September 2001 www.mnh.si.edu/arctic Number 9

Smithsonian Institution National Museum of Natural History

NOTES FROM THE DIRECTOR

The Year in Review

By Bill Fitzhugh

Kanuipi! Somehow it seems appropriate to open this

newsletter with an Inuktitut greeting, seeing as I am writing from the

newly refurbished Pitsiulak in the middle of the Strait of Belle Isle,

near the southern limit of former Inuit territory. We have just begun

a survey of the Lower North Shore of the Gulf of St. Lawrence from

Mingan to Blanc Sablon, the easternmost village in Quebec and are

rolling down the Strait with an easterly swell at our stern. It’s great

to be back aboard Pitsiulak, but more about this project later on.

Thinking back over the past year, it’s difficult to know where

to begin, with so many highlights to report. But since we just

passed the L’Anse aux

Meadows site a few hours

ago (its glinting Viking steel

now replaced by reflections

from tourist vehicles!),

Vikings seems like a good

beginning. Since opening in

Washington in April of 2000,

Vikings: the North Atlantic

Saga has continued to

demonstrate spectacular

visitorship at venues in New

York, Denver, and Houston.

Future venues are still to

come in Los Angeles, Ottawa,

and Minneapolis.

But the ‘big’ news of

the year is the opening of

Looking Both Ways: Heritage

and Identity of the Alutiiq

People which opened to great fanfare on 23 June at the Kodiak

Museum in Kodiak, Alaska. Congratulations to Aron Crowell and

his curatorial team, to Sven Haakanson and his Kodiak Museum

staff, and to the many Smithsonian specialists who helped bring this

exhibit to life. LBW is the first of a series of new shows that will

bring Smithsonian collections, archives, and expertise to Alaska and

other northern regions.

For the past several years we have been ‘looking both ways’

ourselves, wondering how to finance our collection sharing and

education programs. This year those efforts came to partial fruition

in the form of a major grant from the Rasmuson Foundation of

Anchorage for the first phase of our Alaska Collection Project.

Rasmuson funds, supplemented by a generous gift from Phillips

Petroleum, will provide resources for a three-year pilot project

aimed at identifying cultural objects to be loaned to Anchorage and

preparing an ACP object website. Process is a key feature of the

ACP, and toward that end we held the first of a series of consultative workshops with elders from Unalakleet in May that helped us

establish protocols for the project.

The ACP is sponsored jointly by NMNH and the National

Museum of the American Indian, and both collections will be

included in the Alaska loans. Our relationship with NMAI moved

forward substantially in other areas as well. ASC staff are now

assisting NMAI with arctic collection documentation, and plans are

being made to exhibit LBW at NMAI’s Gustav Heye Center in New

York, develop regional catalogs based on ACP workshops, and

provide Alaska Native community education programs.

Research work has also pressed forward. Stephen Loring

has continued community archaeology programs with the Innu and

Inuit in Labrador; Aron published a

monograph on his work for the

National Park Service and has found

time to begin planning new field

projects linked to global change

issues; Igor Krupnik’s Our Words

Put to Paper project with St.

Lawrence Island elders has reached

the publication stage and has ignited

a surge of interest in ‘knowledge

repatriation’. And while juggling

institutional politics and my upcoming role as President of the

NMNH Senate of Scientists, I have

worked on Labrador collections,

completed a major paper on

circumpolar culture, and explored

new field opportunities in

Mongolia and Quebec.

The financial success of

Vikings has made it possible for us to realize a long-cherished dream

of establishing an ASC publication series. This fall we hope to see

publication of Honoring Our Elders: History of Eastern Arctic

Archaeology (a volume of essays dedicated to Elmer Harp, Jr.) and

Gateways: Exploring the Legacy of the Jesup North Pacific

Expedition. With Igor’s and Elisabeth Ward’s assistance we expect

to be publishing two or three monographs each year.

Finally, I am sad to say that our esteemed NMNH director,

Robert A. Fri, has announced his intention to leave the museum at

the end of September. Bob has been a great friend and supporter,

and his efforts have greatly advanced our work. Thanks, Bob, for

your steady hand and tremendous help in so many areas. Assistant

Secretary Dennis O’Connor will serve as Acting Director until the

the newly-formed Science Commission makes its recommendations.

Best Wishes to all and enjoy this year’s 36 page newsletter!

Koniaq decorated spruce-root hat collected ca. 1880 by William

Fisher and featured in the “Looking Both Ways” exhibition which

opened in Kodiak, Alaska this June.

Newsletter
ASC Newsletter 2

T A B L E O F C O N T E N T S

A Personal View

By Bill Fitzhugh

Institutions, like cultures and people, live and are shaped by

rites of passage and events that however joyful or traumatic, forever

mark their history. The Smithsonian, founded in 1846, is going

through such a time today.

Only a few years past celebrating its 150th anniversary and

with its charter reviewed by a blue-ribbon commission, Smithsonian

scientists, curators, and other staff have become engaged in a

controversy with its new administration over matters of science,

priorities, administrative organization, exhibition process, academic

freedom, sponsorship, and external influence. The crisis was

precipitated by financial shortfall as the Smithsonian endeavored to

undertake new Congressional mandates without sufficient funding.

During the last Secretarial appointment process, convinced that a

business management approach could most effectively address these

problems, the Smithsonian Regents appointed Lawrence Small,

formerly of Citibank and Fanny Mae, and charged him with reinventing the Smithsonian. Now in office for twenty months, Small

has indeed defined his goals for the Institution and has set about to

bring what has been a notoriously ‘loose’ aggregation of museums,

centers, and programs to heel.

Small’s actions and his proposed plans are shaking up the

Institution. In fact, they have shaken it into an uproar that is being

heard from coast to coast and around the world.

Richard Fiske, a geologist who directed NMNH, the largest

of the Smithsonian’s research divisions, a decade ago liked to

describe the Smithsonian Institution as a platform of museums and

programs supported by three sturdy legs: research, collections, and

public outreach. Weakening or tampering with the interrelations of

any of these components, he believed, would result in catastrophic

failure of James Smithson’s charter - the increase and diffusion of

knowledge - and the Institution’s ability to conduct research, catalog

and care for the national collections, and provide public education.

Many staff members believe the administration’s plans to cure the

Institution’s financial woes will have a profound negative impact on

science and scholarships.

Although described as an attempt to re-focus and strengthen

the science/research ‘leg’ of the Smithsonian stool, Secretary Small’s

actions suggest an intent to down-size research in favor of public

outreach, exhibitions, and facility renovation. Proposed cuts would

terminate some research and conservation programs; they would

also cannibalize the research staff of the National Museum of

Natural History, the largest and oldest Smithsonian bureau. Indeed,

his attempt to terminate the (animal) Conservation Research Center,

the Smithsonian Center for Materials Research and Education

(SCMRE, formerly the Conservation Analytical Laboratory) and a

number of other programs and offices suggest only the beginning of

a major retrenchment. These cuts have come out of the blue -

administrative fiats without the advice of external review panels or

internal debate and consensus.

In place of the current museum (or bureau) structure, the

administration originally proposed creating four separate science

institutes: Earth and Planetary Science, Astrophysics, Systematic

Biology, and Anthropology and Human Sciences. Reconfigured from

the staffs of NMNH, the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute

(STRI), the Smithsonian-Harvard Astrophysical Observatory

(SAO), the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, SCMRE,

CHANGES AT THE INSTITUTION:

Changes at the Institution p. 2

ASC Anchorage

Inupiaq Elders Visit p. 4

Alaska Collection Project p. 5

Looking Both Ways Opening p. 6

New Directions

ASC Publication Series Launch p. 8

Kamistastin Project p. 10

Mongolian Adventure p. 11

Exhibits: Vikings Tour p. 12

Research

Ethnographic Landscapes p. 13

Whaling in North Alaska p. 14

Earthquakes and Archaeology p. 15

Documenting Climate p. 16

Fieldwork and Conferences

Zhokhov 2000 p. 17

Outer Kenai Coast p. 18

Adlavik Harbor p. 19

British Museum Conference p. 21

Northern Research Forum p. 22

Viking Millennium Conference p. 23

IASSA Conference p. 23

WAC 5 to come to Washington p. 24

Caribou Conference p. 24

Collections

Kuujjuaq Visitors p. 24

Metal Tool Studies p. 25

Innu Scholar Visits p. 26

The Labrador Files p. 26

Publications and Films

Our Words Put to Paper p. 27

Thoughts on Spirit Wind p. 30

Fifty Years of Arctic Research p. 31

Henry Collins at Wales p. 31

Golovnev Films Produced in English p. 31

Cree Object CD-Rom p. 31

Bergy Bits

Awards p. 32

Research Associates p. 32

Comings and Goings p. 32

Gifts p. 33

In Memoriam: Rasmuson, VanStone, Ingstad p. 33

Publications and Contacts p. 35

National Science Foundation Rock Foundation

Rasmuson Foundation Phillips Alaska, Inc.

Alaska Humanities Forum National Parks Service

Museum Loan Network Vinland Foundation

Robert H. Malott Santis Corporation

Japanese American Friendship Fund Arco Foundation

Raymond E. Mason Foundation Amoco Eurasia

Anne Abraham Memorial Fund Koniag, Inc.

King & Jean Cummings Charitable Trust

Leifur Eiriksson Millennium Commission of Iceland

National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration

THANKS TO OUR SPONSORS
ASC Newsletter 3

work. The newly formed Science Commission will be chaired by

Jeremy Sabloff, Director of the University Museum of the

University of Pennsylvania, and will consist of external and internal

scientific experts, including myself. I look forward to participating

in this process, and will be working with the Commission until it is

expected to announce its findings in Summer of 2002.

But in the meantime, as this discussion advances, the CRC

remains under seige and other organizations, such as SCMRE, are

left under the axe. Cuts of non-science offices and general

downsizing continues in most branches of the Smithsonian except

for the National Museum of the American Indian and the NASM

Dulles Center.

The ultimate cause of the Smithsonian’s distress is rooted in

years of failure to address unfunded mandates imposed by

Congress, often with acquiescence from the Smithsonian in the

belief that better times lay ahead. So far the major effect of

Secretary Small’s shake-up has

been to wake the American

people and the Congress up to

the fact that one of the nation’s

leading institutions of learning

needs better care and feeding, and

that if new institutions like the

National Museum of the

American Indian, the Museum of

African Art, and others are to be

established, full provision needs

to be taken for their existence

without negative impact upon

other branches.

The current battle is not a

power struggle between pragmatic

modern administrators and old

guard traditionalists, as it is

sometimes described. Rather it is

a battle for institutional identity. What should the Smithsonian’s

role be in our national and increasingly global society? Should it

represent the loftiest goals of science, history, sentiment, morality,

education, and reflection? Or is it to concoct entertaining ‘just so’

stories that pander to national fancy and fashion or present the

views of the rich and powerful? The debate is serious because

questions of national and ethnic identity are serious. What does it

mean to be American as opposed to Native American, Latin

American, Japanese American, African American and ‘any other’

American, and how should all these ‘Americas’ be represented at

the Smithsonian, our National Museum?

By exploring these questions through the lenses of history,

science, technology, environment, and culture, Smithsonian curators

raise questions, explore themes, and offer perspectives; in so doing

the Smithsonian helps define the character of America. The

Smithsonian is not infallible and has no pre-eminent authority.

When it has erred it has been from not consulting widely enough

over controversial subjects. Its value is measured in the trust and

reverence which it earns from every visitor who enters its halls.

In this time of institutional change, it is important that

principles of excellence, scholarship, accountability, and public

service be kept clearly in mind. If these guidelines continue to serve

as the Institution’s heart and soul, visitors returning home after a

visit to Washington D.C. will continue the proud refrain so often

heard across the land and oceans: “It’s true! I saw it in the

Smithsonian.”

and other units, the proposed institutes would answer directly to

the Castle, which proposed to support them with existing federal

funds, private donations, and contracts. However, in the case of

biology, anthropology, and geology, most of whose members would

come from NMNH, many believe that once separated from the

research environment of NMNH, science budget lines would be cut

and research would be shifted from federal to private trust budgets.

Under such conditions, less popular research programs might fail to

find sponsorship and would be terminated. Small’s plan would

reduce scientific breadth and effort; furthermore, it would leave

many collections without scientific or curatorial oversight.

Small’s plan would also have a disastrous effect on the third

leg of the Smithsonian enterprise - interpretation and public

programs - by separating curators and collections from the Museum

and its exhibition and public program staff. Without scientific

guidance, museum exhibitions and other public programs would be

organized by educators and

exhibit specialists who have

little knowledge of the subject

matter or the collections.

Located in separate organizations, scientists and exhibit

producers would find little

reason to work together, and the

dynamic curator-designer

relationship that lies at the heart

of every exhibition would be

imperiled; exhibits would lose

their validity and would come

under the sway of administrative

interests intent on displaying

materials for their entertainment

value rather than for their

contribution to history and

science. The current furor in the

press over recent donations to exhibit projects at the National

Museum of American History (condemned by professional

historical societies) has revealed the pitfalls when big money is

given too much influence over the development of Smithsonian

exhibition content.

While most curators and scientists welcome the Secretary’s

call for change, the specific changes identified, including a deemphasis of science and research, separation of curatorial staff from

the NMNH, and the ‘selling’ of our museums and products to

private sponsors are seen as disastrous departures from established

Smithsonian tradition that will quickly rob the nation of its crown

educational jewel in Washington. Without the protection for

scholarly research as a function of curatorial duty and freedom to

develop public programs without inappropriate external influence,

the Smithsonian cannot pursue James Smithson’s charge for

“increase and diffusion of knowledge” and in short order will lose its

identity as a national beacon of knowledge.

The spring 2001 meeting of the Smithsonian Board of

Regents reviewed the Secretary’s proposals and authorized him to

develop “centers of excellence.” However, responding to the furor

and media critique over proposed science cuts, the Regents ordered

a blue-ribbon Science Commission be established to study

Smithsonian science and recommend areas of enterprise and

organization. In June, the House Appropriations Sub-Committee

inserted language in their mark-up stating that no cuts or changes

should be made until the Science Commission had completed its

The Natural History Building dome is not the only part of the SI

undergoing structural change. Pardon the list! Photo by H. Dorwin.
ASC Newsletter 4

INUPIAQ ELDERS LAUNCH THE ALASKA

COLLECTIONS PROJECT

by Aron L. Crowell

Anna Etageak, an 80 year-old Inupiaq Eskimo Elder from

the village of Unalakleet in Norton Sound, Alaska, still navigates her

own motor boat through the shoals of the Unalakleet River and

ventures out onto sea ice each spring to fish for tomcod. At the

National Museum of Natural History’s anthropology collections

facility in Maryland this May, she recognized an 1870s version of

the fishing gear she employs today, and took delight in demonstrating exactly how to use the wooden pole and ivory lure.

Mrs. Etageak and three other Elders from the village – Oscar

Koutchak, Francis Charles, and Theresa Nanouk – came to

Washington as part of a new Arctic Studies Center research and

outreach initiative, the Alaska Collections Project (ACP). Over a

period of five days they examined and discussed 19 th century tools,

clothing, and other artifacts from Unalakleet in the collections of

two Smithsonian museums, the National Museum of Natural

History and National Museum of the American Indian. All four

Elders are fluent speakers of the Inupiaq language and provided

previously unrecorded indigenous names for the items.

The group was accompanied by tribal facilitator Art Ivanoff

and by Branson Tungiyan, who heads the Eskimo Heritage

Program for Kawerak, Inc. in Nome. Suzi Jones, Deputy Director

of the Anchorage Museum of History and Art, joined Arctic Studies

Center curatorial staff in the discussions.

The delegation was the first in a series of visits by Alaska

Native consultants who will study the Smithsonian collections over

the next two and a half years. Documentation and interpretation by

culture bearers will inform new exhibitions for the Arctic Studies

Center program at the Anchorage Museum, as well as smaller

displays that will travel throughout rural Alaska. In addition, the

work will support development of a technologically sophisticated

web site offering global access to objects representing Alaska’s

diverse indigenous heritage.

The Alaska Collections Project received a total of $410,000

in planning and implementation funds from the Rasmuson Foundation (Anchorage), Phillips Alaska, and the Museum Loan Network

(Massachusetts Institute of Technology). The National Museum of

the American Indian

(NMAI) has committed

an additional $140,000

for personnel and travel

to support this

unprecedented joint

effort with the Arctic

Studies Center and

National Museum of

Natural History

(NMNH). NMNH

Director Robert Fri,

Special Assistant to the

Director Ruth Selig,

and NMAI Director

Rick West played key

roles in institutional coordination and funding strategy. Research

work with the Unalakleet Elders in Washington was facilitated by

Jake Homiak and Candace Green of the NMNH Department of

Anthropology and by Jim Pepper-Henry and Lars Krutak at

NMAI.

The large and comprehensive Smithsonian ethnological

collections from Alaska are an immensely valuable and as yet barely

tapped resource for systematic study and public appreciation.

Unalakleet alone is represented by more almost 400 items in the

NMNH collection, acquired during the second half of the 19th

century by scientific collectors Edward W. Nelson, William H.

Dall, and Lucien Turner. A total of about 15,000 Alaskan

ethnological objects from all parts of the state are owned by

NMNH and an approximately equal number by NMAI, which is in

the process of moving its materials from New York to its new

Cultural Resource Center in Maryland. The object collections are

augmented by extensive accession records, reports and publications

by collectors, and archival photographs. About 2000 objects from

the two museums will be selected through the ACP for long-term

loan and exhibition at the Anchorage Museum and will be included

in the ACP web site.

Important connections between past and present were

explored during the week-long consultation. Among the most

important is the subsistence way of life. Hunting, fishing, and the

harvest of wild plant foods remain an essential part of Inupiaq life

today. As Francis Charles

stated, “We live out in the

country most of the time.

Well, all my life. I still go out

hunting for my food – weeds,

berries, drive my own motor

and boat.”

Despite technological

change, the old implements

used many generations ago

often have modern equivalents.

For example, the practice of

netting beluga whales as they

migrate along the shoreline has

scarcely changed, even though

today’s nets are made of fiber

or plastic rather than leather strips. Several old whale nets – called

situanun kuvraq in the Inupiaq language – are included in the NMAI

collection. In describing contemporary whaling, Theresa Nanouk

Anna Etageak with model of a parka made at Unalakleet, c. 1870.

A S C A N C H O R A G E

Unalakleet group at the Cultural Resource Center, NMAI. (L to R: Art Ivanoff,

Francis Charles, Anna Etageak, Oscar Koutchak, and Theresa Nanouk
ASC Newsletter 5

told how the net is stretched into a V-shape by a struggling whale,

signaling the catch to those on shore.

 The continuing importance of wild game and plant foods

means that a comprehensive understanding of animal behavior and

the arctic ecosystem has been sustained in Inupiaq communities

despite cultural changes in many other areas. Analysis of museum

artifacts as part of a total cultural system is possible through the

combination of historical information and contemporary knowledge.

Indigenous ecological awareness also provides insights into

the cycling of arctic biosystems. Oscar Koutchak, an active caribou

hunter even in his 70s, noted that the animals have become abundant

around Unalakleet only in recent years. Because of a late 19th

century population crash, caribou were a scarce resource in Norton

Sound when the Smithsonian collections were acquired. The caribou

skins used for items of clothing in the collection – including boots

and beautifully sewn miniature parkas in male and female styles –

were probably acquired through trade with Inupiaq groups living

farther to the north.

The participants provided valuable information about a wide

range of other topics, from the manufacture of skin clothing and

kayaks to traditional medical practices. Anna Etageak drew on her

life-long experience as a skin sewer to describe the process of

making waterproof parkas and tent

coverings from seal intestines and

Oscar Koutchak demonstrated the

use of the millkaq (crooked knife)

for carving wooden bowls.

More than 20 hours of video

and audio tapes recorded during the

sessions are now being indexed and

transcribed in Anchorage by

program assistant Jennifer

McCarty and by University of

Alaska Fairbanks intern Dawn

Biddison. Jennifer McCarty is

also responsible for logistical

coordination of ACP consultations.

As project director, I will travel to

Unalakleet this fall to share this

wealth of information with the

community and to gather additional

information and ideas for publication and educational programs. Direct community consultation is an

important part of the process, ensuring that all cultural information

brought into the public domain through the ACP is accurate and

appropriate.

The Arctic Studies Center owes special thanks to Art Ivanov

and the Native Village of Unalakleet for their cooperation and

assistance. Branson Tungiyan is working with the Arctic Studies

Center to organize a follow-up visit this September by Elders from

other parts of Norton Sound and from St. Lawrence Island. A

consultation with Elders from the Barrow region, led by Ron

Brower, Sr. of the Inupiat Heritage Center, is anticipated in January

and work with representatives from other regions will be scheduled

over the following months.

Oscar Koutchak paid moving tribute to the project and to the

importance of sharing Inupiaq heritage in his concluding remarks at

the NMMH reception on May 10. The staff of Arctic Studies

Center extends its deepest appreciation to Mr. Koutchak and to

Anna Etageak, Francis Charles, and Theresa Nanouk for their

dedicated work.

REPATRIATION CONSULTATION WITH

UNALAKLEET ELDERS

By Lars Krutak

On May 9th and 10th, the National Museum of the American

Indian (NMAI) Repatriation Office hosted Elders and community

leaders from the Alaskan village of Unalakleet as part of the Smithsonian

Alaska Collection Project. Activities included an extensive tour of the

Cultural Resources Center in Suitland, Maryland, an overview of

collections specific to the Norton Sound region, and discussions

focusing upon the conservation, traditional care, stewardship, and

possible repatriation of objects representative of the Native Village of

Unalakleet. The official request for repatriation consultations came in

a 10 May 2000 letter addressed by Unalakleet Repatriation Coordinator

Art C. Ivanoff.

Repatriation involves an array of complex, and sometimes

competing, social interests, and that is why community consultations

provide for the best means to make sure all issues are fairly and

completely deliberated before any actions are taken. It is important to

hear the stories behind each object with careful consideration of the

effect they have on community members. During our consultations,

100 objects from the Norton Sound region were viewed and analyzed,

and as community leader Art

C. Ivanoff stated, “[we are]

excited about viewing objects

absent from our community

for the last one hundred

years.” Elder Teresa

Nanouk, however, said that

some objects were “too fancy

to be from Unalakleet” while

others were like “the ones my

mother or father used.” In the

case of one simplistic looking

lancet, Elder Oscar

Koutchak explained,

“Sometimes they used to

poke the joints with that, to

let the blood flow and help

with arthritis.”

All in all, the most

important aspect of our

consultation with the community of Unalakleet was the consensus

that Native Alaskan communities must have broad access to and use

of all data pertaining to museum collections (e.g., photographs,

accession information, pesticide testing/conservation condition

reports, etc.) to insure that informed decisions can be made

regarding the ultimate disposition of these objects. This approach is

crucial, since the Museum’s commitment to work with Native

American communities should be department-wide.

Francis, Anna and Oscar investigate a seal-gut parka with Lars Krutak

and Veronica Quiguango, NMAI personnel.

ASC-AFN RECEPTION IN WASHINGTON

By Elisabeth Ward

On May 10th, to celebrate the visit of the Inupiaq Elders, the

first group to participate in the Alaskan Collection Project

examination of objects, the Arctic Studies Center hosted a reception

in Washington D.C. at the Natural History Museum. Originally

planned as an opportunity to thank the Elders and allow press to

hear about their experience, it soon grew into a more complex and
ASC Newsletter 6

LOOKING BOTH WAYS: HERITAGE AND

IDENTITY OF THE ALUTIIQ PEOPLE

Exhibition Opens in Kodiak, Alaska

By Aron L. Crowell

As we drove through

Kodiak this June on the day

after Looking Both Ways

opened at the Alutiiq

Museum, Lucille Antowak

Davis looked back at the six

years that we had worked

together on the project along

with scores of other Alutiiq

Elders, advisors, anthropologists, museum professionals,

educators, designers, and film

makers – a circle of colleagues

that extends from Kodiak and

the villages of the Alutiiq

region to Anchorage and

Washington, D.C. “Well,

Aron,” she teased, “What are

we all going to do with

ourselves now that this is

over?”

The public opening, celebration dinner,

and arts festival on June 22-23, actually felt

like both an ending and a beginning. The

exhibition had arrived ten days earlier from

Washington, D.C. in 40 salmon-stenciled pink

crates. In charge of the precious cargo were

Smithsonian conservator Greta Hansen

(Department of Anthropology, National

Museum of Natural History) and tour

coordinator Judy Baletka of the Anchorage

Museum of History and Art. Alutiiq

Museum director Sven Haakanson, Jr. and

the museum staff worked long hours with

Hansen and Baletka to install the bright panels

and dark wood cases. Inside were unique

archaeological artifacts and beautifully crafted

examples of traditional skin clothing, carvings,

masks, and ceremonial headdresses. Many of

these objects were acquired in the late 19th

century by Smithsonian collector William J.

Fisher, and have returned to Alaska for the

first time.

Looking ahead to the next three years, Looking Both Ways

will travel from the cities of Kodiak and Homer in the Alutiiq

homeland to the Anchorage Museum and to national venues

including the Burke Museum in Seattle and National Museum of

Natural History in Washington, D.C.

Looking Both Ways is designed to bring indigenous voices and

perspectives to the topic of Native American identity in contemporary Alaska and the United States. The exhibition themes – Our

Ancestors, Our History, Our Way of Living, Our Beliefs, and Our

Family – reflect Alutiiq cultural values and millennia-deep connections to the land and history of southern Alaska. At the same time,

Looking Both Ways highlights new anthropological and archaeologihigh-profile event when Aron Crowell realized that the visit of the

Elders to Washington coincided with the annual board meeting of

the Alaska Federation of Natives (AFN). Because the Alaska

Collections Project (ACP) hopes to involve many different Native

communities, and to produce educational exhibitions and materials

of use to all Alaskans, who better to tell about our project than the

AFN? Thanks to Julie Kitka for agreeing to fit this reception into

the busy agenda of the AFN, and thanks to the many board

members who joined us at the Executive Conference Room after a

long debate and delayed vote on the Hill regarding Native land-use

rights.

We had much to discuss at this two hour event. Host

Robert Fri, Director of the Natural History Museum, explained

that the Alaska Collections Project is just one of many ways that

NMNH strives to serve the needs of Alaskan communities, and

grows out of the long term agreement we have with the Anchorage

Museum of History and Art. Bruce Bernstein (Associate

Director, Cultural Resources NMAI) gave comments on behalf of

the National Museum of the American Indian. NMAI is contributing both financial support and staff time to the Alaska Collections

Project as part of a two year agreement to bring the ASC and

NMAI closer together in terms of collection documentation,

exhibition development, and outreach. The joint comments by

these two senior officials of their respective institutions was the

first time that that cooperation had been publically announced,

though it has been in practice for half a year. Suzi

Jones, Deputy Director of the Anchorage Museum

of History and Art, which has a twenty year

cooperative agreement with NMNH and stands to

ultimately benefit from loans identified by the ACP,

gave comments on the strengths of this trio of

museums sharing a commitment to Alaska Native

heritage.

Aron Crowell gave a magnificent overview of

the themes and objectives of the Alaska Collections

Project while the sponsors of the ACP—the

Museum Loan Network (Lori Gross); Philips

Petroleum (Nancy Schoephoester) and the

Rasmuson Foundation (Cathryn Rasmuson)—gave

kind and encouraging remarks emphasizing how

pleased they were that the project was moving

forward and that they were a part of it. Because this

reception took place only a few weeks before

Looking Both Ways opened in Kodiak, Aron was

able to show clips of that website and discuss

briefly its themes.

But certainly the most memorable speaker

was Oscar Koutchak speaking on behalf of the four

Rlders from the Norton Sound region. They had completed several

days of collection research and he was able to eloquently share their

experience, while also offering his father’s own, traditional kayak as

an addition to the Smithsonian collections.

 Given all that was going on, it was a pity that Senators

Stevens and Inoue, and Representative Nighthorse Campbell

had to cancel at the last minute. Thanfully, several members of the

press were on hand to take all this in, and most joined us and AFN

members for tours of the Museum Support Center, where the

collections are stored. We believe that although the guests enjoyed

the reception and food, the impression of a dynamic, Alaskanfocused agenda at the Smithsonian was the thing they all found

most memorable.

Alutiiq Elder Perry Eaton

speaking on behalf of the

Alaska Humanities Forum.

Photo by Sven Haakanson,

Kodiak Island Elder Lucille

Antowak Davis lights a seal oil lamp

to open the exhibition. Photo by

Sven Haakanson, Jr.
ASC Newsletter 7

cal research in the Gulf of Alaska

region. These studies have explored

Alutiiq cultural development over a

time span of nearly 10,000 years,

followed by the post-contact fusion of

Alutiiq, Russian, and Euro-American

customs, languages, and beliefs. This

unique and complex history underlies

the project’s focus on ethnicity and

heritage, as seen from both within the

Native community and from the

external viewpoints of scientists and

scholars.

Over two hundred Alutiiq

participants from Kodiak Island, the

Alaska Peninsula, Cook Inlet, and

Prince William Sound attended the

opening festivities, which included

prayers in Russian, Alutiiq, and

English and the ceremonial lighting of

an ancient seal oil lamp. They were

joined by representatives of sponsoring organizations and by Mary

Tanner from the Smithsonian Office of the Under Secretary for

Science and Ruth Selig from the Office of the Director, National

Museum of Natural History. Rita Stevens of the Kodiak Area

Native Association and Ruth Dawson of the Alutiiq Heritage

Foundation offered congratulations and best wishes.

A unique consortium of institutional partners helped to make

Looking Both Ways possible. The Arctic Studies Center took the

lead in planning, research, writing, and fund-raising, while the

NMNH Department of Anthropology took responsibility for

project management. Special thanks go to Anthropology Chair

Carolyn Rose and Deputy Chair Daniel Rogers for seeing the

project through several difficult moments. Deborah Wood

contributed as exhibition registrar, Deborah Hull-Walski as

collections manager, and Catherine Magee as conservator. The

Alutiiq Museum made available its staff, collections, and oral

history archives, and served as a focal point of community

participation. Amy Steffian, the museum’s Deputy Director, is

the exhibition’s co-curator. Design and fabrication were accomplished by a large team at the Smithsonian’s Office of Exhibits

Central, led by director Mike Headley, project manager Rick

Pelasara, designer Tina Lynch Safreed, and editor Rosemary

The Kodiak Alutiiq Dancers perform at the Looking Both Ways celebration dinner on June 22 in Kodiak. Photo by Sven Haakanson, Jr.

The signiture image for Looking Both Ways is a

painting from a wooden box panel found at an

archaeological site on Kodiak Island. It may depict Lam

Sua, the Alutiiq supreme being. The rays extending from

the image’s eyes suggest penetrating vision or light.

Regan. The Anchorage Museum of

History and Art donated staff services

and general support, and the Alaska

Native Heritage Center designed the

educational outreach and teacher training

programs that will accompany the

exhibition tour.

Principal financial support came

from the National Endowment for the

Humanities, Phillips Alaska, the

Smithsonian Institution, Koniag, Inc.,

Afognak Native Corporation, Bristol

Bay Native Corporation, Kodiak Area

Native Association, the Alaska

Humanities Forum, and National Bank

of Alaska.

At its foundation, Looking Both

Ways was a community-based effort.

Alutiiq Elders and leaders from more

than 20 communities served on the

advisory panel, participated in two

regional planning conferences, and contributed their knowledge and

perspectives to the exhibition text, catalog, film, web site, and

educational outreach program. Alutiiq educator Gordon Pullar,

whose efforts as president of the Kodiak Area Native Association

led to establishment of the Alutiiq Museum in 1995, helped to

organize the planning effort and served as a co-editor of the catalog,

published in September by the University of Alaska Press.

Quyanásinaq – many thanks! - to all who gave so generously

of their time and knowledge.

Readers are invited to see Looking Both Ways: Heritage and

Identity of the Alutiiq People in Kodiak (June 23, 2001 – April 6,

2002), at the Pratt Museum in Homer (May 3 - September 13,

2002), at the Anchorage Museum of History and Art (October 6,

2002 – January 12, 2003), at the Burke Museum in Seattle (May 25

– September 1, 2003), or at the National Museum of Natural

History in Washington D.C. (October 2, 2003 – January 12, 2004).

The catalog of the same title, edited by Aron L. Crowell, Amy F.

Steffian, and Gordon L. Pullar, is available for $24.95 (paper) or

$49.95 (cloth) from the University of Alaska Press (1-888-252-

6657 or email orders.uapress@uaf.edu). And, the entire exhibition

and additional educational resources are available on the web at

www.mnh.si.edu/lookingbothways/.
ASC Newsletter 8

N E W D I R E C T I O N S

ASC LAUNCHES PUBLICATION SERIES

By Bill Fitzhugh and Igor Krupnik

After several years of deliberation, publishing setbacks, and a

never-ending quest for additional resources, the ASC is proud to

launch a major new initiative, a full-size publication series of its

own. Titled Contributions to Circumpolar Anthropology, the new

series— whose first volumes are to appear in the fall of 2001 —

demonstrates the growing role of the ASC as an established center

of circumpolar scholarship as well as its accumulation of resources

and publication experience. This is also our way to respond to the

spreading commercialization of the present-day anthropology

publication field. In recent years, the ‘rule of the market’ has created

a painful selection toward a fairly limited brand of anthropology

books that are eagerly picked up by the big presses because of their

obvious commercial success. First and foremost among them are

illustrated exhibit catalogs, historical albums, ‘exotic’ fieldwork, and

travel monographs. At the same time, most presses increasingly

discriminate against some low-profit (or truly ‘non-profit’)

publication products such as proceedings of academic conferences,

Ph.D. theses, translations from foreign languages, and collections

aimed at limited native audiences.

We at the ASC know both ends of the current market spin

quite well. Of course, everybody praises the astounding success of

our major catalog publications, such as Crossroads of Continents

(1988), Ainu: Spirit of a Northern People (1999), and particularly

the most recent SAA prize-winning volume, Vikings: The North

Atlantic Saga (2000). On the other hand, we have faced the sober

reality of many excellent publication products being delayed for

years. A few have been rejected by prospective publishers, who

cited high costs or

difficulty in

marketing

specialist books,

even after our

works were given

positive reviews

and sometimes

after they had been

formally accepted

for publication.

The enduring saga

of the HistoricalEthnographic Atlas

of Siberia (which

we advertised

earlier as being

accepted and

scheduled for

printing by the

Smithsonian

Institution Press -

see ASC Newsletter

1997, 5:7) is a painful reminder of the latter scenario. As our

frustration was building, we eventually decided to take our own

chances and brave the uncharted grounds of book publishing

ourselves. Hence, the birth of the Contributions to Circumpolar

Anthropology series.

We envision the new series as a joint effort of the ASC and

the SI Press, with the ASC doing the manuscript preparation (and

maybe even printing) and SI Press taking the lead in marketing and

distribution. As of today, we have a list of some 15 major monographs and collections of papers that - pending adequate resources -

can be produced in

the next five years

(2001-2005). These

have been selected

from a larger set of

publication opportunities available and

include works that

are either done or can

be completed easily

within the available

time frame. They are,

of course, in various

stages of preparation

and of a different

level of technical

complexity: from the

fairly finished

manuscripts of

conference proceedings and Ph.D. theses

to a monumental

Siberian Atlas of some 700-page text, almost 2,000 historical

illustrations, and 30 maps.

Two manuscripts selected as the 2001 inaugural volumes in

the series share almost identical stories. Both are proceedings of

pioneer academic conferences organized by the ASC in 1993. Both

were submitted to the commercial presses as fully completed

volumes in 1997, were positively reviewed and accepted - only to

be returned a few years later, for ‘marketing and financial reasons.’

The first book, Honoring Our Elders. History of Eastern Arctic

Archaeology. (William Fitzhugh, Stephen Loring, and Daniel

Odess, eds.), emerged from a conference held at Dartmouth College

in Hanover, New Hampshire, on 22-24 April, 1993. The immediate

purpose of that meeting, and of the follow-up collection of papers,

was and is to honor a generation of archaeological elders. As it

happened, Elmer Harp, Graham Rowley, and Father MaryRousselière, who had reached simultaneously the august age of 80

at the time of the “Dartmouth Elder’s Conference” of 1993, found

their careers straddling what can aptly be called the “golden age” of

arctic archaeology. Trained by or associated with the pioneers of

arctic anthropology and archaeology like Therkel Matthiassen,

Kai Birket-Smith, Helge Larsen, Henry Collins, and Diamond

Jenness, and having contributed by scientific works and training of

students to a vast expansion in knowledge, they presided over a

field that has changed dramatically in past decades. Produced in

honor of these senior archaeologists, who reached their 80th

birthdays in the mid-1990s, this set of twenty-four papers,

including an extensive introduction discussing themes and milestones, covers the history of Eastern Arctic archaeology from its

earliest years to the present. We dedicate this volume to our

recently deceased elders, William E. Taylor, Jr. (1927-1994) and

Father (Atata) Mary-Rousseliere (1913-1994), who were with us
ASC Newsletter 9

in Hanover, and to “Count” Eigil

Knuth (1903-1996), who could not

attend. Their dedication to archaeology, to their students and colleagues,

and to northern peoples have brought

past and future together. Their

passing marks a generational change

that lies at the heart of this publication enterprise.

The second volume, Gateways: Exploring the Legacy of the

Jesup North Pacific Expedition, 1897-

1902 (Igor Krupnik and William

Fitzhugh, eds.) is a long-due

product of the Jesup 2 effort

launched by the ASC in the early

1990s (see ASC Newsletters - 1993,

1994, 1997). It is an outgrowth of a

panel, Gateways to Jesup 2:

Evaluating Archival Resources of the

Jesup North Pacific Expedition, 1897-

1902, organized by volume coeditors at the 92nd Annual Meeting

of the American Anthropological Association in Washington, D.C.

in 1993. The panel and the follow-up volume was the first summary

of the new initiative we called Jesup 2 to honor the famous Jesup

Expedition North Pacific Expedition (JNPE) project that was

designed and supervised by Franz Boas. At the centennial decade of

the monumental JNPE venture a more dedicated and multifaceted

appraisal of some of the less recognized aspects of the JNPE legacy

that extend far beyond its voluminous publications and ethnographic collections of a century ago is needed. What can be said now

about Boas’ theoretical motivations in organizing the Jesup

Expedition? How this can be tested against general intellectual

discourse and the dominant anthropological paradigms of the era?

Particularly, the Boasian perspective on “culture” has sparked a

new debate and is currently the subject of extensive scholarly reevaluations. What was the subsequent impact of the JNPE

fieldwork, writings, and of its magnificent collections well after the

expedition was completed? The volume deals with these and other

aspects of the JNPE historiography, particularly with the intellectual background of the expedition, the present-day perspective on

its fieldwork and collection practices, and the assessment of its

various archival legacies. The twelve contributions that comprise the

350-page volume have been organized to emphasize this progression

of ideas.

As the first candidates for in-house production, both the

Elders and the Jesup 2 volumes underwent substantial style editing.

The common cover and volume design format for the ASC series

was developed by graphic designer Anya Vinokour. At the ASC,

Elisabeth Ward is supervising the numberless administrative and

editorial challenges that every publication venture experiences. Both

volumes will be printed by one of the Washington area small presses

in some 800 copies by late summer-early fall of 2001.

The third monograph in the Contribution to Circumpolar

Anthropology series, completely hopefully in the winter of 2002, is

most likely Prehistory of the Russian Central Arctic by Leonid P.

Khlobystin. (Vladimir Pitulko andWilliam Fitzhugh, eds.) Written

by the late Leonid Khlobystin (1931-1988), the foremost specialist

in the prehistory of arctic Russia, it was published originally in

Russian in 1998 under the title “Ancient History of Taymyr and the

Formation of the Norh Eurasian Cultures”

(St. Petersburg, Institute for the History of

Material Culture). This book presents the

results of Khlobystin’s pioneering

fieldwork in the Russian Arctic for over 25

years, from the early 1960s until 1988. It

synthesizes a vast amount of modern data

on archaeology and first human settlement

of central northern Siberia that was not

available to the majority of non-Russian

scholars.

These books will inaugurate and

define three major fields or publication

types within the new ASC Contribution to

Circumpolar Anthropology series. We have

designated them as Projects (i.e. major

interdisciplinary research initiatives),

Eastern Arctic Contributions (to maintain a

specific regional focus), and Russian

Translations. They all represent and honor

three long-standing research commitments

and major fields of the ASC activities over

the last two decades that have brought our

staff, partners, and associates from Labrador and Baffin Island to

Alaska and North Pacific, and to the Yamal Peninsula and the

Siberian High Arctic. More books are to follow within the same

basic ‘streams’; in fact, we plan to produce two or three monographs each year, to give an equal footing to each major venue of

our research.

Of course, many problems remain, particularly with regard

to marketing and distribution of the new series. We expect our

Newsletters and the Arctic Studies Center’s web site to be our major

venues for reaching out to our potential readers as well as to the

major libraries that may be interested in subscription to the whole

series. We also hope that the SI Press will give us a friendly

support in by placing our new publications on its catalog lists and,

maybe, even in managing the distribution. These ideas will all be

tested soon, as the first volume under production, Gateways:

Exploring the Legacy of the Jesup North Pacific Expedition, 1897-

1902, is about to go the printers at ths time.

The initiation of the ASC series fulfills a long-standing need

to present results of the many highly dynamic research and

outreach activities to broad academic and local northern audiences

much faster and more economically that has been possible in the

past using external presses. Profits from Vikings enabled us to begin

the series, and an endowment from the estate of our late colleague

and a long-term ASC supporter, James W. VanStone will ensure

the Contribution to Circumpolar Anthropology series fulfills its

mission. We could think of no better way to commemorate

VanStone’s lasting contribution to the field of circumpolar anthropology, his long-term collaboration with the Smithsonian and the

ASC, and a truly outstanding publication record of his own, than to

dedicate the series to his memory.

We also invite your interest in supporting the ASC program

by purchasing and helping to publicize the series, which, we hope

will become self-sustaining in the near future. Although volume

prices have not yet been established, we would like to keep them at

a very reasonable level and would be pleased to receive advance

orders for the Gateways (Jesup 2) and Honoring Our Elders

volumes. Information on these and other ASC volumes is to be

found elsewhere in this Newsletter.
ASC Newsletter 10

ARCHAEOLOGY WITH THE INNU AT

KAMISTASTIN

By Stephen Loring

At Kamistastin (Lake Mistastin on most maps), northern

Labrador, Innu children tumble off sand banks above the lakeshore

in a mock Olympics that has them doing flips and pole vaults and

running helter-skelter through the camp under only marginal

supervision, a law unto themselves. Scaffolds are hung with the

meat of caribou and the air is redolent with the smoke of spruce

wood fires and baking bannock emitted from half-a-dozen canvas

tents. The children’s laughter mingles with the sounds of wood

chopping and the distant calls of migrating geese. Old men watch the

shoreline for the movement of animals, while old women scrape the

hair off caribou hides in preparation of transforming skins into

moccasins. It is October in the barren lands of Nitassinan (northern

Labrador) and all thoughts turn to the ways of the deer. It has been

this way since the beginning of time.

Meanwhile, in the Innu communities of Sheshatshit and

Utshimassit, many young people loiter out of school and out of

work, alcohol and substance abuse is endemic, as are self-destructive

behaviors sometimes culminating in suicide and suicide attempts.

The poignancy of the plight of Labrador’s Innu communities in their

struggle to find a path that bridges their ancient trust with the land

and its resources with the contingencies of life in the modern world

has attracted international attention. The media spotlight has been a

catalyst for the emergence of a thriving health-care industry that

has, over the last decade, attempted to address this crisis confronting Innu youth. And although well-meaning, and promulgated on a

premise that inaction is inexcusable given the devastation and

despair wrought by substance abuse, the health-care professionals

and their programs are predicated on urban models that are wholly

divorced from Innu lifestyles, language and tradition.

It is at the interface of health, education and tradition that the

Tshikapisk Foundation seeks to make its mark. Tshikapisk is an

Innu educational initiative based in Sheshatshit, Labrador that has as

its mandate addressing the social problems confronting Innu youth.

Tshikapisk has long been involved with Innu country-based learning

programs including Nutshimiu Atusseun, a training program for

guides. For the last several years Tshikapisk energies have focused

on finding the resources and support to develop an Innu experiential

education facility at Kamistastin. Accompanied by families,

experienced elders and Innu teachers, young people would have the

opportunity to learn and experience traditional Innu values,

knowledge and skills, and to acquire pride in

their history and heritage. As Jean-Pierre

Ashini, one of the guiding forces behind

Tshikapisk remarked in response to the

failure of western health and education

services to address the crisis confronting the

Innu, “We have occupied the land for ten

thousand years why should we be teaching

young people to abandon it now?”

It is the goal of Tshikapisk to create at

Kamistastin a facility that would provide a

country-based option for young people. By

living and learning from Innu elders and their

families, Innu youth could acquire skills for

subsequent employment opportunities that

would be based on traditional Innu relations

to their land. Currently under consideration

are research collaborations with environmental and biological science

programs that would have as an integral component the training of

Innu students (including the Smithsonian’s archaeological survey

initiated in 1998 and discussed further below). Possibilities include

the development of experiential education programs for natives and

non-natives alike, and opportunities for eco- and cultural tourism

and sport fishing.

During the month of September 2000, Stephen Loring

returned to Kamistastin with Tshikapisk personnel Anthony

Jenkinson and Etienne Pastiwet who had arranged with

Sheshatshit and Utshimassit community leaders to bring in four

Innu families to Kamistastin. These families still retained a close

connection to the land and were interested in the Tshikapisk

initiative and the possibility of participating in programs deemed

beneficial to Innu youth. The Innu families included William and

Philomena Katchnak, Jochim and Mary-Jane Nui, Edward and

Agate Piwash and Leon Rich and his wife. It is hard to imagine

that it will ever again be possible to concentrate so much Innu

land-based knowledge and experience in one place. Tshikapisk staff,

as well as their guests, were honored to be in such distinguished

company, and honored by the support and encouragement these

Innu elders gave to the Kamistastin initiative. The elders bring a

grace to an Innu camp that is almost palpable: a combination of the

sureness of the axe stroke, the matter-of-fact way of kindling a fire,

and the keenness of vision that can see and sense the ways of

animals, the intent of the wind, and the pathways that radiate in

every direction from the camp.

Loring, working with Lynne Fitzhugh, had arranged to bring

a pair of prominent leaders in the field of expedition tourism, Peter

Voll of PVA Travel (Palo Alto, California) and Susan Connell of

SECA Travel (Ledyard, Connecticut) to visit Kamistastin in order

to assess the potential of the Tshikapisk proposal to develop a

cultural and eco-tourism component to

their Kamistastin initiative. It was

envisioned that such a program would

bring in resources and capital to help

offset the expense of other programs.

Part of the Kamistastin initiative is to

help create employment opportunities

for Innu young people who desired the

chance to live and work in the country

in order to develop and maintain core

Innu cultural values. For ten days Peter

and Susan had the unique opportunity

of experiencing the way of life of the

Mushuaunnuat–the barrenland Innu–as

they wandered about the camp, talking

with the families and playing with the

Three Inuit ‘pole vaulters’. children, sampling country foods

Lake Kamistastin in late September, 2000
ASC Newsletter 11

(caribou, char and porcupine), listening to stories and reveling in the

brilliance and glories of autumnal days and nights in the heart of

Labrador. They were able to fish for lake trout and char and travel

with Tshikapisk staff to wait at the caribou crossing place as people

have waited for more than 7000 years. With Stephen as a guide

they were able to visit some of the many archaeological sites that

had been discovered and recorded as part of a Tshikapisk sponsored

program in 1998 and 1999:

ancient tent sites with hearths

long cold, as well as the

ambush and killing places

where thousands of caribou

must have perished in past

hunts and where stone tools

still litter the ground.

Peter and Susan

provided input on expectations of cultural and

eco-tourists and made valuable

suggestions about how

Tshikapisk might be able to

utilize the Innu’s extraordinary resources - personnel, heritage, and

landscape - to develop a program that would contribute to the

support of other Innu educational initiatives at Kamistastin.

Since his previous visit in 1998 (see ASC Newsletter #7)

Stephen Loring and Tshikapisk co-founder Anthony Jenkinson have

collaborated on an archaeology and heritage awareness project at

Kamistastin that had several primary goals. First of all, as part of

the bureaucratic hurdles that precede development on Crown Land

(this despite Innu tenure of the region past and present) the

Newfoundland-Labrador government necessitates that an archaeological survey determine that no significant heritage resources would

be impacted by Tshikapisk plans to build a resource

facility-outpost camp-school at Kamistastin. Loring and Jenkinson

were able to use the necessity of such a survey to launch a

collaborative project on Innu history that provided training for Innu

interested in archaeology and cultural land management practices. It

also provided an opportunity for future guides to gather intimate

knowledge of the Kamistastin environs. A number of surprisingly

early “Maritime” Archaic sites (ca. 5500-7500 B.P.) were discovered as well as a large number of historic sites from ca. 1880-1925.

Subsequent survey work by Jenkinson and Richard Nuna during

the spring of 1999 located a score of additional sites. An assessment of these finds was included as an integral part of the 2000

fieldwork. Perhaps the most significant discovery made by the

Tshikapisk team was a pair of sites dating to the pre-Contact Innu

(the group refered to by archaeologists as “Pt. Revenge” Indians

after an archaeological site in Hamilton Inlet where traces were first

identified), a time period that has until now eluded archaeologists

working in the interior of Labrador. With this discovery the

Kamistastin area becomes the first locality in interior Labrador to

host the full sequence of historic and pre-Contact Indian cultures

from the earliest traces of Maritime Archaic hunters ca. 7300 B.P.

(and perhaps earlier), as well as “Intermediate Indian - Saunders

Phase sites, to late pre-Contact Innu ancestral sites and 19th and 20th

century camps. The future of the past at Kamistastin, as elsewhere

in Nitassinan, seems bright and the Arctic Studies Center hopes to

be able to continue to develop programs and partnerships with the

Innu. The underlying tenet of future work is that it should be

conducted in such a way as to conform to the Tshikapisk mandate

by providing information, opportunities and experiences for Innu.

MONGOLIAN ‘ARCTIC’ ADVENTURE

By Bill Fitzhugh

A group of scientists inspired by Ed Nef of Inlingua and

including Bill Fitzhugh, Steve Young and others visited extreme

northern Mongolia in June to explore the problems faced by the

reindeer herding Tsataan and some of the scientific issues of this

little known region.

Our flight took us over the Great

Wall, tracing it’s way along the

mountaintops north of Beijing.

Northward stretched the terraced fields

of China-dominated inner Mongolia, and

north of that, Mongolia Proper, begining

with the fabled Gobi Desert, the great

dinosaur research location. Today, many

Mongolians still live as nomadic

pastoralists here amidst the recently

abandoned ruins of Soviet military

camps. Two-thirds of the way into

Mongolia, one begins to see a tinge of

green, and as the desert gives way to rolling hills, a verdant steppe

dotted with white gers (dome-shaped felt tents) appears, with herds

of sheep, goats, yaks and cattle. The capitol, Ulaanbaatar, is nestled

in a little valley with a beautiful sparking river running along its

southern edge, under a hilltop monument commemorating the deeds

of Mongol and Soviet heroes.

Next we boarded a MIAT airplane to Moron, where we found

a fleet of five Russian-made Yaz jeeps and a van waiting to race off

across the steppe to the northwest. Everywhere the rolling green

hills held gers, animals, and horsemen, whose felt tunics, colorful silk

sash belts, and stylist fedora hats established a strong ethnic persona

to the landscape. We soon had to trade in the jeeps for horses, as we

set off for our final leg of the journey to meet the Tsataan.

The Tsataan have suddenly become isolated from their

relatives in Russia and are struggling to find their place in a newly

western-oriented nation whose Mongol majority are still horsemen

and pastoralists. Whether or not the small group of Tsataan can

survive is a major question. They number only a few hundred people

and reindeer and live largely outside the ethnic Mongol mainstream.

We brought with us 20 horses as gifts, which will surely assist them.

Before and after deciding to join this eclectic bunch on a

largely humanitarian mission, I’ve been asked countless times,

“What has Mongolia got to do with the Arctic?” Well, to tell the

truth, I’m not sure. But there are interesting threads to explore. The

Tsataan are a Siberian people closely related to the Russian native

Tuva people and are the southernmost reindeer-herders in the world.

This begs the question of whether Siberian reindeer-breeding began in

the Central Asian steppe and spread from there into the north.

Another intriguing circumpolar connection lies in whether or not

Mongolian groups were among the groups

who moved into the Americas. Also, did

their culture influence the North Pacific

world and early Eskimo animal-style art?

Those golden beast of ancient Central Asia

show up in Mongolia as magnificent “deer

stones,” which date to the 8th c. B.C.. It

may seem like a far cry from the Arctic, but

there is something here that needs looking

into. I’ve already begun plans for ASC

research in Mongolia in 2002.

A Tsatan family proudly shows off their reindeer.

A“deer stone”

monument.
ASC Newsletter 12

MOVABLE FEAST, VIKING STYLE

By Elisabeth Ward

After a very successful showing at NMNH, Vikings: The

North Atlantic Saga left “home” on a three-year tour. James

Rubinstein, who worked for years at SITES and NMAI, is the

able-bodied shepherd of this operation in his capacity as tour

coordinator, while Shari Stout has taken over Deborah Wood’s

job of keeping track of the objects as registrar. The first stop was

the American Museum of Natural History in New York, which had

a tremendous gala opening presided over by the King Carl Gustaf

of Sweden. Not to be outdone by Washington, New York’s

opening weekend festivities were spectacular: a Viking village had

representatives from each of the Nordic countries demonstrating

Viking handcrafts, music, and art; and a full scale replica Viking ship,

the Islendingur, arrived in New York harbor a few weeks before the

opening and docked near the museum, allowing visitors to climb on

board and be real Vikings for a few hours with Captain Gunnar

Marel Eggertsson and his crew.

But the educational programming was not the only story; the

exhibit itself also garnished attention! Here a tradition was established that has continued since: the host museum added a new

component to the exhibition. New York’s addition was a threequarter-scale model of a Viking merchant vessel called a knarr. This

impressive piece of exhibit furniture allows the visitors a close-up

experience with these magnificent ships, though unfortunately

visitors cannot go onto the ship nor look inside. David Hurst

Thomas, on-site curator, Nate Johnson, education coordinator,

Nancy Lynn, project manager, and David Harvey, Vice President of

Exhibits are all to be congratulated.

The next stop on the tour was the Denver Museum of Nature

and Science, Colorado. Befitting the western vistas, DMNS had a

huge exhibition hall with soaring ceilings that provided a remarkable

setting to the Viking exhibition. This allowed Denver ample space

to also display the ship from New York, which truly became a part

of the show here. Denver’s special addition to the exhibition was a

hands-on kid oriented room called the “Viking Village.” Staffed with

volunteers (over 300 were signed up to take turns in the Village and

in the exhibition), people could visit

Magnus’ Metals or Thora’s Threads and

learn about craft production in the Viking

Age. Many congrats to Liz Cook for

making that a success. Rebecca Smith

organized a Viking festival in May, which

headlined ship captain Gunnar Eggertsson

in from Iceland. Project manager

Marianne Reynolds and on-site curator

Ella Maria Ray were a joy to work with

for all of us at NMNH. We won’t soon

forget the special western hospitality

show to us by all the staff, including Liz

Davis, adult education programmer, who

patiently worked with Bill as he crammed

off-site meetings into his scheduled

lecture and talks. The opening in Denver

was likewise overflowing with hospitality, as the local Scandinavian American

groups joined together to make a lovely

evening for all. Denver truly put their own stamp on the show, and

rumor has it the worked paid off in extremely good attendance rates.

Next the exhibition moved to Houston, where it opened July

14th at the Houston Museum of Natural Science. Despite flooding

on the first floor of the museum a week before objects were

supposed to arrive, everything came off without a hitch. (Once

Birgitta Wallace Fedexed down a modern replacement butternut

after the archaeological specimen on loan displayed signs of

deterioration). Jim Rubinstein’s meticulous planning certainly had

something to do with it, as did the leadership of Hayden Valdes

and Rodney Gentry in Exhibits. The Houston museum’s special

addition was the creation of four new videos, three of which might

tour with the exhibition since they nicely complement and highlight

existing themes. One is on longhouse construction, which utilized

the 3D animation created by Pixelyard and Cycore for the website

(mnh.si.edu/Vikings); another explores the moment of first contact

between Native and Norse through graphics and photos of the

tantalizing clues we have; and finally and a “site report” on the

Farm Beneath the Sand. Since that site has now been washed away,

this two-minute video provides one of the only glimpses of this

remarkable northern Pompeii. But by far the biggest treat was the

opportunity to work with Dirk van Tuerenhout, curator of

anthropology, who has been enthusiastically reading up on all

things Viking to become the shows biggest advocate.

Although the exhibition has grown and changed in exciting

new ways, proud parents Bill and Elisabeth have not let it stray far

out of sight, attending all the openings and continuing to give press

interviews and lectures. Elisabeth has also visited each museum

beforehand to advise and assist as needed, thanks to a grant from

the Leifur Eiriksson Millennium Commission of Iceland,

which allows her to participate in programming planning. Having

the Viking ship Islendingur join the exhibition tour at one or more

stops as it did in New York has been a major focus of effort, but as

of yet, no sponsor has been found to make that a reality.

But the shows not over yet! Still on the horizon are Los

Angeles, Ottawa, and Minneapolis. The Minneapolis venue was

added recently when it became apparent that a Midwest venue was

an absolute must. We are thrilled that this will mean the exhibition

will be on view until May of 2003.

Plans are currently under consideration for the next stop in

this movable feast: Europe. The

Danish National Museum, especially

their indefatigable director, Steen

Hvass, has agreed to gage the interest

and possibility of extending the loans

to allow for showings in Europe,

including Copenhagen, London,

Edinburgh, Paris, Stockholm, St.

Petersburg, and perhaps even Kiev.

Bill hopes to use this as an opportunity to explore some themes not well

developed in the present exhibition,

namely the eastern expansion of the

Vikings into the Baltic, Russia, and

the Near East, by adding pieces from

Russian and Ukrainian museums. It

seems that the Norns of Viking

mythology have determined that the

Viking exhibition is fated to wander

the earth, gathering new components

as it goes. We could think of worse futures for Vikings: The North

Atlantic Saga!

E X H I B I T S

The American Museum of Natural History celebrated the

opening of Vikings with a “viking village” sponsored by

the Nordic Consulates, where kids enjoyed hands-on

activities like dressing up in Viking costume.
ASC Newsletter 13

NORTHERN ETHNOGRAPHIC

LANDSCAPES:

A management concept

becomes a new research

frontier

By Igor Krupnik

The ASC is currently in charge of

a new research and publication project

under the general title of Northern

Ethnographic Landscapes (2000-2002).

The new study addresses one of the

most poorly known and, at the same

time, one of the most exciting fields of

arctic research and cultural resource

management. The initiative was triggered

by an earlier appeal to the ASC from the

U.S. National Park Service (NPS)

Alaskan office in Anchorage, to

undertake a review of policies related to

indigenous (aboriginal) “ethnographic

landscapes” across the circumpolar zone.

The project now looks at how various northern nations (Canada,

Russia, Norway, U.S., Iceland, etc.) advance their efforts in

research, documentation, and preservation of arctic landscapes that

are of unique cultural importance to northern residents, primarily

(though not exclusively) to the local native people. This was how

the project, Northern Ethnographic Landscapes: Perspectives from

the Circumpolar Nations, was eventually born, with the support

from the NPS Alaskan office in Anchorage.

The new initiative finally took off in late 2000. It is aimed at

producing an international volume of papers under the same title

and under general editorship of Igor Krupnik and Rachel Mason,

from the NPS Anchorage office. Contributions will be received

from anthropologists, park service and heritage workers, and native

activists from several northern countries, all of whom are active in

this field.

The concept of ‘northern ethnographic landscapes’ is neither

established (nor even fully recognized) or uniformly accepted in

anthropological scholarship and/or in cultural resource management

practices. The Americans prefer to use the general term ‘ethnographic’ for landscapes and individual sites with special cultural

significance and value to local indigenous people, although

alternative terms such as spiritual lands, sacred sites, sacred

landscapes, etc. are widely in use. The Canadians call the similar

lands and sites aboriginal cultural landscapes; whereas the

Norwegians and the Russians prefer simply cultural landscapes in

their respective languages and legal documents. While almost

everyone agrees that such landscapes and sites need special

documentation and protection from respective national agencies in

charge of preservation of historical/cultural resources, the inconsistency in national and even local approaches to the issue is well

beyond similar policies related to archaeological sites, cultural

monuments or museum collections. Therefore, the northern

ethnographic landscape is indeed a frontier - in research and

management alike.

By setting the stage for and the general outline of this new

initiative, the NPS-funded project offered great flexibility in choosing

specific topics

and selecting

authors for the

forthcoming

international

volume. As

the volume’s

managing

editor, Igor

Krupnik

undertook a

challenging

task of

identifying the

volume’s

thematic

framework and

in enlisting

prospective

international

contributors.

Special trips

were made to

Russia (in October 2000), Norway (April 2001), and Canada (May

2001), to survey local grounds and to meet with key people involved

in national ethnographic landscape research and its management

network. Several of those people interviewed eventually agreed to

become volume contributors. In fact, the initiative has a surprising

magic of its own, as most of those initially approached by e-mails

and invitation letters from the Smithsonian turned into the most

enthusiastic and devoted collaborators.

A 10-day trip to Norway in April 2001 included meetings in

Oslo, Tromsø (northern Norway), and Guovdageaidnu (Kautokeino),

home of the Northern Sami Institute. Most of these talks focused

upon the role of various heritage projects and museum exhibits in

generating public awareness on the status of modern native cultures

and identities. The short trip was extremely productive in forging

relationships and future partnerships with individual Norwegian

researchers and agencies active in heritage documentation and cultural

landscape preservation. At every meeting, information was shared

about current ASC activities in the field of cultural heritage research,

and newsletters and other published materials were disseminated.

The Northern Ethnographic Landscapes volume is currently

currently being assembled. Some 20 papers from the U.S., Canadian,

Norwegian, Russian, Icelandic, Australian, and other contributors are

to be submitted during summer-fall months of 2001. These will be

organized in three thematic sections: 1. “State Policies: Perspectives

from the four Arctic Nations”; 2. “Protecting ‘The Invisible’”:

Ethnographic Landscape Stories Across the Actic Zone; and 3.

“Regional Approaches to Ehtnographic Landscape Documentation

and Protection.” Each section offers a comparative circumpolar

perspective; a more general comparative framework will be presented

in volume’s expanded Introduction and Epilogue, written by Igor

Krupnik and Susan Buggey, the author of a recent review, An

Approach to Aboriginal Cultural Landscapes, produced by Parks

Canada (1999). The NPS Alaskan office pledged to publish the 600-

page international volume in 2002. We will certainly update you in

our next newsletter!

Saami sacrificial site from the Stuovanjarga Peninsula in northern Norway;

fishermen visit the large stone before they set out for long sea trips during the

wintertime. Photo by Stine Benedicte Sveen.

R E S E A R C H
ASC Newsletter 14

INUPIAT ESKIMO WORKERS IN THE

COMMERCIAL WHALING INDUSTRY OF

NORTH ALASKA

Mark S. Cassell

In the late winter and early spring of 1892, about 80 Inupiat

Eskimos were preparing for the coming whale hunt at Point Belcher,

Alaska, about 100 miles southwest of Point Barrow on the coast of

the Chukchi Sea. It was an age-old practice; villagers in coastal

north Alaska had spent this season preparing for spring subsistence

whaling for almost a thousand years under the leadership of umialiit

(Inupiat whaling captains). The Inupiat at Point Belcher in 1892,

however, were preparing for whaling under historical circumstances

differing considerably from those of even a decade before. Like

many people in north Alaska in 1892, they were not readying for

subsistence whaling. They were preparing for the extraction of

baleen, the fibrous material draping down from the upper jaws of

the bowhead whale; baleen was an industrial raw material, used in

making buggy whips and corset stays, and profitable on the open

market in American manufacturing centers. Neither were they under

Inupiat umialiit leadership. These Inupiat were skilled laborers in

the western Arctic commercial whaling industry. They were

employees of American commercial whaler/trader John Kelly, and

worked at the shore whaling station Kelly established at Point

Belcher in the fall of 1891. And Kelly’s station was not an Eskimo

village. It was a little company town, a factory town, with storage

facilities and worker’s

housing and a main

office, laborers and

bosses, native-born

and immigrant. With

tremendous support

from many Inupiat of

the nearby village of

Wainwright and from

the Bureau of Land

Management and the

U.S. Fish and Wildlife

Service, we excavated

parts of Kelly’s station

only about 100 years

after its brief 10-month

occupation.

Charles Brower

started hiring Inupiat

for whaling in 1888 in

Barrow, and in the few

years between 1888

and the 1891 establishment of Kelly’s

station, Inupiat labor became a near universal characteristic of the

social landscape in north Alaska, and indeed all the western Arctic.

Virtually all able-bodied Inupiat men and women worked in some

capacity for the commercial whaling industry. Most worked for the

numerous commercial whaling stations set up along the coastline at

existing Inupiat villages, established initially due to the close

proximity to good subsistence whaling areas. These villages also

had potential laborers for commercial whaling.

Prior to commercial shore whaling, the Inupiat world was one

in which a very few privileged people could become umialiit by

virtue of their

special access

to requisite

material

resources. The

“commoner”

Inupiat seemed

never to be

able to attain

the respected

status of

umialik. A

person aspiring to become an umialik, to be a whaling captain and

provider to the village, could not get resources like food for use

during the whale hunt and its prior preparations, seal and walrus

skins for whaleboat coverings, and the like, without access to

wealthy extended kin networks and prime trading partners. But

established umialiit had already insured that those resources were

under their control.

With the advent of Inupiat labor in shore whaling, virtually

all Inupiat could at least gain access to such resources through their

association with the commercial whaler. The commercial whaler

became the prime trading partner for Inupiat workers, and the goods

provided were great in variety and quantity. The early 20th century

ethnographer and explorer Vilhjalmur Stefansson noted that “their

employers must not only pay them a year’s wages for six weeks’

work (the duration of the commercial whaling season), but also

furnish them

houses to

live in..., and

rations for

the entire

year.... The

employer

supplies

them with

cloth for

garments,

and such

suitable

provisions as

flour, tea,

beans, rice,

and even

condensed

milk, canned

meats and

fruit.”

Whaleboats

and harpoons,

obviously useful to Inupiat wishing to try their chances at being an

umialik, were often offered as part of the wages. The material

acquisition of the Inupiat employees was so successful that by the

beginning of the 20th century numerous new Inupiat umialiit formed

whaling crews.

The material and foodstuff remuneration for their labor in

commercial whaling provided the wherewithal for everyday Inupiat

to alter their traditional social world. The status and role of the

umialik remained strong; only the path to that status had shifted.

While not every Inupiat wanted to or did become an umialik, the

Late 19th or early 20th Century commercial shore whaling station in North Alaska. Photo

courtesy of the California Academy of Sciences.

Map showing the location of Pt. Belcher
ASC Newsletter 15

EARTHQUAKES AND ARCHAEOLOGY

By Aron L. Crowell

The southern coast of Alaska, where the Pacific Ocean floor

collides with the North American continent and slides beneath it, is

a region of active volcanoes and frequent earthquakes, occasionally

of large magnitude. The National Earthquake Hazard Reduction

Program has awarded a $15,000 research grant to Ian Hutchinson

(Simon Fraser University, British Columbia) and Aron Crowell

(Arctic Studies Center, Anchorage) for a region-wide study of how

earthquakes and tectonic movements are reflected in the archaeological record from Prince William Sound to the Alaska Peninsula.

Geological data indicate that great earthquakes (magnitude

greater than M8) occur there about every 700- 800 years, most

recently in about A.D. 500, 1170, and 1964. Rapid downward

displacement of shoreline areas occurs during these events, resulting

in the erosion and loss of many archaeological sites. Occupation

gaps in surviving sites may reflect periodic abandonment and

reoccupation in response to tectonic destruction of productive

coastal habitats. Earthquake-generated tsunamis (tidal waves) can

also wash over living settlements or archaeological sites and leave

signature deposits of sand, gravel, and marine shell.

Hutchinson’s prior work with A. D. McMillan at sites in

southern British Columbia and northern Washington state demonstrated the impacts of tectonism over the past 3000 years (“Archaeological Evidence for Village Abandonment Associated with

Late Holocene Earthquakes at the Northern Cascadia Subduction

Zone,” Quaternary Research 48:79-87, 1997). Work along Kenai

Fjords and the Alaska Peninsula by Crowell and D. H. Mann (“Sea

Level Dynamics, Glaciers, and Archaeology along the Central Gulf

of Alaska Coast,” Arctic Anthropology 33:16-37, 1997) and on

Kodiak Island by Gary Carver, Lou Gilpin, Ben Fitzhugh, and

Patrick Saltonstall (see Fitzhugh’s The Evolution of Complex

Hunter-Gatherers in the North Pacific: An Archaeological Case

Study from Kodiak Island, Ph.D. dissertation, University of

Michigan, 1996) have demonstrated the interpretive potential of

this approach for southern Alaska. The new research will catalog

and interpret existing archaeological data using a GIS database and

will establish a basis for future field studies.

access to material requirements existed in the prime trading

partnership with the American commercial whalers.

Commercial

whaler/trader

John Kelly’s

1891-1892

Point Belcher

shore whaling

station was

one such

venue of

Inupiat

material

acquisition.

While his

brief stay at

Point Belcher

resulted in an

entirely

unsuccessful

commercial

whaling

season,

Kelly’s

station was

the center of

the lucrative

regional arctic

fox fur

industry. Regardless of Kelly’s successes and failures, his Inupiat

employees from the coastal village of Point Hope to the south and

from the Noatak River valley in the north Alaskan interior materially benefited from the presence of American industrial pursuits.

Archaeological information from the site of describes the

process and results of Inupiat labor force development. Kelly’s

station contains the remains of five buildings, eight storage racks,

and 12 trash middens. The middens were excavated, yielding nearly

5500 artifacts. Data show that Kelly’s station was set up with

surveillance of his employees in mind, in the manner of many 19th

century factories: Kelly’s house was built in the middle of the

station complex, and he could see all buildings and storage racks

from there. At least three buildings were workers’ housing. It also

indicates the great quantity and variety of material and foodstuff

resources to which his employees had access through Kelly. More

than 750 glass trade beads were found, in dozens of varieties. While

the beads were not the sole item obtained by the Inupiat employees

at the station, they do represent the access to material wealth

through Kelly. Burlap bag fragments (from containers of beans and

flour) and apricot pits were abundant. The presence of 16 chert

hide scrapers (a classic material marker of traditional Inupiat

lifeways) provide evidence both of the station’s active fur trade and

of the importance of traditional Inupiat technologies.

Archaeology at Kelly’s station demonstrated that while

Inupiat Eskimos participated in commercial enterprise, they were

no less Eskimo because of it. Indeed, they were more. The Inupiat

were, in the words of anthropologist Malcolm McFee, an example

of the “150% man”, plenty competent in Euro-American worlds

while never losing sight of what constituted their indigenous society.

And they remain so: as one Inupiat said to me in 1990, “We are

Eskimos. We are hunters”.

John Kelly. Photo courtesy of the Presbyterian

Church of America

NORTHERN CROSSROADS PROJECT

By Noel Broadbent

In 2001, the Universtity of Umeå was awarded a one million

dollar grant from the Bank of Sweden in support of the “Möten I

Norr” (Northern Crossroads) research project. This archaeological

and environmental project, under the direction of Noel Broadbent,

supports 9 PhD students from Umeå, Stockholm and Lund, and a

postdoctoral researcher from Umeå, for the next two to four years.

The research will span the period from 9000 BP to historic

times. Topics include human-environment relations (Krister

Efverström, Phil Buckland, Anders Fanden), settlement,

economy and the formation of Scandinavian, Finnish and Saami

identity (Bengt-Olav Käck, David Loeffler, Elisabet Sandqvist,

Lillian Rathje), Saami religion (Birgitta Fossum) and rock art

(Britta Lindgren). We view the Nordic region as the northwest

corner of Eurasia, corresponding to Beringia in far northeast of

Eurasia, and a meeting place of European and Circumpolar cultural

and environmental forces. The integrating theoretical perspective for

the project is world-systems analysis. We hope this multi-year,

joint project will provide a model for future research intitiatives.
ASC Newsletter 16

DOCUMENTING ARCTIC CLIMATE

‘THE YUPIK WAY’

By Igor Krupnik and Henry Huntington

There is extensive interest across the scientific community in the ways indigenous Arctic residents observe and

document climate, sea-ice, and weather phenomena in their

daily life activities. There is also a growing pressure on polar

scientists to incorporate data and observations from northern

residents into models of global warming and Arctic environmental change. Gradually, these local observations and indigenous

monitoring practices are gaining broad recognition as a valuable

source of data for the studies of Arctic ecosystem fluctuations,

of factors and indicators of change in the environment, and of

responses it generates across northern communities. More efforts

are needed, however, to ensure the next transition: from recognition

to partnership built on data sharing and resource exchange.

To test such a transition in a practical way, the U.S. Marine

Mammal Commission and the Yupik communities of Savoonga and

Gambell on St. Lawrence Island, Alaska, agreed to run a pilot

project in observation of sea ice conditions off St. Lawrence Island

‘the Yupik way.’ This is a one-year effort to document Yupik

knowledge about Arctic weather and sea ice, which we named

Watching the Weather our Way. The project is an outcome of a

special workshop, Impacts of Changes in Sea Ice and Other

Environmental Parameters in the Arctic organized by Marine

Mammal Commission in Girdwood, Alaska, in February 2000 (see

ASC Newsletter 2000, pp.15-16). This project follows the

workshop’s recommendation of future efforts to assist native

people in building their own record of observation and documentation of Arctic climate and ice change.

Two workshop participants from St. Lawrence Island,

Conrad Oozeva from Gambell and George Noongwook from

Savoonga, agreed to explore the chances for local monitors recording

in Yupik sea ice and weather observation in their respective

communities. This would allow a more traditional way of ice and

weather observations and the use of all the terms, words, and

realities that are so important in Native culture. An English

translation would be produced so that more people (and younger

students, in particular) could read and use the observation record.

The ice and weather observations in Gambell were started in

December 2000 by Conrad Oozeva, with Elinor Oozeva, his wife,

assisting him in recording and English translation. Conrad, an old

whaling captain, is an acknowledged expert in Arctic sea ice and

native terminology. About 15 years ago, he prepared a list of some

90(!) Yupik terms for the various types of sea ice and ice formations, which is now included in Yupik language school curriculum on

St. Lawrence Island. In Savoonga, Chester Noongwook, another

experienced senior hunter and whaling captain, volunteered to do the

observations and to make daily documentation of ice and weather

conditions in Yupik. Christina Alowa agreed to assist in recording

Chester’s notes in Yupik and in making a parallel English translation.

The Savoonga team got started in late December 2000, and since

February 2001 it produced an almost unbroken set of daily records

in Yupik and English. The observations lasted all through the winter

and springtime, and ended in mid-June 2001, as the sea ice finally

disintegrated off St. Lawrence Island.

 Several months of observations produced dozens of pages of

records in Yupik (with English translation). These daily or weekly

entries are full of native terms, explanations of ice patterns,

references to rapid shifts in ice and weather conditions, and

sightings of

marine

mammals. The

winter of 2001

was quite

unusual on St.

Lawrence

Island and in

the northern

Bering Sea area,

in general.

Local people

have long

recorded an

increasingly

delayed fall sea ice formation, which now commonly occurs in early

December, instead of late October or November as in the ‘old days.’

This past winter was special: the sea ice was not firmly established

until late December; then it was broken up in January and early

February, so that there was open water all around St. Lawrence

Island almost in the middle of Arctic winter. Whereas the sea ice

eventually returned to stay until late spring, this was a year to

remember and to document, for the sake of local expertise and

scientific record alike.

The observation data are to be fully processed by village

teams by fall of 2001 and parallel English texts will be edited by

Henry Huntington. In October 2001, Igor Krupnik is to come to St.

Lawrence Island and to work with local team members on a full

project report. The report will include the bilingual observation

records; an expanded bilingual version of Conrad Oozeva’s Yupik

sea ice ‘dictionary’; and several earlier stories and interviews with

local elders on former knowledge of and training in the sea ice

monitoring and navigation off St. Lawrence Island. The aim is to

produce a summary of local Yupik knowledge about the sea ice, a

sort of a new “Yupik Sea Ice Sourcebook,” under the editorship of

Igor Krupnik, George Noongwook, and Henry Huntington.

This will be probably the first time that a book about St.

Lawrence Island is not only produced mainly by the islanders

themselves but will be actually assembled and prepared right on the

island, though of course the book will be printed off-site later.

Nevertheless, this is going to be a tremendous experience and a

highly emotional reward for everyone engaged in the Yupik sea ice

observation project. For observers, translators, and elders, who

shared their knowledge of ice and weather, this will be a first chance

to see how their stories and records, personal drawings and old

photographs are making their way into a bilingual book. The

volume, Watching Ice and Weather Our Way, is to stay in the

community as a Yupik curriculum and heritage material. This will be

a true monument to the Yupik legacy and to the dedicated efforts of

many island residents in sustaining their ecological expertise and

ways of observations for the next generations to come.

We believe that modern Arctic ice and climate studies are to

benefit tremendously via the contribution of properly collected local

observations, done by Native people themselves and from their

cultural perspective. As Native people are given the chance and

appropriate means to record how they observe weather and sea-ice

in their own words, a whole set of new data will be available for

thorough and comparative examination. Then, and only after this is

done, we may start thinking about how this knowledge can be

matched with the information collected by scientists and used in

scientific models, maps, and in the overall discussions of Arctic

climate and ice change in course of recent ‘global warming.’

The village of Savoonga, February 2001. One can see

darker patches of open water off the island
ASC Newsletter 17

ZHOKHOV 2000

By Bill Fitzhugh

Early in July 2000, I was sitting at my desk at 9:30 am,

noticing the steaming white haze already rising over the Mall, when

the phone rang. It was Dan Odess. I had been expecting his call for

several days. His over-due call had caused me concern because I had

had no word yet from the team that had landed on Zhokhov Island

more than a week earlier. This was not trivial business. Zhokhov is

located at 76 North at the northeastern edge of the Laptev Sea -

WAY out there, and the team was totally on its own, with no one

else within hundreds of miles, the only link to the outside being a

radio and satellite phone operating at the limits of their technology.

 “Bill, it’s Dan! We’re here, and we’re OK!” But somehow I

did not sense that everything was “OK.” Dan’s voice had a quaver,

an insistence, foreboding. Soon the story became clear. “I’ve been

up all night trying to keep the tents from blowing away in a storm.

One was destroyed. We have a couple of new inches of snow and

the wind is still blowing 30-40 knots.” I swallowed hard. A pause.

Then: “Bill,

when you come

out here be sure

to bring the

warmest clothes

you’ve got. This

is NOT Baffin

Island. This is

colder than any

place you’ve

ever worked!...”

Fade out.

Message

received. I took

Dan’s advice,

and arrived at

Zhokhov on the

26th of July, the

peak of summer,

with two huge

duffles of gear.

During the next

three weeks I

used almost every bit of it.

Zhokhov 2000 lived up to my expectations. There was a

good reason why we had not been able to get there in several

attempts in the mid-1990s. It’s WAY far north and is totally

isolated. Our helicopter flight from Tiksi required four re-fueling

stops, each one in a more ‘serious’ setting: more pack ice, less

vegetation, more wind, more far away from everything. You’re on

your own in Zhokhov.

In addition to the large Russian team, including geographers,

geologists, archaeologists, mechanics, the group included Steven

Young, botanist and Director of the Center for Northern Studies in

Walcott, Vermont; Steven Cox, from the Maine State Museum,

Peter DeRoos, investment banker, myself, and Adelaide De

Menil and Ted Carpenter (whose Rock Foundation funded the

project). We all arrived together, having met up in Moscow, and

survived the crush and surprises of Russian air travel, which this

time included an excellent in-flight meal.

After a memorable couple days in Tiksi we boarded a very

over-loaded helicopter and flew off to Zhokhov, and after a long day

of flying and refueling, we arrived at Pitul’ko’s camp, swooping in

low and blowing over the banya shack as we settled down. “What a

DESOLATE place!” was my first reaction, but within a few hours

we were nicely set up in a tent camp and were eating a fine dinner

accented with French wine. Dan and Volodya had spared nothing!

Zhokhov 2000 was not paradise, but it had all the necessary

amenities, even a two-holer! A week after we have arrived Volodya’s

team even managed to scare up a diesel oil stove for the safari tent

Steve Young and I occupied. This was especially nice when the

wind howled and ice fog crystallizing on the outside of the tent

broke loose and cascaded down, sounding like a glacier descending

on us.

The work turned out to be fascinating, as expected. Dan and

the Russians had built a dam to impound water for wet-screening,

so when the weather was above freezing (usually from 11am to

10pm) we could dig and screen the mud-muck for bones, flints, and

other goodies. This was great when there was liquid water in the

trickle-brook,

but the

problem was

that the site

consisted of a

huge mound of

frozen

deposits

resting on a 3-

4 foot high ice

lens. Nothing

melted except

the upper few

centimeters

exposed to air,

and as you

proceeded

down, you

found your

square filling

up with wood

and bones that

had assumed a

vertical

position due to frost action over the years. It was somewhat like

excavating the back of a porcupine, or searching for tiny flints and

tools in a frozen maze of ‘pick-up-sticks’ which were frozen in

place. Apparently over the millennia, water percolating down into

the deposit would freeze against the ice mass below the occupation

level, and over the years this accretion caused the site to be ‘jacked’

upward so that the crest of the mound was 3-4 meters above the

surrounding terrain.

We never did figure out the significance of the vertical wood,

whether it marked the outlines of a dwelling or was the remains of a

dwelling, but we did manage to find quite a few important artifacts,

including ground stone and ivory celts, a probable wood sled runner,

strange knobbed objects, a possible netting implement, cores,

microblades, wood food troughs, an engraved ivory gorget, and a

grass basket recovered from the permafrost. Ted Carpenter and I

spend the better part of a week chipping the basket and a wood

The Russian and American Zhokov team. L to R, Top: Sergei, Misha, Bill, Andrei Ivanov, Peter,

Adelaide,Andrei Golovnev, Ted, and Steve. Bottom: Volodya Pitulko and Daniel Odess.

F I E L D W O R K A N D C O N F ER E N C E S
ASC Newsletter 18

FIELDWORK AT ADLAVIK HARBOR

Community Archaeology on the Central

Labrador Coast, 2000 and 2001

By Stephen Loring and Leah Rosenmeier

There have been two field seasons of archaeological work at

the Adlavik Harbor site since last reported on in these pages. A

joint initiative by the Smithsonian Institution’s ASC and the

Robert S. Peabody Museum of Archaeology at Phillips Academy

in Andover, Massachusetts, in collaboration with the community

of Makkovik (including the J.C. Erhardt Memorial School, the

White Elephant Museum and the Makkovik Historical Society)

was launched during the summer of 1999. The project has sought

from its inception to be designed specifically as a community

archaeology project whose avowed goals include 1) working with

the community to develop a program on archaeology as an integral

feature of the local school curriculum; 2) to provide training and

employment opportunities for local students and young people in

the field of archaeology, 3) to work with community council

members and the local historical society to identify archaeological

and historical resources in the vicinity of the community and to

advance the archaeological training in heritage appreciation and

awareness in the community as well as explore other potential

benefits to the community including tourism that might be a

consequence of developing local archaeological resources; 4) to

create museum displays and high-school curricula incorporating

materials from the archaeological site; and 5) to foster pride in

Labrador culture and heritage.

Research at Adlavik Harbor continues to focus on the

remains of a modest Labrador Inuit winter village consisting of

three large rectangular sod-wall structures and their associated

middens. Along with the famous site

at Eskimo Island in the Narrows of

Hamilton Inlet, the Adlavik Harbor

site appears to be one of the southernmost Labrador Inuit settlements

known. Research at Adlavik is

contributing to an understanding of

18th-century Labrador Inuit culture

history. Preliminary results from our

three field-seasons indicate that the

site was occupied sometime in the

early 18th century, at a time when

Inuit groups in Labrador were

coalescing around prominent native

leaders. It was a time of tremendous

social change in Labrador as Inuit

families sought prestige and power

through their increased interaction with

Europeans. This interaction ran the

spectrum; from trading to outright

murder and warfare.

 The 2000 field season at

Adlavik Harbor continued where the

preliminary test excavations left off in

1999. The project was greatly

enhanced with the return of our

experienced field-crew from

Makkovik: Bernie Andersen, Lena

Onalik, Amalia Fox and Tracy Ann Evans. Work was concentrough from the frozen muck after an early fall storm brought a

permanent deep-freeze to Zhokhov about the 10th of August. After

that, no further digging could be done. Mother Nature had spoken!

There’s a good reason Zhokhov still exists as a frozen relic from 8000

years ago.

Other finds including important paleobotanical remains that

Dan and Steve Young excavated from a lens of perfectly preserved

organics, testament to an early flash-freeze event that has now been

radiocarbon-dated to 9-13,000 years ago, when dryas grew on

Zhokhov and the island was probably part of the Russian mainland,

not yet submerged by post-glacial sea level rise. Today, dryas grows

only as far north as the Lena Delta, 300 miles to the south. So, there

has been a significant amount of environmental cooling in this region since that

time, something in the order of 4-5 degrees

celcius.

The wonders of Zhokhov also

included a marvelous bird cliff, myriad

polar bears (some of which tested our

reindeer meat cache and posed for films at

the banya), some wonderful meals with

ice-water dripping down your neck from

the inner skin of the Weatherport tent,

scientific palaver, and music à la Golovnev

and Ivanov. Some significant new finds

advanced knowledge of this early reindeerpolar bear Mesolithic economy and kept a

legion of Russian specialists busy with

analysis during the winter months.

This summer, 2001, may prove to

be a break-through year, with excavations

in the same area of the site but much

further down. Dan Odess called in with

reports of finding more baskets, harpoons,

and new tool types this summer. While

that is good news, Dan also reports

summer 2001 seems to have been even

colder than last year! In addition,

expanded surveys of New Siberia Island

conducted in 2001 will give a planned

Zhokhov 2002 team more to do!

Excavations exposing wood and bones that have been ‘jacked’

vertically by 8000 years of constant frost action. Photo by A. DeMenil.

Excavations in progress at Adlavik Harbor.
ASC Newsletter 19

research programs.

Two Adlavik Island

veterans, Amalia

Fox and Lena

Onalik, were able

to gain employment working with

Henry Cary

(Memorial

University)

excavating at the

site of the first

building erected by Moravians missionaries in Labrador in 1752.

The building was situated in Ford’s Bight (the Moravian’s Nesbit

Harbor) the next bay to the south from the community of

Makkovik. Long known to local residents, the house foundation

had been partially disturbed in the search for purported Moravian

silver thought to have been buried nearby by the missionaries prior

to their leaving for a trip to locate and meet local Inuit groups.

Tragically the Moravian party was killed by a group of Inuit they

encountered and their building was latter sacked and destroyed.

Meanwhile, back on Adlavik Island (at the site quite possibly

occupied by the Inuit who first met the Moravian missionaries),

archaeology veterans Bernie Andersen and Tracy Ann Evans were

joined by neophytes Erin Andersen and Catherine Rice, students

from the J.C. Erhardt Memorial School in Makkovik (named after

the leader of the martyred Moravian party) and Phillips Academy

junior Jeff Wessler to continue excavations at the Labrador Inuit

winter house village at Adlavik Harbor (GgBq-1). Sarah Lansing

(Michigan State University) returned for a second field-season as

resident project naturalist and whale watcher. Alas, Sarah encountered rather dramatic proof of the cyclical nature of Labrador’s

lemming population as evidenced by their nearly complete

disappearance from the island. Anecdotal stories by our nearest

neighbors, at their summer fishing camp on an adjacent island,

confirmed our observations: whereas last year as many as 17

lemmings might be found drowned overnight in water-buckets not

one was found this year. But biodiversity’s loss was archaeology’s

gain as Sarah redirected her energies and talents to excavating one of

the kitchen areas in House-1 which was replete with a concentration

of animal refuse bone.

2001 fieldwork consisted of excavating and mapping House-1

and conducting the first test excavations of House-3, the largest

structure at the site. In House-1 a second lamp stand and cooking

alcove was uncovered indicating that apparently two allied family

groups occupied the structure. Test pits in the entranceway of

House-3, which is clearly the largest of the three houses at Adlavik,

revealed a carefully prepared floor of flagstones beneath approximately 40 cms of dark midden-like soil. As compared with

excavations conducted in the midden, relatively few artifacts were

recovered from the excavations within House-1, although the 2001

field season did produce a few surprises. Along with a large number

of iron nails, bolts and spikes, perhaps the most common artifact

recovered from the house floor were tiny blue, white and red glass

seed beads that had been lost between cracks in the flagstone floor.

The recovery of a bead is always a moment of pleasure at an

archaeological site, both because they attest to the care and skill of

the excavator in finding such diminutive things, but also because

there is something about the effrontery of such bright and colorful

reminders of long-ago days that captures the imagination and helps

to people the past.

subsistence-activities contexts. These remains are indicative of both

traditional Inuit tools and technologies, especially marine

mammalhunting with artifacts pertaining to kayak and dog-team

transport aswell as harpoon technology and domestic life represented by fragments of soapstone kettles and lamps and by

miniature artifacts thought to be children’s toys. New tool forms

(harpoons made of iron, European iron pots, glass beads) and raw

materials (lead, iron, copper and glass) were also recovered. A few

European ceramic sherds were recovered including grey stonewares

and delftware. Preliminary analysis supports the interpretation

that the site was occupied sometime between ca. AD 1700 and

1750.

The general paucity of European manufactured products at

Adlavik Harbor —with the significant exception of iron (iron nails,

spikes, bolts and scrap)— suggests that the Inuit derived the

assemblage of European objects and materials from raids or

scavenging expeditions to southern Labrador. The site location itself

implies both a need to monitor the coming and going of groups

(Inuit and Europeans alike) along the central coast and —perhaps--

fear of retaliation given its unusual defensive position hidden from

casual view. It is estimated that the site was occupied for a period of

three to five years. Interestingly, all of the artifacts suggestive of

more sustained contact and interaction with Europeans –beads,

tobacco pipes, musket balls and European ceramics– are all derived

from the upper portion of the midden. This suggests that the

occupation periods at Adlavik Harbor capture a dramatic moment in

the evolution of Native-European interaction in Labrador.

In addition to support from the Robert S. Peabody Museum

at Phillips Academy and the Arctic Studies Center, the 2001 field

season was made possible through grants from the International

Grenfell Association, through the REDAS program (Regional

Economic Development and Schools) administered by the Newfoundland and Labrador School Boards Association and Inuit

Pathways. The International Grenfell Association and the REDAS

grant included funds for student salaries as well as for developing

educational resources (including a book aimed at a High School

audience, and instructional pamphlets to aid in interpreting the site

and encouraging tourism), for curation supplies and for materials to

develop an exhibit on the archaeological work at Adlavik at the

White Elephant Museum in Makkovik. The very generous support

of Inuit Pathways was critical to the success of the 2001 fieldwork

both because it provided needed funds for student salaries, supplies

and transportation but also because it honored our vision of a

community program supported at the grass roots level. To all our

benefactors and supporters we acknowledge a tremendous debt of

gratitude and appreciation.

The 2001 field season demonstrated the success of at least

one aspect of our community archaeology program: that of

providing skilled local archaeological field-workers for subsequent

trated in House-1 with excavations continuing to expose the interior

of the structure and expand upon the test-pit in the adjacent midden.

Also joining the project for the 2000 field season was recent Phillips

Andover graduate Sarah Lansing, who is collaborating with the

Field Museum in a study of small mammal biodiversity and

distribution in Labrador.

Excavations conducted in the House-1 midden proved

extremely rewarding. In addition to excellent bone preservation

(faunal analysis is underway by Leah Rosenmeier [Robert S.

Peabody Musum of Archaeology and Brown University] and Sarah

Lansing [Michigan State University]) the midden contains a very

promising array of artifactual remains from both domestic and Two student seek Vikings in Labrador.
ASC Newsletter 20

The summer proved to be the stormiest in recent recollection.

We were delayed in getting out to the site by a barricade of pack ice

that stretched from Cape Ailik to Cape Strawberry. When we did

reach Adlavik Island, it was packed-in solid along most of the

shoreline with only a tiny northern exposure. For the first week

fields of drift ice surrounded the camp. Clouds, fog, and storms

returned driving off most of the pack ice but bringing in a few giant

icebergs down from Greenland and a host of pelagic birds, jaegers,

puffins and dovekies, not normally seen so close to shore.

One of the pleasures of community archaeology is interacting

with people who have a long and close familiarity with the region

and its history. Every year it seems that more and more people

come out for a visit to see what the archaeology project is up to and

we all feel honored to be part of the on-going stories and memories

of this place. We were also very honored to receive a visit from a

distinguished group of Newfoundland-Labrador government

officials, the very individuals that make archaeological work

possible in the province, including Martha Drake (Resource

Archaeologist, Dept. of Tourism), Elaine Anton (Curator,

Newfoundland Museum) and Heather Maclellan (Assistant

Deputy Minister of Tourism) who were accompanied by Gary

Baikie (Director of the Labrador Inuit Association’s Torngasok

Culture Centre in Nain). Among the topics discussed was the

means and strategies as to how to develop the tourism and

educational prospects of the Adlavik Island site in response to the

interest of educators and community planners in Makkovik.

Despite the formidable weather, the project was successful in

both expanding our knowledge of the social dynamics that transpired at the Adlavik Harbour site (with new insight about the

number of occupants at the site, the implications of intra-group

dynamics, and the nature of Native and European interaction in the

early-18th century) and in strengthening the interest and awareness

of archaeology in the community of Makkovik as well as elsewhere

along the central and northern coasts of Labrador.

The project remains committed to the wise and careful

exploration and development of Labrador’s Inuit heritage resources

and to making opportunities available to young people from

Labrador’s coastal communities. The future of the past in Labrador

belongs to Labradorians and the research conducted herein seeks to

develop new ways to involve students, community members and

political leadership in the production of Labrador history. As

eluded to above, we feel a great honor and trust in being able to

work with an increasingly widening circle of friends, associates,

colleagues, students and family members

who have expressed an interest in our

community archaeology initiative. In closing,

we need to extend a special thank-you to

Paul Canning at the International Grenfell

Association and Sophie Tuglavina, the

program administrator at Inuit Pathways,

for their help in arranging financial support

for the project; and to Randy Edmunds the

skipper of Jason’s Pride who never let us

down and always got us to our destination

despite the ice and the gale-force winds.

And finally, finally, none of this would be

possible without the continued help and

interest of Joan and John Andersen who

not only loaned us their son, their boat, and

their home but who have remained an

unfailing source of support and enthusiasm.

Nakummek!

ORAL HISTORY AND ARCHAEOLOGICAL

RESEARCH ON THE OUTER KENAI COAST

By Aron L. Crowell

Most visitors perceive the Pacific coast of the Kenai

Peninsula as a spectacular but empty wilderness, devoid of human

history. Glaciers rumble down steep valleys to the sea and sheer

cliffs line the long fjords. The sea teems with otters, whales, seals,

and birds but no echo of a human presence seems to linger in the

quiet coastal forests.

History, memory, and archaeology all tell a different story.

Russian, British, and Spanish vessels made contacts with resident

Alutiiq (Sugpiaq) populations along this coast during the 18th and

19th centuries, and Native hunters were recruited for the Russian

sea otter fleets. Alutiiq Elders in the Cook Inlet villages of

Nanwalek, Port Graham, and Seldovia tell stories about their

grandparents and earlier generations who migrated from Prince

William Sound and lived at Aialik Bay, Yalik, Dogfish Bay, and

other outer coast settlements. Archaeological surveys by the

Arctic Studies Center (Alaska Regional Office) and the National

Park Service in 1993 located several of these historic sites and

traced occupation of the region to much earlier times. More than

30 archaeological locales are now known, ranging in age from 100 –

1800 years old. Geological results of this project revealed the

dynamic character of the outer coast environment, where glacial

advances and great earthquakes have periodically reshaped the

landscape and disrupted human habitation.

A new ASC research program, now at the stage of planning

and preliminary field studies, will combine archaeology, oral

history, and paleoclimatic research to explore Alutiiq responses to

the Little Ice Age (A.D. 1250 – 1900). All across the Gulf of

Alaska this time period was characterized by widespread cultural

change, migrations, increased warfare, and shifts in subsistence

strategies and settlement patterns. Many of these changes may

have been related directly or indirectly to the deteriorating climate.

For example, new house forms appeared, including large, multiroomed dwellings and winter houses with cold trap entryways.

Oral histories from adjacent regions of coastal and interior Alaska

tell of advancing glaciers that overran living villages and of

migrations out of areas where glacial impacts were severe.

The Pacific coast of the Kenai Peninsula is an ideal location

to undertake interdisciplinary studies of the Little Ice Age.

Surrounding spruce

and hemlock forests

contain trees up to

500 years old whose

annular growth rings

provide a detailed

record of temperature

change. Geologists

reconstruct the timing

of glacial movements

by using dendrochronology – the

determination of

calendar dates from

growth rings – to

gauge the ages of trees

that have been

overrun by ice or that

have grown up in the

L to R: (back) Elders Luba Moonin, Feona Sawden, Natalie

Kvasnikoff, (front) Aron Crowell and Malcolm Billings of the BBC.

Photo by Gale Parsons.
ASC Newsletter 21

REPORT ON BRITISH MUSEUM’S ARCTIC

CLOTHING CONFERENCE

By Bernadette Driscoll Engelstad

In conjunction with

the exhibition, Annuraaq:

Arctic Clothing from

Igloolik, the British

Museum hosted a three-day

conference in March 2001

focusing on historical and

contemporary clothing

design across the Arctic. In

the keynote address,

Veronica Dewar, President

of Pauktuutit, the Inuit

Women’s Association

(Canada), emphasized the

intimate relationship

between Inuit society and

clothing design. In recent

years Pauktuutit has

organized workshops in

local communities and

sponsored fashion presentations in Ottawa and Toronto to develop

and promote northern clothing production. Noting the recent

interest of fashion retailers in Inuit clothing design, however, Ms.

Dewar voiced Pauktuutit’s concern over designers’ attempts to

‘appropriate’ Inuit clothing designs. Such appropriations, she

cautioned, threaten to distort the very nature of the clothing

tradition as well as undermine Inuit women’s efforts to pursue

economic opportunities in its production. Pauktuutit has participated in forums with indigenous women’s organizations throughout

the western hemisphere which focus on shared concerns dealing

with cultural production, entrepreneurial opportunities for women,

and the protection of indigenous craftwork from commercial

exploitation.

The hallmark of the British Museum conference was the

exchange among academics and Inuit, Inuvialuit, and Yup’ik

speakers from Alaska, Greenland, and the Canadian Arctic bringing

together the varied perspectives of seamstresses, curators, educators, anthropologists, art historians, and cultural advocates.

Throughout the conference speakers underscored the social

importance of clothing and vitality of clothing traditions across the

Arctic. As Jana Harcharek of Point Barrow, Alaska described the

rhythmic sound of her grandmother’s needle clicking against the

thimble, a smile of recognition passed among the Inuit women

present. For the audience the image aptly centered sewing within

the social rhythm of family and community life. Several speakers

addressed this point, linking clothing production with community

pride and personal self-esteem. Rhoda Karetak (Arviat) and

Bernadette Dean (Rankin Inlet) each spoke poignantly of the

“cultural devastation” that followed the entrenchment of western

institutions in the arctic and the consequent loss of Inuit political,

economic, and social autonomy. Both noted the positive changes

taking place in their communities as Inuit reestablish their own

political authority in the Canadian Arctic. As Bernadette Dean

stated, “With the birth of Nunavut, we are in a position to build

programs that are culturally relevant. With Nunavut we are given

new hope to develop our own cultural programs.”

Elena Charles demonstrating Yup’ik

dance regalia. B. D. Engelstad photo.

path of retreating glaciers. Archaeological sites with well-preserved

animal bone and marine shell offer a cultural and biological record of

human interaction with the changing environment. Artifacts from

the sites provide direct information on cultural change and patterns

of human adaptation.

A key feature of the project will be extensive participation

by Alutiiq residents of Nanwalek, Port Graham, and Seldovia.

Oral narratives about life on the outer coast, handed down through

several generations, will play an important role in the interpretation of historic period sites. Local knowledge about the coastal

environment and its subsistence resources will yield a better

understanding of hunting, fishing, and gathering practices in the

past. Students from the villages will participate in excavations, the

recording of oral histories, and translations between Sugcestun

(Alutiiq) and English.

Planning meetings were held in all three villages in March,

2001 with funding from the Alaska Humanities Forum. Presenters

included principal investigator Aron Crowell, linguist Jeff Leer

(Alaska Native Language Center, University of Alaska Fairbanks),

subsistence anthropologist Ron Stanek (Alaska Department of

Fish and Game), Gale Parsons (Pratt Museum, Homer), and Ida

Murdock (National Park Service). Residents as well as representatives of the village governments and corporations expressed strong

interest in joining and supporting the research effort and in

developing related educational programs and exhibits.

Preliminary field research took place July 9 – 12, when

village residents Luba Moonin, Feona Sawden, Natalie

Kvasnikoff, James Kvasnikoff, Kevin Seville, and Sperry Ash

traveled with the project organizers to visit archaeological sites in

Aialik and Harris Bays, courtesy of Kenai Fjords National Park and

its research vessel Serac. The group was joined by Malcolm

Billings and Brigid O’Hara, radio journalists with the British

Broadcast Corporation, who are producing a program about the

project for the BBC’s Heritage series. The three elderly Alutiiq

women gave on-site interviews that helped to bring the traditional

history of the area to life.

Few residents of Port Graham, Nanwalek, and Seldovia have

ever had the opportunity to visit their ancestral homelands in Kenai

Fjords National Park. The experience was memorable for everyone.

James Kvasnikoff of Nanwalek said that “From now on, this

place will be on my mind.”

Support from National Science Foundation will be sought

this winter for the Kenai Fjords Oral History and Archaeology

Project, including plans for extensive excavations during 2002-2003.

Many thanks to the National Park Service for financial and

logistical support of the field work in July, especially to park

superintendent Anne Castellina, Serac captain Ken Pendleton,

Serac first mate Elsie Dillewaard, logistical coordinator Tom

Osborne, and Native liaison Ida Murdock. Thanks also to Emily

Swenning, first chief of Nanwalek, Elenore McMullen, first chief

of Port Graham, and Crystal Collier, president of Seldovia Village

Tribe. Arrangements for the trip were organized by ASC research

assistant Jennifer McCarty, Ida Murdock, Gale Parsons of the

Pratt Museum, and Elisabeth Ward of the ASC main office in

Washington.

Those interested in research on the outer Kenai coast may

request a free copy of the monograph Archaeology and Coastal

Dynamics of Kenai Fjords National Park, Alaska by Aron L.

Crowell and Daniel H. Mann (1998, National Park Service,

Anchorage.) Please email acrowell@alaska.net or write to Arctic

Studies Center, 121 W. 7th Ave., Anchorage, AK 99501.
ASC Newsletter 22

NORTHERN RESEARCH FORUM

By Bill Fitzhugh

The Northern Research Forum held an international conference in Akureyri, Iceland entitled “North Meets North” from Nov 2

to 6th, 2000. Organized by Andrei Golovnev and Lassi Heininen

with the Stefansson Institute and supported by President

Grímsson of Iceland and the Ford Foundation, the meeting brought

together a broad range of social scientists and policy makers to

discuss problems and potentatial solutions for cultural, economic,

and political development in the North. Aron Crowell and

William Fitzhugh both attended. Aron presented “New

Dynamics of Cultural Research and Representation in

Alaska” which focused on collaborative efforts that reform

the traditional power dynamics between researchers and the

community. Bill presented a discussion of circumpolar

cultural heritage programs and their educational importance

and reviewed the impact of the Viking exhibition, which

inspired the President to make an impromptu invitation to

extend the tour of the Viking exhibition to Russia, where it

its theme of far flung travel and meeting diverse peoples

would be timely and certainly of interest. As plans for a

European tour evolve, this may yet come to fruition. But

the more immediate benefit of the Forum was the opportunity to bring together so many people with a devoted

interest in the North and to strengthen those ties. Over the

next year, the Forum will be developing programs, including

a traveling film festival and a series of conferences on

specific topics.

Panel speakers answering questions. L toR: Veronica Dewar, Rhoda Karetak,

Bernadette Dean, Jean Harcharek, Dixie Dayo, Chuna McIntyre.

In a presentation entitled, “Festive Clothing: The

Greenlandic National Costume”, Gertrud Kleinschmidt (Nuuk)

described the beaded collar as an integral component of the

Greenland woman’s dress ensemble and a source of personal pride

as well as cultural identity. Worn on public and religious occasions,

including the opening day of school, confirmations, graduations,

weddings, funerals, Christmas, Easter, and National Day, these

elaborate collars can incorporate more than 60,000 beads worked

in abstract and geometric patterns. With obvious respect, Ms.

Kleinschmidt stated, “The women I knew as a child never worked

out the pattern on paper but carried it in their heads. That is why I

think of them today as mathematical geniuses!” In an insightful

presentation entitled “How do we heal?”, Dixie Dayo discussed

the therapeutic benefits of sewing as a vehicle in a “personal

wellness journey”. In explaining her motivation in using particular

design motifs, Ms. Dayo alluded to the mnemonic structure that

often imbues northern clothing design. “This pouch was made as a

memory of my father. I designed it with a poinsettia because, with

my Dad, every day was like Christmas.” Chuna McIntyre, a

Yup’ik linguist, choreographer and performing artist, originally

from Eek, Alaska, also described design codes deriving from both

mythological sources and family ancestry implicit in the Yup’ik

clothing tradition. In describing a fancy parka made by his family

as a gift to a new sister-in-law, he noted that design elements

associated with the family were used in its decoration, welcoming

the bride into the family and serving as a visual statement of the

relationship.

The singular importance of museum collections to study

clothing traditions and inspire new research questions was

emphasized in several presentations. Using examples from

international collections, Fran Reed detailed the ingenious use of

fishskin by native seamstresses in the interior of Alaska. In

response to a question from the audience, seamstresses from the

central Arctic noted that the skin of arctic char was considered too

thin for general use as clothing material, although they also cited the

occasional use of fishskins for mittens and, historically, for kayak

jackets. With the prospect of adequate funding, Reed noted that

workshops to revitalize the declining art of fishskin preparation

and clothing production were being planned for the future.

Several presentations also focused on questions facing the

current generation who struggle with the increasing cultural duality

of northern life. Cyd Martin, for example, discussed the dilemma

facing young Inuvialuit brides in selecting a traditional Inuvialuit or

western-style wedding dress. Birgit Pauksztat described her

research with kayak clubs in southern Greenland, noting the conflict

members feel in their choice of kayak clothing, weighing the desire

for historical authenticity with the competitive edge offered by

newly developed synthetic materials.

As part of the British Museum’s educational outreach

program, several conference participants shared their experience with

area design institutions. Taqralik Partridge and Vickie Okpik

gave presentations at Chelsea Art College and the Wimbledon School

of Art in London; Glenna Maulding spoke at the University of

East London; Chuna McIntyre and Dixie Dayo presented a

workshop at the National Museums on Merseyside in Liverpool.

Many also took advantage of the opportunity to visit museum

collections of arctic clothing in Oxford, Cambridge, Aberdeen and

Edinburgh. In addition, conference participants noted the growth in

recent publications on Inuit clothing that have proved so beneficial to

northern seamstresses, curators, and educators. This collection of

research materials, historical photographs, and comparisons of

regional clothing forms across the Arctic, did not exist in publication

form even twenty years ago — and much more remains to be

written. As Taqralik Partridge of the Avataq Cultural Institute

stated, “I never go anywhere without my copy of Betty Issenman’s

book.”

The British Museum, and conference organizers,

Jonathan King and Birgit Pauksztat, are to be heartily commended for their leadership in hosting this conference. Although this

summary describes only a small selection of the many outstanding

papers presented, the anticipated publication of conference papers

will further disseminate the ideas and information that provided such

a lively exchange in London.
ASC Newsletter 23

VIKING

MILLENIUM

CONFERENCE

By Elisabeth Ward

To celebrate the

Viking Millennium in 2000,

the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador

organized a complex,

well-publicized Viking

symposium that lasted for

10 days and was staged in

six different towns including

St. John’s, St. Anthony,

L’Anse aux Clair, and

Cornerbrook. Many of the

speakers were also authors on the Viking exhibition catalogue, which

gave Bill Fitzhugh and Elisabeth Ward an opportunity to meet

some of the authors with whom there had been only e-mail

communication and to also see most of the Viking core curatorial

team again. In addition to these participants, such luminaries in the

field as Else Roesdahl and James Graham Campbell made this a

particularly intellectual diverse and interesting gathering.

 The conference began in St. John’s, Newfoundland on

September 15th with a key note address by Peter Sawyer, who had

to grab the attention of tired travelers after a wonderful meal! The

next day included talks by Patrick Wallace of the Irish National

Museum, who gave a fascinating overview of Dublin archaeology,

and by Orri Vesteinsson on the Viking settlement in Iceland; and

several talks on the settlement and disappearance of the Norse in

Greenland. Thus the stage was set for the Viking voyages westward

to Vinland.

The conference then moved to the Northern Peninsula, where

the archaeological site of L’Anse aux Meadows was the main topic.

On the way there, Bill and I stopped to check in with Perry

Colbourne on the repairs to the Pitsulak, which were coming along

very well. Benedicte Ingstad, daughter of Helge Ingstad, was a

huge draw, as was the talk by Nicolay Eckhoff who had worked

with the Ingstads on the early excavations. Because of the large

attendance to the conference, participants had to split up to hear

different sessions, as there were no venues large enough in the

Northern Peninsula area to accomodate everyone. This sometimes

led to strange situations such as a fascinating talk on pagan religious

practices by Neil Price which took place within a local Unitarian

church. But the main highlight was certainly the tour of the

archaeological site with Birgitta Linderoth Wallace, whose

intimate knowledge of the site is unsurpassed. Of course, radio

personality Magnus Magnusson’s lively evening lecture on the

sagas also was memorable!

A quick stop in Cornerbrook allowed us to see the exhibition

Full Circle: First Contact which had been organized by the

Newfoundland Museum at the same time and with many of the

same lenders and funders as our Viking exhibition. A clever use of

cases shaped like ships was used for the Viking material, while the

rich array of First Nation artifacts were given a prominent position

in the show. The ending of the exhibition also focused on the Basque

and later European settlement of Newfoundland and Labrador,

which contextualized the Viking voyages as the first in a series that

Conference participants gathered outside of one of the cozy, if untraditional,

talk locations, a church near L’Anse aux Meadows

has radically transformed

our world.

The conference

then moved across the

strait to Labrador, where

the focus was on the

native peoples. Bill

Fitzhugh gave the

opening address for this

portion of the conference, but he was only

able to catch a few of the

lectures the next day on

Native Norse contact

before heading off to

Cartwright, Labrador to

give a lecture to that

community and discuss

with them archaeological site preservation. All in all, it was a very

full and very productive 10 days!

IASSA CONFERENCE IN QUEBEC

by Bill Fitzhugh

The International Arctic Social Scientists Association held its

4th Congress over several days of meetings in Quebec May 16-20

of 2001. This group has emerged as the most important scholarly

body concerned with the broadest themes of circumpolar social

science and has good representation from all arctic countries. One of

the featured attractions were plenary lectures by Jeanne Briggs of

Memorial University, Galina Dyachkara of the Russian Institute

of Ethonology, Julie Cruishank of the University of British

Columbia, and Phyllis Morrow of the University of Alaska,

Fairbanks. This year’s meeting was hosted by Laval University and

included the now-familiar Quebec hospitality. Among other topics

presented was a series of papers on Arctic archaeology with special

attention to a new research program now beginning in Northern

Quebec on Dorset culture.

Daniel Odess and Volodya Pitulko presented papers on

research in Alaska and Zhokhov. A special hightlight of the meeting

was the presentation of two new films by Andrei Golovnev with --

for the first time-- English narration as arranged by Gail

Osherenko. Golovnev’s film Pegtymel was especially powerful,

featuring new research on the famous rock art of the Chukotka site.

The Arctic Studies Center proved to be the core contingency

at a session entitled “Museum Representation and Archives of

Northern Peoples,” focusing on its efforts to bridge scholarship

with community outreach. Aron Crowell spoke about the process

of developing the Looking Both Ways exhibition and the issues of

identity it engendered for the Alutiiq people. Bill Fitzhugh spoke

about the Viking exhibition’s focus on Native-Norse contact as a

little known chapter in North American prehistory. Igor Krupnik

presented a talk on his St. Lawrence Island Handbook, entitled,

“Opening Historic Sources to the Beringian Yupik Community,”

which discussed specific approaches and methods of ‘cultural

translation’ of archival documents to a Native community. Bill and

Aron presented an overview of the Alaska Collection Project, and

Bill used the opportunity to meet with Quebec officials regarding

new research possibilities on the Lower North Shore.
ASC Newsletter 24

C O L L E C T I O N S

KUUJJUAQ CARIBOU CONFERENCE

by Stephen Loring

Stephen Loring’s participation in the

Kamistastin project under the auspices of the

Tshikapisk Foundation led him to attend the 9th

North American Caribou Workshop that was being

held at Kuujjuaq in northern Québec on April 23-27,

2001. The theme of the workshop was an

exploration of the long-term relationship between

human beings and caribou. Loring wanted to learn

what the perceptions of wildlife biologists and

ecologists were towards using and incorporating

knowledge that northern hunters possessed about

caribou behavior and ecology. Particularly, how his

archaeological work combined with the insight of the

Innu elders working at Kamistastin, might be

constructed to provide a new awareness and

understanding of Innu land-use and hunting ethos in

northern Labrador.

The conference received substantial support

from the Makivik Corporation as well as from the

community of Kuujjuaq and the conference

organizers are to be complemented on their initiative

and vision in bringing a major scientific gathering

(with well over 225 attendees) to a small northern

community.

KUUJJUAQ COMMUNITY SCHOLARS VISIT

By Stephen Loring

While in Kuujjuaq Stephen had the opportunity of visiting

with Johnny Adams the Chairman of the Kativik Regional

Government who has had a long standing interest in the ethnological

collections that Lucien Turner made at Kuujjuaq (then called Fort

Chimo) for the Smithsonian back in 1882-1884. As it so happened

Johnny was planning to bring a group of elders down to Montreal

late in May to participate in the opening of an exhibition of art and

artifacts from Nunavik put together by Avataq, the cultural arm of

the Makivik Corporation. If it was at all possible he hoped to

extend that trip and bring the group on down to Washington. To our

surprise and delight Johnny was able to find support from Makivik

to travel to Washington early in June. Accompanying him was

Michael Gordon, the Mayor of Kuujjuaq and four distinguished

elders from Kuujjuaq: Johnny Watt, Tommy Saunders, Lizzie

Gordon and Joanna Koneak. Together we spent three days going

over, piece-by-piece, the Inuit material that Turner had collected:

hunting tools and clothing, soapstone kettles and lamps, games,

toys, model kayaks, shamanistic paraphernalia, even a full-size

fiddle hand-made out of drift wood! With few exceptions the elders

were able to identify all of the objects and remembered stories and

songs that hadn’t been sung since childhood. A video record was

made of the discussions that accompanied each object along with

notes and photographs. The excitement everyone felt is some

indication of the importance of the collection for the Inuit of

Nunavik. The visitors hoped that a way might be found to bring a

portion of the collection back north, so that many more descendants

of the people who made the objects that Lucien Turner purchased

might have an opportunity to see and learn from the old things.

The Arctic Studies Center and Makivik Corporation have

enjoyed a close relationship ever since Zebedee Nungak, the

former president of Makivik, visited the museum in 1998. Zebedee

was instrumental in acquiring Makivik funds to help offset a reissue

of Lucien Turner’s classic

monograph on his fieldwork in

Northern Quebec and Labrador.

Turner’s Ethnology of the

Ungava District, Hudson Bay

Territory was originally

published in 1894 as part of the

11th Annual Report of the

Smithsonian Institution’s

Bureau of Ethnology and will

be republished this fall (with a

new forward by Stephen Loring

and with Turner’s previously

unpublished photographs) by

the Smithsonian Institution

Press in their “Classics of

Smithsonian Anthropology”

series. Hopefully this marks

the beginning of a close working

relationship that will lead to the

loan and exhibition of a portion

of the Turner collection to

Nunavik (Arctic Quebec) and

adjacent Labrador.

Joanna Koneak and Lizzie Gordon look on as

Johnny Adams examines a caribou-skin amauti

Turner collected in Kuujjuaq in 1882-1884.

WORLD ARCHAEOLOGY

CONFERENCE COMES

TO WASHINGTON

by Stephen Loring

The Smithsonian Institution’s

National Museum of Natural History

and the National Museum of the

American Indian have joined as partners

with the Fifth World Archaeological Congress, to be held in

Washington, D.C. in late June, 2003. The World Archaeological

Congress is the only representative world-wide organization of

practicing archaeologists, and whose stated mission includes

increasing international dialog and promoting archaeology that is

concerned with under-represented minorities, communities and

nations. WAC is based on the need to recognize the historical and

social role, and the political context, of archaeology, and the need to

make archaeological studies relevant to the wider community. At

this time when the Taliban is systematically eradicating prehistoric

Buddhist treasures, WAC’s mission is particularly relevant: “to

debate and refute institutionalized views that serve the entrenched

interests of the powerful, to the detriment of diversity and

disenfranchised minorities.”

The 2003 meeting is the first time a WAC congress has been

held in North America, and the Arctic Studies Program has taken a

lead in developing programs for WAC-5, within the Smithsonian

partnership. Joan Gero of American University is the conference

organizer. Readers might want to log on to the WAC-5 web site at:

http://www.american.edu/wac5, for information on meeting plans,

emerging themes for sessions, and a place to indicate interest in

receiving updates about WAC-5 developments over the next two

years. Circle the dates June 21-26, 2003 on your calendars.
ASC Newsletter 25

MEASURING METAL: EVIDENCE OF

THULE METAL USE IN THE

SMITHSONIAN’S ARCTIC COLLECTIONS

by Lynda Gullason, Postdoctoral Fellow

This past year I bypassed one of Eastern Canada’s more

interminable winters by relocating to the very equable climate of

Washington, D.C. to study ethnographic and archaeological

collections at the Arctic Studies Center, NMNH. (It was with

some amazement that I watched D.C. televised broadcasts

detailing local school closures and traffic pileups due to

snowfalls that surely didn’t exceed 2 cm, judging from the

exposed grass visible!)

My research objective at the ASC was to expand upon

earlier work I had conducted on Thule Inuit metal use prior to

and during early European contact in the Eastern Canadian

Arctic. During the previous year, I received postdoctoral

support from Université Laval (archaeometry research group)

that enabled me to develop the research project. The

Smithsonian represents the first of three planned visits at

research institutions to undertake the analysis.

One of the problems with

researching this early period is

the slight material evidence,

particularly of metal tool blades

(knives, harpoons, etc.) that

seldom survive in archaeological

sites. Yet metal, in the form of

iron extracted from meteors and

native copper ore, was widely

used throughout the Arctic by

pre-contact Aboriginal

populations. The relative

importance of this material

before and after European

contact is one of the key issues to resolve in arctic archaeology.

The best source of evidence for metal blades comes indirectly

from the width of the blade slot in the surviving tool handles,

usually made of bone, ivory, antler or wood. These slots are

characteristically thinner than those that held stone blades. In

addition, my previous research suggested that it is possible to

differentiate between copper and iron use by blade slot width. I

wondered, as well, whether it was possible to distinguish Thule use

of native copper from smelted copper and meteoritic iron from

wrought iron, in the absence of direct evidence in the form of the

blades themselves.

I had the following questions in mind: 1. does the earliest

European contact mark the onset of major transformation to Thule

Inuit culture, in the form of a substantial increase in metal use? 2.

can copper, iron and slate use be identified by blade slot width? and

3. did Thule use of native copper and meteoritic iron differ from

Thule use of their European counterparts? I examined bladed tools

from collections that cover a range of prehistoric and historic Inuit

contexts in the North American Arctic. The original objective to

study four collections at the Smithsonian was significantly

exceeded. In total, thirteen collections were analyzed, totaling over

2200 specimens.

The NMNH contains the best-documented materials from

the Western Arctic, including the Collins, Moore and Nelson

material from St. Lawrence Island, the Collins collection from Prince

A sample of the artifacts Lynda Gullason measured during her

fellowship, from the collection of Edward Nelson, including ulus,

harpoons, and knives.

of Wales, the Murdoch-Ray

collection from Pont Barrow, and

the Nelson collection from Bering

Strait, as well as the MacFarlane,

Dutilly and Kumlien collections

from the Central Arctic, the Lucien

Turner collection from northern

Quebec and Charles Francis Hall’s

collection from Baffin Island. The

Alaskan collections are of interest

because they contain early material

representing prehistoric Siberian

metal exchange as well as evidence

that widespread use of ground slate blades continued well into the

early 20th century, due to the prohibition against metal use for sea

mammal hunting. Several specimens represent intact composite

items. These collections will provide important comparative

material for subsequent analyses of fragmentary archaeological

collections and will ultimately contribute to our understanding of

the nature of Inuit metal use and of Inuit-European interaction.

During my sojourn at the Museum Support Center (MSC),

where most of the Arctic collections are located, Felicia Pickering

provided an excellent tour of the facility, succinct, yet

comprehensive. Johanna Humphries was always helpful in

printing computer catalogues and in suggesting yet more collections

of interest (really, Johanna, that was a good thing!). (Note to future

researchers, make contact with this essential services personnel well

before your anticipated arrival to obtain artifact catalogue printouts.

It is difficult to study the collections otherwise and Johanna is the

only staff member I found who could access the artifact database.

The MSC is only open to researchers from 9 am to 5 pm, Tuesdays

to Fridays so plan your research schedule accordingly). For my

final two weeks I was very fortunate to have the good company of

Kareen Morrison and Kathleen Dougherty, graduate student

interns, to assist me. (They said that the work was a welcome

break from sorting nails, is that possible . . .?). Finally, it was nice

to see old friends, Dan Odess and Bill Fitzhugh again and to finally

meet Elisabeth Ward, ‘in the flesh’.
ASC Newsletter 26

REVEALING VISIT BY INNU SCHOLAR

By Stephen Loring

Last fall, between the 20th of November and the 8th of

December, Stephen Loring and Joan Gero were host to Richard

Nuna, an Innu recipient of a Smithsonian Institution Community

Scholar Award. Richard, from Sheshatshiu, Labrador, who had

previously worked

with Stephen on the

Pathways Project in

1993 (see ASC

Newsletter #3), an

Innu community

archaeology project

sponsored by the Innu

Resource Center and

the Innu Nation.

Subsequently Richard

had participated in

several other archaeological projects and

had emerged as a key

player in the

Tshikapisk

Foundation’s

Kamistastin initiative.

As a hunter Richard

spends as much time

as possible in the

country where, with

his increased awareness and sensitivity to archaeological and historical traces, he has

recognized many previously unreported sites.

In November 1999 Richard Nuna and Stephen Loring were

co-presenters at the Chacmool Conference on Indigenous Archaeology in Calgary where Richard spoke about the changing perceptions

of archaeology in Innu communities. As a young hunter, educator

and aspiring artist Richard desired to learn more about the history

and material culture of the Innu which led him to seek a Community

Scholar Award to come to Washington. He wrote, “I want to learn

more about how the artifacts that we have uncovered relate to what

is known by archaeologists and how my ancestors lived so that I

can help pass on my own knowledge and enthusiasm about

archaeology and Innu history to the youth I work with in the

community. I want every young Innu person to grow up with a

sense of pride about who they are and where they came from.”

During his visit Richard was able to closely examine the

Lucien Turner collection of Innu tools, clothing and artifacts

collected at Kuujjuaq in northern Quebec in 1882-1884 and work

with the Smithsonian’s outstanding photography collection

pertaining to the Innu. Lou Stancari, the Photo Archive Specialist

at the National Museum of the American Indian, opened up their

archive of Innu photographs, mostly pictures taken by Frank Speck

at Sept Iles in the early 1920’s, which proved to contain portraits of

Richard’s own family ancestors as well as those of many of the

families in Sheshatshiu today. Armed with copies of these images

Richard hopes to both be able to provide community members with

a tangible result of his visit to Washington –a sort of visual

repatriation– as well as get community elders and family members

to identify many of the nameless people featured in the photographs for the NMAI records.

THE LABRADOR FILES

By Rebecca Boone

I came to the Arctic Studies center under the recommendation

of Joan Cameron who works for Stephen Loring at MSC. Joan

and I volunteer together at the Smithsonian Naturalist Center in

Leesburg, VA, so when Stephen asked her for someone to help out

with archaeology, she thought of me! At the Arctic Studies Center, I

am continuing the project of returning artifacts excavated by Bill

Fitzhugh in Labrador to the Newfoundland Museum. I learned a

lot about these artifacts, their uses and histories, from consulting

files, field notes, and listening to Bill and Stephen.

The Labrador sites at the Arctic Studies Center are all

registered according to Canada’s Borden System of site registration:

four letters indicate longitude and latitude and two numbers to

indicate the order in which the site was found.

I had an opportunity to appreciate the Borden System when

Elaine Anton at the Newfoundland Museum sent a list of Labrador

collections stored in the Arctic Studies Center. Based on her 1998

inventory, the list was 34 pages long and sorted by Borden number.

This means that the sites were sorted according to their geographical

position on the Labrador coast from south to north. However, our

artifacts were stored by site name and roughly by date, so I needed

to cross-reference our information with Elaine’s list. This was a

two-week task which involved opening drawers, looking at each

collection, finding the Borden number, and indicating where the

collection was stored next to each site on Elaine’s list. A number of

collections had been returned since the inventory and I needed to

check the documentation of the collection’s return.

My task became more enjoyable as I familiarized myself with

the interesting site names from which the artifacts were excavated,

such as Bear’s Gut, Dog Bight and Windy Tickle. Each place name

had it’s own story. Serpent Cove, for instance, was named after the

snake-like appearance of some

plastic debris that had washed

up on shore. Another site,

Radio Shack, was named after

a historic radio building, not

the chain of stores.

Most of my work

involved packing up artifacts

for return to Newfoundland

and creating inventory lists

for the shipment. Before

shipping the artifacts, I

arranged to have certain

collections photographed for

our files and for future

publication. The Smithsonian

photographers made

interesting observations about

the artifacts; for example,

they noticed that a looping

hand-painted design on a

historic sugar bowl had a three

dimensional effect, a novel and intriquing idea.

From December 2000 to June 2001, I returned to more than

2,500 artifacts from 130 sites. Elaine informed me that students

from Memorial University are already working on the returned

collections, so the task has been worthwhile. I hope to continue

with this work in the fall.

19th century ceramics from the

Penny Hook Cove site.

Richard Nuna holds George Catlin’s 19th

century painted caribou Innu robe.
ASC Newsletter 27

BERINGIA YUPIK “KNOWLEDGE

REPATRIATION” PROJECT COMPLETED

Some Team Members’ Reflections

By Igor Krupnik

The three-year Beringia (Siberian-St. Lawrence Island) Yupik

Heritage Project in cooperation with the communities of Gambell

and Savoonga on St. Lawrence Island was successfully completed

earlier this year. The project

produced two major volumes,

Akuzilleput Igaqullghet. Our Words

Put to Paper (2000) and Let Our

Elders Speak. Oral Stories of the

Siberian Yupik Eskimo, 1975-1987

(in Russian, 2001) as several other

products. This pioneer cooperative

venture, under a two-year NSF grant,

opened up a whole new field of

research and outreach that we call

“knowledge repatriation.” The

original core team included Igor

Krupnik (project leader); Willis

Walunga, a respected elder and a

local historian from Gambell; Vera

Metcalf, heritage coordinator at the

Bering Straits Foundation in Nome,

formerly from Savoonga; and

Lyudmila Ainana, Siberian Yupik

educator from Provideniia, Russia

(ASC Newsletter 1999, 7). Several

more people joined our team at later

stages, including Lars Krutak from

the NMAI, Sara Ganiere and Anya

Vinokour (as volume designers),

Chris Koonooka of Gambell (now

at the UAF), and others. The

project was motivated by our shared belief that local residents of

the North, particularly people from the distant rural communities,

should have free access to the existing documentary resources

related to their culture and history. Special means and venues are to

be developed to open these resources and to make them available for

community needs, for educational, language, and for family

genealogical programs. Written knowledge once collected for

scientific, administrative or other purposes and stored in large

archives, university libraries, and in field notes of individual

researchers, should be converted back into a community resource

and shared with native residents for their contemporary use.

In trying to make the old documentary records accessible to

the Yupik communities of St. Lawrence Island and Chukotka

Peninsula we expand the term “cultural repatriation” well beyond

its present-day meaning. Whereas repatriation is now commonly

seen as a one-way return of skeletal remains or patrimonial and

ritual objects from big museums to native communities, “knowledge

repatriation” is more about sharing rather than simply giving back.

For native knowledge experts, and particularly for elders, it is hard

to view knowledge about their history and tradition as a collectable

commodity, as something that can be ‘taken’, ‘stored’ or legally

‘returned.’ The very purpose of historical knowledge is that it is to

be shared; it is about teaching and learning, listening, and dialogue. In

native and academic communities alike, knowledge is transmitted

and enhanced through re-telling, that is, through passing to other

people. Under this perspective, native communities, archival

workers, and anthropologists can find a new type of understanding

and forge new partnerships through sharing their resources to

benefit all involved.

There was neither a blueprint nor an earlier model available to

guide us through our effort in “knowledge repatriation.” In fact, we

regard ourselves as pioneers and, hence,

several steps in our project were

initiated by experimentation. The project

brought us through several consecutive

stages of collecting, selection, and

“cultural translation” of the old

documentary materials, and of matching

historical records with the living

memories of today’s elders.

Our first task was to identify the

key historical records related to the

Yupik people of St. Lawrence Island and

Chukotka and to persuade their keepers

to open these files for sharing copies of

historical documents with the native

communities. All major keepers of the

documentary records, such as the

Archives and Library of the University

of Alaska in Fairbanks, the National

Anthropological Archives at the

Smithsonian Institution in Washington,

D.C., the National Archives-Pacific

Alaska Region in Anchorage, and others

offered their full cooperation. Most of

the big archives and libraries are now

very user-friendly in terms of their

access and copying policies, and their

staff people were supportive, when

being told that the documents are being copied for sharing and use in

native heritage programs in distant communities in rural Alaska.

In the course of our surveys, the project team secured copies

of historical censuses of Gambell and Savoonga, starting with the

12th Census of the U.S. of 1900 that offers the earliest list of some

300 St. Lawrence Island residents with their personal names. Other

censuses and village lists collected include those of 1910, 1920,

1930, 1938, 1940, 1958, 1966, and 1979. The earliest documentary

records for a Siberian Yupik community that have personal names

are the list family heads in the village of Ungaziq (Indian Point) by

Waldemar Bogoras in 1901 and a parish roster by a Russian

Orthodox missionary in Provideniya Bay in 1910.

However, most of the early historical records are very

difficult to work with without previous training. Copies on

microfilms are often illegible or hardly readable; names were

commonly misspelled and nicknames were often used instead of

Yupik names. Clan affiliation was never recorded and tribal

identification is often misleading. For these and other reasons all

copies of old censuses had to be enhanced, then fully retyped, and

sent back to St. Lawrence Island, where they underwent extensive

cultural ‘verification.’ Willis Walunga checked name and place-name

spelling, and every person listed in the old censuses has been

P U B L I C A T I O N S A N D F I L M S
ASC Newsletter 28

identified by his or

her individual Yupik

name as well as by

their clan and lineage

affiliation. The names

of all island residents

mentioned in

historical records are

also downloaded into

a special computer

database. It now

includes some 1,500

individual name

entries to constitute,

seemingly, the most

complete record of

the historical

residents of St.

Lawrence Island ever

collected. A similar

historical name database has been created for the Yupik people of

Chukotka. It has some 1,400 name-entries of people born roughly

between the years 1850 and 1940, and people listed in historical

records and extensive genealogies collected by Michael Chlenov and

myself during the 1970s and 1980s.

Processing of the old documentary records offered compelling

evidence of the ‘new’ knowledge being generated. This is where we

believe a new process should be introduced – namely that of cultural

translation. Such a procedure includes a careful reading and a

checking of the old records by local knowledge experts, primarily

elders. The names of individuals and place names have to be

identified, so that correct Yupik spellings can be inserted to the old

records. Stories of early visitors need to be checked for their

accordance with the local tradition, and many practices and

statements from the old days look insensitive to today’s readers,

and could be adjusted to accommodate. Some other early records

may even undergo a certain re-telling or even ‘re-recording,’ in order

to be understandable to modern people. An illustration is the

earliest known documentation of St. Lawrence Island Yupik songs,

recorded by Waldemar Bogoras in 1901, during the Jesup North

Pacific Expedition. Of course, the people of St. Lawrence Island

have never seen the Bogoras’ volume that includes transliteration of

several Yupik songs recorded on wax-cylinders. But they can barely

read Bogoras’ transliteration, as it is so different from the Yupik

written standard of today. Under the project, Willis Walunga and

Chris Koonooka of Gambell undertook a courageous effort in rerecording Bogoras’ 100 year-old transliterations, so that those can

be understandable to modern people of St. Lawrence Island.

Last but not least, every old historical document stimulates

human memory and often triggers more stories by elders. Names

and events are recalled and recollected, and when images or faces on

old photographs are identified, more personal stories usually follow.

These invaluable new comments were also recorded during our

sessions and they were put together with the old documents to

which they referred. As the process went on, elders became readers

and commentators, and even co-writers. This is indeed the most

productive form of sharing and exchange, when knowledge once

collected produces more knowledge of today to be documented and

put to people’s behalf as heritage and educational resources.These

critical steps in the knowledge repatriation process are well reflected

in the organizational structure of our major product - a 464-page

volume, Akuzilleput Igaqullghet. Our Words Put to Paper.

Sourcebook in St. Lawrence Island Heritage and History. 2000 (Igor

Krupnik and Lars Krutak, compilers; Igor Krupnik, Willis Walunga,

and Vera Metcalf, editors). The volume designed by Anya Vinokour

and Sarah Ganiere is illustrated by more than 100 historical

photographs; as of this time, several dozen copies have been

economically printed. The story of the project as well as our major

reflections and methodological comments are presented in the

volume introduction and chapter introductory pieces. The first two

sections of the Sourcebook, “Part One: Our Faces and Names

Captured in Records” and “Part Two: Yupik People Speak for

Themselves” are mostly about collection. They offer access to

written sources and recorded stories of the Yupik people that were

locked away for decades in archival files. The following two

sections, “Our ‘Old Day’ Stories Documented and How Other

People Saw Us From the Outside” are more about cultural translation of the records left by early outsiders for today’s readers. The

last section, “Old Papers, Today’s Elders” illuminates the process of

matching written records and the memories of today’s elders. It

documents new stories and comments generated by elders when

reviewing the old documents, photographs, census lists, and reports.

 The project is now almost over, with the SLI Sourcebook

volume submitted for publication to the University of Alaska Press.

Several dozen laser-printed copies have been distributed on St.

Lawrence Island, in Nome, and are donated to the various educational and research agencies in Alaska and elsewhere. A second 540-

page Russian-language volume, Let our Elders Speak: Oral Stories of

the Siberian Yupik Eskimo, based upon local historical documents

and Igor Krupnik’s Siberian field records of the 1970s, was published in Russia in June 2001. Some 350 copies of this Russian print

are to be delivered to Chukotka for free distribution in local libraries,

schools, native agencies as well as among the Yupik families in the

towns of Provideniya, Anadyr, Lavrentiya, and in the villages of

Sireniki, New Chaplino, and Uellkal. Copies of all documentary

materials collected through the project have been also deposited at

the Eskimo Heritage Project Office of the Kawerak Inc. in Nome.

Framed copies of Moore’s photographs of 1912 now adorn the walls

of several Yupik houses in Gambell and Savoonga, and software for

easy printing is installed on computers at local schools, village

council offices, and native corporations.

The project has been also presented and discussed many

times at local public meetings, community sessions, scientific

conferences, and high-school classes in Nome, Gambell, Savoonga,

Anchorage, and also in Canada and Siberia. We have already heard

stories of parents on St. Lawrence Island reading the Sourcebook to

their children, and of people debating the content of documentary

records at family gatherings. A recent ‘thank-you’ letter from the

Alaska State Library in Juneau offers a widely shared evaluation:

“What a beautiful publication! Obviously a lot of work and care

went into it. You and your team are definitely to be commended.”

We hope that eventually the communities of Nome, Gambell

and Savoonga will generate sufficient funding that will allow

provision of a free copy of the Sourcebook volume to every

interested family on St. Lawrence Island and to many relatives living

elsewhere. With this and other similar presentations on the project

already delivered or put ‘to paper’, the saga of our knowledge

repatriation effort gradually acquires the new life of its own, well

beyond the St. Lawrence Island-Chukotka story. Discussions are

currently underway on whether other native Alaskan groups might

follow the people of St. Lawrence Island in launching similar local

projects in “knowledge repatriation.”

The Russian counterpart of the SLI

Sourcebook
ASC Newsletter 29

amount of information has been gathered and safely stored away,

but also we’ve come to believe others are the caretakers of our

inheritance, of our past.

The collections of artifacts, images, and documents that

represents our past, which were excavated, recorded or bought

through the years, have been separated from us, and not just

physically but also spiritually. These items have lost most of their

cultural significance; instead, they are often only cherished for their

cash value. Once removed, catalogued, and stored for all these years,

their context and meaning has become vague to us, often unimportant and even lost to our younger people.

The difference with this project is how easily it connects

with people, and not only with those of St. Lawrence Island

heritage. It reminds us that those museum collections and old

documents that are stored far away from our land are interesting to

others, but they are of vital importance to us. Their message goes

well beyond revealing history of a unique place and time. To the

descendants, it can help to begin bringing the importance and value

of lost heritage back. The photographs, forefathers’ stories, and

historical documents are not enigmatic artifacts or speculation about

the past. They are of real individuals, about living in a much

different time; and inevitably, we realize that they are not unlike us.

These old interviews may seem simple, sometimes child-like,

and some portraits show confused and scared faces; but the

conversations reveal a firmness of thought. The ancestors’ stories

remind of our responsibility, as the inherent strength of steadfast

belief and reliance on common cultural values is evident throughout

this book, and most photographs show calm dignity or even defiant

confidence. That is why this collection is a cultural treasure.

 This book represents not only the return of our ancestors’

stories, faces, and life details to us. It also returns our responsibility

as guardians of our past and its lessons back to us. Dr. Igor

Krupnik and Willis Walunga worked with many of us to review,

translate, and make decisions on this collection — this is ours,

above anyone else’s. What we now do with it is the next question.

The reminder of our responsibilities is more important than ever

with the continuing changes occurring in the communities. Perhaps

this volume, Akuzilleput Igaqullghet, will bring past lessons and our

true heritage to life as we read stories or look at an ancestor’s

photograph together with our family. A hope is that the SLI

sourcebook, as a cultural treasure, will help encourage others to take

an active role in managing all the cultural resources of St. Lawrence

Island. As we discover, explore, and begin to find the true value of

all our cultural resources, we will undoubtedly benefit greatly.

AKUZILLEPUT IGAQULLGHET:

A Participant’s Postscript

By Vera K. Metcalf

On my first visit to the Smithsonian Institution in 1994, I

was immediately overwhelmed. There was so much stored there and

so much kept from us. The collections from St. Lawrence Island

filled long rows of storage cabinets containing artifacts recovered

from archaeological excavations, old photographs, early carvings,

pages of stories, and the remains of our ancestors. Although the

Smithsonian is one of the largest and most prominent examples,

there are many other museums and private collections around the

world that have our cultural inheritance.

Returning our ancestral remains under NAGPRA and

NMAI has primarily been the sole repatriation effort in the Bering

Strait region. Many have recognized the need to bring those who

represent our living heritage, our ancestors, home. For some

communities, including ours, these remains are of those who

perished in the devastating diseases of contact in the late 1800’s and

early 1900’s. These people didn’t live in some ‘dark past.’ The

repatriation of these ancestors was a humane, caring act, and one

that carries much emotional cost. Perhaps too much, because these

actions haven’t inspired a dedicated, continuous effort at additional

repatriations or at long-term cultural heritage management.

Since Edward W. Nelson disturbed the tragic, solitude of

our abandoned villages in 1881, many have come to St. Lawrence

Island to excavate, inspect, interview and record our history, culture,

our grandparents and families — us. We know many of their names,

like Collins, Geist, Rainey, Bandi, and others. Each had their own

interests and reasons for coming. Some were learned, honest

scientists seeking to gain knowledge of the past and our place in

mankind’s existence, while others revealed themselves as seekers of

fortune and fame. The result of this period is bittersweet. A large

Residents of St. Lawrence Island poring over the Sourcebook

To all of us, the journey of the Beringia Yupik Heritage

project was highly rewarding. At every stage, it championed efforts

in sharing, collective authorship, and community focus. It has

already made a significant impact on local views about the role of

social research and on the relationships between native communities

and scientific institutions, such as the Smithsonian. This process

can be a powerful venue in forging new partnerships between native

residents and scholars across the Arctic and in building a new, more

open and community-friendly, image of Arctic social science.

Savoogna elders and IRA council members review the project

materials
ASC Newsletter 30

THE JOURNEY HAS JUST BEGUN

Thoughts on Spirit Wind

By Catherine Martin

The 2001

Andres Slapinsh

Arctic Film Maker

Award went this

year to Catherine

Martin for her film

Spirit Wind. This

one hour documentary records the

efforts of the Tom’s

River Micmaq, led

by Chief Misel Joe,

to build a traditional birch bark

canoe, and sail it to

the annual

gathering of the

Micmaq Nation.

On June 4,

2001, I and Saqamaw Chief Misel Joe of

Miawpukek First Nation, Newfoundland, Canada

were warmly welcomed by the staff of the

Smithsonian Institution. I believe that the red carpet

was rolled out for us, so to speak, and for the

premiere showing of Spirit Wind at Baird Auditorium,

National Museum of Natural History. It was truly an

honour to be invited to receive the Andres Slapinsh

Award for Best Northern Native Filmmaker this year.

 It was equally an honour to meet one of

Andres’s colleagues and friends, Bill Fitzhugh. This

meeting personalized this award even more, and

brought the experience full-circle. I had recieved

another Andres Slapinsh award in 1995 for my film,

Mi’kmaq Family, a documentary which was screened

at the 9th Annual Parnu Visual Anthropological Film and Video

Festival, in Estonia. There, I met Slapinsh’s widow, two children

and long time editor, who had chosen me for this award and were

there to presented it to me as well. I had the opportunity to spend a

week with them and was able to learn more about this courageous

artist, Slapinsh. It is an honour for me to receive this award, in his

memory, a second time, now on the other side of the ocean in

Washington. It tells me that there is a message to be found here.

Being a documentary filmmaker is very difficult work, and

unlike Hollywood movies, it is usually not financially rewarding.

However, the reason that I continue to do this type of work is

because of where I come from, the Mi’kmaq Nation in Canada. I

know that there have been so many, many untruths and half-truths

from those who have written about, recorded stories from and

filmed our people over the years. As a child, so much negative

information was taught to me in school by teachers whom I trusted

to teach me the truth about history. I did not want this to be

repeated to my own children. I want them to be proud of their

ancestors, their history and know who they are: Mi’kmaq First

Nations children. Filmmaking gave me a tool to be able to do this

for future generations. It is a long, tedious process to make a

documentary well. It requires a lot of sacrifice and time away from

your family. To make this film, I spent three summers becoming a

part of the crew of Spirit Wind, filming their struggles and sharing in

their defeats and joys. But the sacrifices and courage was morth

than worth it. Now I am able to relate

stories that were lacking in my childhood of

our bravery and stuggles to my children and

great great grandchildren, through film and

video.

I am sure that Andres Slapinsh

thought a lot about the risks involved and

the sacrifices he was making as he ventured

off to shoot another film. I am sure he

would rather be here today, physically, to

enjoy his family and watch his children

grow. He made a choice to document

history in the making and he ended up giving

up his life for his cause: his commitment and

belief in the need to tell the truth through

film. His choice cost him his life and I

believe after speaking to so many people

that knew him well, society has lost a very

good person. However, his award to other

“pioneers” in the filmmaking business

ensures that his spirit lives on and

his dreams continue to be carried

out through the eyes and hearts of

other filmmakers.

Again, I can only say that

we, the crew of Spirit Wind, are

honoured by this award and

honoured to be invited to the

Smithsonian. Perhaps, most

importantly, we are honoured that

the board for this award saw the

value and importance of our film,

Spirit Wind, a most historical and

truthful spiritual journey. We

know that the journey we started

with Spirit Wind didn’t begin with

us building the canoe. Perhaps ten years prior, the vision, or dream

came to Chief Misel Joe, a dream that came to him from the

ancients, our ancestors. So this vision, this journey, was already

planned for us, even before we understood it. We know that the

journey didn’t end when we made it across the Cabot Strait to Nova

Scotia. In fact, that was only the start of a long journey that we are

still on today. Coming to Washington, D.C. is part of this journey,

and we continue to travel with Spirit Wind as our guide.

In speaking with Saqamaw Chief Misel Joe, it is obvious that

our journey along the traditional routes of our ancestors, via canoe,

has only just begun. The Spirit Wind crew are presently building a

30 foot birch bark canoe that they plan to paddle to St. Pierre

Michelon as another destination, another retracing of our ancestral

routes. This trip will begin next year once we have raised enough

funds to do so. Again, this is the beginning of many traditional

routes to be reclaimed through the paddling of our canoes. We hope

that anyone wishing to help us to reclaim our history, and help our

healing, will contact Saqamaw Misel Joe. We are fundraising all the

time to continue this vision. His email address is:

Saqamaw@cancom.net You can also learn more about Miawpukek

First Nation by looking them up on the internet.

The crew of “Spirit Wind” a traditional birchbark canoe, as they cross

foggy Cabot Strait. Photograph by Catherine Martin.

(L to R) Stephen Loring, Cathy Martin and Chief

Misel Joe at the award ceremony in Washington.
ASC Newsletter 31

CD-ROM CATALOG OF CREE OBJECTS TO

BE PRODUCED

By Stephen Loring

Our ASC hat is off to Cath Oberholtzer (Trent University,

Ontario), a leading scholar of Great Lakes region and boreal forest

material culture, who visited here in 1995. Cath has been asked to

assemble a CD-ROM catalog of Cree objects held by various

museums on behalf of the Cree Regional Authority and

Aanischaaukamikw (Cree Cultural Institute). The resulting visual

encyclopedia would be used, in her words, to “encourage an

exchange of community knowledge that will assist in the identification of regional styles, techniques and meaningful design motifs.”

The catalog will also “stimulate artisans and artists to adopt and/or

adapt traditional design motifs and forms to their work” and

“provide a basis for making recommendations for future activities of

the Aanischaaukamikw project with respect to traditional Cree

material culture”.

We were thrilled to learn that the NMNH’s collections

including bear talismans, leggings and dolls were selected for the

project. We congratulate Cath on her cooperative work and applaud

her merging of traditional museum studies with Cree cultural

initiatives. Her project is at the cutting edge of northern museum

anthropology in providing a powerful (and perceptive) combination

of academic scholarship, community involvement and expertise with

modern technology and dissemination of information and knowledge

that has long remained sequestered behind museum walls.

HENRY COLLINS, 56 YEARS LATER

By Elisabeth Ward

Don Dumond, who held a senior post-doc at the Arctic

Studies Center in 1995, has just published Henry B. Collins at

Wales, Alaska, 1936. A Partial Description of Collections, University of Oregon Anthropological Papers, 56, 203 pp., 2000. It is

based on excavations conducted by Henry Collins in the Bering

Strait region in the 1930s, specifically at the village of Wales, on the

western tip of the Cape Prince Wales. This book draws from Henry

Collins’ fieldnotes, a partially completed manuscript of the site

found in Henry’s archive, and Don’s own analysis of the collection.

The forward written by William Fitzhugh describes the book as,

“a rare and precious commodity: an indepth, single-site description.” As such, it is sure to be a welcome addition to the literature

related to Alaskan prehistory.

This is the

second monograph

resulting from Don’s

work on the Henry

Collins collections at

NMNH; in 1998,

The Hillside Site, St.

Lawrence Island,

Alaska: an Examination of Collections

from the 1930s was

published, also by

the University of

Oregon Anthropological Papers, 55.

199. Both of these

are are available from

either Don Dumond

himself, or from the

University of

Oregon. We are

thrilled to see

Henry’s work becoming accessible through the careful and informed

efforts of Don Dumond.

TWO GOLOVNEV

FILMS NOW IN

ENGLISH

By Elisabeth Ward

Gail Osherenko of

Dartmouth College has

arranged for two of Andrei

Golovnev’s beautiful

Arctic films to be narrated

in English and distributed

in the U.S. Pegtymel,

filmed on the Chukotka

Peninsula in 1998 and

1999, is a “visual poem” on

the summer life of the

Chukchi arctic people.

With stunning photography and a sensitivity to the

subject, Andrei’s awardwinning film pairs scenes

of Chukchi everyday life with visions of the ancient petroglyphs of

this region. The Way to the Sacred Place documents the filmmaker’s visit to the Nenets on the Yamal Peninsula in 1996. He

joined a group of nomadic reindeer herders on their trek to the Seven

Tents, a Nenets sacred site on the Yamal coast. Along this historic

route crossing the territory of the Nenets, he witnessed sacrifices

and purifications, and his film allows others to share in the

experience. Both are available from the Institute of Arctic Studies,

attn: Siberian Films, Dartmouth College, 6214 Fairchild, Hanover,

NH 03755.

FIFTY YEARS OF ARCTIC RESEARCH

By Elisabeth Ward

The new millennium is proving an appropriate time to look

back at what has been accomplished in circumpolar anthropology.

We at the Arctic Studies Center are currently completing Honoring

our Elders: History of Eastern Arctic Archaeology. But earlier this

year, a more broadly focused volume was produced by the

Department of Ethnography at the National Museum of Denmark

entitled, Fifty Years of Arctic Research: Anthropological Studies

from Greenland to Siberia. Featuring articles by H.C. Gullov;

Jorgen Meldgaard; Ted Carpenter, Freddy de Laguna, Jette

Arneborg, William Fitzhugh, Elmer Harp Jr., Susan Kaplan,

Patrick Plumet, Moreau Maxwell, George Swinton and many

others, it covers the entire Arctic region and research delving into

diverse time periods. No doubt this will be an invaluable addition to

research libraries, and it is a major accomplishment for the Department of Ethnography. It is available in the United States from

David Brown Books for $29.95 by calling 1-800-791-9354.

Andrei Golovnev in Yamal, 1995.
ASC Newsletter 32

Goings.... With many congratulations, we are happy to

announce that Daniel Odess, who has been working with us for

over three years as a contractor and as a research associate, has

accepted a position at the University Museum of Fairbanks,

Alaska. His duties will include curating their archaeological

collection and teaching courses at University of Alaska, Fairbanks.

We will miss his myriad contributions but wish him well. Sarah

Ganiere left in the fall on a missionary assignment in Argentina for

two years, but she has been keeping us appraised of her amazing

experience there through frequent letters. Former ASC intern Chris

Wolfe has graduated from Washington State and has begun graduate

work at Memorial University in St. John’s. Deborah Wood, who

served as registrar on exhibitions for the ASC including Crossroads,

Ainu, Viking, and Looking Both Ways, has left NMNH for a position

as registrar at the Senate. We will surely miss her careful attention

and patience on any upcoming projects.

Comings.... Jennifer McCarty has joined Aron Crowell in

Alaska as the Outreach Coordinator after serving as his research

assistant on contract for the last few months. Part Inupiat, Jennifer

brings an energy and perspective to the position that will be

welcomed. Dawn Biddison, a graduate student in anthropology at

the University of Alaska Fairbanks, has joined the ASC office for

the summer to work on the Alaska Collections Project. She will

begin work on the footage of elders and staff discussions of cultural

objects from the Unalakleet/Norton Sound area, which was taped

COMINGS AND GOINGS

B E R G Y B I T S

SAA Book Award

This April, William Fitzhugh and Elisabeth Ward received

an extremely pleasant, and unexpected, surprise. The volume they

edited, Vikings: The North

Atlantic Saga, was awarded

the Society for American

Archaeology Book Award.

In presenting the award

during the Board meeting of

the SAA in New Orleans,

President Keith Kintigh

lauded the multi-disciplinary

approach of the volume, the

scientific value of the topic of

early contacts in North

America it explores, the

accessible and accurate

papers (thanks to all the

terrific contributors), the

beautiful design and editing

job (thanks to Perpetua

Press), and the effort to bring

up-to-date, in-depth

information to a broad public. While we always felt that Vikings

had a unique opportunity to reach beyond academia, the response

the volume has received surpassed all expectations. At first it did

not seem possible to attend the meetings in person because of

schedule complications, but as Bill said, “This is absolutely a once

in a lifetime honor.” So we went! We are so grateful to have the

recognition of professional colleagues for this publication that it

more than makes up for the countless hours and headaches. Our

only regret is that the many who helped make the publication a

reality were not there to share in the moment with us.

National Museum Award to Kodiak!

Shortly after Sven Haakonson completed his PhD at

Harvard, and assumed the directorship of the Alutiiq Museum and

Archaeological Repository on Kodiak, Alaska, the museum received

a National Humanities Medal for excellence by the federal Institute

of Museum and Library Services. In D.C. to accept the award on

behalf of the museum, and shmooze with President and First Lady

Clinton, Sven seemed rather nonplused by the attention. After all,

it is a great museum! Having Looking Both Ways open at this

institution whose merits, long known locally, are now nationally

recognized, is a special honor for the ASC.

AWARDS

RESEARCH ASSOCIATES

Noel Broadbent Assumes Chairmanship

Since leaving NSF in 1997, Arctic Studies Center Research

Associate Dr. Noel Broadbent has been serving as Academic Chair

of the Department of Archaeology at Umeå University in Northern

Sweden. In 1998 the department merged with the Saami language

department to become Archaeology and Saami Studies. Shortly after

the merge the whole department moved into state-of-the-art

facilities with superb offices and labs, a spacious library and ample

storage space.

The department has an active Ph.D. program with some 19

doctoral candidates. In addition to archaeology, the department

operates the Environmental Archaeology Laboratory(MAL) which

specializes in soil chemistry, macrofossil and pollen analysis. The

move into the new facilities, in the “KBC” Building, which houses

chemistry and biology, was ideal for

both students and staff. For more

information about the Department

and its associated programs see the

Department of Archaeology and

Saami Studies home page:

www.umu.se/archaeology/

Places of Power

ASC Research Associate

Norman Hallendy continues

documenting traditional perceptions

of the land by the Inuit of southwest

Baffin Island. Some of his remarkable

visual records have been assembled

into a traveling exhibition recently

shown at the World Cultural Center

in Anvers Antwerp, Belgium. The

exhibit, titled “Places of Power -

Objects of Veneration” has been

shown in Canada, including various communities in the Arctic, is

now on tour in Europe and destined to travel to Latin America.

Norman’s beautiful book by the same title was published by

McClellan and Stewart, 2000.

He will be awarded the Royal Canadian Geographic Society

Gold Medal in October of 2001, and the ASC is pleased to have

supported his nomination.

Bill and Elisabeth receive the SAA Book Award from Keith Kintigh.
ASC Newsletter 33

Gifts Expand the ASC Library

The ASC library continues to expand

its holdings with the generous donation of

Jim VanStone’s arctic library, Frederica de

Laguna’s arctic and general anthropology

library, and Sandra Barz’s library of Inuit art

books. Each of these significant additions will be catalogued and

labeled, primarily by Stephen Loring. Then the majority will be

sent to Aron Crowell to form the basis of the Arctic Studies

Library at the Anchorage Museum of History and Art. Combined

with our current titles based on the library of Henry Collins and

others, the library will soon become an attractive asset for incoming

fellows and researchers, as well as an important resource for Native

Alaskans. At the same time, Boris Zelinsky, a retired bookbinder

from St. Petersburg, has begun rebinding many of our current and

incoming rare and fragile volumes, so that they can once again be

handled and utilized, well into the future.

GIFTS

The ASC has produced a new

brochure describing its program

this year. Please contact us if you

have use for copies.

IN MEMORIAM

Elmer Rasmuson

Few businessman have been more generous philanthropists

in the last half century than Elmer Rasmuson, and certainly none

have been as thoughtful and left so many lasting legacies. Elmer

donated $50 million to the Anchorage Museum of History and Art,

and in his will left $19 million to the University of Alaska. The

Rasmuson Library at U of A has enjoyed his genorosity for many

years. His dedication to supporting important cultural institutions

that would benefit all Alaskans inspired him to create the

Rasmuson Foundation, which is now led by his son, Edward

Rasmuson.

The Arctic Studies Center has been profoundly grateful to

Elmer and the Foundation for supporting our program over the

years as a member of the NMNH Board and with financial

assistance to the Alaska Collection Project. Elmer’s association

with the Smithsonian and the ASC began with Michael Hayman,

and developed under the stewartship of Robert Fri. Elmer will be

missed by all of us at the Smithsonian who have had the honor to

work with him.

The Research Vessel Pitsiulak in final

preparation in Triton, Newfoundland.

On the move..... After five years in drydock, it seemed as if the Research Vessel Pitsiulak,

which had served the ASC well during the Torngat

and Frobisher projects, would never see water again. But our ship

captain, Perry Colbourne, steadfastly pursued a complete

rebuilding of the boat. The exterior was fiberglassed in multiple

layers, reinforcing the hull tremendously. The top deck and cabins

were replaced, while the galley, staterooms, and below decks were

gutted and redone, including wiring. Two new 350 gallon gas tanks

replaced the smaller ones, and other engine repairs were carried out

to ensure it was in good working order. The folks at Universal

Marine in Triton, Newfoundland, especially Ben Fudge, were

extremely helpful with everything, despite continued payment

problems from the good old Smithsonian. While some things never

change, other things

certainly do! The

Pitsiulak is, according to

Perry, basically a new

boat. Befitting this new

status, the University of

Massachusetts has agreed

to transfer ownership

officially to the

Smithsonian, and we

expect many years of

dependable service.

during a recent trip to Washington D.C. Rebecca

Boone came on board in November to manage the

return of artifacts to Labrador after a two-year

period with little movement on that front, for

which we thank her. Three interns are working at

the ASC this summer, Saskia Wrausmann, who

also volunteered for us over Christmas; Jennifer

Birch who was working her way back north to

Ontario after a field school in Belize; and Afiya

Amzil who is organizing illustrations for the

forthcoming publication of Nelson’s recently

discovered Alaskan field diaries.

Transitions.... Elisabeth Ward has accepted

the position of Program Assistant after postponing

Ph.D. studies for another year, mostly because the

continued allure of the Viking exhibition still calls.

But the trusth is that the ASC has got addicted to

her many talents, and hopes she stays. Bill

Fitzhugh has been elected President of the

NMNH Senate of Scientists for the year 2002, and

he has been appointed to the “blue-ribbon”

Smithsonian Science Council to advise on the

Institution’s science reorganization, adding another

duty to his very full plate.

Inua Exhibition Cases

Inua: Spirit World of the Bering Sea Eskimo, the first traveling

exhibition curated by William Fitzhugh (with Susan Kaplan),

originally opened in 1982 at Natural History. Since then it has been

on display in one form or another continuously. In 1999, the

Inupiat Cultural Heritage Center in Barrow, Alaska, gave the

exhibition new life again, exchanging some objects and ideas for

others, to make Inua: Historic World of the Bering Sea and Arctic

Eskimo. As the inagural exhibition of this new heritage center, the

ASC was proud to have been able to offer

this relevant and beautiful exhibition (see

ASC Newsletter #7). In June of this year,

after a number of extensions, the Inua

exhibition closed at the Inupiat Heritage

Center. Greta Hansen and Dave Rosenthal

traveled to Barrow after installing the

Looking Both Ways show to de-install Inua,

returning all the objects to Washington D.C..

With this closing, the story of the indefatigable Inua exhibition has come to an end. Ah,

but not quite! The exhibition furniture,

especially the valuable and well made cases,

are still in Alaska. The always resourceful

Aron Crowell and Director of the Inupiat

Heritage Center, Ron Brower, have agreed to

divide these cases between them for use in

upcoming exhibitions in Anchorage and

Barrow. We are sure they will serve both

institutions well.
ASC Newsletter 34

Helge Ingstad, 1900 - 2001

We were very saddened to have heard first from

Christian Keller in a late night e-mail and then from

other colleagues around the world about the passing of Dr.

Helge Ingstad, a giant in northern exploration, literature,

and archaeology and a most wonderful human being. He

and his wife, archaeologist Anne Stine Ingstad, lived a

life of joint adventure in Norway, Svalbard, Greenland, and

Canada, culminating in their almost miraculous discovery

of inconspicuous Viking house remains on the northern tip

of Newfoundland Island in the 1960’s. Bill Fitzhugh

expressed his condolenses to their daughter, Benedicte

Ingstad, with the following: “I think with all the sadness,

you must also be very proud to have been part of this

particular family. I only wish I could have spent more time

with him and your mother. I missed the chance to visit you

all when Elmer Harp’s crew came up to L’Anse aux

Meadows in 1963. But I met Helge and Anne-Stine in Oslo

in 1971 when looking at Younger Stone Age collections in

Scandinavia. I saw them last here at the Smithsonian at the reception

in the Air and Space Museum in 1992, and they were both so perky

still.” And of course, all of us will treasure the great honor Helge’s

presence at the opening of the Viking exhibition lent to that

gathering. Over the course of those memorable days of official

events, parties, and media interviews, Helge mentioned often his

wife, who had passed away in 1998, referencing her contributions

constantly, and saying how he missed her and wished she could

have also participated in the opening.

Although recent scholarship by Birgitta Wallace has

somewhat altered the initial interpretation of the LAM site, the bulk

of what we know about the Vikings at LAM result from Helge and

Anne-Stine’s work. Nothing is going to change that, no matter what

new discoveries are made. Their discoveries were the North

American equivalent to Schliemann’s discoveries at Troy — a search

motivated by one’s confidence in historical sources. Only the

‘treasure’ was different in Newfoundland, and in terms of the

impact on our understanding human history, far more important!

A true gentleman with an unstinting love of life, family,

adventure, and knowledge has passed from our midst, while the rest

of us hope to have lives half as full, enriched already by having

known him.

James W. VanStone

On

February 28,

2001, James

W. VanStone,

one of the

world’s

leading

experts in

Arctic

anthropology, passed

away of

heart failure

in Evanston

Hospital. He

was 75. Jim

was a prolific

scholar and an authority in many fields of circumpolar anthropology. His academic stature was masked by an unpretentious, selfdeprecating demeanor, and an often ailing frame weakened by a

childhood bout with polio.

A Ph.D. graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and a

student of Louis Giddings and Froelich Rainey, VanStone taught at

the University of Alaska Fairbanks (1951-1956) and at the

University of Toronto (1959-1966). By the time he received his

Ph.D. (in 1954), he had already spent three years on the faculty of

the University of Alaska, published several papers, and undertaken

archeological and ethnographic field work in Kotzebue, on Nunivak

Island, and along the Copper River, all in Alaska. This pattern of

wide-ranging research interests and remarkable productivity became

the hallmark of a career that took him across much of Alaska,

northern Canada, and the Soviet Union.

In 1966, VanStone joined the Anthropology Department at

Chicago’s famed Field Museum of Natural History as Arctic

Curator. He later served as the scientific editor of its publication

series, Fieldiana, and as long-term departmental chair. Over the 50-

odd years of his career, he published more than 140 books, articles,

reviews, and collection studies, and he was still working at the time

of his death. His most recent publications appeared posthumously

in several leading Arctic journals this year.

Jim VanStone was a long-time friend of the Smithsonian, and

an ardent supporter of the Arctic Studies Center. His relationship

with the SI started in the 1950s through his personal friendship

with Henry Collins. In the 1970s, he was an active contributor to

the Arctic and Subarctic volumes of the Smithsonian’s Handbook of

North American Indians series. In the 1980s, his enthusiasm and

his immense knowledge of North American and Russian anthropology and museum collections was a driving force in the highly

successful Smithsonian Crossroads of Continents exhibit. Recently,

he donated his prized personal library of Alaskan and Russian

anthropological works to the ASC office and Alaskan Museum of

History and Art in Anchorage. His final gesture was a generous

financial gift from his estate to the ASC ‘in support of its northern

research and publication efforts.’

Unassuming and reserved, he was fondly regarded by all who

knew him. His life and work will live on in his many publications,

and in the memories of the many native people he knew and

colleagues he endorsed, encouraged, and supported during his long

and distinguished career.

Helge Ingstad toured the Viking exhibition with Bill Fitzhugh,

explaining many fascinating details about his discovery, including the

role played by the Stefansson map.

Jim VanStone’s “method” for selecting objects for the

Crossroads ehhibit. St. Petersburg, 1983. Photo by JeanLoup Rousselot
ASC Newsletter 35

Publications

Unless otherwise noted, all photos are SI Staff photos.

Jennifer Birch has been the Managing Editor for this issue

of the ASC Newsletter.

ARCTIC STUDIES CENTER

Department of Anthropology

Smithsonian Institution

10th and Constitution N.W.

Washington D.C. 20560-0112

(202) 357-2682

(202) 357-2684 (fax)

ANCHORAGE OFFICE:

Arctic Studies Center

at the Rasmuson Center

121 West 7th Avenue

Anchorage AK 99501

(907) 343-6162

(907) 343-6130 (fax)

or visit out website at www.mnh.si.edu/arctic

William Fitzhugh, Director and Curator:

fitzhugh.william@nmnh.si.edu

Aron Crowell, Alaska Director and Anthropologist:

acrowell@alaska.net

Stephen Loring, Museum Anthropologist:

loring.stephen@nmnh.si.edu

Igor Krupnik, Ethnologist: krupnik.igor@nmnh.si.edu

Elisabeth Ward, Program Assistant:

ward.elisabeth@nmnh.si.edu

ARCTIC STUDIES CENTER STAFF:

Douglas Anderson Ted Birkedal

Ernest Burch Anne Fienup-Riordan

Jana Harcharek Aldona Jonaitis

Susan Kaplan Gordon Pullar

Steven Young William Workman

Patricia Wolf Rosita Worl

Miranda Wright

STEERING COMMITTEE:

Noel Broadbent, University of Umeå

Ernest Burch, Jr., Harrisburg, PA.

Anne Fienup-Riordan, Anchorage, AK.

Joan Gero, American University

Norman Hallendy, Carp, Ontario

Daniel Odess, University of Alaska, Fairbanks

Douglas Siegal-Causey, Harvard University

RESEARCH ASSOCIATES:

Contact Information

Aron Crowell

2001 ed. Looking Both Ways: Heritage and Identity of the

Alutiiq People. Edited by Aron L. Crowell, Amy F.

Steffian, and Gordon L. Pullar. University of Alaska

Press, Fairbanks.

2001 “Alutiiq Culture: Views from Anthropology, Archaeology,

and History” with Sonja Luehrmann. In Looking Both

Ways: Heritage and Identity of the Alutiiq People. Edited

by Aron L. Crowell, Amy F. Steffian, and Gordon L.

Pullar. University of Alaska Press, Fairbanks.

2001 “Suugucirpet, the Alutiiq ‘Way of Living’” with April

Laktonen. In Looking Both Ways: Heritage and Identity

of the Alutiiq People. Edited by Aron L. Crowell, Amy F.

Steffian, and Gordon L. Pullar. University of Alaska

Press, Fairbanks.

William Fitzhugh

2000 “Vikings: The North Atlantic Saga” AnthroNotes: Museum

of Natural History Publication for Educators. V. 22(1):1-9.

2000 “Foreword.” In Henry B. Collins at Wales, Alaska, 1936:

A Partial Description of Collections. Don E. Dumond and

Henry B. Collins. University of Oregon Anthropological

Papers No. 56.

Igor Krupnik

2001 Pust’ govoriat nashi stariki. Raskkazy aziatskikh

eskimosov-yupik, 1975-1987 (Let Our Elders Speak. Oral

Stories of the Siberian Yupik Eskimo, 1975-1987).

Moscow: Russian Heritage Institute. 528 pp.

2000 Akuzilleput Igaqullghet. Our Words Put to Paper.

Sourcebook in St. Lawrence Island Yupik Heritage and

History, 2000. Igor Krupnik and Lars Krutak, compilers;

Igor Krupnik, Willis Walunga, and Vera Metcalf, eds.

Washington and Nome: Arctic Studies Center, 464 pp.

(computer print).

2000 Anpassungsstrategien in der Arktis. (German translation

of Arctic Adaptations: Native Whalers and Reindeer

Herders of Northern Eurasia.) Berlin: Reinhold Schletzer

Verlag. 315 pp.

2001 “Native Perspectives on Climate and Sea-Ice Changes.”

In H. Huntington, ed. Impacts of Changes in Sea Ice and

Other Environmental Parameters in the Arctic. Marine

Mammal Commission, Bethesda, MD, pp.34-51.

2001 “Humans in the Bering Strait Region: Responses to

Environmental Change and Implications for the Future.”

Ibid., pp. 64-79.

Stephen Loring

2001 Repatriation and community anthropology: the

Smithsonian Institution’s Arctic Studies Center. In The

Future of the Past: Archaeologists, Native Americans, and

Repatriation, edited by Tamara Bray, pp. 185-200. New

York: Garland Press.

Elisabeth Ward

2001 “The Case of the Horned Helmets” Material History

Review. Fall 2001. Ottawa: National Museum of Science

and Technology.