Newsletter

Smithsonian Institution National Museum of Natural History

May 2020 https://naturalhistory.si.edu/research/anthropology/programs/arctic-studies-center Number 27

NOTES FROM THE DIRECTOR

By William W. Fitzhugh

This past year the Smithsonian set out with a new 

leader, Secretary Lonnie G. Bunch III, installed on 

16 June. Lonnie was catapulted to the position by 

his phenomenal success as founding director of the 

National Museum of African American History and 

Culture, creating the museum out of whole cloth 

beginning in 2005. The NMAAHC is a sensational 

success, engaging audiences that have never visited 

the Smithsonian. Before 

NMAAHC, Bunch 

served as director of 

the Chicago Historical 

Society (2001–2005) and 

in various positions at 

the Smithsonian before 

that. 

The new Secretary has 

already indicated his 

emphasis on outreach 

and education, especially 

to under-served 

audiences. Recently 

he pitched in for a 

trial partnership with 

the Victoria and Albert 

Museum in London, 

which is building a 

new V&A East facility 

in Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. The collaboration 

includes a Smithsonian exhibit space dedicated to the 

themes of people in the environment, sustainability, and 

adaptation, with a focus on youth education.

This year saw other important developments for the 

ASC, most importantly the signing of a new Memo of 

Understanding with the Anchorage Museum carrying 

us forward to December 2024. The content of the 

document is virtually the same as previously (see Aron 

Crowell on MOU in this issue), providing the ASC 

Anchorage office with space and administrative support 

for our research and education programs in return for 

SI collaboration with Anchorage Museum projects 

and exhibition, including the Living Our Cultures 

exhibition. What has changed is the administrative 

structure on the SI side. The new document is no 

longer a straight NMNH-AM agreement. Recognizing 

the large stake in our Alaska programs, the National 

Museum of the American Indian is a co-signer. This 

change recognizes the larger role the Anchorage office 

is now playing across the Smithsonian, as you will 

recognize in the following reports from Aron Crowell 

and Dawn Biddison. We are grateful to Kirk Johnson 

and Kevin Gover, John Davis, the SI Office of the 

General Counsel, and 

others who contributed 

to the new agreement. 

The Alaska office of 

the ASC was pleased 

to share news of the 

new MOU with the 

Smithsonian National 

Board (SNB) during 

its meeting and tour in 

Alaska this past July 

(see Crowell on SNB in 

this issue).

Other notable 

developments of the 

past year include the 

continued warming of 

the Arctic, now inching 

upward beyond “two 

times faster than the rest of the world” and having 

major impacts on Arctic environments, peoples, and 

cultures, as noted in Igor Krupnik’s article on this 

year’s “Arctic Report Card.” The launch of the German 

Polarstern MOSAiC (Multidisciplinary drifting 

Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate) drift 

expedition will give scientists their first chance to study 

the oceanography of the polar basin in a comprehensive 

and more controlled way, hopefully, than Nansen’s 

Fram drift in 1893–1896.

Closer to home, ASC has been busy with numerous 

projects. The narwhal exhibition closed at NMNH 

in January 2020. It will be sent off in June for two

Igor Krupnik completed his first year as Chair of the 

Smithsonian’s Department of Anthropology and received the SI 

Secretary’s Distinguished Scholar Award for 2019. 

Photo by Libby Weiler
2 ASC Newsletter

years as a redesigned SITES (Smithsonian Institution 

Traveling Exhibition Service) presentation with its 

messages about the still-mysterious and iconic Arctic 

‘sea-unicorn’, climate change, and Inuit collaboration 

with scientists. Planning continues for a new SITES 

boreal forest show, as well as a novel Victoria & 

Albert Museum Smithsonian gallery. Our exhibition 

in Anchorage survived the November 30, 2018, 7.1 

quake with flying colors—a tribute to the fine design 

and care taken by our NMNH and NMAI installers and 

conservators, several of whom returned for a week the 

following spring to assess collection status. Only a few 

pieces shifted in their mounts, while the cases suffered 

a few cracks (see “Earthquake Repairs to the Living 

Our Cultures exhibition,” ASC Newsletter 26: 8-10), 

2019). Case repairs were completed swiftly, and the 

hall re-opened in time for the summer tourist season.

One of the highlights of the year was a December 

symposium organized by Igor Krupnik to commemorate 

the 150th anniversary of 

John Wesley Powell’s 

1869 Grand Canyon 

expedition. Powell—the 

founder of the USGS, 

the BAE, and several 

other Washington-based 

organizations, had a very 

good year in 2019, as 

did his descendants, who 

took part in USGS reenactments in Colorado 

and in D.C., as well as 

at the Smithsonian. Two 

days of talks and tours 

of the Cosmos Club 

reunited descendants, 

Powell scholars 

including Kay and Don 

Fowler and Curtis 

Hinsley, and others who 

met with SI staff for the first time in years.

Research proceeded a-pace. Stephen Loring and Tony 

Jenkinson documented ancient Maritime Archaic 

sites on Lake Mistastin in northern Labrador and Bill

Fitzhugh, Brad Loewen, and Erik Phaneuf found 

new Basque land and underwater sites in St. Paul on 

the Quebec Lower North Shore, where they excavated 

an 18th-century Inuit house that had been attacked and 

burned. Igor was honored by receiving the Secretary’s 

Distinguished Scholar Award for which he presented 

an inspiring SI-wide lecture, Igor and Aron have been 

working hard over the last year to bring the Arctic 

Crashes volume to publication (now expected by 

June 2020). Igor also worked with Martin Schultz

at the Etnografiska Museet in Stockholm to explore 

an important historical collection from the Chukchi 

Peninsula assembled during the Vega expedition of 

1878–1879. Aron and geologist Chris Maio (University 

of Alaska Fairbanks) with colleagues from UAF, 

Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, and Texas 

A&M University published a geoarchaeological study 

of the Kenai Peninsula coast in the Journal of Coastal 

Research (see fieldwork account in ASC Newsletter

23:8-11, 2016), and Aron continued a study with 

biologist Thomas Helser (National Marine Fisheries 

Service, NOAA) on North Pacific ocean temperatures 

over the last 6,000 years, based on isotopic analysis of 

archaeological cod otoliths. John Cloud and Bernadette 

Engelstad took part in conferences on Tlingit history 

and cartography, and Canadian Inuit clothing art, 

respectively. Igor continued corralling Danish and 

Canadian colleagues for a forthcoming celebration of 

the Fifth Thule Expedition (FTE, 1921–1924), and 

with Aron Crowell, Stephen Loring, and Bernadette 

Engelstad took part in 

the first FTE conference 

in Nome at the Alaska 

Anthropology meetings, 

the first of several events 

planned for the FTE 

centennial era.

A final note: In this 

issue, you will find that 

traditional boats are a 

recurring theme. Arctic 

watercraft have been 

popping up everywhere 

recently following our 

accessioning of an intact 

St. Lawrence Island 

skin boat (angyapik) to 

the NMNH collection 

two years ago. The 

accession was timely, 

given the soon-to-be-released book, Bark and Skin 

Boats of Northern Eurasia by Harri Luukkanen and 

me in September 2020. And this NL issue includes 

several articles about skin boats from Alaska and East 

Greenland.

And as a ‘final’ final note, thanks to all who 

contributed to our work this year, including especially 

Nancy Shorey who facilitated much of what we do, 

assisted by Zaborian Payne, and Michelle Reed, 

our staff artist, Marcia Bakry, Igor Chechushkov, 

Anthropology Chair, Igor Krupnik, and Assistant Chair, 

Laurie Burgess, and the small army of volunteers, 

fieldworkers, and interns, some of whose activities you 

will read about below in their own words.

ASC contingent (Left to right: Igor Krupnik, Stephen Loring and 

Bernadette Engelstad) with Amy Chan (second from right) at the 

Alaska Anthropological Meeting in Nome. Photo by Amy Chan
 ASC Newsletter 3

TABLE OF CONTENTS

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

2019/2020 PARTNERS AND DONORS .................4

ASC ANCHORAGE, ALASKA OFFICE ..............5

A New Smithsonian-Anchorage Agreement .................5

The Smithsonian National Board—Off to Alaska! .......5

Why are Glacial Fiords Such Great Places to Live? ......9

Smithsonian Funds ASC Learning Lab Site for Alaska 

Schools ........................................................................12

The Dena'ina Qunsha Parka: a Collaboration with Lake 

Clark National Park and Preserve ...............................13

Inuit Artist Residencies: a Partnership with the Inuit Art 

Foundation ..................................................................14

Polar Lab: Collective ..................................................15

New Media ..................................................................16

NEWS ........................................................................17

Our Trails Bring Us Together ......................................17

Tracking Arctic Change—Arctic Report Card 2019 ...22

Oil Fish of Destiny ......................................................25

Jauzarrea Conference on Basque North Atlantic 

Connection ..................................................................27

The Abraham Anghik Ruben Inuksuk Sculpture 

Installed at MSC .........................................................28

Arcus Indigenous Scholars Travel to D.C. . ................29

Hunting and Gathering Canadian Materials in Eastern 

Arctic Archives ...........................................................30

Krupnik Receives Smithsonian Distinguished Scholar 

Award ..........................................................................31

Liaocheng University Establishes Arctic Studies 

Center ..........................................................................31

Burch Endowment Supports 2019 ASC Activities .....32

RESEARCH .............................................................33

Memory And Loss: Archaeology at Kamestastin in the 

Fall of the Year ............................................................33

Gateways 2019 and the Misfortune of the Grand Isle 

Inuit .............................................................................35

Community Archaeology at the Nunalleq Site, 

Quinhagak, Alaska ......................................................38

The Umiaks of Little Diomede ...................................41

The Tasiilaq Umiaq ....................................................43

Settlement Pattern Study at Two Quebec Boulder Field 

Sites ............................................................................47

COLLECTIONS ......................................................49

Snowshoes of the Western Canadian Arctic and 

Alaska ..........................................................................49

Saga of the Vega Expedition’s Chukchi Collection, 

1878–2020...................................................................51

Inuvialuit Delegation Visits Smithsonian Collections ..55

OUTREACH ............................................................57

Gateways Exhibit at the Whiteley Museum, Quebec ...57

Fashion Workshop in Anchorage ................................57

Narwhal Exhibit Closes at NMNH and Begins 

S.I.T.E.S. Tour ............................................................59

INTERNS AND FELLOWS ..................................60

Another Dickensonian Arrives at The Smithsonian......60

The Amazing and Magical Narwhal ...........................60

Fishskinlab Greetings ..................................................61

BOOK REVIEWS ...................................................62

Peary’s Arctic Quest: Untold Stories from Robert E. 

Peary’s North Pole Expeditions ..................................62

Among Herders of Inner Mongolia: The HaslundChristensen Collection at the National Museum of 

Denmark ......................................................................62

The Nanay: A Collection Catalog ...............................63

Texts In Chukotkan Eskimo Languages, as Recorded 

by E. S. Rubtsova (Teksty na iazykakh eskimosov 

chukotki v zapisi E. S. Rubtsovoi) ..............................64

The Archaeology of Human-Environmental Dynamics 

on The North American Atlantic Coast .......................65

In Search of First Contact: the Vikings of Vinland, the 

Peoples of the Dawnland, and the Anglo-American 

Anxiety of Discovery ..................................................66

Competing Arctic Futures. Historical and 

Contemporary Perspectives ........................................67

Bark and Skin Boats of Northern Eurasia ...................68

Qimmeq: The Greenland Sled Dog .............................68

TRANSITIONS .......................................................69

Art, Gods, and ATVs At Baker Lake: Pilgrimage to 

Jesse Oonark ...............................................................69

Michael E. Krauss, 1934–2019 ...................................71

Chester Noongwook, 1933–2020 ................................72

Dennis Stanford (1943–2019)—a Tribute ..................73

Richard K. Nelson, 1941–2019 ...................................74

“Good Clean Fun”—Remembering Bill Kemp, 1936–

2020.............................................................................75

Kiyoshi Yamaura (1947–2019) ...................................77

Donald Hogarth (1929–2019) .....................................78

Sergei Stepanovitch Miniaev (1948–2020).................78

2019 ASC STAFF PUBLICATIONS ....................79
4 ASC Newsletter

Ernest “Tiger” Burch Endowment

Alaska Anthropological Association

Alliance de Industrie Touristique du Québec

Anchorage Museum Foundation

Robert W. Baird & Co. Incorporated

Betsy Baker

Carlson Family Trust

The Center for Circumpolar Studies

The Honorable Morgan Christen and Jim Torgerson

The CIRI Foundation

Cook Inlet Tribal Council

Dartmouth Anthropology Goodman Fund

Dartmouth Institute of Arctic Studies

Perry and Ardeen Eaton

Peggy and Greg Favretto

Richard and Janet Faulkner

Susan M. Ferguson

First National Bank Alaska

William W. and Lynne D. Fitzhugh

Heather Flynn

Government of Newfoundland-Labrador

Florence Hart

Stephen W. Haycox

Donald Holly

Inuit Art Foundation

Kenaitze Indian Tribe

Innu Nation

Betsy and David Lawer

John Levy

Lynden Family of Companies

University of Montreal

Memorial University of Newfoundland

The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation

The Honorable Peter and Jo Michalski

Rika and John Mouw

National Science Foundation

National Park Service

National Resources Defense Council

Newfoundland Provincial Archaeology Office 

NMNH Q?rius Education Center

Notre Dame University 

Robert and Diana Paulus

Qanirtuuq Incorporated

Rasmuson Foundation

The Frances and David Rose Foundation

Gail Sieberts

Smithsonian Office of the Provost

Smithsonian Ctr for Learning and Digital Access

Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibit Service

Smithsonian Recovering Voices Program

Whiteley Museum 

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, Cortez, Colorado: 

primtech@yahoo.com

Judith Varney Burch, Charlottesville,VA: 

judithvarneyburch@gmail.com

John Cloud, Washington, D.C.: cloudj@si.edu

Bernadette Driscoll Engelstad, Kensington, MD: 

bengelstad@aol.com

Ann Fienup-Riordan, Anchorage, AK:

riordan@alaska.net

Scott Heyes, Australia: sheyes@hotmail.com

William Honeychurch, Yale University: william.

honeychurch@yale.edu

Wilfred E. Richard, Maine: 34pondroad@gmail.com

Ted Timreck, New York: ttimreck@gmail.com

Lana Troy, Uppsala, Sweden: lana.troy@telia.com

Norman Hallendy, Carp, Ontario, Canada, 

tukilik@icloud.com

Cristopher B. Wolff, SUNY, Plattsburgh, NY:

cwolff@albany.edu

Kenneth Pratt, BIA, Anchorage:

kenneth.pratt@bia.gov

Hunter Snyder, Dartmouth College: 

hunter.snyder@gmail.com

The Smithsonian Arctic Center (ASC) is sustained 

through a public-private partnership. Philanthropic 

donations provide funding for essential communitybased 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 

2019/2020 PARTNERS AND DONORS

We extend our sincerest gratitude to the donors and partners who support the Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center. 
 ASC Newsletter 5

ASC ANCHORAGE, ALASKA OFFICE

A NEW SMITHSONIAN-ANCHORAGE 

AGREEMENT

By Aron Crowell

A new Memorandum of Understanding between the 

Smithsonian Institution and the Anchorage Museum, 

signed in July 2019 by Kirk Johnson (Director, 

National Museum of Natural History/NMNH), Kevin 

Gover (Director, National Museum of the American 

Indian/NMAI), and Julie Decker (Director and CEO, 

Anchorage Museum), provides a clear path forward 

for the Arctic Studies Center program in Alaska and 

extends a long and productive relationship that has 

been in place since 1994. A major milestone in the 

partnership was the opening in 2010 of Living Our 

Cultures, Sharing Our Heritage: The First Peoples 

of Alaska, a sweeping exhibition of Indigenous art 

and design curated by the Arctic Studies Center in 

collaboration with Alaska Native cultural advisers 

and featuring extensive heritage collections loaned 

by NMNH and NMAI. The multimillion-dollar 

exhibition was funded through a capital campaign by 

the Anchorage Museum and occupies an 8,000 sq. 

foot gallery in the modernist 2009 expansion wing of 

the museum, where the ASC’s offices and research 

spaces are also located (see ASC Newsletter 17:3-5, 

2010). Through a wide variety of public programs cohosted by the ASC and Anchorage Museum, Living 

Our Cultures has been an active nexus for Alaska 

Native arts, cultural revitalization, educational media 

production, and collaborative research, as described in 

this and previous newsletter issues.

The new MOU extends the Smithsonian-Anchorage 

partnership until 2024 and calls for continued 

cooperation in facilities use, staffing, research 

initiatives, co-development of public programs, and 

engagement with Alaskan audiences and Indigenous 

stakeholders. It looks toward continuation of the Living 

Our Cultures exhibition, requiring extension of NMNH 

and NMAI collections loans that currently run through 

2022, and the potential replacement of some objects 

with new Smithsonian selections. The exhibition’s 

multimedia components (video, audio, website, and 

interactive kiosks) will also be upgraded with new 

hardware and digital technologies. With the new MOU 

in place, work on these priorities has already begun, 

and the ASC has launched new collaborative projects 

and partnerships.

In its statement of purpose, the 2019 MOU envisions “a 

programmatic and research partnership that highlights 

Alaska’s place in the international Arctic.” We were 

proud to present this shared vision to the Smithsonian 

National Board during their visit to Alaska in July, 

led by John Davis, Provost, and Undersecretary 

for Museums, Education, and Research. The new 

MOU commits the Smithsonian to engagement in the 

circumpolar North through the Anchorage partnership. 

This aptly reflects the Arctic Studies Center’s important 

and expanding alliances with the National Museum 

of the American Indian, the Smithsonian Center for 

Digital Learning and Access, the Smithsonian Center 

for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, the Smithsonian 

Institution Scholarly Press, and other units across the 

institution.

THE SMITHSONIAN NATIONAL BOARD—

OFF TO ALASKA!

By Aron Crowell

The long days of mid-summer in southcentral Alaska—

bright, anthropogenically warm, and hazed with 

smoke from distant forest fires—greeted members 

of the Smithsonian National Board on their arrival in 

Anchorage this past July for the board’s meeting in the 

country’s 49th and only Arctic state. The Smithsonian 

National Board (SNB) is comprised of corporate and 

community leaders from a wide variety of backgrounds 

and experiences. The board’s role is to advance the 

mission and priorities of the Smithsonian and the 

Smithsonian Secretary through advice, advocacy, and 

fundraising. Their mission in Alaska was to explore its 

natural and cultural milieux and gain an overview of 

Smithsonian activities in a region where the institution 

has been involved scientifically for over 150 years. The

Smithsonian Provost John Davis and Natural History 

Director Kirk Johnson en route to Aialik Bay to visit glaciers 

and an ASC archaeological research site. 

Photo by Kristen Hunter
6 ASC Newsletter

Anchorage office of the Arctic Studies Center (ASC) 

worked with the Office of Advancement to help plan the 

trip and was delighted to welcome this distinguished and 

adventurous group to Alaska on its fact-finding tour.

Sixty current board members, alumni, and guests led 

by former board chair Robert MacDonald embarked 

on the six-day itinerary, starting in Anchorage and 

continuing to Girdwood, Seward, Kenai Fjords 

National Park, Homer, and Kachemak Bay. It was a 

fast-paced immersion in history, culture, and science 

amid a natural setting of spruce-hemlock forests, 

glacier-clad mountains, and seacoasts teeming with 

marine life. The group included emeritus SNB board 

member Betsy Lawer as well as one of the most 

recent members to join, Jo Michalski; both are longtime Alaskans and leading philanthropic supporters 

of the Arctic Studies Center. John Davis (Provost 

and Undersecretary for Museums, Education, and 

Research) and Rob 

Spiller (Assistant 

Secretary for 

Advancement) 

traveled with 

the board, 

accompanied by 

staff from the 

Smithsonian Office 

of Advancement 

(Charlotte 

Gaither, Ally 

Green, Joanne 

Leese, and Sarah 

Leibach) and 

the NMNH Office 

of Advancement 

(Kristen Hunter). 

Four Smithsonian 

scholars who conduct 

studies in Alaska—

paleontologist Kirk Johnson (Sant Director, National 

Museum of Natural History, NMNH), ecologist 

Dennis Whigham (Senior Scientist, Smithsonian 

Environmental Research Center, SERC), historian 

Theresa McCulla (Curator, National Museum of 

American History, NMAH), and anthropologist Aron 

Crowell (Alaska Director, Arctic Studies Center, ASCNMNH) gave talks, led field trips, and added a daily 

interdisciplinary dialogue to the board’s experience. 

Arrival day in Anchorage (July 21) included two 

field excursions—a geology tour by bicycle along the 

Cook Inlet coastal trail to Earthquake Park where a 

massive landslide destroyed 75 homes during the Great 

Alaska Earthquake in 1964, with Aron Crowell, and 

an introduction to boreal flora at the Alaska Botanical 

Garden by Dennis Whigham. The Alaska Native 

Heritage Center, a Smithsonian program partner, 

hosted an evening reception and dinner with a lively 

introduction to Alaska by Kirk Johnson and an ANHC 

demonstration of Alaskan high kick, a feat of agility 

associated with the traditional Messenger Feast of 

northwest Alaska and performed competitively in the 

World Eskimo-Indian Olympics.

The Arctic Studies Center and the Anchorage Museum 

co-hosted the next day’s program beginning with 

a welcome by Anchorage Museum Director and 

CEO Julie Decker, an SNB business meeting, and 

a luncheon presentation by Aron Crowell outlining 

the ASC’s collaborative research and educational 

programs. Board members saw the ASC educational 

mission in action during an afternoon visit to the 

Smithsonian exhibition Living Our Cultures, Sharing 

Our Heritage: The First Peoples of Alaska. Hundreds 

of masks, garments, tools, baskets, and carvings 

from the National Museum of Natural History and 

National Museum of the American Indian are on 

display, vividly representing Alaska’s Indigenous arts 

and cultures. They also reflect the arc of Smithsonian 

history, from the 19th century when Edward Nelson, 

William Dall, and other scientists were dispatched 

from Washington to America’s “Arctic Province” to 

collect and record cultural and natural history, to the 

present, when cultural treasures gathered during these 

expeditions have been returned to Alaska for access 

by Indigenous source communities. 

In the new paradigm of museum practice, Alaska 

Native peoples are coequal partners with the 

Right: Rob Spiller, SI Assistant 

Secretary for Advancement, pans for 

funding at the 1898 Crow Creek Mine 

near Girdwood. 

Photo by Bob Huret

Left: Robert MacDonald (SNB Chair) 

and Pam MacDonald on board the 

Orca Song in Aialik Bay, Kenai 

Fjords National Park. 

Photo by Bill Ragland
 ASC Newsletter 7

Smithsonian in reactivating these ancestral objects 

in support of post-colonial social and cultural 

renaissance. During the board tour of Living Our 

Cultures, members met artists who are part of the 

Alaska Native heritage movement and have taught 

Arctic Studies Center residencies and community 

workshops. Iñupiaq walrus ivory carver Jerome 

Saclamana, Yup’ik grass basket weavers Grace 

Anaver and Sarah Brown, and Ahtna beading 

and skin-sewing artist Melissa Shaginoff shared 

their work with the board and discussed the vital 

importance of helping younger people to know 

their cultures and identities. The intended takeaway 

from the day’s program at the Anchorage Museum 

was that the Arctic Studies Center is working with 

Alaskan partners on programs that help to implement 

the Smithsonian’s strategic plan for the 21st century, 

particularly the goal of utilizing the national 

collections as a meaningful part of community 

conversations, life, and learning. 

The following two days continued the SNB encounter 

with unique Alaskan stories and a historical landscape 

created by Indigenous and immigrant cultures. 

Theresa McCulla conducted a live oral history 

interview for the Smithsonian’s American Brewing 

History Initiative with brewmaster David Short

over dinner at the 49th State Brewing Company in 

Anchorage, accompanied by samples so that all could 

taste the evolution from colonial working man’s 

brown ale to contemporary craft brews. At Girdwood, 

the center of a historic gold mining district south 

of Anchorage, Theresa led an informative tour of 

the 1898 Crow Creek Mine, and over dinner at the 

Alyeska Hotel, she interviewed Mitch Seavey, a 

three-time winner of the Iditarod Sled Dog Race. The 

race is still run every year in March over the 1,150 

backcountry miles between Anchorage and Nome, 

following Alaska Native trade and travel routes that 

were used by miners who poured into the state during 

the Gold Rush. Seavey shared his knowledge of 

mushing history and brought along some charming 

present and future (still at the puppy stage) members 

of his dog team to meet the board.

Aron Crowell led a hike over parts of the Iditarod 

trail near Girdwood to Winner Creek, named for 

gold discoveries there, and pointed out devil’s club, 

blueberries, and other forest plants used for food and 

medicine by the Dena’ina people of the upper Cook 

Inlet region. Some board members chose to visit the 

Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center near Girdwood, 

a sanctuary dedicated to preserving Alaska’s wildlife 

through conservation, research, and education. A brief 

stop was made at Beluga Point on Turnagain Arm, 

the upper eastern branch of Cook Inlet named for 

the eponymous explorer’s retreat in 1778 when huge 

tides and shallow waters signaled imminent danger to 

his vessels, as well as the fact that it was not a likely 

opening to the long-sought Northwest Passage. An 

important archaeological site at Beluga Point, used by 

Indigenous peoples from about 10,000 to 800 years 

ago to hunt the elusive white whales, represents earlier 

phases of Cook Inlet history.

An excursion on July 24 to the port town of Seward 

on the Gulf of Alaska coast, and from Seward by tour 

boat out into the spectacular oceanscape of Kenai 

Fjords National Park, was a high point of the SNB’s 

Alaska journey. Long forested spines of sunken 

mountain ranges finger out into the Gulf, separated by 

deep ocean fjords. Glaciers descend to the sea from 

Harding Icefield, an alpine remnant of Pleistocene 

Iñupiaq artist and teacher Jerome Saclamana describes a 

shaman figure carved from walrus tusk ivory. From left: 

Bob MacDonald, Nancy Hogan; faces obscured are Pam 

MacDonald, and Kristen Richardson. 

Photo by Kristen Hunter

Waiting for snow and ready to go! Sako and Bill Fisher 

with Mitch Seavey’s Iditarod sled dogs at the Alyeska Hotel 

in Girdwood. Photo by Nancy Hogan
8 ASC Newsletter

glaciation formed over 30,000 years ago. The Gulf of 

Alaska is one of the most productive ocean bodies in 

the world, charged by upwelling coastal currents and 

explosive plankton growth during the 20-hour days 

of summer, feeding a surging web of marine life from 

copepods and jellyfish to pelagic fish, seabirds, and 

sea mammals. From the boat, on this brilliant calm 

day, an astonishing array of sea life could be observed, 

including murres, puffins, sea otters, harbor seals, Dall 

porpoises, sea lions, killer whales, humpback whales, 

and giant fin whales.

The Kenai Fjords coast was also an ancestral 

homeland of the Sugpiaq people, who are the 

southernmost Inuit. The Arctic Studies Center, in 

partnership with the National Park Service and 

the present-day Sugpiaq villages of Nanwalek and 

Port Graham in Kachemak Bay, has discovered and 

excavated dozens of archaeological sites along this 

coast, where Sugpiaq ancestors traveled by kayak, 

built seaside villages, and harvested shellfish, cod and 

other fish, seabirds, seals, and sea lions. At Aialik Bay, 

the SNB voyagers went ashore with Aron Crowell to 

visit a Sugpiaq village occupied during the late 18th

century, shortly after Russian sea otter traders arrived 

in the area. The site is situated just above the beach in 

a grove of trees, surrounded in late July by magenta 

fireweed flowers in brilliant bloom and bushes fruited 

with ripe blueberries and salmonberries. The group 

stepped inside faint depressions left by the old houses 

and food storage caches, handled animal bones, stone 

artifacts, and Russian trade beads found during the 

archaeological excavations and learned about the 

results of research at the site. One finding based on 

isotopic studies of cod bones from the midden is that 

ocean temperatures were 2-3° C colder in the late 18th

century than at present, a clear signal of the ocean 

warming that has accompanied global climate change. 

The group also saw dramatic evidence of global 

warming at Holgate Glacier in Aialik Bay and at Exit 

Glacier near Seward, both now rapidly melting and 

retreating.

The final phase of the SNB expedition centered on 

the small fishing town of Homer on Kachemak Bay 

at the western tip of the Kenai Peninsula. Dennis 

Whigham and other scientists from the Smithsonian 

Environmental Research Center (SERC) have 

Left to right: Members of the Expedition––the SNB, guests, and Smithsonian staff at Bird Point on Turnagain Arm (Cook 

Inlet) between Anchorage and Girdwood. The haze is smoke from wildfires on the Kenai Peninsula. Photo by Christine 

Ragland. Board members exploring onshore at a Russian-era Suqpiaq village in Kenai Fjords National Park, with fireweed 

in full bloom. Dennis Keller (L) and Charles Hogan (R) examine a stone harpoon blade at a Sugpiaq archaeological site in 

Kenai Fjords National Park excavated by the ASC. Photo by Kristen Hunter
 ASC Newsletter 9

worked for years at Homer in collaboration with 

local partners, including the Kachemak Bay National 

Estuarine Reserve (KBNER) and the Kachemak 

Heritage Land Trust. Research has focused on topics 

including wild orchid species native to Alaska, the 

essential ecological role of headwater streams where 

juvenile salmon rear before going out to sea, and the 

complex biological interactions that characterize tidal 

estuaries and near-shore coastal waters. Some board 

members visited one of the headwater research sites 

with Dennis, and others met with KBNER manager 

Coowe Walker and KBNER scientists who were 

conducting field studies at the mouth of the Anchor 

River, an unspoiled coastal estuary lush with marsh 

grasses and abundant invertebrates, shorebirds, 

and many species of fish. The researchers showed 

plants and fish they had sampled from the estuary 

and discussed indicators of ecosystem health. One 

concern is that rising water temperatures in the marsh 

are disrupting fish spawning and growth, with ripple 

effects that extend outward through the food web. 

At Kachemak Bay, Smithsonian-partnered scientific 

research is building a better understanding of 

interconnected marine, estuarine, riparian, and upland 

habitats and contributing to conservation efforts 

and public education. The board’s time in Homer 

included a visit to the Pratt Museum with its excellent 

presentations of local history, culture, art, and natural 

history, and concluded with a celebratory dinner at the 

Tutka Bay Lodge on Kachemak Bay featuring local 

produce and fruits de mer, and reception at Jo and 

Peter Michalski’s summer residence in Homer.

The Smithsonian National Board trip to Alaska brought 

about a stronger understanding of research, education, 

and connections to Indigenous and stakeholder 

communities that have resulted from the work of the 

Arctic Studies Center, NMNH, NMAI, NMAH, SERC, 

and other institutional branches and Smithsonian 

partners in the North. 

The Arctic Studies Center appreciates this opportunity 

to share our work and extends warm regards to the 

SNB members who came on the trip: Lisa Bennett, 

John Brock, Vin Di Bona, Edward Hintz, Nancy 

Hogan, Michele Hooper, Jennifer Walston Johnson, 

Dennis Keller, Todd Krasnow, Allan Landon, Dale 

LeFebvre, Cheryl Winter Lewy, Robert MacDonald, 

Kevin McGovern, Jo Michalski, Sarah Nash, Denise 

O’Leary, Jorge Puente, Jeffrey Records, Philip 

Ryan, Diana Strandberg, Naoma Tate, Michael 

Tennenbaum, and John Wilkerson. We also thank 

SNB alumni members: Peggy Burnet, Sakurako 

Fisher, Myra Hart, Steven Hoch, Judy Huret, Betsy 

Lawer, Michael McBride, Bill Ragland, Kristen 

Richardson, and Susan Ruddy. 

WHY ARE GLACIAL FIORDS SUCH GREAT 

PLACES TO LIVE? 

By Aron Crowell

Glacial fiords of the Arctic and Subarctic attract human 

settlement because of their exceptional biological 

productivity. Tidewater glaciers and glacial streams 

discharge mineral sediments that enrich the marine food 

web and support abundant fish, ocean-feeding birds, and 

sea mammals, an effect that is amplified when glaciers 

are in retreat. Onshore, glacial retreat uncovers beaches, 

islands, and slopes that are colonized by plants and 

animals, followed by succession to complex, mature 

communities. Anadromous fish runs may be established 

in stream drainages within a few years of deglaciation, 

adding to the diversity of food resources.

At Yakutat fiord in southeast Alaska, glacial retreat 

starting in ca. 1200 CE opened a 60 km-long ocean 

inlet that was settled by Eyak, Ahtna, and Tlingit 

people from adjacent regions of the Gulf of Alaska. 

Ice limits in approximately 1200 CE and 1700 CE are 

marked by cross-bay moraines, the latter formed during 

a brief Little Ice Age re-advance of Hubbard Glacier. 

Incoming human groups adapted their subsistence 

foraging economies to Yakutat’s emerging cryogenic 

habitat and glacially influenced ecosystem, a process 

that has unfolded over eight centuries and continues 

to the present. Yakutat fiord provides an example of 

human colonization in a high latitude maritime setting 

with parallels to older prehistoric occupations along the 

fiord-indented coastlines of southern Alaska, British 

Columbia, the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, Labrador, 

Greenland, and Norway.

Contemporary residents of Yakutat fiord hold a deep 

store of historical and ecological knowledge about their 

traditional territory, where they harvest over 120 kg 

of wild foods per person each year including salmon 

and other fish, marine mammals, land mammals, 

invertebrates, migratory wildfowl, bird eggs, berries, 

and edible seaweeds. The Arctic Studies Center has 

conducted archaeological, paleoenvironmental, and 

Indigenous knowledge research at Yakutat since 2012 in 

collaboration with the Yakutat Tlingit Tribe, focusing on 

the community’s long-term role in the fiord ecosystem.

The effects of glacial discharges on marine biology, 

and on patterns of Indigenous settlement and resource 

use, are significant. Cold, sediment-laden freshwater 

runoff enters upper Yakutat fiord (Disenchantment Bay) 

as calved ice and meltwater from Hubbard, Haenke, 

and Turner glaciers, and along the west shore of the 

lower fiord (Yakutat Bay) as a stream flows from the 

Malaspina and adjacent alpine glaciers. These discharges 
10 ASC Newsletter

are greatest in summer when glacial melting increases. 

Glacial waters are cloudy with silt produced by abrasion 

of mountain bedrock and carry mineral nutrients such 

as ammonium, nitrogen, phosphates, and silicates into 

the fiord for uptake by plankton. Plumes of glacial 

discharge—readily visible in the satellite image—extend 

down the fiord from their sources for up to 20 km before 

dissipating in surrounding ocean waters. 

As biological surveys of Gulf of Alaska fiords by 

Mayumi Aramitsu (US Geological Survey, Juneau) 

and her colleagues have shown, phytoplankton growth 

is limited by poor light penetration in the upstream 

portions of glacial plumes but increases exponentially 

in downstream mixing zones where the transported 

nutrients dissolve into ambient seawater. Phytoplankton 

productivity is highest on the east side of Yakutat 

Bay, where the tails of glacial plumes mix with clear, 

relatively warm ocean waters around morainal islands 

and shoals between Ocean Cape and Knight Island. 

High primary productivity in this area boosts the entire 

food web, resulting in a proliferation of copepods and 

other zooplankton, euphausiids (krill), invertebrates 

(clams, cockles, mussels, crabs), forage fish such 

as herring and capelin, and larger species including 

cod, halibut, and salmon. Seabirds and sea mammals, 

including harbor seals, sea otters, and harbor porpoises 

feed in these waters. Because the area is so rich in 

resources, it is colloquially known as the “icebox” by 

Yakutat residents, who harvest a large portion of their 

marine subsistence foods there. 

In contrast, the silty waters of Disenchantment Bay 

have low primary productivity but offer a highly 

concentrated human food supply during several months 

of the year. Nearly 2,000 harbor seals (Phoca vitulina) 

inhabit the bay during May and June when females 

give birth and nurse their pups on ice floes calved 

from the glaciers. The seal population in Yakutat fiord 

was historically much higher than at present—at least 

ten times as great prior to a crash in the 1970's—and 

hunting at the glacier’s edge has always been a key 

subsistence strategy. 

Glacial influences are also primary drivers of terrestrial 

fiord ecosystems. As Alexander Milner (University of 

Birmingham) and co-researchers including F. Stuart 

Chapin (University of Alaska, Fairbanks) have shown, 

biological productivity on land areas in deglaciating 

fiords is influenced by the amount of time since the 

withdrawal of the ice, allowing for stream and forest 

succession, and by distance from the present glacial 

front, where low temperatures inhibit ecosystem 

progression. The Yakutat foreland near the mouth of the 

fiord is an ancient and highly productive forest-wetlands 

habitat that was not affected by recent glacial advances 

and has been ice-free and above sea level for at least 

1,500 years. Streams host large runs of salmon and other 

anadromous fish, and moose, deer, bear, marten, beaver, 

and other game animals are abundant in the old-growth 

spruce and hemlock forests. Modern subsistence fishing 

and hunting are concentrated on the foreland, with 

comparatively little use of younger and less productive 

forests that were established along the shores of the fiord 

as the glaciers retreated. Disenchantment Bay is the most 

recently uncovered area and is chilled by its proximity to 

Hubbard Glacier; here, there are poorly developed soils, 

few trees, and brushy vegetation dominated by alders 

and other plants typical of early forest succession. Even 

the intertidal zone is depauperate due to heavy silt and 

scouring by icebergs. 

Glacial history and the glacially influenced distribution 

of subsistence resources in Yakutat fiord are reflected in 

the locations of ancestral settlements, including yearround villages and hunting camps. 

The progression of deglaciation is reflected in the 

ages of archaeological sites, with several of the oldest 

villages located near the mouth of the fiord and on the 

Yakutat foreland (established cal. 784–1410 CE). Two 

villages were built on Knight Island in about cal. 1450 

CE following deglaciation of the middle section of the 

fiord and sealing camps in Disenchantment Bay were 

not used until the 18th–19th centuries CE after Hubbard 

Glacier pulled back from its 1700 CE re-advance. All 

Yakutat fiord showing modern glaciers, glacial limits at 

1200 CE and 1700 CE, glacial sediment plumes, and the 

high productivity mixing zone on the east side of Yakutat 

Bay. Satellite photo courtesy of U.S. Geological Survey 

(earthexplorer.usgs.gov)
 ASC Newsletter 11

19th and 20th-century historic village sites were located in 

the lower fiord or on the foreland. Considering the spatial 

distribution of village sites apart from their dates, it is 

notable that almost all were located either in the highly 

productive marine mixing zone south of Knight Island 

on the east side of Yakutat Bay or on the adjacent Yakutat 

foreland where terrestrial resources are most abundant. 

It thus appears that two combined influences—earlier 

availability for settlement during the glacial retreat and 

greater resource diversity due to glacial influences on 

ecosystem structure—have resulted in the clustering of 

village sites in the proximal geography of the fiord. In 

contrast, Disenchantment Bay, which was deglaciated 

last and is far less diverse in subsistence resources due 

to its turbid waters and low primary productivity, was 

unsuitable for settlement except for seasonal hunting 

camps used to exploit the harbor seal rookery.

To what extent do these patterns of human settlement 

and resource use characterize the larger Gulf of 

Alaska (GOA) coast, where scores of fiords from 

Prince William Sound to the Alaska Peninsula were 

carved during the Late Glacial Maximum? Many are 

still occupied at their heads by tidewater or grounded 

glaciers that contribute mineral nutrients to the marine 

ecosystem, and a number support ice floe harbor seal 

rookeries including Glacier Bay, Icy Bay, Bering 

Glacier, Grosvenor Glacier, College Glacier, Barry 

Arm, Surprise Glacier, Aialik Bay, Northwestern 

Fjord, and McCarty Fjord. To explore this topic, a GIS 

analysis was conducted to examine the distributions 

of maritime subsistence resources (25 categories of 

fish, sea mammals, and birds) along 17,000 km of 

continuous GOA coastline between Prince William 

Sound and the western Alaska Peninsula, compared to 

distance-weighted levels of access to these resources 

from all known coastal archaeological sites in the study 

area, a total of 1,959. For purposes of the analysis, the 

shoreline was divided into 6,800 2.5 km-long segments.

The study demonstrated that the outer portions of fiords 

generally offer greater diversity of marine resources 

than their inner reaches, as at Yakutat. This effect is 

multiscalar, applying to very large features such as Cook 

Inlet and Prince William Sound as well as more localized 

coastal involutions. It is likely that the stimulative 

downstream effects of glacial nutrient plumes are one 

basis of this pattern, although upwelling at fiord mouths 

caused by tidal currents (e.g., Cook Inlet) or turbulence 

over morainal entrance sills (e.g., Glacier Bay) can also 

stir up mineral nutrients from the ocean bottom and 

enrich productivity in outer fiord areas.

A second finding was that the number of archaeological 

sites on any segment of the coast is highly correlated 

with “resource richness”—that is, the total number of 

harvesting locales for all species that can be accessed 

along that segment. Resource scores ranged from 0 to 

21, and a threshold effect was discovered; out of 856 

coastal segments where sites were present, 776 (90.6%) 

had richness scores of 10 or greater. Although the 

analysis was not fine-grained enough to be definitive 

on this point, most sites with local access to ten or 

more resources were probably year-round villages, 

strategically situated to maximize diverse harvest 

opportunities and minimize logistical costs, whereas 

sites located in zones with low resource diversity (e.g., 

inner fiords) were most likely seasonal camps where 

the focus was on intensive harvesting of a single highvalue resource such as seals or salmon.

The clustering of archaeological village sites in more 

anciently deglaciated and resource-rich zones near 

the mouths of fiords, combined with seasonal hunting 

camps in zones of low biodiversity, both observed at 

Yakutat, thus appears to be a general pattern across a 

large swath of the southern Alaskan coast and may well 

apply to fiord systems in other regions of the Arctic 

and Subarctic. Since the beginning of the Holocene, 

deglaciating fiords have offered a broadly consistent 

type of cryogenic habitat for human settlement, with 

similar opportunities and requirements for cultural 

adaptation and niche construction. In other words, 

fiords are great places to live if you know how. 

Archaeological sites at Yakutat fiord including villages and 

sealing camps. Site dates are in the Common Era (CE) and 

represent earliest known occupation. Calibrated radiocarbon 

dates are prefixed by “Cal.”; others are based on historical 

or oral data.
12 ASC Newsletter

SMITHSONIAN FUNDS ASC LEARNING LAB 

SITE FOR ALASKA SCHOOLS

By Aron Crowell

The Alaska office of the Arctic Studies Center, in 

partnership with the Smithsonian Center for Learning 

and Digital Access (SCLDA), received a $52K 

Smithsonian Youth Access implementation grant to build 

a curated space on the Smithsonian Learning Lab where 

teachers and students in Alaska and across the nation 

will find a trove of collaboratively produced learning 

resources highlighting Alaska Native cultures, arts, and 

lifeways. The CIRI Foundation and generous private 

donors in Alaska provided a required 100% match to this 

competitive award from the Smithsonian’s Office of the 

Associate Provost for Education and Access (APEA), 

made possible by an endowment from the Bill and 

Melinda Gates Foundation. The one-year grant will run 

through October 2020.

Through the project, 

entitled Digital Access to 

Community Knowledge 

and Smithsonian 

Collections for Alaska 

Native Education, 

hundreds of videos, 

photographs, transcripts, 

object records, and essays 

reflecting two decades 

of Arctic Studies Center 

collaborative heritage 

work in Alaska will be 

posted on Learning Lab, 

an innovative gateway to 

Smithsonian collections 

that received a 2019 

Webby award for Best 

Education Website from the 

International Academy for 

Digital Arts and Sciences. 

Learning Lab is building toward 100,000 registered 

users and has been adopted by state educational systems 

across the U.S. The Alaska Learning Lab project, with 

its unique focus on linking Indigenous knowledge to 

museum collections, will advance Smithsonian strategic 

goals for digital outreach and collaboration and meet 

critical educational needs in Alaska’s underserved rural 

schools. SCLDA Director Stephanie Norby suggested 

the idea of an Arctic Studies Center proposal to the 

Youth Access Grant program and has championed the 

Alaska Learning Lab project to Smithsonian leadership, 

including Secretary Lonnie Bunch. 

Alaska Learning Lab will feature elders’ discussions 

about ancestral objects in collections of the National 

Museum of Natural History and National Museum 

of the American Indian, and Alaska Native artists, 

demonstrating how to make traditional designs such 

as bentwood hunting hats, porcupine quill embroidery, 

seal intestine clothing, fish skin bags, walrus ivory 

carvings, cedar bark baskets, grass bags, and moosehide clothing, all by applying Indigenous knowledge 

to materials from the land. In addition, there will be 

object-centered lessons in Alaska Native languages 

taught by fluent speakers; talks by Indigenous scholars 

on culture, arts, and history; ASC-produced curricula 

designed to meet Alaska state standards; and new 

classroom learning experiences co-developed with 

Alaska Native teachers.

This large and growing portfolio will be searchable and 

richly interconnected on the new site. While most of 

these media resources have previously been offered in 

the Living Our Cultures

exhibition and on the 

Smithsonian Arctic Studies 

Center YouTube channel, 

Living Our Cultures

YouTube playlist, and 

Sharing Knowledge website 

(https://alaska.si.edu), 

Alaska Learning Lab will 

bring the entire collection 

together on a single, 

classroom-tested platform. 

Learning Lab has been 

extensively evaluated for 

ease of use and educational 

impact and is backed by 

technical and teacher 

support from SCLDA. 

As the project gets 

underway, ASC museum 

specialist and educational 

producer Dawn Biddison

is working with SCLDA program manager Tracie 

Spinale to design the Alaska site, which can be seen 

under construction at https://learninglab.si.edu/

org/sasc-ak. Resources are grouped under the broad 

headings of “Alaska Native Cultures,” “Community 

Collections,” “Community Videos,” and “Educational 

Resources” in a format that invites student exploration 

and provides educators with materials for curriculum 

building. The site is also an entry point for searching 

all Alaska-related content at the Smithsonian, with the 

potential for exciting discoveries among the 1.6 million 

digital records that are available from 19 different 

museums and six research centers. Learning Lab links 

to these resources through the Smithsonian’s vast 

Enterprise Digital Asset Network (EDAN).

Landing page of the Alaska Learning Lab site at 

https://learninglab.si.edu/org/sasc-ak. Visit and explore!
 ASC Newsletter 13

The Youth Access Grant will support co-development 

during 2020 of three new Community Collections for the 

Learning Lab site. Dawn will work with rural teachers to 

select resources and assemble lessons for their students. 

The first of these, with Yup’ik teacher Dora Strunk

and colleagues in Quinhagak, Alaska will build on the 

Arctic Studies Center’s recent basketry workshop in 

the community, taught by artist Grace Anaver (see 

Yup’ik Twined Grass Baskets: Renewing an Ancestral 

Art, ASC Newsletter 26:6-8, 2019). The high schoollevel curriculum will be a multidimensional exploration 

of basketry-related Indigenous knowledge, artistic 

traditions, and STEM topics (sciences, technology, 

engineering, and math). For example, grass basketry is a 

sustainable technology using locally sourced, renewable 

materials which are biodegradable and leave no carbon 

footprint. It relies on ecological knowledge of the tundra 

where grass used for baskets is collected, now influenced 

by climate change which has altered when harvesting 

can occur. Grass bags and baskets are engineered 

objects, designed in various shapes and sizes for different 

purposes and twined with knots, twists, and spacings that 

meet specific technical requirements based on underlying 

principles of topology. Grass bags and baskets are 

permeable to air and when used as food storage 

containers preserve foods with less danger of spoilage 

than plastic bags, where anaerobic bacteria (even those 

causing botulism) may develop. Each of these aspects 

is open to hands-on experiments and field study. The 

curriculum will incorporate both Smithsonian and local 

resources including images and artists’ explanations of 

twined grass bags and baskets; instructional weaving and 

grass harvesting videos from the 2019 workshop; and 

ancestral bags and baskets excavated by archaeologists 

at the Nunalleq archaeological site, now housed at 

Quinhagak’s cultural center.

Once the basketry curriculum has been completed 

Tracie and Dawn will observe and assess its classroom 

implementation at Quinhagak (planned for April 2020) 

and gather feedback from teachers and students. In the 

following months, additional Community Collections 

projects focusing on fish skin, moose-hide, and 

porcupine quill will be developed, exploring the uses of 

these traditional materials in Alaska Native technology 

and design. The final product of the current Youth 

Access Grant will be a rollout plan to publicize the new 

Learning Lab site statewide, aiming for its eventual 

adoption in a majority of Alaska’s 52 school districts. 

Additional funding and partners will be sought to 

implement this expansion plan in 2021 in cooperation 

with SCLDA and the Alaska Department of Education. 

The National Science Foundation’s Navigating the 

New Arctic program is one potential source of funding 

for the development of STEM curricula on the Alaska 

Learning Lab site, so stay tuned for new developments 

in the coming year.

THE DENA'INA QUNSHA PARKA: A 

COLLABORATION WITH LAKE CLARK 

NATIONAL PARK AND PRESERVE

By Dawn Biddison

In July, Cultural Anthropologist Karen Evanoff and 

Museum Curator Kathryn Myers of the Lake Clark 

National Park and Preserve (LCNPP) contacted Dawn 

Biddison about planning for a Dena'ina Athabascan

women's life history project to document the creation 

of a qunsha (Arctic ground squirrel) parka from start 

to finish by Dena'ina women—making snares, snaring 

the squirrels, prepping the skins, making the parka—

for the Lake Clark Museum collection. Based on 

A twined grass bag takes shape in the hands of a Yup’ik 

student at the 2019 Quinhagak weaving workshop. 

Photo by Jackie Cleveland

Jacki Cleveland (Yup'ik) showing the open-weave, twined 

grass bag she made during the Material Traditions workshop 

in Quinhagak. Photo by Wayde Carroll
14 ASC Newsletter

their familiarity with the Arctic Studies Center (ASC) 

program series Material Traditions, they initially 

asked for advice on logistics and detailed video 

documentation, then after a discussion meeting, invited 

ASC to collaborate on the project.

Research began in October with video documentation 

of a two-day workshop held in the Community Room 

at Living Our Cultures exhibition at the Anchorage 

Museum. Facilitators Karen and Katie were joined by 

Dena'ina elders Helen Dick, Aggie Alexie, Pauline 

Hobson, and Butch Hobson, along with Dena'ina 

sewers Michelle Ravenmoon and Amy Hedlund. A 

qunsha parka made by Anesia Zackar, qunsha snares, 

and a sewing case from the LCNPP collection were on 

hand to examine and explain. During the workshop, 

participants discussed making and setting snares, 

techniques for tanning squirrel skin and making parkas, 

and values and beliefs related to harvesting qunsha. 

Conversation then moved on to plans for harvesting 

qunsha and processing skins and meat at a camp with 

youth in the summer of 2020, and the values along 

with techniques to be taught. Dawn will provide project 

management and video documentation and editing for 

the summer camp work, and for the next phase of the 

project when the qunsha parka will be sewn.

INUIT ARTIST RESIDENCIES: A 

PARTNERSHIP WITH THE INUIT ART 

FOUNDATION

By Dawn Biddison

Building on introductory conversations during the 

October Inuit Studies Conference in Montreal with 

Dawn Biddison, a new partnership has begun at the 

Alaska office of the Arctic Studies Center with the 

Inuit Arts Foundation (IAF), led by Executive Director 

and Publisher Alysa Procida and Editorial Director 

Britt Gallpen. IAF “seeks to empower and support 

Inuit artists' self-expression and self-determination, 

while increasing the public's access to and awareness 

of artists' work” and “is the only national organization 

in Canada that supports Inuit artists in any discipline 

to increase visibility and opportunities.” IAF is the 

publisher of Inuit Art Quarterly, which features Inuit 

writing about their arts and online presents artist 

pages with biographies and images of their work, to 

help them advance their career opportunities. The 

partnership—with the working name Circumpolar 

Exchanges—plans to bring Canadian Inuit artists 

to Alaska and Alaska Native artists to Canada 

for individual and collaborative work, and for 

opportunities to foster new relationships between Inuit 

artists, organizations and communities. 

The first visiting artist will be Glenn Gear in January 

2020. Glenn is an animator, filmmaker, and visual 

artist from Newfoundland, now based in Montreal. 

He finds inspiration by exploring his identity as an 

urban Inuk with ancestral ties to Nunatsiavut. For 

his animated short films, Glen utilizes collage and 

archival materials to explore issues of “individual and 

collective history, the exchange between Indigenous 

and settler populations, folklore, gender, and archival 

material.” In addition to studying objects from the 

Living Our Cultures exhibition and Anchorage 

Museum collections, Glen will have open studio hours 

and give a lecture. Five of his short films will play in 

the exhibition throughout January. During his twoweek visit, Glen will set up his portable animation 

studio for working in the archaeology lab, and he 

will meet with local Alaska Native artists and tribal 

organizations.

Dena'ina elders Pauline Hobson, Butch Hobson, Aggie 

Alexie, and Helen Dick discuss a qunsha ("ground squirrel 

parka") from the Lake Clark National Park and Preserve in 

the Community Room of the Living Our Cultures exhibition 

at the Anchorage Museum. Photo by Dawn Biddison

Newfoundland media artist Glen Gear painting the 8' x 26' 

mural Ommatik in Ottawa, Ontario, 2018. 

Photo by Barry Pottle; courtesy of the artist
 ASC Newsletter 15

POLAR LAB: COLLECTIVE

By Dawn Biddison

Polar Lab: Collective is a program that provides 

emerging Alaska Native artists with an introduction to 

museum collections research through the up-close study 

of NMNH and NMAI objects in the Living Our Cultures 

exhibition and of the Anchorage Museum collections. 

This experience advances their development as artists 

and strengthens the relationship between Alaska Native 

artists and museums through increased access to staff 

and collections. Developed by Dawn Biddison in 

partnership with Monica Shah, Director of Collections 

at the Anchorage Museum, artists are selected annually 

through open-call application and funded with an 

honorarium and travel costs. 

The program hosted two artists in 2019. Jennifer 

Angaiak Wood is a Yup'ik artist, born and raised in 

Fairbanks and currently residing in Seattle. Her family's 

home village is Tununak, where she spent summers 

while growing up. She is represented by the Stonington 

Gallery of Seattle, and you can see examples of her work 

online. Jennifer started carving masks in high school, 

which is her primary medium: “My concepts are always 

founded in historic Yup’ik masks, though I frequently add 

non-traditional materials and address modern concerns 

through my work. With this approach, I seek to honor 

and respect my ancestors’ work, but it is also important 

for me to be able to express my identity and inner world 

as a contemporary Native artist.” She wanted to study 

the museum collections to again have the first-hand 

experience she once had at the Burke Museum: “There 

is something dramatically different in seeing and holding 

objects myself, and it is difficult to put into words how 

differently I felt in those moments, to not only look at the 

items as works of art, but also have priceless connections 

to the hands of my ancestors. I could see the tool marks, 

the ways in which pieces were fit together.”

Willard Alas'kuk Church is a Yup'ik artist who resides 

in Quinhagak, a village located on the south bank of 

the Kanektok River. Willard learned to carve in high 

school but set that aside to support and raise his family. 

In 2017 and at the age of 53, he started making uluat 

(crescent-shaped knives) in order to make an income 

while remaining in his village. Willard re-taught himself 

how to make an uluaq from memories of watching his 

late grandparents and has begun to teach his son. His 

interests expanded to fur skin-sewing and to making 

harpoon heads and throwers, and he sought to study the 

museum collections in order to learn more about skin 

scrapers, adzes, wooden spoons, and bentwood bowls 

which he plans to start making next. “What I hope to 

gain is better insight into how our ancestors back in their 

time made the tools, clothing, and other everyday things 

that they needed to survive in our homeland. From 

looking at artifacts found at the Nunalleq archaeology 

site, I can see that the people back then were highly 

skilled, which amazes me since their tools must have 

been very primitive compared to what we have available 

to us today. The archaeological work being done here in 

my village has been a great inspiration for me.”

Prior to their visit, artists spoke with Dawn and Monica 

to discuss their interests and to select objects for 

study. Over two days, they closely examined pieces 

taken off exhibit and from collections and spent time 

with Anchorage Museum archives staff for additional 

research. The artists received object photos and 

documentation, links to online resources for Alaska 

Native collections and archival photographs, and 

information about artist opportunities at other museums. 

You can view a short video about the program's first 

participant, Iñupiaq performance artist Allison Warden

(https://polarlab.anchoragemuseum.org/projects/

polar-lab-collective).

To Be Who You Are, a mask made by Yup'ik artist Jennifer 

Angaiak Wood. Photo courtesy of the artist

An ulu with a seal-shaped handle, carved by Willard Church 

of Quinhagak, Alaska. Photo courtesy of the artist
16 ASC Newsletter

Landing page for the "Athabascan Moosehide Tanning & Sewing videos" on the Learning Lab site at 

https:// learninglab.si.edu/org/sasc-ak in the "Community Videos" section. Video sets from all other Material Tradition 

programs are posted there.

NEW MEDIA

By Dawn Biddison

The four-disc DVD set Material Traditions: Athabascan 

Moosehide Tanning and Sewing has been completed and 

distributed to Athabascan participants, artists, schools, 

and organizations; to Alaska-wide schools, libraries, 

archives, and museums; and to selected national and 

international museums. The twenty-three, tightly edited 

videos are from fieldwork and interviews conducted by 

Dawn Biddison from September 2017 to June 2018, 

which was described in the last two issues of the ASC 

Newsletter. The footage includes interviews with key 

collaborators Helen Dick (Dena'ina Athabascan elder), 

Jeannie Maxim (Ahtna Athabascan elder), Joel Isaak

(Dena'ina Athabascan artist) and Melissa Shaginoff

(Ahtna Athabascan artist) and the information needed 

to tan a moosehide from start to finish, including tools; 

Ahtna and Dena'ina techniques for dehairing and 

scraping clean; multiple stages of wringing, washing, 

smoking and softening; making a yoke (regalia), 

tunic, and silverberry beads; Ahtna and Dena'ina 

vocabulary; and an extensive list of published resources. 

These videos are available on the YouTube channel 

Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center Alaska (https://www.

youtube.com/channel/ucnpcltx--kqjasu7zsxuwafa)

The next media under production will be footage 

from the most recent Material Traditions program 

on grass harvesting, processing, and open-weave 

twining in Quinhagak (see Yup'ik Twined Grass Bags: 

Renewing an Ancestral Art, ASC Newsletter 26:6-8, 

2019). Research and video documentation during three 

fieldwork trips began in April and finished in August, 

and editing began in February 2020.

.

Cover of the DVD set Material Traditions: Athabascan 

Moosehide Tanning and Sewing. Photo by Dawn Biddison
 ASC Newsletter 17

NEWS

OUR TRAILS BRING US TOGETHER

By John Cloud

A remarkable conference and a host of related events 

took place on October 24–28, 2019, in Whitehorse, the 

capital of the Yukon Territory, and Haines Junction, 

Y.T., as well as in Klukwan and Haines, Alaska. The 

different sites were spread over hundreds of kilometers, 

which reflected the impressive geographies of what 

has become known as the Kohklux maps, drawn in 

1869 in Klukwan, on the Chilkat River, by the Tlingit 

wolf moiety clan leader with many names, including 

Kohklux, and his wives Tu-eek and Ḵaatchxixch, 

both Raven moiety leaders, along with George 

Davidson, of the US Coast Survey. The Kohklux maps 

are now considered among the masterpieces of 19thcentury cartography, well worthy of reconsideration in 

2019, the 150th anniversary of their creation.

The Historical Context of the 1869 Kohklux Maps

George Davidson and most of the rest of Coast Survey 

personnel on the Pacific coast returned to the east 

coast in 1861 to fight the Civil War, scientifically. 

Amongst other matters, the Survey began mapping 

vast areas of the American interior, not just the coastal 

margins, which was their foundational arena. There 

was a hiatus in Survey leadership until 1867, when 

their great leader, Alexander Dallas Bache, who had 

been physically and mentally incapacitated while 

overseeing defenses around Philadelphia, finally died. 

Davidson and his staff then returned to San Francisco, 

the Survey headquarters on the Pacific coast. Davidson 

had barely arrived when he was sent north on a 

The path of eclipse totality included both New Harmony, 

Indiana, and Klukwan, Alaska.

US Navy steamship to evaluate the proposal of the 

Russian American Company to sell the vast lands they 

purported to own—Alaska. Davidson’s goal was to 

travel to New Archangel (Sitka), the capital, to meet 

with the Russians and evaluate the situation. 

Davidson completed his tasks, which included 

receiving a great treasure trove of Russian maps and 

charts, integral to the proposed sale.

But he also made a side trip between the islands of 

Southeast Alaska north to the Lynn Canal, to the mouth 

of the Chilkat River, to meet the powerful Tlingit 

leader Kohklux. There was to be a total eclipse of the 

sun two years, hence, in 1869, and the path of totality 

included the Chilkat River valley. Davidson wanted 

to observe the eclipse, and he knew that the social 

arrangements for this were at least as critical as the 

logistical details. In this, he was building upon his own 

formative experiences in the beginning of his Survey 

career, spending winters with the family of his mentor, 

Robert Fauntleroy, who lived in the utopian socialist 

community of New Harmony, Indiana. The citizens of 

New Harmony were sympathetic to American Indians, 

strong supporters of rights for women, and fervent 

abolitionists opposed to slavery. Kohklux and Davidson 

connected, and the plan was made for Davidson’s 

return in 1869 (see J. Cloud, 2012, Expedition 54(2)). 

By the time Davidson returned, in late July 1869, 

Russian America was Alaska, and the American military 

substituted for the oppressive Russian masters. Kohklux 

was to be summoned to Sitka to await Davidson’s 

arrival, which the US Army interpreted as an order to 

arrest Kohklux. Great disorder ensued. Davidson got 

Kohklux out of jail, and he refused the Army’s offer 

of a military escort to Klukwan. Instead, Davidson 

and a small party of Survey scientists traveled north in 

Tlingit canoes. The eclipse arrived on schedule, suitably 

sublime, and in the aftermath of all these experiences, 

Kohklux and his two wives Tu-eek and Ḵaatchxixch, 

who were both from more southern Tlingit villages of 

the Stahkin River Tlingit, worked for days on a detailed 

map of the 500 miles of geography from the coastal 

Tlingit villages over the glacier-capped mountains and 

down into the Yukon River system. They talked about 

the map for days, and Davidson wrote down over a 

hundred place names at their dictation. They could 

do this, as Davidson and the wives were all fluent in 

the Jargon, the complex meta-language of the Pacific 

Northwest, which Davidson, from California, knew as 

the Chinook Jargon, Chinook Wawa.

Meanwhile, Davidson made an oil painting of the sun’s 

corona, at the height of eclipse totality, as seen through 
18 ASC Newsletter

his special telescope. Then the Tlingit and Davidson 

made an intellectual potlatch, exchanging the map and 

the painting. Davidson returned to San Francisco with 

indelible memories of the experience, many ceremonial 

objects and presents he received, and two vivid colored 

pencil sketches of the northeast and northwest carved 

roof pillars of the famous Whale House, a Raven 

moiety clan house. 

In late 1869, the Coast Survey published its 2nd edition 

of a map of Alaska. A comparison of the 1869 section 

from Klukwan to Fort Selkirk, in the Canadian Yukon, 

and the same area from the 1st edition map, from 1867, 

shows that the Survey’s cartography was completely 

re-done based on the Kohklux map.

The Kohklux map is in pencil on paper. About 1883, 

a tracing cloth overlay of the map, in cleaner inked 

lines, was made in San Francisco and transferred to 

Survey headquarters in Washington, D.C. That tracing 

cloth version was formally enrolled in the Library 

and Archives Collection, the crown jewels of the 

cartography of the Coast Survey. There it remained, 

unseen, for over a century. In 2007, I discovered it in 

National Archives during my NOAA scanning project 

of historical maps and charts of the Coast Survey. I 

had never seen any map like the Kohklux map. One 

of Davidson’s annotations, in English, was “Starting 

point for journey to the Yukon.” And for me, a very 

appropriate comment as the map became my starting 

point for many journeys to Alaska and the Yukon.

When the Bancroft Library did their recent restoration 

of the original Kohklux map, they removed a piece of 

backing paper glued to the map, which revealed that 

the Kohkux Map was drawn on the back of a British 

Admiralty chart of southeastern Alaska, corrected to 

1865. The British chart ended, in the north, at the Lynn 

Canal. The chart was annotated, in English and Tlingit, 

with place names and features heading south, all the 

way to Sitka, where Davidson and Kohklux met for their 

fateful journey. A small crop from the very northernmost 

edge of the “new map” shows the Chilkat and Chilkoot 

Rivers drawn in, with village sites and other annotations. 

After George Davidson’s departure from Klukwan in 

1869, he returned to Alaska only once, 38 years later, in 

1907. However, the next several generations of Coast 

Survey scientists knew the story of the Kohklux maps, 

and they came to Klukwan in 1890, and 1893–1894, 

to make their own mappings of the Chilkat river 

geography. They also photographed many of the people 

and sites still extant from the Kohklux maps. John 

F. Pratt, a gifted Survey scientist, photographed the 

interior of the Whale House, in a tableau that included 

one of Kohklux’s sons, and one of his grandsons. 

The glass plate negative is now at the University 

of Washington Library’s Special Collections. Bob 

Venezia, a graphics specialist in Seattle, was able to 

elicit details in the glass plate negative, not visible to 

observers in the 19th century. 

In 1897–1898, Pratt and company were sent 

thousands of miles northwest from Klukwan to the 

Pribilof Islands in the Bering Sea, and then to the 

mouth of the Yukon River delta, to map those locales. 

At St. Michael, the old Russian trading village on 

St. Michael Island, they hired an Inupiaq-American 

Part of the large Kohklux Map in the Bancroft Library, 

UC Berkeley

Comparison crops from the Coast Survey’s 1867 map of 

Russian America, and the 1869 map of Alaska, showing the 

regions from Klukwan to Fort Selkirk in the Yukon. Source: 

NOAA
 ASC Newsletter 19

1883 Tracing cloth version of the Kohklux map, now in 

Record Group 23, Coast and Geodetic Survey, National 

Archives II

Cropped section from the 1883 tracing cloth map, showing 

place names and annotations in Tlingit and English. 

Source: Bancroft Library, Berkeley

Routes from Chilkhat-kwan and Stahkin-Kwan to the Yukon 

River system, from the 1875 “Map of the Distribution of 

Tribes of Alaska and Adjoining Territory.” Source: SI/NAA

The top section of the “new” map on the reverse of the 

Kohklux map. Source: Bancroft Library, Berkeley
20 ASC Newsletter

man, Joe Kakaryook, who made a series of maps 

and drawings of the Bering Sea coast and the lower 

Yukon River, extending upriver to a point just below 

Fort Selkirk, the northernmost region of the Kohklux 

maps. The maps were made and annotated exactly as 

had been done at Klukwan.

The Kohklux Maps 150 Years Later

In the 1980s, Linda Johnson, then the Archivist 

of Yukon College in Whitehorse and a member of 

the Yukon Native Language Centre, was exploring 

historical maps of the Yukon with ethnographic content, 

especially historical native place names. In 1984 she 

re-discovered the original Kohklux maps, now in the 

Davidson Collection of the Bancroft Library, at the 

University of California at Berkeley. She wrote a book 

about the map and later convinced the library to twice 

loan the map for conferences about Yukon geography 

and ethnography. In 2007, knowing nothing of this, I 

wrote an article about the tracing cloth map version I 

had found. A copy of my article reached the Yukon and 

Linda, and I have been in contact ever since. For 2019, 

Johnson proposed a major conference and re-evaluation 

of the whole Kohklux story, to be co-sponsored by the 

Yukon Historical and Museums Association, the Jilkaat 

Kwaan Heritage Center in Klukwan, the Kwanlin Dün 

Cultural Centre, along with many other Yukon First 

Nations, most Yukon government departments and 

institutions, and the Haines Museum in Haines, Alaska. 

The Bancroft Museum declined to loan the main 

Kohklux map, but they did do “conservation” of the 

maps (there is never just one map). All the maps were 

cleaned, including the original small Kohklux map, 

made in Sitka and called the Jail Map, which was 

hand-delivered to the conference by Theresa Salazar, 

the Curator of Western Americana at the Bancroft 

Library. The Bancroft Library made fresh highresolution scans of the maps, Davidson’s sketchbook 

containing the colored pencil sketches, and much else. 

I contributed my scan of the tracing cloth Kohklux map 

and many other Davidson-related materials. 

Our Trails Bring Us Together

In keeping with the great geographical expanse of 

the original Kohklux maps, parts of the conference 

occurred hundreds of kilometers apart, over a period of 

a week or more. Satellite presentations and events were 

at the Haines Museum in Haines, the Jilkaat Kwaan 

Heritage Center in Klukwan, Alaska, at the Champagne 

& Aishihik First Nations in Haines Junction, Yukon 

Territory. Then all converged for the main conference, 

at Kwanlin Dün Cultural Centre in Whitehorse, by 

the Yukon River. The conference looked back, into 

history, as a springboard to the present and the future 

Top: Whale House in Klukwan, 1890. The man and boy in 

the center are Kootooaak and his son, respectively a son and 

a grandson of Kohklux and his wife Ḵaatchxixch. Source: 

University of Washington Library 

Bottom: The roof pillars as sketched by Davidson in 1869: 

the northwest ‘worm-man’ pillar (left) and northeast (right). 

Source: Bancroft Library, UC Berkeley
 ASC Newsletter 21

for language retention and cultural strengthening. There 

were many Elders who were given much focus, but also 

many young people speaking in their languages. The 

range of languages was impressive: coastal and inland 

Tlingit, Tagish, Han, northern and southern Tutchone, 

and Gwich’in. There were prayers, speeches, dances, 

feasts, and, being in Canada, many Health Breaks to 

drink tea.

For my part, I know little about this geography and the 

peoples who inhabit it, but I know a lot about George 

Davidson, and also his daughter Ellinor Davidson, 

who is mainly responsible for the survival of his vast 

archives and their transfer to research institutions, 

mainly the Bancroft Library and the Phoebe Hearst 

Museum of Anthropology at UC Berkeley. Thus, we 

can look forward to more research and conferences and 

publications, as cooperative 19th-century cartography 

comes back to play prominent roles in 21st-century 

cultural preservation and reemergence in contemporary 

Alaska Native life and the Yukon Territory. 

The Yukon is far from the Anthropology Dept. at 

NMNH, and Whitehorse is not easy to get to and 

from in winter. A number of people and institutions 

assisted me in my journey, and every stop enriched the 

journey, through the stories exchanged, and new clues 

discovered. Sealaska Heritage Institute got me from 

DC to Juneau and back and gave me an opportunity to 

rehearse my Yukon presentation. Rosita Worl, Chuck 

Smythe, and Mason Auger made this happen (https://

www.sealaskaheritage.org/).

After my ferry travel to Haines, Alaska, I stayed with 

Lee Heinmiller and Judy Erekson of Alaska Indian 

Arts, in the historic Fort Hospital Building of the 

former Fort Seward (https://www.alaskaindianarts.

com/). From there, I traveled to Whitehorse by car, 300 

miles through fresh snow, with Sally Robinson and 

Linda Johnson of the Yukon Historical & Museums 

Association (https://www.heritageyukon.ca/), and 

Theresa Salazar of the Bancroft Library. A good part 

of the journey, the road paralleled the trails and lakes 

drawn on the Kohklux maps, which was wonderful. In 

Whitehorse, I stayed with Doug Hitch, a friend, and 

major Dene language scholar and historian. 

I met dozens of people at the conference itself, held in 

the Longhouse of the Kwanlin Dün Cultural Centre. 

Eleanor Hayman, who works with the Carcross/

Tagish First Nation, informed us of the correct names 

of Tu-eek and Ḵaatchxixch, and their context. These 

two women are “coming back” as their prominent 

roles in Tlingit culture, in addition to the making 

of the Kohklux maps, are being recognized. Their 

contributions have been presented, since 1875, in Map 

of the Distribution of Tribes of Alaska and Adjoining 

Territory by William Dall and George Davidson of the 

Coast Survey, published by John Wesley Powell. The 

base map for this is the Survey’s 1869 map of Alaska, 

drawn after Davidson returned from Klukwan. In the 

1875 map, chromolithographic colors representing 

language families are overlaid on the base map. Vast 

areas of Alaska for which Dall and Davidson had no 

knowledge are left blank. The map shows a major swath 

of the country from Chilkhat-Kwan to Fort Selkirk, the 

area of the Kohklux map. But the map also shows two 

routes over the mountains to a major tributary of the 

Yukon, originating in Stahkin-Kwan. These routes were 

described and mapped by Tu-eek and Ḵaatchxixch!

Another conference participant who must be mentioned 

was Marina Hulzenga (http://marinahulzenga.com), 

who made an installation that was seemingly unrelated 

to the Kohklux map, although it was in fact quite 

Lani Hotch and jars of “subsistence” harvested from the 

Chilkat River area and the Lynn Canal. 

Photo by John Cloud

Liminal Space|Awasitipahaskan, the space of a threshold 

from one domain to another. Photo by John Cloud
22 ASC Newsletter

resonant. She “mapped” the 140 First Nation reserves 

in Alberta by pieces of deer hide in concentric rings, 

with audio clips, and a center ring of gravel, like all the 

roads in Her majesty’s reserves. 

After the conference, I got a ride back along the 

beautiful snowy route to Haines, Alaska, with Helen 

Alten, the director of the Haines Sheldon Museum. 

Community radio is a strong element of Alaskan 

society. An interview on KHNS helped draw a very 

lively crowd for the event, held in the remodeled and 

transformed Haines Sheldon Museum, presently full 

of materials related to Kohklux and the stories of that 

great encounter (https://www.sheldonmuseum.org/). 

She got me housed in Haines in exchange for doing 

another presentation at the Haines Museum. 

There was also another highlight of the journey—a 

visit, with Helen, to Lani Hotch at the Jillkaat 

Kwaan Culture Center in Klukwan (https://www.

jilkaatkwaanheritagecenter.org/). The Center now 

holds all four of the roof pillars and the ceremonial 

screen of the historic Whale House, as sketched by 

Davidson and photographed by Pratt. At long last, after 

years, I saw the Whale House. Current photography 

is not allowed and wasn’t needed. Seeing the pillars, 

at last, was one highlight. The other was sitting and 

talking to Lani Hotch, who had a way of making two 

facing chairs become a circle, an arena for the best 

stories. She did much of the design of the culture 

center, especially including presentations about the 

seasonal rounds of traditional Tlingit foods and fibers, 

keeping the old ways going into the 21st century.

From Haines, there was another ferry ride to Juneau, 

and then back to D.C. Food and travel along the route 

were provided by a generous grant from the ASC 

“Tiger” Burch Fund. In summary, Alaska and the 

Yukon are vast places, and humans are few. That means 

that interactions tend to be intense and productive. At 

every juncture, every encounter, we were talking and 

gesturing, explaining and exploring, making sense as 

we could of this vast land, and the relation of people 

to it. We were attempting, essentially, exactly what 

Kohklux, Tu-eek, Ḵaatchxixch, and George Davidson 

accomplished so brilliantly in a week in August 1869, 

at Klukwan, on the banks of the Chilkat River.

TRACKING ARCTIC CHANGE—ARCTIC 

REPORT CARD 2019

By Igor Krupnik

In October 2006, NOAA Arctic Program, then under 

the leadership of John Calder, produced its first annual 

overview of climate-forced changes in the Arctic called 

“State of the Arctic Report.” The 36-page booklet was 

organized in four sections: “Atmosphere,” “Ocean,” 

“Sea Ice Cover,” and “Land,” with short 2-3-page 

synopses of major developments produced by 25 

contributors, all prime experts in their fields. The Report 

was timed for the beginning of the International Polar 

Year (IPY) 2007–2008, then in preparation. It became 

one of the lasting legacies of NOAA Arctic Program and 

of Calder’s stewardship that included support for the 

NMNH/ASC exhibit, Arctic: A Friend Acting Strangely

in 2004–2007, which we fondly remember.

Since 2006, NOAA continued to produce its annual 

overviews of Arctic environmental change now 

called “Arctic Report Card.” They soon doubled and, 

later, tripled in size (up to 100 pages), but preserved 

the format of short ‘snapshots’ on particular topics 

accompanied by graphs and charts, and small reference 

sections of a dozen key entries. The annual overview 

focus was soon articulated by the addition of the 

‘Year Headlines’ and ‘Highlights’ summaries on the 

front page. The reports were widely distributed online 

as printable PDF documents and were featured at 

professional meetings and NOAA press conferences. 

Several leading Arctic physical scientists took turns 

in serving as ‘Report Card’ editors, primarily Drs. 

Jackie Richter-Menge, James Overland, and Martin 

Jeffries, whereas the total number of its contributors 

has grown to a few hundred. Besides the usual sections 

on Arctic temperatures and atmospheric circulation, 

ocean temperature and sea ice dynamics, snow cover, 

and land vegetation, later Report Cards added scores 

of new topics, such as the status of the Greenland ice 

sheet, other glaciers, and ice caps, permafrost, fish 

population dynamics and fisheries, even updates on 

specific Arctic species—polar bear, walrus, whales, 

seals, caribou and reindeer, seabirds, geese, Arctic char, 

and others—(see https://arctic.noaa.gov/report-card/

report-card-archive/).

Nonetheless, in almost 15 years of its production, 

the Report Cards maintained their prime focus on the 

physical and, partly, biological components of the 

Arctic environment, reflecting the general focus of 

the NOAA mission. Among more than 100 entries 

published since 2006, only one (!) featured a short 

summary on the community-based efforts to document 

Arctic environmental change by polar residents 

themselves. That short overview in 2015 (co-authored 

by Lilian Alessa, Andrew Kliskey, Donald Forbes, 

David Atkinson, David Griffith, Tero Mustonen, 

and Peter Pulsifer) provided a brief snapshot of 

community-based observational networks that survived 

the IPY era. For whatever reason, it remained the 

Report Card’s only projection on the role of Indigenous 

residents in documenting Arctic environmental change.
 ASC Newsletter 23

The 2019 Report Card 

NOAA’s 2019 “Arctic Report Card,” the fourteenth 

annual installment in the series, was released on 

December 10, 2019, at the American Geophysical 

Union (AGU) fall meeting in San Francisco. A printable 

booklet of 100 pages co-edited by J. Richter-Menge, 

M. Druckenmiller, and M. Jeffries, and compiled by 

eighty-one scientists from twelve nations, overviews 

transitions across the northern polar region during 2019. 

Besides the short executive summary, it is organized in 

twelve sections (thematic essays). Many are the standard 

topics of the annual reports—surface air temperature, sea 

ice and snow cover, Greenland ice sheet melt, permafrost 

and tundra greenness. Other essays introduced new 

facets of the Arctic change, like the contribution of the 

permafrost melt to the global carbon cycle; response of 

marine algae to climate warming and sea ice decline; 

and the northward migration of the near-bottom fish 

communities in the Bering and Barents seas. Three 

stories are highly innovative, those of the Arctic 

ivory gulls (Pagophilla eburnea), of continuing 

rapid warming of the Bering Sea; and of 

indigenous perspectives on the Bering Sea 

ecosystems (see below). 

The 2019 Report Card presents an overwhelming 

slew of evidence on the pace of environmental change 

in the Arctic triggered by the rising air and water 

temperatures and rapidly declining sea ice. The Report 

Card rightly calls the speed of change ‘unprecedented,’ 

with near-record high air and ocean temperatures in 

2019, continued loss of the Greenland ice sheet, and 

the near record low of summer sea ice extent. For the 

Arctic as a whole, 2019 was the second warmest year 

since 1900 in terms of the average annual land surface 

temperature north of 60°N for October 2018–August 

2019 and in Alaska the statewide average temperature 

was the highest in the existing record (1925–2019). 

Annual temperature records were also set at Utqiaġvik, 

Fairbanks, and Anchorage. The year saw the second 

lowest minimal sea ice extent by the end of Arctic 

summer since the beginning of satellite observations in 

1979 (it was literally tied with the record minimums of 

2007 and 2016). It was the third lowest year in terms 

of the land snow cover persisting till June and was 

also marked by a gigantic release of melt water from 

the Greenland ice sheet, which currently contributes to 

global average sea level rise at about 0.7 mm per year. 

These and other data are based on original, peerreviewed environmental observations and analysis 

conducted by the national agencies and research teams 

of several nations across the entire Arctic region. 

Several areas in the Arctic raise particular concern 

for the speed of change, like the northern Bering Seasouthern Chukchi Sea region, Baffin Bay, and 

Northwest Greenland that are of long-term 

interest to ASC scientists and research partners.

In a recent article published in the journal Science 

Advances, a group of fifteen world-recognized leaders 

in polar research, including Eric Post, Richard 

Alley, Julienne Stroeve, Michael Mann, as well 

as the ASC partners, Ross Virginia, Bruce Forbes, 

and Fran Ulmer (Chair of the U.S. Arctic Research 

Commission), warned that over the past decade the 

Arctic has warmed by 0.75°C relative to the mean 

temperatures for 1951–1980. As the planet faces the 

prospect of 2°C warming throughout this century, 

The young broken ice in Gambell, Alaska, in 

February 2017 now looks ‘normal’ for winter 

conditions in the warming Arctic. 

Photo by Igor Krupnik

Participants of the Bering Sea Elders’ Arctic 

Report Card Workshop in Nome, Alaska 

(September 2019). Source: https://arctic.noaa.

gov/Portals/7/ArcticReportCard/Documents/

ArcticReportCard_full_report2019.pdf
24 ASC Newsletter

the Arctic may reach 4°C mean annual warming and 

7°C winter warming, respectively. To many small 

polar communities, the impacts of such change would 

be stunning and indeed ‘unprecedented’ in people’s 

historical memory. Many coastal communities 

may lose (or have already lost!) their winter ice, 

except for a few months, even weeks. They face 

summer temperatures rising into the 70s, even 80s 

degrees F (way above 20°C); increased storminess 

and land/shore erosion; rapid permafrost melt; and 

dramatic restructuring in both marine and terrestrial 

ecosystems. The impacts on Arctic residents’ life and 

economy are soon to follow.

At its meeting in fall 2019, the North Atlantic Marine 

Mammal Commission (NAMMCO) proposed a 

complete ban on subsistence hunting for narwhals in 

East Greenland, where local narwhal population has 

reportedly dropped by more than 70% since 2008. 

Along the Bering and Chukchi shores, beaches are 

littered with the dead seabirds, such as short-tailed 

shearwaters, common murres, puffins, and auklets. 

More than 200 dead gray whales were washed ashore 

along the North America’s West Coast, suggesting 

thousands more might have perished. In Utqiaġvik 

(formerly Barrow), the fall whaling season for bowhead 

whales in 2019 lasted into the month of November, 

with neither the usual sea ice nor whales in sight, 

until a single whale was killed in late November. 

In fall 2018, local Inupiat whalers landed nearly 20 

whales, the usual number for the season. The spring 

observational season for sea ice conditions under 

the SIWO (Sea Ice for Walrus Outlook) network in 

the northern Bering Sea (see ASC Newsletter 2019) 

concluded on May 31st, three-four weeks earlier than 

in 2010–2013, with neither sea ice nor walruses in 

sight. By December 2019, the new sea ice extent in the 

northern Bering Sea was the lowest on record for this 

time of the year. Similar local evidence to the unusually 

warm weather, sea ice, and ecosystem conditions in 

2019 is in near-endless supply.

Indigenous voices in the 2019 ‘Report Card’

The 2019 Report Card is also unusual within the 

NOAA 14-year series in that its editors made special 

effort to present indigenous perspectives on the 

changing Arctic, something that social scientists have 

been advocating since the late 1990s, including at ASC 

(see ASC Newsletter 2000, 2001, 2002, and several 

later issues). A section in the report titled Voices from 

the Front Lines of a Changing Bering Sea compiled by 

Matthew Druckenmiller (NSIDC), Raychelle Daniel

(The Pew Charitable Trust) and Melissa Johnson

(Bering Sea Elders Group) featured the outcomes of the 

first workshop of its kind for the ‘Report Card’ that was 

held in Nome, Alaska on September 26–27, 2019. 

The meeting brought together representatives from 

eight rural communities across the Bering Sea region, 

including Wales, Savoonga, Nome, Unalakleet, and St. 

Paul of the Pribilof Islands, with which the ASC has 

years of joint research and partnership relations (see 

https://eloka-arctic.org/communities/bering-seavoices/). The community observers stated loud and 

clear that the Bering Sea is undergoing changes that 

have never been observed in their lifetimes and that 

record-breaking temperatures, reduction in sea ice, and 

the increasing lack of snow are impacting people’s life 

resources, such as marine mammals, fish, seabirds, 

and plants. They pointed to the most significant factors 

of change across the entire (eastern) Bering Sea area, 

such as dramatic shifts in the timing, thickness, and 

safety of sea ice; the increased instability of weather 

and winds that makes local weather forecasting difficult 

and traveling conditions increasingly dangerous; and 

the growing threat of storms, coastal erosion, but also 

of new phenomena, such as coastal landslides, large 

sinkholes, and methane bubbling up through their 

freshwater lakes. In addition, Indigenous contributors 

voiced their special concerns about increased threats to 

specific food resources, such as the massive die-offs of 

cod, tomcod, and salmon (evidently from warm water 

temperature and lack of food), seabirds with clear signs 

of starvation, and dead seals littering the shores in 

many locations. 

Indigenous communities across the Bering Sea region 

are increasingly on edge because the pace of transition 

is often overwhelming. The resulting message from 

the workshop speaks for itself: “The world of our 

childhood is no longer here.” It has been amplified by 

similar statements by the Assembly of First Nations 

of Canada that declared a ‘First Nations Climate 

Emergency’ in July 2019, and by the declaration of a 

climate change ‘emergency’ approved by the Alaska 

Federation of Natives at its annual convention in 

October 2019 in Fairbanks. 

It’s Cold—but is it ‘Cold Enough’?

The warming spell of 2019 was finally broken in the 

last week of December, when cold air from the Arctic 

brought the temperatures to a record low, at least in 

Alaska and the Western Arctic. The Chukchi Sea was 

quickly covered with newly-formed ice; drifting ice 

floes clogged the Bering Sea, and the young shore-fast 

ice rapidly expanded across the bays and inlets in the 

northern Bering Sea. January 2020 finally saw winter 

weather and ice conditions that could be called ‘close 

to normal’ across most of the Arctic area. By the end of 

January 2020, the total Arctic sea ice cover of roughly 

13.7M sq. km (5.27M sq. mi) was visibly above the 

average for the decade of the 2010s (13.45M). Yet it 

remained substantially lower than the average for the 
 ASC Newsletter 25

2000s (14.02M) and 

almost incomparable to 

the average numbers of 

the 1980s (15.01M) and 

the 1990s (14.7M; www.

forum.arctic-sea-ice.

net/). 

As always, some Arctic 

areas experienced more 

cold than others. By the 

end of January 2020, 

the Western Arctic seas 

(the Chukchi, Beaufort, 

and East Siberian) had 

100% ice cover, that is, 

100% of the average for 

the period of 2004–2019 

(https://uaf-accap.org/

sea-ice/) whereas the 

Bering Sea was at about 

95% of the ‘average’ cover (about 620K km2

), mostly 

because of some lagging freeze-up in the western 

(Russian) sector. According to Anchorage-based KTUU 

channel (www.ktuu.com/), January 2020 was cold 

in Alaska—not terribly or record cold, but enough to 

bring the memories of true ‘cold winter’ of the past. 

Temperatures in Utqiaġvik (Barrow) hit -40°C for the 

first time in 2919 days, which is eight years. It was the 

eighth coldest January on record in Alaska and also the 

first in 22 consecutive months that the mean temperature 

was below average for the entire state. It also brought a 

lot of snow—Anchorage had two record snowfall days, 

with 6.2 inches falling on January 1, 2020. 

In other parts of the Arctic, the pattern was mixed. The 

sea ice extent was about ‘normal’ (i.e., average) in the 

northern Barents Sea, compared to several last years 

when there was little ice across the area in January. The 

Central Canadian Arctic also saw heavy ice conditions, 

whereas ice was lower (lighter) in the Sea of Okhotsk, 

East Greenland Sea, and particularly along the 

Labrador coast and in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Also, 

according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center 

(NSIDC) ice concentration chart for January 2020 

(https://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/), most of these 

areas saw just barely 30-40% ice cover which is mostly 

a mixture of drifting ice floes, but not solid ice cover.

As the winter of 2019/2020 goes into February, once its 

‘coldest’ month, the Arctic ice keeps growing, albeit at a 

slower pace. While we are seeing average ice coverage 

across the Bering Sea in the early weeks of 2020, this 

does not account for ice thickness, as the ice has been 

very thin over the past several years, due to warmer 

ocean temperatures. The main issue now is not whether 

‘it ever gets cold again’ (it does!) but whether it will be 

‘cold enough,’ in the 

words of one of my St. 

Lawrence Island Yupik 

partners, to build good 

solid ice. In the ‘olden 

days,’ February was 

supposed to bring 

more cold weather 

and ice; but in recent 

years, particularly in 

winter 2019, it brought 

bouts of warm weather 

and heavy storms from 

the south that broke up 

ice and pushed it away 

from shores in a mess 

of drifting floes. We 

witnessed that pattern 

last February in Nome, 

during the 5th Thule 

centennial session (see ASC Newsletter 2019), with the 

temperatures around or above the freezing level, massive 

snowfalls, and hardly any sea ice in sight. If this pattern 

repeats again in 2020, we would be back to the same 

cycle witnessed in 2019 featured in the latest “Arctic 

Report Card” of 2019.

OIL FISH OF DESTINY

By John Cloud

There was a great confluence of some of the best maps 

in modern American cartography in October 2019 in the 

seaport of Tacoma, Washington. The awkwardly titled 

North American Cartographic Information Society, or 

NACIS, is made up primarily of working cartographers 

and scholars of cartography, so every wall and screen 

at its conferences are covered in imagery. The city of 

Tacoma has two mottos: “Where Sails meet Rails”, 

and “City of Destiny.” Run together, these sound like a 

haiku verse, which was the inspiration for my exercise in 

cartographic forensics. The mottos refer to the terminus 

of the Northern Pacific Railroad at Tacoma on Puget 

Sound, which opened the products of resource extraction 

in the Pacific Northwest to global commerce in the 

Pacific and the world. Tacoma’s destiny was to reap the 

benefits of all this—but who paid the costs?

What is now titled the State of Washington was a 

small part of a much larger, amorphous area, which 

first was titled “Oregon.” The name was a process 

of geography; in the deep interior of the northwest, 

“Oregon” apparently originally referenced a great 

river that flowed to the Pacific but then eventually 

evolved to refer to a large area parallel to the Pacific 

coast, stretching from what is now British Columbia

Average monthly Arctic sea ice extent, January 1979–2020. 

Source: http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/, fig. 3
26 ASC Newsletter

to California. But why the 

change, and, for that matter, 

why “Oregon”?

Here I draw upon the 

excellent linguistic research 

of my friend and colleague 

Scott Byram, who, with 

David G. Lewis, published 

a major paper on the 

history of the word and the 

concepts. (Ourigan: Wealth 

of the Northwest Coast, by 

Scott Byram and David G. 

Lewis, Oregon Historical 

Society, 2002). They trace 

the name Oregon to a fish, 

specifically a small oily fish 

of the northern Pacific Ocean, 

Thaleichthys pacificus.

The fish was, and is, embedded in cultural as well 

as ecological systems. For millennia, coastal Pacific 

peoples have caught and processed the fish for oil, 

which in turn was carried over the coastal mountains 

to trade with inland people for the resources they had 

harvested: meat and fruits, animal pelts, chunks of 

obsidian, etc. Byram and Lewis methodically traced 

the historically documented names for the fish, and 

disparate spelling of the names. A pattern leaps out: 

with some exceptions, all the fish names, across entire 

language families, consist of a three-syllable word, 

beginning with a vowel sound, ending with “n.” And 

thus somehow, out of many, came Oregon.

My contributions to the matter 

were in the rediscovery of 

very rare historical maps 

from the early 19th century 

that visualized the region 

spanned by the fish names. 

As well, I wanted to address 

what happened to all the 

peoples there in the process 

of Tacoma becoming “City of 

Destiny.” The key to much is 

a remarkable map published in 

1883, Under a Black Cloud.

The series of syndicates 

which controlled the Northern 

Pacific Railroad, as part of 

the project to complete the 

railroad, received ownership 

of alternating checker-board 

squares of so-called “public 

lands”—the largest single transfer of land to private 

ownership in the history of the United States. But 

those checkerboards were laid over every treaty, every 

promise, every reservation in the path of the railroad. 

The railroad received all the odd-numbered squares 

in larger squares in which the numbers went left to 

right, then right to the left, etc.—a pattern called 

“boustrophedon”, referring to the way Roman oxen 

plowed a field. As a result, from one day in 1875, to 

the next, the small Muckleshoot Indian Reservation, 

east of Tacoma, was check-mated. And thus, my 

cartographic forensics of Tacoma’s mysterious haiku.

Ethnographical Map of Oregon, 

circa 1846, provenance 

unknown. Source: American 

Geographical Society

The eulachon fish, as drawn by Meriweather 

Lewis, in 1804. Source: Missouri Historical 

Society

The Muckleshoot Indian 

Reservation, 1875. Sourse: US 

Army files, Record Group 57, 

National Archives II
 ASC Newsletter 27

JAUZARREA CONFERENCE ON BASQUE 

NORTH ATLANTIC CONNECTIONS

By William W. Fitzhugh

In October, Lynne Fitzhugh and I traveled to the 

Basque Country (‘Euskal Herria’) to take part in the 

seventh international 

Atlantiar conference put 

on by Xabi Otero and 

his Jauzarrea Foundation 

(https://jauzarrea.com/). 

The year before, we had 

attended the gathering 

he and Mi’kmaq Grand 

Chief Stephen Augustine

organized in Sydney, Nova 

Scotia, so we had a chance 

to re-establish ties with old 

colleagues and meet new 

ones. This year’s meeting 

took place in the aftermath 

of Dennis Stanford’s death 

after a long struggle with 

cancer. Dennis and Pegi 

Jodry had been ‘charter’ 

members of earlier 

Atlantiar gatherings, along 

with Bruce Bradley, on 

account of their Solutrean 

hypothesis. Pegi and Bruce 

were with us again, and 

the meeting was both a 

memorial for Dennis and 

an exploration of old and 

new ideas.

Like previous gatherings, 

this year’s took place over 

several days and afforded 

time to tour cultural sites 

in the region around 

the western part of the 

Pyrenees, San Sebastian 

(Donostia), and visit 

museums, historic sites, 

and even a chocolate 

factory. Throughout the 

visit, we were hosted by 

Xabi and his wife Beatrice

in their medieval ‘castle’ 

nestled in the foothills of 

the Pyrenees.

Meals for more than twenty at a long table in their 

living room were made and served by an entourage of 

Jauzarrea friends who doubled as guides and chauffeurs 

in our countryside rambles. Lodging was in an ancient 

blacksmith shop converted into a comfortable inn. Of 

course, the food and wine were fabulous, as one would 

expect in this ethnic gastronomic heaven! In addition to 

Xabi’s and Beatrice’s home, we dined in one of the old 

Donostia gastronomic societies and visited two other 

domestic settings that hark back to early Basque rural 

home-steading.

All three follow the model 

of a large stone-walled 

structure whose bottom 

floor was used in winter 

as an animal barn as well 

as being on the receiving 

end of an apple cider press 

whose great press levers 

were on the floor above, 

beside the family’s living 

quarters. The floor above 

that—a kind of attic—served 

as the hayloft and storage 

for agricultural gear. One of 

the open-air museums we 

visited demonstrated how 

this settlement type had 

evolved from Neolithic and 

Iron Age times, and how 

the combination of animal 

husbandry and cider became 

central features of Basque 

rural economy that continue 

to this day. The third 

building of this type is the 

home of friends of Jauzarrea 

who put on a feast of food 

and music in their home 

and gave us a tour of how 

they have turned their cider 

press-barn into a gorgeous 

dwelling stocked with art, 

artifacts, and of course local 

wine and cider.

Besides the informal 

discussions during our 

peregrinations, meals, and 

lounging, we presented 

research papers at a full-day 

symposium at the Orona 

Foundation in Gipuzkoa. 

Orona—a world-famous company specializing in 

elevator technologies—has been a long-term sponsor 

of Jauzarrea and provided great support for our talks, 

which were attended by a large audience of friends, 

scholars, artists, and press.

Top: Jauzarrea is based in Xabi’s and Beatrice’s home, 

a renovated medieval ‘fortress’ in the town of Arraiotz, 

Navarre. Bottom: Cider press mechanics at the 

Igartubeiti farm museum. Photo by William Fitzhugh
28 ASC Newsletter

A portrait of Dennis Stanford dominated the stage. 

Presentations ranged from musical performances to 

archaeology, dance, DNA, linguistics, and everything 

in between. Pegi spoke about Dennis and reported on 

the Cinmar finds; Bruce on Basque refugia in North 

America; Michael Collins on the Paleoindian Gault site; 

Xabi on possible boat images on Gault stone tablets; and 

Ron Williamson on Wendat-Basque trade connections in 

the St. Lawrence valley. Along with other presentations, 

there were papers on DNA research by Stephen 

Oppenheimer, Maria Pala, and Martin Richards. The 

latter work discussed genetic introductions from the Near 

East and Steppe to the ancient Basque genome during 

Neolithic and Bronze Age times, so there is no chance of 

a pure Paleolithic Basque genome persisting into modern 

times. On the other hand, Basque lineages contribute 

a major proportion of DNA to the genomes of western 

Europe, suggesting an Iberian population expansion 

northward following the retreat of Ice Age glaciation, and 

modern Basque genomes include a strong component 

of pre-Neolithic lineages. Other papers were given by 

Lionel Sims on astroastronomy and Basque mythology, 

Eddy Kennedy on the introduction of Basque 

interpreters at Parks Canada’s Louisbourg Fortress, 

Xarles Bidegain on Basque linguistic introductions at 

Louisbourg, and Idoia Arana-Beobide on matrilineal 

contributions to world cultures. My talk up-dated recent 

archaeological studies of 17th –18th-century Basque-Inuit 

contacts in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

Jauzarrea continues to stress the importance of new 

scholarship on Basque culture and history and provides 

a hugely delightful forum for promoting Basque 

heritage, internally and internationally. What is needed 

now is a catalyst to convince sponsors and governments 

to take seriously the need for promoting and preserving 

Basque culture from Paleolithic times in Europe and 

after the arrival of Indo-European peoples, as well as 

to the diaspora of ten million Basques now dispersed 

all over the world, with their culture, and educating 

the wider world about the many but little-appreciated 

contributions Basques have made, and continue to 

make, throughout the Americas and rest of the world. 

Sponsors for the conference included Txoria Errekan, 

Jauzarrearen lagunak, Orona Fundazioa, Hiru 

Belugak, Michael Collins, Debbie Steiss and Ron 

Williamson, Lynne and William W. Fitzhugh.

THE ABRAHAM ANGHIK RUBEN INUKSUK 

SCULPTURE INSTALLED AT MSC

By Igor Krupnik

Having said ‘farewell’ to the Narwhal exhibit at 

NMNH, its several components are starting a new life 

of their own (see Fitzhugh’s story, this issue). One 

of the most impressive elements of the exhibit, an 

iconic Inuksuk sculpture created by Abraham Anghik 

Reuben, renown Canadian Inuit artist, has found its 

new home in the Natural History Museum Support 

Center in Suitland, MD.

It is hard to find a better place for this iconic piece 

of Inuit heritage, also of modern art, so that it now 

becomes a marker of the Anthropology symbolic 

space and Indigenous people’s presence in the Natural 

History Museum collection facility. Our friends and 

colleagues at the nearby Collection Resource Center 

(CRC) of the National Museum of the American Indian 

(NMAI) have long resolved this issue by placing 

several pieces of Indigenous art in their hallways and 

collection space. So, we are just catching up, slowly.

William Fitzhugh, the Narwhal exhibit curator, recalled 

the story of the exhibit, of Abraham’s involvement with 

the Smithsonian from years prior (including his exhibit 

staged at NMAI on the occasion of the 18th Inuit Studies 

Conference in Washington D.C. in October 2012 curated 

by Bernadette Driscoll Engelstad), and of his generous 

donation of the sculpture to NMNH for the Narwhal

On January 28, 2020, some 30 people welcomed the Ruben 

Inuksuk in its new permanent display at MSC near the 

entrance to the Anthropology Collections headquarters. 

Photo by David Rosenthal

The Abraham Anghik Ruben Inuksuk sculpture created for 

the Narwhal exhibition in its new permanent display at the 

Museum Support Center. Photo by Esther Rimer
 ASC Newsletter 29

exhibit life and beyond. Igor Krupnik followed 

with the recap of the Inuksuk’s accession process by 

Anthropology and with the general role of similar stone 

human-like sculptures that mark the Inuit physical and 

symbolic landscape across the Canadian Arctic. 

We missed the narwhal muktuk (skin/blubber interface) 

as well as other Inuit delicacies to celebrate the event and 

had no drums (except many in the collections) to sing 

the proper Inuit songs. But this was compensated by the 

enthusiasm and interest of the audience. With this new 

installment, Abraham’s sculpture acquired its permanent 

display place; Anthropology got a highly visible marker 

of its home space at MSC, and all future visitors to the 

NMNH collections now have an artistic piece of Arctic 

heritage wonder to marvel at. It was a total win-win. Our 

warmest thanks to J.R. Smith, MSC Program Manager, 

Dave Rosenthal, Anthropology Collection Manager, 

Christyna Solhan, the lead of the Narwhal exhibit 

development team, and others who made it happen.

ARCUS INDIGENOUS SCHOLARS TRAVEL 

TO D.C.

By Lisa Sheffield Guy, Helen Aderman, Beth Leonard, 

and Tonia Osborne

The Arctic Indigenous Scholars Program, led by the 

Arctic Research Consortium of the U.S. (ARCUS) 

and the Inuit Circumpolar Council (ICC) Alaska, 

and supported by the National Science Foundation's 

Division of Polar Programs, aims to create a space 

for Indigenous scholars to educate and inform policy 

and decision-makers engaged in Arctic issues in 

Washington, D.C. The program defines a scholar as an 

expert within their knowledge system.

During 2019—the second year of the program—a 

committee of Arctic Indigenous leaders selected 

four scholars for the opportunity: Helen Aderman

(Yup'ik), originally from Togiak, Alaska, with interests 

in marine ecosystems and subsistence; Beth Leonard

(Athabascan), a professor of Alaska Native Studies at 

the University of Alaska Anchorage, with a focus on 

higher education for Alaskan Native students; Tonia 

Osborne (Inupiaq), a recent Marine Biology graduate of 

the University of Alaska Southeast, with focus on marine 

science, climate change, and incorporating Indigenous 

knowledge into science; and Mark Miklahook (St. 

Lawrence Island Yupik), with interest in language and 

cultural resources for St. Lawrence Island.

During their time in the Capitol, the scholars met with 

a variety of organizations and leaders relating to their 

interests. Helen had the opportunity to speak with 

U.S. Senator Dan Sullivan (R-AK) to advocate for 

long-term habitat protection legislation as well as to 

alert federal organizations and stakeholders of current 

issues that Bristol Bay Native communities face. Beth 

met with staff from the National Science Foundation, 

NCAI, and the Bureau of Indian Education to discuss 

their recent funding initiatives to promote the success 

of Alaskan Native students in higher education. Tonia 

utilized her expertise in marine mammals and climate 

studies to highlight the importance of respecting the 

needs and cultural values of Indigenous communities 

during conversations with scientists and policymakers 

at the likes of NOAA, NSF, NCAI, and many others.

ARCUS would like to thank the following 

organizations for hosting the scholars in Washington, 

D.C.: U.S. Global Change Research Program, 

Interagency Arctic Research Policy Committee, 

Office of Science and Technology Policy, Smithsonian 

Arctic Studies Center, The Arctic Institute, National 

Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration 

(NOAA), National Science Foundation (NSF), U.S. 

Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), U.S. Senator Dan 

Sullivan (R-AK), U.S. Department of Education, U.S. 

Bureau of Indian Education, National Congress of 

American Indians (NCAI), and National Council for 

Science and the Environment. The scholar’s program is 

expected to continue in 2020.

Top: 2019 ARCUS Indigenous Scholar Helen Aderman 

(center) meeting with Senator Dan Sullivan (left) and 

Andrew Aderman (right). Photo by ARCUS. 

Bottom: ARCUS Indigenous Scholars Tonia Osborne, Beth 

Leonard, and Mark Miklahook (left to right) visited the NSF 

in May 2019. Photo by Joed Polly 
30 ASC Newsletter

HUNTING AND GATHERING CANADIAN 

MATERIALS IN EASTERN ARCTIC 

ARCHIVES

By Sean Guistini 

A region that holds archival material about itself is 

stronger. That was the guiding principle of my research 

as a scholar in the second cohort of the Fulbright Arctic 

Initiative. In May 2019, I was graciously hosted by Dr. 

William Fitzhugh and his team at the Arctic Studies 

Center (ASC), who served as my guides into the 

distinctive archives of the Smithsonian Institution and 

the National Archives at College Park in Maryland. The 

aspiration of this Fulbright research visit was to locate 

archival holdings from the Canadian Eastern Arctic to 

build the capacity of the digital archive at my home 

institution, Nunavut Arctic College in Iqaluit. 

To be most clear, I was not researching as much 

as searching. I was not working on publishing a 

paper, book, thesis, or produce a documentary, and 

by no means was my searching in the archives of 

the Smithsonian and the National Archives a novel 

mission. Much of what I examined has been accessed, 

employed in research, and in publications and 

exhibitions many times. My goal was much simpler: 

to meet archivists and scholars to learn more about 

Canadian Eastern Arctic materials held in the United 

States and to explore possibilities for digital sharing. 

I manage Nunavut Arctic College Media (NAC Media), 

which was established in April 2015 to continue the 

30-years-long publishing activity of the college. In 

addition to publishing, 

we have broadened our 

media products to include 

film, digital web, and oral 

history production. One of 

our first initiatives was to 

begin populating a digital 

repository of archival, 

oral history, traditional 

knowledge, and other digital 

materials to develop more 

learning resources, enhance 

conditions for research, and 

increase access to archival 

materials within the territory 

of Nunavut.

In 2015, we started by 

searching, sourcing, and 

digitizing cassette tapes, 

quarter inch reel-to-reels, and 

a spectrum of video formats 

from offices, homes, 

storage units, cabinets, and garages in Nunavut and 

other places in Canada. As our digital holdings grew, 

we reached out to institutions and people in Western 

Europe and the United States holding Canadian Eastern 

Arctic materials. The Fulbright Arctic Initiative offered 

a timely and rich opportunity for further development 

of our archiving program through networking and my 

research visit to the ASC. 

After a seminal month in Washington. D.C., I advanced 

my archival searching to Philadelphia, New York 

City, Indiana University, and Dartmouth College. 

Throughout my travels south of the border, I located 

compelling material, much of which I was able to bring 

home digitally. Most relevant to Inuktitut speakers and 

linguists are rare, old audio recordings that are now held 

in our Iqaluit office and available for listening, teaching, 

learning, and research. These recordings hold significant 

cultural and linguistic value and have never been heard 

by the vast majority of Nunavummiut. 

As important as the material acquisitions of my 

research visit were the intangible outcomes. I was 

reminded of the excitement and intensity of archival 

work: diligently following a clue pulled from the 

footnotes of an arcane article; the exhilaration of 

finding something that glows with significance; the 

anxious glances at the clock as time winds down on 

your last day; the tender shoulder blades wrought from 

an awkward posture while taking hundreds of photos 

with a smartphone; sharing quiet spaces with strangers 

on their own historical wavelength. 

I was also reminded of the importance of the archivist 

and the bricks-and-mortar 

archive. As the desire to 

digitize and distribute 

archives online gains a 

full head of steam, the 

importance of people and 

places in the archival process 

remains paramount. Each 

archivist I met provided 

invaluable information, 

institutional context, and 

expressed capacious care for 

the respective collections. 

They presented themselves 

as curious partners, eager 

for input to refine the 

descriptions of the materials 

they held. I departed each 

place knowing that the 

collections were in caring, 

vigilant hands that were 

willing to extend expertise, 

ideas, and material. 

Sean Guistini and the ASC’s Nancy Shorey on the 

National Mall. Photo by Nancy Shorey
 ASC Newsletter 31

A sincere thanks to the Fulbright Arctic Initiative, Dr. 

Fitzhugh and the ASC, and all the archivists and staff 

who generously offered their time; and a special thanks 

to Nancy Shorey, who ensured that I ate healthy and 

found my way around Washington. This Canada-US 

initiative contributed to making Nunavut stronger 

through partnership, dialogue, and the digital return of 

archival holdings that help tells its story. 

KRUPNIK RECEIVES SMITHSONIAN 

DISTINGUISHED SCHOLAR AWARD

By William Fitzhugh

Igor Krupnik received the Smithsonian Distinguished 

Scholar Award of 2019, the highest honor bestowed 

annually by the Smithsonian Secretary for outstanding 

contributions to Smithsonian science. The award, first 

given in 2000, celebrates excellence in all branches 

of Smithsonian scholarship by honoring the sustained 

achievement of individual Smithsonian scholar each 

year. The winners are asked to deliver a lecture on some 

aspect of their work to the Smithsonian community, and 

they receive a medal and a contribution to their research 

funds. Since 2017, the Secretary gives two awards—one 

in the sciences and one in the humanities.

Krupnik received his award (and a medal!) in the 

humanities competition and Secretary’s medal for his 

contribution to Smithsonian work with Indigenous 

communities and, specifically, to the field of ‘coproduction of knowledge’ with Indigenous experts. 

He has been one of the Smithsonian’s most powerful 

voices on the need to partner with local knowledge 

holders in documenting the advance of climate and 

general environmental change, in heritage preservation, 

cultural history, museum collections, and other domains 

critical to the ASC mission. Igor’s lecture delivered on 

December 11, 2019, was titled Heritage in Drawers: 

From Taking In to Giving Back (a Smithsonian Journey). 

It covered the Smithsonian’s gradual transition from an 

institution dedicated to ‘taking in’ the riches of other 

cultures, for scholarly preservation, to increasingly 

serving as a hub for ‘knowledge sharing’ and partnership 

on behalf of many constituencies.

Krupnik’s Distinguished Scholar award is the second one 

earned by the ASC staff (after Bill Fitzhugh’s in 2003) 

and the fourth received by the NMNH anthropologists 

(including Adrienne Kaeppler and Douglas Owsley). 

The ASC congratulates Igor on this achievement.

LIAOCHENG UNIVERSITY ESTABLISHES 

ARCTIC STUDIES CENTER

By Jian Zhau

Founded in March 2018, the Arctic Studies Center 

(ASC) at Liaocheng University (LCU), China, is 

dedicated to the exploration of polar ethnographic 

landscapes, traditional indigenous knowledge 

of survival in circumpolar regions, and humanenvironment interactions over thousands of years. 

The Center has three divisions: ethnology and 

anthropology, environmental history and archaeology, 

and International Affairs and Public Governance.

NMAI director Kevin Gover presents Krupnik with 

award medal The new Arctic Studies Journal of Liaochang University
32 ASC Newsletter

The ASC houses Chinese and international scholars 

who actively represent LCU in international academic 

events. It has launched a Journal of Arctic Studies in 

Chinese which publishes peer-reviewed articles in the 

field of Arctic social science and humanities, including 

anthropology, history, archaeology, sociology, cultural 

ecology, art history, and religious studies. It also runs a 

publication series for academic works in Arctic social 

science translated from English, Russian, and other 

languages into Chinese.

A Cooperative Doctoral Student Training (CDST) 

program between the ASC-LCU and the Department 

of Anthropology at the University of Alaska, 

Fairbanks, began in 2019. The program is currently 

recruiting Chinese and international students to study 

Anthropology with an emphasis on the Arctic and/or 

Chinese anthropology.

The founding director of the LCU Arctic Studies Center 

is Dr. Feng Qu, who received Ph.D. in Anthropology 

from the University of Alaska, Fairbanks (UAF). 

As the author of numerous peer-reviewed articles in 

Chinese and English, as well as several monographs, 

his research interests include circumpolar anthropology 

and archaeology, ethnography of Chinese near-Arctic 

peoples, prehistoric belief systems and cosmology, and 

ontological theory. He has many years of archaeological 

excavation experience and has conducted ethnographic 

fieldwork in indigenous villages in Alaska and 

North China. Funded by the National Social Science 

Foundation of China, Dr. Qu’s current project uses Inuit 

prehistory and archaeology as examples for studying 

Arctic subsistence strategies based on marine resources. 

Henry Collins’ collections from St. Lawrence Island 

play a central role in this project. His research work on 

Collins' collection at the Smithsonian Department of 

Anthropology may also lead to a future project about 

prehistoric Inuit ontology in the Bering Strait region.

BURCH ENDOWMENT SUPPORTS 2019 ASC 

ACTIVITIES

By Igor Krupnik

As in the previous years, the Burch Endowment, 

established in 2012 by the family of our late colleague, 

Dr. Ernest “Tiger” Burch, Jr., remained the prime 

source of funding for various ASC operations during 

the year 2019. In 2014–2016, the Burch Endowment, 

together with the SI “Grand Challenges” grant was 

instrumental to the success of our “Arctic Crashes” 

initiative (ASC Newsletter 21, 22, 23); last year some 

of the Burch funding was, again, used to support the 

preparation of the project volume, Arctic Crashes: People 

and Animal in the Changing North to be published by the 

Smithsonian Institution Scholarly Press in 2020.

Burch Endowment funding was also used to 

support travel of the ASC members and some of 

our international colleagues to the 46th meeting of 

the Alaska Anthropological Association in Nome in 

February–March 2019 (ASC Newsletter 26), where we 

organized a special session on the centennial of the 

5th Thule Expedition of 1921–1924. Our plans for the 

5th Thule activities in 2020 and beyond are based on 

the use of the endowment funds. It also helped cover 

a portion of the 2019 outreach and travel activities of 

the ASC Anchorage Office; the production of the 2019 

ASC Newsletter; research, field, and conference travel 

of the ASC members and our research associates, as 

well as our annual membership fees for the Arctic 

Research Consortium of the U.S. (ARCUS). 

By far, the most visible use of the Burch Endowment 

funds is our annual Tiger Burch Lecture. Initiated in 

2014, it has emerged as one of the key ASC events 

for the Museum community and the general public. 

This year’s ‘Burch Lecture’ was delivered on May 30, 

by Dr. Rick Knecht, currently, at the University of 

Aberdeen, U.K., discussing the results of his multiyear excavations and outreach efforts with local 

communities in Western Alaska. We plan to continue 

using Burch Endowment to advance our research 

and public programs, in support of conference travel 

and fieldwork for the ASC staff, and for maintaining 

our high profile in the international Arctic research 

community via publications, conferences, annual 

Newsletter, and professional exchanges.

Feng Qu, director of the Arctic Studies Center, Liaocheng 

University
 ASC Newsletter 33

MEMORY AND LOSS: ARCHAEOLOGY AT 

KAMESTASTIN IN THE FALL OF THE YEAR

By Stephen Loring

During times of caribou abundance, autumn at 

Kamestastin is a place of expectation and excitement. 

Birds and bears are about, and fish are plentiful, 

the days are bright and blue, the nights cold, the 

auroras brilliant. But then, as it happens, the caribou 

herds decline or disperse, and a sense of silence and 

emptiness prevails. The country is foreboding and 

lonesome, a personification of its name—“where it is 

all blown away.” And always the wind blows.

A few weeks before the expected departure for 

Labrador, Kamestastin—Lake Mistastin—was 

suddenly in the news. A DeHaviland Beaver airplane 

on floats with a party of American fishermen and their 

guides crashed into the lake, killing all on board. Of the 

seven, four bodies were later recovered, but the others 

and the wreckage of the plane itself had disappeared. 

Anthony Jenkinson and I returned to the Tshikapisk 

cabins near the outlet of the lake shortly after the 

RCMP had abandoned their search, having found little 

that would illuminate the cause of the crash or the fate 

of the missing while adding further to the prevailing 

sense of mystery and haunting that is an almost 

tangible part of the place. 

For the duration of fieldwork, mid-September to early 

October, we were, for the most part, confined to the 

camp environs, first as the autumnal winds inhibited 

travel on the broad lake expanse and then, as it turned 

out, by the intensity of the excavations that held us in 

thrall. I think we were both a bit relieved not to range 

too far on the lake. It was unnerving to be constantly 

scanning for caribou and Ramah chert while dreading 

to chance upon wreckage or remains from the crash.

Tshikapisk fieldwork was concentrated at two 

significant early sites, one on the south and the other 

on the north side of the caribou crossing place adjacent 

to the outflow at the northeast corner of the lake. We 

returned to the Shak Selma site (GlCs-22) that we 

discovered during our initial survey of the region in 

1998 and revisited in 2012 and 2018. Previous work 

had resulted in an assemblage that included a single 

quartz nipple-based point, broken pieces of quartz, 

and debitage derived from quartz crystals. In 2018, 

excavations focused on an adjacent concentration 

of quartz tools and debitage and an associated 

“combustion feature” and an ochre- and debitage-filled 

pit. Wood charcoal recovered from the feature produced 

AMS dates of ca. 7,300–7,400 cal. BP, making it the 

RESEARCH

Anthony Jenkinson and Tutut inspect the pit feature at Shak 

Selma (GlCs-22). Photo by Stephen Loring

Mistanuk-Mistamunik (GlCs-8) overlooking the caribou 

crossing place at Kamestastin Narrows. 

Photo by Stephen Loring
34 ASC Newsletter

earliest dated assemblage we 

have at Kamestastin.

We returned in 2019 to finish 

excavating the pit feature. 

The pit proved to be about 

75 cm in diameter and 140 

cm deep. It was filled with 

broken quartz debitage, 

a small stemmed quartz 

projectile point, and a single 

distal biface fragment of grey 

chert, all associated with a 

light dusting of red ocher. 

A small tennis-ball-sized 

water-rounded rock was also 

in the pit fill. We can only 

hazard an explanation of 

this feature—and apparent 

ritual deposition of broken 

tools and tool manufacturing 

debris, fire, and red ocher. 

The small rounded stone 

has striking parallels to 

the discussion of medicine 

stones (grandfather stones) 

gimishoomisinaaniwan 

asiniig among the 

Anishinaabe that has been 

elaborated by Irving 

Hallowell (1960) and more 

recently (and eloquently) 

by Maureen Matthews

(Naamiwan’s Drum, 2016). 

Although the nuances of 

the language and meaning 

of the pit feature elude 

us, we cannot help but be 

haunted by its implication 

for the pervasive linkage of 

ritual and place that is (and 

has been) inherent in Innu 

philosophy and practice down 

through the millennia.

Moving across the narrows 

to the north shore, we spent 

most of the season working 

at the Mistanuk-Mistamunik 

site (GlCs-8) situated on a 

high broad terrace bounded 

by a stream at the east end 

the lake. The site provides a 

commanding view over the 

caribou crossing place and 

the river as it leaves the lake. 

A 6x5 meter block excavation 

revealed the remains of a tent 

structure with several hearth 

features. While the southern 

margin of the site nearest 

the terrace edge was barely 

covered by a thin sandy layer 

and caribou moss vegetation, 

the northern portion was 

buried by several layers of 

slope wash, sand, and organic 

soils that neatly sealed the 

occupation floor. A large 

basin-shaped hearth that we 

call a “combustion feature” 

was surrounded by deposits 

of calcined bone (presumably 

caribou and currently being 

analyzed by Arthur Spiess) 

and by dedicatory offering 

(?) deposits of exceptionally 

small Ramah chert pressure 

flakes mixed with red ocher. 

An assemblage of small 

bi-pointed bifaces, quartz 

expediency tools, and 

pumice polishing stones were 

recovered as were broken 

bifaces (midsections and 

distill ends) and debitage of 

Ramah chert. Three samples 

of calcined bone returned 

calibrated AMS dates 

between 7,100 and 6,900 BP. 

The most extraordinary find, 

however, was a complete 

13-cm-long stemmed biface 

that appears to be made from 

the obsidian-like impact 

melt from a shallow deposit 

on the top of Kamestastin 

Mountain (Walcott Dyke) at 

the western end of the lake. 

This distinct lithic source was 

first referenced by William 

Brooks Cabot, who searched 

unsuccessfully for it in 1910, 

having been guided to the 

spot by Innu informants 

who told him it was where 

“the old-time Indians got 

their arrow-head material” 

(Cabot 1912). In 2010, 

accompanied by Tshikapisk 

students and colleagues, the 

Stratigraphy in Labrador! The main combustion 

feature at Mistanuk-Mistamunik was surrounded 

by pockets of calcined bone and deposits of red 

ocher mixed with micro-flakes of Ramah chert. In 

the upper left the brown sandy slope wash covers a 

black organic humus layer and a thin band of white 

aeolian sand that covers the occupation level. Photo 

by Stephen Loring

This stemmed biface appears to be made of the 

obsidian-like impact melt material. Its surface has 

been partially polished by wind-blown sand, dulling 

the glassy appearance. Photo by Stephen Loring

Caribou migrating at Mistanuk-Mistamunik in October 

2006. In 2019, we saw only one bull and the tracks of 

another half-dozen. Photo by Stephen Loring
 ASC Newsletter 35

source for the obsidian-like impact melt (resulting from 

the meteorite impact 36 million-years ago that blasted 

out the Kamestastin basin) was relocated and samples 

acquired. The Mistanuk-Mistamunik biface is the first 

appearance of this raw material in an archaeological 

assemblage. While it may (and probably will) appear 

in sites of less antiquity, for the moment, it poises the 

intriguing possibility of specific knowledge passed 

down over almost 7,000 years of Innu and ancestral 

Innu land occupancy. (I am reminded of the archer 

carved into stone, one of the images at the Sanilac 

Petroglyphs in Greenleaf, Michigan: according to 

Anishinaabe tradition, it is Ebmodaakowet, the archer 

seen shooting knowledge into the future). 

The snow had fallen, and there were icicles in the 

brook when the silence of Kamestastin was interrupted 

by the arrival of the Air Borealis charter to carry us 

back to town. The geese had already preceded us south, 

of the caribou—of which a few years previously had 

passed in the thousands—we saw but one. Even the 

ravens and the sparrows had gone away, leaving only 

the black bears to lord over the hills.

GATEWAYS 2019 AND THE MISFORTUNE OF 

THE GRAND ISLE INUIT

By William W. Fitzhugh

The Smithsonian’s Gateways Project continued 

excavations on the Quebec Lower North Shore 

(LNS) in 2019 at Inuit, Basque, and boulder pit sites 

in Bonne Espérance Municipality (Salmon Bay and 

St. Paul River), Belles Amours, and Brador. Our 

investigations were undertaken jointly with a team 

from the University of Montreal and their supervisors, 

Brad Loewen, and Erik Phaneuf. Since 2001, Inuit 

sites have been found throughout the LNS from Brador 

to Petit Mécatina, with one exception: St. Paul River/

Salmon Bay, the coast’s richest ecological zone. The 

obvious question was, why? 

Samuel Robertson, a long-term LNS resident, provided 

a possible clue. In his 1843 report to the Historical 

Society of Quebec he described the oral history of a 

battle on Esquimaux Island near the mouth of St. Paul 

River. Here, Inuit had “fortified themselves in a camp, 

with walls composed of stone and turf, with a ditch 

outside in circuit more than half a mile...In this fort, 

they maintained themselves till about 1640, when they 

were assaulted by the Mountaineers [Innu] aided by the 

French, and were either totally extirpated or expelled. 

In this assault, it is said, more than 1000 were slain” 

(Robertson 1843: 45–46). Although the numbers have 

been questioned (Martijn 1980: 109), there is no doubt 

that the Inuit appearance on the LNS resulted in conflicts

that continued sporadically throughout the 17th and 

early 18th centuries after the Basque decline in the late 

1500s opened the way for Inuit penetration. Numerous 

historical accounts are known, and archaeological 

surveys have documented sod house villages at Brador, 

Belles Amours, Jacques Cartier Bay, and Petit Mécatina. 

The location of a fifth settlement east of Tabatière in 

the Ha! Ha! Bay is still unknown. Searches by Charles 

Martijn in the early 1970s and more recently by the 

Smithsonian revealed no earthworks, burials, or other 

sites on Esquimaux Island. In the meantime, recent work 

on nearby Grand Isle has uncovered evidence that may 

explain Inuit avoidance of this region and the origin of 

Robertson’s oral tradition. But first, some general field 

results.

2019 Site Reports

Belles Amours Pithouses (EiBi-24). Boulder pits and 

mounds are present on raised beaches throughout the 

LNS but have rarely been scientifically investigated. 

The Belles Amours structures reported by René 

Levèsque in 1968 include two large sub-rectangular 

dwelling features with multi-tiered walls, level interior 

cobble floors, and small cache pits outside their walls.

Most of the other seventeen features are probably 

caches. We spent two days mapping the site, which lies 

4-5 meters above sea level on the northeast side of Belles 

Amours Peninsula. In 2020, we plan to excavate some of 

these features and map others between Blanc Sablon and 

St. Paul River to determine elevation, extent, types of 

cultural features, functions, age, and cultural affiliation.

Grand Isle-1 (Kettle Head, EiBk-3). Martijn’s (1974) 

“Kettle Head” site is located 35 meters above sea-level 

on the northeast corner of Grand Isle, a few kilometers 

south of Esquimaux Island in the St. Paul archipelago. 

Its eleven boulder structures include caches and at 

least two dwellings identified by their large size 

and external caches. The site—probably originally 

Maritime Archaic—has been damaged by re-use, 

looting, weather, and boulder removal. Around 1970, a 

local fisherman named Leonard Thomas found Inuit 

skeletal remains and historical period Inuit artifacts in 

one of the pits.

Grand Isle 2 (L1; EiBk-54). In 2016–2018 we excavated 

a 4x8m rectangular sod-walled dwelling located at the 

edge of a beach-front terrace where Leonard Thomas’ 

family used to find arrowheads. Martijn recorded 

the area as EiBk-4 but did not recognize the house 

foundation (L1) or the pithouse structure (L2) fifty 

meters away on a higher beach. The rectangular structure 

turned out to be an Inuit fall season tent dwelling known 

as a qarmat, whose north half had already been destroyed 

by the sea. Excavation revealed 16th–17th-century Basque 
36 ASC Newsletter

roof tiles, iron spikes and nails, European ceramics, a 

soapstone pot fragment, and the remains of a collapsed 

roof of wooden poles. Ramah chert debitage showed that 

the terrace was used extensively in prehistoric times by 

Innu ancestors. 

Grand Isle 2, L2, (EiBk-54). Investigating the pithouse fifty meters upslope from the qarmat was our 

major project in St. Paul this summer. Testing in 2018 

had uncovered an entrance tunnel whose paved floor 

produced artifacts similar to other 16th–17th-century 

LNS Inuit sites. Our 2019 excavation revealed a pithouse with a floor of nailed conifer planks and two 

large oak planks (4 cm x 43 cm x 6.5 m) scavenged 

from a shipwreck. The house had been excavated into 

the earth along its east and south (rear) sides, and on 

the rear sleeping bench, we found the charred and 

collapsed remains of the south wall which had been 

built of stacked logs. A sod wall extended along the 

west side of the structure, but there was no sign of a 

sod or timber wall on the north side, where we assume 

a wall of snow blocks had been fashioned. Finds from 

the floor included fragments of soapstone pots, a roof 

tile oil lamp, iron rods fashioned into harpoon foreshafts, whale bone sled runners, iron nails and knife 

fragments, glass, and European earthenware. Other 

than nails and tile, however, European materials were 

few, and there were no glass beads or clay pipes, thus 

suggesting a date in the early 1600s. Below we provide 

an interpretation of this unusual dwelling. 

Bonne Esperance 1-4 (EiBk-55, 56, 60, 61). Previously, 

we had explored southern Bonne Espérance Island, 

where William Whiteley established a cod-fishing 

station in the mid-1800s. This year, around the 

Whiteley shore facilities (BE-1, EiBk-55), we found 

16th–17th-century Basque tiles and ceramics dating 

to the 18th–19th centuries, and off-shore, a thick layer 

of codfish bones. At the smaller BE-2 (EiBk-56) site 

several hundred meters north of BE-1, we again found 

tiles below later European deposits. This pattern 

continued when our divers found Basque tiles and 

ballast rock at two other locations along the “Bony 

Narrows” at BE-3 and 4 (EiBk-60, 61), and adjacent 

land sites with stone-mounded try-works and domestic 

finds. These sites could be the source of the Basque 

material used by the Grand Isle Inuit.

Hart Chalet (EiBh-47). We also expanded previous 

work at the Hart Chalet Inuit winter settlement near the 

mouth of the Brador River. New units in the midden 

and interior of House 2 produced large quantities of 

caribou bones and small amounts of seal and other 

mammals, and fish and birds. Artifacts included a 

second silver coin similar to the Louis XIII 1632–1634 

coin found previously in House 2, stoneware, nails, an 

iron knife and ulu fragments, a lead musket ball, copper 

bands, beads, bottle glass, clay pipes, a whalebone sled 

runner, and pieces of two large flat (French?) bricks. 

Midden units outside House 1 produced beads, copper 

and lead ornaments, iron points, harpoons, stoneware, 

and nails. After it was abandoned, House-2 had been 

used as a dump, so the three Hart Chalet houses may 

not have been occupied simultaneously.

Further west along the coast, we searched for but did 

not find the elusive Ha! Ha! Bay Inuit village, mapped 

the three sod houses at the Little Canso Island Inuit site 

and tested the Boulet Harbor Narrows site, which we 

found to have a strong Basque component.

Archaeology Meets History

Robertson’s report provides one of the few accounts of 

Inuit activities in St. Paul. There are no firm dates for 

Grand Isle-2, L1 (EiBk-54) Inuit qarmat (tent-house) 

excavation in 2018. The house center was excavated in 2017. 

Photo by William Fitzhugh

Grand Isle-2, L2 (EiBk-54) Inuit winter house excavation 

with entry passage at lower left and snow block north wall 

area to right. Photo by William Fitzhugh
 ASC Newsletter 37

the Esquimaux Island battle, but it probably took place 

during the early 17th century. A more specific record from 

the 1690s comes from Jolliet’s comment: “Malouians 

[St. Malo fishermen] destroyed an Inuit raiders’ village 

at St. Paul River” (Delanglez 1948:215). It would appear 

that hostilities continued over a long period.

Our new information from Grand Isle helps explain the 

reason for the absence of a multi-house Inuit village in 

St. Paul. Basques, and perhaps other Europeans, would 

have been exploiting the St. Paul fishery from its fine 

harbors in the 16th century before Inuit appeared. In 

the decades after 1600 when Inuit began establishing 

settlements elsewhere along the LNS, one family chose 

to settle on Grand Isle at a location formerly used by 

generations of Innu, and near Basque whaling stations 

on Bonne Espérance. 

Arriving in summer, the Inuit had iron nails and 

tools, roof tiles, and a few European ceramics, but no 

firearms, and they still depended on their traditional 

soapstone lamps, cooking pots, and hunting technology. 

For the first few months, they lived by the shore in a 

small sod-walled tent known as a qarmat, but as winter 

approached, they began building a more substantial 

semi-subterranean winter dwelling. Digging into the 

hillside, they excavated and paved a covered entrance, 

leveled the interior, laid a plank floor, reinforced the 

uphill side with logs, built a sod wall on the west side, 

and raised a roof. As we discovered, for whatever 

reason, the north wall—at least the usual wall of turf, 

stone, and timber—was never completed. Instead, 

perhaps when the ground began to freeze and sod could 

not be cut, they constructed a wall of snow blocks in 

the manner of an igloo. Thus protected, the family 

settled down for winter, enjoying boiled and roasted 

caribou whose bones we found in an external hearth 

and around the edges of the dwelling. It does not seem 

that our family lived in their winter house even one full 

year or more artifacts would have accumulated, and 

they would have completed the north wall. Sometime 

in late winter or early spring, the house burned. Patches 

of charcoal were present on the floor, and the rear wall 

was reduced to a mass of charred logs.

Reconstructing events and social behavior from 

archaeological evidence is always tricky, and 

sometimes, given its ambiguity, we err on the side 

of the dramatic, especially when shreds of evidence 

lean in one direction. In the case of the St. Paul Inuit, 

we know that a small Inuit group built and lived 

in a qarmat at a well-known sealing place on the 

north shore of Grand Isle occupied previously by 

prehistoric Innu, if not also their historic descendants 

who were opposing Inuit expansion. The Inuit began 

to build a traditional Inuit winter dwelling nearby 

but did not complete it before winter set in; instead, 

they finished its north side with snow blocks. After 

living there for some months, the house burned. A fire 

of this magnitude would not have been accidental. 

Considering the social context of the LNS in the late 

16th and 17th centuries, it seems likely that the Grand 

Isle Inuit were attacked, like other Inuit settlements 

on the LNS between 1620–1728. The absence of glass 

beads, clay pipes, and Normandy stoneware common in 

17th–18th-century LNS Inuit sites suggest a late 16th or 

early 17th-century date for the Grand Isle sites.

Connecting the Dots

The final piece of evidence pointing toward a Grand 

Isle tragedy comes from Leonard Thomas’ discovery 

of Inuit skeletal remains and grave goods in one of the 

Excavations at Hart Chalet House 1 (EiBh-47), an Inuit 

winter site at Brador. View south. Photo by William Fitzhugh

Bonne Espérance-4 (EiBk-61) Basque try-works and 

domestic site, view to north. Photo by William Fitzhugh
38 ASC Newsletter

Kettle Head pit-houses on the hilltop a few hundred 

meters from the Grand Isle 2 dwellings. The bones 

were scattered, but Medric Thomas, one of Thomas’ 

sons, recalls seeing most of one skeleton lying on a flat 

slab after the boulders covering it were removed. When 

Charles Martijn visited the site with Leonard Thomas 

in 1972, he recovered a mandible later identified 

by forensic experts as Inuit. Rather than being the 

traditional Inuit cairn burial, the interment appears to 

have been an impromptu grave in a Maritime Archaic 

pit-house. Among the grave goods were an iron 

harpoon fore-shaft, a small piece of iron pointed at both 

ends, a whalebone snow-knife, a bone scraper or knifehandle, and rolls of birch-bark (Martijn 1974: 123).

The iron harpoon shaft found with the remains is similar 

to those from the Grand Isle 2 winter house. This, the 

unorthodox burial type, and proximity to the destroyed 

Grand Isle house suggest a relationship to the shortlived Grand Isle Inuit settlement. Was this Inuit man a 

victim of the attack on the nearby winter house? Was 

this incident the source of or related to Robertson’s ca. 

1620 Esquimaux Island battle story? Or was Grand 

Isle the much later St. Paul River target of the St. Malo 

fishermen reported by Jolliet in 1694? We will never 

know for certain, but the threads of archaeological 

and historical evidence make a plausible story from 

a time when Inuit, exploring and settling a new 

southern frontier, became entangled with its previous 

inhabitants—the Innu—and its new European keepers.

Other results from 2019 were not so dramatic but added 

to the growing archaeological information from the 

LNS. For the first time, we have detailed maps of two 

of the hundreds of boulder beach structures known 

throughout the coast. Grand Isle 1 (Kettle Head) has 

been damaged by local diggers, but the Belles Amours 

pit-houses would be excellent targets for future 

excavation. Hart Chalet rewarded us with a second 

French coin, and new Inuit ornaments, tools, and faunal 

remains. We searched for but did not find the missing 

Ha! Ha! Bay Inuit village near La Tabatière, confirmed 

Basque activities at Boulet Harbor, and our underwater 

surveys revealed new Basque sites with ballast dumps, 

try-works, and domestic features at Bonne Espérance. 

Future work might reveal these sites as the source of 

Basque material used by the Grand Isle Inuit.

Acknowledgments: Thanks to Perry and Louise 

Colbourne, Boyce Roberts, Florence Hart, Eileen 

Schofield, and Garland Nadeau, Whiteley Museum, 

Bonne Espérance, and several Quebec government 

ministries. Our crew included Michael Mlyniec

and Igor Chechushkov, Ava Hill, Calista Almer, 

and Noémi Toroczkai. Funding was provided by 

Smithsonian, Dartmouth College, Notre Dame, and 

private sources. 

COMMUNITY ARCHAEOLOGY AT THE 

NUNALLEQ SITE, QUINHAGAK, ALASKA

By Richard Knecht

The permafrost soils in the Yup’ik homeland in the 

Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta of Alaska are rapidly thawing 

with the warming climate, with the effects particularly 

damaging on the shorelines of the Bering Sea. Soft 

alluvial soils are being heavily eroded by rising sea 

levels and decreases in seasonal ocean ice cover, and 

a single large storm can be catastrophic to both the 

archaeological record and modern infrastructure.

In 2007, the residents of the Yup’ik village of 

Quinhagak first noticed wooden artifacts washing 

up on the nearby beaches, a sign that archaeological 

sites were being destroyed. To deal with this, Warren 

Jones, of Qanirtuuq, Inc., Quinhagak’s ANCSA 

Village Corporation, and our team at the University of 

Aberdeen in Scotland developed a community-based 

solution centered on a partnership between university 

archaeologists, the corporation, and its constituents 

in the village. The project addresses two community 

goals; to rescue endangered archaeological sites and 

to find ways to better engage local young people with 

their Yup’ik cultural heritage. Until recent years, the 

pre-contact Yup’ik archaeology of this vast area has 

remained poorly known. Beyond the considerable 

logistical challenges, there is also a cultural reluctance 

The latest house at the Nunalleq Site, destroyed c. 1675 

AD. Source: Rick Knecht and Nunalleq Cultural and 

Archaeology Center (NCAC)
 ASC Newsletter 39

to allow ancestral sites to be disturbed. Accordingly, 

Warren spent many months in discussions with elders 

and culture-bearers on the village level while I worked 

on my end with decision-makers at the University of 

Aberdeen, where eventually, we received generous 

grants from the U.K.-based Arts and Humanities 

Research Council and other U.K. funders. By the 

summer of 2009, we fielded a survey and, within 

minutes, found a complete wooden doll on the beach. 

We followed a trail of artifact flotsam until we came 

upon a telltale layer of dark soil where pieces of 

bentwood bowls and house timbers protruded from an 

erosion face just meters from the edge of the Bering Sea. 

The area had long been known to local residents who 

called it ‘Nunalleq’ or ‘Old Village.’ In the succeeding 

field seasons, we have excavated a block of over 500 

m2

, removing more than 750 m3 of the material before 

it was lost to the sea. This level of effort was made 

possible by extraordinary logistical support supplied by 

the corporation and the people of Quinhagak along with 

Excavation of a plank walkway at Nunalleq. Photo by Rick Knecht and NCAC

Wooden mask melting out of permafrost. Holes along the 

edges were for inserting the feathers, fur, or appendages seen 

on ethnographic masks. Photo by Rick Knecht and NCAC

Quinhagak 5th graders inspecting the collections. 

Photo by Rick Knecht and NCAC
40 ASC Newsletter

a small army of non-local volunteers. Our team also 

benefited enormously from elders and tradition-bearers, 

who helped us puzzle out the past.

The excavations have revealed the remains of at least 

two semi-subterranean multiple-room houses, probably 

occupied in succession. The largest and most recent 

house was occupied between AD 1570 and 1675 and 

remodeled several times, based on an analysis of fortynine AMS radiocarbon dates (Ledger et al. 2016, 2018). 

Side rooms were accessed through plank-lined entry 

tunnels that led from two larger hallways floored with 

split driftwood planks. Sod walls were held in place by 

long pointed wooden stakes, some of them made from 

recycled kayak frame parts.

The sod house complex was burned and collapsed 

sometime between AD 1645 and 1675. This was a period 

regional warfare referred to in Yup’ik oral history as the 

‘Bow and Arrow Wars’ replete with multiple accounts of 

burning villages, their residents trapped and smoked out 

of side rooms by enemies (Fienup-Riordan 1990). Yup’ik 

oral histories say that this attack was an act of revenge 

by another Yup’ik village on the lower Kuskokwim 

River, and our forensic reconstructions of the event so 

far mirror those accounts. 

The destructive results of the attack are starkly evident 

with thick layers of burnt sod, charred house timbers, 

and scorched wooden bowls and other possessions on 

the blackened floors. Human remains were found piled 

haphazardly outside of the house, some still tied with 

grass rope and with clear signs of systematic execution. 

We swiftly reburied the remains off-site after they 

were documented. This vivid record of pre-contact 

warfare in Native Alaska has given us an important 

chronological framework for the Bow and Arrow Wars 

and connected archaeology with Yup’ik oral tradition.

Earlier occupation layers prior to the attack yielded an 

extraordinary collection of pre-contact Yup’ik material 

culture. Preserved until now by permafrost, the Nunalleq 

collection numbers well over 100,000 pieces, including 

full-sized wooden masks, human and animal figurines, 

hafted tools, leather clothing, bowls, pottery, kayak parts, 

weapons, game pieces and much more, all in nearly 

pristine condition. About 80% of the finds were made 

from wood, grass, leather, and other rarely preserved 

organic materials. Among the rarest finds are 3,000 grass 

artifacts, including cordage, dog harnesses, mats, socks, 

and whole and fragmentary baskets. Bio-archaeological 

remains recovered from the site include animal bones 

along with fur, hair, feathers, coprolites, seeds, and 

insects. Ongoing stable isotope and DNA studies of this 

material have already shed new light on the Yup’ik past.

Much of the Nunalleq assemblage is nearly identical to 

that seen in ethnographic collections made 300 to 400 

years later, such as Smithsonian’s Nelson collection 

(Fitzhugh and Kaplan 1982). Hundreds of labrets, 

along with jewelry made from exotic raw materials 

like a jet, amber, and serpentine, and tools made from 

nephrite, suggest regular contact with peoples both 

north and south of Yup’ik country as well as a level 

of social complexity comparable with better known 

marine foragers on the Aleutian Islands and Kodiak.

Until recently, the collections were sent every summer 

to the University of Aberdeen for conservation and 

processing. But by the summer of 2018, the collection 

was returned to the newly constructed Nunalleq Culture 

and Archaeology Center in Quinhagak, which has its 

own conservation lab and storage facilities. The center 

is also used to teach traditional Yup’ik arts and skills, 

such as a recent Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center 

sponsored grass basketry workshop (Crowell 2019). 

Yup’ik dancing, reintroduced in Quinhagak after a hiatus 

of more than a century, also takes place there, led by a 

generation of young people that grew up in the years 

since the project began. 

The outcomes of the Nunalleq project have far 

exceeded our original expectations, to say the least. 

Similar collaborative efforts may be the best hope for 

rescuing threatened archaeological sites elsewhere in 

the north and beyond.

Nunalleq Culture and Archaeology Center, Quinhagak, 

Alaska. Photo by Rick Knecht and NCAC

Wood artifacts being catalogued at the Nunalleq Culture and 

Archaeology Center. Photo by Rick Knecht and NCAC
 ASC Newsletter 41

THE UMIAKS OF LITTLE DIOMEDE

By Richard D. Mohr

[Ed: Mr. Mohr began a correspondence with the ASC 

when he saw culture change before his eyes on the 

boat racks of Little Diomede. His observations parallel 

those of Stephen Braund’s earlier monographic study of 

skin boats and carry the evolving story of Bering Strait 

boat technology into the present.]

A funny thing happened on the way to Provideniya. In 

July 2017, during a ‘circumnavigation’ of the Bering 

Sea, a last-minute jump-shift in scheduling has me 

landing by zodiac on the island of Little Diomede—

home to 80 Inupiat and 500,000 gyring auklets. The 

originally planned stop had been King Island—since 

1970, population 0. So, suddenly there, in mid-Bering 

Strait, following in the steps of John Muir (1881), 

Knud Rasmussen (1924), Diamond Jenness (1926), 

Edward Curtis (1927), and Henry Collins (1929), 

stand I, Joe Tourist. The shift in landing site allowed me 

to perform a bit of accidental ethnography and citizen 

science on the fly.

Photographs that I took in 2017 establish the great 

lengths to which the Diomede hunters have gone 

to maintain their aging umiaks—those open-hull, 

walrus-skin-on-frame, multi-tasking workhorses of 

the Arctic—even as other evidence suggests that the 

upkeep and use of these skin boats ceased on the island 

around 2010 or perhaps a bit earlier.

I encountered four umiak frames, all in various states 

of not-so-fine fettle. None was seaworthy. One was 

crushed from use as an improvised rack to hold 

aluminum ‘speedboats,’ the umiak’s replacement 

of choice for surviving the island’s boulder shore. 

Another ground-bound umiak, though now broken 

beyond repair, bore traces of repairs to all its structural 

members. It was studded over with generations of 

metal cleats attached to brace cracked ribs, stringers, 

gunwales, and keel. The frame of a third had similar 

repairs, but was still intact and lofted, in traditional 

style, on a drying rack out of reach of dogs, but it had 

no skins with which to tempt their hunger. The fourth 

boat’s frame was racked and intact, with a considerable 

amount of hiding covering, but still nowhere near 

seaworthy. 

A well-maintained umiak, with hides swapped out 

every two or three years, can last three to four decades, 

but the two structurally sound frames appeared to have 

been retired. Neither of them—unlike the half-dozen 

or so aluminum speedboats on view—were anywhere 

near the water, ready for the hunt when sea mammals 

are sighted.

Walrus meat continues to be the town’s principal 

food source. At several points along the stilt-mounted 

boardwalks and staircases that, in chutes-and-ladders 

fashion, link the hamlet’s 65 or so mountain-perched 

buildings, walrus haunches were fermenting in opentopped 18-gallon plastic tubs of the sort that in the 

South one can buy at Costco or Home Depot. Other 

Sketch by Henry Varnum Poor in 1944, on Little Diomede, in 

his An Artist Sees Alaska (1945, p.202)

Two Little Diomede umiaks photographed by Edward Curtis. 

Their profiles establish that by 1927 flat-bottom design had 

already given way to round-bottom, steamed-rib and stringer 

construction on Little Diomede, before their adoption on St. 

Lawrence Island in the 1930s. (The North American Indian,

vol. 20, facing p. 122)
42 ASC Newsletter

cuts were hanging from drying racks facing into ever 

blowing winds across the International Dateline from 

Russian Big Diomede Island.

The internet hosts a surprisingly large number of 

photos and video clips of the stamp-sized village on 

Little Diomede—photos posted by locals, remotelysourced school teachers, helicopter pilots, the Voice 

of America, captains of commercial crabbing vessels, 

contract workers, the occasional adventurer, photos that 

incidentally show umiaks. Collectively such photos 

can also reliably track their absence since umiaks were 

always stored in the open.

The most recent, reliably dated photograph showing 

an umiak in working order is the lead photograph in 

Wikipedia’s article on Little Diomede, a 2008 U.S. 

Coast Guard aerial shot of the town showing two 

umiaks on a drying rack near the shore, one fully 

skinned and ready go, except that, tellingly, immediately 

behind it shoreside are two aluminum boats. They are 

the ones ready to hunt on a second’s notice. 

A shot from 2010 may show a boat in working order, 

but, beyond that date, such photography offers no 

evidence of boats being maintained or used. By 2013, 

there are no functioning umiaks on view; by 2014, 

the umiaks lay as I photographed them three years 

later, and as they have remained even more recently. 

It appears that the umiak tradition at Little Diomede 

is at its end. Given the transparency of umiak storage, 

we have a rare but clear case where, to quote the late 

anthropologist Ernest “Tiger” Burch, the existence of 

no evidence constitutes evidence of no existence.

Lest these observations appear to be one more 

contribution to the “end of the trail,” consider the wider 

history of umiaks in the Bering Sea. At Little Diomede 

and King Island, the hunting boat of choice passed 

through three stages: first, there were the flat-bottom 

umiaks, used up to the 1920s; then, more maneuverable 

round-bottom umiaks, which could be fitted with a small 

outboard motor that became available to Bering Sea 

peoples after 1916; and finally, even more maneuverable, 

powerful, and easily launched aluminum speedboats, 

introduced to the Bering Sea in the 1940s. Initially used 

mostly for summer travel, they have come to be used for 

hunting, increasingly so as there is less sea ice now than 

in previous decades to trouble them.

On St. Lawrence Island, there were four stages of 

transition. Wedged in between the flat and round bottom 

umiaks was a period, roughly 1910 to 1930, when 

the Yankee-era wooden whale boat, was the vessel of 

choice. Due to their great weight and easily damaged 

construction, whaleboats, which were great for landing 

on the broad beaches of Saint Lawrence Island, could 

Of four umiaks I encountered in 2017, this 30-footer was in 

the best condition. Shots from 2013 show the same boat with 

the same hides in better condition, but still unseaworthy, while 

later shots show them in still worse condition. No repairs have 

been made since 2013. Photo by John Nielsen, July 2017

The stern of the same boat shows a supplemental reinforcing 

block lashed onto the original frame. Nylon rope laces the 

hides to the frame. Plastic cord became common in the Bering 

Sea during the 1970s. Photo by Richard D. Mohr, July 2017

A schematic of one of the intact umiak frames shows a mix of 

old and new. The nails and even the thin metal strips linking 

the stringers to the ribs, using what is called plumber’s tape, 

are likely to be old, indeed original to the boat, since this 

technology goes as far back as the 1930s in the Bering Sea. 

But the metal plates seen here reinforcing joints on the keel 

and the supports attached to the bow ribs show the lengths 

to which the Inupiat went to extend the life of a boat. Base 

photo by Richard D. Mohr, July 2017. Schematic: Dan Joyce, 

Kenosha Public Museum
 ASC Newsletter 43

not be landed on the boulders of King Island and Little 

Diomede, and so were never used there. But because 

the whaleboats were prone to damage in ice and all 

but impossible to repair by local hunters, they fell out 

of favor on Saint Lawrence Island, and the Islanders 

opted instead for the new, bent-wood, round-bottom 

umiaks, whose technology they also adopted around 

1930, as described in Stephen Braund’s research. So, 

here we have a case of indigenous people rejecting a 

white technology in favor of their own. This ‘evolution’ 

strongly suggests that all of the shifts in the adoption 

of boat designs were considered choices by indigenous 

people based on what worked best for them. 

Go, Dateliners!

THE TASIILAQ UMIAQ 

By Sheila Romalis

Over the many years of my doing research in East 

Greenland, starting in 1980, on the traditional 

tupilaq spirit figures, I saw many kayaking 

displays in Kulusuk (formerly called, “Kap Dan”). 

However, only one sailing of the community umiaq

(Greenlandic spelling versus Alaskan ‘umiak’) in 

Tasiilaq (formerly called ‘Angmagssalik.’) Usually 

this umiaq, which had been made in the 1970s, was 

stored on a wooden rack, open to the elements, next 

to the old sod house and close to the old church that 

became the Tasiilaq Museum in 1985. 

It was a pleasant surprise in June 1990, when I came to 

Tasiilaq for a wedding within the family that had pseudoadopted me in 1981, only to now find the community 

umiaq next to the museum, upside down, sitting on 

blocks and being repaired. I had never seen a skin boat 

being made, and I felt that this was a great opportunity 

to watch the repair process. The umiaq had been in dire 

condition, needing new skins, and major repairs were 

necessary to make it seaworthy. I decided to document 

the proceedings from that point in time, seeing as it was 

almost finished, and I tried to fit my visits to the umiaq 

into the few spaces I had in my busy wedding schedule. 

If I arrived at different times of the day for six days in a 

row, recording what I saw, I felt that it would give me a 

true understanding of how an umiaq was constructed.

An East Greenlandic traditional umiaq, rowed 

by women, usually had women, children, elders, 

household goods, tents, and even dogs transported in it 

during the summer season. They were given the name 

“women’s boats” because women did the rowing. Men 

would only row the umiaq when they went hunting for 

whales and needed great strength, and a large boat was 

needed to bring home the catch. 

To make an umiaq, they used depilated bearded seal 

skins that had been stretched on wooden frames and 

stitched together and lashed over a wood-ribbed frame. 

Once sewn in place, skins were treated with blubber, and 

seal fat was rubbed in, making the skins darker and more 

water-repellant. This construction method made these 

boats the best sea-craft for transportation in the climate 

and sea conditions the East Greenlanders encountered. 

Umiaqs were anywhere from 4 to 8 meters in length, 

and on the East coast, they were slightly shorter and 

broader than those made on the West and South coasts of 

Greenland. There is no record in ship’s logs or journals 

of any umiaqs having had decoration applied to them 

or to their oars. Oars were made from wood and usually 

were short, with a rounded blade. The largest umiaqs 

were known to hold 20-30 people. Once at sea, a tear in 

the boat’s skin cover did not necessarily mean the boat 

would sink. A piece of blubber, as a stopper, was pushed 

into the hole, and when the craft was brought ashore, it 

Left: Women rowing from the Harbor to the gathering 

place, “Iddimini”. Photo by Ole Jensen.

Right: Photo from Paul Madsen’s home of a Peter 

Rosing 1930’s painting of an umiaq excusion. 

Photo by Sheila Romalis
44 ASC Newsletter

would be mended with the needle and extra sinew thread 

that had been brought on board at the start of the voyage. 

Surprisingly light, this vessel was easily pulled from the 

water onto land or at sea when they met ice floes.

Gustav Holm, the first European to arrive in 

Angmagssalik and meet the Ammassalimiut (East 

Greenlanders), landed in 1884. He came with a 

scouting party that used umiaqs rowed by South 

Greenlanders. Considered the only sailing craft to use 

when journeying through pack-ice, the umiaq was 

mentioned in eighteenth and 19th-century journals and 

logs of Navy officers and merchants such as Peder 

Olsen Walloe, 1748, and Lieutenant W. A. Graah, 

1829. Sea captains wrote that the umiaq was the best 

boat to maneuver through ice-filled waters in West and 

South Greenland, due to its light weight, shallow draft, 

and non-rigid outer shell of skins.

The Tasiilaq umiaq had decomposed enough to produce 

many holes and rips, and several of the skins had 

slowly been disintegrating. To repair this was deemed a 

major job, so two women, Kristiane Singertaat (from 

Isortoq and a woman whose last name was Umerinaq

from Kulusuk were brought in. All the sinew they used 

to stitch the skins together had to be worked on beforehand to make it more pliable. In traditional times this 

was done by soaking it in urine, or by chewing on it, or 

both. These two women told me, through an interpreter, 

that the sinew they were using had been soaked in 

white vinegar for several days and then rubbed with 

seal blubber. For doing the repairs, the tools they used 

consisted of stainless-steel needles, each woman’s own 

“tsakker” (East Greenlandic woman’s knife which has 

two prongs connecting the handle to the blade, as seen 

in the photo), pliers and stainless steel thimbles. Only 

bearded seal skins were used for this restoration, with 

the tsakker used to trim and cut the skins and sinew. 

Then the needle and thimble were used to push the 

sinew thread through the hides. Pliers were needed to 

pull the needle through the very thick, double layer of 

skins. One woman sat on top of the overturned umiaq, 

while the other sat underneath in order for the needles 

and sinew to be passed back and forth through the 

tough hides. In traditional times, the frame was made 

of wood, using knives and adzes to cut and fit the wood 

together, and sinew to bind the pieces together. 

Sewing was done with short, basting stitches. I could 

see how difficult it was to make the needle go through 

and to give the right amount of pressure needed to push 

through the skins because, after only 10 or 12 stitches, 

the women had to stop and rest. But they persevered 

and completed the restoration about two weeks after 

I returned to Vancouver, Canada. The repaired umiaq 

was then used to transport women and children every 

June 21, Greenland’s National Day, the short distance 

from the harbor to the traditional community gathering 

The umiaq with new skins almost completed, gunwale lashings shown, and a “tsakker” (ulu) resting on the boat bottom. 

Photo by Sheila Romalis
 ASC Newsletter 45

place, Iddimini, the peninsula behind the Heliport. The 

skins were replaced on this umiaq again just before 

National Day in 2016.

The Tasiilaq umiaq was badly damaged in the winter 

storms of 2018, so it was not used on National Day, 

2019. It was so ravaged that winter that it has not 

been repaired again. I just heard that it was doubtful 

it could ever be repaired. The community of Tasiilaq 

might have to build an entirely new one, and I am 

hoping that it might be done while I am there in JuneJuly of this year, 2020.

THE ARCANE NATURE OF BOULDER PIT 

ARCHAEOLOGY 

By William W. Fitzhugh

This summer, our archaeology crew spent a few days 

surveying two boulder pit sites on the Quebec Lower 

North Shore. One was at Kettle Head on Grand Isle 

in St. Paul River Bay. The other was on the east 

side of Belles Amours Peninsula near Blanc Sablon 

and Brador. Thousands of these boulder features 

are found on raised boulder beaches along the coast 

of Labrador, Newfoundland, and the northeastern 

Gulf of St. Lawrence. Investigating them presents a 

challenge because they have no soil stratigraphy and 

are hard to interpret because artifacts are rare or have 

fallen beyond reach into the rocks below. In addition, 

the absence of diagnostic artifacts, charcoal, or other 

organic remains makes them hard to date.

Boulder beaches occur when a coastline has been 

exposed to heavy seas, and the surf has washed out the 

finer sediments, leaving the heavier rocks in place. In 

glaciated terrain undergoing post-glacial rebound, these 

boulder strands have been uplifted, forming boulder 

‘beaches’ that may stretch for hundreds of meters 

between headlands. Some localities have uplifted 

boulder beaches that begin near the upper marine limit 

8,000–10,000 years ago, followed by successively 

lower beaches and terraces down to the modern shore. 

Where raised beaches occur, they can provide a relative 

chronology for archaeological sites because features at 

higher levels are usually older than ones below, since 

people tend to live close to the current shoreline. 

The open spaces between boulders prevent soil from 

developing, so boulder fields and beaches often have 

no vegetation or forest cover. This makes them ideal 

locations for people to construct a variety of features, 

such as shelters, dwellings, hunting blinds, food caches, 

burials, and other structures. Sometimes we find whole 

‘villages’ built on boulder beaches, with dwellings, 

caches, fireplaces, boat racks, shooting blinds, and 

graves—all built of boulders. On Cape New Ferolle in 

western Newfoundland, we found a causeway of cleared 

rocks angling up a slab rock beach that may have been 

for launching or hauling boats or loads of timber or ice.

Because boulder features are easily recognized and so 

frequently encountered, one is challenged to ask, who 

made them? What were they used for? And how old 

are they? The most common features are meat caches, 

which are seen as boulder mounds several meters in 

diameter and a meter or so high. Most were made for 

storing harp seals killed when their annual migration 

brings thousands of animals within reach of hunters 

from November to January. The only way to preserve 

large catches was to store them in boulder pits covered 

with rocks to protect from scavengers. Most of the 

caches we find have been emptied, leaving a conicalshaped pit 1-2 meters deep with an irregular raised rim 

of tossed boulders around the perimeter. Meat caches 

could have been used repeatedly over many years until 

land uplift removed them from the active shore, in 

which case, hunters would build new caches closer to 

the new shoreline. In rare cases, when the meat was 

not retrieved, excavation might reveal animal bones, 

but under subarctic conditions, bones decay within a 

few hundred years. Boulder beaches are good places 

for caches because the absence of soil allows air to 

circulate through the boulders, reducing spoilage.

Meat caches rarely reveal their cultural identity because 

they lack distinguishable archaeological or structural 

features and generally do not contain artifacts. 

However, in some cases, we find clues. Groswater 

Dorset and Maritime Archaic sites often have small 

1-meter diameter conical caches adjacent to their 

dwelling structures. And at Mason Island in southern 

Groswater Bay, we excavated a cache in a sandy beach 

that was capped with a ring of flat rock slabs and had 

slabs lining the sides of a pit that contained charcoal 

dating ca. 1,000 CE. At Ballybrack on the east side of 

South Aulatsivik Island and at Nulliak between Hebron 

and Saglek, we excavated boulder mounds that turned 

out to be Maritime Archaic burials rather than meat 

caches. Human burial mounds normally occur in sandy 

deposits and are capped with boulder pavements or 

mounds and frequently are placed at high elevations 

that provide views of the surrounding countryside.

Other types of boulder structures can often be identified 

by their architectural features. For instance, hunting 

blinds are usually semi-circular piles of rock about 1 

meter high, located at places frequented by game. Small 

conical pits or small stone boxes on the surface were 

used for storing bird eggs, and in Greenland slab boxes 

were constructed to encourage eider ducks or geese to 

nest inside them so people could raid them for eggs and 

down. Boulders are also used as waypoints and direction 

markers by placing them singly or in stacks where 
46 ASC Newsletter

they stand out in the landscape. When associated with 

Inuit settlement sites, such piles were used as stands to 

support kayaks, keeping them dry when not in use. One 

of the most common types of boulder features found 

near Inuit sites in the Eastern Arctic is oval rock cairns 

containing human burials, sometimes accompanied by 

the deceased’s tools and weapons, or a soapstone pot.

Boulder beaches also provide places for people to build 

temporary or semi-permanent dwellings. At times of 

the year when the ground is frozen and snow-covered, 

the only way to make a meat cache or create a shelter 

quickly is to remove several layers of boulders from 

the raised beach and make a 

roof of skin-covered poles. 

Dwellings can usually be 

distinguished from cache 

pits by their flat floors, slab 

pavements, doorways, or 

features like fireplaces and 

external caches. Cache 

pits, on the other hand, 

usually are smaller and have 

conical walls and no internal 

structure. Nevertheless, 

sometimes caches and 

dwellings can be difficult 

to tell apart. We have found 

single-person pit shelters 

that looked like caches until 

we identified external cache pits and found charcoal or 

artifacts on an interior floor. One such shelter on West 

Indian Island in Groswater Bay produced charcoal from 

a hearth 6,700 years old, enabling us to identify the site 

as a Maritime Archaic hunter’s overnight camp.

Kettle Head and Belles Amours 

The high Kettle Head site (EiBk-3), became known as 

an important site on the Quebec Lower North Shore 

when it was reported by Charles Martijn (1974) 

to contain an Inuit grave. A local fisherman named 

Leonard Thomas had found an iron rod (probably 

a harpoon foreshaft), a whalebone snow-knife, and 

rolls of birch-bark together with parts of a skeleton, 

including a skull, when he excavated a boulder pit high 

on the hill behind his fishing camp on Grand Isle. The 

tools and skull were identified as Inuit, and the find 

seemed to substantiate 19th-century reports of a battle 

that had taken place on nearby Esquimaux Island in the 

17th or early 18th century (Robertson 1843).

The find seemed unusual to me because Inuit from the 

pre-Christian era buried their dead in rock cairns on the 

surface of the ground, not in boulder pits. Several years 

ago, Garland Nadeau and I visited the site, which is 

in a small field of boulders that accumulated when sea 

level was 35 meters higher than the present, probably 

between 6,000–9,000 years ago. The boulders occupied 

an area about 20 by 30 meters in a shallow depression 

in the surrounding glaciated bedrock. Sometime after 

the boulders emerged from the sea, Maritime Archaic 

people excavated pithouses and caches among the 

boulders, piling the excavated rocks around the rims 

of the structures. We had seen these types of highelevation sites many times, and charcoal and tools 

found in some of these sites in Labrador identified 

them as Maritime Archaic. Unfortunately, Thomas had 

disturbed most of these structures after finding the Inuit 

materials. 

I believed the Inuit grave 

probably was a later 

intrusion, and so this 

past summer Michael 

Mlyniec, Calista Almer, 

Noémi Toroczkai, and 

Igor Chechushkov spent 

a couple of days mapping 

the pits. They identified 

ten boulder features, of 

which six appeared to be 

house pits because of their 

large internal space (>7.5 

m2

) and associated small 

external caches, while the 

remaining four seemed to 

be free-standing meat caches of smaller size and conical 

shape. Martijn’s report did not indicate which feature 

had contained the Inuit materials, so the team selected 

Structure 4, one of the probable houses, and in a couple 

of days ‘excavated’ (tossing out) its internal boulders. 

Several layers of boulders were removed until bedrock 

was reached without finding artifacts, bones, charcoal, 

or other cultural materials. One hopes that finds that 

dropped through the boulders might collect at the 

bottom, but not so in this case, so it was not possible to 

identify the makers of this structure. But given the high 

elevation, the authors almost certainly were Maritime 

Archaic people engaged in hunting harp seals during the 

late fall migration. The other structures were so severely 

damaged by Thomas and later local collectors that we 

decided little more could be learned from Kettle Head.

Returning to the problem of the unusual Inuit grave, 

we believe this was an intrusive event, placed in one 

of the old house pits during the time when the Grand 

Isle 2 fall and winter houses were occupied (see the 

accompanying report on our Grand Isle work in this 

NL for details). Our excavation of the winter house at 

the bottom of the hill below Kettle Head showed that 

this dwelling was destroyed by fire, almost certainly 

in an attack, at the end of its first winter of occupation. 

Belles Amours, House 2 (EiBi-24), one of several intact 

boulder structures. Photo by Mary Maisel
 ASC Newsletter 47

We surmise this may have happened around the time 

of the battle on Esquimaux Island between Inuit and 

Europeans; the Inuit buried at Kettle Head may have 

been a casualty of that battle or other skirmishes around 

the time when Inuit were expanding into Indian territory 

along the LNS and were facing reprisals both from Innu 

and Europeans. Inuit burials are almost unknown along 

the LNS, despite the fact that we have identified several 

multi-house Inuit villages between the Strait of Belle Isle 

and Petit Mécatina whose duration spanned about one 

hundred years, ca. 1630–1730. The Kettle Head burial 

is the exception, unusual in not being a cairn burial and 

because of its placement in an ancient early pit-house, 

suggesting an impromptu ritual following the destruction 

of the nearby dwelling. Even so, the placement of 

tools at the gravesite in accordance with Inuit tradition 

suggests an Inuit was involved. 

Late in the season, our team mapped the Belles Amours 

Peninsula boulder field site. This time, we could not 

conduct excavations, but we recorded nineteen features. 

The site included several features that clearly indicated 

their function as dwellings, having carefully leveled 

cobble floors, double-tier boulder wall constructions, 

entries, and small external caches. These features 

are part of a cluster of houses and caches only five 

meters above sea level, ruling out the possibility of 

Maritime Archaic origin. More likely, they were made 

by later Indians 2,000–3,000 years ago, or possibly 

Groswater Paleoeskimos, whose artifacts we found in 

boulder structures on Gros Mécatina Island. On higher 

beaches at Belles Amours, there is a second cluster 

of pit features more likely to be of Maritime Archaic 

origin. Next summer, we hope to clarify the mystery 

of the Belles Amour structures, which present some 

of the clearest examples of boulder pit-dwellings we 

have seen on the Quebec LNS, and hopefully, we will 

recover artifacts and datable materials.

The mysteries of boulder archaeology have hidden 

their secrets for many years. Their prominence has 

made them targets for unscientific digging by local 

enthusiasts hunting for arrowheads and other treasures. 

Most of these local efforts proved fruitless because the 

sites, while prominent and easy targets, do not readily 

produce archaeological treasure. However, with careful 

research, much can be learned about these enigmatic 

constructions and the landscape signatures they have 

left for thousands of years.

SETTLEMENT PATTERN STUDY AT TWO 

QUEBEC BOULDER FIELD SITES 

By Calista Almer, Michael Mlyniec, Igor Chechushkov

In summer 2019, members of the Smithsonian’s 

Gateway’s Project field crew (Michael Mlyniec, Igor 

Chechushkov, Noémi Toroczkai, Ava Hill, and Calista 

Almer) undertook an investigation into the settlement 

patterning of prehistoric boulder sites found on the 

Lower North Shore of Subarctic Quebec. These sites 

present an opportunity to investigate diachronic change 

in living styles due to the impacts of environmental 

and social factors. A landscape-oriented survey of the 

Belles Amours and Grand Isle-1 boulder field sites 

was conducted to better understand their organization. 

The investigations of settlement patterning sought to 

understand the structure types and layout of the sites and 

identify evidence for social complexity.

Boulder field sites frequently appear along the 

shorelines of Labrador and the Quebec Lower North 

Shore. Located on post-glacial raised beaches, these 

sites are believed to represent habitation structures 

and features related to storage and fish processing 

with dates ranging from the early Maritime Archaic to 

more recent Indian Periods (6,500–500 BP) including 

Paleo-Inuit/Dorset cultures (3,000 BCE–1,000 CE). 

Traditionally, these sites have been dated using climate 

and geographical data as a proxy for cultural material, 

Inuit snow-knife recovered by Leonard Thomas from Kettle 

Head Inuit burial on Grand Isle, on display in the Middle 

Bay Museum. Photo by William Fitzhugh

Circular boulder pit-house and adjacent cache at East 

Indian Island, Groswater Bay, Labrador. 

Sketch by Katherine Meier
48 ASC Newsletter

however radiocarbon and artifact typology dating has 

been possible in some instances. 

The Belles Amours site, initially documented by René 

Levèsque, is located on a raised beach on the Belles 

Amours Peninsula east of the town of Rivière-SaintPaul. The site is divided into two parts with a lower 

section approximately five to eight meters above sea 

level and an upper area approximately fifteen meters 

above sea level. The lower field is tiered with the strips 

of boulders and is approximately 80 meters (E-W) by 

550 meters (N-S) with all the features clustered in the 

northern 300 meters. The upper field is approximately 

80 meters (E-W) by 130 meters (N-S). The site 

more than likely relates to either the Groswater or 

Paleoeskimo Dorset culture, although exact dates 

have yet to be established. Nineteen structures were 

identified from both 

areas, ten possessing 

associated features and 

another nine being standalone features. The lower 

field, comprising the 

main component of the 

site, contained sixteen of 

the structures while the 

upper field accounted 

for three. The size of the 

structures on the lower 

field vary from 1.5 to 

25.5 m2. The mean area 

of the twelve structures 

(excluding stand-alone 

cache pits) is 14.8±3.4 

m2 (at 95% CL). 

An important aspect of the settlement is the presence of 

larger structures (structures 10 and 11) located beside 

each other in the center of the lower field. There are 

many smaller structures clustered around structure 11, 

the largest at the site. The complex layout of this area, 

the larger size of some structures relative to others, 

and the central location of the largest structure could 

represent either a communal meeting area or evidence 

of social stratification within the culture. 

The Grand Isle-1 site is located in a boulder field on the 

flat top of a low ridge above the Grand Isle-2, an Inuit 

occupation site (discussed elsewhere in this Newsletter), 

approximately 35 meters above sea level. The boulder 

field is approximately 20 meters (E-W) by 30 meters (NS). Though human remains and Inuit artifacts have been 

discovered here in the past (Martijn 1974), these likely 

relate to the Grand Isle-2 Inuit site, while the boulder 

features predate them and likely can be attributed to 

the Maritime Archaic. Ten structures were identified, 

and a number of these can be considered pithouses 

with associated cache features. The mean internal area 

is 7.6±2.7 m2 (at 95% CL). Additional structures/

features were also present, though these were either less 

identifiable or heavily damaged by local residents.

The inhabitants of the Grand Isle-1 took a different 

approach to the location and layout of their pithouse 

constructions. Of the ten identified archaeological 

features, six structures (structures 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9) 

having similar features could be considered pithouses. 

The similar features consist of a total internal area of 

at least 7.6 m2 with an associated feature attached to 

the southeast or southwest walls. These associated 

features were possibly used for storage. All structures 

were built with walls 0.5-0.6 m thick likely due to the 

need for protection from strong winds in this exposed 

location. An interesting 

structure, labeled as 

the “Tri-Pit Feature” 

represents a collection 

of small, attached pits 

forming an arc. Perhaps 

this feature was utilized 

for community storage, 

as it is not associated 

with a particular 

pithouse like the other 

caches. Structure 4 

was excavated, but no 

artifacts were recovered. 

However, Grand Isle-1, 

due to its location on a 

high, post-glacial strandline and its similarity 

to sites of known affiliation, is presumably Maritime 

Archaic.

Comparing the several features and structures 

documented in our investigation, the differences in 

construction (width, length, depth, feature location, 

etc.) between the two sites is identifiable although but 

the apparent difference in feature area is not statistically 

significant due to the small sample size (t = 2.1, p = 

0.04). In conclusion, our settlement data suggests these 

sites were inhabited by two different groups of people 

with unique approaches to pithouse construction at two 

different points in time. Furthermore, regardless of time 

and location, different cultures used the same material 

and methods of construction to create culturally unique 

styles of pithouse communities. Hopefully continuation 

of this research in future years by the Gateway’s 

Project and others will result in a better understanding 

of the distribution and the cultural and social patterns 

of a common and widespread settlement type used by 

different cultures in this region. 

Belles Amours, House 10 (EiBi-24).Sketch by Noémi 

Toroczkai and Igor Chechushkov 
 ASC Newsletter 49

SNOWSHOES OF THE WESTERN CANADIAN 

ARCTIC AND ALASKA

By Leslie Main Johnson

I have been engaged in a project on drivers of 

snowshoe design in Northwestern North America over 

the past several years. Based on my own experience 

of several different northwestern Canadian indigenous 

snowshoes and ethnographic research on snowshoe 

materials and construction in the 1980s, I began 

a systematic examination 

of snowshoes in museum 

collections in 2018. I was 

seeking information on a range 

of parameters, including size, 

shape, materials, regional 

styles, historical development, 

and any associated information 

about age and gender of the 

wearer(s), and particular 

information about the use of 

the shoe such as “trail shoes” 

or “moose hunting shoes.” 

After examining snowshoes 

from the Canadian Museum 

of History, the Royal British 

Columbia Museum, the Prince 

of Wales Northern Heritage 

Centre, and some smaller 

museums in Northern British 

Columbia and the Yukon, I 

realized that the time depth of 

the collections I had seen was 

shallow, with the oldest shoes 

having firm dates reaching only 

back to the 1880s. There was 

also little coverage at these 

institutions of snowshoes from 

Alaska. An early paper on 

snowshoes (Drummond 1916) 

figured a series of snowshoes 

from the Smithsonian as 

well as shoes than in private 

collections, directing my 

attention to the collections at 

the National Museum of Natural History.

Perusing the online catalog of the Smithsonian, I 

realized that there were a number of pairs of snowshoes 

in the collection from Alaska and the Canadian 

Northwest Territories from the mid-1800s, from 

southern and western Alaska including ethnic boundary 

areas like Southeast Alaska, Point Barrow, and the 

COLLECTIONS

Canadian Arctic, as well as the Yukon/Kuskokwim 

region. There was also a pair from the Columbia River 

region dating back to 1835–1841, the oldest pair I had 

encountered with a firm date of collection. I applied 

for research travel funding from the Jacobs Fund and 

arranged to spend seven days examining, measuring, 

and photographing snowshoes.

Stephen Loring and Dave Rosenthal were most 

accommodating, and I was able to see 40 pairs of 

full-size snowshoes, five pairs of beautifully crafted 

model snowshoes, and two 

remarkable 19th century 

carved Tlingit figures 

wearing snowshoes. The 

geographic range of the 

snowshoes covered western 

British Columbia, the 

western Canadian Northwest 

Territories, and Alaska, 

and the single early pair 

from the Columbia River in 

what was then the Oregon 

Territory extended both the 

geographic and temporal 

range. The majority of the 

snowshoes were from the 

mid-19th century, including 

key pairs from the 1860s 

from the Mackenzie drainage 

in Canada. A couple of 

significant data points 

were also added in British 

Columbia, where I was able 

to measure and photograph 

a Gitxsan round-toed 

snowshoe from the 1950s 

and a pair collected at Bella 

Coola BC in the early 20th 

century. Although my initial 

experience with Indigenous 

snowshoes was having two 

pairs of snowshoes made for 

my then-husband and I by a 

Gitxsan snowshoe-maker from 

Kispiox BC in January of 1978, I have since seen only 

a handful of these snowshoes in museum collections. 

Their distinctive sharply upturned round toes, long 

narrow shape, and short tails contrasted with the largely 

eastern-made snowshoes I had seen up to that point. 

Subsequently, we visited the Yukon in the 1980s and 

saw pointed toe snowshoes with a rectangular foot 

fill, again outside my previous experience. Later, in 

1999 and 2000, I had the opportunity to see and walk 

Tlingit carved figure (E43238) with snowshoes. 

Photo by Stephen Loring
50 ASC Newsletter

in Gwich’in snowshoes on a trapline at Road River, 

Yukon. These finely made, long shovel-nose snowshoes 

were perfect for the deep dry powder snow of February 

in the boreal forest. These experiences sparked my 

interest in snowshoe design and the match of design to 

the terrain and prevalent snow conditions. 

Although I initially emphasized measurement and 

documentation of full-sized snowshoe pairs, I found 

that the miniature snowshoes, which were often early, 

gave historic time depth to key features of the design, 

though not of the size and other features which could 

be correlated with particular uses or ages or gender of 

wearers. Early Gwich’in style shoes, with beautiful 

bead ornamentation, stood out. Another pair was 

probably Koyukon, and an early pair of shoes from Fort 

Resolution on the south shore of Great Slave Lake in 

the Northwest Territories were also worthy of note. The 

pair from Fort Resolution demonstrates the pointed toe 

design with right/left shoe asymmetry typical of later 

Dene Soline (Chipewyan) snowshoes. Similarly, the 

marvelous Tlingit carved figures, especially E043238, 

provided historical time depth for key features of more 

recently collected shoes: red pigmentation of the frame, 

rounded upturned toe, fine hexagonal fill of toe and tail, 

and rectangular fill of the foot fill area.

For the full-sized snowshoes I examine, I take a whole 

series of measurements intended to enable comparison 

with other snowshoes. These are considerably more 

detailed than the typical measurements included in 

artifact records. For two-piece frame snowshoes, I first 

indicate the toe type: is it pointed, round, or with a lap 

joint. Then I measure the length in two ways: projected 

length, and length on the curve. For snowshoes with 

substantial toe upturn, these measurements may differ 

by several centimeters. Direct measurement of toe 

upturn is undertaken, as is the measurement of the tail 

length, front and back crossbars, the width of the shoe 

at the “bridge” (the reinforced band of the foot fill 

which forms the bottom of the foot opening, and is also 

the point on which the wearer’s foot pivots), which is 

often the balance point of the shoe. If the widest point 

on the snowshoes differs from this place, then it is also 

measured, and its position noted. Some snowshoes 

have additional crossbars either in the toe fill or in the 

tail, or both. The additional crossbars in the toe occur 

in pointed toe designs with substantial upturn and are 

designed to hold the fill to the curve of the frame.

Additional crossbars in the tail fill, generally of roundtoed types, have a function in the shaping of the tail fill 

area, enabling inflections in the overall shape. I also 

characterize the course or foot fill. What is the weaving 

pattern? Is it hexagonal or rectangular? Does the fill 

pierce the frame in “stitches” or does it run over the 

outside? How heavy is the material in the foot fill area? 

If rectangular, how many strands in each direction? Is 

there reinforcing of the foot opening or other parts of 

the foot fill? Snowshoes from the Mackenzie drainage 

often feature a combination, with most of the fill 

hexagonal and over the frame, while the bridge area 

may consist of two through the frame heavy strands 

and other forms of reinforcement.

Finally, I describe qualitatively features of the snowshoe, 

like materials, condition, unusual aspects of design, 

and embellishment. Are there pompoms of colored 

wool along the frame? Is the frame stained? Are there 

colored patches on the fine or even coarse fill? Are there 

beads or tufts on a center strand running down the fine 

fill? Is there decorative openwork, often then carefully 

colored, in the fine fill? One snowshoe I examined had a 

couple of remarkable repairs, including a piece carefully 

notched into the foot fill frame. Another Arctic pair had 

a bone tool or amulet of unknown function carefully 

lashed to the frame at the side of the foot fill area.

While I was at the Suitland facility, William Billeck

of the NMNH Repatriation Office consulted with me 

about the types of beads found on the centerline of 

Gwich’in snowshoes. A range of 19th century drawn 

and wound beads were identified, including “Russian 

Blue” faceted beads and other black, white, red, and 

blue beads. One beautiful pair which appears Gwich’in 

has no attached provenience. The beads on that pair 

were wound beads that were hand-faceted by pressing 

them on a hard surface when they were still warm. 

Embellishment is not obviously functional. Red ochre 

pigment typical of Gwich’in snowshoes may indicate 

respect for animals that are hunted, or perhaps offer 

some kind of protection for the wearer; red ochre is 

widely regarded as a sacred or special substance in 

Athapaskan cultures, and it may also have preservative 

properties. Pompoms may have a function in providing 

color to reduce the risk of snow blindness. Or perhaps 

they mark gender or are simply for “pretty.” Or 

possibly they reduce risk of abrasion to the selvage 

strand, which runs around fine fill areas for attachment 

Leslie Johnson documenting a Tlingit figure wearing 

snowshoes. Photo by Stephen Loring
 ASC Newsletter 51

of the web if the selvedge strand pierces the frame to 

the outside surface. Where the fine fill selvedge does 

not do this, embellishment of the sides of the frame 

with pompoms is not an option.

Some high points of the visit: a glimpse of some of the 

historic Gwich’in caribou hide clothing with quill and 

bead decoration, and an amazing richly embroidered 

black velvet robe from Old Crow; and the chance 

to meet the visiting Inuvialuit delegation who were 

examining the MacFarlane collection. As I work over 

my data from the Smithsonian and combine it with 

data from other museum collections, I will be seeking 

insights into why the snowshoe frames and fill have 

the characteristics I observe. Ethnic continuity or 

“style,” prevalent way of life and uses, topography 

and snow conditions, available materials, and their 

characteristics, aesthetics, and human ingenuity are all 

likely factors in why snowshoes look as they do.

Drummond, Thomas. 1916. The Canadian Snowshoe. 

Transactions of the Royal Society of Canada, section 2, 

vol.3, no. 10: 305–20.

SAGA OF THE VEGA EXPEDITION’S 

CHUKCHI COLLECTION, 1878–2020

By Igor Krupnik and Martin Schultz

In 1878–1879, a Swedish crew led by Adolf (Nils 

Adolf Eric) Nordenskiöld (1832–1901) navigated 

the Vega along the Arctic shoreline of the Eurasian 

continent from Norway to the Bering Strait, becoming 

the first European explorer to complete the “Northeast 

Passage,” between the Atlantic and the Pacific Ocean. 

Known as the “Vega Expedition,” it was a model 

scholarly venture of its time, with an extensive research 

program in hydrography, meteorology, geology, botany, 

and zoology conducted by a team of trained scientists. 

Though none of the expedition participants had a 

background in anthropology, they collected a massive 

stock of data related to Indigenous people living 

along its route, including ethnographic collections, 

photographs, written observations, population and 

ethnographic data, archaeological specimens, and 

materials on ethnobotanical and ethno-ornithological 

knowledge. The bulk of the Vega Expedition

ethnographic records came from the Chukchi people 

of Northeast Siberia, due to the ship’s ten-month 

wintering near the Arctic shore of the Chukchi 

Peninsula from September 1878 to July 1879. Smaller 

contributions originated from short encounters with 

the Nenets and Khanty people of Northern Russia, the 

Inupiat at Port Clarence, and the Yupik on St. Lawrence 

Island, Alaska. 

As the expedition’s massive collections were brought 

to Sweden in April 1880, Nordenskiöld, the expedition 

leader and experienced polar scientist, acted swiftly 

to process its scholarly record and published it in a 

series of science articles, a two-volume account of 

the expedition soon translated in major European 

languages (Nordenskiöld 1881), and five volumes of 

‘proceedings.’ He also used the collections from the 

expedition to publicize its results, secure additional 

funding, and seek favors from the Swedish Royal 

family and the general public in support of further 

explorations. In the following years, the objects 

collected by the Vega crew were publicly displayed, 

often without cataloging, divided according to 

professional categories of the era, deposited in different 

museums, exchanged with foreign institutions, given 

as gifts, and even partly held as personal or family 

possessions by expedition participants. 

In 2019, the two authors—both Arctic/North American 

ethnology curators at their respective national museums, 

NMNH, and the Swedish National Museums of World 

Cultures/Statens museer för världskultur––agreed to 

revisit the Vega Chukchi collection and to research 

its history since 1880. This is how our project called 

“Dispersal and Reunion,” was born. Its main goal is to 

explore a peculiar trajectory of the collection over 140 

years and the shifting knowledge about its dispersed 

constituent specimens after they were taken out of the 

original cultural context and began new lives as museum 

objects. As revealed by our effort, the restoration of 

Vega collections in 1880 display in the Royal Palace in 

Stockholm, 1880
52 ASC Newsletter

at least some knowledge associated with the Vega

collection is still possible via physical (or virtual) 

reunion of the original stock of objects assembled in 

1878–1879; an input by Indigenous knowledge holders 

from the objects’ home area (‘cultural reunion’); and 

comparison of the Vega collection with other holdings of 

Chukchi cultural objects preserved in various museums.

Dispersal, 1880–2010

Upon the return of the Vega expedition to Stockholm 

in April 1880, the main portion of its ethnographic 

collection from Siberia and Alaska was officially donated 

by Nordenskiöld to the Swedish National Museum of 

Natural History (Naturhistoriska Riksmuseet). It was part 

of a much larger collection that also included thousands 

of natural history specimens—bird skins and eggs, 

plants, rocks and fossils, fish and invertebrates. It is an 

open question whether all of the expedition collections 

went directly to the Riksmuseet, for soon after, almost 

300 objects, including 79 ethnographic specimens from 

the Chukchi and Alaskan Inupiat, appeared as part of 

‘Mr. Oscar Dickson’s Swedish Collection’ displayed 

at the International Fisheries Exhibition in Edinburgh 

in 1882. Oscar Dickson (1823–1897), a rich Swedish 

industrialist and banker, financially supported many of 

Nordenskiöld’s enterprises, including the Vega voyage. 

Though Nordenskiöld aspired to take full control of all 

collections from the expedition, we could not exclude 

that its participants were disposing (selling, donating?) 

their personal small holdings as they wished. Some 

objects almost certainly ended as gifts to the members 

of the extended Nordenskiöld family or were given to 

sponsors.

The objects brought by the expedition were soon 

displayed in a massive exhibit staged in July 1880 at 

the Royal Palace in Stockholm. Scores of historical 

photographs from that exhibit feature arrangements of 

mannequins dressed in Chukchi and Inupiat clothing 

placed against large wall displays of harpoons, lances, 

bows and arrows, paddles, fishing gear, and numerous 

other pieces interspersed with the natural history 

specimens, such as marine mammal skeletons, stuffed 

birds, rocks, fish in jars, and others. Following that first 

exhibit, most of the remaining uncatalogued objects 

ended up at the Riksmuseet where they were soon 

separated by ‘fields’ or ‘themes,’ so that the bird skin 

and egg specimens went to the ‘Bird’ division, rocks 

to ‘Minerals,’ fishes to ‘Fishes,’ and the likes. The 

ethnographic portion of the collection was assigned 

to the Department of Vertebrates (!) with one curator 

on staff. That curator quickly hired a young female 

registrar named Kornelia Pålman (1850–1886) to 

process the objects, assign catalog numbers, and 

provide short descriptions for the museum ledger 

book. These descriptions were rudimentary, but some 

place names of the Chukchi sites visited, like Pitlekaj, 

Jinretlen, and Irkajpij, made their way into at least 

some catalog entries.

Some objects were given more attention than others, 

like small ivory carvings (Swedish snideri) that often 

had details on size, form, and ornamentation. On the 

other hand, hunting and fishing gear were recorded 

very briefly. Some objects referenced as ‘grave finds’ 

(Graffynd) were cataloged as archaeological specimens 

from the ancient site at Ryrkaipyi (Irkajpij) that was 

explored in September 1878 and entered museum 

records as a separate collection.

In the absence of a full roster of the expedition 

ethnological and archaeological objects that arrived in 

Stockholm in 1880, it is hard to follow the fate of the 

estimated 1,000 objects from the Chukchi Peninsula, 

then the world’s largest collection of its kind and still 

A page from the original collection ledger of the Swedish 

National Museum featuring Chukchi objects from the Vega 

Expedition. Photo by Igor Krupnik

Small Chukchi ivory carvings (snideri) constitute almost 

50% of today’s Vega collection at the Etnografiska Museet. 

Photo by Igor Krupnik
 ASC Newsletter 53

one of the largest Chukchi collections outside of Russia. 

In 1892, a portion of the Vega collection was displayed 

in Madrid at the “Historical American Exposition,” 

honoring the 400th anniversary of Columbus’ first 

voyage to America. Even before that, a small set of 11 

objects was exchanged with the U.S. National Museum 

in Washington D.C., some still retaining their original 

Swedish tags, with local place-names (e.g. ‘Kap Nord,’ 

‘Jirkajpij,’ ‘Pitlakaj,’ etc.) and numbers from the ‘Royal 

Museum, Sweden.’ Following the era’s common practice 

of museum exchanges, similar sets of objects from 

Vega might have been given to other institutions, like 

the Världskulturmuseet in Gothenburg, formerly the 

Ethnographic Museum of the city of Gothenburg, where 

a small collection from Japan gathered on the Vega’s 

return voyage to Sweden ended up.

In 1900, when the special Ethnographic Museum 

(Etnografiska Museet) was established in Stockholm, 

most of the Vega ethnographic collections were 

transferred to the new museum, while a yet-unknown 

portion was left behind, mostly objects associated with 

bird hunting, fishing, and plant collecting. Until the 

1950s, the Etnografiska Museet used the former catalog 

numbers assigned by the Naturhistoriska Riksmuseet. 

When the ethnographic museum staff finally assigned 

its own numbers, many objects were already listed as 

‘lost’ or ‘misplaced.’ In any case, the original National 

Museum ledger listed 804 objects under ‘Tschuktscher’ 

(Chukchi), not counting archaeological specimens, 

whereas the Ethnographic Museum database (in 

electronic format since 1999 and available online 

since 2001) lists only 660 objects. In addition, some 

130 archaeological objects from house and grave 

excavations at Ryrkaipyi (Jirkajpij) are documented in 

a separate hand-written catalog produced in 1952. 

Two other types of objects belonged to the original 

Vega holdings—over 25–30 drawings made by Chukchi 

visitors to the expedition wintering site that was used 

as illustrations in various publications and over 70 

photographs from the voyage, including 34 portrait 

images of the local Chukchi people and six photos 

of the Inupiat from Port Clarence, Alaska, reportedly 

taken by Vega captain, Louis Polander (1842–1920). 

Some of the photos are now disolayed in the halls of 

the Etnografiska Museet, but the original glass plate 

negatives are at the Royal Swedish Academy of Letters, 

History, and Antiquities in Stockholm. 

Besides being scattered among various Swedish 

institutions, the Vega Chukchi objects are also 

‘internally dispersed’ within the Etnografiska Museet. 

Others are kept in storage, like the iconic Chukchi 

kayak with its square cockpit and preserved skin cover, 

in various sections of the museum storage, intermixed 

Vega expedition objects in the NMNH-Smithsonian 

ethnographic collection with the preserved tag from the 

Swedish National Museum. Photo by Igor Krupnik

Chukchi photographic portraits taken by Capt. Palander, 

winter 1878/1879. Photo by Igor Krupnik

Chukchi objects from the Vega Expedition on display today. 

Photo by Igor Krupnik
54 ASC Newsletter

with pieces from other world cultures. There is no 

‘Arctic’ storage area, no ‘Chukchi’ or ‘Vega’ space 

to easily locate the objects from the expedition, 

although they can now be tracked via database 

catalog numbers and electronic storage locators. It is a 

helpful advancement compared to the earlier work by 

anthropologist James VanStone on the Inupiat portion 

of the Vega collection in the 1980s when about 10% of 

the objects listed in the catalog could not be retrieved 

and were presumed “lost.”

The Beginning of ‘Reunion’

When the authors considered their joint “Chukchi Vega

Collection” study in summer 2019, we originally aimed 

to follow in the footsteps of VanStone’s survey of the 

much smaller Alaskan portion of the same collection 

conducted almost 30 years before (VanStone 1990). 

Yet as we met at the Etnografiska Museet in Stockholm 

in September 2019, we quickly realized that we had 

to do more than just replicate VanStone’s strategy for 

the Chukchi portion of the collection. VanStone was 

focused exclusively on examining and describing 

the objects; he had little interest in the history of the 

collection after it was assembled by Nordenskiöld in 

1879 and in ‘reconnecting’ it to today’s residents of 

its home area. There was also no effort to reunite the 

collection in its original form as we were willing to 

entertain.

Our process started with the mundane re-assembling 

of the objects in one physical space so that we could 

cross-check the items ‘in storage’ and exhibit displays 

against today’s electronic database. It became clear 

from this first examination (continued by MS in late 

2019 and January 2020) that the museum database 

constitutes the best starting source to assess the 

composition of today’s collection. On the flip side, 

the ledger records from the 1880s and, particularly, 

the historical photographs from the first exhibit in 

1880 revealed a much larger set of objects that had 

to be virtually construed. There is an urgent need to 

produce high-quality visual documentation of the 

collection so that the objects can be studied without 

physical examination, also for prospective sharing with 

Indigenous knowledge holders. Such extended digital 

documentation had been initiated by the museum staff 

following our meeting in 2019.

During our work in Stockholm, we also contacted 

Eduard Zdor, a Chukchi cultural and environmental 

activist from Chukotka, now a Ph.D. student at the 

University of Alaska, Fairbanks. Zdor grew up in the 

community of Neshkan, barely 30 km (18 mi) east of the 

Vega wintering place in 1878–1879. According to Zdor, 

the town of Neshkan (population 700, in Nordenskiöld 

Swedish transliteration, Najtskaj) is home to most of 

the descendants of the former residents of small camps 

around the old wintering site. These people constitute a 

direct ‘descendant community’ connected to the objects, 

historical photographs, and ethnographic descriptions 

generated by the expedition. Local people never had 

access to any records—written, photographic, or 

electronic—relating to the expedition collections from 

their home area. Though the name “Vega” is familiar 

in Chukotka and various recent reprints of the Russian 

translation of Nordenskiöld’s account of the Vega voyage 

are available, also as online resources, few people could 

relate to a 140-year old description of their ancestors’ 

life. Overall, we hope that the local Chukchi community 

in Neshkan and, perhaps, other Indigenous experts in 

Chukotka, would assist us in an effort to re-connect 

the descendants of those who had interacted with the 

Vega crew with the 140-year old record related to their 

homeland and culture.

Chukchi kayak (middle) collected by the Vega expedition illustrating its peculiar square open cockpit with no raised rim, a 

structure seen also in a Vega Chukchi model kayak. The collection also includes a small Chukchi open boat model. 

Photos by Igor Krupnik
 ASC Newsletter 55

What’s Next?

As our project unfolds, we see more and more tasks 

on the path to ‘reunite’ the elements of the Vega

Chukchi collection—objects, photographs, drawings, 

written and published records—with diverse audiences 

and in several languages. We would like to engage a 

team of Chukchi cultural experts, preferably from the 

community of Neshkan, to have Chukchi names and 

cultural explanations for various objects from the Vega

expedition added to the museum database and to the 

future educational and public materials to emerge from 

our project. We hope to share these materials—visually, 

electronically, as printed catalog, etc.—with the home 

community and with the larger audience in Chukotka 

that so far has little knowledge of the Vega collection.

Another urgent task is to complete the existing 

electronic database for the Chukchi objects at the 

Etnografiska Museet and then add other types of 

cultural sources, such as photographs and glass plates, 

pencil drawings, archival documents stored at various 

Swedish institutions. This task has been already partly 

accomplished as the Vega Chukchi database has grown 

to almost 1080 objects—by adding several formerly 

‘unassociated’ objects recovered in the museum 

storage, as well as archaeological specimens from 

the old site of Ryrkaipyi (‘Jirkajpij’ in Nordenskiöld 

transliteration) that have been cataloged separately. 

Another virtual ‘reunification’ would involve an 

assessment of the objects featured on the photographs 

from the 1880 exhibit at the Royal Palace against 

today’s holdings. These early photos reveal more 

objects yet to be accounted for and may illustrate the 

rate of dispersal of the original collection between 1880 

and its transfer to the museum in 1900.

Another prospective source of expertise is the 

community of Arctic museum specialists, particularly 

from the institutions that house substantial Chukchi 

ethnographic collections. As the expanded Vega

database becomes accessible in 2020, we aspire to 

engage our international colleagues at various museums 

that are home to other major Chukchi collections, 

such as the Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology 

and Ethnography in St. Petersburg, the Russian 

Ethnographic Museum in St. Petersburg, the National 

Museum of Ethnology in Leiden, the American 

Museum of Natural History in New York, and the 

local museums in the Chukchi people homeland in 

Northeast Siberia. Their insight would be crucial to our 

understanding of the meaning of objects collected by 

the Vega crew. The ‘reunion’ will eventually have many 

aspects, including reconnecting the collection to its 

original ‘home’ community, as well as securing its full 

recognition among the world’s ethnographic holdings 

on Arctic Indigenous peoples.

INUVIALUIT DELEGATION VISITS 

SMITHSONIAN COLLECTIONS

By Bernadette Driscoll Engelstad

In November 2019, a delegation from the Inuvialuit 

Regional Corporation—Jerry Inglangasuk (IRC 

Vice-Chair), Ethel-Jean Gruben (Manager, Inuvialuit 

Cultural Center), and Beverly Amos (Regional 

Language Consultant), an archaeologist, Charles 

Arnold—recorded Inuvialuit cultural belongings 

originally brought together by Donald Cadzow for 

the Museum of the American Indian (MAI) in 1919. 

Established by George G. Heye in New York in 1916, 

the MAI became part of the Smithsonian in 1989 and 

is now called the National Museum of the American 

Indian. Highlights from this collection are currently 

on view in a major exhibition at the NMAI George 

G. Heye Cultural Center in New York City, Infinity 

of Nations: Art and History in the Collections of the 

National Museum of the American Indian.

With the assistance of Maria Martinez, Collections 

Manager, the research team documented fur clothing, 

hunting tools, and domestic material used in the 

Mackenzie Delta region a century ago. In addition, the 

Inuvialuit parka with Inuinnait stylistic features collected by 

Captain E. Herendeen (NMNH E128407). 

Photo by Bernadette Engelstad
56 ASC Newsletter

team reviewed the NMNH’s 19th century Inuvialuit 

collection acquired by Roderick MacFarlane in 

the 1860s as well as Inupiat ancestral belongings 

collected by Lt. Patrick H. Ray and Captain Edward 

P. Herendeen in the 1880s in the Utqiagvik region 

near Point Barrow housed at the Museum Support 

Center. This research complements the extensive 

study of the MacFarlane collection, a collaborative 

project carried out by the Inuvialuit Cultural Resource 

Center that resulted in the digital production and 

northern curriculum program, Inuvialuit Pitqusiit 

Inuuniarutait: Inuvialuit Living History (http://www.

inuvialuitlivinghistory.ca/).

Of special interest to the group was the curiously 

designed parka collected by Capt. Herendeen at 

Herschel Island in May 1887, which overlays design 

features of the Inuinnait parka—including white 

caribou fur chest panels, an elongated tail, and a conelike appendage on the hood, apparently mimicking 

the loon beak typically attached to the Inuinnait dance 

hat. These features appear to serve as a comic device, 

suggesting that the parka was used as a costume in 

Inuvialuit festivities, parodying the parka style of the 

Inuinnait, neighbors to the east. Borrowing design 

features of neighboring groups is also apparent in the 

clothing tradition of Inuit shamans. 

As Charles Arnold points out, Guninana (a member 

of Stefansson's expedition) recalls hearing of a Baillie 

Island man (long-passed) who “wore a ‘swallow-tail’ 

coat in imitation of his spirit, an agoyalik (having a 

tail), as such a tailcoat was called. These clothes were 

immediately taken off and put away at the end of a 

seance as soon as the keyugak (familiar spirit) had left” 

(Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of 

Natural History, vol. 14, 1914: 366; Diary, March 13, 

1912). 

The comparison of the late 19th and early 20th

century Inuvialuit women’s parkas illustrates the 

transformational change in women’s clothing design 

throughout the region, indicating that the Mackenzie 

Delta served as a core center for dynamic design change 

well before the introduction of European materials. 

Inuvialuit/Inupiat women’s parkas illustrate stylistic 

changes in 19th and early 20th-century clothing 

design: left, an Inuvialuit woman’s parka, Anderson 

River, Mackenzie Delta, Canada, collected by R. 

MacFarlane, acc. December 21, 1866, NMNH 

E-1701, and right, an Inupiat woman’s parka, recently 

offered for donation by Eliot Waldman of Native Art 

Traders, Skokie, Illinois (deaccessioned from Rutgers 

University). These pieces provide yet another link in 

the transformational change in Inuvialuit and Inupiat 

women’s fur clothing across space and time.

During a visit to the National Anthropological Archives 

at MSC, the research team reviewed a population 

census and extensive vocabulary lists compiled by Lt. 

Ray and Captain Herendeen. These linguistic surveys, 

widely circulated by John Wesley Powell, founding 

Director of the Bureau of Ethnology (later BAE), 

contained a plea for local assistance in recording the 

vocabulary and grammar of indigenous peoples across 

the Americas. The preservation and contemporary use 

of these materials underscore their intrinsic value to 

indigenous communities today.

Women's parkas (l-r) collected by R. MacFarlane (Anderson River, c.1866); D. Cadzow (Mackenzie River Delta, 1919); E. 

Waldman/Rutgers University (unprovenanced). Photo by Bernadette Engelstad
 ASC Newsletter 57

GATEWAYS EXHIBIT AT THE WHITELEY 

MUSEUM, QUEBEC

By Chelsi Slotten and William W. Fitzhugh

Last winter and spring, with financial support from 

the Whiteley Museum in St. Paul, Quebec, we 

prepared a poster exhibit presenting the cultures of the 

Lower North Shore (LNS) featuring results of recent 

Smithsonian archaeological studies. The goal of the 

poster exhibition was to acquaint local people, and 

visitors with the coast’s cultural heritage and the role 

archaeology can play in its future social and economic 

development. The exhibition was installed in July and 

was introduced to the community at the gathering in 

August when we reported on the results of our 2019 

field season. Excerpts of the text, which we produced in 

English and French, were accompanied by maps, sites, 

and selected artifacts.

FASHION WORKSHOP IN ANCHORAGE

By Elisa Palomino

The Fashion Workshop at the ASC Anchorage Museum 

on 17–18 July 2019, was part of my Fulbright UK-US 

scholar’s award to develop a research and educational 

project on indigenous Arctic fish skin clothing. The 

project explored cultural and ecological impacts on 

fashion, higher education, and the learning strategies for 

best promoting these skills. CIRI Foundation provided 

food and art materials for the participants, and the Arctic 

Studies Center provided matching funds from the First 

National Bank of Alaska to bring artist Coral Chernoff 

OUTREACH

from Kodiak to attend the workshop. I am the Fashion 

Print pathway leader at Central Saint Martin’s University 

of the Arts in London and an experienced educator with 

visiting academic appointments at several international 

universities, museums, and galleries.

Five Alaska Native artists took part in the workshop as 

well as two members of the staff from the Anchorage 

Museum. During the two-day fashion sketchbook 

workshop, students were taken through the process of 

collecting personal research from diverse and inspiring 

sources. They documented their responses through 

drawing, photography, and collage in order to create 

a unique sketchbook to help them with their personal 

creative practice. The workshop took place adjacent to 

the Arctic Studies Center exhibit Living our Cultures, 

Sharing our Heritage: The First Peoples of Alaska. 

Students had the unique chance to use imagery from 

the Smithsonian collections as part of their content 

research for their sketchbook, encouraging them to do 

further research on their own Alaskan Native culture.

Students were introduced to a selection of books from 

the Anchorage Museum library, which focuses on the 

history, ethnography, science, and art of Alaska and the 

North. The workshop provided on-site research access 

to Smithsonian collections of Alaskan art and provided 

methods to improve engagement and consultation with 

Art libraries.

The workshop began with an introduction to my 

current Ph.D. research on intangible cultural heritage 

preservation connected with fish skin. I shared 

with the students the fish skin knowledge I have 

Workshop activities at the Anchorage Museum. 

Photo by Elisa Palomino

Coral Chernoff, Elisa Palomino, and Danielle Larsen with 

sketchbook postings. Photo by Elisa Palomino
58 ASC Newsletter

gathered in workshops with native artists across the 

circumpolar area, and my own printing techniques. 

Finding ways to stimulate Arctic artists to explore 

new ways to utilize traditional fish skin knowledge 

is of high importance today. The workshops have 

been envisioned as the beginning of a continuing 

and expanding discourse allowing for conversations 

on the future of fish skin crafts. Collaboration with 

indigenous partners has enriched understanding of this 

material, and the experiences gained continue to guide 

and inform methods and attitudes in my work with 

native communities. Most of the participants in the 

workshop used fish skin already and were glad to learn 

new techniques for tanning, dyeing, and printing to 

incorporate them into their own practice.

There was a second aspect to my fieldwork in Alaskan 

museums, where I immersed myself for three months 

studying circumpolar collections and the origins and 

traditions of using Arctic raw materials for fashion 

design. I shared my findings on sustainable use of 

local subsistence by-product materials, such as fish 

skin, gut skin, sealskin, baleen, bird skin, bird feet, 

porcupine and bird quill, grass, wood, and birch bark. 

Even though the participants were familiar with these 

materials, they had never seen most of the objects used 

in the presentation. The participants were inspired and 

expressed a desire to use their own self-harvested and 

processed indigenous materials with similar techniques.

Then I presented fashion sketchbooks from all the 

different international universities where I have worked 

and shared where to look for research information, 

content needed for fashion sketchbooks, and for layout 

and presentation techniques. 

Participants introduced themselves and their own 

practices and started working in groups. Most of the 

participants have other jobs on top of their creative 

practice. They shared issues and concerns of working in 

isolation, creating their work in their studios or homes 

with little or no contact with other creative fellows. They 

were happy to reconnect with each other in the common 

space of the Anchorage Museum and wondered about 

having a similar workshop during the winter.

Coral Chernoff looked at the gut skin parkas from 

St. Lawrence Island on display at the museum and 

developed some new ideas for future gut skin artifacts 

by combining them with Arctic flora. She found the 

workshop of great inspiration for her own teaching 

and will be delivering a similar workshop in Kodiak 

this winter. Danielle Larsen dived into the Anchorage 

Museum 50’s Alaskan packaging as part of her ongoing pop art inspiration, creating some interesting 

fashion shapes. She expressed her enthusiasm for being 

back “at school” even if just for a couple of days. 

Carla Kelliher Gingrich developed some new digital 

print ideas inspired by one of the library’s northern 

lights books for her own collection of native kuspuks. 

Erin Gingrich looked at the museum’s Yup'ik hunters’ 

wooden visors to create a small collection of fashion 

and millinery pieces inspired by her native Yukon River 

wildlife habitat. June Pardue could not attend but met 

with me beforehand and started experimenting with 

beet juice to naturally dye her fish skin.

Our workshop would never have taken place without 

the assistance of Aron Crowell and Dawn Biddison in 

the ASC Anchorage office.

Danielle Larsen’s Alaskan packaging inspired sketchbook. 

Photo by Elisa Palomino

Coral Chernoff’s St. Lawrence Island gut skin parkas and 

Arctic flora-inspired sketchbook. Photo by Elisa Palomino
 ASC Newsletter 59

NARWHAL EXHIBIT CLOSES AT NMNH AND 

BEGINS S.I.T.E.S. TOUR

By William W. Fitzhugh

The Narwhal exhibition closed at the Natural History 

Museum on 3 January 2020, having had a 2.5-year run 

that brought this majestic creature and other Arctic 

themes to thousands of 

visitors. I dropped in on 

Sunday, 2 January, to say 

goodbye and found the 

hall jammed with visitors, 

none of whom realized 

what they almost missed. 

It is always gratifying to 

get their reactions. What I 

learned this time was that 

everyone—young, old, and 

everyone in between—

found something engaging. 

Thank goodness we had a 

touchable tusk and pop art 

for the kids. We had two 

docents working the cart, 

and there were throngs 

about them continuously. 

One visitor, an Inuit man 

from the Western Canadian 

Arctic, told me he once 

killed a narwhal that had a 

narwhal tusk tip embedded 

in it—the first I’ve heard of 

such an instance.

When I visited the hall 

the next day, the exhibits 

team had already 

taken the photos and 

panels down. What a 

scene! Order, art, and 

intelligence had become 

a cluttered shambles 

sad to see! I recovered 

whatever I could salvage 

for future use as props 

and momentos. The 

ethnographic items 

are headed back into 

collection storage; the 

Greenland sealskin 

hunting parka collected in 

the 1880s had its once-ina-lifetime exhibition debut 

and probably will never be 

seen again by the public.

This fall, our Education Department put on a 

‘Narwhal Weekend’ featuring a lecture by Dr. Martin 

Nweeia and a family day in our Q?rius center, where 

kids explored narwhals and Inuit stories in a makeshift convertible igloo hosted by Pamela Peeters. 

One of the highlights of the program was a chance to 

dive into the narwhal world with a virtual Hollowlens experience presented 

by Case Western Reserve 

University staff, donning 

fancy headgear that 

turned you into a narwhal 

foraging in the Arctic 

seas with narration by 

Meryl Streep! Thank you, 

Martin, for arranging that!

Nevertheless, my nostalgia 

(was this my last major 

Smithsonian exhibit?) 

was assuaged by the 

knowledge that the exhibit 

is being redesigned by 

Smithsonian Institution 

Traveling Exhibit Service 

(SITES), thanks to Carol 

Bossert, for travel to 

smaller museums in 

Canada and the US over 

the next two or three 

years. Perhaps I will 

have a chance to visit it 

on the road somewhere 

and re-connect with 

its themes of narwhal 

biology, the marvelous 

tusk, its medieval Inuit and 

European history, and its 

stories of Inuit knowledge. 

Then, alongside our 

exhibition catalog, we may 

see the new graphic novel 

publication, Transformed 

by a Tusk (2020), produced 

by Pamela Peeters and 

Martin Nweeia, and, 

through its delightful 

artistry and text, voyage 

to the Arctic to meet Dr. 

Narwhal and Ms. EcoHero, who together save 

the world from climate 

change.

Bon Voyage, Narwhal! Graphic novel Transformed by a Tusk, by Pamela Peeters 

and Martin Nweeia

Fitzhugh and Narwhal docents Sally Lau and John 

Kelmelis on the last day of the exhibit. Photo by Sally Lau
60 ASC Newsletter

THE AMAZING AND MAGICAL NARWHAL

By Sara Acuff

[Editor’s note: Ms. Sara Acuff is a retired teacher and 

school principal who brought her daughter and a friend 

to the Narwhal exhibit on the last day it was open.]

In January of this year, my family and I, along with 

a friend of our daughter’s, visited the Smithsonian’s 

Natural History Museum in Washington, D.C. Since 

we live nearby, we often visit, as our daughter Skyler 

Acuff likes to see the ocean animals, which she has been 

especially interested in 

since she was two years 

old. Sharks and whales 

are her favorites, and 

she and her friend did a 

science fair project on 

sharks last year. Skyler, 

age 10, and Daniela 

Lundena, age 9, were 

excited to see the exhibit. 

They stayed there the 

longest time talking to 

the very knowledgeable 

docent, Sally Lau, who 

showed them a rare 

double-tusked male skull 

on display. They heard 

that a tusk, or tooth, can 

grow up to 9 feet long 

and that narwhals can 

weigh almost 2 tons. We 

also learned that they live 

in the cold waters of the 

Arctic and have to come up to breathe air. Blubber helps 

keep their bodies from freezing. They migrate during the 

summer and winter, returning to the same grounds.

Skyler said, “I got to compare myself to a narwhal, 

which is a mammal, and learned they rarely have 2 

tusks. All males have them and some females. Groups 

of them are called pods. I hope other kids can see this 

exhibit because narwhals are definitely magical creatures 

that they can learn about!” Daniela added some of the 

same comments, saying, “I got to see a life-size model of 

a narwhal, its tusk, hear its clicks and whistles. Kids can 

learn many things about the narwhal, the sea unicorn.” 

We learned about a new discovery that the narwhal’s 

tusk can trace changes in their icy waters, such as 

temperature, pressure, and saltiness and about the Inuit 

people of Pond Inlet in northern Canada who have 

lived with them for thousands of years, and about their 

stories, traditional knowledge, legends, and the effects 

of global climate changes in the Arctic. 

Skyler Acuff and Daniela 

Ludena visiting the Narwhal 

exhibit. Photo by Sally Lau

ANOTHER DICKENSONIAN ARRIVES AT 

THE SMITHSONIAN

By Calvin Bader

Growing up just outside D.C., the Natural History 

Museum was always my favorite place to go. Forget 

the other museums, I wanted to see the dinosaurs and 

the big whale. I am so honored to be able to say that 

I worked at the NMNH, even if only for a month in 

July 2019. When I met 

Dr. William Fitzhugh

after his lecture series at 

my school, Dickenson 

College, I really didn’t 

know what I was going 

to do with myself 

during the summer. 

Instead, he offered me 

an opportunity I will 

not soon forget. My 

time at the museum was 

incredibly rewarding and 

interesting. Every person 

I met was passionate 

and knowledgeable, and 

their energy gave me a 

stronger drive to pursue 

a career in science and 

research. The internship 

gave me the opportunity 

to learn about northern 

regions and anthropology 

I had almost no 

knowledge about. I had no idea the Arctic was such 

an interesting and fruitful area for archaeological and 

environmental study. My work cataloging Labrador 

archaeological artifacts gave me the opportunity to 

learn more about the Arctic area by interacting with 

the very artifacts I was reading about. I now have a 

much deeper understanding of Arctic archaeology and 

hopefully will get a chance in the future to learn more 

about this amazing cultural area. I am deeply grateful 

for Nancy Shorey and Dr. Fitzhugh for inviting me to 

the ASC and inspiring me to consider a future museum 

or teaching job research in northern studies.

[Editor’s note: Dickenson College in Carlisle, Pa., 

founded in 1783, was where Spencer Fullerton Baird

began his academic training in 1837 and was teaching 

biology there when he was invited by Secretary Joseph 

Henry to take up the Assistant Secretary position at the 

Smithsonian, reputedly arriving in Washington with two 

railway boxcars full of zoological specimens.]

INTERNS AND FELLOWS

Calvin Bader. Photo by 

Nancy Shorey
 ASC Newsletter 61

FISHSKINLAB GREETINGS

By Elisa Palomino

The year 2019 has been an important period for the 

Indigenous Arctic Fish Skin Project. As the year comes 

to closure, I would like to thank all the individuals 

that have helped me to carry out this research. The 

experimental research activities have been extremely 

rewarding, not only because they have allowed me 

and my students to learn so many new things about 

fish skin, but also because the experimental work has 

involved strong collaboration with a wide spectrum 

of experts, from traditional tanners, artists, museum 

curators, anthropologists, and historians.

I have co-created four fish skin craft workshops with 

native and non-native Arctic craftspeople in four 

different locations: Iceland, Hokkaido Island (Japan), 

Northeast China, and New York. I would like to thank 

the fish skin artists delivering the workshops: Lotta 

Rahme, Joe Boon, Shigero Takano, Wen Feng Yu, 

Li Yu, Joel Isaak, all the student participants in the 

workshops, the museum curators, the photographers, 

and the video recorders. My sincere gratitude to the 

universities involved in the workshops: Central Saint 

Martins College of Art & Design, Iceland University of 

the Arts, The Swedish School of Textiles—University 

of Borås, Aalto University, KADK The Royal Danish 

Academy of Fine Arts, Bunka Gakuen University, 

Osaka Bunka, Kyoto Seika University, Parsons School 

of Design. In addition to the workshops, I have been 

privileged to write a book chapter and delivered nine 

conferences in the UK, the Netherlands, Japan, Canada, 

Alaska, Iceland, and Estonia. All these experiences, 

including successes and failures, have provided 

valuable learning experiences.

I would like to express my gratitude to the Icelandic 

tannery Atlantic Leather, Icelandic Textile centre, 

Textile Museum, Blondous, Musée du Quai Branly, 

NY American Museum of Natural History, Anchorage 

Museum, Wells Fargo Museum, Alaska State Museum, 

Sheldon Jackson Museum, Carrie M. MacLaine 

Memorial Museum, Pratt Museum, Alutiiq Museum, 

University of Alaska Museum of the North, Hokkaido 

University Museum, Ainu Culture Research Centre 

of Hokkaido Museum, Ainu Museum, Kushiro City 

Museum, Abashiri Hokkaido Museum of Northern 

Peoples, Nibutani Ainu Culture Museum, National 

Museum of Ethnology in Osaka, Minpaku, and Hezhen 

Ethnic Minority Culture Museum.

The research has been funded by the AHRC LDoc 

London Doctoral Design Centre Award. In addition, 

this research could not have been completed without 

support from the Fulbright UK-US Scholar Award. My 

deep gratitude goes to William Fitzhugh, director of the 

Arctic Studies Center at the National Museum of Natural 

History, Smithsonian Institution, and his team: Aron 

Crowell, Dawn Biddison, Stephen Loring, Nancy 

Shorey, and John Cloud. Further funding includes the 

Nordic Culture Fund, OPSTART, Handmade Nordic 

culture fund, the Society of Dyers and Colourists, 

Foundation for Research and Promotion of Ainu Culture, 

The Japan Foundation Endowment Committee, the Great 

Britain Sasakawa Foundation, the Daiwa Foundation. 

EU Horizon 2020-MSCA-RISE-2018. Research and 

Innovation Staff Exchange and Marie Sklodowska Curie.

My sincere gratitude to Sandy Black, Dilys Williams, 

and Simon Thorogood from the Centre for Sustainable 

Fashion at London College of Fashion who keep 

providing overall guidance for this research. My 

immense gratitude to Isaac Rayne, always available, 

giving me feedback and constant support.

Dying fish skin in an indigo vat. Photo by Elisa Palomino Katazome indigo-dyed fish skin. Photo by Elisa Palomino
62 ASC Newsletter

PEARY’S ARCTIC QUEST: UNTOLD 

STORIES FROM ROBERT E. PEARY’S 

NORTH POLE EXPEDITIONS, by Susan A. 

Kaplan and Genevieve M. Lemoine

DownEast Books, 2019. Published in cooperation 

with the Peary-MacMillan Arctic Museum, Bowdoin 

College.

Reviewed by William W. Fitzhugh

In the preface, the authors ask the question, “Does 

the world need another book about Robert E. Peary

and the North Pole?” Their answer: a ‘qualified yes,’ 

recognizing that readers may be tired of the back-andforth about whether Peary actually reached the Pole on 

April 6, 1909. Instead, they take a different course—

presenting a full, dispassionate study of Peary’s life 

and accomplishments on the 100th anniversary of his 

final expedition. They consider but do not advocate 

for his claim. More importantly, they argue, is what 

he accomplished along the way—an inventor of arctic 

expedition gear, a master expedition organizer and 

planner, and an exceptional leader and communicator. 

He dealt fairly with the Inughuit and his team members, 

promoted Matthew Henson, a black man, as his field 

partner, and earned the undying praise from his equally 

famous ship captain, Robert Bartlett, a Newfoundlander. 

The book begins with a brief biography of Peary’s life. 

He was born in Cresson, Pennsylvania, and moved 

to Maine after his father died, exploring nature and 

becoming an accomplished taxidermist. Graduating 

from Bowdoin College as a civil engineer, he took up 

work as a draftsman in the Coast and Geodetic Survey 

in Washington, D.C., and soon after as a U.S. Navy 

engineer. In Washington, he met Matthew Henson, 

who accompanied 

him on as his valet 

while surveying a 

Nicaragua Canal 

route. He caught 

North Pole ‘fever’ 

in the 1880s from 

reading books by 

polar explorers and 

settled on the Pole as 

his life quest, which 

he pursued doggedly 

during many 

expeditions, leading 

up to 1909.

Subsequent chapters 

document his several 

BOOK REVIEWS expeditions, his partnership with the Newfoundland ace 

ice-skipper, Robert Bartlett, his careful planning and 

equipment improvements, his growing reliance on Inuit 

team members, and the geographical accomplishments. 

One of his team members, Donald MacMillan, also a 

Bowdoin graduate, later became an equally renowned 

explorer. Kaplan and LeMoine pay close attention to 

Matthew Henson, who, like Bartlett, became an expert 

dog-driver and was with Peary a a small group of 

Inuit on the final dash to the pole. A final chapter deals 

with the events of the 1909 trip and the controversies 

regarding Frederick Cook and Peary’s ambiguous 

geographic documentation.

In the end, we learn much about Peary that redeems 

him from the unfavorable representations of recent 

review literature—about his high-brow attitude, his 

failure to acknowledge adequately Henson and Bartlett, 

who remained loyal to Peary to the end of their days. 

Susan Kaplan and Genevieve LeMoine have produced 

an account that rescues Peary from the bickering of 

armchair explorers; here, we have a balanced view 

of a man who made notable contributions even if 

he may not have quite reached the Pole. The book 

contains excellent photographs and maps, an extensive 

bibliography, and sidebar stories on many fascinating 

topics—all made possible by Bowdoin’s careful 

curation of the Peary records and collections. It turns 

out we did need another book on Robert E. Peary.

AMONG HERDERS OF INNER MONGOLIA: 

THE HASLUND-CHRISTENSEN 

COLLECTION AT THE NATIONAL MUSEUM 

OF DENMARK, by Christel Braae

Aarhus University Press, 2017

Reviewed by William W. Fitzhugh

Recently, a 

monumental 

6.3-pound volume 

appeared on our 

new acquisitions 

shelf at the Natural 

History Museum 

Library. This 613-

page tome describes 

ca. 800 items from 

a collection of some 

3000 artifacts gathered 

on expeditions to 

Inner Mongolia led by 

the Danish exploreranthropologist 

Henning Haslund-
 ASC Newsletter 63

Christensen in the 1930s, housed at the Danish 

National Museum. The flap copy describes the work 

as “documenting the daily life of pastoral society in 

and around the tent, in the herding of the animals, in 

caravan trade, and in hunting, crafts, sports, and games, 

and in ritual life...the book is also a detailed account 

of the expeditions including their routes, means, and 

measures, as well as the worries and hopes of the 

participants, their struggles with scientific aspirations, 

and the conditions for collecting against the backdrop 

of the Chinese civil war and the Japanese occupation.”

The book is one of several volumes to appear from 

the Carlsberg Foundation’s Nomad Research Project 

that began in the 1980s and included ethnographic and 

geographical studies of the nomadic societies stretching 

from northern Africa through Central Asia to the 

Pacific coast. The current volume dedicated to the life 

and culture of Inner Mongolians is an amazing piece 

of scholarship describing and cataloging the material 

and social life of a people whose lives under Chinese 

Communist rule has changed drastically, far more 

than their “Outer” Mongolia relatives, many of whom 

still carry on traditional nomadic life. The book is a 

welcome addition to historical ethnography.

More than just a finely illustrated catalog, the editor’s 

preface by Ida Nicolaisen and a foreword by Braae

set the collection in context with past and current 

anthropological theory and describe field researchers’ 

goals and the process of collecting and fieldwork. Early 

chapters describe the explorers and their expeditions, 

followed by essays illustrated by field photos and 

objects that provide their geographical and social 

settings. Extensive captions and object descriptions 

are presented for camps and dwellings, food and 

drink, domestic animals, crafts, hunting, “manly” 

sports, games and toys, healing and medicine, personal 

possessions, and caravan accounts and equipment. 

There are also detailed indexes.

Among Herders is not only a valuable addition to 

the ethnography and material culture of 1930s Inner 

Mongolia. It appears at a time when new historical 

and archaeological research on pastoral cultures 

demonstrates the pivotal role these formerly ’invisible’ 

nomadic peoples and cultures played in human history, 

not only during the Silk Road, Turkic, and Mongol 

periods but throughout arid lands up to the present. 

The book brings this story forward by including 

recent events and history, like nomadic resistance to 

oppression and how modern technologies of cellphones 

and transport have been beneficial but also brought 

negative developments like insurgencies, smuggling, 

and human trafficking into the lands of modern-day 

nomads.

THE NANAY: A COLLECTION CATALOG 

(NANAITSY: KATALOG KOLLEKTSII 

IZ SOBRANIIA KHABAROVSKOGO 

KRAEVOGO MUAZEIA), compiled by Galina 

T. Titoreva, Victoria B. Malakshanova, Ksenia E. 

Peresypkina

Krasnoyarsk: Yenisey Publishers, 2019, 556 pp.

Reviewed by Igor Krupnik

This beautiful 556-page catalog published by the 

Grodekov Regional Museum in Khabarovsk, Russia, 

continues a new pattern of large, lavishly-illustrated 

museum catalogs covering individual Siberian 

indigenous peoples. The volume is no. 11 in the series 

of smaller similar catalogs on other ethnic collections 

of the Grodekov Museum—on the Negidal (Negidaltsy 

2011), Ainu (Ainy 2013), Nivkh (Nivkhi 2015), Udege 

(Udegeitsy 2016), Ulch (Ul’chi 2017), and others, as 

well as the recent two-volume catalog of ethnographic 

collections on indigenous nations of the Republic 

of Sakha/Yakutia in American museums (IvanovaUnarova 2017) and an earlier set of three volumes by the 

Kunstkamera/Peter the Great Museum in St. Petersburg 

on its historical collections from the Unangan/Aleut, 

Tlingit, and Yup’ik people of former ‘Russian America.’ 

The new catalog on the Nanay, a small indigenous nation 

of the Russian Far East totaling 12,000 people, is the 

largest in the Grodekov Museum series; it introduces 

the remarkable richness of their traditional culture 

and the nation’s artistic creativity preserved in just 

one ethnographic museum. Of course, the Grodekov 

collection is anything but ‘ordinary’ because it includes 

more than 2200 objects acquired since the late 1800s and 

more than 700 historical photographs.

The catalog compiled by Grodekov Museum 

curators and researchers, Galina Titoreva, Victoria 

Malakshanova, and Ksenia Peresypkina covers 

this rich trove in ten thematic sections—hunting and 

fishing tools (98 objects), transportation (31), objects 

of everyday life (289), decorated rugs and mats (55), 

clothing (288), beliefs/ritual objects (226), personal 

ornamentation (143), arts and crafts (150), toys (262), 

and musical instruments (24). Each object in the 

catalog is accompanied by a small color photo and a 

short caption with all the needed details, including the 

name of the artist/maker, dimensions, information on 

donor/collector, and any earlier exhibit display and 

publication history. Similar information is provided 

for hundreds of historical photos and negatives. Even 

more, the catalog features two useful appendices—a list 

of 90 Nanay artists and craftspeople who were active 

during the 20th century and a list of their works in the 

book. The density and the value of this information are 

amazing and on a par with the Living Our Cultures, 
64 ASC Newsletter

Sharing Our Heritage catalog (Crowell et al. 2010) 

produced for a major Smithsonian exhibit at the 

Anchorage Museum and its website.

We at the ASC have a special interest in the collections 

of the Grodekov Museum in Khabarovsk for two 

reasons. First, the NMNH ethnological collection 

contains some 110 objects from the Nanay and 

neighboring ethnic groups of the Russian Far East, 

the majority received as part of an exchange with 

the Grodekov Museum in 1919, via its then-director, 

Vladimir K. Arsen’ev (1872–1930) who is listed as 

the ‘donor.’ Some of these objects have been used in 

our exhibits, like the Crossroads of Continents in 1988–

1992. Even more important was our partnership with 

the Grodekov Museum in the 1990s when it hosted the 

Russian portion of 

our traveling exhibit, 

Crossroads Alaska. 

Native Cultures of 

Alaska and Siberia. 

The small catalog 

of that exhibit 

(Chaussonnet 1995) 

introduced several 

objects from the 

Grodekov collection 

that are now featured 

in the new Nanay 

catalog. We salute our 

Russian colleagues 

for their valuable and 

insightful publication.

TEXTS IN CHUKOTKAN ESKIMO 

LANGUAGES, AS RECORDED BY E.S. 

RUBTSOVA (TEKSTY NA IAZYKAKH 

ESKIMOSOV CHUKOTKI V ZAPISI E.S. 

RUBTSOVOI), edited by Nikolai Vakhtin

St. Petersburg: Art-Express. 2019, 868 pp.

Reviewed by Igor Krupnik

This newly published collection of traditional 

folklore texts recorded from the Siberian/Asian Yupik 

storytellers in Chukotka, Russia, had a remarkable 

history. It took 79(!) years, the span of a good human 

life, to convert a pile of original hand-written field 

notes into a hefty volume with a 1929 historical 

photograph on its cover. The original stories were 

recorded in Yupik by Russian linguist, Ekaterina S. 

Rubtsova (1888–1970), mainly during her fieldwork in 

Chukotka in 1940–1941 and on a few later occasions, 

up to 1948. By the time of her fieldwork, Rubtsova was 

a fluent Yupik speaker having spent three years (1929–

1932) as an elementary school teacher in small village 

schools in the communities of Imtuk and Sighinek 

(Sireniki). She returned to Chukotka at age 52, having 

been trained as a linguist and inspired by lectures by 

Prof. Waldemar Bogoras, who had studied Siberian 

Yupik during his Jesup North Pacific Expedition 

fieldwork in 1900–1901.

Altogether, Rubtsova recorded more than 100 stories 

and over 130 short songs, primarily in Chaplinski 

Yupik. The first portion of her stories was published in 

1954 in a bilingual (Yupik-Russian) collection titled 

“Materials on Folklore and Language of the Eskimo” 

(Rubtsova 1954), but a much larger portion known as 

“Rubtsova’s Volume 2” remained as an unpublished 

manuscript for the next 65 years. The very existence of 

this “second volume” 

was known to very 

few, including the 

late Michael Krauss, 

former Director of 

the Alaska Native 

Language Center, 

and a great admirer 

of Rubtsova’s work. 

In the late 1970s, 

Michael Chlenov

and I studied 

Rubtsova’s texts and 

cited them in our 

book Whale Alley

(Arutyunov, Krupnik, 

and Chlenov, 

1982). Yet it took 

Krauss’ persistence and a heroic multi-year effort 

by our Russian colleague, Prof. Nikolai Vakhtin of 

the European University in St. Petersburg, himself a 

Yupik linguist, to bring the rest of Rubtsova’s folklore 

collection to its eventual publication as a contribution 

to the NSF-funded project IPY: Documenting Alaskan 

and Neighboring Languages (see https://www.uaf.

edu/danl/).

It is hard to overestimate the value of the volume of 

850+ pages that contains 62 texts and several dozen 

songs in Yupik, with Russian lineal translation. At 

the time of Rubtsova’s recordings, all Yupik people 

in Chukotka were fully fluent in their mother tongue 

and used it as their prime means of communication, 

family education, and transmission of cultural heritage. 

Today, the language is gravely endangered with just 

a few dozen primarily elderly speakers. The lengthy 

traditional narratives in the ‘high Yupik’ language 

of the past are long gone; they have been replaced 

by much-simplified school textbooks, a reduced 

vocabulary of short village talks and camp interactions, 
 ASC Newsletter 65

and a few songs accompanying Eskimo dance 

performances. Nonetheless, the longing for traditional 

Siberian Yupik heritage and cultural knowledge is 

very strong in Chukotka, even if few people today 

can read stories recorded by Rubtsova in the 1940s in 

their Yupik originals. Still, the volume offers a trove 

of information about traditional Yupik worldviews, 

historical geography, lifeways, spiritual beliefs, the 

richness of the Yupik language, and general breadth 

of oral tradition. This “window” into the past status 

of language and culture of a small Arctic Indigenous 

group is priceless and irreplaceable. Unfortunately, 

this precious book was printed in only 70 copies (!), 

with no English summary, Table of Contents, and 

exclusively in the Cyrillic-based Yupik orthography 

(with Russian translation). The next critical step is to 

make the book available online for a broader audience 

and also to convert perhaps a portion of Rubtsova’s text 

into the Roman-based Yupik orthography used by much 

larger Yupik community on the Alaskan St. Lawrence 

Island, with its many more potential readers.

THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF HUMANENVIRONMENTAL DYNAMICS ON THE 

NORTH AMERICAN ATLANTIC COAST, 

edited by Leslie Reeder-Myers, John A. Turck, and 

Torben C. Rick

University Press of Florida, 2019.

Reviewed by William W. Fitzhugh

Thirty-five years ago, the Anthropological Society 

of Washington published Cultures in Contact: The 

European Impact on Native Cultural Institutions in 

Eastern North America, A.D. 1,000–1800 (1985. 

Fitzhugh, ed.). I certainly could not miss the 

opportunity to peer betwen the covers of ReederMyers, Turck, and Torrey Rick’s geographic sequel, 

covering the East Coast from Labrador to Florida and 

the Keys. 

Like our earlier work, this, too, is an edited volume 

and comprises an introduction and nine essays. Born 

from a program of the 2016 Society for American 

Archaeology, the authors have taken on the task 

of reviewing the evidence for subsistence and 

environmental adaptations on a region-by-region basis. 

Each essay begins with environment and ecology 

and follows a chronological path to the present with 

descriptions of the major cultural stages—Paleoindian, 

Archaic, Woodland, Mississippian, and Historic with 

substages as needed. Each essay has an extensive 

bibliography, and the editors’ introduction and a 

concluding essay by Thomas J. Pluckhahn set the 

tone and frame the major issues and themes.

This region of North America has been a relatively 

quiet place archaeologically, with cultures developing 

slowly under relatively mild environmental and 

cultural restraints until the tumult of the Columbian 

era. Following the glacial retreat from northern 

regions and extremely rapid environmental change 

and sea-level rise, the entire region followed a 

more-or-less leisurely path of interlinked cultural 

development, in keeping with slow-paced Holocene 

environmental change. Except in the north, climate 

change was not the ‘big decider,’ as fires and droughts 

were not huge issues and hurricanes of ephemeral 

impact. The largest systemic environmental change 

was sea-level fluctuations—especially the rising 

levels that flooded out maritime cultural landscapes 

and greatly transformed the low-relief coastal areas 

from Maine to the Keys, truncating the archaeological 

record of coastal adaptations that are the central theme 

of the book. Many of the survey regions covered here 

have only 2,000–3,000 years of coastal archaeological 

records available for study. 

All chapters provide excellent data on the economic 

basis for maritime cultural adaptations. And while less 

attention is given to artifacts and technology, pottery 

types, and mortuary practices, we learn much about 

U-shaped shell-mound villages and inventories of 

the shell- and fin-fish that sustained coastal peoples, 

seemingly throughout the Holocene, although most 

of that record is underwater or washed away. I missed 

learning more about the mega-fin fishing off the 

Florida Archaic, and the impacts on coastal peoples of 

political developments that came with agriculture and 

trade. And I was sorry not to learn more about boats 

and coastal connections south of Newfoundland. But 

I was very pleased to read about how coastal studies 

are contributing 

knowledge on 

ecological matters 

like resource 

depletion, 

shifting baselines, 

sustainable 

harvest levels, 

and the expected 

coastal dynamics 

that are going to 

be experienced 

frightfully as rising 

sea levels begin 

seriously flooding 

into our lives and 

infrastructure, 

as they have for 

Amerindians for 

thousands of years.
66 ASC Newsletter

IN SEARCH OF FIRST CONTACT: THE 

VIKINGS OF VINLAND, THE PEOPLES 

OF THE DAWNLAND, AND THE ANGLOAMERICAN ANXIETY OF DISCOVERY, by 

Annette Kolodny

Duke University Press, 2012

Reviewed by Gordon M. Sayre, University of Oregon, 

in Modern Philology 111(4), 2014, and reprinted 

courtesy of University of Chicago Press.

[Editor's note: Annette Kolodny’s book investigating 

early contacts in North America is little known among 

archaeologists and historians of the Northeast. The 

book explores American identity from the perspectives 

of Norse sagas and Native American oral history, 

especially of the Mi’kmaq and Penobscot tribes. 

Although failing to take into account Norse and Basque 

contacts north of Newfoundland, her book is a font 

of historiography and describes the surprising effects 

Norse sagas and archaeological finds had on debates 

and perceptions of American identity.]

Following are excerpts from Gordon Sayre’s review: 

The challenge Kolodny’s book sets for itself is one 

of historical archaeology, to bring textual, historical 

evidence from the [Norse] sagas into corroboration 

with physical archaeological evidence. The goal of this 

effort would be to show that the L’Anse aux Meadows 

site is one of the several outposts described in the sagas 

as having been established by Leif Eriksson, Bjarni 

Herjolfsson, and Thorfinn Karlsefni, and to explore 

archaeological or oral-history evidence that might 

verify hints in the sagas that when the Vikings reached 

Vinland, they had voyaged farther south than L’Anse 

aux Meadows, 

to the Canadian 

Maritimes or even 

to New England. 

Kolodny admits in 

her book’s preface 

that as she began 

her project, by 

studying the Vinland 

sagas and the 

ethnohistory of the 

Penobscot of Maine, 

she had formed a 

specific hypothesis: 

“Because the 

sagas described 

the Skraelings in 

‘skin boats’ (or 

hide canoes), I was 

leaning toward 

identifying the Mi’kmaq (who had used moose-hide 

canoes in earlier periods) as one possible candidate for 

the Skraelings encountered by the Norse in Vinland” 

(p.6).

The book breaks into three parts. The first two chapters 

provide a careful exposition and analysis of the sagas, 

and in this section, Kolodny appears to be searching 

for hints that the Norse did visit the lands inhabited 

by the Mi’kmaq (or eastern Abenaki peoples). The 

middle three chapters offer a study of nineteenth- and 

early twentieth-century American historians, poets, and 

folklorists who promoted the idea of a Viking landing, 

particularly in the Boston or Rhode Island region. 

These literati often worked with an ethnic or religious 

agenda of displacing the Catholic Italian Christopher 

Columbus from the honor of the discoverer of America, 

but the agenda was not so straight-forward as one might 

assume: “For U.S. Catholics, tenth-century converted 

Norsemen predated the pious seventeenth-century 

Pilgrim Congregationalists... Different figurations of 

Vikings and Northmen...could be employed both in 

Catholic-inflected and in Protestant-inflected versions 

of American history” (p. 225). Carl Christian Rafn, 

Henry Wheaton, Eben Norton Horsford, and North 

Ludlow Beamish are among the obscure nineteenthcentury authors who promoted the idea of a Norse 

landing in the United States, and William Gilmore 

Simms, George Perkins Marsh, Henry Wadsworth 

Longfellow, and John Greenleaf Whittier among the 

better-known literary figures who wrote novels, poems, 

and histories on the theme.

The last two chapters are a study of Native American 

oral history in search of tales that might record 

encounters with the Norse nearly a thousand years ago. 

Kolodny is admirably honest in not clinging to her 

hypothesis after she fails to find evidence to confirm it. 

She reveals how several pieces of evidence once used 

to prove a Viking landing—such as the petroglyphs on 

Dighton Rock, alongside the Taunton River in Berkley, 

Massachusetts; a stone tower in Newport, Rhode Island, 

that was in fact built in the seventeenth century; a 

skeleton unearthed in Fall River, Massachusetts, in 1832; 

and the runestones dug up near Alexandria, Minnesota, 

in 1898 and at Spirit Pond, Maine, in the 1970s—all 

proved to be willful misinterpretations or hoaxes.

Among the Mi’kmaq tales, Kolodny finds the most 

suggestive is “The Dream of the White Robe and the 

Floating Island,” told by Josiah Jeremy and recorded 

by the Baptist missionary Charles Godfrey Leland

in 1869. Kolodny shows how Leland tried to find “a 

pre-Columbian nordic influence” in the tales of the 

Mi’kmaq culture hero Glooskap. Leland also sought 

to dispel the influence of earlier Catholic missionaries 

such as Chrestien LeClercq. This particular tale, 
 ASC Newsletter 67

like other first-contact prophecy tales among Native 

Americans, suggests that the Natives foretold the 

coming of European invaders yet were unable to turn 

them away as the Skraelings did the Norse. Hence, 

as Kolodny points out, these tales are “not easily 

dated, nor do we even know when they were most 

widely circulated [:]...prophecy tales are not merely 

the representations of cultural continuity; they are 

themselves the carriers of that continuity” (p. 294).

Ultimately, the tales told by Algonquian peoples and 

the sagas of the Norsemen are revealed not to be 

contrasting accounts of a single violent confrontation 

between two cultures. Instead, they are snapshot 

versions of evolving oral histories. The Norse did not 

seek to subjugate or even trade profitably with the 

“Skraelings” they encountered. The Algonquian do 

not clearly distinguish among different Europeans they 

may have met at different times and places. The notion 

of first contact, of a mythopoeic landfall such as that of 

the Pilgrims at Plymouth Rock, is a modern desire that 

comports poorly with the sources that have endured 

from ancient storytellers.

COMPETING ARCTIC FUTURES. 

HISTORICAL AND CONTEMPORARY 

PERSPECTIVES, edited by Nina Wormbs 

Palgrave McMillan 2018, 281 pp.

Reviewed by Igor Krupnik

This book has 

a dazzling title 

(‘Futures,’ in plural), 

and it delivers much 

more than its title 

actually suggests. It 

is a collection of 11 

chapters compiled 

and edited by our 

colleagues at the 

KTH Royal Institute 

of Technology in 

Stockholm, Sweden. 

An outcome of the 

project Assessing 

Arctic Futures: 

Voices, Resources, 

Governance funded 

by the Swedish 

Foundation for Strategic Environmental Research 

(MISTRA), the book brings together partners from 

Sweden, UK, Canada, and Russia who co/authored 

chapters book-ended by Introduction and Conclusion 

pieces written by the project leaders, Nina Wormbs 

and Sverker Sörlin (both of KTH), respectively. 

It is the ‘book-ends’ that provide the main theoretical 

and intellectual punch of the project and its publication. 

According to Wormbs and Sörlin (speaking with 

different voices and from individual perspectives), the 

very concept of the ‘future’—in this case, the ‘Arctic 

future’—is a social construct that reflects the spirit and 

ideology of the era or the position of its author or the 

group/cohort/ideology he or she represents. As such, the 

vision of the future is always the projection of a particular 

viewpoint of the present; it is no surprise that there may 

be many angles/visions at one time and that these visions 

may be in utter disagreement and open competition. 

In that sense, today’s visions of the Arctic future—as 

the last industrial frontier, a bonanza for extractive 

industries, a shortcut in trans-continental transportation 

and commerce, a prospective battleground for political 

and military superiority, the last pristine wilderness, the 

frontline of planetary climate change, or the homeland of 

its Indigenous people—are all legitimate and competing 

projections of today’s ideological disputes. It matters 

little whether such disputes about Arctic ‘futures’ were 

held in the 1500s (Martin Frobisher’s and British 

Muscovy Company era), in the mid-1800s (the Sir John 

Franklin expeditions), in the 1920s (The Friendly Arctic

of Vilhjalmur Stefansson), or at today’s meetings 

of the Arctic Council. There always have been many 

concepts of the future, and they were often, if not always, 

competing.

My short summary provides just a glimpse of, but 

no good service to, this intellectually heavy-loaded 

collection. The two book-ends provide a theoretical 

framework for the book’s nine historical case stories—

about the changing visions on the future of energy 

resources in the Canadian North (1921–1980) and 

of mining resources on Svalbard; the Russian/Soviet 

rush in the 1930s to skim the fishery riches of the 

Russian Arctic for ‘building socialism’; the ‘modernist’ 

models of Russian Arctic urbanism in the 1960s; and 

contemporary Sami visions of their political future. 

Each story is a saga of yet another intellectual and 

political endeavor in-itself, and more often than not, 

of a failed endeavor—in good accordance to the 

‘competing futures’ theory that assumes many more 

‘vision’ losers than winners. We salute our Swedish 

colleagues and their international partners on their 

remarkably stimulating and inspirational book. Having 

‘many competing futures’—instead of just one—is 

actually a very optimistic approach in addressing the 

past, the present, as well as the future. 
68 ASC Newsletter

Coming Soon

BARK AND SKIN BOATS OF NORTHERN 

EURASIA, by Harri Luukkanen and William W. 

Fitzhugh

Smithsonian Books and Random House 2020

It has been eight 

years since Harri 

Luukkanen, and I 

started working on 

an ethnographic boat 

atlas of northern 

Eurasia, and in 

September of 2020, 

the book will finally 

be published by 

Smithsonian Books 

and Random House. 

It’s shocking to think 

that each of us could 

have completed two 

Ph.D. programs 

during this time!

For the first four years, the work was mostly on Harri’s 

shoulders—resting not as comfortably as if he was 

portaging a canoe! He did much of the basic research 

and drafting, and I embellished with archaeology and 

anthropology around the edges. Then, during the past 

four years, most of the late-night oil has been burning 

on my side of the Atlantic, as I went back and forth 

with as many as four editors and wrestled identifying 

obscure quotations, straightening out bibliographic 

complications, securing illustrations and permissions, 

and overseeing artwork. Without question, ‘canoes’ 

has been the most complicated scholarly endeavor 

I’ve ever done. Many of our illustrations and citations 

are from diary accounts from the 17th–19th centuries, 

originally written in German, Russian, or French—

rarely English—and then translated or published or republished in myriad editions. As the decade dragged on, 

I became in awe of Medieval scholars and librarians!

Now the final corrections have been made, and the 

book will be out in September 2020. Then we shall see 

how close we came to make a modern sequel of Tappan 

Adney’s and Howard Chapelle’s American classic, 

Bark and Skin Boats of North America!

Thanks to all who helped us on this fascinating paddle 

journey across Eurasia and Bering Strait.

QIMMEQ: THE GREENLAND SLED DOG, 

edited and with photographs by Carsten Egevang

A new book about the Greenland sledge dog is being 

released this spring. Qimmeq is part of a study project 

organized by Morten Meldgaard and the University 

of Greenland whose aim is to educate and provide 

recommendations for the sled dog’s future at a time 

when Arctic warming in northern Greenland is placing 

this revered animal at risk. In the introduction, we read: 

“The Greenland sled dog is an amazing and charismatic 

animal. It is strong, character-full, and adaptable 

beyond almost anything else. It can engage an enraged 

polar bear or on the sea-ice can pull heavy sleds loaded 

with tourists or meat and fish. The following day it 

runs furiously and determinedly to win the annual dogsled race.” Qimmeq has contributions from fourteen 

authors who participated in the project over the past 

four years. Topics include genetics, behavior, health, 

and cultural history. Photographs by Carsten Egevang 

demonstrate present-day use of the Greenland dog and 

its strong bond with humans. The results of the project 

include policy recommendations to ensure the future 

of this most-beloved animal (https://www.sumut.dk/

da/arrangementer/2020/boglancering-paa-carstenegevangs-qimmeq/). 

Model of a Labrador kayak made by John Terriak of Nain, Labrador, for Xabi Otero in the 1970s. Photo by William Fitzhugh
 ASC Newsletter 69

ART, GODS, AND ATVs AT BAKER LAKE: 

PILGRIMAGE TO JESSE OONARK

By Richard D. Mohr

To get there, this citified boy would have to learn how 

to control an All-Terrain Vehicle. There is the gravesite 

of Jessie Oonark (O.C., 1906‒1985), Baker Lake’s 

most famous artist. The art I like best comes from 

Baker Lake, so, in August 2018, I visited the hamlet for 

a week to meet with its artists, get some sense of their 

day-to-day lives—and make a pilgrimage to Oonark’s 

resting place out on the land. And what land it is. 

Here the land is not just a patch of the earth extending 

indeterminately outward. Rather it is granite and 

ground. The land is water and the possibility of life. 

The land is willow and lichens and berries, collectively 

the start of the local food chain. 

Still more, the land is the outside, the sky, the weather, 

breath, the spirit of spirit. It is awareness, discernment, 

life itself, in short, the lost Inuit divinity Sila. 

In his 1975 Baker Lake memoir, Shadows, Armand 

Tagoona (1926‒1991), an artist and the first Inuk to be 

ordained an Anglican minister, recounts that “Inuit used 

to believe that there is a silaup inua, or ‘man of the air,’ 

who controls everything and watches the Inuit.” 

In 1922, the shaman Kinalik introduced Knud 

Rasmussen to Sila at Baker Lake: “On this clean and 

untrodden place, I was to exhibit myself to Sila, stand 

silent and humble with downcast eyes and merely 

desire that the sky, the weather, and all the forces of 

nature should take notice and have pity on me.” 

In 2007, the Nunavut Department of Education, though 

without naming Sila, incorporated this expanded 

understanding of “the land” into its model curriculum 

as a fundamental Inuit value (Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit: 

Education Framework for Nunavut Curriculum, p. 24.)

In Baker Lake, ATVs outnumber cars by four or five to 

one. As is common across Nunavut, all ATVs here are 

referred to as Hondas, whatever their brand or make.

They are the basic way of getting around town and out 

on the land. For Inuit, driving Hondas is like breathing. 

Eight-year-olds whiz by on four-wheelers going 40 mph. 

Locals were puzzled that I did not own a Honda and 

flabbergasted that I had never ridden on one. 

The last two miles up to Oonark’s grave are scree of 

red granite boulders. My excellent guide, David Ford, 

TRANSITIONS

the general manager of the Jessie Oonark Centre—a 

Nunavut Development Corporation gift shop, art 

gallery, and makers space—thought a three-minute 

lesson on my designated rock mobile, dodgy brake 

included, was sufficient for the ascent. 

And so, with a thousand what-ifs shoved out of mind, 

off I go—bounce, bounce, bounce, jolt, buffet, jolt.

Jessie Oonark (1906 ̶1985), Baker Lake’s most famous artist, 

as pictured in Baker Lake Prints 1983 ̶ 1984. The bold, the 

bright, the brash — the overall verve — of her wall-hangings 

and prints established the distinctive con brio style of Baker 

Lake art. Of her children who survived infancy, all nine 

became artists. Source: Canadian Arctic Producers

Here the land is not just a patch of earth extending 

indeterminately outward. Rather it is granite and ground. 

The land is water and the possibility of life. The land is 

willow and lichens and berries, collectively the start of the 

local food chain. Photo by Richard D. Mohr
70 ASC Newsletter

We reach the top just as dusk begins to hover. A shank of 

sunset ruddles the heavens and extracts deep reds from 

the granite expanses. Mats of autumn-tinged Alpine 

bearberry and Arctic willow, irradiated into a carmine 

haze, stretch towards an infinitely remote horizon. 

The air glows, vibrates, breathes red, becomes life 

incandescent. My metal bronco has transported me to 

sacred space.

The arc of Oonark’s extraordinary life perhaps offers a 

model for navigating the shoals of contemporary hybrid 

Northern culture.

On March 31, 1958, within a few calories of death by 

starvation, Oonark was collected from the land and 

brought into Baker Lake by Mounties who had flown 

out to try to locate her iglu when her son William 

Noah (b. 1943), himself driven by starvation toward 

Baker Lake, reported her dire straits to authorities. 

She took whatever work she could find. She was part 

of the Utkuhikhalingmiut, who from among the nine 

Inuit groups that consolidated into Baker Lake during 

the starvation times of the late 1950s had had the least 

contact with whites and who were looked down upon 

by the rest. So, between this social impediment and the 

late date of her arrival, only lousy jobs were available 

to her. She cleaned skins for the Hudson Bay Company 

and was a scullery maid at the Anglican Church. 

Soon enough, though, whites were handing her paper 

and pencils. Late in 1959, she drew four groups of Inuit 

women on a single sheet that was sent to Cape Dorset, 

where two appeared in the celebrated 1960 Cape Dorset 

Print Collection. So, in just two years, she turned from 

death’s door and belittlement to national celebrity.

Oonark was a devout Anglican, according to the 

Baker Lake art-advisor Jack Butler, “certainly the 

most devout Anglican in Baker Lake.” Though her 

father had been active as a shaman, she witnessed for 

the Lord at the age of 21 in 1927 and was formally 

baptized in 1943. She produced only a smattering of 

explicitly religious works, but they span the length of 

her artistic career, culminating in 1984 with the Good 

Friday-themed print Giver of Life, the artist’s proof of 

which she sent to the Pope when he was in Ottawa that 

September. 

Oonark was always a bit of a rebel. In the 1910s, she 

bucks the ritual of girls being tattooed at puberty. In the 

mid-1970s, this devoutest of Anglicans starts producing 

artworks for Catholic publications. And then in 1984, 

she presents the artist’s proof of her Good Fridaythemed print Giver of Life to the Pope. 

The devout Anglican goes rogue. And then when she 

dies in February of the next year, she has herself buried 

not in Baker Lake’s gorgeous Anglican Cemetery, but 

all by herself atop the only hill anywhere around. 

The grave orients her facing due East with her 

sightlines skirting the village. This positioning, in turn, 

entails that visitors to the grave are oriented toward the 

land, the sky, the light, the air, the weather, awareness, 

discernment, the spirit of spirit, life itself—Sila. 

A fourfold pencil drawing by Jessie Oonark from 1959. The 

figures in the two quadrants on the right side of the 24” x 

18” sheet became the prints, “Tatooed Faces” and “Inland 

Eskimo Woman” in the 1960 Cape Dorset print collection. 

Collection: Winnipeg Art Gallery. Photo: Richard D. Mohr

This proof of the 28” x 40” print, Giver of Life, is illustrated 

in Baker Lake Prints 1983 ̶ 1984. 

Source: Canadian Arctic Producers
 ASC Newsletter 71

MICHAEL E. KRAUSS, 1934–2019

By Igor Krupnik

Michael Krauss, the towering figure in the studies of 

Northern indigenous languages and the first director of 

the Alaska Native Language Center, an institution he 

created at the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) in 

1972 and led till his retirement in 2000, passed away 

on August 11, 2019, four days short of his 85th birthday. 

He had a distinguished career of almost 50 years in the 

documentation, support, and promotion of the world’s 

endangered languages. 

Born in 1934 in Cleveland, OH and trained at prime 

American schools (B.A. University of Chicago, 1953; 

M.A., Columbia University, 1955; Ph.D., Harvard 

University, 1959), Krauss spent five years, 1955–1960 

studying, researching, and living in Paris, Copenhagen, 

Dublin, rural Ireland, Iceland, and the Faroe Islands. 

He spoke Irish Gaelic, Danish, Icelandic, and Faroese, 

also French, some Russian, and scores of Alaskan 

indigenous languages. His exposure to the plight of the 

dwindling Irish Gaelic prepared him for his next career 

step when in 1960, he started teaching French in small 

Department of Linguistics and Foreign Languages in 

America’s northernmost university in the town then 

named “College,” Alaska, the future University of 

Alaska Fairbanks.

The fledgling university had little of today’s riches 

and neither resources for nor interest in any work on 

Alaskan indigenous languages. Krauss had to overturn 

this attitude working from scratch, with no allies, and 

no intellectual background of today’s Documenting 

Endangered Languages (DEL) movement. He had to 

persuade his university colleagues and administration 

to gain their support to lobby the Alaskan state 

legislature to produce several bills supporting research 

and education in indigenous languages and to build 

an entirely new structure, the Alaska Native Language 

Center (1972), to implement his program.

Krauss’ third life-changing shift was in winter 1991, 

after a prophetic address at the Linguistic Society of 

America Annual Meeting, titled The World’s Languages 

in Crisis (published in 1992.) The address and paper 

became a powerful call to arms for the international 

community of linguists and made him an instant frontrunner in this emerging movement. His last and final 

moment was in 2007, years after his retirement from 

UAF, when he led a major NSF-supported project to fill 

gaps in our knowledge of Native Alaskan Languages. 

That project alone, a part of the U.S. contribution to 

the International Polar Year 2007–2008, produced 

several published dictionary and grammar volumes and 

scores of major manuscripts, including Krauss’s own 

monumental Eyak Grammar of 850+ pages that now 

should be published posthumously.

To his colleagues at ASC, Krauss was a trusted, yet 

sometimes testing friend. He was an enthusiastic 

member of the first IREX-funded collaborative 

project between Russian (then Soviet) and American 

anthropologists called “Peopling of the New World” 

that brought him to Moscow, St. Petersburg, and 

Yakutsk in 1977–1978. When that effort faltered 

and was supplanted by the Smithsonian-led 

Crossroads of Continents exhibit program, Krauss 

was very supportive of the new effort. He contributed 

chapters on the status of Northern languages to the 

Crossroads catalog (Fitzhugh and Crowell 1988) 

and to the Anthropology of the North Pacific Rim

1988 symposium volume (Fitzhugh and Chaussonnet 

1994), as well as his map of indigenous languages of 

the Greater North Pacific area that was used in both 

the Crossroads and the ‘mini-Crossroads’ (Cultures 

of Alaska and Siberia) exhibits and catalogs. He 

welcomed the establishment of the ASC in 1988 

and was an enthusiastic partner in our “Jesup-2” 

program since 1992, a speaker at the Jesup Expedition 

centennial conference in New York in 1997, and our 

trusted consultant on all things related to Northern 

indigenous languages and linguistic documentation. 

His powerful presence and encyclopedic knowledge 

will be direly missed, and his role as the “dean” of 

Alaska Native Language studies is irreplaceable. No 

one can forget his role as a mentor, trail-blazer, and a 

living bridge to Siberian kin more than Alaska Native 

people themselves.

Michael Krauss with Marie Smith Jones, the last speaker of 

Eyak Language, Cordova, Alaska, 2006. 

Photo by Molly Lee
72 ASC Newsletter

CHESTER NOONGWOOK, 1933–2020

By Igor Krupnik

Chester (Tapghaghhmii) Noongwook, Yupik Elder 

from the community of Savoonga on St. Lawrence 

Island, Alaska, and a long-term partner on ASC projects 

in the documentation of Indigenous knowledge passed 

away in January 2020, at age 86. Chester was born 

in Savoonga in 1933 to the large family of Nathan 

(Qagughmii) Noongwook and Jeanette (Naluwi) 

Noongwook of the St. Lawrence Island Pugughileghmiit 

clan that originated from the ancient site of Pugughileq at 

the island Southwest Cape. Chester’s life was like that of 

many men of his generation. He was a subsistence hunter, 

a boat captain, but also a member of the Alaska National 

Guard for 36 years, a dog-sled mail carrier between 

Savoonga and the other island town, Gambell—(“the 

last dog-sled mail carrier in Alaska,” as he loved to say), 

and an agent for Wien and Munz Airlines operating out 

of Nome. In his later years, he served as the Savoonga 

representative at the Eskimo Walrus Commission, 

an elder advisor for Savoonga Whaling Captains 

Association, and as a village reindeer herder chief. 

What made Chester so special among his cohort 

of elderly experts on St. Lawrence Island was 

his remarkable knowledge of marine mammals, 

of subsistence hunting, and his keen interest in 

environmental change and, generally, in Natural History. 

That specific knowledge focus came from his decades 

of being a hunter, a successful boat captain, but also an 

astute observer of land and waters of his home island. He 

was the striker on his father, Nathan Noongwook’s, crew 

that was the first in almost 100 years to re-start bowhead 

whaling from their ancient home village of Pugughileq in 

1971. In spring 1972, he struck Savoonga’s first whale to 

be landed and butchered at Pugughileq and followed on 

with ten more landed whales of his own. Being mentored 

by his grandfather, Olin Noongwook (Nunguk), he 

accumulated deep knowledge on whale and walrus 

distribution, migration paths, and seasonal behavior 

around his home island and, generally, across the 

northern Bering Sea. In the 1980s, he collaborated with 

walrus biologist Francis “Bud” Fay and his students 

in studying the walruses off St. Lawrence Island, and 

he shared his knowledge generously both with visiting 

scientists and younger community members.

We began working with Chester in late 2000 when 

he volunteered to be our Savoonga observer and 

expert on the “Watching Our Ice and Weather” 

project documenting local observations of sea ice and 

climate change, funded by the U.S. Marine Mammal 

Commission. For seven months (December 2000–

June 2001), he dictated his daily observations of ice 

and weather conditions in his native Yupik language, 

interspersed with his personal stories, travel advice, 

and knowledge tips from his grandfather Nunguk. 

Local Yupik teacher, Christina Aloowa, recorded 

and translated Chester’s daily logs that eventually 

built up into a unique chronicle of observing ice and 

weather “the Yupik way.” These stories and Chester’s 

other contributions to the project, including his many 

photos of ice types were published in a bilingual book, 

Watching Ice and Weather Our Way/Sikumengllu 

Eslamengllu Esghapalleghput (2004), a joint product of 

the ASC and Savoonga Whaling Captains Association 

that featured Chester’s name and was also displayed 

in the Smithsonian exhibit, Arctic: A Friend Acting 

Strangely in 2006–2007.

Chester had a big heart and a penchant for befriending 

people who became interested in his home island and his 

community’s knowledge, history, and cultural tradition. 

He treated us as a friendly and generous mentor, always 

eager to share, to support, and to enjoy new partners. He 

was a pleasure to work with. He will be greatly missed 

by his family, by the vibrant community of Savoonga, 

but also by many of us, who remember his friendly smile 

and his unyielding dedication to what we call today the 

“co-production of knowledge” in the interest of all.

Chester Noongwook in 2007. Photo by Hiroko Ikuta

Chester Noongwook working with Vadim Yenan on 

illustrations for St. Lawrence Island Yupik Sea Ice 

Dictionary in 2000. Photo by Igor Krupnik
 ASC Newsletter 73

DENNIS STANFORD (1943–2019)—A TRIBUTE

By William W. Fitzhugh

In the early 1970s Clifford Evans, then Chair of the 

Smithsonian’s Anthropology Department, created 

a Paleoindian Program at the National Museum 

of Natural History. Clovis was well-established in 

the literature, but its origins and antecedents were 

mysterious. Dennis Stanford had just received his 

Ph.D. on Thule culture studies in Barrow, Alaska, 

but his real love 

was Paleoindians. 

After arriving at the 

Smithsonian, he picked 

up the long-dusty mantle 

of the Institution’s 

pioneering Paleoindian 

researcher, Frank 

Roberts, and instituted 

large-scale projects at 

Jones-Miller, DuttonSelby, and other Paleo 

sites. Several decades of 

federal funding provided 

resources for long-term 

research. Year-after-year, 

his papers, reports, and 

lectures (many to amateur 

and popular audiences) 

generated solid data and 

tested intriguing and 

sometimes controversial 

hypotheses. He served as 

chair of the Anthropology 

Department, trained 

students, and built a 

Paleoindian collection 

that became a national 

resource and attracted 

worldwide attention. I 

worked down the hall 

from Dennis and shared interests in northern peoples, 

lithic technology, and early hunting societies. 

Dennis’ passing on 24 April 2019, at age 75, gives me 

pause to reflect on the 47-year “Stanford Phenomenon” 

and how it challenged his colleagues and brought 

public awareness to America’s first peoples. I do this by 

sharing a recommendation I wrote for his nomination 

for a Smithsonian Secretary’s Research Prize, which he 

received in 2016.

Publication of Across Atlantic Ice: The Origin of 

America’s Clovis Culture by Stanford and Bruce 

Bradley was the highlight achievement of Dennis’ 

career. While the book is co-authored, Dennis’ vision 

dominates the work, and he produced much of the 

data supporting its radical vision of the peopling of the 

Americas.

Contributions to Science: There are many who question 

Stanford’s and Bradley’s central thesis that there is a 

European component in the origin of the earliest Native 

Americans. The theory is still highly contested by 

archaeologists, but its importance lies as much in its 

painstaking search for a breakthrough in Paleoindian 

archaeology as in the 

claim that the Solutrean 

culture, or one closely 

related to it, crossed 

the North Atlantic at 

the peak of the last Ice 

Age 16,000 years ago. 

Even archaeologists who 

believe the proposal can 

only be considered a 

hypothesis acknowledge 

that it advances a reasoned 

argument that challenged 

the way we look at 

Paleoindian origins.

The monograph developed 

over several decades 

during which the authors 

gradually expanded their 

knowledge from tightlyfocused field studies of 

Clovis sites and artifacts 

to investigations of sites 

whose remains might be 

construed as Pre-Clovis on 

stratigraphic, typological, 

or chronometric grounds. 

With growing evidence 

of pre-Clovis as a cultural 

reality, to which Stanford 

was a major contributor, 

he and others explored the possibility for Clovis roots 

in East Asia and Siberia. But when data failed to 

appear, Stanford and Bradley began to consider why 

so many more Clovis sites and artifacts are found in 

Eastern North America than in their putative homeland 

in the Plains, or in Alaska, closer to Asia.

As the numbers of eastern sites grew and pre-Clovis 

levels were found and dated earlier than 13,000, a new 

solution seemed called for. After studying Solutrean 

bifaces and technology in France and northern Spain, 

highly specific similarities appeared that are rarely, if 

ever, seen in other bifacial traditions except Clovis, 

and the Solutrean hypothesis took shape, nurtured by 

the realization that environmental conditions in the Ice 
74 ASC Newsletter

Age North Atlantic might not have been the impossible 

barrier once envisioned. If Ocean navigation could 

bring humans to Australia by 60,000 years ago and 

around the fringes of the North Pacific to North 

America by 15–20,000 BP and to Monte Verde in 

Chile by 14–15,000 BP, it might have been possible 

for humans capable of spectacular Upper Paleolithic 

cave art in Western Europe to move across the North 

Atlantic pack-ice fringe and island skerries as well.

One of the most well-researched and convincing parts 

of the argument is the reconstruction of the late Ice Age 

North Atlantic maritime environment. No archaeologist 

or paleoecologist has previously attempted to interpret 

the conditions under which a crossing of this oftenviolent ocean might have been made at the height of 

the last glacial. But by amassing detailed cutting-edge 

data from marine and climate sciences, and from 

paleoecological and contemporary zoological literature, 

Stanford reconstructed a picture of what this sea-icescape environment might have been like for people 

using skin boats similar to those used by modern 

Inupiat Eskimos of North Alaska, with whom Stanford 

worked for several years.

Popular Communication: Dennis’s skills at 

communication have been legion for years. His 

professional papers were well-received and beautifully 

illustrated. Throughout his career, he presented 

his work to avocational archaeologists across the 

country and was rewarded with information rarely 

accessible to professional archaeologists. New 

artifacts appeared, unusual sites were revealed, and 

eventually, fishermen began pulling mammoth remains, 

and strange Solutrean-like points from dredge hauls 

off the Continental Shelf. Eventually, enough data 

was assembled to make a credible case presented in 

Across Atlantic Ice. The search for a real smoking 

gun continues, but now it continues as part of a 

legitimate scientific endeavor, not as fringe science. 

In the process, Dennis also added legitimacy to the 

avocational archaeologist, and at the same time, 

demonstrated scientific methods that are helping bridge 

the gap between the professional and the amateur 

prehistorian.

Service to the Smithsonian: Beyond this particular 

book, Stanford built a huge collection of research 

materials: artifacts, data, photographs, and casts. 

Beginning with digs documenting Clovis culture, 

Dennis expanded his geographical field to include 

North and South America, then studied sites and 

collections in northeast Asia and Siberia, and finally 

explored Solutrean collections in Europe and offshore 

underwater sites. These projects contributed rafts of 

field data that made the Smithsonian a major center 

for Paleoindian studies in North America. For years to 

come, researchers will find the Smithsonian a ‘must 

visit’ place for research on the earliest Americans.

Apart from research collections and scientific 

collections, Dennis contributed in major ways to the 

intellectual and social life of the Smithsonian. He 

served as Department Chair, contributed to exhibits, 

frequently lectured to Smithsonian audiences, and 

became involved with a wide circle of colleagues 

from different NMNH Departments and SI bureaus. 

He and his wife, Pegi Jodry, also a highly respected 

Paleoindian expert who partnered in much of Dennis’ 

research, have been especially generous to our older 

colleagues when they grew elderly and infirm, and their 

hospitality has been appreciated by a wide circle of 

visiting scholars, students, and fellows. I would often 

tell inquirers that while it is likely your email would 

not be answered; satisfaction was guaranteed if you just 

dropped by Dennis’ office.

In 1972, when Dennis was hired, it seemed like 

a crap-shoot to predict what this cowboy-booted, 

tobacco-chewing wrangler would turn out to be as a 

researcher and curator. But it seems Cliff Evans had 

an eye for discovering gems in the sage-brush. Dennis 

was a Smithsonian star, a much-loved colleague, and a 

distinguished scientist, highly respected by his peers, 

the Native community, and his friends and associates. 

We miss his science, his wit, and his generosity. 

RICHARD K. NELSON, 1941–2019

By Karen Mudar, from her NPS Archeology E-gram of 

December 2019

Richard K. Nelson

died on November 

4, 2019, listening to 

the recorded sound of 

ravens. His last request 

was fully in keeping 

with his tremendous 

passion for the natural 

world, and most 

especially for the ravens 

he knew well from 

many decades of living 

in Sitka, Alaska. Born in Madison, Wisconsin, in 1941, 

Nelson earned his B.S. and M.S. in anthropology at the 

University of Wisconsin and his Ph.D. in anthropology 

at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He first 

began to live among the Iñupiat hunting communities 

in Alaska in 1964, eventually producing the book 

Hunters of the Northern Ice (1969.) He later published 

such works as Shadow of the Hunter: Stories of Eskimo 

Life (1980) and Make Prayers to the Raven: A Koyukon 

View of the Northern Forest (1983.)
 ASC Newsletter 75

With Make Prayers to the Raven, Nelson moved from 

anthropological studies to a more literary style that 

became the basis for a five-part public television series. 

Nelson's next book, The Island Within, won the John 

Burroughs Medal for distinguished natural history 

writing. He also received the Lannan Literary Award 

for creative nonfiction writing and, from 1999–2001, 

served as the Alaska State Writer Laureate.

Nelson's more recent works include Heart and Blood: 

Living with Deer in America and Patriotism and the 

American Land (book two in The New Patriotism 

Series.) During the decades since publication, Nelson’s 

books have become elegies to more traditional lifeways 

and skills. His lyrical prose and affinity for his subjects, 

human and animal, influenced a generation. We were 

fortunate to live during his time.

Nelson was also a dedicated environmentalist. He 

worked to protect the old-growth rainforest in Alaska's 

Tongass National Forest and was a member of the 

Harriman Alaska Expedition retraced. Later in his life, 

Nelson turned to soundscape work and recorded 100+ 

30-minute radio programs, called Encounters, covering 

subjects from hummingbirds to humpback whales to 

the life-giving magic of rain. To listen to Nelson’s 

podcasts, go to www.encountersnorth.org,

“GOOD CLEAN FUN”—REMEMBERING 

BILL KEMP, 1936–2020

By Scot Nickels, Elizabeth Cundill, and Eric Loring

Sometimes a person’s life is so huge and impactful that 

it’s impossible for one person to capture its essence. Bill 

Kemp was one of those 

individuals. When asked 

to talk about Bill, where 

do you start? What do you 

leave out? How can we 

paint such a story? In this 

case, it took three of us. 

We all had different roads 

to Bill, but he left a very 

strong place in our hearts.

Scot Nickels: I first met 

Bill in Montreal in 1998. 

Of course, I knew about him and his work long before. 

In my area of work, he was always a bit of an enigma, 

having conducted very influential work and written 

important publications, but never following the path of 

becoming a professor. This made more sense to me as I 

got to know him better. 

I was just finishing my Ph.D. at McGill and was 

thinking about taking a job at Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami 

(ITK), the national organization that represents the 

Inuit of Canada. I had already been working in the 

Arctic for many years and sought Bill’s and his wife 

Lorraine Kemp’s advice on the pros and cons of 

taking such-and-such a position. Given their years of 

experience in Inuit Nunangat, I figured they might have 

some informed perspectives. 

Much to my surprise, they were both willing to meet 

and give advice, although Bill was quick to point out, 

“you may not want the advice I give.” At the time, I 

thought their agreeing to meet was very generous and 

perhaps a bit unusual that two individuals of this caliber 

and credential would take time for a conversation with 

a Ph.D. candidate. They suggested we meet at the Café 

Olympico, and there we talked over a wonderfully 

strong cafe au lait...or was it a few espressos?

My first impressions of Bill would remain accurate to 

this day and were traits I would later try to emulate 

in my life. He was friendly in a genuine sort of way, 

not shallow or frivolous. He was a thinker, and always 

generated interesting conversations and ideas without 

being pompous or academic. He loved the discussion 

and could both listen and debate in a non-controversial 

manner. He was generous, both with his time and 

thoughts, and I left the conversation feeling empowered 

rather than being spoken to. Later, I would see that Bill 

didn’t mind hard work and putting in long hours for the 

things he felt were worthy, but he always interspersed 

work with life’s simple pleasures, like tasty food and a 

good espresso.

From this first meeting stemmed several interactions at 

his home, his various “offices,” or favorite restaurants 

and coffee shops in Montreal. I remember fondly the 

many dinners at Bill’s and Lorraine’s house, of guests 

passing hours eating, drinking, and solving the world’s 

problems around their long (very long!) dining-room 

table. The nights went late but never felt that way, as 

we enjoyed several interesting recipes and featured 

alcohol, hand-selected by Bill and Lorraine. Bill was 

into the quality and slow movement (as opposed to fast 

food) long before this became a thing. 

Over the last decade, I would meet Bill in 

Ottawa while he was trying to gather Inuit Land 

Use Occupancy Project (ILUOP) information 

from Library and Archives Canada, where it sat 

“undiscovered” for over 40 years. Bill felt a personal 

responsibility to repatriate this work to Inuit and 

make the vast repository of information useful in 

the form of a geospatial information system. The 

potential of ILUOP Inuit knowledge and information 

for contemporary comparison is staggering. I helped 

him secure some meager funding to complete the 

Nunavut and Inuvialuit sections of the project, but 
76 ASC Newsletter

Bill donated much of his time to the endeavor. It was 

a hugely important project, and he spent years pulling 

it together.

I feel privileged to have enjoyed one of Bill’s famous 

home feasts a few months before he passed away. 

On this indelible night, he spoke of his past work, 

his Coppermine canoe trip, and other memorable and 

exciting incidents. He spoke of how the work Inuit 

conducted through ILUOP has influenced indigenous 

peoples around the world, the methodology having 

been taken to Africa, Asia, and Central America. He 

was in great form, and it was difficult to tell that this 

was a man suffering 

from a brain tumor. At 

one point, he left the 

table to bring down a 

large framed picture of 

a dear Inuk friend to say 

a few touching words. 

He had a tear in the 

corner of his eye as he 

spoke, and we were all 

silent and touched by 

his sincerity. I had a few 

tears myself that night.

I would have liked to 

have had the opportunity 

to speak to Bill one last 

time to close the circle 

and tell him that after 21 

years of work, I finally 

left ITK. I imagine he 

would have tilted his 

head slightly, smiled, 

and said something 

witty about our first 

encounter at Café Olympico. I can hear him say with 

a laugh, “it’s about time!” I would then tell Bill that I 

am indebted to him for his mentorship, example, and 

friendship. I am proud to have known and worked with 

Bill over the years and will miss him deeply.

Elizabeth Cundill: Bill Kemp gave me my first job 

in 1997 as an independent contractor. He hired me 

after an interview that lasted about seven minutes. I 

was pretty sure at the time, and certain today, that the 

reason I got that job was because Bill needed to fill a 

role by a deadline that had already passed. The job was 

to make maps of living-memory hunting grounds and 

Inuit occupancy in Povungnituq, Arctic Quebec. From 

a few stints as a research assistant on Baffin Island, I 

knew this would not be as simple as it sounded. “We’ll 

get you prepared; I’ll introduce you around.” Bill gave 

me confidence. When my plane landed in POV a few 

weeks later, I still couldn’t put a finger on exactly what 

my project’s goals really were. “Listen to what they 

want,” he said. Wise words, forever tattooed onto my 

imagination. 

Bill’s open-ended deliverables taught me to be quiet, 

to listen, to stay flexible, and to let Inuit lead “my” 

research. Approaching most things with an open-ended 

outlook gave any research project (or one of his dinner 

parties) the quality, scope, and meaning that was inherent 

in everything Bill put his stamp on. He let others lead, 

thereby creating a generation of leaders. That summer, 

when the snow geese flew over Povungnituq, and 

every hunter seemingly evaporated, and my work came 

to a standstill, Bill 

suggested: “What about 

the women?” I started 

recording stories and 

maps of outpost life, 

childbirth, medicine, 

clothing, and childrearing that gave scope 

and color to the work 

that was well beyond the 

original mandate, which, 

at that point, had been 

forgotten or surpassed. 

The research morphed, 

guided by what the 

Povungnituq Inuit 

wanted to record, not by 

the purposes of the land 

claims organization that 

had hired us to fulfill a 

political promise made 

long ago. To this day, 

my research partner 

on the project, Paulusi 

Novalinga, talks about how meaningful the work we 

did continues to be, how his pride in it grows with every 

year, and what a gift it is to local youth.

The last time I saw Bill was at Montreal’s Atwater 

market on a warm day in May, his arms full of arctic 

char, Belgian cheese, fresh asparagus. This is how I 

will remember him best, for underlying most of Bill’s 

impulses were the dishes he would furnish and the 

mix of old and new friends he would share them with. 

How quickly he could fill his kitchen with friends who 

happily drank and talked for hours while he filled his 

and Lorraine’s home with seductive aromas. Dinner 

served at the long dinner table after 10 pm was the 

norm. So was being a little drunk and already full of 

delicious hors d’oevres. Bill shared his love for life by 

being generous with sophisticated tastes and plates, and 

he shared himself by giving his attention and intellect 

in all its fine detail. This was Bill, seven days a week, 

in work and in life.

Liz Cundill and Bill Kemp in the Makivik Office in 1998 

inspecting the Povungnituq Mapping Project. 

Photo by Eric Loring
 ASC Newsletter 77

Eric Loring: It’s not often that coffee can change one’s 

life forever, especially since I am a tea drinker. But it did 

one spring morning in Montreal in 1996 when I first met 

Bill Kemp at Java U, a coffee place owned by a friend. 

Of course, I have known about Bill since a young lad 

in the early 1970s from his Scientific American article, 

“The Flow of Energy in a Hunting Society,” and of his 

work in both the Inuit Land Use and Occupancy Report 

and the Smithsonian Handbook of North American 

Indians. But perhaps my best inside information on Bill 

came from one of his former students who were then my 

supervisor, George Wenzel. I didn’t know it then, but 

that morning coffee initiated a new phase of my life, one 

of great enlightenment, joy, and love.

Bill’s life is far too rich and complex for me to explain. 

I relished the chance to be around his energy and 

excitement, and his total sense of enjoying life. This 

was Bill for me, his unwavering attention to being 

happy and in making others happy. He introduced 

me to many of the finer things in life, like how to 

make a good martini, the art of diner parties, and, 

most importantly, my direction and mentorship with 

people. His manner in making people feel included and 

valuable was something that I will always aspire to.

He and his wife, Lorraine, ventured to our family’s 

huge, annual “Thanksgiving Week” in the woods of 

New Hampshire. My nephews, who were just 13 and 

10 and had no interest in anything other than Nintendo, 

were suddenly singing, laughing, and dancing with 

this stranger throughout the house. Bill has a way of 

making everyone at ease and happy.

Bill and I made many maps for Makivik with Inuit from 

both Nunavik and Nunatsiavut. Bill understood my 

limitations, I was not the best student, I was never going 

to write reports, but he saw in me the potential that he 

himself had which was making people around him be at 

ease. We worked at maps, we talked about the need to 

“reinvent the way maps are telling information” before 

GIS and the internet. We wanted to get across somehow 

what Inuit were telling us, putting it on maps that make a 

visual story within the lines of contours, lakes, and rivers. 

Bill had a way of unlocking the doors of one’s mind.

We made plans to visit South Africa, Belize, and 

Kimmirut together, and we had discussions of the next 

dinner party, plans to dance throughout thanksgivings in 

New Hampshire, to continue the mantra of “good, clean, 

fun.” But for me, life got in the way, and something Bill 

always told me to watch out for. Back in my office in 

Ottawa, I kept hearing about Bill’s journeys to all those 

places. Somehow, life never got in his way!

When I visit Montreal, I make it a point to visit one of 

Bill’s favorite restaurants, L’ Express, a French bistro 

in the classic mold (zinc-topped bar, check-tile floor, 

standards-laden menu.) The restaurant, like Bill, has 

been making an indelible imprint for decades. I get a 

smile on my face when the jar of cornichons hits the 

table at the beginning of a meal, I get into a discussion 

with the bartender, Claude Masson, who of course 

knows Bill and has many stories to share. 

The last words I heard from Bill was on a recent 

visit he made here to Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami. We 

had just finished a meeting on maps, of course, more 

specifically the Inuit Land Use and Occupancy Project. 

His health was leaving him and cancer growing, but he 

was still smiling, laughing, telling stories. I helped him 

down to the front door. Leaving, he smiled and gave me 

a big hug. Bill was never one for saying “bye”; instead, 

he says: “Let’s get together real soon for supper, I 

promise to make that happen.” I am holding him to it.

KIYOSHI YAMAURA (1947–2019)

By William W. Fitzhugh

In the summer of 1974, I had the pleasure of spending 

a summer in Labrador with Kiyoshi Yamaura, who 

came to the Smithsonian on a fellowship to study 

harpoon heads in our Alaskan collection. Kiyoshi spent 

a year photographing and drawing toggling harpoon 

heads in Henry Collins’ collections from St. Lawrence 

Island (Henry had retired but was still working), Wales, 

James A. Ford’s and Dennis Stanford’s from Barrow. 

Dennis had just joined the SI staff and was publishing 

his Ph.D. on the origin of the Thule culture and his 

chronology was based on harpoon typology.

Kiyoshi went on to join our Labrador field project in 

1974. This was his first chance to meet Inuit in person 

and to excavate Dorset and Thule Eskimo culture sites. 

He brought his delicate Japanese digging instruments 

and worked diligently, but none of us found a single 

harpoon. (So, it goes in acidified Subarctic Labrador!) 

But we got to know Kiyoshi and his infectious sense 

of humor, distinctive laugh, and ‘ah-so’ manner of 

speaking. I’m not sure if it was Kiyoshi or Tetsuya 

Amano, who introduced us to Old Suntory whiskey, 

but we kept the empty bottle on board for years as we 

rode out storms on the seasoned Tunuyak, sharing the 

rare bottle of Newfoundland Screech rum in the light 

from a candle in that old Suntory bottle.

In 2014, my son Ben Fitzhugh and I participated in 

a conference on northern peoples in Osaka, Japan, 

organized by Nobuhiro Kishigami. Ben had been 

a youngster that Labrador summer with Kiyoshi but 

had gotten to know him again while researching Kuril 

Island archaeology, so we had a fine reunion. As we 

said goodbye, Kiyoshi gave me a flash drive containing 

all the Alaskan harpoon data behind the several papers 
78 ASC Newsletter

he published from his fellowship year. On a previous 

visit, Kiyoshi introduced me to his favorite restaurants, 

and one night he put me up in the tiny apartment where 

he lived with his wife and children. I learned much that 

evening about how Japanese families manage in a few 

square meters of floor space.

Kiyoshi, a distinguished archaeology professor at 

Rikkyo University, passed away on June 27, 2019. 

Tetsuya Amano, who provided me with information, 

described Kiyoshi as “one of the outstanding 

researchers of toggle-head harpoons that enabled 

people to adapt and survive in high latitude areas.” His 

data on the Smithsonian harpoon heads can be found 

in the National Anthropological Archives and Arctic 

Studies Center files.

DONALD HOGARTH (1929–2019)

By William Fitzhugh

In February I had a note from Mrs. Donald (Molly)

Hogarth informing me that Don passed away in 

December. Don and I exchanged Christmas greetings 

every year since we began collaborating on the 

Archaeology of the Frobisher Voyages project in 

1990. I often visited the Hogarths in Ottawa, where 

Don served as research professor in the University of 

Ottawa’s Department of Earth Sciences since receiving 

his PhD in Geology from McGill in 1959. Previously 

(1952-1954), he was a Technical Officer with the 

Geological Survey of Canada, studying uranium 

deposits in Alberta and Saskatchewan.

Don was the quintessential ‘field geologist’ (actually, 

a mineralogist) who delighted in whacking rocks 

to see what they were made of, how they came to 

be, and what they were good for. Don was also an 

historian of science. He became well-known in 

Canadian geological circles for his discovery of 

important minerals and deposits, and to historians 

for his knowledge of Canadian history and historical 

cartography. It was in the latter capacity that the 

Smithsonian’s Frobisher Project came to know him, 

for he knew more about the archival records of the 

Frobisher voyages of 1576-78 than anyone else.

Don was our project historian, researching Frobisher 

history, the members of the Frobisher expeditions, 

and—of course—analyzing Frobisher’s infamous 

‘black ore’—the rock that when heated “glowed with a 

bright marquesset of golde’. Testing samples from the 

Frobisher ‘mines’, Hogarth found the ore had less gold 

that a handful of ordinary beach sand. Nevertheless, 

its assay in 1576 sparked enough excitement to launch 

two more Elizabethan expeditions before its true 

value was recognized in 1578, whereupon shiploads 

of ‘ore’ became wall-building material in the port of 

Dartmouth, England.

Don participated in our 1990 Frobisher expedition and 

was a valued member of our multi-disciplinary team. 

His enthusiasm for field work was unbounded, and his 

daily regimen, beginning with a pre-breakfast sea-bath, 

was inspirational but found no converts. In one of these 

plunges he had narrow escape from a menacing polar 

bear. Another time, his enthusiasm for breaking rocks 

failed to notice an errant thumb between the rock and 

his hammer, resulting in a medical emergency. Such 

matters were of no consequence to Don, a large brute 

whose geniality was loved by all. He ascribed his field 

success to his wife Molly, who packed his clothes 

interleaved with sweets. Thank you, Molly! And Don, 

for your contributions to Canadian geology, history, 

and Frobisher studies.

SERGEI STEPANOVITCH MINIAEV (1948–

2020)

By William Honeychurch

Dr. Sergei Stepanovitch Miniaev, Senior Researcher 

at the Institute of History of the Material and Cultural 

Sciences, Russian Academy of Sciences, passed 

away on April 11, 2020, at the age of 72. Miniaev 

was a pioneer in Inner Asian archaeology, focused 

on the Xiongnu of South Siberia and Mongolia. He 

is best known for ground-breaking studies at the 

cemetery sites of Dyrestui, Tsaram, and Orgoiton, 

and the settlements of Ivolga and Dureny, together 

with Anthonyna Davydova. His work has been an 

inspiration for Xiongnu archaeologists.

Kiyoshi Yamaura (center) with colleagues. 

Photo by William Fitzhugh
 ASC Newsletter 79

2019 ASC STAFF PUBLICATIONS

Biddison, Dawn

2019 Material Traditions: Athabascan Moosehide 

Tanning and Sewing (4-disc DVD set.) Directed 

and researched by Dawn Biddison. Filmed by Dawn 

Biddison and Hanna Craig. Smithsonian Arctic Studies 

Center.

Crowell, Aron

2019 Examining Coastal Dynamics and 

Archaeological Site Evidence at a Drowned Cirque 

Basin Influenced by Earthquakes and Little Ice Age 

Glaciation. Journal of Coastal Research 35(4): 814–

834. (Maio, Chris. V., Aron L. Crowell, Richard M. 

Sullivan, Richard M. Buzard, Maththew W. Whitley, 

Royce C. Bogardus, and Cary W. de Wit) 

Fitzhugh, William W.

2019 Gateways 2018: More Evidence from Hart 

Chalet, Grand Plain, Belles Amours, and Grand Isle. 

Provincial Archaeology Office 2018 Archaeology 

Review, 17: 155–166. St. John’s, Newfoundland. (Jacob 

Marchman, William Fitzhugh, and Mary Maisel)

2019 The Rigolet Archaeological Survey Project, 

2018. Provincial Archaeology Office 2018 Archaeology 

Review, 17: 27–37. St. John’s, Newfoundland. (Jamie 

Brake and William Fitzhugh)

2019 The Indigenous Watercraft of Northern 

Eurasia. Vestnik–Bulletin of St.Petersburg University, 

64(2): 476–500. (Fitzhugh, William W., and Harri T. 

Luukkanen)

2019 Radiocarbon Dating and Cultural Dynamics 

across Mongolia’s Early Pastoral Transition. PLOS ONE

14(11): Article-e0224241. (Taylor, William, Shevan 

Wilkin, Joshua Wright, Michael Dee, Myagmar Erdene, 

Julia Clark, Tumurbaatar Tuvshinjargal, Jamsranjav 

Bayarsaikhan, William Fitzhugh, and Nicole Boivin)

2019 The Gateways Project 2019: Excavations 

at Hart Chalet, Grand Isle, and Bonne Espérance. 

Arctic Studies Center, National Museum of Natural 

History, Smithsonian Institution. 134pp. Washington 

D.C. (William Fitzhugh, Igor Chechushkov, Michael 

Mlyniec, and Abigail Piegols.)

Krupnik, Igor

2019 At the Frontline or Very Close: Living 

with Climate Change on St. Lawrence Island, 

Alaska,1999–2017. In Climate and Culture: 

Multidisciplinary Perspectives on a Warming World,

edited by Giuseppe Feola, Hilary Geoghegan, and 

Alex Arnall, pp. 168–189. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge 

University Press.

2019 Arctic Riches Revealed in Swiss. Museum 

Ethnographic Collections. Kunst & Kontext 17 

(June):23–33 (Gredig, Florian, Igor Krupnik, and 

Martin Schultz.)

2019 Siberian Yupik Names for Birds: What Can 

Bird Names Tell Us about Language and Knowledge 

Transitions? Études/Inuit/Studies 41(1-2):179–214.

2019 In Search of Changing Tradition (Making of 

the First Volume of the Handbook of North American 

Indians Series, the "Introduction"). Etnografia, 3 

(5):193–212 (in Russian.)

2019 From Greenland to the Pacific Ocean: New 

International Program to Celebrate a Century of the 

5th Thule Expedition, 1921-1924. Arkheologiia Arktiki 

(Archaeology of the Arctic) 6:178–188. (in Russian.)

Contact Information

Arctic Studies Center

Department of Anthropology

Natural History Building, MRC 112

Smithsonian Institution

P.O. Box 37012

10th and Constitution Ave. N.W.

Washington, D.C. 20013-7012

(202) 633-1887 (phone) (202) 357-2684 (fax)

ASC Anchorage Office

Anchorage Museum

625 C Street Anchorage, AK 99501

(907) 929-9207

Arctic Studies Center homepage 

https://naturalhistory.si.edu/research/anthropology/

programs/arctic-studies-center

For ASC publications visit: https://repository.si.edu/

handle/10088/36085/browse

Magnetic North–ASC Blog: http://nmnh.typepad.com/

arctic_studies/

ASC Twitter Account: @arcticstudies

ASC Facebook Account: https://www.facebook.com/pages/

Arctic-Studies-Center/133066950060693

ASC Anchorage Sharing Knowledge website: http://alaska.

si.edu
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G-94

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