her 

to be buried in the churchyard, but since she was not 

baptized, the priest would not approve, so Freuchen 

buried his beloved wife himself.

Aajako was born around 1892. He was the brother 

of Arnarulunnguaq and participated in Rasmussen's 

Second Thule Expedition (1916-–1918) in which 

geologists Lauge Koch and Hendrik Olsen from 

Appat/Ritenbænk, Nasaatsorluarsuk, and Inukitsupaluk 

(Harrigan) also participated. Although Aajako did not 

participate in the First Thule Expedition, he traveled 

with Rasmussen and Freuchen when they returned to 

Denmark in 1913 to present their expedition results. 

Aajako became a travel companion and a close friend 

of both Rasmussen and Freuchen, and it came as no 

surprise when Aajako agreed to join the expedition. 

Unfortunately, he took his own life just before it began, 

leaving behind his wife Avoortungiaq and siblings 

Inukitsoq, Eqilak, and Arnarulunnguaq. 

Their Achievements, Findings, Perspectives, and 

Voices

Rasmussen knew the Inughuit were great hunters 

and travelers who could provide him with complete 

independence while traveling in Inuit Nunangat (the 

Canadian Arctic)—that is, without having to depend 

on local Indigenous groups for food or support. The 

Inughuit provided that independence. The expedition 

team was divided into groups that traveled to different 

regions by sled and boat to collect scientific data. 

Explorations to the south, west, and north were 

conducted to make contact with as many Inuit groups 

as possible. Although their names are not included in 

the published maps, where only the scientific team’s 

names are recorded, the Inughuit navigated the trips. 

In late 1921 Aaqqioq and Qaavigarsuaq travelled with 

Rasmussen on reconnaissance and hunting; Aaqqioq 

travelled with Freuchen, Mathiassen and BirketSmith; Aaqqioq, Nsaatsorluarsuk, Qaavigarsuaq, and 

Olsen travelled with Rasmussen and Mathiassen on 

map reconnaissance; in 1922 for the longer journeys, 

Aaqqioq and Arnannguaq travelled with Peter 

Freuchen on reconnaisance; and Arnarulunnguaq and 

Qaavigarsuaq travelled with Rasmussen and Bangsted. 

When that part of the expedition ended in the fall of 

1923, Mathiassen, Birket-Smith, and Olsen returned 

to Denmark via New York. Freuchen and most of the 

Inughuit participants traveled northeast by dogsled 

during the winter of 1924, arriving in Kalaallit Nunaat 

by boat from Mittimattalik (Pond Inlet) in fall 1924. 

And for the final part of the expedition, Rasmussen, 

Qaavigarsuaq, and Arnarulunnguaq left Ullersuaq/

Danskeøen on March 11, 1923, and traveled west 

through Inuit Nunangat and Alaska to Siberia, not 

returning home until late fall 1924. 

Other Inuit from other regions of Inuit Nunangat and 

Alaska assisted the expedition in various ways even 

though they were largely unrecognized in the FTE 

reports. Among these are Patdloq, Takornaaq, Qatalik, 

Taqaugaq, Paniluk, Akuano, Autdlanâq, Inuujaq, 

Taparte, Aqaút, Angutimmarik, Nivietsianaaq, 

Sanaq, Makik, Noqatdlaq, Maneq, Nanoraq, 

Atakutaluk, Kukikuluk, Pilakavsik, Saamik, 

Ilupaalik and his family, Aua and his family, Utuliaq, 

Uming, Akumalik, Anarqaaq, Usugtaq, and many 

others. Inuit who either travelled with the expedition, 

functioned as informants, shared knowledge, produced 

drawings, and collected data, transported mail, and 

performed other tasks. All contributed to the expedition’s 

success and deserve recognition. Their contributions, 

perspectives, and voices would provide valuable insight 

to how this expedition impacted local communities 

across Inuit Nunanga, and I hope will receive more 

attention in the future. Fortunately, times are changing 

and proper recognition of Inuit contributions in the 

Arctic context are beginning to increase. Both Western 

and Indigenous scholars are acknowledging the need 

to better understand the experiences of those who have 

been marginalized in expedition narratives, making their 

stories better known to the public and the history of 

Arctic science. 

Inughuit and Inuit FTE Contributions

As previously mentioned, there are very few 

documented details about the Inughuit participants. It 

Inughuit participants (left to right): Arkioq, Arnánguaq, 

Arnarulúnguaq, Akátak, Nasaitsordluarssuk, and 

Kaivigarssuak Mitek, all decorated with their FTE silver 

medals. Little Navarana stands in front of her parents. 

(Royal Danish Library, by Peter Freuchen, Courtesy of 

Navarana Freuchen) 
14 ASC Newsletter

was mostly Qaavigarsuaq and Arnarulunnguaq who 

received belated attention in scholarly and popular 

literature. This was largely because they accompanied 

Rasmussen from Hudson Bay to Alaska and Siberia 

between 1923 and 1924. Every now and then, written 

sources mentioned the rest of the Inughuit, mostly 

collectively and usually mentioned last, while the 

scholars, including Olsen, are listed as primary 

participants or expedition members. Proper descriptions 

of their contributions are lacking. 

Throughout the journey, Inughuit participants gathered 

and discussed field data together with the scientific crew, 

Inuit cultural expertise provided essential knowledge, 

and both contributed to the recovery of artifacts leading 

to cultural understandings. Inughuit were usually sent 

ahead to introduce the expedition and often risked 

possible hostile encounters. They were also sent ahead to 

scout potentially dangerous landscapes and sea ice.

One might ask why it is so important to acknowledge 

Indigenous people’s achievements from a time of 

colonial encounters and bygone rules or standards. 

To some extent, I believe history has been skewed 

in order to perpetuate colonial patterns and continue 

treating Inuit as objects, ignoring Inuit agency. One 

may argue that calls for a changing perspective should 

become part of a reconciliation process with past 

colonial powers, to right some wrongs. Inuit heritage 

perspectives have long been ignored in popular 

narratives and removed from their rightful place; 

the lack of recognition of Inuit achievements not 

only continues the colonial way of historicizing the 

Inuit past; it also erases their true contributions and 

perspectives. It is necessary to bring these formerly 

marginalized voices to the center, to engage Inuit as full 

partners and acknowledge their contributions, as well 

as their right to narrate their own pasts and culture. By 

doing so, it may be possible to produce more holistic 

narratives of the past. As Qaavigarsuaq’s daughter 

Regine told me: 

When you think about how much the Fifth Thule 

Expedition has contributed to science, we find it 

very strange that our parents and other Inughuit 

have never been visibly honored. The Inughuit were 

awarded the silver merit medal, but we do not even 

have a memorial of them, and one can wonder why 

that is so. It is also strange that Rasmussen did not 

get them recognized as being expedition members 

on an equal footing with the Danish members. 

Without Inughuit, the Fifth Thule Expedition would 

not have come to realization, so one can wonder 

where they are in our history.

Qujanaq.

WHEN DID THE FTE ACTUALLY START: 

NEW CLUES FROM AN OLD PHOTO?

By Mari Kleist and Igor Krupnik

In June 2021, while looking for a cover image 

for the FTE special issue of the Alaska Journal of 

Anthropology (See ‘Notes from the Director,’ this 

issue), we came across a photo of the FTE team 

taking a break on a sled journey in the collection 

of the Danish Arctic Institute (Photo ID - p48934, 

resource ID 200824). The photo caption in the online 

database (in Danish) under the overall title “5 Thule 

Ekspedition (1921-1924)” provided the date when 

the photo was taken (August 6, 1921), the names of 

people featured ("1. Birket-Smidt; 2 Th Mathiasen; 3 

H. Bangsted; 4 Qavigarssuaq?; 5 Jakob Olsen; 6 Knud 

Rasm.; 7 Arnarulunguaq"), but neither the name of 

the photographer (“unknown”) nor the place where 

photograph was taken. Person no.5 was clearly not 

Jakob Olsen and person no.7 was not Arnarulunnguaq. 

If the photograph was taken in Canada, during the 

expedition fieldwork then either Peter Freuchen 

or Jakob Olsen could be the photographer/s. It was 

obvious that the date and the caption did not match; 

so, we asked Mari Kleist to help identify the Inughuit 

participants as a clue to photo’s origin.

Mari’s immediate suggestion was that the photo 

was indeed taken in August 1921 in Avanersuaq 

(Thule, Northwest Greenland) and that it might have 

documented some earlier encounter rather than the 

FTE main fieldwork in Canada. According to the FTE 

timeline, in August 1921 Rasmussen and his Danish 

crew (Therkel Mathiassen, Kaj Birket Smith, and 

Helge Bangstead) went on a short visit to Avanersuaq 

The 'mystery' photo described above, was taken in August 

1921 in Avanersuaq (Thule) during a 'dry run' for the full 

FTE.
 ASC Newsletter 15

(Thule District) to meet with their future Inughuit 

partners and to pick up sled dogs and field gear for 

fieldwork in Canada. Mathiassen’s “Report on the 

Expedition” (FTE Reports 1945, Vol. 1(1), pp. 15–17) 

described their arduous journey to Avanersuaq in 

July–August 1921 onboard the Bele and later the 

Søkongen, after the Bele’s wreck off Uumanaq on 

July 14, and the loss of the FTE supplies. On August 

2, 1921, the crew arrived at Thule. As Mathiassen 

reported:

During the following days the ship was 

discharged... and we made a short sledge journey 

up on to the ice cap to take a film, Rimmen the 

photographer having accompanied us to Thule. 

Here the Expedition’s Polar Eskimos joined us: 

Iggianguaq (about 35 years old) and his wife 

Arnarulunguaq, Arqioq and his wife Arnanguaq, 

“The Bo’sun” (Nasaitordluarssuk) and his 

wife Aqatsaq, and the young unmarried man 

Qavigarssuaq. ...On the 7th of August the Søkongen

left Thule on a southerly course, now carrying the 

Polar Eskimos (Inughuit), their dogs and other 

equipment” (Mathiassen 1945:17).

That citation provided the date, the Inughuit to 

be checked on the photo, and the name of the 

photographer (Hellwig F. Rimmen, 1884–1960). 

Soon, Mari was able to identify yet another picture 

evidently taken on the same trip in the Danish Royal 

Library (“Fifth Thule Expedition,” ke011479.tif ) but 

only with the names of its Danish members listed. This 

and another photo in the Arctic Institute collection 

feature the same group of people, same pieces of field 

gear (a big kettle used to boil water for coffee (?), a 

primus with attached container, a large tin can, etc.,) 

and the same small tent, as in our selected photographs, 

including a dog lying in snow. All people were dressed 

in the same heavy fur clothing that seemed a bit ‘out of 

season’ in early August and in relatively warm weather 

(by Avanersuaq standard), even if traveling over the 

inland icesheet.

With this, we were able to put all missing pieces 

together. The official starting date for the FTE, 

according to its chronology was June 18, 1921, when 

Danish crew members, Rasmussen, Mathiassen, 

and Birket-Smith, sailed to Greenland from 

Copenhagen, onboard the Belle. The ship was also 

carrying people who planned to participate in the 

200th anniversary event for Hans Egede’s landing 

in Greenland in 1721. Among them was a small 

film crew of Eduard Schnedler-Sørensen, film 

director; Carl Hillebrandt, actor; and Hellwig 

Rimmen, photographer and cameraman. That film 

crew produced the first-ever film in Greenland, 

a 90-minute documentary titled “Den store 

Grønlandsfilm” (The Great Greenland Movie), 1922, 

now in the collection of the Danish Film Institute 

(DFI) in Copenhagen. The contemporary caption in 

the DFI catalog introduces the film as “...pictures 

of daily life in Greenland, of seal hunting and shark 

fishing as well as hunting of walruses and polar 

bears. In addition, there are recordings of the start 

of the 5th Thule expedition, which is led by Knud 

Rasmussen.” A contemporary film poster attached 

to the online record displays several still photos, 

including three from the August 6, trip to the ice 

cap with the FTE participants, and a new one with 

a cameraman and the tent. Hence, some additional 

photos from that trip might have been preserved 

in the Danish archives. A short caption printed in 

the 8-page movie program from 1922 says that the 

FTE members were having a "farewell-kaffemik 

(invitation for coffee)" on the ice cap.

Several FTE participants were not on that trip, like 

Peter Freuchen, who was left in Upernavik, when his 

Inughuit wife Navarana got ill with influenza on the 

way to Avanersuaq (she, unfortunately, passed away 

in Upenivik on July 31, 1921). Another key member, 

Jakob Olsen was then at his residence in Ujarasussuk 

in Disko Bay; he did not even know about the FTE 

until August 14, 1921 (Kleist, this issue). Three other 

FTE Inughuit members who reportedly joined the 

sledge trip on August 6 but were not featured in this 

photo included Iggiánguak (Iggiannguaq), Arnánguak

(Arnannguaq), and Akátak (Aqattaq). Iggiánguak

(Iggiannguaq), Arnarulunnguaq’s husband, the most 

senior Inughuit man on the team, died of influenza on 

September 6, 1921, in Nuuk, before the expedition 

departed for Canada.

A short trip on August 6, was then a sort of a 

‘warming up’ event for the FTE members to see 

each other and to develop some personal chemistry. 

The informal and non-hierarchical nature of the 

team and Rasmussen’s personal style of leadership 

are clearly obvious in the picture. These relations 

mostly continued through the FTE later journeys 

between fall 1921 and fall 1924. So, when thinking 

about the actual starting date for the FTE, we may 

put yet another date, August 6, 1921, next to June 18, 

1921 (the Danish team departure from Copenhagen), 

September 7, 1921 (the full crew departure from 

Nuuk/Godthaab on board the Søkongen), and 

September 18, 1921 (the expedition landing in Canada 

on the Danish Island). It was on August 6th, when the 

Danish and the Inughuit members first met on a short 

training trip and tested their skills, gear, and character, 

a prelude to their heroic three-year journey “across 

Arctic America.” 
16 ASC Newsletter

ASC ANCHORAGE, ALASKA OFFICE

MAJOR ENDOWMENT GIFT FROM JO AND 

PETER MICHALSKI

By Aron L. Crowell

NMNH Director Kirk Johnson and NMNH Chief 

Development Officer Sandra Luvinguth announced in 

November that Jo and Peter Michalski of Anchorage—

longtime friends, advocates, and financial supporters 

of the Arctic Studies Center’s Alaska program—have 

arranged a $250,000 bequest to support the future of ASC 

research and education. Thank you, Jo and Peter! On top 

of this great news, a $10,000 match to the Michalski’s 

generous bequest was made immediately available 

through the Smithsonian’s Legacy Challenge program, in 

celebration of the institution’s 175th anniversary.

Jo Michalski is a successful entrepreneur and 

prominent leader in civic philanthropy who has 

served on the Smithsonian National Board since 2019 

and as past chair of the Smithsonian Council for 

Arctic Studies, the ASC’s circle of Alaskan private 

and corporate donors. Jo recently chaired a hugely 

successful $100 endowment campaign for the Alaska 

Community Foundation, and she has served on and 

chaired numerous non-profit boards including the 

YWCA, Alaska Public Media, and University of Alaska 

Foundation. Over a 32-year career in business Jo 

opened and ran seven successful retail stores and was 

inducted into the Alaska Business Hall of Fame and the 

Alaska Women's Hall of Fame. With a background that 

includes an M.A. in Secondary School Administration, 

teaching in Minneapolis public schools, and positions 

with the Alaska Department of Education, Jo Michalski 

has always been an educator at heart, and she especially 

values the ASC’s work with Alaska Native teachers, 

artists, and young people around the state. 

Coming from a distinguished career in the law, Peter 

Michalski has also long been dedicated to community 

causes. He is the past Chair of the Board of the Alaska 

Community Foundation, served on the Anchorage 

Museum Board of Directors, and is presently on the 

Board of the Anchorage Museum Foundation. Peter 

was a Superior Court judge for the Third Judicial 

District in Anchorage (1985–2012) and during his 

earlier career worked for the District Attorney's Office 

in Fairbanks and the Department of Law in Juneau. 

His Juris Doctor is from the University of Minnesota 

Law School.

About their legacy gift, Jo said, “Hopefully it will 

encourage others to consider a gift to the Arctic Studies 

Center to recognize and continue their important 

work.” The Michalskis have always led by generous 

example, and we are proud and gratified to have 

received their support through the years, and now a 

foundation for the future. 

GENEROUS SUPPORT FROM LAURA 

BROUSE-LONG 

By Aron L. Crowell

Laura Brouse-Long, Director of the James Smithson 

Society and Smithsonian Giving Circles, this year 

set in place a major and most welcome personal 

bequest to the Arctic Studies Center, generously 

complementing the crucial stewardship that she 

provided in her professional capacity to the ASC’s 

giving circle in Alaska, the Smithsonian Council 

for Arctic Studies. Laura, we are deeply grateful for 

this and for your years of friendship and support. 

The bequest will add to the Arctic Studies Center’s 

growing endowment, and while that addition is 

far in the future, 

Laura said she 

was inspired by 

the benefit of a 

10% matching 

award conveyed 

immediately from 

the Smithsonian 

Legacy Challenge 

program when 

donors include the 

Smithsonian in their 

estate plans. That 

funding has already 

contributed to ASC 

Laura Brouse-Long, Director of the James Smithson Society 

and Smithsonian Giving Circles

Jo and Peter Michalski at a reception showing artwork by 

Sonya Kelliher Combs
 ASC Newsletter 17

projects including “Batuk’enelyashi: Natural Dyes 

from Dena'ina Lands” in partnership with the Alaska 

Native Heritage Center (see article by Dawn Biddison 

in this ASC Newsletter).

Laura’s work for the Smithsonian has been wideranging and highly impactful. She leads and provides 

strategic direction to Giving Circles across the country 

including the James Smithson Society, the oldest 

annual giving circle at the institution. She designs and 

leads numerous donor engagement events and oversees 

the Annual Smithsonian Weekend, a cultivation and 

recognition activity for over 500 donors hosted by the 

leaders of all 21 Smithsonian museums. During her 

career, Laura has led and advised membership and 

giving programs at other national museums, including 

the National Museum of Women in the Arts, the United 

States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the Japanese 

American National Museum, and the National Museum 

of the American Indian. She began her professional life 

in direct marketing and fundraising for National Public 

Radio and the Public Broadcasting Service. It’s an 

impressive list of public service, and we salute Laura’s 

many and enduring contributions.

As this brief bio suggests, Laura is a dedicated 

supporter of the arts and humanities. In speaking 

about her gift to the Arctic Studies Center she says: 

“I was so inspired by my visits to Anchorage and 

hearing each year about the Center’s mission; the 

Smithsonian’s 150 year history in the area, its deep 

collaboration with Native communities, Dr. Crowell’s 

extensive anthropological studies and field research, 

and ongoing Alaska Native language reclamation. The 

Smithsonian’s commitment in Alaska is exemplified 

by partnership between the National Museum of 

Natural History and National Museum of the American 

Indian, which loan their collections to foster dialogue, 

education, and the preservation of our shared histories. 

The Arctic Studies Center is a beacon of knowledge 

and commitment to community that warrants this kind 

of continued investment by all of us who are touched 

by its mission.”

WHY GLACIAL FIORDS ARE GREAT 

PLACES TO LIVE, PART 2: THE CULTURAL 

ECOLOGY OF COOK INLET, ALASKA

By Aron L. Crowell 

This article, adapted from a chapter in Imagining 

Anchorage: The Making of America’s Northernmost 

Metropolis (Crowell 2018), revisits the topic of 

glacial influences on the ecology of Alaskan fiords, 

and the question of why these environments are 

such attractive places for Indigenous settlement. 

Having previously considered Yakutat Bay (Crowell 

2020, ASC Newsletter 27), the focus here is on 

Cook Inlet, the largest fiord in Alaska. Almost 300 

km long, the inlet was carved by massive glaciers 

that poured out of the Chugach Range during the 

Pleistocene, then began to retreat about 15,000 years 

ago. European navigators including James Cook and 

George Vancouver were impressed by the majesty 

of the mountain-rimmed fiord and by its huge tidal 

flux, strong currents, and dangerous shoals, but 

gained little understanding of its cultural history and 

ecology.

Starting as early as 10,000 years ago small numbers 

of people of the Paleoarctic, Ocean Bay, Arctic Small 

Tool, Norton, and Northern Archaic cultural traditions 

moved into Cook Inlet from nearby regions, drawn by 

the abundance of fish and game in its ocean waters, 

rivers, and surrounding boreal forests. Around 3,000 

years ago Kachemak culture ancestors of the Sugpiat 

(Alutiit) settled in Kachemak Bay, near the mouth of 

Cook Inlet, where today the Sugpiaq communities of 

Nanwalek and Port Graham are located, and along the 

Kenai and Kasilof rivers (De Laguna 1975; Workman 

1996). The Sugpiat are the southernmost Alaskan 

Inuit, with a traditional territory that extends from the 

Alaska Peninsula to the Kodiak archipelago, the Kenai 

Peninsula, and Prince William Sound. Dena’ina people 

belonging to the Dene/Athabascan cultural family 

expanded their territory to the shores of upper Cook 

Inlet about 1,000 years ago from the adjacent interior, 

and today live in coastal towns that include Tyonek, 

Knik, Eklutna, and Kenai (Jones et al. 2013; Reger 

1998; Workman 1998). 

During nearly a millennium of shared tenancy in 

Cook Inlet the Dena’ina and Sugpiat have interacted 

with each other and with neighboring Indigenous 

cultures. Warfare, trade, and political alliances figure 

prominently in the oral traditions of both peoples, and 

routes used by raiding and trading parties extended 

north into the interior and south over mountain passes 

to Prince William Sound and the outer Kenai coast. 

Both groups occupied large permanent villages and 

developed complex, lineage-based societies with 

ranked kinship systems, similar to other coastal 

Indigenous cultures from the eastern Aleutian Islands to 

the Northwest Coast of British Columbia.

From the standpoint of cultural ecology, the Dena’ina 

and Sugpiat occupy contrasting although partially 

overlapping niches in the Cook Inlet environment. 

For the Sugpiat, maritime resources of the lower inlet 

have always predominated in the food quest, while 

for the Dena’ina terrestrial and riverine food sources 

of the upper inlet, especially salmon, are the most 

important. Evidence of these traditional subsistence 
18 ASC Newsletter

patterns is provided by faunal remains preserved at 

archaeological sites. For the Kachemak and Sugpiaq 

cultures these include the Yukon Island and Port 

Graham Cannery sites in Kachemak Bay (De Laguna 

1975; Workman 1998) while for the Dena’ina there 

are riverine sites on the Kenai Peninsula (Reger 1998, 

2013) and the Tiq’atl’ena Bena site at the head of 

Cook Inlet (Dixon 2003).

The traditional subsistence technologies of the two 

groups also reflect these specializations. The Dena’ina 

used bows and arrows and a wide variety of snaring 

and trapping methods for taking land animals, 

including caribou 

drive systems; they 

harvested salmon and 

other river fish using 

weirs, traps, fish spears, 

and dip nets; they 

traveled overland using 

snowshoes in winter 

and birch bark canoes 

in summer; and they 

made extensive use of 

woodland and tundra 

plants for food and 

medicine. Reflecting 

cultural interchange 

with the Sugpiat, 

they used kayaks to 

hunt seals and sea 

otters and harpooned 

beluga whales from 

tree platforms in the 

tidal mud flats, although marine mammal hunting was 

of secondary importance in the overall subsistence 

pattern (Jones et al. 2013). The Sugpiat were far more 

oriented to the sea, as indicated by the predominance 

of sea mammal, sea bird, and pelagic fish bones in 

archaeological middens (De Laguna 1975; Workman 

1998). They utilized a diverse inventory of ocean 

hunting and fishing tools including kayaks, umiaks, 

inflated seal skin drag floats, darts, throwing boards, 

various types of harpoons, sea otter arrows, poisoncoated projectiles for killing large whales, and rigs for 

cod and halibut fishing.

This pattern of complementary co-occupation and 

resource use by the Dena’ina and Sugpiat was 

structured in large part by the marine biogeography of 

Cook Inlet. The inlet is an extension of the continental 

shelf and therefore relatively shallow (generally less 

than 50 m deep) over its entire extent. It is divided 

into two oceanographic zones—estuarine in the upper 

inlet and marine in the lower—separated by a midbay transition zone (Fig. 1). Throughout the history 

of human occupation, the contrasting resources of the 

estuarine and marine areas have influenced settlement 

patterns and subsistence practices (Reger 1998).

The upper bay receives large inputs of fresh water from 

the Knik, Matanuska, Susitna, Kenai, Kasilof, and other 

rivers, and as a result is warmer and less saline than the 

Gulf of Alaska, a fact observed by Cook as he travelled 

up the fiord in 1778 and which he took as evidence 

that “Cook’s River” would not prove to be an open 

ocean strait or the long-sought Northwest Passage. 

Silt flowing into the inlet from Matanuska, Knik, and 

other glaciers builds broad tidal mud flats and mixes 

with the waters of the 

estuary, resulting in 

high turbidity, low 

light penetration, and 

minimal growth of 

phytoplankton. As 

a result of this low 

level of productivity 

at the base of the 

food web, resident 

populations of 

marine invertebrates, 

fish, seabirds, and 

mammals are quite 

limited. However, 

large numbers of 

salmon migrate from 

their feeding grounds 

in the open ocean to 

spawn in upper inlet 

rivers and lakes during May to September, pursued by 

harbor seals and beluga whales that move up from the 

lower inlet to feed on these fish.

In contrast, the marine environment of lower Cook 

Inlet is characterized by clear, cold, saline waters 

enriched by sediment plumes from glacier watersheds 

in Kachemak Bay (Grewingk, Portlock, and Dixon 

glaciers) and by the upwelling of bottom water and 

minerals from the ocean floor, generated by the clash 

of strong outgoing tides with westward-flowing waters 

of the Alaska Coastal Current. The upwelling zone 

at the mouth of Cook Inlet extends out into the Gulf 

of Alaska, encompassing the Kodiak archipelago, 

northeastern Alaska Peninsula, and southwestern 

outer coast of the Kenai Peninsula. Favorable light 

and nutrient conditions in this area support flourishing 

summer blooms of phytoplankton and zooplankton.

A counter-clockwise flow of biologically enriched 

water curls along the east side of Cook Inlet into outer 

Kachemak Bay and up to the marine–estuary transition 

line before turning west and circulating back toward 

Figure 1. Cook Inlet marine zones, Dena’ina and Sugpiaq 

communities, and selected archaeological sites
 ASC Newsletter 19

the bay mouth. The highly productive food web of 

the lower Cook Inlet upwelling zone includes large 

populations of fish, seabirds, and marine mammals 

(Drew and Piatt 2002; Spies 2007).

The contrast in productivity between Cook Inlet’s 

inner and outer fiord environments is a common 

biogeographical pattern around the Gulf of Alaska, 

where the abundance and variety of marine food 

resources are correlated with the density of human 

settlement, both tending to be greater in outer fiords 

and adjacent coastal regions. Archaeological sites 

cluster around the 

outer Cook Inlet/Gulf 

of Alaska upwelling 

zone (Fig. 2) and 

people living at these 

settlements had access 

to abundant marine 

resources as indicated 

by “richness” scores 

representing the 

overlap of harvesting 

catchment areas 

(Crowell et al. 2012). 

It is not surprising 

that ethnohistoric 

census data indicate 

that at the time of 

European contact the 

Cook Inlet upwelling 

zone supported the 

largest Indigenous 

populations in Alaska, 

including an estimated 

6,500 residents of the 

Kodiak archipelago 

and 1500 more in 

lower Cook Inlet and 

along the Alaska and 

Kenai peninsulas.

The reverse of these patterns is indicated for the 

relatively depauperate estuarine environment of upper 

Cook Inlet. Here coastal archaeological sites are fewer 

in number and farther apart except for clusters at major 

salmon fisheries including the Kenai River area and 

the head of Knik Arm. Virtually all coastal sites in 

the upper inlet have low diversity scores, since most 

are river mouth settlements with access to only a few 

species of fish (primarily salmon) and sea mammals.

Most of the upper inlet sites depicted in Figure 2 are 

Dena’ina in cultural affiliation, although some sites of 

earlier periods are represented including Kachemak 

fishing camps along the lower Kenai and Kasilof rivers. 

The reverse is true for the lower inlet where most of the

sites are Kachemak or Sugpiaq and are concentrated 

in the rich marine environment of Kachemak Bay. 

In addition, more than 30 Sugpiaq sites are known 

along the outer Kenai coast within the upwelling zone 

(Crowell and Mann 1996).

Climatic changes in temperatures and circulation since 

the end of the Pleistocene have altered the marine 

environment of Cook Inlet and surrounding regions. 

Some of the best evidence comes from isotopic 

studies of lakes where red (sockeye) salmon spawn. 

Nitrogen-15 (N15) is enriched relative to N14 in the 

bodies of salmon as 

the result of ocean 

feeding, and when 

they spawn and 

die this isotope is 

deposited in lake 

bottom sediments. 

Coring of lakes in the 

Kodiak archipelago 

and around Cook 

Inlet and Bristol Bay 

yielded a 2,200 year 

radiocarbon-dated 

sequence showing 

fluctuations in N15 

levels that serve as 

a proxy measure of 

salmon abundance 

(Finney et al. 2002). 

Salmon population 

levels were low from 

100 BCE to 800 CE 

during the Neoglacial 

period, then trended 

upward over the next 

400 years during 

the Medieval Warm 

Period. Salmon 

remained relatively 

high for the next nine centuries except for a dip around 

1800 CE at the peak of the Little Ice Age, when ocean 

waters significantly cooled.

These trends in salmon population signal wholesale 

shifts in the marine ecosystem and coincide with 

archaeologically observed cultural transitions. 

Neoglacial cooling around 100 BCE coincided with 

the shift from early to late Kachemak culture on 

Kodiak Island. In Kachemak Bay, faunal remains 

from late Kachemak sites include few salmon bones 

but show increased numbers of pelagic fish and sea 

mammals, which tend to be more abundant during 

cooler climate phases. On Kodiak Island the rise in 

red salmon from 800 CE to 1200 CE coincided with a 

 Figure 2. Coastal archaeological sites in the central Gulf of Alaska, 

color coded by richness score, which measures the number species 

harvesting locales within a 10 km radius by boat or 1 km on foot. 

Highest richness values are in the Cook Inlet upwelling zone, where 

site density (clustering) is also highest.
20 ASC Newsletter

transition from late Kachemak to Sugpiaq culture (the 

Koniag phase), accompanied by an increase in human 

population and the establishment of large salmon 

fishing villages along the Karluk, Ayakulik, and other 

rivers. In Cook Inlet, the rise in salmon numbers 

coincided with the end of the Kachemak occupation 

and the migration of Dena’ina people to the Cook 

Inlet area, where they established fishing villages 

with multiroom houses and cache pits for storing the 

salmon harvest. The climate had warmed, the marine 

ecosystem had changed, and Indigenous peoples 

modified their settlement patterns and subsistence 

practices in response.

As we contemplate the impacts of Arctic warming on 

the present and future environment of Alaska and its 

oceans, it is important to recognize that climatic and 

ecosystem change have always influenced Indigenous 

lifeways. Global average air temperatures are now 

higher than at any time in at least the last 1,400 years 

including the Medieval Warm Period, and a wide 

range of effects has been observed in Alaska and the 

circumpolar Arctic. These include ocean acidification, 

rising ocean temperatures, declining sea ice, significant 

declines of sea mammals such as harbor seals, sea 

lions, and sea otters, and changes in the abundance 

of salmon and other fish that are important to both 

subsistence and commercial fisheries. While the 

effects of climate warming on human societies is far 

different now than in the past, we can be sure that they 

will be both significant and long-lasting, challenging 

our ability to adapt as effectively as the Sugpiaq and 

Dena’ina people of Cook Inlet.

Audrey Larson has accepted an Arctic Studies 

Center Graduate Fellowship for 2022 and will 

develop the topics discussed in this article for her 

Masters in Professional Studies (MPS) in Underwater 

Archaeology at the University of Miami in Coral 

Gables FL. Audrey, whose previous experience has 

been around (and under) more southern waters, became 

intrigued by Indigenous adaptations to glacially 

influenced environments in the Arctic. She plans to 

incorporate archaeological data and recent marine 

ecological studies by Mayumi Arimitsu, Sarah Schoen, 

and others into a GIS model of settlement and resource 

use in Cook Inlet. 

Reference

Crowell, Aron. 2018. Inuit-Dene Cultural Ecology 

in Cook Inlet, Alaska since 1000 B.C. In Imagining 

Anchorage: The Making of America’s Northernmost 

Metropolis, ed. James Barnett and Ian Hartman, 

University of Alaska Press, pp. 2–19.

THE CIRI FOUNDATION’S ALASKA NATIVE 

MUSEUM FELLOWSHIP PROGRAM: ANNIE 

WENSTRUP

By Dawn Biddison

In the fall of 2021, Dawn Biddison worked with Annie 

Wenstrup (Dena’ina Athabascan) who resides in 

Fairbanks, on a virtual Museum Sovereignty Fellowship, 

a program funded by The CIRI Foundation. Annie is 

as an Advisory Board member of the Kachemak Bay 

Writers’ Conference and a creative writing student in 

an MFA low-residency program at the University of 

Southern Maine. The fellowship was organized as an 

opportunity for Annie to learn about developing an 

online webinar series—specifically Conversations (see 

“Conversations Webinar Series” in this issue)—on 

Indigenous heritage and issues in collaboration with an 

Indigenous organization and an Indigenous advisors 

group, including project development, research, 

management and documentation. 

The Conversations project was selected as an example 

of how museum staff can extend collaborations with 

Indigenous peoples beyond the physical space of 

a museum and can provide wider access to public 

programs through virtual events that reduce barriers 

for people living in remote locations. The fellowship 

included weekly meetings, issues-based research 

related to the webinar topics, attending webinar 

planning meetings, and attending and discussing the 

webinars. Annie also attended the NAASA session 

“Creating and Engaging Virtually: A Conversation 

with Alaska Native Artists and Alaskan Museum 

Anthropologists” organized by Dawn, which was later 

discussed and analyzed.

Based on Annie’s 

experience and her 

academic work, 

the fellowship was 

extended to specifically 

benefit her MFA 

studies. In this work, 

Annie focused on 

analyzing and writing 

poetry within a 

museum-like meta 

structure, including 

self-portraiture 

elements and how 

staff and audiences 

talk about images. 

To accommodate 

these interests, 

meetings included 

conversations about 

Annie Wenstrup, TCF fellowship 

recipient with the Arctic Studies 

Center Alaska, fall 2021. Photo by 

Annie Wenstrup 
 ASC Newsletter 21

and analysis of museums at various levels and ways of 

practice: structures, interpretation, audiences, museum 

accessibility, Indigenous presence and collaboration, 

colonialism and post-colonialism, and Indigenous 

sovereignty. Given her interest in the virtual presence 

of museums, the content and goals behind the ASCAK Smithsonian Learning Lab site were also 

discussed and analyzed, including decolonizing museum 

collections and museum work. Annie’s reflections about 

her fellowship can be read her entry for the “Share Your 

Story” page on The CIRI Foundation website.

CONVERSATIONS WEBINAR SERIES: A 

COLLABORATION WITH THE INUIT ART 

FOUNDATION

By Dawn Biddison

Conversations is a webinar series that brings viewers 

into discussions by Indigenous peoples, which provide 

information and insights on important subjects and 

issues, along with ideas and examples to help inform 

people about how to act with regard to Indigenous 

peoples and their heritage. The program was made 

possible through generous support of the Inuit Art 

Foundation (IAF) and supporters of the Arctic Studies 

Center in Alaska.

The Inuit advisors who developed the subjects and 

selected speakers were Kacey Purruq Qunmiġu 

Hopson (Indigenous Knowledge Advocate, First 

Alaskans Institute), Sonya Kelliher-Combs (Artist), 

Taqralik Partridge (Director, Nordic Lab at SAW) and 

Krista Ulujuk Zawadski (PhD Candidate, Carleton 

University). IAF staff Heather Campbell (Inuk: 

Nunatsiavut, NL) and Alyson Hardwick (Inuk: Happy 

Valley-Goose Bay, NL) hosted the webinars. Dawn 

Biddison was the project manager and online content 

creator for the series, and Katie Barca provided 

technical support for the Zoom events. 

The eight webinars subjects are (in order of the events):

• “Queer Inuit Art” with moderator Alice Qannik 

Glenn (Iñupiaq) and speakers Jenny Irene Miller

(Iñupiaq) and Ossie Michelin (Inuk: North West 

River, NL)

• “Inuit Identities and Vitalization” with moderator 

Heather Igloliorte (Inuk, Nunatsiavut, NL) and 

speakers Christine Tootoo (Inuk: Kangiqliniq, NU) 

and Allison Akootchook Warden (Iñupiaq)

• “Music within Inuit Cultures and Languages” 

with moderator Tiffany Ayalik (Inuk: Kugluktuk, 

NU) and speakers James Dommek Jr. (Iñupiaq), 

Byron Nicholai (Yup’ik) and Julia Ogina (Inuk: 

Cambridge Bay, NU)

• “Learning Across Generations and Back” with 

moderator Nadia Jackinsky-Sethi (Sugpiaq) and 

speakers Miqqusaaq Bernadette Dean (Inuk: 

Kivalliq, NU), Keneggnarkayaaggaq Emily 

Edenshaw (Yup’ik/Iñupiaq), Kunaq Marjorie 

Tahbone (Iñupiaq) and Krista Ulujuk Zawadski

(Inuk: Rankin Inlet, NU)

• “Activating Inuit Art Sovereignty” with 

moderator Emily Laurent Henderson (Greenlandic) 

and speakers Theresie Tungilik (Inuk: Nauyaat, NU) 

and Dalee Sambo Dorough (Iñupiaq/Kiowa)

• “Challenges to Inuit Art Sovereignty” with 

moderator Tanya Lukin Linklater (Sugpiaq) and 

speakers Taqralik Partridge (Inuk: Kuujjuaq, NU) 

and Sven Haakanson (Sugpiaq)

You can find all six webinars in the Conversations

section of the Learning Lab site for Smithsonian 

Arctic Studies Center in Alaska. In addition to the 

edited videos, the collections provide information about 

each speaker. Plans are underway to continue the series 

in the fall of 2022. 

INTERGENERATIONAL CREATIVITY AND 

LEARNING THROUGH INDIGENOUS COMIC 

ART: CHICKALOONIES

By Dawn Biddison

The Indigenous comic book Chickaloonies: First Frost 

is a story about two friends from Chickaloon Village 

who go on a quest to become great storytellers, relying 

on the teachings of their grandmother throughout the 

adventures and trials along their journey. It is an allages, Alaska Native adventure about legends, language, 

magic and the journey of discovering one’s own story 

in an ever-changing world. Chickaloonies is created 

by Dimi Macheras (Ahtna Athabascan) and Casey 

Silver, the team that makes up 80% Studios. Melissa 

Shaginoff (Ahtna Athabascan, Paiute) is a cultural 

knowledge contributor for the project. 

“The traditional Ya Ne Dah Ah (‘Ancient Teachings’ 

in the Ahtna language) legends were passed on to 

us children by Chickaloon Village Elders, and my 

grandmother, Katherine Wade. Eventually I turned 

some of these stories into illustrated comic books. My 

mother, Patricia Wade, helped bring them to life by 

incorporating the art into live Ya Ne Dah Ah storytelling 

events, which she shared in schools and gatherings 

throughout Alaska. Sadly these two culture-bearers have 

passed on. The legacy of their contributions are hard 

to quantify, but this book is how I hope to continue the 

tradition of sharing our culture in a fun new way that 

would make them proud.” (Dimi Macheras, 2021)
22 ASC Newsletter

Casey Silver and Dimi Macheras at a book signing for Title 

Wave Books in Anchorage, Alaska, 2021. Photo courtesy of 

80% Studios

Grandma tells a story in a page from the comic book 

Chickaloonies: First Frost. The symbols rising as she speaks 

represent the Ahtna Athabascan language. Illustration © 

80% Studios

The Chickaloonies team partnered with Dawn 

Biddison as project manager and co-developer to 

collaborate on expanding the scope of their work. With 

generous support by The CIRI Foundation's Education 

Heritage Grant program, the Recovering Voices 

program (NMNH), and the Alaska State Council on the 

Arts, they began work on making engaging educational 

resources. Together, the team aims to empower 

Indigenous youth, and all youth, through creative 

expression and through intergenerational learning with 

family and cultural heritage, made relevant to their 

lives through developing their own artistic vision and 

voice. Their work focuses on the comic art form as a 

way to learn about, express, and perpetuate Indigenous 

heritage and Indigenous ways of learning: honoring 

Elders and knowledge-keepers and seeking to learn 

from them; experiencing the impact of storytelling and 

traditional values; learning multi-faceted information 

from heritage pieces in museum collections; and 

creating contemporary arts inspired by historic arts.

Based on the Chickaloonies characters and storyline, 

the project team began work in November to illustrate 

and write an in-depth instructional workbook on comic 

art and to develop a comprehensive virtual workshop. 

The workbook will detail how to draw characters and 

write stories, and it will include activities inspired and 

informed by Athabascan cultural heritage pieces in the 

Smithsonian’s Living Our Cultures exhibition at the 

Anchorage Museum, pieces enriched with information 

shared by Alaska Native experts during exhibition 

research and co-curation with the Center’s staff. The 

workshop is organized around a presentation with 

Dimi’s story of becoming an Indigenous comic artist, 

lessons from the workbook, live drawing experiences 

and facilitated student engagement throughout. In 

February, the team partnered with Chickaloon Village, 

Kenaitze Indian tribe (Kenai) and the Cook Inlet Tribal 

Council (Anchorage) to host workshops and to receive 

feedback for making improvements to future workshops. 

In March, the project resources—including information 

about the artists, museum resources and the comic art 

workbook with a video introduction from its makers—

will be available online at the project Learning Lab site 

“Intergenerational Creativity and Learning through 

Indigenous Comic Art: Chickaloonies.” 

VOICES FROM CEDAR DIGITAL LEARNING 

PROJECT

By Dawn Biddison

“I gained a lot from this project. It connected me 

with a community of learners who were eager for the 

information I had to offer. It is also wonderful to know 

that the information gained through this project will live 

on forever and can be accessed by all who have interest. 
 ASC Newsletter 23

I also gained a respect for how technology can bring 

people together even living far apart in diverse parts of 

Alaska and elsewhere. I am also left with a satisfying 

feeling of giving something back to the artist community 

and staying closely connected to it.” (John Hudson, 

Tsimshian, lead artist)

“It was a great experience to be able to work on an 

Alaska Native art project and have all the necessary 

materials and tools provided. I gained from this 

experience knowledge about the traditional use of 

whistles by Tsimshian people as well as the other 

Southeast Alaska tribes. I also gained more confidence 

in my abilities to carve on my own because we had to 

move forward with the project on our own time. The 

excitement of making something that could be used 

motivated me to problem solve as I went along and then 

asked questions if I got stuck on the next step.” (Virtual 

workshop student) 

The “Voices from Cedar: Digital Learning” project was 

developed to help Alaska Native artists learn about the 

Tsimshian/Tlingit/Haida whistle, an important art form 

that has been dormant in Southeast Alaska. Through the 

contributions of Tsimshian Master artist John Hudson, 

project manager Dawn Biddison produced instructional 

videos and additional content that was posted online and 

will serve as accessible resources to facilitate making 

this art form for future teachers and students. DVD 

sets of the videos were widely distributed throughout 

Alaska. John also taught virtual workshops where 

Alaska Native students learned how to make their first 

whistle. In addition, a webinar was held to introduce the 

project and its online resources to the public, as well as 

email announcements to an extensive mailing list and to 

Alaska list-serves.

“Voices from Cedar” was built with film footage shot 

in 2015, in which John provided cultural information 

about Southeast Alaska wind instruments and taught 

how to carve a whistle from start to finish, including 

tools, materials, techniques, testing, and refining. No 

such educational resources existed for this endangered 

art form prior to this project. Dawn edited twelve 

instructional videos from the footage, with reviews and 

approvals of final versions by John. Printed DVDs were 

mailed out in July to the lead artist, workshop students, 

workshop applicants, Southeast Alaska schools and 

Native organizations, statewide libraries and archives, 

and selected national organizations. Sending out DVDs 

is an important tool for reaching more of the general 

public and people with poor Internet service.

In order to make these resources more widely accessible, 

Dawn posted videos and additional content online at 

two Arctic Studies Center websites. The instructional 

videos—including an introductory webinar and troubleshooting tips (described below)—are available on the 

“Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center in Alaska” 

YouTube channel and Smithsonian Learning Lab site. 

Also, since the Learning Lab platform allows additional 

types of files and materials to be grouped together, that 

site was expanded to twenty-seven entries, including 

photos and diagrams of whistles representing the types 

carved in the workshops videos, and short videos of 

John with information about historic Southeast Alaska 

whistles in the National Museum of Natural History that 

John studied in person years back.

In addition to the online resources, the project offered 

whistle-making workshops taught by John to Alaska 

Native art practitioners. Students were gifted carving 

materials and tools made by John, and he taught them 

carving skills and traditions about this art form. During a 

John Hudson time when in-person workshops were not being held due 

Voices from Cedar resources on the Smithsonian Arctic 

Studies Center in Alaska website on the Smithsonian 

Learning Lab platform. Photo by Dawn Biddison
24 ASC Newsletter

to COVID-19, the project workshops offered a special 

opportunity for students. Thirty-six people applied for 

the ten spots, even though it was held during the busy 

summer season. In order to make participation more 

accessible for people with jobs, one workshop was 

held on weekday evenings and the other on weekend 

afternoons. Prior to the classes, students were sent a 

link to the project Learning Lab site to help prepare 

them and to help them afterwards. All applicants for the 

workshops were sent the website link, and all workshop 

students and applicants were sent DVDs.

Along with the workshops, a virtual webinar was held to 

introduce the project and online resources to the general 

public. The event was recorded on the Zoom platform, 

and a video file was edited to include two views and 

additional resources discussed during the event. The 

webinar video was added to the “Voices from Cedar” 

website to act as an introduction to the online resources. 

John also made a trouble-shooting tips video, which was 

filmed on Zoom, edited, and posted.

This project was made possible by generous support of 

The CIRI Foundation, Recovering Voices (Department 

of Anthropology, NMNH), Alaska State Council on the 

Arts, Sealaska Heritage Institute, and supporters of the 

Arctic Studies Center in Alaska.

MEDIA

By Dawn Biddison

In 2021, the Learning Lab site Smithsonian Arctic 

Studies in Alaska gained ten new collections. A new 

section “Conversations” was added with eight entries. 

The goal of the Conversations video series is to bring 

audiences into discussions with Indigenous peoples, 

providing information and insights on important subjects 

and issues, along with ideas and examples that can help 

prepare people for making choices about how to act with 

regard to Indigenous peoples and their heritage. A new 

collaboration with the Inuit Art Foundation produced six 

of the Conversation collections with twenty-one Alaskan 

and Canadian Inuit speakers who participated (see 

“Conversations Webinar Series” in this issue). 

Two additional Conversations entries were produced by 

Dawn Biddison from webinars that she organized and 

hosted with Alaska Native speakers. “Conversations: 

Land Acknowledgement” features cultural advocate, 

curator and artist Melissa Shaginoff (Athna Athabascan/

Paiute). Along with the edited webinar video, there is a 

downloadable PDF resource “You Are On Indigenous 

Land,” an instructional guide discussed in the video 

to help readers research and write their own land 

acknowledgements. There are also links to online 

videos with examples of land acknowledgements 

given as part of an introduction to public events. 

“Cultural Appreciation vs. Cultural Appropriation: 

A Conversation with Alaska Native Artists” features 

moderator Melissa Shaginoff (Ahtna Athabascan, Paiute) 

and speakers Dimi Macheras (Dena’ina Athabascan), 

Vera Starbard (Tlingit, Dena’ina Athabascan) and 

Ilgavak Peter Williams (Yup’ik). The entry includes 

recommended links to general information about 

the subject and two downloadable PDF resources: 

“Avoiding Cultural Appropriation” and “Think Before 

You Appropriate.” This project was made possible 

through the generous support of the Open Society 

University Network, Recovering Voices (Department of 

Anthropology, National Museum of Natural History) and 

supporters of the Arctic Studies Center in Alaska.

The “Voices from Cedar” collection was added to 

the “Community Videos” section, featuring twentyseven resources about Southeast Alaska whistles 

(see “Voices from Cedar” in this issue). The 

“Intergenerational Creativity and Learning through 

Indigenous Comic Art: Chickaloonies” collection 

was added to the “Distance Learning section,” and 

its twenty-six resources include a downloadable PDF 

workbook on how to draw and tell stories using comic 

art (see “Chickaloonies” in this issue).

NOME CELEBRATES OUR STORIES ETCHED 

IN IVORY

By Amy Phillips-Chan

Almost ten years ago, I was incredibly fortunate to 

begin working with community members in Alaska on 

a project that sought to reconnect engraved scenes of 

human figures hunting, dancing, and traveling on 19th 

century walrus ivory drill bows with contemporary 

narratives of culture and place. Summer 2021 saw 

completion of the project Our Stories Etched in 

Ivory / Qulip’yugut Iksiaqtuumaruat Tuugaami: The 

Smithsonian Collections of Engraved Drill Bows with 

Stories from the Arctic. The book was published by 

Screen capture of the Conversations collection on Learning 

Lab site “Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center in Alaska.” 

Photo by Dawn Biddison
 ASC Newsletter 25

the Arctic Studies Center as Volume 10 in the series 

Contributions to Circumpolar Anthropology. 

Our Stories Etched in Ivory combines drill bow stories 

from the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural 

History and National Museum of the American Indian 

with oral histories gathered from 40 contemporary 

Alaska Native contributors from Utqiaġvik, Point Hope, 

Kotzebue, Shishmaref, Nome, 

St. Michael, and Anchorage. 

Stories of hunting and 

community life are accompanied 

by illustrations of cultural 

heritage objects from the Carrie 

M. McLain Memorial Museum 

in Nome, Alaska. A foreword 

by Bernadette Y. AlvannaStimpfle, Yaayuk, offers insight 

into the self-recorded world 

of walrus ivory carvers while 

the introductory essay by Amy 

Phillips-Chan draws upon 

collection studies, oral histories, 

and written texts to explore drill 

bow technology and the history 

of pictorial art in the Arctic. 

The appendices offer detailed 

information on Smithsonian 

collectors, a glossary of carving 

materials, and a visual catalog 

of heritage objects engraved 

with pictorial scenes. The final 

section features a dictionary of 

almost 100 engraved characters 

found on drill bows, from 

animals and objects to legends 

and activities. Our Stories 

Etched in Ivory prioritizes 

Indigenous knowledge and 

language by making space 

for community members to 

share their own stories and 

provides Inupiaq language 

names for places, animals, and 

objects. The publication marks 

a collaboration between the 

Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center, Carrie M. McLain 

Memorial Museum, and Bering Strait communities, to 

return Indigenous knowledge embedded within historical 

museum objects back to the Arctic.

Freshly printed copies of Our Stories Etched in Ivory

arrived in Nome in July 2021. The town of Nome, 

known as Sitnasuak in Inupiaq, is located on the 

traditional homeland of the Inupiat, who have been 

careful stewards of the land and waters of the Bering 

Strait region for generations. I am privileged to live 

and work in Nome at the Carrie M. McLain Memorial 

Museum and thus had the great opportunity to visit 

with local contributors and hand-deliver copies of Our 

Stories Etched in Ivory on which we had all worked. 

Over 100 additional copies of the book were mailed 

out to community contributors, schools, and cultural 

centers across Alaska as 

well as other project partners 

who had assisted with the 

publication and museums 

and archives who generously 

shared materials from their 

collections.

The Carrie M. McLain 

Memorial Museum planned 

a special two-day Nome 

Community Book Event with 

local contributors on August 

5-6, 2021 to celebrate the 

completion of Our Stories 

Etched in Ivory. Flyers 

regarding the book event were 

placed across town and shared 

via social media. Community 

members were invited to 

reserve a complimentary copy 

of the book, which they could 

pick up and have signed by 

contributors during the event. 

The KICY radio station in 

Nome invited contributor 

Sylvester Ayek and myself 

in to talk about the book and 

promote the community event. 

Sylvester (Inupiat) is a King 

Island Elder and contemporary 

artist who works with walrus 

ivory, wood, stone, and metals. 

His work can be found in 

public and private collections 

across the country. Sylvester 

has collaborated with the 

Smithsonian Arctic Studies 

Center on several projects including the exhibition 

Living Our Cultures, Sharing Our Heritage: The First 

Peoples of Alaska.

The first day of the Nome Community Book Event 

featured a public presentation on ivory carving by artist 

and Our Stories Etched in Ivory contributor Jerome 

Saclamana. Jerome Saclamana (Inupiat) works in 

walrus ivory and bone and was recently recognized 

with a 2019 Individual Artist Award from the Rasmuson 

A group of Nome contributors. Back row: Susan 

Omiak (representing father James Omiak), Janice 

Knowlton (representing father Francis Alvanna), 

Yaayuk Alvanna-Stimpfle, Sylvester Ayek, Wilfred 

Anowlic, John Penatac Sr., and Joseph Kunnuk 

Sr. Front row: Amy Phillips-Chan, JJ Alvanna 

(representing father Francis Alvanna) holding 

daughter Suluk, and Jerome Saclamana. Photo by 

Amy Chan

Amy and Yaakut Alvanna-Stimpfle. 

Photo by Amy Chan
26 ASC Newsletter

Foundation. In 2015, he participated as an Artist in 

Resident for the Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center 

Material Traditions: Sculpting Ivory project. Jerome flew 

in from Anchorage to offer a presentation at the Carrie 

M. McLain Memorial Museum on August 5, 2021. Over 

35 people gathered around tables filled with carving 

tools and materials to listen to Jerome share stories about 

learning how to carve and inspiration behind his work. 

Jerome also discussed his recent endeavor carving a 

walrus ivory drill bow in the manner of his father Mike 

Saclamana Sr. and demonstrated a circle-and-dot etching 

technique upon the drill bow’s surface.

On August 6, 2021, a crowd of over 75 visitors packed 

into the Carrie M. McLain Memorial Museum for the 

second day of the Nome Community Book Event. 

Our Stories Etched in Ivory contributors, Yaayuk 

Alvanna-Stimpfle, Wilfred Anowlic, Sylvester Ayek, 

Joseph Kunnuk Sr., and John Penatac Sr. introduced 

themselves and spoke about carving and growing up on 

King Island and in Nome. Descendants of contributors 

James Omiak and Francis Alvanna talked about their 

fathers, including Susan Omiak (representing father 

James Omiak) and Janice Knowlton and J.J. Alvanna 

(representing their father Francis Alvanna). Members of 

the public were then invited to visit with contributors and 

have their books signed. Community members mingled 

with each other while checking out a display of engraved 

ivory carvings from the museum collection and enjoying 

refreshments that included fresh aqpiq (salmonberry) 

appetizers and a cake decorated with the book cover.

Our Stories Etched in Ivory brings to life visual 

records of 19th century life in western Alaska that were 

carefully engraved on drill bows and that have been 

hidden in Smithsonian storerooms for more than a 

century. The Nome Community Book Event offered a 

wonderful occasion to celebrate the intellectual return 

of these remarkable “story-books” and to honor the 

rich knowledge and contributions of Elders, carvers, 

and artists. For all of our colleagues and community 

contributors outside of Nome, you were in our hearts and 

thoughts. Quynaqpak. Thank you so much.

A crowd gathered in the Carrie M. McLain Memorial 

Museum on August 6, 2021, to celebrate the release and to 

have copies signed by contributors

NEWS

SUSAN ROWLEY APPOINTED DIRECTOR 

OF UBC MUSEUM OF ANTHROPOLOGY

By Bernadette Driscoll Engelstad

The Arctic Studies 

Center extends 

congratulations to Dr. 

Susan Rowley on her 

appointment as Director 

of the UBC Museum of 

Anthropology (MOA) 

in October 2021. 

Susan brings extensive 

expertise to this position 

as a long-term curator 

at MOA and professor 

of Anthropology at 

UBC. In addition to 

Arctic archaeology, her 

research encompasses a 

wide range of specialties 

including public archaeology, material culture studies, 

oral history, repatriation, intellectual property rights, and 

Indigenous access to cultural heritage. 

Completing her doctoral dissertation at the University 

of Cambridge in 1985 (Rowley 1985), Susan began 

a post-doctoral fellowship in the Smithsonian’s 

Anthropology department. Her analysis of Charles 

Francis Hall’s unpublished diaries recording Inuit oral 

history related to the Frobisher expeditions is described 

in a chapter in Archaeology of the Frobisher Voyages

(1993) edited by William W. Fitzhugh and Jacqueline 

S. Olin. Thereafter, she prepared a small-scale traveling 

exhibit of Inua: Spirit World of the Bering Sea Eskimo 

which was hosted at several European venues with a 

companion publication translated in multiple languages 

(Rowley et al. 1988). She also worked closely with 

Smithsonian anthropologist JoAllyn Archambault on 

exhibit projects with Hopi and Seminole knowledgeholders, developing an early appreciation for engaging 

Indigenous voices, scholars, and communities in the 

formation of museum projects.

Throughout her career, Susan remained deeply 

committed to joint endeavors in material culture studies, 

museum work, and archaeological practice. In 1987 

she collaborated with educator Carolyn Macdonald to 

establish the Igloolik Archaeology Field School, training 

local students in archaeological field sessions from 1990 

through 1996. Her early interest in Inuit oral history 

resulted in a key collaboration with John R. Bennett, 

former editor of Inuktitut magazine, entitled Uqalurait: 
 ASC Newsletter 27

An Oral History of Nunavut (2004). The publication 

brings together a compendium of quotations on Inuit 

identity, social life, and cultural principles recorded by 

Inuit Elders from the 1920s to contemporary times and is 

amply illustrated with drawings, prints, and sculptures by 

contemporary Inuit artists, including Kenojuak Ashevak, 

Helen Kalvak, Jessie Oonark, Janet Kigusiuq, and 

many others from across the Canadian Arctic.

Working closely with the Musqueam community in 

southern British Columbia, Susan served as MOA 

representative to the Reciprocal Research Network in 

designing a digital database enabling researchers and 

Indigenous communities to access artifact collections 

held by museum partners, including the Canadian 

Museum of History, the American Museum of Natural 

History, the Pitt Rivers Museum at Oxford University, 

the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, 

University of Cambridge, and the Smithsonian 

Institution (Rowley 2013). Of particular note, she 

served on the curatorial team for the recent exhibition 

c̓əsnaʔəm, the city before the city, a partnership of the 

MOA and key cultural partners in Vancouver, B.C. 

examining the ancient village site on which part of 

Vancouver was built, encompassing prehistoric, historic, 

and contemporary Musqueam culture and community.

Founded in 1949, MOA is housed in a stunning 

architectural environment designed by Canadian architect 

Arthur Erickson which opened in 1976 and had a 

major recent expansion and exterior grounds designed 

by Cornelia Hahn Oberlander. The landmark plaque 

marking the entrance to the museum acknowledges 

the museum’s siting on the unceded territory of the 

Musqueam people. Following a distinguished corps of 

directors and internationally renowned cultural leaders 

like Michael Ames, Ruth Phillips, and Anthony 

Shelton, Susan Rowley begins a much-anticipated 

tenure at one of the world’s most innovative museums of 

Indigenous art and cultural history—a museum to which 

she has already made significant intellectual and curatorial 

contributions in supporting Indigenous claims to cultural 

heritage, facilitating Indigenous access to museum 

collections, ensuring Indigenous participation in museum 

practice, and training Indigenous and non-Indigenous 

scholars, researchers, and museum staff.

Rowley, S. 1985. The Significance of Migration for the 

Understanding of Inuit Cultural Development in the 

Canadian Arctic. Unpublished PhD thesis, University 

of Cambridge. See also: Rowley, S. 1985. Population 

Movements in the Canadian Arctic. Études/Inuit/

Studies 9(1):3-21. 

Rowley, S.D.M, W.W. Fitzhugh, and S.A. Kaplan. 

1988. Inua: Spirit World of the Bering Sea Eskimo. 

Washington DC: Smithsonian Press.

Rowley, S. 2013. The Reciprocal Research Network: 

The Development Process. Museum Anthropology 

Review 7(1-2):22-43.

FURTHER NOTE ON ROWLEY FAMILY 

HISTORY

By Bernadette Driscol Engelstad

As a second-generation Arctic scientist, Susan Rowley 

had an early familial introduction to the North, and 

her parents, Graham and Diana Rowley, were 

well-established Arctic specialists. As detailed in 

the memoir, Cold Comfort: My Love Affair with the 

Arctic (1996, 2007), Graham participated in the British 

Musk-ox Expedition, carrying out archaeological 

excavations in the Eastern Canadian Arctic in the late 

1930s. Receiving a small collection of Dorset period 

artifacts, unearthed by Inuit families building winter 

quarters on an island in Foxe Basin from the Oblate 

missionary Father Etienne Bazin (1903–1972) in 

Igloolik, Rowley Sr. returned to the region in the 

summer of 1939, excavating almost 1500 artifacts now 

in the collection of the Museum of Archaeology and 

Anthropology, University of Cambridge. Highlights 

of this collection are described by G. Rowley in the 

American Anthropologist (1940 v. 42) and Artscanada

(Dec 1971/Jan 1972) and by Jorgen Meldgaard in 

Eskimo Sculpture (1960). Most recently, a selection 

of these ancestral objects, including human figure 

carvings, amulet pendants, and a carved antler wand 

with 27 incised portraits, have been illustrated in the 

exhibit publication, Arctic: Culture and Climate, by 

Amber Lincoln, Jago Cooper, and Peter Loovers (The 

British Museum, 2020).

Following a career in northern service with the 

Canadian government, Graham Rowley joined the 

Anthropology department at Carleton University 

in Ottawa, providing bursary assistance to many 

students (myself included) to undertake fieldwork 

projects in the North. Diana Rowley (1918–2018) 

had a long and illustrious life in Arctic affairs 

also, serving as the editor of the journal Arctic

(1949–1955) published by the Arctic Institute of 

North America and as founding editor of the AINA 

Technical Papers (1956–1970). Her life is detailed in 

a lengthy obituary published in Arctic v.71(4):465-

466 in 2018. Joining with colleagues in Ottawa, 

the Rowleys created the Arctic Circle Club in the 

late 1940s, a gathering of scientists, scholars, and 

government administrators which continues to this 

day. The Arctic Circular, the group’s newsletter, 

initiated and edited by Diana Rowley (1948–1967), 

offers an exceptionally lively and well-informed 

history of early Canadian Arctic research.
28 ASC Newsletter

NORSE IN NEWFOUNDLAND IN 1021

By Brian Handwerk

[Excerpts from a Smithsonian Magazine B.H. article of 

20 October 2021, drawing on the original Kuitems et 

al. 2021 publication in Nature: Evidence for European 

presence in the Americas in ad 1021 (nature.com)]

Three rough pieces of wood—discarded sections 

of branches and tree stumps found among the 

refuse Vikings left behind after their short sojourn 

in Newfoundland—have turned out to be some of 

the more important evidence of the Norse in North 

America. The scars left by iron 

blades on these sections of fir 

and juniper can still be seen 

after more than 1,000 years...

A new study of wooden artifacts 

found at Newfoundland’s famed 

L’Anse aux Meadows site 

shows that Vikings lived, and 

felled trees, on North American 

soil exactly 1,000 years ago—

during the year 1021 C.E. The 

evidence, published today 

in Nature, means that these 

Norse seafarers accomplished 

the earliest known crossing 

of the Atlantic from Europe 

to the Americas. Such incredibly precise dating of 

the wood was possible thanks to an intriguing new 

method that examined growth rings for a once-in-amillennium cosmic-ray event that showered Earth 

with high energy particles in 993 C.E. Finding that 

telltale spike in the tree rings allowed scientists to 

count additional rings outside that mark to pinpoint 

the exact year the Vikings cut fir and juniper trees 

here, as they lived and explored on the edge of the 

continent.

“I am impressed by the results,” says Thomas 

McGovern, an archaeologist at Hunter College in 

New York City who was not involved in the research. 

“The site continues to provide data after all these 

years. I think the date is totally plausible and fits with 

Birgitta Wallace's original idea of a fairly short, 

circa 1000 [C.E.] settlement event,” adds McGovern, 

who has spent some two decades studying the demise 

of Norse settlements in Greenland. Wallace, a former 

Parks Canada archaeologist and co-author of the 

research, spent many years working at the L’Anse 

aux Meadows site.

The remains of eight sod and timber buildings were 

found, including workshop spaces and a forge used 

to craft iron tools. Experts consider L’Anse aux 

Meadows a base for further explorations, a site 

where Norse might overwinter, repair their ships, 

or stockpile provisions and trade goods. Such sites 

are described in the sagas as key waypoints in the 

Vinland adventures of explorers like Leif Eriksson. 

“Here we are fixing in time these somewhat 

legendary [Norse] sagas,” says co-author Michael 

Dee, who specializes in the study of isotope 

chronology at the University of Groningen. “We’re 

providing some scientific evidence to say at this exact 

moment in time, this happened...”

Timber was critical for the Norse in Newfoundland. 

Wood provided fuel for 

heat and cooking, as well as 

material to construct timber 

and sod buildings and famous 

Viking longships. Hundreds 

of wood chips, shavings and 

discarded pieces have been 

found from the workshops at 

L’Anse aux Meadows. Coauthor Margot Kuitems...

sorted through wood scraps 

from L’Anse aux Meadows at 

a storage facility in Dartmouth, 

Nova Scotia, where the 

excavation’s archaeological 

remains are stored. She 

selected three wooden artifacts 

that she knew were produced by Vikings, not only 

because they were found in context at the site but 

also because they showed clear markings of being cut 

and shaped with metal tools, which weren’t used by 

the area’s Indigenous residents....

Dendrochronological archives from around the world, 

in Germany, Ireland, Arizona and Japan, provide 

evidence that in 993, a cosmic radiation event, 

probably an enormous solar storm, caused a huge 

spike in atmospheric carbon levels that can clearly be 

measured in tree ring samples. “On rare occasions, 

once or twice a millennium, you get these blips in 

the record probably from solar storms that created a 

sudden surge of radiocarbon that gets absorbed by 

that tree ring,” Dee says.

After identifying the 993 anomaly in the tree ring 

history of wood artifacts from the Viking settlement, 

it was a fairly simple matter to count each year’s 

growth ring all the way to that critical bark layer 

still clinging to the wood. The team determined that 

each of the three different trees used to produce the 

wooden artifacts was felled exactly 28 years after the 

major cosmic-ray spike, in 1021, an apparently busy 

year of woodcutting for Norse in North America. By 

A piece of wood from the Norse deposit at 

L'Anse aux Meadows M. Kuitems
 ASC Newsletter 29

examining cells on the bark edge, the group could 

even determine in what season of the year each tree 

was felled.... 

Cosmic ray events like the 993 burst are very rare 

in the historical record. But because they are global 

in scope, their telltale signatures can be found in 

trees and wood around the world. That means the 

innovative new dating technique Kuitems and Dee 

used will likely be employed at archaeological sites 

far and wide.

[Ed: permission for this excerpt has been approved 

by Smithsonian and Bryan Handwerk.] 

YALE ANALYSIS UNLOCKS SECRET OF THE 

VINLAND MAP—IT’S A FAKE

By Mike Cummings

[Ed. note: In 1998 I inspected 

the Vinland Map with map expert 

Dr. Douglas McNaughton

while preparing the exhibition, 

Vikings: The North Atlantic 

Saga (Fitzhugh and Ward 2000). 

The following excerpts from a 

Yale News announcement on 1 

September, 2021, is hopefully the 

last nail in the VM coffin.]

The Vinland Map, once hailed as 

the earliest depiction of the New 

World, is awash in 20th-century 

ink. A team of conservators and 

conservation scientists at Yale has 

found compelling new evidence 

for this conclusion through 

the most thorough analysis yet 

performed on the infamous 

parchment map.

Acquired by Yale in the mid1960s, the purported 15th-century map depicts a preColumbian “Vinlanda Insula,” a section of North 

America’s coastline southwest of Greenland. While 

earlier studies had detected evidence of modern inks 

at various points on the map, the new Yale analysis 

examined the entire document’s elemental composition 

using state-of-the-art tools and techniques that were 

previously unavailable. The analysis revealed that a 

titanium compound used in inks first produced in the 

1920s pervades the map’s lines and text.

“The Vinland Map is a fake,” said Raymond Clemens, 

curator of early books and manuscripts at Yale’s 

Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, which 

houses the map. “There is no reasonable doubt here. 

This new analysis should put the matter to rest.” The 

new study also uncovered evidence that the map 

deception was intentional. A Latin inscription on 

its back, possibly a bookbinder’s note guiding the 

assembly of the Speculum Historiale—an authentic 

medieval volume and the likely source of the map’s 

calfskin parchment—is overwritten with modern ink 

to appear like instructions for binding the map within 

the genuine 15th-century manuscript. “The altered 

inscription certainly seems like an attempt to make 

people believe the map was created at the same time 

as the Speculum Historiale,” Clemens said. “It’s 

powerful evidence that this is a forgery, not an innocent 

creation by a third party that was co-opted by someone 

else, although it doesn’t tell us who perpetrated the 

deception.”

Yale created a sensation in 1965 

when it announced the Vinland 

Map’s existence and published a 

scholarly book about it by Yale 

librarians and curators at the 

British Museum in London. Its 

discovery seemed to demonstrate 

that Norsemen were the first 

Europeans to reach the New 

World, landing in the Americas 

well before Columbus’ first 

voyage. (Archeological discoveries 

at L’Anse aux Meadows in 

Newfoundland during the 1960s 

confirmed that the Vikings had 

built settlements in the Americas 

long before Columbus sailed.) 

From the beginning, however, 

scholars began to question the 

map’s authenticity. And over time 

an overwhelming consensus has 

emerged that it is indeed a 20thcentury forgery.

An In-House study

...[The Yale study] allowed the researchers for the first 

time to systematically examine the map alongside the 

two medieval texts with which it was originally bound. 

One is the Speculum Historiale, a popular four-volume 

medieval encyclopedia by Vincent de Beauvais....

The other manuscript, the Hystoria Tartorum, or Tartar 

Relation, is an account of a journey by two Polish 

clerics into the lands of Genghis Khan in mid-1200s. 

“Studying the three objects together is important to 

learning their full story,” said Zyats, head of rare books 

conservation for the Yale Library.... Radiocarbon 

dating performed on both manuscripts in 2018 showed

A scanning x-ray fluorescence spectrometer 

hovers over the map. The instrument created 

elemental maps revealing the distribution of 

elements throughout the map
30 ASC Newsletter

that their parchment and paper date approximately 

from 1400 to 1460, which correlates with prior carbondating done on the map. A watermark on a paper leaf 

of the Speculum Historiale is traceable to a papermill 

that operated in Basel during the 1440s, corroborating 

the theory that the two manuscripts were made during 

the Council of Basel, Zyats explained. Also, the text in 

both manuscripts is written in a similar style, likely by 

the same scribe....

The Big Picture

About the size of a placemat, the Vinland Map lacks 

the elaborate ornamentation of other medieval maps, 

such as the Beinecke Library’s collection of portolan 

nautical charts. Patched wormholes dot its parchment. 

Much of its ink appears faded.

The members of the Yale team focused their attention 

on the ink used in the map. Using X-ray fluorescence 

spectroscopy (XRF), a non-destructive technique, they 

identified the distribution of elements throughout the 

map. While scientists for decades have used XRF to 

study the elemental composition of specific points on 

an object, Bezur said, only recently have they been able 

to use it to scan an entire two-dimensional object in a 

laboratory setting. “With macro-XRF, we can generate a 

one-to-one scale elemental map of the map,” Bezur said. 

“That’s huge because it allows us to share a full dataset 

of the entire map. We’re not picking and choosing 

individual points. We’re offering the big picture.”

Medieval scribes typically wrote with iron gall ink, 

which is composed of iron sulphate, powdered gall 

nuts, and a binder (the first two are primary elemental 

ingredients of iron gall ink, and the third is often 

present as an impurity). The XRF analysis of the 

Vinland Map showed little to no iron, sulfur, or copper. 

Instead, the scan revealed the presence of titanium 

throughout the map’s ink.

A scan of Vinlanda Insula, the portion of North 

American coastline that made the map famous, 

revealed high levels of titanium and smaller amounts of 

barium—a key revelation as the earliest commercially 

produced titanium-white pigments in the 1920s 

contained titanium dioxide and barium sulfate. Having 

mapped the distribution of elements, the team used 

Raman microscopy, a type of molecular microscopy, 

to confirm that the titanium dioxide in the map’s ink 

is in the form of anatase. While an earlier study had 

utilized Raman microscopy in analyzing nine points on 

the map, the new study found that anatase is broadly 

distributed on the document....

To confirm that the map’s ink was of modern origin, 

and that the anatase wasn’t simply unique and naturally

occurring, the team performed field emission scanning 

electron microscopy (FE-SEM) on samples from the 

altered text of the Tartar Relation and the map. This 

process yielded highly magnified images of its ink’s 

components, which showed that the anatase particles 

closely resemble those found in pigment that was 

commercially produced in Norway in 1923. Nothing 

suggested that the anatase was naturally sourced...

A Historical Object

“....Objects like the Vinland Map soak up a lot of 

intellectual air space,” Clemens said. “We don’t want 

this to continue to be a controversy. There are so 

many fun and fascinating things that we ought to be 

examining that can actually tell us something about 

exploration and travel in the medieval world....The 

map has become an historical object in and of itself,” 

he said. “It’s a great example of a forgery that had an 

international impact.”

MEET ALLISON WILLCOX, NMNH DEPUTY 

DIRECTOR

By Kirk Johnson

[Ed. note: On 30 August 2021 Director Kirk Johnson 

introduced Allison Willcox to the staff.]

I am very excited to 

announce that Ms. 

Allison Willcox

will be joining our 

NMNH community 

as the museum’s new 

Deputy Director. 

Allison joins us from 

the Smithsonian’s 

National Museum of 

African American 

History and Culture 

where she has 

held the role of 

Associate Director for 

Operations since 2019 and is responsible for oversight 

of the museum’s finance and budget process, human 

resources, information technology, digital, facilities, 

and business operations functions.

Since May, she has served as Acting Deputy 

Undersecretary for Administration under Doug Hall

and has played a key role in leading the Smithsonian 

through the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic. A 

skilled problem solver, she has a deep understanding 

of Smithsonian processes and policies and brings 

over 25 years of experience in museums and federal 

information technology. She’s a trusted adviser on 
 ASC Newsletter 31

museum operations and her experience in project 

management and business process improvement will 

be an invaluable asset to NMNH as we embark on the 

implementation of our 2021–2025 strategic plan. 

Allison has a long history with the Smithsonian, joining 

NMAAHC in 2014 as its first Assistant Director for 

Information Technology, establishing the department 

as the museum prepared for its public opening and 

overseeing the full range of IT and digital services, 

including the museum’s web presence, interactive 

technologies, and IT infrastructure and operations. 

Aside from serving in various information technology 

roles at the US Department of Agriculture, where she 

led the IT program and project management office for 

the Food and Nutrition Service, she has also held roles 

as an Anatomical Collections Manager at the National 

Museum of Health and Medicine and worked as a 

Biological Anthropologist in our very own NMNH 

Office of Repatriation. Allison holds a BA in Classical 

and Near Eastern Archaeology from Haverford College 

and has conducted anthropological fieldwork and 

research in Egypt, Italy, England, and the United States. 

Please join me in giving a warm welcome to Allison! 

ARCTIC CRASHES VOLUME WINS NMNH 

2021 SCIENCE ACHIEVEMENT AWARD

In November 2021, the Arctic Crashes. Peoples and 

Animals in the Changing North (Igor Krupnik and 

Aron Crowell, eds., 2020, Smithsonian Institution 

Scholarly Press—see ASC Newsletter 28) received 

the NMNH 2021 Science Achievement award. The 

book was produced as an outcome of the ASC-inspired 

Arctic Crashes project of 2014–2018; it included papers 

delivered at two symposia in 2015 and 2016, plus 

several articles specially written for this collection. The 

NMNH annual Science Achievement awards are selected 

from many submissions by a special team established 

by the NMNH Senate of Scientists; they are commonly 

announced by the end of the year with a $2,000 prize 

given to the winners’ research funds. Six awards were 

given in 2021 to NMNH scholars, as announced by 

the NMNH Associated Director and Chief Scientist, 

Rebecca Johnson; the “Arctic Crashes” award was in 

the ‘book’ category. We salute the large international 

volume team—35 contributors from the U.S., Canada, 

Greenland, and the Netherlands—as well as their 

partners at the Smithsonian SP, Meredith McQuoidGreason, production editor, and Ginger Minkiewicz, 

the press director—on their excellent product. The book 

has already generated several positive reviews and it is to 

serve as an insightful summary of human-animal-climate 

relations in the Arctic for years to come.

RESEARCH

ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE INDUSTRIAL 

FRONTIER IN ST. PAUL RIVER, LOWER 

NORTH SHORE, QUEBEC

By Francisco Rivera

The “industrial frontier” is the area on the periphery 

of major industrial centers comprised of industries, 

mines, factories, lumber camps, fisheries, and other 

modern infrastructures that target regional labor 

forces and transform resources wrested from the soil, 

the forest, and the sea. Between July 24, 2021, and 

September 10, 2021, fieldwork was conducted in 

Rivière-Saint-Paul on Quebec's Lower North Shore for 

my postdoctoral project at the Arctic Studies Center 

titled “Memory, Materiality, and the Industrial Frontier 

on Quebec's Lower North Shore (1860–1960).” 

The research in Rivière-Saint-Paul’s recent past is 

part of Dr. William Fitzhugh’s Gateways Project 

conducted in collaboration with Dr. Brad Loewen

of the Anthropology Department of the Université 

de Montréal. The aim of my project is to develop the 

local industrial frontier harnessing the interdisciplinary 

potential of archaeology, ethnography, and history. 

It focuses on the period between the nineteenth and 

twentieth centuries and connects today’s community 

interests with the region’s deep historical trajectory of 

human occupation and adaptation in the territory.

Figure 1: The remains of the Whiteley House

Figure 2: 3D model (left) and digital elevation model of the 

southern part of the Bonne-Esperance Island
32 ASC Newsletter

The project’s general objective is to build knowledge 

about the industrial frontier in Rivière-Saint-Paul. 

Specifically, to: (1) understand the origin and historical 

development of the industrial guano plants and fishing 

establishments in the archipelago between 1860 and 

1960, (2) learn from the local community and share 

knowledge with its members in an inclusive manner 

at all stages of the research, and (3) develop a digital 

archaeology approach by using recording technologies 

such as drone surveys and 3D modeling of artifacts and 

museum objects.

My 2021 fieldwork surveyed and mapped two 

important historical sites: the Whiteley Fishery on 

Bonne-Esperance Island and the guano plant at Factory 

Point on Caribou Island. Interviews were conducted to 

collect oral history related to past and present RivièreSaint-Paul. These discussions were used to compare 

historical narratives with the daily lives of the people. 

To complete the historical framework, one of the most 

important documents that guided the research is the 

diary of Charles Carroll Carpenter (1856–1909), a 

local missionary who lived in the region. His diary was 

used to reconstruct nineteenth-century paths, houses, 

and other features of the cultural landscape. The 

memoirs of the Whiteley family, who owned the fishing 

establishment, also served as major sources.

The Whiteley Fishery, Bonne-Esperance “Boney” 

Island, 1860–1970

Located on a rocky coastline at the southern end 

of Bonne-Esperance Island, the fishery of William 

Henry “Bossy” Whiteley (1834–1903) operated 

between 1860 and 1970. Originally from Newburyport, 

Massachusetts, Whiteley traveled to Labrador in 1850. 

Using an inheritance from England, Whiteley founded 

a fishery in Bonne-Esperance ten years later. Operating 

mainly in the summer, the fishery focused its activities 

on salmon, cod, and mackerel and employed up to 150 

workers at the end of the nineteenth century. In 1869, 

Whiteley built a house on the island where his wife 

Louisa Thompson and their twelve children lived. 

After he died in 1903, his sons operated the fishery 

but experienced economic difficulties. The Great War 

led to a labor shortage. The workforce dropped to less 

than thirty employees, and the Whiteley family was 

struck by debt. In 1945, the Standard Fish Company 

of Montreal bought the Whitely family company. 

As the interviewees explained, its operations ceased 

around 1970; the buildings fell into disrepair and some, 

including the Whiteley house and wharf, were looted 

and burned (Fig. 1).

In the area around Boney where the Whiteley fishery 

was located, the visible remains of the wharf, the 

Whiteley house, the well, the drinking water pool, 

and the lookout at the top of the hill with its inukshuk 

were surveyed and mapped. A drone (DJI Air 2S 

model) helped map the island’s features and identify 

the areas described by Albert Whiteley in the sketch 

of the site published in his book A Century on 

Bonne Esperance (1977). The network of paths and 

walkways that radiate from the dock and house were 

also identified. According to historic photographs, the 

wharf was surrounded by a dozen one-story and twostory buildings that served as the living quarters for 

fishermen and workers. The exact locations of these 

features were included on the digital elevation model 

(DEM). In addition, the location of the Whiteley house 

with its wood remains and features was useful for 

interpretating its architectural plan (Fig. 2). 

Factory Point, ca. 1860–1910

A guano (seabird excrement) factory was established 

at Factory Point, at the north end of Caribou Island, 

as early as the mid-nineteenth century. According 

to interviews with Rivière-Saint-Paul residents, the 

factory was no longer in operation during the early 

twentieth century and probably ceased operating during 

the late nineteenth century. Ownership of the plant 

is uncertain. Several interviewees indicate that the 

factory may have belonged to the Job Brothers of St. 

John’s, while others suggest that it belonged to other 

companies based in Newfoundland or Quebec. A search 

of archives at Memorial University in St. John’s so far 

has failed to clarify the ownership question.

The visible archaeological remains at Factory Point 

were surveyed and mapped. The most obvious feature 

is the rock foundation of the old pier, a structure that 

extends into the water approximately 150 meters. Other 

features include a wharf, well, water canals, wagon 

tracks, storage pits, roadways, and what seems to be 

the negative imprints of built structures. In addition, 

Figure 3: 3D model and digital elevation model of Factory 

Point on the north side of Caribou Island
 ASC Newsletter 33

there were remains of metal structures that probably 

date to the 1940s or 1950s, and a series of canals for 

water drainage leading to a storage pool. The east side 

comprises three more recently built cottages. In the 

nineteenth century, Carpenter described this area in 

his diary as the place where the school was built for 

the inhabitants of the region. The drone survey helped 

build a DEM of the area and identify features for future 

archaeological work (Fig. 3).

The Contemporary Past: The Fish Plant and the Old 

Wharf

Salmon Bay and the fish plant are both important 

contemporary sites. The small fishing village of Salmon 

Bay has new houses and cottages built by RivièreSaint-Paul residents. The village also has an old 

wooden dock that is the last one of its kind in the area.

With fishing boats moored at its dock, the modern 

fish plant is also a major contemporary site. The plant 

opened in the early 1990s after a fish plant located on 

Esquimaux Island ceased operations. Plant Manager 

Bradley O’Brien kindly showed us inside the plant 

where the workers process halibut that arrives on the 

morning boats. On the production line, workers behead 

the large bottom fish, clean, weigh, and pack them in 

boxes with ice. It is a simple but effective process. The 

crew is comprised of approximately twenty men and 

women who come mainly from the surrounding towns 

of Old Fort, Rivière-Saint-Paul, and Middle Bay.

It is interesting to note O’Brien’s perspectives of 

the past and the historical fishing sites because they 

testify to the coastal lifestyle and the many years and 

generations associated with fishing industries. Bradley 

explained the plant’s operations, organization, and 

technologies. His explanations allowed us to imagine 

the industrial work at the Whiteley Fishery and to 

compare contemporary and past production modes. 

O’Brien also shared his vision of tourism related to 

the cultural richness that this region offers in terms 

of economic potential. Themes surrounding the 

region’s archaeological heritage emerged from this 

conversation. These included ways to incorporate 

archaeological projects conducted on the region’s 

contemporary sites to study present-day economic and 

social dynamics, and the continuity of fishing practices.

Finally, beyond the specific objectives of the project, 

it was also important to document another relevant 

historical site in Rivière-Saint-Paul’s surroundings: the 

so-called “Old Wharf” located 5.25 km (3.3 mi) south 

of the village on the east side of Esquimaux Island. As 

this site will soon be dismantled as part of a pollution 

clean-up process, a drone survey was conducted to 

map the site and it machinery and engines. Former 

residents explained its history, including the ancient 

maritime island lifestyle, the harsh environment, and 

the resiliency of the people who ventured to these 

islands. We also discussed the nostalgia related to a 

bygone era and lifestyle. Interviewees shared their 

perspectives regarding the inevitability of change 

and the importance of heritage places that are often 

perceived as valueless and neglected. While the Old 

Wharf is in ruins today, local memory persists about 

the original location of each building and the functions 

of the wharf’s different parts. This knowledge feeds 

a living past anchored in the ruins of a once-pivotal 

place.

Public Outreach

As part of our public outreach, presentations were 

given at the local school. Due to the COVID-19 

pandemic, the school included students from other 

locations (e.g., Old Fort, Blanc-Sablon). This provided 

a larger audience to share the project’s activities and 

the Smithsonian’s interest in developing archaeological 

projects in the region. The presentations focused 

on the role of archaeologists, our specific project in 

Rivière-Saint-Paul, and the potential for archaeological 

development of the region’s recent history (Fig. 4). 

In addition to the school presentations, 48 heritage 

assessment surveys were conducted with residents 

and local stakeholders, such as the employees of 

the Coastal Association, officials from the BonneEsperance municipality, fishing plant workers, and 

the school's teachers and students. The survey was 

anonymous and consisted of six questions that sought 

to assess the community's interest in archaeological 

and historical heritage and options for studying and 

preserving this heritage. The results will be presented 

in a forthcoming article and will be used to plan future 

activities in Rivière-Saint-Paul.

Figure 4. Presentation at the school in Rivière-Saint-Paul. 

Photo by Francisco Rivera 
34 ASC Newsletter

Conclusions and Prospects

The archaeological work on Rivière-Saint-Paul’s 

historic sites, such as the Whiteley Fishery and Factory 

Point, was supplemented by the documentation of 

contemporary winter habitation sites used by local 

families. This information testifies to the local mobility 

of the residents who live between the islands and the 

interior at different times of the year. Carpenter’s diary 

describes that the Whiteley, Chalker, and Goddard

families, among others, had winter homes, trapping, 

and hunting sites upstream from St. Paul village. 

Visiting these places helped sketch an initial map that 

provides opportunity for later surveys and excavations. 

Their localization provided an overview of mobility 

practices and a better understanding of the occupational 

history and social construction of the cultural 

landscape. Our information will facilitate the second 

stage of work (i.e., the material culture approach of 

in situ recording including targeted excavations). 

Research planned for 2022 will incorporate surveying 

and mapping of these winter sites to understand how 

they were related to each other. 

The digital approach used during this first year of 

fieldwork raised the interest of the community, who 

saw potential for the documentation heritage places 

and of the archaeological artifacts exhibited at the 

local Whiteley Museum. The use of computer tools to 

create 3D models of artifacts may allow the museum 

to digitally open its collections, which could increase 

local interest in the archaeology. However, while 

discussing these possibilities with Rivière-Saint-Paul 

residents, concerns were voiced related to follow-up 

activities and the continuity of this long-term project, 

which requires the commitment of different actors. 

In summary, this initial fieldwork has characterized and 

contrasted the archaeological material and examined 

oral and documentary sources (e.g., papers from the 

Public Archives of Canada). Rivière-Saint-Paul, as 

part of the industrial frontier of Quebec, is an ideal 

case study to conduct archaeological analysis of the 

complexities of practices and social relations at work 

in local industries during the recent past. Furthermore, 

it provides the opportunity to study the genealogy of 

historically active industries that contributed to shape 

local identities.

Acknowledgments. Thanks to William Fitzhugh, 

Brad Loewen, Eileen Schofield, Karen Fequet, 

Cindy Thomas, Brenda and Philip Nadeau, and the 

residents of Saint Paul’s who welcomed me and shared 

fragments of their lives. Special thanks go to Garland 

Nadeau, whose help and support allowed me to carry 

out this project.

CROSS MOUNTAIN NORTH: MORE 

ARCHAEOLOGY IN THE VERMONT HILLS

By William W. Fitzhugh

Duplicating my covid adaptation strategy last year, 

I returned to the hills behind my Vermont isolation 

post where, with local students in 2020 I excavated 

a small 1820s farm site high in the hills above the 

Connecticut River (see: Fitzhugh, 2021). An 1820s 

“Farm in the Fairlee Forest”, Vermont. Journal of 

Vermont Archaeology 15:68-94). The new site, Cross 

Mountain North (CMN), is less than a kilometer from 

last year’s and faces north above Glen Falls Brook. The 

northern exposure suggested it might be a summer farm 

occupied by the family who lived at CM South; the 

latter site, which we excavated in 2019, has a southern 

aspect, high sod foundation walls, and deep cellar pit, 

suggesting a winter occupation.

There were many other interesting questions too, 

as I set to work with 2020 veterans Kai Harris and 

his mother, Samantha, Cora Day (now at Wheaton 

College) and her mother and father, Dartmouth 

undergraduate Sovi-Mya Wellons, Syracuse University 

PhD candidate Matthew O’Leary, and my wife, 

Lynne Fitzhugh, who was searching the town archives 

for historical clues. The 2021 goal was to map and test 

the site to determine its extent, preservation, and age. 

We spent two weeks working in sweltering heat and 

learned a lot but discovered CMN was a much more 

complicated place than I had imagined.

Cross Mountain North lies on a 1,000 square meter 

hillside plateau—one of the few places in the high 

forest country where a small farm might survive—

albeit with much sacrifice and hard work! Unlike 

CMS’s single small house, CMN has four structures: 

a large stone and earth foundation with a large central 

hearth pile (S1), a small cottage with a cold storage pit 

S-2 cottage dwelling with collapsed chimney to left and 

refuse hearth to right
 ASC Newsletter 35

(S2,3), and a large barn foundation (S4). We mapped 

and excavated parts of these features and conducted a 

metal detector survey. No stone garden or fence walls 

are present, as at CMS. A small seep across CM trail 

south of S1 may have been the site’s water source. 

Unlike the previous site, CMN is really a ‘site complex’ 

since all four structures and the lands around them 

appear to have been part of a single functioning 

farmstead. So far, no historical records have been 

found, and there may have been more than one tenant 

and economic activity represented besides farming. 

Artifacts suggest a date in the early 19th century, about 

the same time as CMS which has similar artifacts and 

is dated ca. 1820s by three Liberty Head pennies. 

Structure 1. This structure is in a field of ferns that 

probably results from the soil’s organic enrichment. 

Its thick east and north foundation walls are made of 

boulders and earth. Its west wall 

is less well defined, and its south 

foundation is completely missing. 

A 3x4 meter diameter hearth 

pile of boulders and bricks lies 

in the center. Excavation in the 

hearth produced a 19th century 

table knife, square-cut nails, 

ceramics, and window glass. 

Cut nails were also found on 

top of the foundation walls. The 

west wall produced a large milk 

pan and other ceramics, an iron 

scythe blade and hoe, cut nails, 

and a few decorated ceramics. 

Underlaying this surface layer 

were mixed deposits that 

contained bricks, charcoal, nails, and domestic ceramics. 

This layer was redeposited from somewhere else. A 

midden outside the east wall contained fragments of milk 

pans, domestic ceramics, a bone-handled table knife, a 

metal pail handle, iron barrel hoops, cut nails, window 

glass, pig teeth, and large and small animal bones. 

Unlike CMS, this structure contained no decorated blue 

transfer print tableware.

Under a rock in the south wall we found a plastic 

early 1970s snowmobile route sign. Structure 1 had a 

complex history that left only its east and north walls 

and hearth intact. The west side of the floor had been 

scraped (bull-dozed?) and replaced with clear peagravel, perhaps coinciding with the snowmobile sign.

Structure 2. This structure was defined by its 4x5 meter 

rock foundation. We excavated the entire structure and 

found early 19th century artifacts including domestic 

pottery, cut nails, and other items associated with the 

wall foundation, but almost nothing inside, probably 

because the building had a plank floor. Bricks along 

the west wall marked the remains of a chimney. A trash 

dump outside the northeast corner produced early 19th 

century artifacts and pig and bovid bones. The small 

number of finds suggests a brief occupation, possibly 

only a single year.

Structure 3. A deep pit adjacent S2 contained bricks 

from the collapsed S2 chimney but had nothing else 

inside. Access was through a semisubterranean entry 

where we found an iron door latch and a burned 

ceramic plate. This feature seems to have been used as 

a root cellar or cold-storage for the S2 cottage.

Structure 4. A rectangular stone foundation 80 m west 

of S1 may have been a barn. We did not have time to 

map this structure, but metal detector hits produced 

numerous cut iron nails, a piece of decorated white 

tableware. A metal beverage can and a few large wire 

nails outside the structure 

indicate 20th century activity.

Stone Piles and Brick Dumps. 

Several stone piles between S1 

and S4 appear to be the result 

of clearing rocks from the site’s 

infield pasture. The largest is 

a linear mound of rocks five 

meters upslope from the storage 

pit. They probably originated 

from rocks excavated during pit 

construction and were used to 

divert rainwater from entering 

the pit. Several large brick 

concentrations around S1 may 

be chimney remains. 

Summary

Cross Mountain North is the largest archaeological 

complex known in the upland Fairlee forest region. 

Since CMS has a northern exposure and contained 

farm implements and evidence of field stone clearing, 

it appears to have been a summer enterprise, whereas 

CMS, with its southern exposure, may have been a 

winter site, both possibly used seasonal summer and 

winter locations by a single family. For a brief period 

in the early 19th century, it functioned as a small 

family farm that began as a small cottage and cold 

storage cellar, but soon grew into a larger farm with a 

larger dwelling and a barn. But it may have had other 

functions and chronology, possibly including early 

19th century timbering or charcoal production, and in 

the late 20th century use as a shelter during the early 

snowmobile era. The many questions about this site 

call for continued fieldwork and further research in 

town records.

Sovi-Mya Wellons and Matthew O’Leary 

excavating a trench through the S-3 cold 

storage hut
36 ASC Newsletter

TSHIKAPISK LABRADOR RESEARCH IN 

2021

By Anthony Jenkinson

In January 2021 I drove from Sheshatshit to Mary's 

Harbour in southern Labrador to visit relatives. I had 

heard of Jeff Martin's archaeological collections from 

Cartwight but did not know 

I had a family connection to 

the Cartwright Martins. My 

daughter and her husband, 

who used to live in Cartwright, 

were close friends with Tracy

and Jeff Martin, so I added 

a Cartwright side trip to my 

homeward leg. That is how I 

found myself looking at stone 

artifacts of the same types, 

lithic material, and even color, 

as finds from excavations 

at the large Shashish Innu/

Intermediate FjCa-51 site in 

the modern Innu village of 

Sheshatshit.

Bill Fitzhugh and Jeff Martin

have expertly described 

the Cartwright North River 

lithic collection in the 2021 

Newfoundland Annual PAO 

Review issue. Jeff also showed 

me a decorated bone 

object picked up many 

years ago on Dumpling 

Island by his late motherin-law: a carved bone 

Innu pipe cleaner that 

was identified from 

an e-mailed photo by 

Stephen Loring. Many 

examples of these objects 

exist in ethnographic 

collections, including 

13 at the Field Museum 

in Chicago collected by 

Frank Speck, one from a 

Mushuauinnu source near 

Davis Inlet/Utshimassits 

collected by W.D. Strong, 

at least two from the Brador 

Post (now housed in the Regional Museum in Sept 

Iles), examples from Nutashkuant and Unamenshipit 

collected by W.F. Stiles in 1957, and many others. 

Pictured here are the Martins’ Dumpling Island pipe 

cleaners, an example from Unamenshipit/La Romaine, 

and another from Nutashkuant. The latter two were 

obtained by Stiles (center photo) in 1957 and by Frank 

Speck (right) in 1927 from Innu at Unamenshipit and 

Nutashkuant (Natashquan).

My northern fieldwork at Kamestastin did not begin 

until mid-May. By that time lake crossings involved 

dodging expanses of deep slush. A combination of 

late arrival and the progressive 

shrinking of the skidoo season 

led to difficult logistical 

challenges in getting people 

and gear from the airstrip at 

the west end of Kamestastin to 

the Tshikapisk camp and to our 

cabin at the east end narrows. 

For the first time in several 

years 2021-2022 has brought 

us a winter corresponding to 

remembered norms before 

climate change became obvious.

Although ice conditions allowed 

for only a couple of visits to 

the south side of the narrows 

where I had hoped to continue 

investigating the Napeu Atik 

site, the large Tshiash Innu 

caribou ambush site, Mistanuk 

(GlCs-08), remained accessible 

by skidoo, on foot, and later by 

canoe until the end of June. Like 

the nearby Shak Selma site, 

which has produced the oldest 

dates so far from Kamestastin 

and interior Quebec/Labrador, 

Napeu Atik has a similar pit 

feature with abundant white 

quartz. However, the Napeu 

Atik pit feature has not yet been 

excavated beyond exposing 

its palaeo-surface opening, 

signalled by a trail of quartz 

that slopes down beneath the 

occupation floor into the sterile 

subStrate.

Mistanuk has been known 

of from the earliest days of 

the Tshikapisk/Smithsonian 

surveys, but its importance 

and extent were not as clear as now because parts 

were buried by downwash. After test-pitting suggested 

separate components lay on at least three different 

levels, excavation began at the lowest of the three, 

where small combustion features contained deposits of 

Tsheniu Katshena smoking a carved stone 

pipe photographed by Ray Webber in 1965 at 

Utshimassits

Dumpling Island pipe cleaner in the Jeff and Tracy 

Martin collection, an elaborately carved example 

from Unamenshipit/La Romaine, and another from 

Nutashkuant
 ASC Newsletter 37

small to micro-Ramah debitage. The latter was found 

with red ochre and calcined bone. The first feature 

produced fragments of two large Ramah chert bifaces 

and was surrounded by Ramah debitage and ochre. 

More extensive occupations were later exposed in the 

upper two levels. Both appeared to feature hearths 

within structures, with the Napanakapeu Component 

defined not only by paired 

boulders but by debitage, 

calcined bone, and red 

ochre. At the northern 

end of Napanakapeu was 

another buried fire pit that 

may have been part of the 

hypothesized structure.

We also excavated the 

perimeter of the Mistasuapi 

Component, the intermediate 

level of GlCs-08 where we 

had found a linear cobble/

boulder feature containing 

a small fire pit with flakes 

of Ramah. At the northern 

end of this feature were 

two remarkable artifacts 

in a deposit of ocher and 

crushed caribou bones. One 

was a white quartz celt-like 

end blade with a concave 

spoke-shave edge. The other 

was an ulu or semi-lunar 

knife flaked from Ramah 

chert. The linear feature 

also produced a number of 

nipple-based points. Formal 

scrapers were absent. 

Ethnographic analogy 

suggests that bone tools are 

more efficient for removing 

hair, meat, and membranes 

because they are less prone 

to tear or damage the skin.

Research at Kamestastin has 

concentrated on sites around 

the lake outlet narrows and 

in a valley running from the outlet to a lowland area on 

the south shore. Sites in that area present in markedly 

different ways, particularly when it comes to lithic 

material. While almost all of the early sites on the south 

side of the narrows are dominated by white quartz with 

only trace amounts of Ramah, GlCs-57 and GlCs-08 

on the north side have prodigious quantities of Ramah 

chert and sharply reduced amounts of quartz debris and 

tools. The dates from the east end sites show another 

marked division. Although there are more sites with 

dates around cal. 6700 to 7000 BP than sites dating to 

cal. 7300 BP without Ramah, the lithic inventory of 

the latter is restricted to grey chert, high quality purple 

smoky quartz with the appearance of fine glass, and 

white quartz. The quartz industry involves a higher 

proportion of well finished formal tools than at the 

slightly later sites.

The archaeological 

field season finished at 

Kamestastin on the first 

of July, when I returned to 

Sheshatshit and joined Scott 

Neilsen's crew at FjCa-51, 

the very large Shashish 

Innu/Intermediate/ Early 

Woodland site. Following 

work there, I moved up 

to the 33-meter terrace to 

work at Shukapesh 2 (FjCa79). The 2020 excavation 

produced side-notched 

projectile points, crudely 

made scrapers and roughly 

fashioned bifacial ovate 

knives. All the artefacts are 

quartzite, though there was 

some debitage of lightly 

banded grey rhyolite or 

chert. Finds were next to 

a 5.7-meter long linear 

combustion feature of small 

to medium sized boulders 

and fire-cracked rock with 

a fire pit at its southeastern 

end, on the rim of which was 

burned bone identified by Art 

Spiess as Phoca, probably 

harbour seal/Inatshuk (Phoca 

Vitulina) or a larger than an 

average ringed seal (Phoca 

Hispida.) Today harbour 

seals are not common in 

western Lake Melville, 

although those once known 

to visit or permanently 

inhabit Seal and Wuchusk Lakes were almost certainly 

P. vitulina, or perhaps even a sub-species akin to P. 

vitulina mellonae. These freshwater harbour seals 

are permanent residents of the other Seal Lakes on 

the Quebec-Labrador peninsula (Les Lacs des Loups 

Marins), whose waters flow into the Nastapoka River. 

Removal by the Churchill Falls project of a sizable 

part of the water volume changed the character of both 

these lakes visited (or perhaps inhabited) by seals.

Part of Mistanuk (GlCs-08) as it appeared at the end of 

June 2021. The Mistasuapi component can be seen on 

the left side of this photograph and the Napanakapeu 

Component on the right

Hill shaded Lidar image of part of Sheshatshit, showing 

position of Shukapesh 2 on the highest terrace in the 

Sheshatshit series. In this image the terraces visible 

below the Shukapesh 2 site steadily decrease in 

elevation. Housing platforms, roads and other modern 

disturbances are visible on the right
38 ASC Newsletter

As the seal species that today frequent Lake 

Melville have different habits and behaviours, 

species identification of the bone at Shukapesh 2 has 

implications for site interpretation. Though ringed and 

harbour seals are likely candidates for the Shukapesh 

2 finds, local seal hunters recognize a freshwater 

favouring harbour seal variant which is smaller than 

regular harbour seals, whose heads are broader and 

flatter and whose coats are darker than others. Harbour 

seals are known to ascend salmon rivers and enter 

inland lakes, sometimes avoiding bad rapids and falls 

by hauling out and travelling overland to pass these 

obstructions. The construction of the Churchill Falls 

Power project is not the only factor that changed the 

waterways in and around Sheshatshit. Before the effects 

of ca. 4500 years of isostatic rebound, now combined 

with reduced freshwater flow brought about by power 

projects, Sheshatshit would have been a different place 

hydrographically and environmentally. Where today's 

community now sits would have been an island with 

a view across today's narrows to another island. And 

where North West Point now juts into Lake Melville 

would have been another island, making the location 

attractive habitat for seals both in open water and 

winter seasons.

The sample of cremated bone from beside the larger 

fire pit at Shukapesh 2 (BETA 584983) gave a date 

of 4180 +/-30 RCYBP or cal. 4768–4615 cal BP and 

4835–4785 cal BP. The calcined bone fragments used 

for dating were fragmented and unidentifiable, so we 

don't know whether the dated bone is seal, though a 

strong possibility exists that it may be.

The lithic assemblage from Shukapesh 2 is somewhat 

similar to Black Island 2 (GcBk-13) and sites on the 

Quebec Lower North Shore which Jean-Yves Pintal

places in his Bonne-Espérance Complex. Assuming 

for the moment that the 4180+/-30 RCYBP date at 

Shukapesh 2 is valid, it is interesting to note that the 

uncalibrated date from Black Island 2 in Groswater 

Bay (ca. 4200 BP), is essentially the same as the date 

we obtained on bone from Shukapesh 2. Around the 

mouth of Aisimeushipu/St Paul's River, Pintal notes 

the presence of several sites similar to Black Island 2 

which he assigns to his Complexe Bonne-Espérance. 

Pintal suggests that these sites mainly clustered close 

to St Paul's River and belong to a population with a 

more interior focus than those of coeval groups defined 

as Maritime Archaic. The use of what Pintal describes 

as whitish grey cherts, which he believes are sourced 

in Newfoundland, is characteristic. He relates these 

occupations to the populations who produced the 

Graveyard type points described at sites on the Lower 

North Shore and on both sides of the Straits of Belle 

Isle.

SHELL ISLAND: A REDUCTION STATION ON 

THE RAMAH CHERT TRAIL

By William W. Fitzhugh

Stephen Loring’s extensive report on Ramah chert and 

its distribution throughout the greater Northeast (pp. 

169-220 in Ramah Chert: A Lithic Odyssey, 2017) 

got me thinking about an unusual and frustrating site 

we found in outer Groswater Bay in 1969. Unusual 

because of the huge amount of Ramah chert debitage, 

and frustrating because of the absence of diagnostic 

tools to determine its cultural affiliation. At most sites 

a test pit usually produces several diagnostic types. 

In July, 2018, I visited Shell Island again, hoping for 

better luck. 

Shell Island is in the Smokey archipelago in 

northeastern Groswater Bay. The site is on the largest 

of a string of low skerries east of Rattler’s Bight and 

Winters Cove and lies at the intersection of Pottles Bay 

and Abliuk Bight. The latter provides calm passage 

from the open Labrador Sea to the north and Groswater 

Bay to the south, by-passing the shoals and dangerous 

water to the east. Sheltered from wind and seas, Shell 

Island offers a quiet camp with fresh water, ducks, 

and seals. Heading south from Shell Island, one reenters open sea conditions for 27 km until reaching 

shelter at the southeastern entrance of Groswater 

Bay. This passage is the widest stretch of open ocean 

that travelers had to navigate along 800 miles of the 

Labrador coast without a safe harbor.

Groswater Bay on the central Labrador coast, and the 

location of Shell Island
 ASC Newsletter 39

Shell Island-1 (GsBi-11) is in a 

small north-facing cove on the 

largest of the Shell Islands. The 

beaches and soil consist mostly of 

deposits of tundra peat underlain 

by blue mussel (Mytilus edulis), 

soft clam (Mya arenaria), and other 

species. In the early 20th century, 

the shell deposits were so thick 

they were commercially mined. 

GcBi-11 is at the northern end of 

a broad raised beach between low 

rock ridges to the east and west. 

As soon as we stuck a shovel in 

the ground in 1969, we heard the 

crunching sound of breaking chert. 

Our 1969 excavation was a 2x2m 

pit in the middle of a tent ring 4m 

above sea level. The turf and upper 

peat contained 19-20th century 

creamware and square nails from 

the recent tent ring. The crunching 

was coming from a layer of Ramah 

chert flakes beneath 30cm of peat. 

The chert layer produced thousands 

of Ramah flakes, a couple biface 

fragments, a piece of ground slate, 

and a few flakes of brown chert. 

There were no large Ramah cores 

or quarry chucks; instead, most of 

the debitage was biface thinning 

flakes indicating production of 

tool preforms. Lacking diagnostic 

artifacts, we assigned the site to the 

Daniels Rattle or Point Revenge 

Ancestral Inuu cultures ca. AD 700–

1300 based on its low elevation 

and exclusive use of Ramah chert 

(Fitzhugh 1972:102, 1978).

When we returned to Shell 

Island in 2018, we opened a 

small area along the edge of the 

1969 excavation, hoping to find 

diagnostic artifacts. As luck would 

have it, we recovered only more flakes, a ground slate 

celt fragment, and a Ramah flake scraper. A test pit 

six meters to the east produced a fragment of tan chert 

resembling European ballast, and European ceramics in 

the turf and upper peat, but frozen ground kept us from 

reaching the deeper Ramah level.

Ramah Chert Studies

In 1968 the location of the Ramah chert quarries in 

northern Labrador had not been located, although 

Elmer Harp suspected Ramah 

Bay as the likely source of what 

was then called ‘translucent 

quartzite’. Tony Morse did the 

first petrographic studies that 

identified Ramah chert from 

similar quartzites from Mistassini 

in Quebec, and Brinex (British 

Newfoundland Exploration 

Company) confirmed sources 

in Ramah Bay. Fieldwork by 

Michael Gramly and Anne 

Abraham in 1976 identified the 

‘quarry bowl’ on the north side 

of Ramah Bay as the principal 

prehistoric quarry, and further 

studies of the quarry were done 

by Colleen Lazenby, and later by 

Newfoundland geologists. Since 

then, Stephen Loring (2017) 

has written extensively about 

the Ramah chert, its cultural 

and spiritual role in Labrador 

culture history, and its far-flung 

distribution in Eastern Canada, 

the U.S. Northeast, and the MidAtlantic coast region. Growing 

awareness of the importance of 

Ramah chert in Northeastern 

North American culture 

history prompted the Canadian 

government to designate 

“Kitjigattalik—the Ramah 

Chert Quarries” as a National 

Historic Site in 2014 (Curtis and 

Desrosiers 2017). 

As Loring has documented, in the 

years since 1969 a large body of 

data have become available on the 

southern distribution of Ramah 

chert. Stemmed and notched 

points of Ramah have been found 

throughout Labrador and northern 

Quebec, in Nova Scotia and New 

Brunswick, in Maine and other 

New England states, and as far south as Maryland, 

Delaware, and Virginia. Loring reported a Ramah chert 

fluted point from the Vermont shore of the Champlain 

Sea. Ramah points have been found in Late Archaic 

burials and in the Woodland/Ceramic components of 

the Goddard site in Maine, and a corner-notched Late 

Woodland style arrow point of Ramah chert was found 

at a Norse cemetery in Sandness, Greenland. In addition 

to finds of individual implements, caches of Ramah 

chert biface blanks have been found at Port au Choix 

Shell Island-1 site, view north

Worked slate chunk

A large Ramah flake from our 2018 Shell 

Island visit
40 ASC Newsletter

in western Newfoundland, at the Spingle site in L’Anse 

au Chair, near Port Hope Simpson at Alexis Bay in 

southern Labrador, and at the Stubbert site in Kegashka 

on the Quebec Lower North Shore (Loring 2017:203-

4). Apparently, what is known about the southern 

distribution of Ramah chert is the proverbial ‘tip of 

the iceberg’. While many individual finds from Maine 

date to the Late Archaic, ca. 3500–4000 BP, most of the 

caches date typologically to ca. AD 500–1300. None of 

the caches have been dated by c14.

In Labrador, Ramah is the dominant lithic material 

for chipped stone inventories in Late Maritime 

Archaic (4000–3600 BP) and Daniel Rattle/Point 

Revenge (Ancestral Innu) (AD 600–1300) sites, and 

its distribution in southern sites coincides with these 

periods. Large amounts of Ramah must have been 

moving south along the Labrador coast to supply 

this extensive trade network. Caches imply planned 

voyages to Ramah quarries, and at least informal 

supply and demand, middle-men, and prestige value 

attached to this distinctive material coming from the 

‘icy north’. At Rattlers Bight, only a few kilometers 

from Shell Island, 99% of the chipped stone inventory 

of more than 5000 catalogued artifacts are Ramah 

chert, and its burials contain both finished points and 

large, often ‘killed’, early-stage quarry blanks.

To date Shell Island-1 is the only site on the Labrador 

coast that could be interpreted as a way-station on the 

supply side of this vast Ramah distribution network. 

No other site has such a dense deposit of flaking 

debris accompanied by an absence of finished bifaces, 

scrapers, and even utilized flake. Use of Ramah artifacts 

in domestic contexts, such as seen at nearby sites like 

Rattlers Bight and Winters Cove, is missing at Shell 

Island, as are charcoal and faunal remains. Our ancient 

travelers chipping Ramah at Shell Island may have been 

taking the time to turn their quarry blocks into lighter, 

more manageable biface preforms, perhaps while waiting 

for good weather to cross Groswater Bay. Reducing 

the weight of their cargo would have been prudent 

before crossing the mouth of Groswater Bay in open 

boats, making their voyage safer and their cargo a more 

marketable commodity to southerns.

LABRADOR RADIOCARBON DATE-LIST 

UPDATE

By William W. Fitzhugh and Stephen Loring

Our multi-year project preparing the Labrador 

radiocarbon dating files resulting over fifty years of 

Smithsonian research in Labrador (1970–2018) for 

publication is approaching completion. Recent delays 

resulted from restricted access to our office files by covid 

lock-downs. Nevertheless, during the past year Stephen 

Loring, Jake Marchman, and I formatted and proofed 

the entries that Jake assembled several years ago from 

our year-by-year lab report folders, produced during the 

1970s by Robert Stuckenrath’s SI radiocarbon lab, and 

later mostly by Beta Analytic. Proofing our site location 

data this year revealed many discrepancies introduced 

when GPS data were being transferred from paper maps. 

So we turned to the magic of Google Earth touch-down, 

and in the process of zooming revived old memories 

and obtained pin-point locations. Recognizing that 

we wanted the final document to be more informative 

that simply a list, we are adding text descriptions of 

major cultural groups, photographs of key sites and 

assemblages, and landscape views. Graphs will show 

‘space-time’ presentations, and maps will present culture 

distributions. Discussions are currently underway to 

determine a suitable publication venue for our massive 

chronology. 

Ramah chert bifaces from the Stubbert cache at Kegashka 

on the north shore of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. (credit: W. 

Richard)

Mary Maisel, Halcyon Brown, Katherine Meier, and Jake 

Marchman at the 2018 Shell Island-1 dig
 ASC Newsletter 41

CAPTAIN HERENDEEN AND THE 

HERSCHEL ISLAND PARKA

By John R. Bockstoce1

In 1887 the Smithsonian acquired a fascinating 

Inuit parka (NMNH E128407) from Captain E. 

P. Herendeen, recorded as having originated from 

Herschel Island. Bernadette Driscoll Engelstad has 

identified the parka, which, although made by Siglit, 

incorporates some Inuinnait 

stylistic elements “including white 

caribou chest panels, an elongated 

tail, and a cone-like appendage on 

the hood.”2 In the early nineteenth 

century the Siglit people (formerly 

referred to as “Mackenzie Inuit”) 

occupied territories surrounding 

Herschel Island, ranging from 

Barter Island in Alaska to lands in 

Canada’s Northwest Territories, 

including Cape Bathurst and 

Franklin Bay. To their east the 

Inuinnait (formerly “Copper 

Inuit”) lived on the mainland 

coasts of Amundsen Gulf and 

Coronation Gulf and throughout 

Victoria Island.

During the second half of the 

nineteenth century Edward Perry 

(“Ned”) Herendeen made more 

than twenty whaling voyages in 

the Western Arctic. In 1854 he had been aboard one 

of the first whaleships to reach Point Barrow. In the 

1870s he was employed by the U.S. Coast Survey and 

other federal agencies in Alaska, and from 1881 to 

1883 he served as interpreter at the U.S. Signal Corps 

station at Point Barrow. He again lived at Point Barrow 

from 1884 to 1886 as a member of the Pacific Steam 

Whaling Company’s shore whaling crew. He left in 

1886 and did not return to northern Alaska until 1889.

Among the assemblage that the Smithsonian acquired 

from Herendeen are two items listed as having 

come from “Cape Bathurst” and two (including the 

parka) from “Herschel Island.” Herschel Island lies 

approximately 400 miles (640 km) east of Point Barrow, 

on the coast of what is now the Yukon Territory of 

Canada, and Cape Bathurst is another 235 miles (380 

km) farther east, in the Northwest Territories (Nunavut).

How did Ned Herendeen acquire these items? In the 

1880s it is unlikely that he had gone very far beyond the 

Point Barrow area. For most of the nineteenth century 

the Alaskan coastal lands from east of the Colville River 

to Barter Island were only occasionally visited by Inupiat 

and Gwich’in, and after the conclusion of the Franklin 

Search expeditions in 1854 no foreigners are known to 

have traveled any great distance along Alaska’s north 

coast. The whaling fleet comprised the next major 

external intrusion, but in the late 1870s and early1880s it 

had only begun to probe into the Beaufort Sea. 

Trade between the Alaskan and Canadian Inuit groups 

had, nevertheless, been underway for centuries, and 

one point of exchange was via a trade rendezvous near 

Barter Island. There, among 

other items, Inuinnait soapstone 

lamps and cooking pots were 

traded onward by the Siglit to the 

Inupiat of northern Alaska. These 

exchanges were, however, usually 

conducted in an air of mutual 

suspicion and hostility. “The 

Herschel Islanders [Siglit] had a 

very bad reputation for dishonesty 

and even treachery among the 

[Inupiat] traders from Point 

Barrow,” wrote the explorerethnographer Vilhjalmur 

Stefansson. 

In any case, relations between 

the groups must have improved 

because it was reported that 

about 1880 an enterprising 

group of Inupiat from the Point 

Barrow area undertook a unique 

“venturesome journey” by umiaq 

“on what may be called a voyage of exploration” along 

the Beaufort Sea coast to Herschel Island and beyond. 

This group wintered safely in the Mackenzie delta, then 

moved onward to Cape Bathurst, where one of them 

took a wife before the party returned home. Stefansson, 

who recorded this information in 1906, noted that their 

journey opened trading links between the two peoples.3

It is possible that one of those Inupiat voyagers sold the 

parka to Ned Herendeen at Point Barrow.

Ned Herendeen arrived back in northern Alaska in 

1889, serving as first mate aboard the small schooner 

Nicoline in a joint whaling venture with his brother, 

Captain Lewis N. Herendeen. The brothers had 

planned a pioneering voyage to reach Herschel Island 

before freeze up, but ice forced them to overwinter 

just east of Point Barrow. Only in 1890 did they reach 

Herschel Island, where they were surprised to be joined 

for the winter of 1890–1891 by two whaleships from 

San Francisco. 

But unfortunately for the Herendeen brothers, by 1891 

the Nicoline had run very short of provisions. They 

failed to take any whales and were forced to abandon 
42 ASC Newsletter

their venture and return to San Francisco.4 Although the 

two other whaleships enjoyed extraordinary success, 

the Herendeen brothers lost their investment. With 

William Healey Dall’s help, Ned Herendeen became a 

security guard at the U.S. National Museum.5

As David A. Morrison has stated, “By the historic 

period, and despite some continued trade, the 

Mackenzie [Siglit] and Copper [Inuinnait] Inuit were 

probably the most dissimilar neighboring pair of 

[Inuit] regional groups.” Bernadette Driscoll Engelstad 

explains that the Inuinnait design elements in the 

Herschel Island parka may have served “as a comic 

device, suggesting that the parka was used as a costume 

in [Siglit] festivities, parodying the parka style of the 

Inuinnait” to the east.6

Sadly, the easternmost Siglit society, the Iglulualumiut, 

which occupied the area east of Cape Bathurst, was 

eliminated by epidemic disease and starvation in the 

mid-nineteenth century,7 severing the trade link with 

their neighbors. The Siglit, along with recent Inupiat 

immigrants from Alaska, were steeply reduced by 

epidemics in 1900 and 1902, numbering only 400 in 

1924.8 Today they collectively refer to themselves as 

Inuvialuit. 

1

 I thank Igor Krupnik, Shepard Krech, Craig George, 

and Bernadette D. Engelstad for comments and suggestions.

2

 Engelstad, B.D. 2020. Inuvialuit delegation visits 

Smithsonian Collections, ASC Newsletter 27, pp. 55-56.

3

 Stefansson, Vilhjalmur. 1919. Anthropological Papers 

of the American Museum of Natural History, Vol. 14, 

Stefansson-Anderson Arctic Expedition, New York, pp. 172-

173, 183-184, 194-195, 366.

4

 Bockstoce, John R. 1986. Whales, Ice and Men. The 

History of Commercial Whaling in the Western Arctic. Seattle, University of Washington Press, pp. 255-262.

5

 Note added by B. Driscoll Engelstad: From my earlier 

research, it seems Herendeen served as a security guard 

at NMNH. In addition to artifacts, Herendeen donated 

numerous bird specimens to SI, as well as a compilation of 

Inuit vocabulary, thereby apparently gaining Dall’s respect 

and assistance. I was in touch with his grandson (greatgrandson?) some years ago.

6

 BDE comment: As noted above, the conical appendage 

on the hood may be a reference to the upright loon beak, 

typically attached to Inuinnait dance hats. In this regard, 

the garment may have been used in a shamanistic context, 

as incorporating ‘foreign’ design elements in shamanistic 

clothing can also suggest spiritual power.

7

 Morrison, David A. 1990. Iglulualumiut Prehistory: The 

Lost Inuit of Franklin Bay. Hull, Quebec, Canadian Museum 

of Civilization, Archaeological Survey of Canada, Mercury 

Series Paper 142, pp. 108-109, 117-119.

8 Rasmussen, Knud. 1942. The Mackenzie Eskimos (H. 

Osterman, ed.), Report of the Fifth Thule Expedition, vol. 

10(2):49. Copenhagen, Nordisk Forlag.

PRESERVING MONGOLIA’S PAST

By Bayarsaikhan Jamsranjav 

Soon after being hired for my first job at the National 

Museum of Mongolia in 2003, I had the opportunity 

to work with the Smithsonian’s William Fitzhugh

and Idshinnorov Sanduijav, then director of the 

National Museum of Mongolia. Both played a crucial 

role in my becoming an archaeologist and learning 

my skills in the field. Actually, I was more interested 

in biography than archaeology when I was an 

undergraduate student. I had no thought of studying 

deer stones or any other field of archaeology before 

becoming a member of the National Museum. In the 

summer of 2003, the Joint American and Mongolian 

Deer Stone project led by Fitzhugh began, and I 

joined as an assistant researcher.

I immediately fell into deer stone research. The 

artistic, scenic, and mysterious deer stones captivated 

my attention. Since then, I have nearly 20 years 

behind me, got my doctorate in 2016 on deer stone 

studies, and published my dissertation in Mongolian 

in 2017. It was not the first Mongolian book to 

research questions about deer stone art and culture. 

Although it allowed Mongolian readers to access my 

years of research, English readers have been excluded. 

So I discussed the idea of translating the book into 

English with Dr. Fitzhugh, who accepted, supported, 

and edited my book, which will be published this year 

in the United States.

I have experienced both happiness and sadness as 

an archaeologist. Despite admiring the wonderful 

historical and cultural monuments of my country, I also 

Jamsranjav Bayarsaikhan with his wife Ganjiguur Dorj, 

elder son Khuslen Bayarsaikhan, middle son Tergel 

Bayarsaikhan, and youngest son Temuujin Bayarsaikhan
 ASC Newsletter 43

witnessed the loss of countless cultural heritages. The 

vast territory, sparse population, and mobile life of our 

country limited our ability to monitor, protect, register, 

and study cultural heritage.

In order to develop stronger preservation policy in 

the future, it is important to register and document 

archaeological heritage and assess the current 

situation as soon as possible. For a long time we 

have been trying to work with the Smithsonian and 

an international team of scientists to come up with 

a clear initiative. As a result, in collaboration with 

scientists from the Max Planck Institute for the 

Science of Human History in Germany, a proposal 

was developed for registering and documenting 

Mongolian archeological sites using remote sensing, 

on-site exploration, archival sources, and identification 

of endangered sites. The proposal was supported and 

funded by the Arcadia Foundation. The project, called 

the Mongolian Archaeological Project: Surveying the 

Steppes (MAPSS), will run for five years, and several 

experts are working together on what is turning out to 

be a massive data project. I hope its results will help us 

manage and protect our cultural heritage generally, and 

especially our archaeological monuments. 

CLIMATE CHANGE IN OYMYAKON: 

PERCEPTIONS, RESPONSES, AND HOW 

LOCAL KNOWLEDGE CAN INFORM 

POLICY 

By Vera Solovyeva

My research explores 

how Indigenous 

people of the Russian 

North perceive, 

understand, and 

respond to climate 

change in the coldest 

inhabited region on 

Earth—the Oymyakon 

ulus (district) of 

the Republic of 

Sakha (Yakutia), 

Russia. In my study, 

I followed diverse 

threads, including 

weather and seasonal calendars, sharing of oral 

tradition, cultural values, subsistence practices and 

livelihoods, adaptation strategies, and others, to 

produce a coherent perspective on contemporary life 

of Indigenous people, the Sakha and the Even, in the 

Oymyakon ulus.

I selected climate change in the Oymyakon ulus 

because I had worked there some 35 years ago, 

during my field research, beginning in 1985, while 

pursuing a bachelor's degree in biology from Yakut 

State University. The Yakut Institute of Biology had 

a research station there, merely a small campground 

by the mountains made of a few “heavy canvas” tents 

and a small wooden cabin, where we kept our food 

to protect it from the roaming bears. My work was to 

collect and study plants on which the Northern pika 

(Ochotona hyperborea) feed. That summer, I met the 

Even reindeer herders for the first time when they came 

to our camp riding white reindeer. I remember how 

they suddenly appeared from the forest, which had 

already turned to golden yellow colors. After a short 

conversation, they left, but they returned the next day 

and brought some meat to share, following their nimat 

(sharing) tradition.

Already in 1985, climate change was quite visible. 

We witnessed ‘strange’ weather events, still of smallscale but the harbingers of significant shifts, like rapid 

temperature fluctuations, unusual wind gusts, and 

stronger than usual rainstorms. Indigenous people 

already noticed these changes by the time of my first 

fieldwork. Today, they eagerly report how they have 

to adjust their livelihoods and subsistence practices, 

as they have done over centuries. However, the scale 

Deer Stones of Northern Mongolia by Jamsranjav 

Bayarsaikhan book's cover
44 ASC Newsletter

of oscillations has become far more prominent over 

time; and in the next 100 years, climate change in 

the Arctic is expected to accelerate, contributing to 

major physical, ecological, social, and economic 

disruptions; many have already started. This will 

produce significant impacts, and most of these are 

likely to be negative. While scientists acknowledge 

that global climate change represents a threat to the 

humanity, Indigenous communities are among the 

most vulnerable groups because they depend on 

renewable natural resources. Indeed, Indigenous 

people in the Oymyakon area see climate change not 

only as a physical shift in the environment but as a 

force that affects their livelihood, history, traditions, 

and their future.

Changes in weather and environment have shaken the 

very foundations of the Sakha and Even communities 

in the Oymyakon ulus, affecting their food security, 

use of resources, storage and sheltering practices. 

According to people’s observations, the weather 

became unpredictable, summers are colder, winters 

are milder, and the land is constantly changing, 

swelling in some places and collapsing in others 

because of the permafrost thawing. Floods happen 

more often, submerging houses and hayfields. More 

wolves and bears are being seen, so that it is more 

challenging to care for horses, cattle, and reindeer. 

Massive forest fires in the summers of 2020 and 2021 

contributed to increasing vulnerability of Indigenous 

communities.

While traditional knowledge systems, values, and 

community networks of sharing food and resources 

are all valued sources that help Indigenous people 

manage the negative outcomes of climate change, 

support from government agencies is crucial in 

mitigating the impact of climate change. Increased 

resilience and social justice are to be the most 

important pillars of policies to be adopted by larger 

society. Adaptation strategies should be transparent 

and inclusive, with the full participation of local 

communities, and they should rely on an ecosystembased approach. As widely accepted in other areas, 

Indigenous people need to be included in climate 

change dialog, and social scientists should advocate 

for, and strive to empower, Indigenous people and 

their bottom-up contributions to sustainable living 

that benefit their communities and future generations. 

Such an applied approach to climate change research 

is a way of going beyond simply collecting data 

from or in Indigenous communities and beyond the 

boundaries of established academic guidelines. My 

dissertation research and fieldwork in the Oymyakon 

district in 2015–2016 was conducted with the support 

from the U.S. National Science Foundation (Award 

#1439468).

COLLECTIONS

THE LOST SKULL FROM UNGAVA

By Stephen Loring and Susan Lofthouse

There is a belief, surprisingly far-flung and deeply 

embedded, that almost everything that is lost somehow 

ends up at the Smithsonian. Having spent nearly fifty 

years poking into the dusty corners of the Natural 

History Museum attic, hallways, and basement, I can 

appreciate the sentiment, if not vouch for its veracity. 

And that’s just in the Natural History building. When 

multiplied by 21—the number of museums in the 

Institution—the validity of its sobriquet as “The 

Nations Attic” is more readily apparent and, perhaps, 

justified. With such a broad expanse and reach, there 

is a pretty constant trickle of inquiries about all 

manner of things. And when those things pertain to 

The North they almost invariably end up in our ASC 

offices. And just one such was the inquiry we received 

from Susan Lofthouse, an archaeologist at the Avataq 

Cultural Institute, on March 11th of this year. Her email 

contained the intriguing subject heading: Trying to 

Track Down a Skull Dug Up by Thomas Lee!

Created in 1980, Avataq Cultural Institute is a nonprofit Inuit organization mandated to conserve the 

cultural heritage of Nunavimmiut (Inuit of northern 

Quebec). The archaeology department was created 

in 1985 and has conducted countless excavations, 

field schools, surveys, and a range of educational 

activities for nearly 40 years. Archaeological activities 

in Nunavik extend as far back as the 1930s. Needless 

to say, research objectives and guidelines have 

changed a great deal during that time. The result is that 

archaeological materials, including human remains, 

recovered from Nunavik are located in disparate 

collections across North America and Europe. 

Repatriation of these materials is a huge undertaking 

and requires substantial resources. Avataq’s approach 

is to begin with the more pressing need for the 

recovery of human remains. The objective is to gather 

these remains as comprehensively and efficiently 

as possible and return them to their original resting 

places. In the case of bones that were removed 

through archaeological excavation, the field plans and 

photographs provide a guide for locating the graves. 

Such a repatriation was undertaken in 2018 between 

Avataq and Dartmouth College, facilitated by William 

Fitzhugh of the Smithsonian and Deborah Nichols

of Dartmouth. The remains of six individuals that had 

been collected by Elmer Harp from two graves south 

of Richmond Gulf in 1967 were turned over to Avataq. 

A team from Avataq, led by president Josepi Padlayat
 ASC Newsletter 45

and Executive Director Rhoda Kokkiapik, travelled to 

Dartmouth and received the skeletons which had been 

previously described by the Smithsonian’s physical 

anthropologist, Bruno Frolich who at the time had also 

been teaching at Dartmouth. The following summer, 

the remains were returned to their original graves by 

Avataq’s head archaeologist Tommy Weetaluktuk.

Lofthouse’s email inquiry of March 11th concerned 

yet another incident where human remains had been 

removed from Nunavut, in this case by Thomas Lee, 

an archaeologist from Laval University, in the early1960’s. There were probably no other professional 

archaeologists of his era as adamant, obstreperous, 

confrontational, and obdurate as Lee. His career is 

strewn with sensational claims, from excavations at 

Sheguiandah in Ontario purporting to be almost 30,000 

years old, to finding a lost Norse colony in Ungava, all 

of which have been disproved. The almost universal 

rejection of his interpretations was such that Lee, 

argumentative to the last, perceived himself the victim 

of an insidious attack by professional archaeologists 

led, he believed, by the University of Michigan’s 

James B. Griffin, who Lee thought were jealous of his 

discoveries and determined to disparage his reputation.

In conjunction with his research in Ungava, Thomas 

Lee in 1966 removed human remains from several 

graves discovered on Pamiok Island in the Arnaud 

Estuary near the Inuit village of Kangirsuk. Lee was 

obsessed with identifying a Norse presence in Nunavik, 

to the degree that he reconstructed a nearby pre-Inuit 

Dorset longhouse to conform with Norse style. He 

insisted that at least one of the skulls he collected 

displayed “European traits”. Seeking confirmation of 

this belief, Lee arranged to have the human remains 

brought to Carlton Coon, a prominent physical 

anthropologist associated with the Peabody Museum 

at Harvard University. Eventually most, perhaps all, 

of the bones were returned to Laval University, except 

for a missing skull. Hoping to track it down, Avataq 

contacted the Peabody Museum, where the paper trail 

ends in the 1970s, and the Smithsonian Institution, 

where Coon also had ties, with the hope that the 

missing skull might be found. [Editor’s note: A photo 

of the skull Lee thought looked most European, from 

Tomb 1, is illustrated as Fig. 43 and discussed on p.126 

in Lee’s 1968 monograph.]

Bill Fitzhugh and I were surprised to receive Susan’s 

inquiry as to whether Lee’s Ungava skull might have 

somehow found its way to the Smithsonian. Given 

our familiarity with the Institution’s Arctic collections 

(together we have over 85 years combined curatorial 

insight) we doubted very much that even despite 

the avaricious skull collecting of earlier times (the 

Smithsonian’s “bone doctor” Aleš Hrdlicka comes to 

mind), it was improbable that the Ungava specimen 

might have made its way to Washington. However, as the 

Smithsonian’s National Anthropological Archives (NAA) 

contain the papers of Carleton Coon, we wondered if 

there might be any surviving correspondence between 

Coon and Lee that might shed light on the mystery.

Here is the report of that investigation. A quick trip 

out to the Smithsonian’s NAA to look through the 

papers of Carleton Coon (1904–1981), a noted physical 

anthropologist from the universities of Pennsylvania 

and Harvard, revealed a limited correspondence 

between Coon and Thomas Lee. Apparently, after 

meeting at a professional conference, Lee accepts 

an invitation to travel to Gloucester, Massachusetts 

(Coon’s retirement home) bringing with him 5 

(elsewhere 6) skulls from Pamiok and other sites in 

Ungava.

Letter from T. Lee to C. Coon, 27 April 1971, thanking 

Coon for his hospitality and for his opinion about the 

skulls. Based on their appearance, Coon feels that some 

of the Ungava skulls appear to be more “European” than 

“Eskimo”, but he defers to his colleague, Dr. William 

Howells (1908–2005), a physical anthropologist at 

Harvard, who had perfected a mathematical method 

(craniometrics) for determining racial identities. 

Letter from C. Coon to T. Lee, 28 April 1971: Dr. 

Howells coming to Gloucester, Massachusetts to 

pick-up the skulls. Coon transfers the Ungava skulls 

to Howells who takes them to his office at Harvard’s 

Peabody Museum. (Figs.1 and 2)

Three years go by with no word from Coon or Howells 

about the racial determination of the Ungava human 

remains. By this time Lee is firmly convinced that he 

has discovered evidence of a Norse presence in Ungava 

and is expecting to get confirmation from physical 

Figure 1. Coon letter to Lee on 28 April 1971

Figure 2. Draft of a letter from C. Coon to T. Lee, 1 May 

1971 stating that W. Howells visited him and took the skulls
46 ASC Newsletter

anthropologists. As subsequent correspondence attests, 

Lee’s predisposition to paranoia and the belief that-

-whether out of ignorance or professional jealously-

-much of the archaeological profession was out to 

discredit him and refute his Norse attribution. 

And still no news from Harvard.... 

Letter from C. Coon to T. Lee, 17 December 1974. 

Coon will be attending Howell’s retirement party that 

evening and will endeavor to get the matter of the 

Ungava skulls taken care of.

True to his word, Coon speaks with Stephen Williams, 

the Director of Harvard’s Peabody Museum, which 

housed the Anthropology Department where Howell’s 

had worked, and with Jonathan Friedlander, a young 

physical anthropologist who promises to look into the 

matter of the skulls that Lee had entrusted to Howells:

And finally! Confirmation of a professional assessment 

of the racial affinities of the Ungava human remains. 

There is a final letter from T. Lee to C. Coon dated 17 

June 1975 which basically rejects the assessment of 

the Harvard physical anthropologist before making a 

long divergence into a discussion of the rune stones 

that Barry Fell had recently publicized, lending 

credence to Lee’s assumption of a Norse presence in 

Ungava. Sadly, there is no reference to the fate of the 

skeletal material or a copy of any communications 

discussing the research results. This ends the CoonLee correspondence at the NAA. About all we can say 

from this is that the Ungava human remains collected 

by Thomas Lee were at Harvard’s Peabody Museum in 

Cambridge in the spring of 1975. What became of them 

thereafter is still a mystery. 

As archaeologists, we are crass materialists; we have 

an abiding (alas, sometimes misplaced) faith in the 

persistence of material objects, and while we haven’t 

resolved the fate of the missing Pamiok skull, perhaps 

this story might yet be an impetus leading to its reemergence and subsequent return to its former place of 

rest. Human skeletons are tucked away in institutional 

collections around the world, relics from a time when 

grave digging/robbing was an acceptable component 

of archaeological research. These remains are restless, 

their presence has become an embarrassment, such 

that museums, government agencies, and institutions 

are reaching out to indigenous organizations and 

communities to rectify past wrongs. 

This summer Avataq hopes to deliver the human 

remains repatriated from Laval to their original resting 

place overlooking the waters of Ungava Bay.

[For related readings see Lee’s account of his discovery 

and excavations at Pamiok including photographs 

of the human remains and the missing skull are in 

his 1967 monograph, Archaeological Discoveries, 

Payne Bay Region, Ungava, 1966 (Centre d’Etudes 

Nordiques, Travaux et Documents 20). See also, Daniel 

Gendron, 2015, On the “Viking” Presence in Nunavik: 

Much Ado About Nothing! Etudes/Inuit/Studies 

39(2):285-293, and Patrick Plumet, "Les maisons 

longues dorsétiennes de l'Ungava." Geographie 

Physique et Quaternaire (1982), p. 253]

Figure 3. Letter from T. Lee to C. Coon, 27 February 1974. 

Lee is incredulous that he hasn’t heard anything from 

Howells and begins to fear professional hanky-panky

Figure 4. Letter from Lee to Coon, 6 December 1974 

lamenting the passing of time with no analysis forthcoming

Figure 5. Letter from C. Coon to T. Lee, 27 February 1975. 

Skulls still at Harvard’s Peabody Museum

Fig. 6. Letter from T. Lee to C. Coon, 9 May 1975 in 

which he acknowledges receiving notice from Harvard 

(presumably from Friedlander) that the skulls are 

determined to be “Eskimo”. Sadly, the referenced 

“inclosure” is not with the NAA Coon papers

A Dorset longhouse discovered by Lee, who thought it

was Norse and reconstructed to support his theory
 ASC Newsletter 47

BUILDING BIRCH BARK CANOES IN 

SIBERIA

By Artem Lemberg (translated by Gaby Triess and 

edited by Claire Chi and W. Fitzhugh)

I grew up in a little village located in the middle of the 

Siberian Taiga near the River Kasyr. The upheavals and 

unrest of the early 90s made my parents leave the city in 

exchange for a secluded, humble life there. My childhood 

and youth were shaped by simple life in the village. Soon, 

I discovered a passion for woodworking. I carved wood, 

built models of houses and ships, and when I wanted to 

learn to play the guitar, my father and I repaired an old 

guitar. When I was 15, I moved to Krasnoyarsk, a large 

city in Siberia, to earn my living as 

a carpenter. It was an exciting time 

for me; I made lots of new friends, 

played music, was out on the town 

at night, and built roofs during the 

day. However, the hard work in 

temperatures of up to -40 degrees 

Celsius (-72 Fahrenheit) and the 

bad air took its toll on me. A few 

years into the job, I caught a severe 

case of pneumonia that I was lucky 

enough to survive. I realized that I 

wasn’t happy working with cheap 

and low-quality materials, which 

were harmful to the health of the 

people living in the houses we 

built. At the same time I became 

inspired by some of my oldest 

friends and started questioning 

the habits of our society, our 

relationships with resources, the 

production and quality of our 

everyday objects, and the resulting 

effects on the environment.

I felt it was time for change. I 

met a German guy who led a 

youth club in Germany and was running international 

wilderness and adventure projects for young adults 

in Siberia. We clicked immediately and I started 

working with him. My German improved quickly 

as I studied a lot and ended up spending two years 

in Germany. That’s where I made an encounter that 

would profoundly change my life. I was invited to 

take part in a workshop organized by a boat builder 

named André Rissler. He told me about canoes made 

from birch bark that used to be produced in the region 

where I came from. I started exploring the topic and 

I could not stop thinking about it. I knew that birch 

bark had been used for the production of storage 

containers, buckets, bags, and floats for fishing nets—

but canoes?

Back in Siberia, I collected all the information I could 

get my hands on. I read books, watched video clips, and 

interviewed older people to pick their brains. But the 

elders in my village only remembered seeing dugout 

canoes made from a hollowed-out tree during their 

childhood on the River Kasyr, and none used the bark 

of birch trees. The River Kasyr flows into the River 

Yenisey, where birch bark canoes used to be used in the 

past (Luukkanen, Fitzhugh, 2020, p.115). It was not until 

many years later when a friend and I came across people 

from another region who were able to tell us more about 

the lost art of building Siberian birch bark canoes.

For the time being, I stuck to building traditional 

dugouts. However, the time would come for me to try my 

hand at my first birch bark canoe. 

The season for harvesting bark 

from birch trees was approaching 

in July, so two friends and I 

packed our bags. With nothing but 

a few manual tools, a tarp, and a 

big pot, we made our way to the 

Taiga in search of a suitable area. 

We set up camp at a spot near 

the river in a mixed forest with 

plenty of birch trees. The next few 

weeks were incredibly intense. 

We lived in our tent, and every 

minute when we weren‘t eating 

or sleeping was spent building 

our birch bark canoe. Since we 

barely had any information about 

Siberian birch bark canoes, we 

followed sources from Northern 

America and Canada. We had no 

idea that the northern white cedar 

(Thuja occidentalis), often used in 

America and Canada, is actually 

a completely different type of tree 

from the tree we knew as simply 

cedar (Pinus sibirica) in Siberia 

(Adney, Chappelle 1983:17). Luckily, this tree turned out 

to be rather useful for the production of ribs, sheating, 

and gunwales. The particular tree we felled had a terrible 

twisted grain and was difficult to split, making the task 

very laborious. However, it was all worth it in the end; 

three weeks later, we left the taiga in our very own birch 

bark canoe.

In the following years, I built many more birch bark 

canoes based on the American and Canadian models. 

While I could use resources from those two regions to 

teach myself the artisanal skills necessary, the choice of 

suitable materials was something I could only approach 

through trial and error. I spent weeks in the woods, 

observing and analyzing trees.

A modern Siberian dugout canoe

My first birch bark canoe construction in 

Siberia
48 ASC Newsletter

As mentioned, we discovered by chance that the 

Siberian pine (Pinus sibirica) is well suited for building 

birch bark canoe frames. Siberian spruce (Picea 

obovata) is also excellent, as it is slightly lighter than 

Siberian pine. Its roots are suitable for sewing the bark, 

just like the roots of other types of spruce. Not only is 

the type of tree critical, but its growth is also of major 

importance. The greatest challenge was assessing the 

tree before felling it. It would be a huge waste to fell 

a tree that took many years to grow without being 

able to actually use it. Ideally, the tree should have as 

little twisted growth and as few branches at the trunk 

as possible. With Siberian spruce trees and Siberian 

pine trees, this demands an 

expert eye, as the root flares 

at the trunk are not always 

pronounced, making the 

amount of twist hard to see.

Given that the wooden parts for 

the birch bark canoe are being 

split by hand rather than sawn, 

trees with narrower annual 

rings produce more stable and 

light parts. The slower a tree 

grows, the narrower its annual 

rings. Having grown up in a 

family of musicians worked 

in my favour here. After many 

attempts, I realized that tapping 

on the bark of the tree and 

hearing the resulting pitch of 

the sound helped me make a 

conclusion about its growth. 

A high pitched sound means 

the wood has a high density. 

From this, I was able to tell that 

the tree had grown slowly and 

had narrow annual rings. The 

location and direction of the 

wind are also important factors 

when choosing a tree.

Another challenge I encountered was finding the 

right type of birch tree. Where I come from south of 

Krasnoyarsk, there are many different types of birch, 

but not all are suited for building canoes. For instance, 

birch that is used for weaving bags or containers is 

not ideal for making canoes. At first sight, the bark is 

wonderfully elastic and stable. What makes it so perfect 

for basket weaving is that it’s easily split. However, 

when this birch is used for making canoes, it creates 

blisters and makes the canoe prone to damage. Another 

type of birch I experimented with seemed to have 

stable bark at first, but when I looked closer, I could see 

that the grain was growing through the different layers, 

making it more susceptible to tears and leaks. The 

best type of local birch has thick, stable bark without 

knotted grain and is hard to split. Paper birch trees 

(Betula papyrifera) only exist in Northern America, but 

I have seen trees in Siberia that are similar, though I 

have not been able to identify the exact species yet.

When deciding on the right time for harvest, I consult 

with the local folks who make containers and bags 

using bark. The first weeks of July, when the flow of 

sap is slowing down, is the best time to harvest this 

species in my region. The exact point in time depends 

on the weather and location; even just a few miles can 

make a significant difference.

For the last few years, I’ve 

been living with my wife in 

Germany, where we run a 

small workshop for birch bark 

canoes. A little while ago, I 

received a note from a member 

of the Anishinaabe, a group 

of indigenous peoples native 

to the Great Lakes region in 

Northern America. He was 

very upset that I was building 

birch bark canoes modeled on 

the American and Canadian 

style and accused me of cultural 

appropriation. There was so 

much anger and pain in his 

writing that I was taken aback. 

Was I doing something wrong? 

Was I taking something away 

from others? It was not his fury 

that gave my work a new sense 

of direction towards my own 

people’s culture, but a quote 

from Marcel Labelle, a maker 

of birch bark canoes, whom he 

mentioned.

“According to Labelle, the 

skin of the human body 

is represented by the birch bark on the canoe. The 

muscles are represented by cedar sheathing. The ribs 

and sternum are represented by the spruce cross pieces. 

The tendons that hold things together are the spruce 

roots, and the blood that flows and holds everything 

together is the spruce gum. ‘The blueprint for the canoe 

is our body. The passengers represent the spirit. A birch 

bark canoe represents our connection and dependence 

on Mother Earth,’ he says” (MacColl, 2011).

This quote really touched me and brought a plethora 

of new questions and thoughts. If the blueprint is 

contained in the human body, it is within me, too. But 

Finishing canoe lashings in my workshop

My latest project: An American Indian canoe built 

from Tappan Adley’s design drawings
 ASC Newsletter 49

what is my individual blueprint? My parents identified 

as Soviet citizens and no one was really interested in 

where exactly we came from. All I know is that my 

ancestors came from several Siberian regions, with my 

paternal grandmother being Tatar, but all traces beyond 

the generation before her had been lost. How did the 

‘blueprint’ of the people in my home region manifest 

itself? If you consider this ‘blueprint of the inner 

workings’ a holistic construct, then it goes beyond just 

the body, I think, and contains everything that makes up 

culture. But it’s also the individual personality of each 

person building the canoe that influences the work. How 

should I conduct my quest for the birch bark canoes of 

my region in a way that all these aspects are considered?

After spending lots of time studying suitable materials in 

Siberia, the types of local canoes from my region became 

more important to my current work. I began to study 

the cultures and birch bark canoes of Siberian people. 

The more I studied the topic, the more my passion grew 

to take on this new challenge. Slowly, a plan began to 

emerge. I am going to return to my home country in 

search of the birch bark canoes of Siberia. For this reason, 

I bought a plot of land in the region of Krasnoyarsk. I 

will set up a workshop there, which I will use as a base 

to travel around the country, bit by bit, to find existing 

canoes and people who can tell me about them.

Based on the size of Siberia and the vast number of 

tribes who used to build birch bark canoes, I am fully 

aware that this is going to be a lifelong commitment. 

I want to find the birch bark canoes that are still in 

existence and analyze them thoroughly to see what 

techniques and materials were used. I would also like 

to get in contact with the respective local people to 

involve them in this project. I am hopeful that I’ll 

be able to reconstruct the various types of canoes of 

the region and build smaller, accurate models before 

tackling canoes in original size.

I see the disappearance of birch bark canoes from the 

rivers of Siberia as a huge cultural loss. My biggest 

dream is to bring back the birch bark canoe to where 

I’m from. I dream of setting up a workshop and a 

school on my land, where people from Siberia and all 

over the world can re-learn the old methods of building 

Siberian birch bark canoes. They will experience what 

it is like to create something unique with their own 

hands, using ancient techniques that connect them to 

past generations and to the nature around them. This 

is not only completely sustainable; it also helps them 

detach from the stressful lifestyle of living in the north.

This project will require many people’s involvement 

along with their knowledge and financial help. I 

am currently in the process of creating a non-profit 

association in order to, with the help of the community,

turn this special cultural asset back into a common 

good of the Siberian people.

Luukkanen, Harri, and William W. Fitzhugh. 2020. 

The Bark Canoes and Skin Boats of Northern Eurasia. 

Washington DC: Smithsonian Books.

Adney, Edwin Tappan, and Howard I. Chappelle. 1983. 

The Bark Canoes and Skin Boats of North America. 

Washington DC: Smithsonian Institution Press. 

MacColl, Lisa. 2011. Building Cultural Bridges. Grand 

Magazine.

A JAPANESE MYSTERY OBJECT SOLVED BY 

TEAM EFFORT

By Aubrey MacKenzie

[Editor's note: The Smithsonian receives hundreds of 

communications from the public asking curators to 

identify unknown objects. Aubrey’s ‘what is it?’ inquiry 

piqued my interest because of its similarity to Siberian 

Nenets reindeer training bridles and grew into a 

fascinating piece of material culture research.] 

I didn’t know what it was. But I wanted to find out. 

Over the past eleven months, it took the efforts of 

people in ten countries and four continents, plus a 

stroke of luck, to figure out what my grandfather and 

I had found. Shortly after dinner in January 2021, my 

grandpa called to tell me about an auction listing on 

Yahoo! Japan Auctions, Japan’s largest online auction 

platform. Throughout his life my grandpa has been an 

avid antique collector, and for the last year he had been 

teaching me about Japanese folk art called mingei. In 

return, I was teaching him how to use the internet to 

find antiques all over the world. He was a quick learner.

The auction was for a carved bone, roughly 21 

centimeters in length, with a heavy patina from years of 

use. It had two holes carved in the middle and open holes 

at both ends. The piece was decorated with crosshatching 

and a simple motif in the middle, consisting of one 

central dot connected to six outer dots via straight lines.

The seller noted the object was of Ainu origin (Japan’s 

indigenous group), but it didn’t look like anything I had 

seen while researching the Ainu, and the Ainu are not 

especially known for fashioning tools from bone—they 

typically use wood. My grandfather and I were the 

only ones to bid on the item. We began to ponder its 

function even before the object arrived. Our first guess 

was that it was some sort of perforated baton, a tool 

used to straighten arrows, or perhaps to throw arrowdarts. My grandfather recalled seeing similar objects in 

museum collections.
50 ASC Newsletter

When the item arrived, we had to revise our 

hypothesis. From its appearance, it was not as old 

as perforated batons we saw in research databases, 

and the wear between the two middle holes could 

only have been caused by a 

significant amount of friction. 

We now guessed it was either a 

toggle, possibly used to pull a 

seal, or perhaps a tool used to 

make twisted-strand rope. We 

purchased a few books on Bering 

Strait cultures where such tools 

might be found but couldn’t make 

any matches.

I decided to change my research 

approach. Over the next several 

months I contacted academics, 

museum curators, and antique 

collectors. None had seen anything 

like the peculiar object. Anytime 

friends visited, I asked them to 

hypothesize about the object’s 

function. Guesses ranged from 

fire-starting implement to a bottle 

opener. It was a backwards 

treasure hunt; the object was in 

front of me, I just couldn’t figure 

it out. what it was. 

In December of 2021, just as 

my research efforts were losing 

momentum, I got a lucky break. 

I received another call from 

my grandpa, telling me about 

a new auction. I logged onto 

my computer and could hardly 

believe it: in the picture was not 

one, but two mysterious bone 

items connected by a woven 

piece of cloth. In the center 

were the same two holes and 

similar dot motifs. We purchased 

the item, and I expedited 

the shipping to continue the 

research.

With this new item, I retraced 

my steps, soliciting insight from 

people who had seen the first 

bone item. This time, my network 

lit up with answers. Most people 

I asked said the same thing: 

the object in my possession was a horse bridle. I 

googled Japanese horse bridles. It didn’t take long to 

make a near match with a 19th century drawing from 

Okinawa.

William Fitzhugh, the Ainu expert at the Smithsonian 

referred me to William Taylor, an assistant professor 

and curator of archaeology at the University of 

Colorado. He explained that this was like a type of 

bitless bridle called a hackamore. 

Hackamores have early origins, going 

back to about 4,000 BC, and have 

shown up in a variety of cultures.

Like the seller in the first auction, 

the seller in the second auction also 

claimed this object was of Ainu 

origin. Still skeptical, I decided to 

investigate. In William Fitzhugh’s 

Ainu, Spirit of a Northern People, the 

most comprehensive English text on 

the history of the Ainu (my grandpa 

and I call it The Bible), horses are 

seldom mentioned, and never in the 

context of the Ainu riding them. 

But I did stumble across one source 

that lends credibility to the Ainu 

hypothesis, A.H. Savage Landor’s 

1893 work Alone with the Hairy Ainu

[an egregious title-ed.!]. In his travels 

he remarks that the Ainu method for 

directing a horse is “as simple as it 

is ingenious”. On page 111, Landor 

writes:

“The necessary "bit" by which we 

control our horses is dispensed with, 

and it is replaced by two wooden 

wands about twelve inches long and 

two inches wide, tied together at one 

end, allowing a distance of three 

inches between them. In the middle of 

these wands a rope is passed which 

goes over the pony's head behind its 

ears; while the wands themselves, 

thus supported by it, rest one on each 

side of the pony's nose. Another rope, 

five or six feet in length, and acting as 

a rein, is fastened at the lower end of 

one of the wands, and passes through 

a hole in the other, thus allowing 

this simple contrivance, based on the 

lever principle, to be worked exactly 

in the same way as a nut-cracker, the 

pony's nose being the nut.”

While Landor’s description doesn’t 

perfectly match the objects I have, it 

supports that the Ainu did ride horses and used a bitless 

bridle similar in size and shape to mine. Curiously, 

the two bridles in my possession are not made from 

the same type of bone, according to anatomists at 

The mystery bone item my grandfather 

found in Japan. Note the wear between 

the two center holes in the middle image

The second mystery bone item
 ASC Newsletter 51

the University of 

Washington. The first 

bone is an ulna, indicated 

by the trochlear notch 

(the C-shape depression) 

near one end. The 

second two bones are 

either humeri or femurs 

because of the structure 

of the epicondyles (the 

dual protrusions near the 

large holes).

This difference presents 

more questions: Why 

not carve both bridles from the same type of bone? 

How could the open end on the ulna bone hold a rope 

without having it slip out when the horse moves? And 

there are other unanswered questions, too. How old 

are the bones? Do the dot motifs mean anything? Why 

choose bone when wood would have sufficed? I suspect 

I will spend the next year or so (maybe longer) trying 

to answer these questions.

I am grateful for all the individuals—academics, 

curators, and collectors alike—who welcomed my 

questions, and, if unable to answer them, pointed me 

in the right direction. Without their willingness to 

help, I would not have made much progress. I found 

both objects in mainland Japan, but it’s possible—

maybe even likely—that they originated elsewhere, 

given the amount of trade that occurred. The Okinawa 

drawing and Landor’s diagrams are good pieces of 

evidence, but not enough to declare the bridles’ origins 

with conviction. Bitless bridles appear in a variety of 

cultures, and I’ll need to do more research before I can 

say for certain where these came from. For now, I am 

happy to have answered the question I started with. 

Okinawan Horse bit “Muge” 

from the book Ryukyu Fuzoku 

Ezu

Illustration from A.H. Savage Landor’s 1893 book

THE ARTIC VIEWED FROM FLORENCE, 

ITALY 

By Elisa Palomino and John Cloud

We had an opportunity in 2021 to explore the world’s 

first museum of anthropology, which was founded 

in 1869 by Paolo Mantegazza (1831–1910), in 

Florence, in the context of many centuries of previous 

ethnographic and philosophical work that converged 

there. That same year Mantegazza also established the 

world’s first university professorship of anthropology. 

His museum, now lodged in the wonderfully named 

Palazzo Nonfinito, in the center of Florence, appears at 

first glance to be a relic of a now distant past, marooned 

in the 21st century—but it is not. The story of how 

this happened illuminates much about the history of 

anthropology.

Museums of anthropology are based on collections 

of materials, and in the case of Florence, the era of 

collections began in the time of the great Crusades 

(1095–1291) which were attempts to free “the Holy 

Land” from the Islamic kingdoms that controlled the 

ancient territories described in the Bible. The many 

campaigns never succeeded, but every Crusade offered 

many opportunities for pillaging and looting on route. 

The resultant hordes of relics, and bones of supposed 

saints, as well as whole forests of Middle Eastern 

trees cut down to provide wooden fragments of “The 

True Cross” that Jesus was crucified upon, were the 

foundational collections of what we now call museums.

In the centuries after the Crusades, changes in 

technology and social structures vastly expanded the 

collections. Europeans developed ocean-crossing cargo 

ships, coupled to the structures of modern banking, 

so that goods and money could move and circulate in 

ways never before possible. This brings up the history 

of the Medici family, integral to the history of Florence 

and much else. The Medici were smart and assertive 

commoners, from the region of Mugello, north of 

Florence. They started as wool merchants and ended 

as rich and powerful nobility. The family coat of arms 

proudly displays their origins: a shield with six threedimensional balls of woolen yarn, protruding from the 

shield, a symbol still visible everywhere in Florence.

Bering Sea Kayak from the Cook expedition
52 ASC Newsletter

Over centuries, the disparate collections that the Medici 

had gathered in their home, the Palazzo di Medici, 

were eventually assembled in a chamber in the Palazzo 

Vecchio, the great medieval fortress in the city center, 

which is still the seat of government of the city-state, Il 

Comune di Firenze. In 1563 

Duke Cosimo I de Medici, 

newly proclaimed to royalty 

(by himself) commissioned 

the artist, art historian and 

architect Giorgio Vasari

(1511–1574) to create a 

study chamber or ‘cabinet of 

curiosities. Up long flights 

of stairs is the Guardaroba, 

a secure chamber where 

cloaks and coats and swords 

were stored. The Guardaroba 

became the first public site 

for display of the vast Medici 

collections. Duke Cosimo 

referred to “the cosmography 

in the Guardaroba”, reinforced 

by a set of beautiful painted 

maps hung on the doors of 

dozens of cabinets and rooms 

around the Guardaroba. 

Behind each door was 

collections of diverse treasures 

from the area mapped.

Starting about 1564, teams of 

mathematicians, geographers, 

and wonderfully skilled artists 

created the major series of 

maps, which presented the 

cosmography of the known 

world (i.e., as known in 

Florence). As the maps were 

fitted to the doors of the 

cabinets of the collections, organized by region, the 

maps were essentially the finding aids to the collection. 

There are nine maps of the Americas and one map of 

Greenland. These maps are foundational to the history 

of Arctic Studies.

There were also a unique set of four maps, done 

separately, and apparently somewhat later, of “Polar 

Lands”. These maps were clearly derived from the work 

of the celebrated cartographer/mathematician Gerardus 

Mercator. In 1569, he published his world map, the first 

presentation of his Mercator projection. The distortions 

of the projection mean the north and south poles cannot 

be represented. Mercator made a separate, azimuthal 

projection of the region of the north pole in the corner 

of the map. He repeated this polar map in his first 

atlas, from 1596. His partner and successor Hondius

published a revised and refined version of the polar map 

in 1606, a foundational map of the history of the Arctic.

In the Mercator/Hondius map, the Arctic Ocean 

is open, and surrounded 

by four large lands. This 

concept evolved centuries 

before Mercator. The later 

introduction and distribution 

of magnetic compasses, 

from China, required some 

explanatory mechanism for 

how the compasses worked. 

Mercator proposed a giant 

black rock of magnetic iron, 

the Rupes Nigra, at the North 

Pole. When the British scientist 

John Dee wrote Mercator 

about the sources of the map, 

Mercator wrote back: “In the 

midst of the four countries is 

a whirl-pool, into which there 

empty these four indrawing 

seas which divide the North. 

And the water rushes round 

and descends into the Earth 

just as if one were pouring it 

through a filter funnel. It is four 

degrees wide on every side of 

the Pole, that is to say eight 

degrees altogether. Except that 

right under the Pole there lies 

a bare Rock in the midst of 

the Sea. Its circumference is 

almost 33 French miles, and it 

is all of magnetic stone”.

If we now examine the four 

maps of the Polar Lands, it 

is clear they map the four 

“indrawing seas”, with the Rupes Nigra presented 

at the top of each map. Details of the four lands that 

frame them are suitably vague (given that they didn’t 

exist) but the maps’ text notes the lands were north of 

very real places: above Greenland; above Hudson Bay; 

above the Bering Strait; and above Siberia. If ships 

could navigate to the indrawing Seas, but could avoid 

the polar whirl-pool, then they could navigate out on 

the other side: the fabled Northwest (or Northeast) 

Passage.

The maps are embellished with a myriad of gilded 

inscriptions, providing a most revealing body of text 

annotating the history of places and regions and the 

characteristics of the inhabitants, listing the natural 

resources and agricultural and livestock farming, mining, 

Guardaroba globe surrounded by artifact cabinets

1606 North Pole Mercator and Hondius map
 ASC Newsletter 53

craft-industrial and artistic 

products. The scroll of the 

polar lands imagined above 

Greenland reads: “This 

channel has three accesses, 

every year it remains frozen 

for about three months" 

and "Here are the pygmy 

who are four feet tall, as 

those that in Greenland 

are called Screlirgi”. The 

lands above Hudson Bay 

state: “This channel has 

five accesses and due to its 

narrowness and the rapidity 

of its flow it never freezes” 

and “The Northern parts 

are so far from us that few 

are those who wrote about 

them. They say the King of 

Norway having heard about 

it, sent people there to 

live”. For lands above the 

Bering Strait: “In the northern parts there are the islands 

of Bargu that Marco Polo states are looking north so 

much that the pole star is seen to go down towards 

the south”. For the lands above Siberia, “The Ocean, 

entering these islands with 19 accesses, creates four 

channels flowing north without interruption and here it 

gets absorbed by the bowels of the earth.”

The Medici never wanted a terrestrial empire—they 

were content financing others’ empires and collecting 

compound interest on their loans. The Medici collections 

of artworks, rarities, and anthropological artifacts 

outgrew the Guardaroba. They were later transferred 

to the Uffizi Gallery, the Palazzo Pitti, etc. The idea of 

gathering together in one place the “natural productions” 

present in the Guardaroba dates back to 1763, when the 

Florentine naturalist and scientist Giovanni Targioni 

Tozzetti, on behalf of the Grand Ducal government, 

drew up the first catalogue of all the naturalistic exhibits 

in the Gallery. In 1765, with the arrival in Florence of 

the young Grand Duke Pietro Leopoldo of Lorraine 

(who was also a Medici), the museum project came to 

life, leading to the construction of the 'Palazzo della 

Scienza', at the noble Palazzo Torrigiani where 'La 

Specola' Museum is still housed today. Substantial new 

collections were added, particularly artifacts secured 

from the three global voyages of Capt. James Cook

in the late 18th century, which introduced many salient 

Arctic artifacts to modern Europe.

Meanwhile, Florence continued to endure episodic 

wars, plagues, and revolutions. In the midst of all this, 

the structures and disciplines of the modern sciences 

were developed, in Florence and elsewhere. The rise of 

disciplinary specialists in botany, geology, ethnology, 

etc. led eventually to the fission of the Medici megacollections, into more focused thematic assemblages. 

These collections were moved to different Florentine 

palaces. In the 1860s, Italy as a nation-state was invented, 

with Florence as the first national capitol, while at the 

same time new major specialized museums in Florence 

were invented, including Mantegazza’s museum, the first 

in the world to call its domain “anthropology”.

Mantegazza perceived the fundamental unity of 

human societies, and his collections are organized by 

geographical regions, without reference to conceptions 

of a spectrum between “primitive” to “advanced”. He 

was ahead of his times in various ways, particularly as to 

the psychology and science of sex. His position became 

ever more marginal with the rise of fascism. After his 

death in 1910, in 1925 his collections were moved to the 

Palazzo Nonfinito, where they remain displayed in wood 

and glass cases which have changed little in a century. 

The displays are dense, yet elegant, still marvels of the 

varieties of human cultures and their arts.

The Museum of Anthropology and Ethnology was 

“founded in poverty”, with a contribution of only 1,000 

Italian lire provided by the Italian Ministry of Public 

Education, a tiny and symbolic sum when compared 

with the costs of Italy’s cultural patrimony. In the current 

ordering and funding of the arts and sciences in Italy, the 

Museum, along with the other major Florentine science 

museums, is funded through the Sistema Museale di 

Aterneo, the Museum System of the University of 

Florence. The University prioritizes the education of 

its students, and rightly so, which limits resources 

available to the museums. Nevertheless, the Museum 

of Anthropology and Ethnology persists, with a current 

emphasis on revealing the sub-structures of historical 

anthropology as it evolved, particularly the myriad ways 

that disparate humans were quantified and measured, and 

then partitioned.

These events in a city built on the banks of the River 

Arno, over half a millennium, are directly relevant to 

the Smithsonian Institution. The Smithsonian system 

of thematically defined museums, in large stately 

buildings, with an organizational structure of staff in 

departments and institutes, was not invented by the 

Smithsonian, but rather adopted. And thus, much about 

“the Arctic” can be experienced and learned from a 

place known for olive oil and wine, gelato and art, in 

Florence, which is “the city of flowers” on many levels.

We would like to thank Prof. Monica Zavattaro and 

Prof. Gloria Roselli from the Museum of Natural 

History: Anthropological and Ethnological Collections 

in Florence for our warm welcome to the museum.

Lands above Greenland
54 ASC Newsletter

UP-DATING “POLAR OBSERVER: THE 

ARCTIC DIGITAL LIBRARY”

By William W. Fitzhugh

Last year, in March 2021, the SI and Dartmouth College 

submitted a three-year proposal to NSF’s Navigating 

the New Arctic Program to initiate a pilot project for 

our Arctic digital library infrastructure network. Jesse 

Casana joined me as co-PI, David Nordlander as 

project director, and Nana Naisbett as project manager. 

Sealaska Heritage Institute directed by Rosita Worl and 

Kitikmeot Heritage Society of Cambridge Bay, Nunavut 

(Canada), represented by Brendan Griebel, joined as 

Indigenous partners. Records to form the experimental 

database will come from Smithsonian Anthropology and 

Library collections and from Dartmouth’s Vilhjalmur 

Stefansson archives. Search algorithms for discovering 

information from the database will be borrowed, and 

enhanced for the social sciences and humanities, from 

the Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL), a primarily 

biological-based network developed initially at Harvard 

which the Smithsonian Library recently joined as a 

partner. Our PO-ADL network focusing primarily 

on early historical, anthropological, and humanities 

data, would also pull data from the BHL platform. 

Building on BHL will ensure inter-operability and 

allow PO to efficiently expand search procedures into 

the more taxonomically complex social and historical 

fields where subject terms and categories have more 

fuzzy edges. The goal of the pilot is to determine 

the feasibility of expanding PO into a full-fledged 

infrastructure into which data could be contributed 

from institutions holding Arctic region data, making a 

vast sea of inaccessible information available for users 

across the globe. Our Indigenous partners joined the 

project not only to provide testable data but to assist 

the development of protocols suitable for Indigenous 

information sharing and use-rights.

In August we learned that the grant was not approved, 

and we began working on a re-submission. In addition 

to sharpening the discussion of search mechanisms, 

clarifying the roles of Indigenous partners, and 

organizing yearly workshops, we added the Anchorage 

Museum as partner, and Aron Crowell, ASC 

Anchorage office director, joined as a second co-PI. 

Sensitive to fraught terminology, we changed the 

project name from ‘Polar Explorer’ to ‘Polar Observer’. 

To provide another potential source of funding that 

might allow us to start the pilot before NSF funding 

might be available, we also applied for an NMNH 

grant for a period of 18 months. If approved, NMNH 

funds would enable PO-ADL to begin as early as May 

or June 2022. The success of the SI-BHL partnership 

assures us that the establishment of an Arctic Digital 

Library would work technically and would make a vast 

amount of currently hidden Arctic data available to 

researchers, Indigenous groups, and the world at large. 

RE-PRESENTING ARCHIVAL AND LIBRARY 

COLLECTIONS THROUGH THE VOICES 

AND LANGUAGES OF FIRST NATIONS, 

INUIT, AND THE MĖTIS NATION IN AN 

INTERCTIVE EBOOK

By Beth Greenhorn

Author acknowledgment: I am a settler living on the 

unceded and traditional territory of the Anishinabeg 

(Algonquin)—the Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg and 

the Algonquins of Pikwakanagan First Nation. I 

acknowledge that they are the first and rightful 

inhabitants of the lands and waters now called 

southeastern Ontario and southwestern Quebec.

As part of two Indigenous heritage initiatives, We Are 

Here: Sharing Stories and Listen, Hear Our Voices, the 

Library and Archives Canada (LAC) published Nations 

to Nations: Indigenous Voices at Library and Archives 

Canada, a multilingual and multimedia e-book 

featuring essays by First Nations, Inuit, and Métis 

Nation authors. The content is based on their personal 

connections to the archival and published material from 

the collections at LAC. 

Historically, the Canadian government forced First 

Nations, Inuit, and Métis Nation children to attend 

church-run residential schools. The schools were 

part of a broader Federal policy to Christianize and 

assimilate these children into the dominant society. 

Students were punished for speaking their languages, 

and many individuals have not maintained fluency in 

those languages. Some are considered vulnerable, while 

others are severely to critically endangered.(1)

Title page of Nations to Nations: Indigenous Voices at 

Library and Archives Canada
 ASC Newsletter 55

The revitalization of Indigenous languages has 

been identified as a human right by international 

organizations, including the United Nations. The 

Canadian government has received calls to action from 

the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada 

to rectify the colonial harms caused to Indigenous 

languages.(2) Work on the eBook began soon after the 

United Nations declared 2019 the International Year 

of Indigenous Languages. The original eBook plan 

was to feature archival and published documents held 

in LAC’s collections in various Indigenous languages 

and dialects. Several months in, we recognized there 

is little in LAC holdings written in First Nations and 

Inuit languages or dialects. The Métis Nation records 

presented an even greater challenge, as there are no 

known records in Michif.

How could LAC support efforts in the reclamation 

of Indigenous languages and challenge dominant 

narratives of mainstream society? In time, we had a 

strategy. Each author would choose documents that 

held personal relevance to them or their communities, 

and interpret them from their point of view. Where 

possible, we hired language speakers in communities 

to translate the texts into the languages or dialects of 

the people represented in the records featured in each 

essay. The Indigenous languages would be presented 

as the main text, accompanied by English and French 

versions through popovers. 

Pre-contact map of what is now called North America 

with Icons linked to each author’s essays and biography

The ebook launched September 30, 2021, the 

inaugural National Day of Truth and Reconciliation 

acknowledging the lost children and survivors of 

Residential Schools in Canada. This edition of Nations 

to Nations: Indigenous Voices at Library and Archives 

Canada includes the following First Nations languages 

and dialects: Anishinaabemowin, Anishinabemowin, 

Denesųłiné, Kanien’kéha, Mi’kmaq, nêhiyawêwin and 

Nishnaabemowin. Inuit content is presented in Inuttut 

and Inuktitut (Roman orthography and syllabics). A 

selection of images in texts about the Métis Nation is 

accompanied by audio recordings in Heritage Michif. 

The stories are often personal. Describing her research 

on cradleboards, Elizabeth Kawenaa Montour

reflected: “It really made me connect to cradleboards 

and understand them as a mother.” Her hope is to pass 

the knowledge she learned onto future generations.(3) 

Younger citizens of the Métis Nation, including author 

Delia Chartrand, cannot speak Michif. Recalling 

her childhood, she writes “I did not grow up on my 

traditional territory... I did not grow up speaking my 

traditional language. Michif was not an option in our 

household as my father had long forgotten how to 

speak what he called ‘Bush French’.”(4)

Inuit in Nunatsiavut learned to read and write in Inuttut 

until 1949, when it was cut from the curriculum. 

According to Inuk author Heather Campbell, there 

is only one speaker left in her community of Rigolet. 

In her words: “Seeing the damage done in just one 

generation makes you realize how fragile these 

languages are.”(5) In “Inuktut Publications,” Heather 

looks at language revitalization in Inuit Nunangat (Inuit 

Homeland in Canada) through a selection of books 

written in different dialects of Inuktut.

While each essay is unique, they are connected. They 

are about truth telling and the sharing of culturally 

distinctive knowledge. They deconstruct colonial 

ideologies that privilege Western approaches and 

interpretations to the historical records. Ultimately, the 

Pre-contact map of what is now called North America with 

Icons linked to each author’s essays and biography

Page from First Nations Cradleboards: An Enduring 

Heritage, written by Elizabeth Kawenaa Montour and 

translated into Kanien'kéha by Hilda Kanerahtenhá:wi 

Nicholas
56 ASC Newsletter

essays demonstrate the diversity of histories, languages 

and cultures of First Nations, Inuit and Métis Nation.

Nations to Nations: Indigenous Voices at Library 

and Archives Canada is free of charge and can be 

downloaded from Apple Books (iBooks format), or from 

Library and Archives Canada’s website (EPUB format). 

An online version can be viewed on a desktop, tablet or 

mobile web browser without requiring a plug-in.

1. Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, 

Canada’s Residential Schools: The History, Part I, 

Origins to 1939. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University 

Press, 2015.

2. Truth and Reconciliation Commission of 

Canada, Truth and Reconciliation of Canada: Calls 

to Action, 2015. Actions 13 and 14 address the 

preservation and revitalization of languages, p. 2. 

https://ehprnh2mwo3.exactdn.com/wp-content/

uploads/2021/01/Calls_to_Action_English2.pdf

3. Elizabeth Kawenaa Montour, “Nations to Nations: 

Indigenous Voices at Library and Archives Canada 

panel discussion”, Frankfurt Book Fair, aired 

October 20, 2021, https://www.youtube.com/

watch?v=p1GIr6B9oko

4. Delia Chartrand, “Centuries of Kinship-Exploring 

Métis Identity through Genealogy,” Library and 

Archives Canada Discover Blog, October 11, 2020, 

https://thediscoverblog.com/2020/10/11/centuries-ofkinship-exploring-metis-identity-through-genealogy

5. Heather Campbell, “Nations to Nations: 

Indigenous Voices at Library and Archives Canada 

panel discussion”, Frankfurt Book Fair, aired 

October 20, 2021, https://www.youtube.com/

watch?v=p1GIr6B9oko

Page from Linguistic Diversity in the Métis Nation written 

by Delia Chartrand, featuring an audio recording describing 

the photograph in Michif by Elder Verna De Montigny

OUTREACH

KNOWING NATURE: STORIES OF THE 

BOREAL FOREST

By William Fitzhugh and Stephen Loring

Almost a decade in the making, the Arctic Studies 

Center’s exhibition originally titled Boreal: Visions 

of the World’s Largest Forest (among other title 

favorites) has been designed and is scheduled to begin 

its North American tour in April 2023. Produced by a 

committee coordinated by SITES project director Carol 

Bossert, the exhibition focuses on the biodiversity 

and global importance of the our northern-most 

forests through first-person stories, authentic objects, 

interactive experiences, and exquisite photography and 

videography. Besides Loring and Fitzhugh, the core 

team included Rob Mullen, Kevin Brownlee, Gary 

and Joanie McGuffin, Jeff Wells, and several others. 

As the SITES promotional blurb says: 

“In a carbon-conscious world, boreal forests are 

significant, storing three times the amount of carbon as 

tropical forests. Boreal forests provide nesting habitat 

for over fifty percent of migratory bird species. Many 

of our most familiar back-yard birds started their lives 

in the boreal. Indigenous Peoples have lived in these 

forests for thousands of years and today, their knowledge 

offers a vision for a sustainable future. This timely 

exhibition integrates the themes of climate change, 

Indigenous perspectives and the relationship between 

people and nature. It takes audiences on a learning 

journey that starts with curiosity, builds empathy, 

and leads to action. Knowing Nature offers stories of 

resilience, strength, and hope in a changing world.” 

Once but for rivers the nearly inaccessible forests at the 

top of the world face increasing pressures from resource 

extraction as roads and infrastructure threaten their 

viability and integrity. (The trans-Labrador "highway" 

north of the Manicouagan, west of the Ashuanipi. Photo by 

Stephen Loring).
 ASC Newsletter 57

NATIVE AND AMERICAN ETHNOMEDICINE AT LEBANON SPRINGS, N.Y.

By Ted Timreck

The Lebanon Valley southeast of Albany near the 

Massachusetts border has been a source of healing 

waters and medicinal plants since the end of the Ice 

Age. The interactions between the Native American 

and Shaker spiritual and secular communities that 

developed around the New Lebanon Hot Springs and 

the wetlands in the valley below profoundly influenced 

the history of American medicine.

A few years ago, I received a request from a member 

of the Select Board of New Lebanon, N.Y. asking if I 

could find a way to connect the town of New Lebanon 

with the Shaker Museum which is located at the 

original site of the Shaker spiritual community on the 

slope of Mt. Lebanon. The Select Board was interested 

in linking the town and the Shaker Museum to better 

share their combined histories and attract tourism. 

It didn't take long to recognize that the town and the 

historical Shaker site were both connected to a wetland 

which the early USGS topo maps referred to as The 

Shaker Swamp. I thought of this as a communication 

design problem that could make a contribution to my 

local community. But with more research, I began to 

discover that the environmental and historical record of 

the wetland extending back to the region’s Indigenous 

peoples was one of the most interesting anthropological 

stories I had ever encountered.

The Shaker Swamp Crossroads

The hills surrounding Lebanon Valley draining into 

The Shaker Swamp are honeycombed with limestone 

outcrops and caves. Water travels through the limestone 

underground and surfaces in places like the famous 

Hot Springs of New Lebanon--a calcium healing spring 

known from Indian times. The water becomes calciumenriched as it seeps through the limestone, emerging 

at the hot spring at a constant 74 degrees and into 

Shaker Swamp where NY routes 20 and 22 cross. Rt 

20 is the longest east/west road in North America and 

extends from Boston to the Oregon coast. I suspect that 

many parts of the highway may have been Indian trails 

before European contact. Route 22 is the longest, well 

known Indian trail in New England and runs from the 

tip of Manhattan north to Canada. These two ancient 

highways cross in the middle of Shaker Swamp—

perhaps not by coincidence.

The calcium rich waters that collect in the swamp 

encourage the growth of rare medicinal plants. Native 

American tribes would visit the wetland regularly and 

understood how to harvest and prepare its medicinal 

plants. This is known because after the Shaker 

religious community settled here in the late 1700's 

they invited the Indians to harvest the plants and trade 

their medicinal knowledge with the Shakers, who in 

return shared medicines from their European tradition. 

A record of these interactions was written down in the 

Shaker documents of the time and is preserved today in 

the Shaker Museum. 

It is widely held as urban legend that Native 

Americans taught early European settlers about their 

medicinal practices, but it is extremely rare to have 

any contemporary, written documentation of an actual 

cultural exchange preserved in an archive. Certainly, 

this is testament to what may have been a rare event, 

a mutual appreciation between the two cultures during 

the early 1800's, at a time when this kind of behavior 

in the eyes of most Americans might have been 

viewed as inappropriate, or even as seditious during 

the Indian Wars of the early and mid-19th century. This 

documentation about a cross-cultural connection to a 

specific environmental situation points to the scientific 

and historical importance of preserving the New 

Lebanon wetland site and its unique American story.

The Lebanon Hot Springs were deeded by the local Indians 

with the written stipulation that the healing waters would 

always be made available to the public

Shaker Swamp 
58 ASC Newsletter

The Shakers began to harvest the medicinal wetland 

in earnest, and by the mid-19th century scholars say 

the Mt. Lebanon Shaker community was harvesting, 

packaging, and shipping up to 25 tons of herbal 

medicine per year to the rest of the United States, and 

even beyond, to Europe. Also by the mid-19th century, 

the Tilden family who had settled in New Lebanon, 

worked with the Shakers learning the medicinal 

secrets of the Swamp. At a time long before the official 

patenting of medicines in America, the Tildens split 

from the Shakers and started their own enterprise, 

eventually building the first pharmaceutical factory 

in America at the northeast corner of the swamp. 

For the next hundred years, the Tilden Company 

was a premiere supplier of natural medicines until 

they were eventually hounded out of business by the 

Federal government in the early 1960's for making 

“unsubstantiated” claims for their medicinal products. 

It's interesting that the long history of the discovery, 

development, and manufacture of American 'natural' 

medicines began to fade out in the 60's just as the new 

cultural wave of 'alternative' medicine was beginning to 

emerge.

Today Shaker Swamp still contains many of the 

original medicinal plants that the Indians, the Shakers, 

and the Tildens utilized to make their formulas. There 

are extensive records of the plants, along with how 

to harvest and prepare them, and the listings of the 

ailments they help cure in the Shaker and Tilden 

records. The story of this still existing ecological 

situation connected to the saga of medical information 

being passed from the Indigenous population to the 

first settlers and on to corporate entrepreneurs of 

early America is a history that requires an integrated, 

interdisciplinary approach.

When I began to see this story unfold, I enquired 

about the swamp from people in New Lebanon, only 

to discover that hardly anyone was aware of the rich, 

ecological and cultural history of the area, and in 

particular, the documented connections between Native 

medicinals and today's pharma-industry. Working 

with the Shaker Swamp Conservancy and the Darrow 

School which now exists on the site of the old Shaker 

community, our goal is to preserve this diverse, natural 

habitat, offer the public a chance to experience the 

beautiful interior of the swamp through paths and 

boardwalks, and to build an information center for 

the town, the Shaker Museum, and the Darrow school 

that offers visitors the full chronicle of this remarkable 

story about an unrecognized foundation of American 

pharmaceutical medicine.

For a visual introduction to the Medicinal Wetlands 

please go to: https://vimeo.com/683562236

INTEGRATING INUGHUIT AND 

GREENLANDIC TRADITIONAL 

KNOWLEDGE WITH ECOTOURISM 

DEVELOPMENT IN GREENLAND

By Martin T. Nweeia

Research objectives for the project described below 

focus on finding pathways to integrate Inughuit and 

Greenlandic community members in the growing 

Greenland eco-tourism market. Prior work by the 

author were focused on collecting Inughuit knowledge 

about the narwhal for biologic and ecologic studies of 

this elusive and legendary Arctic whale (1).

Despite COVID-19 travel restrictions, our team was 

able to visit Greenland during November of 2020 

and June of 2021. With support from the Ocean 

Foundation through USAID, we met key stakeholders 

in Greenlandic government, business, academia, 

media, and education to develop ideas and projects that 

would harness local Greenlandic knowledge for the 

development of eco-tourism. Our partnerships between 

the Inughuit and Greenland community members 

follows USAID guidelines promoting the rights of 

Indigenous peoples. 

A Tilden Company advertisement ca. 1900

Narragansett Tribal Preservation officer Doug Harris 

inspecting stone ruins found at the edge of the Shaker Swamp
 ASC Newsletter 59

The International Ecotourism Society defines 

ecotourism as “responsible travel to natural areas 

that conserves the environment, sustains the wellbeing of local people, and involves interpretation and 

education.” Programs to develop ecotourism with 

input from Inughuit and Greenlandic representatives 

have been initiated by a team including the author 

and Pamela Peeters, an 

environmental economist and 

sustainability strategist, during 

meetings with Greenland 

partners in November 2020 

and June 2021. Community 

consultations were held in 

Nuuk, Kangerlussuaq, and 

Ilulissat, and will continue in 

Ilulissat and Sisimuit. COVID 

restrictions limited access to 

Narsarsuaq, Uummannaq, 

and Qaanaaq. We added 

visits to Hunde Ejland and 

Disko Island since these are 

communities with strong ecotourism potential. 

The primary objective was to 

establish programs that include 

Inughuit and Greenlandic 

views about the environment, 

conservation, culture, music, 

and art. Greenlandic Inuit 

compose songs and create 

artwork inspired by nature 

that inform and teach about 

their relationship with the 

land, which is why they are 

essential to integrate with 

oral knowledge. Program 

development highlights 

Greenlandic Inuit knowledge 

that can be introduced to 

broad international audiences. 

Existing ecotourism offerings 

will be evaluated to identify 

market opportunities. A 

rich experience involving 

interpretation and education 

depends on community 

inclusion, integration, and 

collaboration. We explore 

ecotourism opportunities with 

an open eye, mind and heart, 

to seek ways of incorporating 

Inuit heritage. This can be 

accomplished through cultural 

programs in the arts, and 

commercial venues like ecotourism shops that provide 

economic benefits to tour operators and Greenlandic 

artisans and shop owners.

Ecotourism (sustainable tourism) incorporates the United 

Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG 5). 

Ideally, goals 3–17 can be incorporated in ecotourism 

programs American enterprises 

can invest in. Prospective tour 

guide owners can incorporate 

more unifying messaging and 

sensitivity about sustainability 

related to cultural aspects of 

Greenlandic Inuit communities.

Other types of ecotourism 

operate in isolation and do not 

include cultural integration. 

Some focus more on the 

landscape and biodiversity 

than on Inuit culture. Offshore 

cruises and yachts are 

becoming more common, with 

some, or no onshore cultural 

events. Because of the wide 

variety of approaches, many 

solutions for success need to 

be considered. A social impact 

assessment should be done 

to record efforts from these 

myriad approaches.

Several challenges are 

presented in finding ways 

to bridge American and 

Greenlandic ecotourism 

perspectives. First is the sheer 

cost of visiting and working 

in Greenland, which can be 

prohibitive. Though American 

investment may offer solutions, 

cultural differences need 

to be considered. Second, 

cultural insights and historical 

perspective, balanced with 

economic opportunity, can 

provide a more balanced 

approach. Though Greenland 

has ceased being a formal 

Danish colony in 1953, 

autonomy is still rooted in 

Danish colonization. Hunting 

grounds were taken away, and 

the Thule American airbase 

was built after an existing 

Inuit community was given 

just a few days to move. Past 

USAID Sustainable Development Goals

Visit Greenland leads Hjörtur Smárason, Chief 

Executive Officer, and Mads Daniel Skifte, Deputy 

Director with Dr. Nweeia. Photo by P. Peeters

L-R: Sakiko Daorana ,Erik Bjerregaard (Founding 

Manager of Arctic Hotel), Pamela Peeters, Martin 

Nweeia and Suzanne Bjerregaard, owner of Glacier 

Shop in Ilulissat. Photo by P. Peeters
60 ASC Newsletter

and current commissions to investigate wrong-doing 

still find expression. International financial interests in 

mining exemplify ongoing motives. If ecotourism is 

to be seen as a potential economic opportunity, it must 

be balanced with cultural sensitivity. A brief historical 

perspective should be part of investor orientation so 

that economic opportunity is met with understanding. 

Acknowledgment of this history gives context to the 

socio-economic approach recommended for establishing 

stronger relationships with Greenlandic Inuit partners. 

Success will depend on mutual respect and consideration 

of social consciousness incorporated at every phase of 

development. 

Results of this work, conducted in partnership Pamela 

Peeters, Founding Director of the Institute for a 

Sustainable Planet, have so far included: 

1. A website that celebrates Greenland, including 

written descriptions, original photographs, and 

video vignettes produced by business, cultural and 

educational leaders; 

2. Relationship building with business, government 

and education leaders to foster reinforcement for 

Inughuit and Greenlandic perspectives; 

3. Creation of a white paper that describes historical 

context and current issues to help foster positive and 

respectful opportunities in developing ecotourism 

platforms; 

4. Supporting cross-cultural exchange, social media 

campaigns showcasing Greenlandic-American 

collaborations and exhibitions;

5. Demonstrations of visual learning through 

Microsoft HoloLens. Ongoing efforts to foster 

exchange and insights will assist future business, 

government, and education efforts to approach 

programs with a cross-cultural, integrative, and 

collaborative objective.

Reference

1. Nweeia, M. T., and P. Peeters. 2021. 

Isumaqatigingniq: Building a Transformational Science 

Education Model to Engage the Next Generation of 

Inuit and Western Scientific Investigators. Arctic 74(5), 

Supplement 1 https://doi.org/10.14430/arctic73779

NORTH BY NUUK: GREENLAND AFTER 

ROCKWELL KENT

By Denis Defibaugh

My anticipation of the short 30 minute flight into 

Illorsuit for my first time in the classic Air Greenland 

Bell 212 helicopter was worth all of the five flights 

and three days from Stafford Air Base in the USA to 

Kangerlussuaq to Ilulissat to Qaarsut to Uummannaq 

and now to Illorsuit. I was as excited as a kid in a 

candy store as we boarded the full flight with eight 

other passengers jockeying for the prime window seats 

for the flight north to Illorsuit. Our helicopter lifted off, 

whipped around Uummannaq Island, and headed north 

as we entered the widest stretch of the Uummannaq 

Fjord. The stark white contrast of the massive sculpted 

icebergs spotted the deep cobalt blue of the fjord. Off in 

the distance the mountainous snowcapped range of the 

Greenland mainland could be seen to the east along with 

the seemingly infinite Greenland icecap, and to the west 

the southern tip of Ubekendt Ejland came into view. 

[From Rockwell Kent]: “Its seagirt isolation along 

with the grandeur of its stark, snow-covered tableland 

and higher peaks, the dark cliff barrier that forms its 

western shore—there is a glamour of imponderable 

mystery about the island which dignifies it even at the 

gateway of a region of stupendous grandeur. Its cliffs, 

proclaiming inaccessibility, preclude the thought of 

human settlements.”

As we sweep around the headlands into Illorsuit on the 

northeast end of island, the broad mile-long horseshoeshaped black sand beach of Illorsuit came into view with 

its colorful homes of blue, red, yellow, and green boarder 

the beach and fjord. The settlement of Illorsuit occupies 

a sloping narrow spot of land between the Illorsuit Sound 

and the rugged black mountain walls that surround 

the community. My colleague called the settlement 

claustrophobic as homes nestle into the crescent 

community of Illorsuit. The only way out is by boat, dog 

sledge, or snowmobile via the Sound. And by helicopter 

on Monday or Wednesday, weather permitting. 

We landed some 300 miles north of the Arctic Circle 

on barren headlands that lack any structures. The 

helipad is a flat dirt surface surrounded by orange 

barrels. Beside the helipad is the cemetery, located 

Iceberg with people and vehicle
 ASC Newsletter 61

100 meters to the east, and the dump 400 meters to the 

south. Town managers Jarte Kornellieson and Kasper 

Kornellieson met the helicopter on arrival, and Jarte 

led us to our sleeping quarters for the next ten days. My 

colleagues, Axel Jeremiassen, Susan B. Vanek, Jette 

Rygaard, and I took up residence in the community 

center’s exercise room and kitchen. Conveniently, the 

building housed the community showers and the only 

running water in the settlement. This first trip began 

three extended visits to Illorsuit that lasted on and 

off from June 1, 2016, until leaving for the last time 

on March 21, 2017 in a snowstorm with me trudging 

through snow drifts to get to the helicopter.

A very different experience was had by Rockwell Kent

in July 1931 as he entered the bay by boat and seeing 

Illorsuit, a remote settlement of 150 inhabitants of hunters 

and their families. Kent described, “nine interminable 

hours of our trip from Uummannaq,” into Illorsuit 

Sound, and past the steep inaccessible cliffs of Eastern 

Ubekjendt Island. Kent described the locals’ “cry going 

up” as women residents wearing their brightly-colored 

native clothing and men in their seal skin pants and 

anorak tops come out of the numerous little mounds of 

earth that dotted the settlement to greet the newcomers.

Kent’s 1931 goal was “to experience the Far North 

at its spectacular ‘worst’.” Inspired by Kent, and 

supported by a National Science Foundation award, I 

followed eighty-five years later in 2016 to experience 

this extreme environment, image its sublime splendor, 

and to explore the Inuit’s culture and relationship 

with the land. Illorsuit, the remote settlement today of 

70 people with no cars or roads, can be very quiet at 

times but it is a perfect background for a comparative 

exploration in the long history of Arctic photography.

This flight was the beginning of an 18-month 

Greenlandic immersion to photographically detail 

Inuit culture and Greenland environment. The project 

research included video interviews with elders, 

teachers, hunters, and various Greenlanders which 

provided an oral history of contemporary Greenland. 

Photography workshops offered for students provided 

cameras and presented exhibitions that highlighted 

student photography of their families, communities, 

and dreams. 

Research also included the communities of Nuuk, 

Sisimiut, and Uummannaq. The book and exhibition, 

North by Nuuk, Greenland after Rockwell Kent, 

provides an engaging and revealing view of change 

and continuity in Greenland. The future of Greenland 

is unclear. As climate change and global warming 

continue to dramatically affect the ice cap, settlements 

are slowly being abandoned, and population continues 

to decline. Separated by eighty-five years of change, 

my photography and writing documents the modernity 

of Nuuk, Greenland’s capital, the primal and social 

landscape, traditions, culture, and people of relatively 

untouched remote arctic communities. 

The exhibition of North by Nuuk, Greenland after 

Rockwell Kent will be on view in February and March 

2022 at the Plattsburgh NY State Art Museum, Burke 

Gallery and Slatkin Gallery, and at the Fenimore 

Art Museum from April thru December. The book is 

available at RITPress, www.ritpress.rit.edu .

INUIT TIK-TOKERS: SPREADING 

KNOWLEDGE IN 60 SECONDS OR LESS

By Fiona Steiwer

The past two years of confinement have led to many 

creative ways of communicating. The app TikTok has 

stood at the forefront of this wave of social mediabased interaction. The app, which gained popularity 

with Gen Z just before the COVID-19 pandemic, has 

revolutionized the way users interact, with meme and 

musical trends that take over the internet within mere 

moments of their creation. But the app isn’t just for 

Gen Z anymore, users of all ages have carved out niche 

communities on the forum that create an addicting void 

that draws individuals of all backgrounds to the shiny 

surfaces of their smartphones.

 During the extensive amounts of my personal time 

that I myself spend on the app, I found myself on the 

Anthropology side of TikTok. This is a wonderful 

place, where Indigenous content creators have created 

a community where they are able to share music, art, 

recipes, and their daily personal lives with the world. 

Such as the Inuk creator Shina Nova, who gained her 

following by posting katajjaq throat singing videos 

with her mother and OOTD (Outfit of the Day Videos) 

wearing traditional clothing like the amautiit parkas 

that her mother sews. She recently documented the 

process of getting her kakiniit facial tattoos and is the 

Defibaugh in snow
62 ASC Newsletter

first in her family to do so in a generation. In a series of 

videos Shina documents the four hour journey the pair 

made across Canada to complete the procedure. 

In the wave of her TikTok fame, Shina was made 

the face of French Sephora, along with several other 

Indigenous influencers.

This forum not only allows for content creators to send 

their product out into the wide world but provides 

opportunity for discussion through the comment 

feature. The TikTok algorithm creates each user’s 

custom FYP (“For You Page”) that compiles videos 

from across the app based on their previous likes, 

comments and interactions on the app. This allows 

people who normally may not seek out Indigenous 

content to gain a greater understanding of the 

Indigenous lived experience. With the current standing 

of education surrounding Indigenous people and their 

cultural practices, such as in the United States, this 

may be more informative than many of their school 

courses—especially when showing the public that 

Indigenous people are not a thing of the past but a 

community with young people who desire to continue 

their cultural traditions with their families.

The social media giant allows for Indigenous content 

creators to have an active say in how they are 

represented in the media and to respond to how other 

content creators and corporations (which have a large 

presence on the app as well) who may attempt to profit 

from the stereotypical image of a Native American or 

First Nations Person. This dichotomy was highlighted 

during the discussion surrounding the naming of the 

Washington Football Team in 2020.

Content creators have also facilitated discussions 

surrounding topics such as Cultural Appropriation, 

Cost of Living on Reservations, and Land Back, to 

name a few. However, the holding of this forum on an 

app does create accessibility concerns, especially for 

individuals who may not have access to the internet 

or a smartphone, which disproportionately affects 

Indigenous communities. ADA accessibility for blind 

and deaf individuals was a large concern at the onset 

of the app; now closed captions, voice overs and added 

features help to provide content access to all.

The app serves as an incredible feature for young 

people to connect with anthropological and 

archeological content and serves to combat the leagues 

of misinformation that exist on other servers as young 

archaeologists are able to directly confront those who 

spread misinformation using the “stitch” feature, which 

allows for them to attach a video to the content of the 

creator spreading misinformation, allowing for their 

followers and the followers of the original creator to 

view their response. It also allows young Indigenous 

people to connect with their elders and communities 

no matter if they live near them or across the world. 

While many may critique Gen Z for being “chronically 

online,” in this case, social media has fostered space 

for a thriving community that should be celebrated, 

which gives me hope for the future of anthropological 

research and discussion amongst my peers and I as we 

rise in the ranks of the field. 

SOUNDS OF THE ARCTIC

By Charlie Morrow

This story begins with a headline from Physics Today: 

“Ocean acoustics in the changing Arctic. Recent 

changes in ice cover and ocean stratification have been 

so large that acoustic measurements made during the 

Cold War no longer reflect current conditions.”* and 

a note from New England poet, Robert Frost: “Mr. 

Browne has alluded to the seeing eye. I want to call 

your attention to the function of the imagining ear.”

Arctic sound has been on my mind for a long time, 

long before I saw this headline or read Robert Frosts’ 

note, Frost a resident of early 20th century cold New 

Hampshire. The weather records of his life span show 

that Frost knew very cold winters. My full body arctic 

sound experience happened when I first travelled 

to Lappland in the 1980s to record sound for P.A. 

Shina with her kakiniit, image sourced from her Instagram
 ASC Newsletter 63

Simma’s dramatic film, “Beyond Night and Day” and 

WDR Klaus Schoening’s “Metropolis Arctic.”

My audio studio experience of extraordinary arctic 

sound first was on a 1979 visit to the Helsinki radio 

studios of state broadcaster, YLE Finland, when I 

swapped my conch horn sounds for a collection of Arctic 

sounds made by YLE location recordists for productions. 

Those recordings were by local recordists, who had 

access to both first class audio gear and paid projects. 

They had developed arctic hearing as a part of living in 

the region and techniques for capturing the sounds as 

they heard them. I spent my adult life working in sound 

studios in New York as part of art and business media 

production, so their work was quite different from my 

location sound work. To start with, they knew how to 

keep their sound and image equipment and their batteries 

warm enough to function in sustained cold.

In YLE, for the first time, I heard tiny splinters of 

ice blown across a hard ice ground cover. It is spine 

tingling. For the first time, I heard calving icebergs, 

vast and unforgettable. The slosh of pack ice pieces 

makes clattering sounds like an enormous ice soup, 

during freezing times and again in the warming times. 

Deep down are grumbles and talking sounds, under 

your feet on frozen sea surfaces and iced lakes, you 

hear and feel them. At the moon of the breakup, of 

ice and in preludes to it long before is the breaking up 

of ice, there are physically long tearing sounds from 

cracks stretching out over horizontal distances. One’s 

ears’ measuring capacity is instantly on. Humans have a 

hyper audio alertness. Locals seem to hear and interpret 

sounds spontaneously, sounds close by and sound from 

great distances. 

Humans hear directionality in 360 degrees, near 

and far. It is a combination of hearing and listening, 

of focus and signal processing. Remember the 

cocktail party sound model. Even in densely noisy 

situations, we can focus on the voice of someone 

talking and understand what was said. A microphone 

placed where party ears are located captures an 

undifferentiated, blended sound. It takes police grade 

software to reveal embedded conversations which our 

ears and minds manage routinely.

In the Arctic open spaces and absence of human noise, 

we can try to hear the complex and varying languages 

of the winds. To be decoded are sounds of ice and snow, 

from the surfaces to deep below grade, in the spectrum 

between total motion-and-flux to resolutely calm and 

frozen. Because environmental sounds relate to danger, 

safety, wellbeing, our bodies auditory systems have no 

earlids and very fast responses at diverse sound levels 

for reception and identification of their sources. 

Notable in the Arctic is the need to balance internal and 

external pressures on the ears, on the body, and on the 

psyche. In the Arctic and Subarctic, one can experience 

being enveloped by the local quiet. And totally raging 

winds and some of the loudest sounds on earth from the 

ice and snowscape.

One is immersed and entranced in the way sound 

travels long distances. Near and far hearing skills are 

essential. It is some balance between zoom-in focus 

and balancing the overall signal to noise. The ear 

seems to both focus to localize sound direction and 

have broadband attention for taking in the soundscape 

wedded to the landscape and atmosphere. Composer 

Pauline Oliveros coined the word sonosphere. 

Humans have to dynamically balance external 

pressures with internal changes. Robert Frost’s imaging 

ear is connected to the alertness and calm needed to 

just be here. There are ever present dangers of ice, 

water, wind, and living predators of our own and other 

species. There is a kind of local, quiet personal style 

laced with ways of winding up from silence to intense 

chattering, which can keep going for hours.

As well, it is essential to have understanding of the 

landscape and local lifeforms in every season. Sight 

lines are long. There is a traditional of surveilling, 

curiosity and gossiping. I was out on frozen tundra 

on a snow scooter and ignorantly almost drove into a 

dangerous hidden ravine. When I was back in the small 

town, I was publicly laughed at by the folks in the local 

bar as an idiot who could have perished. Eyes and ears 

are beaming everywhere. Gossip rules.

For almost 20 years now I am commuting between 

Finland and Vermont. In early March, I negotiated 

the rospuutista, slippery ice on the sidewalks and 

Arctic sound room, from Stephan Andreae’s Arktis Antarktis, 

Bonn Kunst und Austellungshalle
64 ASC Newsletter

roads of Helsinki. That Finnish word is derived from 

the Russian term for “two seasons of the year, spring 

and autumn, when travel on unpaved roads or across 

country becomes difficult, owing to muddy conditions 

from rain or melting snow” (Wikipedia). Slipperiness 

and the slipping sounds fill the air. 

The sound cycle in the Arctic is driven by the light 

cycle. The light cycle includes rapidly changing springs 

and autumns, totally dark months when the stars and 

moon can light up the snow cover, and totally light 

months with intense light from above challenges the 

eyes, the skin and the mind. 

Here are some Arctic features with sonic components: 

At the equator, the earth and one’s ear is spinning 

at more than a 1000 miles and hour, whereas in the 

arctic, the spin is inches per hour. // The distance 

between earth segments, between longitudes, works its 

way to zero at each of the two poles. // The seasonal 

change in spring and fall is faster than anywhere on 

earth with sudden and dramatic growth of plant life. 

// The light cycle and temperature swing is at the 

most extreme on the continuous oscillation between 

dark months and fully light months. // Directional 

hearing and body balance are processed via the ear’s 

mechanism, in relationship to atmospheric pressure, 

temperature and gravity. // The populations of humans 

in the Arctic are small compared to the built world’s 

denser population areas. // The combination of long 

cultural memory, telling of the past is side by side with 

use of the latest technologies with instant contact and 

deep databases. Arctic languages are rich with words 

describing the diversity of weather, light and darkness 

and have sonic components that permit understanding 

in Arctic sound environments. // In the continuous 

and most ancient culture of Sami people there are 

ways of talking with animals, with spirits and with 

the physical world. // There is joiking vocalizing that 

contains family sound marks, much as the ears of 

reindeer have family cut marks, and there are traditions 

of respect for ownership and permission to use them. // 

There are unique nonverbal articulations and physical 

gestures to communicate unique content. // During the 

past centuries, Arctic indigenous communication and 

expression has been suppressed and even punished. 

Recently, these ancient practises are being allowed 

to live and grow. Such freedoms can be fleeting. // 

21st century technology for recording images and 

sound has made it possible to capture and archive, to 

communicate over long distances. Such technologies 

have changed ones relationship to the all environments. 

With climate change and increased social instability, 

we should consciously record and cherish what is and 

what may not happen the same way again in the Arctic.

* Physics Today 73, 12, 44 (2020)

USING MEDIA TO ENHANCE AND 

COMMUNICATE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND 

ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH

By Alex Jansen

While at the Smithsonian Institution’s Artic Studies 

Center, I worked on the photo-documentation and 

digitization of museum collections, including the 

Koliktalik archaeological site finds from Labrador, 

Canada. I engaged with these objects not only from 

a scientific-point-of view, but also an aesthetic one. 

While using side lighting and a copy stand to highlight 

flake scars on chipped stone artifacts and textures 

on ground stone artifacts, I was able to illustrate 

the processes involved in the production of these 

artifacts. The use of these technologies built upon my 

understanding of these objects as an archaeologist 

by allowing me to engage with them on a more 

creative level. This work demonstrated the ability of 

photography, illustration, and other media to enhance 

our understanding of archaeological collections through 

close inspection with objects in addition to traditional 

methods of analysis and observation. This work also 

showed that we can enhance our understanding of past 

cultures by experiencing their technologies through the 

sensation of direct touch, which is usually not possible 

with the public’s exposure to museum collections. I 

also worked on the photo-documentation of museum 

events, bringing these experiences to the public and 

larger academic community.

In recent years, I have used photography, illustration, 

video, hydrophone recordings, and other media to 

INTERNS AND FELLOWS

Alex Jansen collecting sound
 ASC Newsletter 65

engage with cultural and natural environments. I 

worked with Chesapeake Bay Foundation documenting 

oyster growth using photo-documentation, underwater 

photography, video, and hydrophones and documented 

over two dozen species native to Chesapeake oyster 

reefs. I was able to capture the relationship between 

oyster growth, water quality events, and biodiversity, 

which provided considerable information on humanenvironmental impacts and oyster restoration. This 

research demonstrates how these technologies enhance 

our understanding of coastal and marine environments 

and explore issues of ocean conservation.

I have also combined these technologies with my 

archaeological background. I have utilized my 

archaeology training to research and document native 

and ancient drinks and other cultural traditions to 

show how the cultural and natural world can be 

experienced through the senses. I have utilized 

photography and other media to bring this process 

to the public through the development of sensory 

experiences and exhibitions that engage the viewer 

through sound, smell, touch, sight, and taste. I 

recently had a collaborative sound installation with 

Platform1 Gallery in London, England, in which 

viewers were able to engage with coastal and marine 

environments through a soundscape of hydrophone 

recordings from my research in Chesapeake Bay. 

These field recordings of polluted underwater 

environments captured a soundscape never 

experienced by the public. Exploring this soundscape 

gave people a way to directly experience human 

impacts like engine noise. This project included a 

companion audio album, Tracing Earth, allowing 

people to experience the installation outside the 

gallery.

This work serves as a foundation for my future research 

and demonstrates how these technologies help create 

exhibitions and sensory experiences that bring cultural 

and natural environments to the public in ways that 

affect them on a personal and emotional level.

EDITING A DEER STONE BOOK

By Olivia Box

As I was coming to the end of my master’s degree 

in forest ecology at the University of Vermont, I 

was looking for more ways to build my science 

communication skills. At UVM, I was researching the 

impacts of Asian longhorned beetle, an invasive pest 

that attacks maple trees, on forests in southern New 

England. My favorite part of the project was getting to 

collaborate with stakeholders, other researchers, and 

citizens. Science is stronger and more effective when

shared, and I increasingly felt myself pulled towards 

communicating science to the public. I freelanced 

for science and environmental outlets like JSTOR 

Daily Blog, The Counter, and Northern Woodlands. 

Throughout graduate school I had jumped at any 

opportunity to write about science or nature. I have 

always loved to write, but science writing blended the 

two things I was most passionate about. After perusing 

many job forums, I saw that the Smithsonian Arctic 

Newsletter had previously taken interns. I cold-emailed 

Bill Fitzhugh, who graciously responded and asked if I 

would like to help with an editing project. 

This past year, I worked remotely with Dr. J. 

Bayarsaikhan and Dr. Fitzhugh editing Bayaraa’s 

PhD dissertation, analyzing Mongolian deer stones 

and examining their historical significance, current 

discoveries, and theories. As someone with a keen 

interest in science writing, the editing experience 

I obtained was unmatched. Getting to edit a book 

manuscript was a unique experience for me—it was 

amazing to see how a field study of this magnitude 

came together and was refined for an audience. I had a 

writing professor who once told me that the more you 

edit someone else’s work, the better you become at 

writing. After this experience, I definitely agree with 

this statement. What I like most about editing is making 

a story clearer and even more compelling. Not only 

did I learn about deer stones and anthropological field 

methods, I also got to see how Bayara and Bill joined 

forces to tell an engaging story. I feel lucky to have 

been a part of helping this narrative come to life, and I 

look forward to seeing the final product!

Olivia Box
66 ASC Newsletter

BOOK REVIEWS

WATER—A BIOGRAPHY, by Giulio Bocaletti—

Pantheon Books, New York, 2021

Reviewed by Wilfred Richard

Giulio Bocaletti, the Chief Strategy 

Officer and Global Ambassador of 

Water at The Nature Conservancy, 

has produced a revelatory history, 

spanning continents and millennia, 

of how the distribution of water 

has shaped human civilization. 

Although somewhat of a pretentious 

title, Water is a compilation of how 

water as vapor, liquid, and ice has configured human 

culture through its dependency for sustenance in 

various conditions of land, water, and air. He identifies 

agriculture as the integrating cultural mechanism of 

these three physical states. 

For life to occur, the galactic-wide array of planets in 

our galaxy is dependent on solar gain and water. “...

Water vapor acts as an enormous blanket trapping 

outgoing heat: it is the principal greenhouse gas” that 

makes Earth habitable” (p.5). Instead of the moreor-less random acts of hunting and gathering, human 

settlement “was the true Faustian bargain that society 

made when it transitioned to stationary farming: it 

chose to tame an unstable, dynamic environment” 

(p.8). That diaspora occurred over a disparate planet 

subject to a multitude of climate factors, temperatures, 

and soils: “...water transfers vast amounts of 

energy from the surface of the planet, warming it. 

The energy involved with weather associated with 

those cycles of water can overwhelm all human 

activity” (p.10). But, as “...Homo sapiens, late in 

its history, decided to stay in one place, surrounded 

by a changing environment, it began to wrestle with 

water, an agent capable of destruction and life-giving 

gifts” (p.13). Fixed-in-place agri-cultures become 

established only where temperature, moisture, 

and soil conditions permit. Agricultural success of 

political states varies around the planet. Early on in 

the evolution of the state, “Farmers had to do a lot 

of work to transform the Mesopotamian Plain into 

[the first] viable environment for agriculture” (p. 

19). “Water was the only real source of power aside 

from human and animal force” (p.98). Continuing 

evolution of economic and political systems supplied 

the infrastructure for intensive agriculture to flourish. 

“The collision of finance and republicanism had led 

to state development strategies that framed decisions 

in economic rather in just legal terms” (p. 99). The 

course that was chosen pursued water as a public 

good. 

A point of confusion may arise in terms of social 

organization, which is central to the ability of a 

population to manage its water resources. Themed 

by chapter title, the author variously cites water 

management throughout human history, referring to 

the Hydraulic State, Res Publica, Water Sovereignty, 

Empire, Revolution, and Discontent. Throughout, 

political and social infrastructure must efficaciously 

manage its water resources for the public good. Both 

Europe and China “...demonstrated how command of 

landscape could define the use of water resources in 

the national interest” (p.101). “The modification of the 

landscape to manage water and increase agricultural 

productivity...was a political act” (p.109). “By 

becoming the dominant unit of social organization, the 

territorial nation-state became the pre-eminent human 

institution to wrestle with water’s power” (p.120). “By 

the time the nineteenth century was over, the United 

States had set itself up to become the most radical 

architect of water geography in human history” (p.135).

But not all continents and nation states have been 

blessed in terms of land and water. For example, Russia 

“...much further north than the United States...has 

about one-third of its land covered by permanent ice 

and frozen terrain” (p.155). Further south were arid 

landscapes. “With the exception of the Volga River, 

over 80 percent of the water of Russia flowed in the 

large Russian rivers that emptied into the Arctic Sea....

Seventy percent of people and economic activity were 

further south with less than 20m percent of the water 

resources of the country” (p.155). 

Utilizing scientific methods, producing food and 

managing land and water have been orchestrated to 

a significant magnitude in the relatively short period 

of time our species has resided on this planet....and 

by 2000, over six billion people lived on the planet, a 

fourfold increase in a single century” (p.168). Indeed, 

Bocaletti‘s Water: A Biography is an excellent record 

of global integration of land, water and the political 

which (so far) continues to sustain our world’s growing 

human population. But, I wonder, just how long do you 

suppose this will last?

After-thought: There are two waste products which 

have become encumbered in our food chain. Soiling 

land and water, Earth constitutes s closed ecosystem. 

But look at how modern civilization is abusing them. 

In the 1967 film, The Graduate, local community 

leader Mr. Robinson (Murray Hamilton) tells a young 

graduate Benjamin Braddock (Dustin Hoffman) 

that “the wave of the future is plastics”. Last week I 

was watching television and a quote was offered by 
 ASC Newsletter 67

Canada’s Federal Environment Minister, Catherine 

McKenna: “If we don't act, plastics will outweigh 

fish in our oceans by 2050.” This is certainly not what 

Mr. Robinson had in mind. Today, plastic certainly 

constitutes a primary threat to Earth’s ecology.

NORTHERN LIGHT: MY LIFE BEHIND A 

LENS, by Wilfred E. Richard—Smithsonian Arctic 

Studies Center and IPI Press, 2021, 201pp.

Reviewed by William Fitzhugh

For nearly fifteen years 

I worked with Will 

Richard as a partner on 

archaeological expeditions 

to the Quebec Lower 

North shore, researching 

Basque-Inuit contacts in 

the 16-17th centuries. 

Will volunteered to be the 

expedition photographer, 

but he was much more, 

and together we have 

published three books, 

the latest being this 

autobiography, which 

is a handsome volume 

describing his life and experiences around the globe, 

but mostly ‘up north’ in what we have come to call 

‘The Far Northeast’—from Maine to Greenland. 

Northern Light documents his early years growing up 

in northern New Hampshire, his stint in the Marine 

Corps in the Philippines, in the Peace Corps in 

Mauritius, as an economic development officer for the 

state of Maine. His life’s calling, however, grew out of 

adventure tourism company he started, which led him 

to kayaking in Quebec and expeditions to the Torngat 

Mountains in Labrador.

Will’s association with the Smithsonian began in 2001 

on the Quebec Lower North Shore, and from there 

he launched his own projects exploring Baffin Island 

and Greenland, where he became associated with Ann 

Andreasen, René Kristensen, Erik Torm, and others 

as research scholars of the Uummannaq Polar Institute. 

Will’s relationship with Uummannaq’s Children’s 

Home resulted in many student exchanges between 

Maine and Greenland, including visits and student 

performances at the Smithsonian.

Northern Light documents all these events in words 

and ‘behind the lens’, drawing the reader into the 

vibrant life of northern peoples and its magnificent 

landscapes, all of which are delightfully designed into 

this small book by designer-publisher Peter Mittenthal

of IPI Press. But the real message here is a plea for 

improving stewardship of the planet, especially as seen 

through the lens of northern indigenous peoples and 

their beliefs and practices. As Richard notes,

In my lifetime, global population has more than 

tripled. In 1940 the human population was 2.3 

billion; now it’s more than 7.8 billion. We have 

converted Planet Earth into a goods and services 

rendering machine. The value of that product has 

increased from 4.5 to 90 trillion dollars with a 

three-fold increase in population and a twenty-fold 

increase in consumption. We are depleting Earth’s 

environment and its life-support mechanisms. Now 

that we are digitally empowered to act as a single 

global community it is imperative we redress our 

desultory impact on our global home.

ORDER OUR NEWEST ASC CCA 

PUBLICATION!

OUR STORIES ETCHED IN IVORY / 

QULIP’YUGUT IKSIAQTUUMARUAT 

TUUGAAMI. THE SMITHSONIAN 

COLLECTIONS OF ENGRAVED DRILL 

BOWS WITH STORIES FROM THE 

ARCTIC. Edited by Amy Phillips-Chan—Arctic 

Studies Center, NMNH, Smithsonian Institution. 

Contributions to Circumpolar Anthropology Vol. 10. 

Washington, DC. 2021. ISBN: 978-0-578-90679-9. 

List Price: $19.95

Carved drill bows made from walrus tusks illustrating 

pictorial scenes of human figures hunting, dancing, 

and travelling, provide unique visual records of 19th 

century life in western Alaska. Combining history 

and art, these beautiful objects have been hidden in 
68 ASC Newsletter

Smithsonian storerooms for more than a century. 

Our Stories Etched in Ivory brings these remarkable 

‘story-books’ to life in a richly illustrated and 

elegantly designed book. The publication combines 

drill bow stories from the Smithsonian National 

Museum of Natural History and National Museum 

of the American Indian with oral histories gathered 

from 40 contemporary Alaska Native contributors 

from Point Hope, Kotzebue, Shishmaref, Nome, 

St. Michael, and Anchorage. Stories of hunting and 

community life are accompanied by illustrations of 

cultural heritage objects from the Carrie M. McLain 

Memorial Museum in Nome, Alaska. A foreword by 

Bernadette Y. Alvanna-Stimpfle, Yaayuk, offers 

insight into the self-recorded world of walrus ivory 

carvers while the introductory essay by Amy PhillipsChan draws upon collections studies, oral histories, 

and written texts to explore drill bow technology and 

the history of pictorial art in Arctic. The appendices 

offer detailed information on Smithsonian collectors, 

a glossary of carving materials, and a visual catalog 

of heritage objects engraved with pictorial scenes. 

The final section features a dictionary of almost 100 

engraved characters found on drill bows, from animals 

and objects to legends and activities. Our Stories 

Etched in Ivory prioritizes Indigenous knowledge and 

language by making space for community members to 

share their own stories and provides Inupiaq language 

names for places, animals, and objects. The publication 

marks a collaboration between the Smithsonian Arctic 

Studies Center, Carrie M. McLain Memorial Museum, 

and Bering Strait communities, to return Indigenous 

knowledge embedded within historical museum objects 

back to the Arctic.

[See Amy Phillips-Chan’s report on presenting this 

collaborative publication to the Nome community in 

our Alaska reports section.]

THE DAWN OF EVERYTHING: A NEW 

HISTORY OF HUMANITY, by David Graeber 

and David Wengrow—New York: Farrar, Strauss 

and Giroux 2021

Reviewed by John Cloud and Elisa Palomino

From the book’s title, the ambition of the authors 

was vast. The project began when the authors 

were professors of anthropology and archaeology, 

respectively, at the London School of Economics and 

University College, London. As they note:

“The research that culminated in this book began 

almost a decade ago, essentially as a form of play. We 

pursued it at first, it would be fair to say, in a spirit of 

mild defiance towards our more ‘serious’ academic

responsibilities. Mainly we were just curious about 

how the new archaeological evidence that had been 

building up for the last thirty years might change 

our notions of early human history, especially the 

parts bound up with debates on the origins of social 

inequality”. (p.521)

What eventually 

emerged was a 

doorstopper (692 pp.) 

that attempts to test 

historical and novel 

models of human 

social history against 

the cascades of 

recent archaeological 

research from every 

continent and a 

myriad of islands 

in every ocean. The 

foundational model 

they test is at the 

heart of myths of 

western civilization: 

the prehistoric realm 

of humans living in 

a ‘state of nature’, a 

state of innocence, but somehow, across many cultures 

that tell the story, that state was contaminated by sin, 

and innocence was lost. The more benign version of 

the story descends from Jean-Jacques Rousseau, 

in his “Discourse on the Origin and the Foundation 

of Inequality”, published in 1754. In his telling, all 

humans were originally hunter-gatherers, living in 

very small bands, The members were egalitarian, 

solely because the bands were small enough that they 

could be egalitarian. There was also a much darker 

version of the model, particularly associated with 

Thomas Hobbes’ treatise “Leviathan”, published in 

1651. Hobbes’ bands were also small, and not at all 

egalitarians; instead, their lives were: “solitary, poor, 

nasty, brutish, and short”. 

These social models of the Enlightenment developed 

in parallel with ever expanding European Imperialism. 

This brought Europeans in contact with a myriad of 

“others”, and the others had social models of their 

own. The authors condense and convey much of this 

encounter in the story of a Wendat (Huron) American 

philosopher-stateman, Kandiaronk, who travelled 

extensively in the 1690s as a key strategist of the 

Wendat Confederacy, a coalition of four Iroquoianspeaking people at the southern end of the Great Lakes. 

Kandiaronk traveled to Montreal, New York, and Paris, 

and he had a nuanced take on the societies of Europe. 

Back in North America, Kandiaronk was a participant 
 ASC Newsletter 69

in a series of bicultural salons in Montreal, which also 

included Louis-Armand de Lom d’Arce, Baron de 

la Hontan, a poor aristocrat who had become fluent 

in Algonkian and Wendat. Returning to Europe at 

the turn of the 18th century, Lahontan (as he became 

known) published a series of books on his American 

adventures. Then he wrote “Curious Dialogues with a 

Savage of Good Sense Who Has Travelled” (1703). 

The Savage’s name was fictional but was based on 

the observations of Kandiaronk. It created a sensation 

across Europe, as a very intelligent and incisive critique 

of Europeans and their entire social order. Eventually 

many members of the French Enlightenment 

published their own critiques, using different “others”: 

Montesquieu chose a Persian; Diderot a Tahitian; 

Chateaubriand a Natchez; Voltaire’s L’Ingenue was 

Wendat and French. In1747, the Parisian saloniste 

Madame de Graffigny published Letters of a Peruvian 

Woman—France as perceived by a captured Inca 

princess. It was a feminist landmark, noted by the 

authors, “in that it may well be the first European novel 

about a woman which does not end with the protagonist 

either marrying or dying”. (p. 59) Madame de 

Graffigny, preparing a later revised edition, asked the 

young economist A.R.J. Turgot to suggest changes. He 

replied that the natural freedom and equality of savages 

was illusory, as it could happen only when households 

were self-sufficient and hence all were equally poor. 

Progress could arise only through selective inequality. 

Eventually this led to Turgot’s four stages of economic 

development the world over: starting with hunters, then 

pastoralists, then farming, and finally urban commercial 

civilization. The impact of Turgot was profound. “In 

this way, theories of social evolution—now so familiar 

that we rarely dwell on their origins—first came to be 

articulated in Europe: as a direct response to the power 

of indigenous critique.” (p. 61)

This is the barest skeleton of the authors’ argument, 

upon which they hang hundreds of pages of examples 

and analysis, ranging from the Paleolithic to the 

Anthropocene, in cultures and cultural clashes all over 

the planet. The writing style is deliberately discursive, 

and arguments and additions resurface continually. 

There is much to be extracted from this volume, but it 

takes work. But we do note that, if you try to buy the 

book online, you will also find at least a half dozen 

publications purporting to be briefer summaries of the 

major arguments.

At this point in the review, we note what shows up 

in the first paragraphs of most reviews so far. Three 

weeks after the manuscript was finally completed, 

in 2020, David Graeber contracted a pancreatic 

infection, and within hours he was gone. Graeber was 

regarded as a leader in the protest movements for 

environmental, social, and economic justice and against 

the downsides of globalization. Graeber had explored 

how indigenous cultures contributed greatly to the socalled Western ideas of democracy and equality, and 

how these contributions have been erased from history. 

The anticipated multiple doorstopper sequels that “the 

two Davids” planned will never be written—at least by 

them.

One final example from the extant volume is 

particularly relevant in this perilous moment in 

Ukraine. Only in the 1970s did archeologists discover 

the neolithic “mega-sites” of Ukraine and Moldova, 

which were occupied from roughly 4,100 to 3,300 

BCE. The sites are large rings, almost entirely made 

of houses, without centralized government buildings 

or defensive structures or obvious sites for rituals. 

The large centers of the rings were empty, at least 

with regard to archaeological remains. Excavation 

of the houses reveal that people had rich and varied 

foodwebs, but, as the authors note: “over the eight 

centuries we find little evidence for warfare or the rise 

of social elites”. (p.294). Several of the mega-sites are 

now battlefields of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

KNUD RASMUSSEN: AMBASSADOR ON DOG 

SLED, by Knud Michelsen—Federation of Danish 

Associations in Canada, Ottawa, 2021

Reviewed by Igor Krupnik

We have been longing 

for this publication 

for quite some time 

and particularly for its 

appearance during the 

centennial of the Fifth 

Thule Expedition (FTE) 

of 1921–1924, led by 

Knud Rasmussen. 

We have partnered 

with its author, a 

Danish historian 

and Rasmussen’s 

great-nephew from 

Copenhagen, Knud 

Michelsen, since the 

beginning of our FTE 

centennial program 

in 2017. Michelsen has been a crucial driver of 

FTE centennial efforts, now in its fifth year, and he 

contributed to both the FTE centennial session held 

in Nome in February 2019 and to the collection of its 

proceedings published in 2021 (see ASC Newsletter

2019, 2020). Over the past 15 years, Michelsen has 

been meticulously researching the life and works of 
70 ASC Newsletter

his famous relative and then duly publishing books 

covering the subsequent phases of his life and career: 

his childhood years (Michelsen 2011), his early 

explorations in Greenland (Michelsen 2014), and later 

exploits, from the establishment of the Thule station in 

1910 to the beginning of the FTE in 1921 (Michelsen 

2018). Alas, these wonderfully rich volumes based on 

careful reading of Rasmussen’s letters, diaries, and 

other written sources were all produced in Danish, 

making their use by North America readers limited to 

those with Danish fluency. 

Rasmussen is of course a well-known figure to a 

broad swath of the North American public, thanks to 

the English translation of his book, Fra Grөnland till 

Stillehavet (1925) that was published as Across Arctic 

America. Narrative of the Fifth Thule Expedition, first 

in 1927 and later, in 1999, as well as to the monumental 

series, the Reports of the Fifth Thule Expedition. Yet, 

his many English-language biographies, including the 

most recent one by Stephen Bown (White Eskimo 2015) 

are mostly hagiographies aimed at general readers. 

Few are based on original research or veer beyond the 

familiar tropes and images of Rasmussen found in many 

publications. Having a new English-language overview 

of Rasmussen’s life based on his diaries, letters, and 

writings is truly a big deal, particularly for this FTE 

centennial year. We thank Michelsen’s Canadian 

publishers for releasing the book for this occasion.

Michelsen knows his subject perfectly; he also studied 

various archival sources in many countries, including 

Denmark, UK, Canada, and the U.S. His narrative of 

Rasmussen’s diverse endeavors is engaging. It flows 

easily and is illustrated by more than 70 historical 

photographs from the Danish Arctic Institute, the 

Danish National Museum, the Royal Library, and the 

author’s personal and family archives. Many images 

have never been published before; they create a 

remarkable visual ‘portfolio’ of Rasmussen in various 

stages of his illustrious life. Almost a third of the 192-

page book is dedicated to the planning and works of 

the FTE, starting from its very first outlines in the 

early 1900s through the team’s return to Denmark and 

Greenland in 1924. This book is a highly valuable 

resource to everyone interested in the FTE origin and 

its implementation, even if it lacks dozens of academic 

references and footnotes.

We are looking forward to seeing the next installment 

in Michelsen’s monumental venture, his fourth volume 

in the series, Rejsen til det oprindelige folk. Knud 

Rasmussens 5. Thule-ekspedition (“The journey to 

the original people. Knud Rasmussen's 5th Thule 

expedition”) which has been advertised for release by 

Aarhus University Press (Aarhus Universitetsforlag) 

in the last months of 2021. This new book is certain to 

generate a lot of attention across North America and 

hopefully will quickly find a publisher for an English 

translation. We will review it in the next issue of the 

ASC Newsletter. Stay tuned, as Michelsen’s journey in 

the footsteps of his great-uncle and the saga of the Fifth 

Thule Expedition continue. 

MENSCH UND NATUR IN SIBIRIEN (MAN 

AND NATURE IN SIBERIA), Erich Kasten, ed.—

Kulturstiftung Sibirien, 2021

Reviewed by Igor Krupnik

Erich Kasten, our 

German colleague and 

a one-person research 

powerhouse, continues 

his string of successful 

publications on 

ethnology, indigenous 

cultures, and languages 

of the people of 

Siberia and the Arctic. 

His “Kulturstiftung 

Sibirien,” (Foundation 

for Siberian Cultures) 

features an impressive 

list of books, collected 

volumes, catalogs, 

scholarly materials, 

and CDs on its 

website https://dh-north.org/themen/kulturstiftungsibirien/en. Over the past decade, the Foundation 

launched a slew of publication series. Its Bibliotheca 

Kamtschatica offers reprints of major historical sources 

on Kamchatka. Another series, Bibliotheca SibiroPacifica, produced new English reprints of all Siberian 

volumes from the Jesup North Pacific Expedition 

series, including the Chukchee, the Koryak, the Yakut, 

the Yukaghir and the Yukaghirized Tungus, with 

new introductions written by contemporary Siberian 

scholars. Most of the Foundation’s books are published 

in English and German, but several cultural and 

language materials for Siberian Indigenous users are 

produced in Russian.

The volume reviewed here is a German-language 

collection compiled and edited by Kasten; its full 

translated title is Man and Nature in Siberia. Ecological 

Knowledge and Sustainable Environmental Relations 

in the Time of Climate Change. The 330-page book 

contains 11 chapters (papers) and short Introduction by 

Kasten. The volume’s geography and the spectrum of 

Siberian Indigenous people it covers is rather broad—

from the Nenets in Yamal to the Sakha, Evenk, Even, 

and the Yukaghir in the Sakha Republic-Yakutia to the
 ASC Newsletter 71

Koryak in Kamchatka, and the Yupik and Chukchi in 

Chukotka. Several papers address the more general 

issues of life in Siberia under climate change, from 

hydrocarbon extraction and trade to ecological blogging 

on Indigenous social networks. Even more diverse is 

the list of volume authors—anthropologists, biologists, 

climatologists, local cultural activists, and subsistence 

users—who come from Russia, France, Germany, Japan, 

Finland, and USA, including Indigenous scholars, like 

Vyacheslav Shadrin (Yukaghir), Semen Gabyshev

(Evenk), and Vera Solovyeva (Sakha).

Some volume papers are German translations of the 

earlier English or Russian publications; but many 

present new studies of drastic changes observed in 

Siberian ecosystems, as well as their interpretations 

and adaptation strategies pursued by local people in 

several regions of Siberia. Japanese anthropologist 

Hiroki Takakura offers the first-ever assessment of the 

Sakha people views about extreme floods on the Lena 

River (with the glossary of 50+ Sakha terms). Yukaghir 

cultural leader, Vyacheslav Shadrin presents a concise 

overview of the modern Yukaghir interpretations of 

climate change in their native area, under the striking 

title, “Nature Stopped Trusting Us.” Alexander 

Volkovitsky and Alexandra Tereokhina, both from 

the Labytnangi Research Station in the Yamal-Nenets 

area, review the new risks to the Yamal Nenets herding 

economy from the rapidly transforming snow and ice 

regime. Vera Solovyeva, a recent Sakha Ph.D. graduate 

from George Mason University, introduces her study 

of the impact of climate change on the Sakha and Even 

subsistence practices in the Oymyakon ulus (district) of 

the northeastern Sakha Republic. In his paper about the 

Koryak perspectives on sustainable reindeer herding 

and fishing practices, Kasten assesses local knowledge 

he collected over 25 years among several dozen elders 

from many Indigenous communities in Kamchatka. 

These and other studies in the new collection offer much 

needed local perspectives on the impact of climate 

change on Indigenous people across Siberia. The 

Russian version of the book is due to be released in early 

2022; it would be a valuable source to environmentalists, 

educators, and local cultural activists working across the 

Siberian regions covered in the volume.

YUKAGIRSKIE TOSY (“THE YUKAGHIR 

TOS’ES”), by Nikolai Vakhtin—European 

University, St. Petersburg, 2021

Reviewed by Igor Krupnik

This book is a long-awaited study of the Yukaghir tosy 

(plural, sing. tos), mysterious pictographic writings or 

drawings (?) on pieces of birchbark produced by the 

Yukaghir, a small 

aboriginal nation 

in Northeast Arctic 

Siberia. The word 

tos literally means 

‘birchbark’ in the 

Yukaghir language, 

while the drawings 

are called shangar 

shorile (‘writings on 

the skin of a tree’). 

They first became 

known in 1894–

1895; the 30-some 

existing samples 

are preserved in 

various museum 

collections and have 

been published and reprinted numerous times over the 

past 125 years. The largest sample of these birchbark 

drawings, 25 altogether, was collected by Waldemar 

Jochelson (1855–1937) during his two major fieldwork 

periods in Northeast Siberia, on the Russian Sibiryakov 

expedition of 1894–1897 and, shortly after, on the 

Jesup North Pacific Expedition (JNPE) of the American 

Museum of Natural History in 1900–1902. The JNPE 

tosy ended up in the American Museum collections 

and were used as illustrations to Jochelson’s famous 

monograph on the Yukaghir (1926) published under the 

editorship of Franz Boas, the JNPE scientific leader. 

Nikolai Vakhtin, Russian linguist and cultural 

historian at the European University in St. Petersburg 

and our partner on the Jesup-2 project in 1992–2003, 

first encountered the tosy, as well as people who could 

read and produce them 90+ years after Yochelson, 

during his own fieldwork in the Yukaghir community 

of Nelemnoe. By that time, the skill of reading and 

making tosy was considered extinct. To Vakhtin’s and 

his peers’ surprise, one of the local Yukaghir residents 

named Vasilii Shalugin (1934–2002) demonstrated his 

ability to ‘read’ the tosy reproduced in Jochelson’s and 

other publications and even produced two new ones for 

the visiting scientists. The memory of that encounter 

had to wait for 33 years, until Vakhtin turned to his 

new book, an overview of all the information on the 

Yukaghir pictographs available in published sources, 

archival records, and museum collections.

Besides carefully reviewing the existing data on the 

Yukaghir and their tosy, Vakhtin—always a meticulous 

researcher—offers his analysis of their structure, 

meaning, main graphic elements (“glossary” of the 

images), and the full list of all known tos-writings in the 

form of small black-and-white drawings in the Appendix 

to his book. It was already known from earlier studies 
72 ASC Newsletter

that tosy existed in two versions—the ‘male’ ones, 

mostly graphic representations of hunters’ trips and maps 

of their subsistence grounds, and the ‘female’ ones that 

could be compared to pictographic ‘love letters’ drawn 

by young Yukaghir women to express their feelings 

to their soul mates and peers. According to Vakhtin’s 

analysis, these were two different forms of graphic 

representations; each used their distinctive graphic 

elements and symbols. He illustrated his arguments by a 

careful assessment of each element in his ‘glossary’ that 

can be also viewed as a ’primer’ to those who attempt 

to read and understand the meaning of the known 

tosy. His glossary is based on the information received 

from Shalugin in 1987, as well as on bits and pieces of 

explanations by earlier explorers and collectors.

Overall, the book delivers a punching message. Not 

only was the knowledge of the key elements of the tosy

writing preserved as unique pictographic ‘language’ 

much longer than it was believed (at least until the 

passing of Shalugin in 2002), but it turned out to be 

recoverable for the analysis, classification, and thus for 

reproduction long after the passing of the supposedly 

last people who knew how to use it. Like an ‘extinct’ 

language, the skills of the tosy reading and writing can 

be re-learned and recreated as an element of modern 

Yukaghir cultural heritage even if not as an authentic 

means of Indigenous communication. The story I heard 

from Vakhtin after his book was published was that 

some modern Yukaghir demonstrated their familiarity 

with the tosy drawings, as well as their ability to make 

such drawings themselves. Those heritage enthusiasts, 

but also researchers worldwide, will be forever grateful 

to a professor in St. Petersburg who took upon himself 

to summarize what has been known about this unique 

cultural practice and made it available for today’s 

readers to enjoy and replicate. 

TRANSITIONS

LYUDMILA AINANA, YUPIK EDUCATOR 

AND ACTIVIST (1934–2021)

By Igor Krupnik

Lyudmila Ainana, renown Russian Yupik educator, 

cultural and political activist, and keeper of the Siberian 

Yupik knowledge and language traditions passed away 

on July 2, 2021, in her home town of Provideniya in 

Chukotka, Russia. She was 86. Ainana—widely known 

by her Yupik name Aynganga—was the founder and 

the first president of the first-ever Siberian Yupik civic 

organization called “The Yupik Society” (1990–1999), 

until it was closed by the decree of the area authorities. 

She spent most of her childhood years in a small Yupik 

hamlet, a hunting camp near Cape Chaplin, and in the 

large Yupik community of Ungaziq. Without knowing 

a single word of Russian, she entered the village school 

at Ungaziq, where most classes were taught by Russian 

teachers, then the boarding school at the Russian area 

hub of Provideniya. A dedicated and gifted student, 

she moved on to attend five-year training at the 

Hertzen’s Pedagogical Institute in Leningrad (now St. 

Petersburg), the most prestigious Soviet teaching hub 

for Indigenous educators and cultural workers from 

across Siberia.

After graduation, Aynganga taught at several local 

schools in Chukotka before joining the staff of the 

Russian Institute ‘of the national issues in education,’ 

a rather cryptic title for an agency tasked to develop 

school curricula and teaching materials for myriad 

schools with non-Russian students across the former 

Soviet Union. For 15 years, she composed Yupik 

primers and language curricula, together with her few 

educated Yupik peers, until her life shifted dramatically 

with the advent of the so-called perestroika (restructuring) movement in the late 1980s. Following 

the founding meeting of the “Yupik Society” in 

Provideniya in August 1990 (which I attended), she 

never returned to her schoolwork, even though she 

always kept her passion for the Yupik language, 

literacy, and printed materials.

Aynganga’s ‘second life’ as a Yupik intellectual, 

political, and cultural leader, eventually the leader of 

her small nation lasted for 30 years. Since the 1960s, 

she interacted with almost every researcher who 

studied culture, language, and ecological knowledge 

of her native Siberian Yupik, including linguists 

Georgii Menovshchikov, Nikolai Vakhtin and 

Michael Krauss, archaeologists Sergei Arutyunov

and Michael Bronshtein, biologists Lyudmila 

Ayngaga (right) interviews Yupik Elder, Beda Slwooko

Avalaq in Gambell about the former connections between 

Chukotka and St. Lawrence Island Yupik. May 1999. Photo 

by Igor Krupnik
 ASC Newsletter 73

Bogoslovskaya, Igor Zagrebin, and Tom Albert, 

and ethnologists like Michael Chlenov, Dmitrii 

Oparin, and myself. Her exceptional role as a partner 

and knowledge expert was in her ability to personally 

relate to the many ‘cultural layers’ of her complex 

international network of Indigenous activists, more 

traditionally oriented Yupik hunters and Elders, as 

well as academics, journalists, and public figures of 

all stripes. Yet she remained a researcher herself, a 

thoughtful person, insightful about the mission of 

science in documenting and assisting Indigenous 

people in the preservation of their languages, cultures, 

and oral traditions.

I met Aynganga and worked with her on my first 

fieldwork among the Yupik of Chukotka in 1975; but 

our most extended partnership took place in 1998-

2002 during the NSF-funded project on Beringia 

(St. Lawrence Island-Siberian Yupik) heritage 

documentation. It brought us together to the Yupik 

communities of Gambell and Savoonga on St. 

Lawrence Island in spring 1999. She was a remarkable 

cultural interpreter and mediator, a passionate 

speaker, with deep knowledge of her native culture 

and language but eager to explore new venues to 

benefit her people, like agency-funded environmental 

monitoring, heritage and language documentation, 

community surveys, hunters’ observation of marine 

mammals, and much more. In her boundless energy 

and resourcefulness, she was the ‘army of one’ and 

the power to recon with. Her many friends mourn her 

passing; but it is an irrecoverable loss to her Yupik 

nation of 1800 people and to a small crop of Indigenous 

intellectuals across Siberia.

ROBERT PETERSEN (1928–2021)

By Igor Krupnik

Robert Karl Frederik Petersen, Greenlandic 

Inuit scholar, dialectologist, anthropologist, and the 

first rector of the Ilisimatusarfik, the University of 

Greenland, passed away on October 24, 2021. He was 

93. Robert was born in the town of Maniitsoq, formerly 

Sukkertoppen in West Greenland (Kitaa) and was 

trained as a schoolteacher at the Greenland seminary in 

Nuuk (Ilinniarfissuaq) and then in Denmark. In 1954–

1956 he taught at the same seminary but then changed 

his course to become a Greenlandic historian and, later, 

linguist and anthropologist. In 1967 he received the 

M.A degree at the University of Copenhagen, where 

he continued teaching Eskimo/Inuit language, history, 

and literature, and in 1975 he ascended to the position 

of professor of Eskimology at the same university, 

the first Greenlander to hold a professorship. With 

the establishment of Ilisimatusarfik (University of 

Greenland), originally as the Inuit Institute, he moved 

to Nuuk to become its first Director (1983) and then 

its first Rector (1987), until his retirement in 1995. He 

spent his last years in the city of Odense in Denmark.

Behind his quiet and humble appearance, was a man 

of remarkable scholarly prowess, who was universally 

admired by his many Greenlandic and Danish 

colleagues and students, as well as by Arctic scholars 

worldwide. He published numerous papers and several 

books, including Subsistence Hunting: the Greenland 

Case (1982) and Settlements, Kinship and Hunting 

Grounds in Traditional Greenland: A Comparative 

Study of Local Experiences from Upernavik and 

Ammassalik (2003). He conducted research in many 

areas in Greenland, also in Arctic Canada, and he was 

an internationally recognized authority on Greenlandic 

Inuit (Kalallit) history, literacy, orthography of 

the Greenlandic language (Kalallisut), cultural 

development, and Indigenous education. He received 

numerous awards, including an honorary doctorate 

from the Université Laval (1992) and Ilisimatusarfik 

(2010), the Greenland Culture Award (1993), and was 

elected to the Royal Gustavus Adolphus Academy for 

Swedish Folk Culture.

Although Robert did not participate in ASC activities, 

we knew him well and interacted regularly at many 

Arctic venues. He was the only Inuit contributor to 

the Handbook of North American Indians “Arctic” 

volume (Damas 1984), for which he authored 

four chapters: East Greenland Before 1950; East 

Greenland After 1950; Greenlandic Written Literature; 

and The Pan-Eskimo Movement. Sixty-five years 

prior to our Fifth Thule Expedition (FTE) centennial 

venue, he went with the H.J. Rink Expedition of 

1956 to Baffin Island, on the first organized exchange 

Robert Petersen at home in Odense, May 2013. 

Photo by Igor Krupnik
74 ASC Newsletter

between Greenlandic and Canadian Inuit, and in 1957 

he worked on an archaeological survey in Igloolik 

with Jørgen Meldgaard, thus re-tracking the FTE 

routes. In 1979, he published an overview of the FTE 

activities in a special issue of the journal Inuktitut

dedicated to Knud Rasmussen that appeared in three 

languages—English, Greenlandic, and Canadian 

Inuktitut.

I first met Robert at the 6th Inuit Studies Conference 

in Copenhagen in 1988, then at the 7th conference 

in Fairbanks, where the International Arctic Social 

Sciences Association (IASSA) was born. At the IASSA 

6th congress in Nuuk in summer 2008, Petersen 

received the association’s highest lifetime award, 

together with Tiger Burch and Ludger MüllerWille. I last saw Robert in May 2013, when I traveled 

to visit with him in his residence in Odense and to 

talk about his work with Tiger Burch in 1982 on 

the map of traditional Inuit ‘societies’ in Greenland 

in the early 1800s. That story, together with a more 

focused overview of Robert’s many contributions 

by Søren Thuesen, were published in our collection 

volume, Early Inuit Studies. Themes and Transitions, 

1850s–1980s (Krupnik 2016), where Robert’s name 

is cited in almost every chapter. He will be missed by 

his many international colleagues, but even more so 

by his people in Greenland, to whom he dedicated his 

illustrious life.

TATIANA P. ROON (1961–2021)*

By Bruce Grant and Anna Sirina

Scholars of Siberian 

ethnography and 

history of the Russian 

Far East mourn a 

friend and colleague, 

Dr. Tatiana Roon, 

who passed away in 

June 2021, just one 

month shy of her 

sixtieth birthday. Born 

in 1961 in the Soviet 

port town of Kholmsk 

on Sakhalin Island, just north of Japan, she went 

on to become one of the leading anthropologists of 

contemporary Indigenous life in the country’s eastern 

reaches, as well as one of its most prominent museum 

leaders.

Roon received her B.S. degree in history and 

anthropology in 1986 from Leningrad University’s 

Department of Ethnography, then returned to Sakhalin 

to take up lecturing at the local Pedagogical Institute 

in the regional hub, the city of Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk. 

In 1988 she joined the staff of the Sakhalin Regional 

Museum, eventually serving as its director from 2003 

to 2015. While leading that institution, she traveled 

widely to advance the museum’s collections, building 

a dynamic and robust international network. She 

modernized the museum’s physical space in a landmark 

building erected by the Japanese in the 1930s, upgraded 

its collections, and founded an open-air ethnographic 

museum on its territory. Prior to serving as director, 

she spent a postdoctoral year at the American Museum 

of Natural History in New York, working closely with 

the collections from the Jesup North Pacific Expedition 

from a century earlier.

An avid fieldworker, Roon’s regular and collaborative 

engagements with the Sakhalin Indigenous Uil’ta 

(Orok) people led to her most prominent Russianlanguage work, The Uilt’a of Sakhalin: An 

Ethnohistorical Study of Traditional Economy and 

Material Culture (1996). That book served as the 

basis for her (full) doctoral dissertation in 1997. 

She followed in 2010 with a broader monograph on 

Indigenous life across Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands, 

together with essays on the history of Russian and 

Soviet anthropology. These were among her many 

articles, translations, edited volumes, and a coauthored 

Russian-Uil’ta dictionary that reflected the very best 

of the longstanding Russian fieldwork tradition. 

From 2001 onwards, she gave her time generously 

to coordinate negotiations between Indigenous 

communities in the face of Sakhalin’s vast oil 

development. She is already much missed.

[Igor Krupnik]: We knew Tatiana Roon from many 

joint meetings in the 1990s and 2000s, when ASC 

scholars worked with their Russian partners on the 

Jesup-2 program (1992–2002) and on the MiniCrossroads traveling venues in four cities of the 

Russian Far East in 1996–1997. In 2000, Roon 

visited the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural 

History and studied our ethnographic collections from 

the Russian Pacific region and also historical photo 

collections, including the now famous Sakhalin Ainu 

photographs taken by Polish anthropologist Bronislaw 

Pilsudski in the early 1900s, now at the National 

Anthropological Archives (NAA). Her Russian paper 

on these collections published in 2000 remains the sole 

assessment of substantial ethnographic holdings at 

NMNH from this part of the world. 

*Adapted with authors’ permission from: Grant, Bruce 

and Anna Sirina. 2022. “Tatiana Petrovna Roon.” 

Anthropology News website, March 2, 2022. https://

www.anthropology-news.org/articles/tatiana-petrovnaroon/ 
 ASC Newsletter 75

JACQUES CINQ-MARS (1942–2021)

[Ed. note. This piece is 

adapted from CBC News 

Dec. 7, 2021. Jacques 

Cinq-Mars was one 

of the first Canadian 

archaeologists to question 

the “Clovis First” dogma 

that dominated North 

American archaeology 

until the 1970s, when he, 

Dennis Stanford, Robson 

Bonnichson, and others 

began to argue for pre-Clovis. His work followed in 

the footsteps of Richard MacNeish, famous for his 

Engigstciak Yukon research, and his University of 

Toronto mentor, Bill Irving. Controversy still exists 

about whether the bones he found record human 

activity. Jacques’ son Eric contributed to this profile.]

Jacques Cinq-Mars was a man known for his research 

in some of the more remote parts of the Yukon, where 

he found evidence of humans in Yukon's Bluefish Caves 

indicating that human beings set foot in North America 

much earlier than originally thought, possibly as early as 

24,000 years ago, twice as old as the accepted age.

Cinq-Mars worked for the Canadian Museum of 

History and began his many research trips in the 

Old Crow area beginning in the early 1970s. That's 

when Elder William Josie of the Vuntut Gwitchin 

First Nation in Old Crow, Yukon, first met him. Josie 

was around 12 or 13 years old at the time. Josie said 

Cinq-Mars got along well with the locals he met and 

that his research helped his community's land claim 

negotiations. “It really helped us, you know,” he said. 

“Our people, we took less money for more land, and 

that means a lot to us. And, you know, the elders of 

that time said, we won't regret it. And we definitely 

don't today.” Josie described him as a “very passionate 

guy...He sort of took us under his wing and he taught 

us a lot. I really appreciate that.”

A colleague of Cinq-Mars, Yukon archaeologist Ruth 

Gotthardt, said she first met Cinq-Mars in 1975, 

while she was an undergraduate at the University of 

Toronto. Cinq-Mars and Bill Irving had just started up 

the Northern Yukon Research Program. Gotthardt said 

she wasn't surprised when Cinq-Mars announced the 

findings at Bluefish dated to 24,000 years ago. “We were 

all thinking, this is really worth entertaining that human 

beings came not after the last ice age, but you know, 

during the last ice age at some point, and we figured, 

well, why not?...He had the kind of scholarly energy 

that encourages others to do research and expand the 

research, that’s what I remember about him.”

FLOYD KUPTANA (1964–2021)

By Richard D. Mohr

Carver, painter, and 

collage artist, Floyd 

Kuptana, 57, died on 

the streets of Toronto in 

the early hours of May 

27, 2021. His social 

worker with Toronto’s 

Street Survivors 

Program reports that the 

police say they found no 

evidence of violence or 

suspicious activity. His current gallerist reported that 

he had been drinking more heavily than usual the last 

few days. He was often in and out of hospitals, police 

vans, and rehab centers. He was known to have heart 

problems. His life and art were as unusual and untidy 

as they were intense.

He was born in 1964 at the Cape Parry DEW Line 

station, where, in 1959, the settlement of Paulatuk, 

NWT, moved lock, stock, and priest for a decade. His 

father worked at the station; his mother taught English 

in the hamlet school. English was spoken in the home. 

His ancestors were Yupik and Inupiat who had move 

east from Alaska in the late 19th century with the last 

vestiges of the whaling industry. 

Born into a family of carvers, he was carving on his 

own as early as 1991. He displayed carvings in Toronto 

in 1993, before moving there for good in 1996. In an 

interview with Toronto’s ‘That Channel’, he reported the 

reason he moved south was to avoid family violence. 

He was raped by a family member and had also been 

abused in the Catholic residential school in Inuvik. His 

relations with friends, gallerist, and ‘saviors’ were often 

fraught. Though many people were repulsed by him and 

his work, others loved him, but he found that difficult 

to register. His social worker reports sadly that “He was 

never given an opportunity to be loved or show affection 

to himself.” Still, he was prolific.

In spring 2008 he snagged the cover of Inuit Art 

Quarterly as part of a portfolio presentation of his 

carvings to date—an unsettling mix of whimsy and 

horror. His carving can be found at the Museum 

Cerny in Bern, Switzerland. In 2010, he began a 

long but rocky association, as a satellite artist, with 

Toronto’s noncommercial Gallery Arcturus, which 

would always provide him coffee, food, and a few 

bucks, and, if he showed up at least partially sober, 

studio space. There, that year, while continuing to 

carve, he began painting in acrylics. In 2012, he 

added collage to his toolkit. 
76 ASC Newsletter

Many of the two-dimensional works move into the 

realm of the uncanny and the grotesque, a realm made 

all the more disconcerting with brash colors and 

allusions to pop culture and art history. Van Gogh was 

his favorite artist, as much for that artist’s life as his 

works. Kuptana’s own graphic work seamlessly fused 

traditional Inuit themes of shamanistic transformation 

with graphic techniques of the cubists. Both his life and 

work bear strong family resemblances to Outsider Art 

and artists. 

The paintings and collages were gradually beginning 

to gain critical recognition, with articles on them 

appearing in Inuit Art Quarterly (Toronto), The 

Outsider (Chicago) and Kolaj (Montreal). He is 

survived by three famous cousins, all also urban Inuit 

carvers: Bill Nasogaluak; Abraham Anghik Ruben, 

OC; and David Ruben Piqtoukun, Kuptana’s principal 

mentor.

Kuptana would often go panhandling outside five-star 

hotels in Toronto, even when he didn’t need the money. 

Eron Boyd, Gallery Arcturus’ manager, says that 

Kuptana called it “urban hunting.”

EDITH DIETZ, SMITHSONIAN 

CONSERVATOR (1924–2022)

By The Dietz Family, Michele Austin-Dennehy, and 

David Rosenthal

Beloved Mother, 

Granny, Aunt, and 

Friend Editha “Edith” 

Sophia Maria Piesch 

Dietze passed away 

March 3, 2022, at 

age 97. Born on July 

6, 1924, in BielskoBiala, Poland (formerly 

Bielitz), Edith was the 

epitome of the Greatest Generation. A life-long lover of 

learning, she began her education at the Catholic school 

of the Cathedral of St. Nicholas in her small Polish 

town. Her tendency towards mischief resulted in her 

dismissal from French class after an incident involving 

a spitball and a nun. 

The onset of World War II changed the trajectory of 

her life forever. At 17, she became a nurse for the 

International Red Cross and worked in field hospitals 

throughout Poland. The oldest of four siblings, at the 

end of the war she had no idea of her family’s fate. She 

was able to escape the Russian invasion of Poland, but 

later found out that her father perished in a Russian 

gulag in Siberia. She traveled alone to Munich where 

she enrolled in nursing school through the Bavarian 

Red Cross. She met and fell in love with Dr. Claus 

Jochen Dietze at the hospital where they both worked. 

They were married in Munich in 1949 and gave birth to 

their first son, Holger, in 1950.

In 1952, they emigrated to Norfolk, Virginia. Edith 

learned to speak English by going to the same movies 

over and over. She gave birth to twins, Ralph and 

Monika Dietze, in 1954 in Mt. Pleasant, Iowa. Soon 

after, they moved to Winchester, Massachusetts, where 

she combined her love of people and entertaining 

to start a cooking class at the International Student 

Center in Cambridge. They finally settled in Vienna, 

Virginia, where they raised their family. Edith was 

passionate about ancient history and art, and in 1966 

she began taking classes at the Corcoran School of Art 

in Washington D.C. 

She graduated from George Washington University 

with a master’s in Museum Studies in 1978 at age 

54. Inspired by the Smithsonian’s Carolyn Rose, 

who modernized Anthropology’s Conservation 

Laboratory, she then began an illustrious 30-year 

career as a conservator at the Smithsonian National 

Museum of Natural History (NMNH). Edith spent a 

summer in Siena, Italy, working on Etruscan material. 

She supported the conservation of ceramics from 

Gus Van Beek’s Tell Jemmah, Syria. In 1976, along 

with other staff and volunteers,she conserved a 6 x 

9 foot polychrome floor mosaic from a first century 

Carthaginian temple that was severely damaged 

during moving. The conservation began in June, 

1976, and took more than 16 months. Edith also 

did field work conserving mosaics in Carthage with 

Margaret Alexander. While at NMNH, she worked 

on exhibitions including Magnificent Voyagers: The 

US Exploring Expedition (1985), Crossroads of 

Continents: Cultures of Siberia and Alaska (1996), 

Ainu: Spirit of a Northern People (1999), Vikings: 

The North Atlantic Saga (2000), Hawaiian Treasures: 

Celebrating the Indigenous Peoples of Hawaii (2004). 

She also conserved many Egyptian objects including 

a full-sized bull mummy. Edith worked on many 

NMNH exhibit hall projects and SITES traveling 

exhibits over the years helping to bring conservation 

into the consciousness of NMNH staff—all of which 

she did with intelligence and unbounded wit. You did 

not leave a conversation with Edith without a smile on 

your face! 

Edith Dietze was resilient, poised, and one-of-a-kind. 

She had an insatiable enthusiasm for knowledge and 

learning. Her surviving family will miss her and her 

unwavering sense of humor. She was an inspiration to 

all. Her extraordinary life will forever be cherished by 

her family.
 ASC Newsletter 77

SERGEI SEROTETTO: REINDEER 

NOMADISM AS PROFESSION, LIFESTYLE, 

PASSION AND LOVE (1954–2021)

By Florian Stammler 

The news coming from 

Arctic Russia was a 

shock: It was last year 

when we celebrated 

Sergei Serotetto’s 66th

birthday in his nomadic 

camp in the Yamal 

Peninsula, surrounded 

by his family of three 

generations. Sergei, 

who unexpectedly passed away in May 2021 was 

one of the best-known Nenets reindeer herders in 

the former Soviet Union, in post-Soviet Russia, and 

maybe across the Arctic. He was once among the 

very few herders invited to the All-union congress 

of the Communist Party, but he declined. He let the 

Communist bosses know that he was too busy herding 

his reindeer. A decade later, he was among the first 

Indigenous herders who hosted international visitors, 

including the Smithsonian-led team of Bill Fitzhugh, 

Sven Haakanson, Andrey Golovnev, Natalya 

Fedorova, and others. He became known worldwide 

thanks to the beautiful photographs taken by famous 

Arctic photographer Bryan Alexander. He was at 

the founding congress of the World Reindeer Herders 

Association in Nadym, Russia in 1998 and, in his 

active position within the Association travelled to many 

other reindeer herding areas across the Eurasian Arctic, 

including in Russia, Finland, Sweden, and Norway. 

As an ‘exemplary Arctic herder,’ Sergei also turned into 

a TV star. A joint Irish and the National Geographic 

documentary, with him as a principal character won 

the “Spirit of the Festival Award” at the Celtic Film 

Festival in 2003. In 2006, I chose him and his family as 

the ambassadors of the Arctic nomadic way of life for 

the BBC/Discovery series Tribe that was watched by 

more than 40 million people worldwide. Intellectually, 

Sergei shaped research and careers of many a scholar 

of his native Yamal Nenets people, and thus made a 

significant impact on studies of nomadic pastoralism, 

Arctic indigenous people, and Arctic anthropology, in 

general. The doctoral theses by Andrei Golovnev, Sven 

Haakanson, myself, Ellen Inga Turi, Roza Laptander, 

and others would have never been as rich in detail if not 

for the input from Sergei and his family. He was a great 

supporter of our research, both practically by hosting 

many of us in his nomadic camp, and theoretically 

via rich and insightful conversations, and sharing his 

wisdom in narratives that helped make Nenets culture 

understandable to the non-Nenets visitors. 

I guess his principal motivation for such openness 

to outsiders was his curiosity for the world, his 

intellectual drive to learn about different environments 

and people, in combination with his personal warmth 

and a never-ending hospitality. He also thought that a 

positive publicity about the Nenets way of life would 

help make the case for preserving Nenets reindeer 

nomadism amid active industrial development of 

his home Yamal area. As a professional, he always 

maintained that everyone should attend to the job one 

did best and thus was reluctant to serve as a co-author 

on scholarly publications even when invited. “You can 

do that writing and I am good at reindeer herding.” And 

he was so good at his professional job! For decades, 

he has been the head of the world’s largest reindeer 

herding team, the Yar-Sale herding ‘brigade’ No.8 that 

included a camp of 8 nomadic tents (chums) and up to 

8,000 reindeer in peak years. 

Sergei was convinced that a combination of traditional 

tundra skills acquired by a living teaching by wise 

Elders and formal education in town was the right mix 

needed to lead a successful nomadic way of life. He 

continued to pursue this approach for his own children 

and grandchildren. In his large extended family, all 

children are well educated, including his son Lev, a 

certified veterinarian, who now inherits the big herd 

and his father’s camp. Those of us honored by his 

friendship may confirm that in his family you would 

never feel that the Nenets nomadic life would ever 

cease. Sergei has taught his extended family how to 

weather almost any adverse effects—be it icing of the 

tundra pastures, industrialization, political change, 

reindeer disease, or social pressure. 

In this way, Sergei Serotetto also made a lasting 

contribution to deconstructing the image of 

‘marginalized’ and ‘vulnerable’ Indigenous people, the 

perceived victims of external stressors, such as climate 

change, oil and gas development or new Russian state 

capitalism. Staying with his family, joining it on its 

nomadic routes, and listening to Sergei’s stories offered 

a very different narrative, one of enthusiasm, passion, 

love for this way of life, toughness and stamina, but 

also of wisdom to change things that you can and 

accept those you cannot. Sergei was buried at his clan 

cemetery in the Yamal tundra. His departure is a big 

loss for the Nenets reindeer nomadism, the scholarly 

community interested in Yamal, but first and foremost 

for his extended family. May Sergei’s energy and spirit 

live on through them in continuing his legacy.

[Adapted from ‘Arctic Anthropology’ website; See also 

Arctic 2021 74(3):405-6]
78 ASC Newsletter

2021 ASC STAFF PUBLICATIONS

Crowell, Aron L.

Preface: A Western Arctic Perspective on the Fifth 

Thule Expedition. Alaska Journal of Anthropology 

19(1-2):3-5.

Whaling and Whale Spirits in the Western Arctic: Notes 

from the Fifth Thule Expedition. Alaska Journal of 

Anthropology 19(1-2):108-126.

Crowell, Aron and Krupnik, Igor, eds.

From Greenland to the Pacific: Celebrating the 

Centennial of the Fifth Thule Expedition, 1921–1924. 

Special issue, Alaska Journal of Anthropology 19 

(1–2): vi+269 p

Biddison, Dawn

Material Traditions: Voices from Cedar (12-part 

DVD set). Directed and edited by Dawn Biddison. 

Filmed by Anna Hoover and Dawn Biddison. SI/

ASC, 2015/2021. https://learninglab.si.edu/q/ll-c/

nc0613FJwtEe94ga#r/45139 

Conversations: Challenges to Inuit Art Sovereignty

(video). Directed and edited by Dawn Biddison. 

SI/ASC, 2021. https://learninglab.si.edu/q/ll-c/

Clw3cYbEU4OHtTQJ. 

Conversations: Activating Inuit Art Sovereignty

(video). Directed and edited by Dawn Biddison. 

SI/ASC, 2021. https://learninglab.si.edu/q/ll-c/

AoO8Ze3hYucQstFN 

Conversations: Learning Across Generations and 

Back (video). Directed and edited by Dawn Biddison. 

SI/ASC, 2021. https://learninglab.si.edu/q/ll-c/

H87ZA0Bl6iPdvynu 

Conversations: Music within Inuit Cultures and 

Languages (video). Directed and edited by Dawn 

Biddison. SI/ASC, 2021. https://learninglab.si.edu/q/

ll-c/TcV50KdP2njsMgFi#r/56851 

Conversations: Inuit Identities and Vitalization (video). 

Directed and edited by Dawn Biddison. SI/ASC, 2021. 

https://learninglab.si.edu/q/ll-c/tOxzN1DgfXlBI528 

Conversations: Queer Inuit Art (video). Directed 

and edited by Dawn Biddison. SI/ASC, 2021. https://

learninglab.si.edu/q/ll-c/vmlZQ5gsYh4ER1r3 

Cultural Appreciation vs. Cultural Appropriation: 

A Conversation with Alaska Native Artists

(video). Directed and edited by Dawn Biddison. 

SI/ASC, 2021. https://learninglab.si.edu/q/ll-c/

Ha7AjCcnSBrgNbJt#r/44789 

Land Acknowledgement: A Conversation with Melissa 

Shaginoff (video). Directed and edited by Dawn 

Biddison. SI/ASC, 2021. https://learninglab.si.edu/q/

ll-c/ZmA0LJFow4xHjk7d#r/41137.

Driscoll Engelstad, Bernadette

2020 Averting Animal Crashes: Function and 

Symbolism in Arctic Clothing Design. Arctic Crashes: 

People and Animals in the Changing North, edited 

by Igor Krupnik and Aron L. Crowell, pp. 235-253. 

Washington, DC: Smithsonian Scholarly Press, 

Inuit Cultural Heritage: Museum Collecting before 

the Fifth Thule Expedition. Alaska Journal of 

Anthropology 19(1-2): 70-90.

Art et symbolisme: la parka des femmes inuit de 

l'Arctique oriental americain. Les Fils de Sanna: Inuit 

de l'Arctique, eds. Mélanie Moreau et Céline Petit, La 

Rochelle, FR : musée du Nouveau Monde.

Harry Egotak. Inuit Art Quarterly, Winter 2021: 

34(4):60-61.

Qaumajuq at the Winnipeg Art Gallery. https://www.

smithsonianmag.com/travel/groundbreaking-newcenter-unveils-worlds-largest-collection-of-inuitart-180977469/

Fitzhugh, William W.

From Adaptation to Niche Construction: Weather as a 

Winter Site Selection Factor in Northern Mongolia, the 

Quebec Lower North Shore, and the Southern Urals. 

Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 61:101258. 

(by I. Chechushkov, I. Valiakhmetov, W. Fitzhugh)

An 1820s Farm in the Fairlee Forest, Vermont. Journal 

of Vermont Archaeology 15:68-94. 2021.

Reflections on the Fifth Thule Expedition Centennial. 

In “From Greenland to the Pacific: Centennial of the 

Fifth Thule Expedition, 1921-1924,” a double issue 

of Alaska Journal of Anthropology 19(1-2):264-269. 

2021.

Khyadag and Zunii Gol: Animal Art and the Bronze to 

Iron Age Transition in Mongolia. Vestnik 66(3):908-

933. St. Petersburg. 2021. (with co-author J.A. 

Bayarsaikhan)
 ASC Newsletter 79

Northern Light: My Life Behind a Lens, by Wilfred E. 

Richard. Edited by W. Fitzhugh and Gracie Ramsfield. 

201 pp. Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center and IPI 

Press. 2021.

The Martin North River Site and the Saunders Phase 

in Labrador. Provincial Archaeology Office Annual 

Review 19:62-74. St. Johns, Newfoundland. 2021.

Notes on a Siberian Museum Tour, 12-26 March, 1990. 

Reprinted from Frame of Reference 2(1):25-33 (1991) 

as “Crossroads Siberia,” in Forum, Journal of the 

Alaska Humanities Foundation 5:25-33, Winter 2021-

2022. 2021.

Editor: Arctic Studies Center Newsletter, 28. 2021.

Krupnik, Igor

Competing Arctic Paths: “Cohort” Approach to the 

Fifth Thule Expedition Legacy. Alaska Journal of 

Anthropology 19 (1–2): 91–106. 

Smithsonian Arctic ethnographic collections: Gateways 

to the Arctic or a path to its people? Vestink AGIKI 

[Proceedings of the Arctic Institute of Culture and 

Arts]. 10(1):78–84. Yakutsk, Sakha Republic (in 

Russian)

Running Up the Arctic Information Highway 

(Foreword). In Library and Information Studies for 

Arctic Social Sciences and Humanities. Spencer Acadia 

and Marthe Fjellestad, eds. London and New York: 

Routledge, pp.xxxiv-xxxix.

Arctic Sea Ice as cultural “scape”—In Geografiia i 

ekologiia kultury. Sokhranenie naslediia. [Geography 

and Ecology of Culture. Heritage Preservation]. Yu. 

Vedenin and Yu. Badenkov, eds. pp.44–57. Moscow (in 

Russian).

Harper, Kenn and Igor Krupnik

From Greenland to the Pacific: Celebrating the 

Centennial of the Fifth Thule Expedition, 1921–1924 

(Introduction). Alaska Journal of Anthropology 19 

(1–2):6–22

Krupnik, Igor and Martin Schultz

Dispersal and Reunion: The Saga of the “Vega” 

Expedition Chukchi Collection, 1878–2020. Archiv fur 

Weltmuseen vol.69, pp.106–137.

Krupnik, Igor and Ljudmila Bogoslovskaja

Unser Eis, unsere Schnee und unsere Winde: Von 

Wissens-“Integration” zur Wissend-“Korpoduktion” in 

russischen SIKU-Projekt, 2007–2013 [Our Ice, Snow, 

and Winds: From Knowledge Integration to Knowledge 

Co-Production in the Russian SIKU Project, 2007–

2013]. In Mensch und Natur in Siberien, Erich Kasten, 

ed. Verlag der Kulturstiftung Sibirien, pp.175–198 

(German translation).

Pratt, Kenneth L.

A 1925 Epidemic in the Lower Yukon, Alaska. Arctic 

Studies Center Newsletter 28:7-11. Smithsonian 

Institution, National Museum of Natural History, 

Washington, DC.

Tracking Nayagnir: A Shaman's Encounters with 

Murder, Western Law, the Lomen Brothers Company, 

and Knud Rasmussen. Alaska Journal of Anthropology 

19(1&2):141-159.

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This newsletter was edited by William Fitzhugh, 

Igor Krupnik, Stephen Loring, Aron Crowell, Dawn 

Biddison and Nancy Shorey. 

Designed and produced by

Nancy Shorey, Fiona Steiwer, and Igor Chechushkov