Newsletter Smithsonian Institution National Museum of Natural History May 2025 https://naturalhistory.si.edu/research/anthropology/programs/arctic-studies-center Number 32 NOTES FROM THE DIRECTOR By William W. Fitzhugh This Newsletter issue brings a prospective pause to a non-stop run of 32 Arctic Studies Center annual newsletters that began in July 1992, with the following statement: “The Arctic Studies Center was established by Congress in 1988 to create a permanent national program of arctic research and education within the Smithsonian Institution. Dramatic changes in the world have brought new challenges to arctic regions—problems of human-environment relationships, effects of industrialization and urbanism, threats of global climatic and environmental change, loss of traditional knowledge and language, and destruction of archaeological sites. At the same time, political turmoil in the former Soviet Union and the increasing clamor for self-determination by northern Native peoples is transforming geopolitical boundaries throughout the North. Recognition of the importance of arctic regions has triggered a renaissance in Arctic Studies. Scholars, Native peoples, and politicians leading this rebirth have called for research and education responsive to northern interests. The Arctic Studies Center is one answer to these emerging needs.” Today, in 2025, we may feel that not much has changed in this assessment of the importance of the Arctic to the world penned more than 30 years ago. Most of the conditions described in 1992—environmental damage, climate change, political unrest, language and cultural loss—are still with us, and perhaps are becoming even more intractable. Plus, many more issues have been added—shrinking Arctic ice, national security, the Indigenous drive for self-governance, food sovereignty, cultural sustainability, and more. And yet there have been numerous improvements. Indigenous rights have advanced; conservation policies have helped preserve endangered species; restraints are beginning to curb rising CO2; and recognition is growing that the Arctic is destined to play a larger role in world affairs than ever before. The ASC is proud to have made substantial contributions to many of these developments. Our museum exhibits in Anchorage and Washington, D.C. and a stream of traveling exhibitions, have educated the public and brought Indigenous arts and cultures to wider audiences in the US, Canada, Germany, and other countries, as well as to distant communities in rural Alaska and Canada. ASC research and publications have generated new knowledge and shared the wealth of Smithsonian collections with the world. Educational media has spread awareness of the vibrancy of Northern peoples and cultures and awakened interest in Indigenous arts and craft. And our decades of mentorship of students, early career researchers, and Indigenous community scholars have introduced new cohorts to museum anthropology and cultural studies. And yet, after bringing ‘crossroads’ concepts to the circumpolar Arctic, the ASC now finds itself at its own crossroads as staff begin to retire and a new future is to be envisioned for the Center and the Smithsonian’s role in the Arctic. Aron Crowell, Director of the ASC Anchorage Office and the architect of more than three decades (since 1993) of its research, exhibits, and educational programs, retired from the Smithsonian at the end of December 2024. Dawn Biddison, Aron’s partner in Anchorage and the creator of that office’s highly successful outreach, research, documentation, and education programs in collaboration with Alaska Native communities, received a promotion and a new title of Community Outreach and Engagement Specialist. Aron Crowell at Apatiki camp on St. Lawrence Island, with Sivuqaq Corporation, on his first project in Alaska, August 1984. Photo courtesy A. Crowell http://www.mnh.si.edu/arctic/index.html 2 ASC Newsletter And Melissa Shaginoff (Ahtna/Paiute) was hired in December 2024 by NMAI as the Alaska Specialist of the Outreach and Engagement Planning Office, positioned in the ASC Anchorage office. Despite these developments, the exit of a scientific director for ASC Anchorage will limit its capabilities until a replacement is appointed. Changes are also coming to the ASC on the National Mall. Yours truly has entered a phased retirement program and will formally retire from Smithsonian at the end of 2026 to join his wife, Lynne Fitzhugh, in Fairlee Vt. During phased retirement, and afterwards, I will continue research and publication work but will transfer most operational activities to Igor Krupnik, Stephen Loring, and Nancy Shorey. I will reside half-time in our old family hub on Capitol Hill where we will keep hosting gatherings of our international colleagues and friends that have been a hallmark of ASC social life. I expect to continue a modest field program and plan to complete Labrador work and other publications postponed years ago. What the future may bring for the ASC now remains in the hands of the SI and its National Museum of Natural History, that have been staunch ASC supporters through decades of leadership rotations since the 1980s. And now for the usual round-up of staff activities and achievements, I begin with Aron Crowell’s phenomenal monograph, Laaxaayík, Near the Glacier: Indigenous History and Ecology at Yakutat Fiord, Alaska. Published on-line by Smithsonian Scholarly Press in 2024, this monumental work received more than 1,000 downloads before the hardcover edition appeared in January 2025. The result of a ten-year NSF-funded collaboration with scores of anthropologists, natural scientists, and members of the Yakutat Tlingit community, Laaxaayik takes its place alongside another epic Smithsonian contribution from the same region, Frederica deLaguna’s 3-volume 1972 Under Mount St. Elias: History and Culture of the Yakutat Tlingit. Aron’s study stands as one of the finest scientific contributions in the ASC legacy. A major event of the year was the Annual ‘Tiger’ Burch Lecture given on 3 December, 2024, by Ann Fienup- Riordan, highlighting her amazing career with a talk, From Eskimo Essays to Tengautuli Atkuk: the Changing Face of Doing Anthropology in Alaska, which attracted a large audience and reached many viewers in Alaska. Igor’s main 2024 achievement was a project funded by the Smithsonian’s ‘Repressed Cultures Preservation Fund’ to produce an overview of Siberian ethnographic collections in museums across North America and Europe. This newsletter issue also features stories about his exploration of collections in museums in Oslo and Paris, the unfunded ASC “Arctic Fashion” proposal, and about the new ‘A Fractured North’ series he launched with colleagues to give voice to the international concerns about the war in Ukraine and its impact on collaborative Arctic research and individual life trajectories. John Cloud was awarded a Lee Phillips Society Fellowship at the Library of Congress to develop the project ‘Cracks in the Ice: The Cartography of 1,200 Years of Climate Change.’ Elisa Palomino secured postdoctoral fellowships at the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz and Max-Planck-Institute, as well as a research grant at Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia for the publication of her doctoral thesis within the Marco Polo Research Center book series. Bernadette Engelstad has been researching a monograph on the Inuinnait graphic artist, Helen Kalvak (1901–1984) from Ulukhaktok (formerly Holman), based on the artist’s prints, drawings and personal narratives created over a thirty-year period, from the early 1960s until the artist’s passing in 1984. My contributions for 2024 include publication of a monograph co-authored with Richard Kortum documenting our rock art and archaeology in the Mongolian Altai. This work brings together scholarly disciplines that rarely find common ground but do so with spectacular results in the ritualized cultural landscape of Central Asia. New fieldwork included the restoration of ‘Early Archaic Brador Mounds’ excavated by René Lévesque in 1972 and progress on a monograph on 17th c. Basque-Inuit archaeology on the Quebec Lower North Shore. ASC exhibits Narwhal: Revealing an Arctic Legend and Knowing Nature: Stories of the Boreal Forest continue to circulate in North America courtesy of the Smithsonian Traveling Exhibits Service. This year I was assisted in office work by intern Ethan Kane, who with Stephen Loring and I, prepared a report on the Henry Collins legacy excavation at the Sadlermiut site on Coats Island, northern Hudson Bay. Ethan also worked with Igor on his Siberian collections project. The ASC may be entering uncharted waters, and we are left now without our trusted expedition boat, Pitsiulak, that was retired and scrapped in Newfoundland last year. But our journey through and for the Arctic world is not over. As you read our stories from 2024, please remember that our many activities will continue with new wind in our sails for years to come. The ASC has been through many storms, and we are a weathered bunch. Stay tuned. FLASH: As we go to press, the announcement appeared that the 931-page Handbook of American Indians, Volume 1: Introduction (2022) edited by Igor Krupnik has been awarded the 2025 Smithsonian Secretary’s Research Prize. Congratulations, Igor, and the team of associate editors and volume authors. ASC Newsletter 3 TABLE OF CONTENTS NOTES FROM THE DIRECTOR������������������������������ 1 THANKS TO OUR 2024/2025 PARTNERS AND DONORS��������������������������������������������������������������������������� 4 ANNUAL BURCH LECTURE Burch Endowment Support for ASC Activities����������������� 5 From Eskimo Essays to Tengautuli Atkuk������������������������� �6 ASC ANCHORAGE OFFICE Aron Lincoln Crowell Retires������������������������������������������ 12 Remarks on Aron Crowell’s Retirement�������������������������� 16 A Road Less Traveled: Working with Aron Crowell in Alaska������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 16 Aron Crowell—An Appreciation������������������������������������� 17 Aron Crowell: A Glimpse from The Sidelines����������������� 18 Memories From an AkAA Partner����������������������������������� 18 Aron Crowell in Botswana����������������������������������������������� 18 Partners for ‘Together We Thrive’����������������������������������� 19 NMNH Board Visits Alaska��������������������������������������������� 19 Indigenous Art and Science: The Woven Together Project �������������������������������������������������������������� 20 New Media ���������������������������������������������������������������������� 23 Exploring the History of “Nunivak-Style” Whole-Tusk Ivory Carvings����������������������������������������������������������������� 23 FIFTH THULE CENTENNIAL The 5th Thule Expedition Centennial: A Danish Milestone ��������������������������������������������������������� 26 Completing ‘Another Centennial’: Celebrating Knud Rasmussen and The Fifth Thule Expedition�������������������� 28 Rejsen Til Nordlysets Land. Therkel Mathiassens Dagbøger fra 5. Thule-ekspedition���������������������������������� 29 NEWS A Proposal for SDG 18: Integrating Indigenous Knowledge����������������������������������������������������������������������� 30 Inuinnaqtun Pitiksiliurniq (Inuinnaqtun) Traditions of Bow-Making Workshop��������������������������������������������������� 32 Reunion of the Pitsiulak Jedii—A Collage���������������������� 33 Delmarva Paddler Retreat 2024��������������������������������������� 36 Serendipitous Encounters and Indigenous Perspectives on Marine Mammals: Reflections on a Recent Trip to Australia��������������������������������������������������������������������������� 37 RESEARCH Documenting René Lévesque’s Early Archaic Brador Mound Excavations��������������������������������������������������������� 39 Innu Archaeology in Sheshatshit 2024 Fieldwork����������� 41 Rock Art and Archaeology in the Mongolian Altai��������� 43 The Mongolian Empire and Mortuary Landscapes of the Eastern Steppe, Dornod Province������������������������������������ 47 Early Agriculture on the Mongolian Steppe: Excavations at Khairt Suuryn, A Xiongnu Site in Northeastern Mongolia�������������������������������������������������������������������������� 49 Revisiting the Coats Island Sadlermiut: A Henry B. Collins 1954 Legacy Collection��������������������������������������� 51 Uncovering a Pan-Regional Motif From Archaeology of St. Lawrence Island���������������������������������������������������������� 53 Marine Climate History from a Deepsea Clam���������������� 54 Collections����������������������������������������������������������������������� 56 The Nicholas Gondatti Chukchi Collection in Paris�������� 56 Preserving Access to Siberian Heritage Collections Across Wartime Divides�������������������������������������������������������������� 60 A Sturgeon Skin Pouch: Nivkh and Nanai Indigenous Cosmologies��������������������������������������������������������������������� 63 From the Northeast Passage to Oslo: Ethnographic Collections From Chukotka at KHM������������������������������� 65 OUTREACH Greenland Singers Perform at NMNH����������������������������� 70 Documenting the Past for the Future������������������������������� 70 Touring “Narwhal: Revealing an Arctic Legend”������������ 72 The Role OF 3D/XR and Digital Technologies in Museum and Marine Research and Education�������������������������������� 73 Crossroads 2: Bridges to The Future������������������������������� 73 INTERNS AND FELLOWS Community Adaptations for Building on Thawing Permafrost in Quinhagak, Alaska������������������������������������ 75 Interning at Arctic Studies����������������������������������������������� 76 BOOK REVIEWS Stronger Together������������������������������������������������������������� 76 Ritual Landscape: Rock Art and Archaeology in the Mongolian Altai��������������������������������������������������������������� 77 The Museum of Unnatural Histories�������������������������������� 77 Marrying Mongolia: a Memoir���������������������������������������� 78 Shuká KÁa Cave, Southeast Alaska: Archeology, Ecology, and Community���������������������������������������������������������������� 78 Embers of the Hands�������������������������������������������������������� 79 No Place Like Nome�������������������������������������������������������� 80 Til Det Yderste. 5. Thule Ekspedition i Rusland������������� 80 A Fractured North: Facing Dilemmas (vol. 1). A Fractured North: Journeys On Hold (vol. 2)������������������������������������ 81 Give Me Winter, Give Me Dogs. Knud Rasmussen and the Fifth Thule Expedition����������������������������������������������� 83 TRANSITIONS Remembering Natalia Fedorova�������������������������������������� 84 Natalya Fedorova and the Education of a Circumpolar Archaeologist������������������������������������������������������������������� 85 Michael Chlenov�������������������������������������������������������������� 86 Dan Dimancescu�������������������������������������������������������������� 87 Homage to Nelson Graburn and Bernard Saladin D’Anglure������������������������������������������������������������������������ 88 Rhoda Akpaliapik Karetak����������������������������������������������� 91 2024–2025 ASC Staff Publications�������������������������������� 93 4 ASC Newsletter Alaska Native Heritage Center Anchorage Museum Foundation Robert W. Baird & Co. Incorporated Bristol Bay Foundation Ernest S. (‘Tiger’) Burch Endowment Deanne Burch, Lemoyne, PA Carlson Family Trust The Honorable Morgan Christen and Jim Torgerson William W. and Lynne D. Fitzhugh First National Bank of Alaska Heather Flynn Donald Holly Jo Michalski and the Honorable Peter Michalski Mongolia Cultural Center of Washington D.C. Municipality of Blanc Sablon, Quebec The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation National Endowment for the Arts National Museum of the American Indian National Resources Defense Council National Science Foundation Government of Newfoundland and Labrador Newfoundland Provincial Archaeology Office Francis and David Rose Foundation Sealaska Heritage Foundation Gail and Jan K. Sieberts Smithsonian Institution (Our Shared Future) Smithsonian Legacy Challenge Fund Smithsonian Office of the Provost SI Undersecretary for Education SI Undersecretary for Museums and Culture Repressed Cultures Preservation Fund SI Undersecretary for Science (Sustainable Planet) Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibit Service Smithsonian Recovering Voices Program Fran Ulmer Whiteley Museum, St. Paul River, Quebec James VanStone Endowment Douglas W. and Kathie Veltre RESEARCH ASSOCIATES AND COLLABORATORS John Cloud, Geographer, Washington, D.C.: cloudj@si.edu Bernadette Driscoll Engelstad, Ethnologist, Kensington, MD: bengelstad@aol.com Scott Heyes, Geographer/Cartographer, Australia: scott.heyes@monash.edu William Honeychurch, Archaeologist, Yale University: william.honeychurch@yale.edu Anthony Jenkinson, Archaeologist, North West River, Labrador: shaputuan@hotmail.com Martin Nweeia, Dentist/Narwhal Researcher, Martin.nweeia@hsdm.harvard.edu Elisa Palomino-Perez, Fashion Designer, Florence, Italy: PalominoPerez@si.edu Kenneth Pratt, Anthropologist, Anchorage: kenneth.pratt@bia.gov Ted Timreck, Film Producer, New York: ttimreck@gmail.com Cristopher B. Wolff, Archaeologist, SUNY Plattsburgh, NY: cwolff@albany.edu The Arctic Studies Center is sustained through a public-private partnership. Philanthropic donations provide funding for essential community-based collaborations, impactful educational programming for the public, and continuous research in an ever-changing Arctic region. To make a tax-deductible donation, please contact the NMNH Office of Development at 202-633-0821 or NMNH-Advancement@si.edu. THANKS TO OUR 2024/2025 PARTNERS AND DONORS We extend our sincerest gratitude to the donors and partners who support the Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center ASC Newsletter 5 ANNUAL BURCH LECTURE BURCH ENDOWMENT SUPPORT FOR ASC ACTIVITIES IN 2024 By Igor Krupnik The Ernest S. (‘Tiger’) Burch Endowment was established with the NMNH Arctic Studies Center (ASC) in 2012 by a generous gift of the family of our late colleague and long-term research associate, Ernest S. (‘Tiger’) Burch, Jr., “...to support, promote, and interpret the study of Arctic Indigenous peoples and their cultures”. The fund remains the prime source of the ASC operational budget, particularly for public and collective activities, besides individual grants by the ASC staff and collaborators. It also ensures that our work and the legacy of Tiger’s many decades of collaboration with the Smithsonian and ASC continues. In 2024, the Burch Endowment continued to provide a critical lifeline to the ASC. It was a key source of travel funds for many conference travels, including those covered in this Newsletter, like Krupnik’s trips for museum work in Oslo and Copenhagen and Dawn Biddison’s participation in the annual meeting of the Association of Tribal Archives, Libraries, and Museums (ATALM) in Palm Springs, CA, in November 2024. As during the past ten years, the Endowment supported our main public event, “Tiger Burch Annual Lecture” that helps promote our activities at the broader NMNH, Smithsonian, and outside professional arenas. The annual Burch Lectures began in 2015 to bring recent achievements in Arctic anthropological research to wider audiences and to our colleagues worldwide. We now have an impressive pool of ‘Burch alumni’ that include academic and Indigenous scholars from US/ Alaska, Canada, and Greenland. Collectively, their lectures covered advances in circumpolar archaeology, ethnology, Arctic resource management, biology, history, collection and Indigenous heritage, women’s studies, and more. Our 2024 Speaker for the tenth Burch ‘jubilee’ on December 3 was our friend, colleague, and long-time associate, Dr. Ann Fienup-Riordan, from Anchorage, AK. Ann has lived and worked in Alaska since 1973. For over 25 years, she has partnered with the Calista Elders Council, now called “Calista Education and Culture” (CEC), the primary heritage organization in Southwest Alaska, documenting Yup’ik traditional knowledge. Located in Anchorage, the CEC is a nonprofit 501c3 organization, governed by a Board of Directors and providing cultural preservation, educational empowerment, and cultural guidance to the Yup’ik people of all generations. Ann has been collaborating with the CEC for over 30 years; she has written and edited more than thirty books, many in collaboration with Yup’ik colleagues and partners. In 2000, she received the Alaska Federation of Natives Denali Award for her work with Alaska Natives, and in 2001, the Governor’s Award for Distinguished Humanist Educator. An edited version of Ann’s Burch lecture 2024 is presented below. Besides the annual lecture, the Endowment continued to provide funds for many ASC public-focused activities, such as the production, printing, and shipping of the annual Newsletter, of which issue no. 31 was produced and mailed/posted online in summer 2024. It supported contracts for graphic and collection work for the ASC staff, ASC membership in the Arctic Consortium of the United States (ARCUS), research work on other ASC-based projects, and staff needs throughout the calendar year. We allocated The flyer of the annual Burch series lecture featuring Dr. Ann Fienup-Riordan 6 ASC Newsletter a substantial amount of endowment funds as ASC ‘matching’ contributions to support 2024 research and the online exhibit proposal, “Arctic Fashion: Sustainability, Healing and Women’s Advocacy,” submitted in November 2024. Its main goal was to build a StoryMap website themed on “Arctic Fashion” to serve as a public forum for a conversation among museum specialists, contemporary artists, seamstresses, Elders, and cultural heritage leaders from northern communities. The online/web path would cover a broad range of topics under the “Fashion” concept, including environmental and cultural change, identity, and the role of women in preserving Indigenous heritage. Three Indigenous co-curators—Nadia Jackinsky-Sethi from Alaska, Krista Ulujuk Zawadski from Canada, and Nivi Christensen from Greenland agreed to lead the project in collaboration with Smithsonian/ASC team members in Washington and Anchorage AK. Stephen Loring and Elisa Palomino Perez played major role in developing the proposal, together with Bill Fitzhugh, Bernadette Engelstad, Aron Crowell, and Dawn Biddison. Regretfully, the proposal was not funded, but we consider developing these ideas in the future, perhaps in collaboration with our colleagues from the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology in Philadelphia. We will continue using the Burch Endowment to advance our research and public programs, for museum travel and fieldwork, and to promote Tiger Burch’s work via publications, public programs and presentations, the ASC Newsletter, and professional exchanges. We are deeply grateful to the Burch Family for providing this ASC lifeline. FROM ESKIMO ESSAYS TO TENGAUTULI ATKUK / THE FLYING PARKA: THE CHANGING FACE OF ANTHROPOLOGY IN ALASKA By Ann Fienup-Riordan I am deeply honored by the invitation to speak in memory of our friend and colleague, Tiger Burch. He was a dedicated scholar and an inspiration throughout his long career, and I stand on his shoulders. He taught me that a transcribed tape is priceless while an untranscribed one is useless, a lesson I have never forgotten. My home is in Anchorage, Alaska’s largest Native village. I’ve lived and worked in Alaska since 1973, and I’ve been writing about and with Yup’ik people of the Yukon-Kuskokwim delta ever since. I am not Yup’ik, but a kassaq (a white person). Both anthropology as a discipline, and anthropology in Alaska have changed during those five decades. One of the most important changes is the degree to which anthropologists and others, including museum professionals, work in partnership with their local companions, both in the field and in the way their joint productions are shared and acknowledged. I'll use the trajectory of my life and the ways in which these publications have been shaped and used over the years as an example of larger transformations. Early Writing When asked to describe my work in Alaska, I often say that it can be divided into two parts. During the first twenty years, between 1974 and the early 1990s, I worked on a series of projects of my own invention, including a published dissertation, a harvest disruption study, an essay collection, a missionary history, and a history of Alaska Natives in the movies. All my work was funded by research grants. I carried it out with the knowledge and support of Yup’ik friends in local communities, but my book projects were guided by my own interests and enthusiasms rather than community needs. On each book’s cover, I was the acknowledged author. I used English titles, and I anticipated a largely English-speaking audience. Living in Alaska, I certainly hoped that Yup’ik men and women would someday read what I wrote. Beginning in 1992, however, my work took a marked turn, as all the major projects that I was involved in began to be directly guided by Yup’ik hearts and minds. In most cases, I took these projects on because Yup’ik friends and colleagues asked me to do so. Sometimes I say that what I've been doing for thirty years is following orders, and that’s not far from the truth. What is presently termed “co-production” began in earnest in southwest Alaska in the 1990s and continues to flourish in wonderful ways. In 1983, I published a slightly revised version of my Ph.D. dissertation as The Nelson Island Eskimo: Social Structure and Ritual Distribution. I was in my twenties then, fired by a combination of academic admiration for French structuralism and disdain for environmental determinism. Following in the footsteps of my esteemed predecessors, Margaret Lantis and Edward Nelson, I used the singular “Eskimo” in my title. Although this would raise eyebrows today, in 1983 it was acceptable, even standard, as the self-identifier “Yup’ik” was relatively new and not yet widely used in print. In 1982, Bill Fitzhugh and Susan Kaplan were already using the title “Inua” in their reexamination of Nelson’s work—among the earliest books to use Inuit in its title. ASC Newsletter 7 In 1990 I produced another book with “Eskimo” in the title: Eskimo Essays: Yup’ik Lives and How We See Them. My focus remained the people, history, and traditions of southwest Alaska. I wrote as a young, independent scholar, seeking to join the debates of my chosen field—cultural anthropology—at a particularly exciting time when all the old rules were being scrutinized and turned on their heads. In 1995 I published a third book with “Eskimo” in the title: Freeze Frame: Alaska Eskimos in the Movies. When I began work in southwest Alaska in 1974, Yup’ik people and their history were poorly understood by non-Natives. Fired by this misfit, I conceived the idea of a book on the Eskimo image with chapters covering children’s stories, fiction, scholarly and exploration literature, and the movies. I started with this last chapter, and Freeze Frame was the result. For the book cover, the designer chose a photo of Inupiaq actor Ray Mala, Alaska’s first and still most prolific Hollywood star, rubbing noses with his smiling co-star, demonstrating the famous Eskimo kiss. A Dena'ina friend once confided to me how offended he was by this cover photograph but that, when he read my book, he loved it. A sobering compliment indeed. My life and work took a turn toward co-production in the early 1990s, when Andy Paukan and Tim Troll (mayor and administrator for the city of St. Mary’s on the lower Yukon River) asked me to help them locate Yup’ik masks in museums and bring them back to southwest Alaska for Yup’ik young people to see. The experiences of working with Andy, Tim, and others in the creation of our Yup’ik mask exhibit changed my life, and have shaped my work ever since. First, although I was technically the exhibit’s curator, I took direction from a dedicated group of Yup’ik men and women—our Yup’ik steering committee. I had never had such direct Yup’ik input on any previous project, and I have been fortunate to have had this same support ever since. We met for several one- and two-day meetings in Anchorage and Bethel. Our conversations were entirely in Yup’ik, and these discussions guided everything I did. It was the Yup’ik steering committee that named the exhibition Agayuliyararput / Our Way of Making Prayer to reflect the original intent of masks used in past ceremonies to request abundance in the future. The introduction of Christianity changed the original meaning of agayu (in Yup’ik: requesting abundance through masked dancing) to Christian prayer. Although I feared that devout Christians would be offended by the steering committee’s choice of a title, they knew better. Instead of alienating people, the idea of “prayer” forged an important link between the Yup’ik past and present and encouraged widespread support. I learned then, and I've never forgotten, how valuable working together can be. The second transformative feature of our exhibit- making process was my close relationship with Yup’ik language expert Marie Meade. Marie and I interviewed elders, Marie then providing detailed Yup’ik transcriptions of what they shared. This partnership continues to this day. The third key feature was how the catalog’s title was handled. Although I had assumed Agayuliyararput was an acceptable book title, the University of Washington Press said no. Instead, they insisted on an English title and Yup’ik subtitle, The Living Tradition of Yup’ik Masks: Agayuliyararput / Our Way of Making Prayer. They maintained that the English title would be more accessible to readers. The Press also cut the bilingual text from the draft catalog, wanting the full-color book to emphasize the mask’s dramatic beauty. The Press, however, agreed to print a smaller black-and-white bilingual book including these stories, with Marie Meade as first author. This two-for-one solution has been a good thing, allowing our work to reach diverse audiences. Since 1996, my Yup’ik partners and I have produced four similar sets of “paired” books—one English for general and scholarly audiences and a bilingual companion volume for community use—setting new standards for academic publications resulting from collaborative projects (see references at the end—eds.) In each case, I constructed the text of an English book based on translations by Marie and, more recently, Fig. 1 Elders at the Ethnologisches Museum Berlin, September 1997. From left to right: Catherine Moore, Wassilie Berlin, Paul John, Annie Blue, Marie Meade, Andy Paukan, and Ann Fienup-Riordan. Photo by Dietrich Graf, Ethnologisches Museum Berlin 8 ASC Newsletter by Alice Rearden, and identifying the many Yup’ik contributors by name. In the bilingual books, I provided the English introduction followed by detailed Yup’ik transcriptions with facing page English translations, showcasing Yup’ik oratory. While visiting museums in search of Yup’ik masks in the 1990s, I'd stumbled on a trove of Yup’ik objects at the Berlin Ethnographic Museum in Germany. Andy Paukan and others were enthusiastic about visiting the Berlin Museum, which we did in September 1997, thanks to funding from the National Science Foundation. The desire to explore these collections for the benefit of younger generations was that of the elders themselves, especially of Paul John and Andy Paukan. Two books—one in English and one bilingual—grew out of that trip. The elders' “fieldwork” in collections was revolutionary. None of us had enough previous experience in museums to know that spending three weeks examining Yup’ik patrimony in collections was out of the ordinary (Fig.1). The rewards were rich. During our time in Berlin, elders examined and discussed over 2,000 museum pieces. Back in Alaska, Marie translated everything they shared. My job was to weave their stories together. They were the experts, while my role was to organize their stories, providing background and letting their voices shine. The same year we traveled to Berlin, Paul John’s son, Mark John, took charge of the regional nonprofit, the Calista Elders Council (CEC). After our return, Mark asked if I would work with him to help find support for continued work with elders, which I gladly agreed to do. Under Mark’s leadership, CEC became the primary heritage organization in the Yukon-Kuskokwim delta region, an area the size of Kansas and homeland for more than 26,000 Yup’ik people, 14,000 of whom speak the Yup’ik language. Alice Rearden came to work as a translator for CEC in 2000. My partnership with Mark, Alice, Marie, and others has continued for more than twenty years (Fig.2), Together our team has taken on a variety of projects, all of which were initiated by CEC’s board of elders. CEC’s primary information-gathering tool has been the topic-specific gathering. We pioneered this format while working with elders between 2000 and 2005 during a major Yup’ik knowledge project, also funded by NSF. We found that meeting with small groups of three to five elder experts, accompanied by younger community members, for two- and three-day gatherings devoted to a specific set of questions was an effective and rewarding way of addressing topics. Our gatherings always take place in Yup’ik, which Mark says I speak “well enough to beg for food.” Alice and Marie then create detailed transcripts of each gathering, and we work together to turn these into bilingual publications and accompanying English texts. Over the past twenty years, CEC has hosted dozens of gatherings, resulting in more than 1,500 hours of recordings and 22,000 pages of transcripts. In these gatherings, elders teach not just facts but how to learn. They share not only what they know but how they know it and why they believe it is important to remember, so that such gatherings are not just as documentation tools but contexts of cultural transmission. Tengautuli Atkuk/The Flying Parka With this background, I will turn to CEC’s most recent book. Although each of our books are unique, “Tengautuli Atkuk” serves as a good example of how our team works together. The seeds for the book were planted two decades ago, during work with women documenting sewing techniques as part of another museum exhibit, Yuungnaqpiallerput / The Way We Genuinely Live: Masterworks of Yup’ik Science and Survival. Once again, a Yup’ik steering committee met regularly to guide our work. This time, however, both the exhibit and the catalog bore the Yup’ik title, Yuungnaqpiallerput, from the beginning. During preparation for the exhibit, we held two small sewing gatherings. We were also able to commission Lena Fig. 2 The CEC team who have worked together on many projects over the years, including Mark John, Ann Fienup-Riordan, Marie Meade, and Alice Rearden. The photo was taken with Alice’s smart phone after a talk at the University of Alaska Anchorage bookstore, September 2019 ASC Newsletter 9 Atti of Kwigillingok to make a fish skin parka, and Neva Rivers to make a gut skin parka, both of which were included in the exhibit. Although Yup’ik women had shared a great deal in preparation for our Yup’ik science exhibit, parkas were not a focus of conversation, and fur parkas were barely discussed. Fast forward a decade to another NSF-funded project on the relations between humans and animals in southwest Alaska. During one of our gatherings on birds, Albertina Dull (then 99-years-old) mentioned a garment we had never seen in museum collections— an atasuarek, a one-piece birdskin suit that she had used to clothe her infant son, something that had not been made in her homeland for close to a century. All the coastal women of her generation sewed birdskin clothing, and we set to work organizing a small gathering in Toksook Bay to learn the process firsthand (Fig.3). In spring 2019, I traveled to Toksook with Mark John, where we worked with Albertina, Mark’s mother Martina (then 84), and her sister B to tan king eider and long-tailed duck skins and start the process. Together with Ruth’s niece, Nellie Jimmie, we succeeded in creating a “practice piece” which the women subsequently gave as a gift to display at the new regional hospital in Bethel. We wanted to try again to make a more finished atasuarek, and planned to get together in spring 2020. Unfortunately, COVID intervened. Ironically, COVID gave both Alice and me the time to think about parkas, and Tengautuli Atkuk was the result. While meeting with elders was impossible, I thought about what they had shared in the past, and the story of the flying parka came to mind. I’d first heard it from Paul John in 2000, during a culture camp at Umkumiut. Paul told how a nukalpiaq (great hunter) had declared that his beautiful daughter would only marry the young man who was able to capture the fancy parka that flew around their village at night. Many young men tried, but only the poor orphan boy succeeded. One moonlit night, when he went outside the men’s house to defecate, he saw the parka’s shadow behind him and reached back and grabbed it. He then went to the home of the nukalpiaq to claim his bride. The next morning, wearing the beautiful parka, she served him in the men’s house and in so doing announced that they were man and wife. It was fun to recall all the other stories in which parkas played a part. It was said that the great warrior Apanuugpak, when he was still an infant, was saved during a raid when he was thrown into the water wearing a one-piece coverall. He had held onto the grass along the shore, where his mother later found him, his tiny fur outfit keeping him buoyant and saving his life. Ircenrraat (other-than- human persons) were also said to be recognizable by their distinctive parkas— some wearing squirrel parkas made from a single pelt. Another story recounts how mischievous ircenrraat wanted to take a young boy into their world. As in the story of the Flying Parka, marriage was signified by the bride’s acceptance of a parka, the variety of furs and workmanship attesting to the wealth and skills of her new in-laws. Her parka would be her paitaq, her heirloom and inheritance. The placement of tassels and beads on such a parka was far from random. Many designs recalled specific events, like the underarm tassels shown here, representing the arrow shot through the side of the warrior Apanuugpak as he ran from his enemies. Fig. 3 The team that made the atasuarek, with Martina John, Ruth Jimmie, and Nellie Jimmie in front and Ann Riordan and Albertina Dull sitting behind them. Photo by Simeon John Fig. 4 Martina John, Albertina Dull, and Elsie Tommy looking at a birdskin parka at the Museum Support Center. E48336, Department of Anthropology, Smithsonian Institution. Photo by Ann Fienup-Riordan 10 ASC Newsletter As these stories make clear, “parka-making” conversations touch on every aspect of Yup’ik life— marriage partnerships, oral instruction, history, and more. Parkas were also used to cloth the dead and as grave markers in the past, on grave boards still found on the tundra in the 1930s. In the past, everyone could “read” a parka: one’s parka revealed one’s poverty as well as wealth. Those who lost their mothers, they said, were like orphans with no one to sew their clothing. During a 2012 trip to Washington, supported by the Smithsonian’s Recovering Voices program, the same group of women—Albertina, Martina, and Ruth, along with Elsie Tommy—had an opportunity to look at pieces of clothing in the collections of both the National Museum of the American Indian and the National Museum of Natural History. Our trip to D.C. coincided with the arrival of Hurricane Sandy, and two of our five days in collections were canceled. We spent our time gathered in one room at the Holiday Inn, eating dry fish, telling stories, and watching Martina sewing seal gut and finishing a pair of wolf-skin boots. It was there that the women shared personal stories of learning to sew—how they watched their mothers, then practiced using her leftovers, making clothing for their dolls. Martina especially spoke of her strong desire to learn to sew, from the beginning. When she got a husband, she was extremely happy and took care of his catches, finally able to have material of her own. Our time in collections was short, but thanks to the help of museum staff, we were able to look at and enjoy dozens of items, including many beautiful parkas. I should say that while we were funded to travel and found funds for Alice to do full transcriptions, we’d never had time to write up what we'd learned. Thanks to COVID we had the time, and to spare, and we revisited those days with renewed appreciation for what it meant to work together in person. There is another special aspect of this book-making project. I had the text drafted before we began to think about book illustrations. First was a CD given to us by the then-NMAI photo archivist Donna Rose during an earlier museum visit. The CD included more than 300 tinted lantern slides taken by dental surgeon Dr. Leuman Waugh during his travels in southwest Alaska in 1935 and 1937—the first color photographs known for the region. Igor Krupnik and Stephen Loring first brought this collection to our attention in 2002. In Alaska, CEC staff made a photo a week printed in the Bethel newspaper, The Delta Discovery, so that people throughout the region could enjoy them. Many called, identifying the men and women pictured and requesting copies of photos of their parents and grandparents. Many of the caption details we included in our parka book come from their comments. I also found CDs of photos shared by Warren Petersen’s family during our work on the Yup’ik science exhibit, including the lovely photo of children swinging in the BIA school playground in Kwigillingok, where the Petersens had taught school in the 1940s, when fancy fur parkas were a routine part of life (Fig.5). Many examples of parka styles were among the hundreds of photos that Harley and Mabel McKeague made while conducting health surveys in southwest Alaska in the 1960s. When they passed away, they willed their collection to the University of Delaware Museum, and the Museum has generously shared them with CEC. Thirty years after the Eskimo Essays I still write, but not primarily to be part of conversations in the field of anthropology, although I do think that the way Mark, Alice, Marie, and I work together has lessons for younger scholars. These lessons are captured in an African proverb: “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far go together”. These deep collaborations go beyond consultation and cooperation to the true co-conceptualization of knowledge. My advice to young anthropologists and museum Fig. 5 Cover of Tengautuli Atkuk / The Flying Parka: The Meaning and Making of Parkas in Southwest Alaska. University of Washington Press ASC Newsletter 11 professionals as well is to begin to work with a community and, if you can, stay with them and follow their lead. You will be richly rewarded. Today I write for Yup’ik people, partly because I’ve been asked to do so, but also because I think that this is important work. Most writers have an audience in mind. In the work we do together, Alice Rearden has been my first and best reader, and she is also the audience I aim for. If Alice finds what I write accurate and useful, I know I am on the right track. Working for CEC over the last twenty years, Marie, Mark, Alice, and I have had opportunities to listen and learn that have filled us all with gratitude—not just for particular facts and stories but for the generous way in which they have been shared. I was young when I wrote Eskimo Essays, and I thought I knew something; now I realize that I only know what I have been given. References Andrew, Frank. 2008. Paitarkiutenka / My Legacy to You. Alice Rearden and Marie Meade, transcriptions and translations. Ann Fienup-Riordan, ed. Seattle: University of Washington Press. Fienup-Riordan, Ann 1983. The Nelson Island Eskimo: Social Structure and Ritual Distribution. Anchorage: Alaska Pacific University Press. 1986. When Our Bad Season Comes: A Cultural Account of Subsistence Harvesting and Harvest Disruption on the Yukon Delta. Monograph Series 1. Aurora: Alaska Anthropological Association. 1990. Eskimo Essays: Yup’ik Lives and How We See Them. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press. 1995. Freeze Frame: Alaska Eskimos in the Movies. Seattle: University of Washington Press. 1996. The Living Tradition of Yup’ik Masks: Agayuliyararput (Our Way of Making Prayer). Seattle: University of Washington Press. 2005a. Wise Words of the Yup’ik People: We Talk to You because We Love You. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. 2005b. Yup’ik Elders at the Ethnologisches Museum Berlin: Fieldwork Turned on Its Head. Seattle: University of Washington Press. 2007. Yuungnaqpiallerput / The Way We Genuinely Live: Masterworks of Yup’ik Science and Survival. Seattle: University of Washington Press. 2010. From Consultation to Collaboration. In: Sharing Knowledge and Cultural Heritage: First Nations of the Americas. Laura Van Broekhoven, Cunera Buijs, and Pieter Hovens, ed. Neitherlands: Leiden. 2015. If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far go together: Yup’ik elders working together with one mind. Mutuality in Anthropology: Anthropology’s Changing Terms of Engagement. Roger Sanjak, ed. pp. 61–78. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Meade, Marie and Ann Fienup-Riordan. 1996. Agayuliyararput, Kegginaqut, Kangiit-llu / Our Way of Making Prayer, Yup’ik Masks and the Stories They Tell. Seattle: University of Washington Press. 2005. Ciuliamta Akluit / Things of Our Ancestors. Seattle: University of Washington Press. Rearden, Alice, Marie Meade, and Ann Fienup- Riordan. 2005. Yupiit Qanruyutait / Yup’ik Words of Wisdom. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. 12 ASC Newsletter ASC ANCHORAGE OFFICE ARON LINCOLN CROWELL RETIRES FROM THE SMITHSONIAN By William Fitzhugh On 1 January 2025 Aron Lincoln Crowell left the employ of the Smithsonian, having spent thirty years nurturing the ASC’s Alaska office at the Anchorage Museum from embryonic status to a full-fledged Smithsonian research and education enterprise. Over that time, ASC/Alaska became an important partner in the cultural life of the Nation’s 49th State, home to the largest U.S. indigenous population (nearly 150,000), whose cultural heritage is tied to nearly 175 years of Smithsonian research and collections. Aron’s announcement at the end of October 2024 was a surprise. [How could he leave the Smithsonian after only thirty years? Lots of military people see thirty as the golden door, but Smithsonian researchers are often just getting warmed up at that point, I mused.] I did not have a magic wand to entice him to stay just a little bit longer. “What are you going to do?” “Not sure, but I’ll stay in Anchorage.” With that, I saw a glimmer of hope. We had unfinished work from our 1970s Labrador Torngat Project, including reports Aron drafted that never got into print. “Sure, that would be fun.” So, ASC is losing its Anchorage director, but not a colleague. We wish Aron the best wherever his path leads. At the end of this piece, I include notes from Aron’s colleagues. Early Days Boilerplate on the web describes Aron’s profile in a nutshell: “an Arctic anthropologist and Alaska Director of the Smithsonian Institution’s Arctic Studies Center. His research and publications in cultural anthropology, archaeology, and oral history reflect collaborations with indigenous communities of the north and with major museums and research institutions…He directs archaeological research around the Gulf of Alaska from the Katmai coast to Glacier Bay and recently led National Science Foundation-funded research on the human and environmental history of Yakutat Bay. Crowell has a BA and MA from George Washington University and a PhD in anthropology from the University of California, Berkeley.” Aron’s scientific bent was expressed early on as a youthful fossil collector. He played trombone (me too!) and grew up helping his father with everything from construction jobs to inspecting underwater bridge foundations. Boats became part of his life, and for part of his student days he lived on a barge in the Potomac River. Our association began in 1975 when Aron crewed on a dig at Rattlers Bight on the central Labrador coast. He showed great enthusiasm for sending back- dirt flying, but soon learned more delicate technique. In 1976– 77 he joined Alison Brooks’ (GWU) and John Yellen’s (NSF) Kalahari project in Botswana, where he gained ethno- archaeological skills and life-long sensitivity to indigenous knowledge and peoples. When Richard Jordan and I organized the Northern Labrador Torngat Archaeological Project in 1977–78, Aron signed on, earning the moniker, “Count Cruel”, for his tendency to slip into Carpathian dialect. Cooking was another skill, and rounding Cape Mugford in heavy seas he demonstrated a hands-free technique for flipping eggs and ‘Newfi steak’ (baloney). Returning to D.C. in 1981, he joined Susan Kaplan, Chris Nagle, and Stephen Loring researching the Torngat collections. He was especially skilled at analyzing large sets of computerized settlement pattern data using cluster and nearest-neighbor techniques. The Smithsonian environment primed him for more education, and in 1987 he applied to University of Left: Excavating a Maritime Archaic feature at Rattlers Bight, Labrador, 1975. Photo by W. Fitzhugh. Righ: Ballybrack, 1977: “What do you suppose this is?” Photo by S. Loring ASC Newsletter 13 Michigan and Berkeley Ph.D. programs. My recommendation letters began: “Aron Crowell is the finest student/assistant/ colleague I have ever had the privilege of working with”. In addition to his Torngat and African work, he had assisted our exhibition, Inua: Spirit World of the Bering Sea Eskimo (1982) and then became my co-curator/author for Crossroads: Cultures of Siberia and Alaska (1988). My recommendation concluded: “Aron has been active at the full professional level in anthropology and museum studies for several years. He writes extremely easily and well and cuts through to core issues rapidly. His background is amazingly varied, and he maintains wide interests. All he needs is his doctorate; he already has most of the qualifications of new PhDs.” He chose Berkeley. Alaska Beckons With momentum from Crossroads and support from Senator Ted Stevens and Smithsonian Secretary Robert Adams, federal funds became available to create the Arctic Studies Center in 1988. Simultaneously, I began planning for an Alaska ASC regional office at the Anchorage Museum with director Patricia Wolf, Senator Ted Stevens, the town of Anchorage, and the Park Service (thanks, Ted Birkedal!). By 1993, we were ready to make Smithsonian collections, resources, and programs more accessible to the state’s diverse communities. Aron soon discovered the joys and frustrations of being an independent office director (then) five time zones and thousands of miles from D.C. The Anchorage Museum provided office facilities and research space, but Aron was confronted with the challenge of learning the SI bureaucracy—time-cards, personnel, contracting, grants and proposals, travel authorizations, vouchers, etc.—with only a bit of coaching from the ASC-central. Over time, in addition to conducting cutting edge research, he learned survival skills and established the Alaska office as a vital NMNH/SI branch, smaller to be sure, but similar to NMNH facilities in Fort Pierce and Panama. Public response to the Inua and Crossroads tours in Alaska demonstrated that SI collections and archives could play a major role strengthening indigenous culture. Why keep them locked up in storage? Education and advancing cultural heritage and language were the key reasons for establishing a Smithsonian Alaska office, and Aron quickly dived into a series of projects moving in this direction. Over his career, he curated four major exhibitions. He co- curated Crossroads of Continents: Cultures of Siberia and Alaska (1988). Upon arriving in Anchorage, between 1995–2001 he produced Looking Both Ways: Heritage and Identity of the Alutiiq People, joining SI ethnographic and archaeological collections with oral history and knowledge from Alutiiq elders and scholars like Gordon Pullar. The project received a rave Current Anthropology review by James Clifford (Current Anthropology 45(1), 2004), who hailed the exhibit and its catalog for breaking new ground in museum anthropology by ‘looking both ways’. While this work was proceeding, Aron had the herculean task of creating a permanent Smithsonian gallery in the Anchorage Museum, whose recent expansion had been justified partly by the arrival of Smithsonian loan collections. Opening in 2010. Living Our Cultures, Sharing Our Heritage: First Peoples of Left: Aron and Chris Nagle recording a 6,000-year-old burial mound feature at Ballybrack, near Nain, Labrador, 1977. Photo by S. Loring). Upper right: Relaxing on board Tunuyak. Photo by W. Fitzhugh. Lower right: Crowell’s Ph.D. excavation at a Russian promyshlennik site at Three Saints Harbor in 1991 with Alec Heminway and Phillip McCormick, 1991. Photo by A.L. Crowell 14 ASC Newsletter Alaska required bringing Alaska Native tribal groups to Washington D.C. to research and select objects from NMNH and NMAI collections. ‘Herculean’ is not too strong a term for the huge 10-year undertaking that involved scores of curators, conservators, exhibit and web designers, artists, funders, and politicians—all requiring close coordination with indigenous and Anchorage Museum directors Patricia Wolf, James Pepper Henry, and Julie Decker From its inception, Living Our Cultures was part of the larger ASC plan of returning collections to Alaska; it was also a cornerstone in Pat Wolf’s plan to double the size of the museum, whose expansion budget funded nearly the entire exhibition. A customized display system and special loan provisions allows Living Our Cultures to serve simultaneously as a study collection for researchers, elders, artists, and educators through hands-on access in an on-site consultation and media studio. The education component is globally connected through the award-winning website Alaska Native Collections: Sharing Knowledge. These outreach and education programs have since become the major focus of ASC/Alaska with the development of new media and public programs following the arrival of Dawn Biddison as the ASC’s public programs developer. Toward the end of this period, Aron helped co-curate an exhibition of ancient Old Bering Sea art with Julie Hallowell and myself at the Princeton University Museum, opening in 2009. Crowell presents the Living Our Cultures Exhibit opening to Secretary G. Wayne Clough and Elizabeth Dugal in 2010. Photo by D. Hurlbert Aron introduces SI Secretary Wayne Clough to Tsimshian artist David Boxley at the Living Our Cultures opening, 2010. Photo by D. Hurlbert As these outreach and communication efforts were unfolding, Aron maintained a strong archaeological research program. Following early explorations on St. Lawrence Island (1984), cultural resource surveys in Uyak Bay (1985), South Alaskan Exxon CRM surveys (1989–1992), his Ph.D. thesis was based on Russian contact era fieldwork (1989–1991) in Three Saints Harbor, Kodiak Island. Published as Archaeology and the Capitalist World System: A Study from Russian America (1997), his research provided Left: Visiting the NMNH Inupiaq collections in the NMNH Museum Support Center in 2007 with Jane Brower (seated with sealskin pants), Kenneth Toovak, Doreen Simmonds, and Ron Brower from Utqiagvik. Right: Navigating upriver to Spoon Lake 3 archaeological site, Yakutat, 2014. Photos by Mark Luttrell http://alaska.si.edu ASC Newsletter 15 an historical foundation for his Looking Both Ways (2001) exhibition and catalog. Following this, with data from CRM surveys in the Gulf of Alaska, Aron and several natural science colleagues began a series of regional archaeological, settlement pattern studies, paleoecology, geology, and climate studies published in leading science journals, exploring the cultural effects earthquakes, climate change, and glacier dynamics in South and Southeast Alaska. These papers are remarkable contributions to the understanding human- environmental interactions over time in one of the most complex regions of North America. At the same time these studies were advancing, Aron became increasingly focused on social linkages between culture and environmental history as represented in a ten-year, NSF-supported project in Yakutat Bay. Laaxaayík, Near the Glacier: Indigenous History and Ecology at Yakutat Fiord, Alaska (2024) explored a 1,100-year history of Eyak, Ahtna, and Tlingit settlement and adaptation to Yakutat fiord based on four seasons of archaeology, ecological studies, and oral history interviews with 60 Yakutat community members. A unique feature was the project’s co-design and implementation with the Yakutat Tlingit Tribe, notably Judy and George Ramos, Elaine Abraham, Sealaska Heritage Institute’s Rosita Worl, and other Indigenous scholars. Over his career, Aron received numerous awards in addition to Clifford’s Currant Anthropology feature which had been an early indication of his reflective culture/community approach to everything anthropological. Awards include 2022 and 2010 NMNH Science Achievement Awards, the 2014 Smithsonian Education Achievement Award, and the NMNH Outreach Achievement Award (2010). His Yakutat monograph is a likely candidate for future awards. Since 1995 he was adjunct professor at the University of Alaska (Anchorage), teaching and mentoring students in classroom, lab, and fieldwork. He served on scores of NMNH and SI committees, on NSF grant review panels, NSF’s Office of Polar Programs advisory board, on journal and press editorial boards, represented the ASC at ARCUS, and was President of the Alaska Anthropological Association (2007–2012) and Museums Alaska (2006–2012). Aron reports being inspired by more than 160 years of Smithsonian exploration and engagement in Alaska. In a Smithsonian Global interview, he noted, “everywhere I work there have been Smithsonian predecessors, including William Nelson, Frederica de Laguna, and Henry Collins. Since the earliest days of the National Museum, we’ve been here. Rebuilding the connection between Smithsonian research and the people of Alaska has been one of the joys of this job.” Aron’s research accomplishments and his role as founding director and 30-year stewardship of the Arctic Studies Center Anchorage Office more than qualifies his name as an addition to this list of illustrious Smithsonian Alaskan researchers. "In my work as an archaeologist,” says Crowell, “I find it fascinating to work with historians, Alaska Native residents, and natural scientists to see coastal landscapes through many different eyes—as places for living, as dynamic zones of glaciation and geological change, as biological environments, and as cultural landscapes where myths, place names, legends, and history tell about 10,000 years of human occupation.” (Credit: PBS interview) Left: Visiting the Keik’uliyaa sealing camp site with George, Judy, and David Ramos from Yakutat; anthropologist Steve Langdon far left. Disenchantment Bay, 2011. Photo by M. Luttrell. Center: Gloria Wolf and Aron display the Living Our Cultures book at a Yakutat event in 2017. Photo by J.D. Ramos Right: Aron conducting a review of the Pratt Museum with Simeon Kvasnikoff (on-screen) and Natalie Kvasnikof, 2002. Photo by J. Clifford 16 ASC Newsletter REMARKS ON ARON CROWELL’S RETIREMENT By Amy Phillips-Chan The retirement of Dr. Aron L. Crowell comes as the end of a great tome in which he played a pivotal role in advancing the field of community-centered anthropology, archaeology, and museum studies in Alaska. I first met Aron through a graduate internship in 2009 for Living Our Cultures, Sharing Our Heritage: The First Peoples of Alaska. This seminal exhibition, publication, and website brought together curators, scientists and Indigenous knowledge experts in multi-vocal discussions of material culture objects that have since been shared with countless visitors in the Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center gallery at the Anchorage Museum. A strong supporter of students, Aron encouraged me to apply for the James W. VanStone Graduate Scholarship Award in 2012, which allowed me to participate in the 39th Annual Meeting of the Alaska Anthropological Association. Our family moved to Nome in 2015 where I began work as director for the new Carrie M. McLain Memorial Museum. I recall reaching out to Aron several times during development of the museum and found Aron always ready to provide insight from his own experience, ranging from artifact mounts to maps of Alaska. In 2019, the Carrie M. McLain Memorial Museum and City of Nome had the pleasure of hosting the 46th Annual Meeting of the Alaska Anthropological Association. During this meeting, Igor Krupnik and Aron Crowell organized the session The Centennial of the Fifth Thule Expedition, 1921–1924, which brought together participants from across the Circumpolar North. The meeting passed in a blur, but the memory remains of my delight in having mentors from the Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center there in Nome. 2020 was the year of COVID-19 but also of publications, including Arctic Crashes: People and Animals in the Changing North, in which editors Igor Krupnik and Aron Crowell had invited me to contribute a paper, and a special volume of the Alaska Journal of Anthropology 18(1) dedicated to museum anthropology in which my co-editor Amy Steffian and I had invited Aron to contribute a paper. Aron’s article titled, “Living Our Cultures, Sharing Our Heritage: An Alaska Native Exhibition as Indigenous Knowledge Nexus,” looks back at co-development of the landmark exhibition as well as the innovative educational programs it has since fostered under the able guidance of Dawn Biddison. Most recently, Aron encouraged my transition to Juneau and the Alaska State Libraries, Archives and Museums, where I have served as director since 2022. Looking back over the past 15+ years of knowing Aron, I am incredibly grateful for the support, direction, and invaluable example he has set in pursuing excellence in research, writing, and Indigenous-museum collaborations. Although this book of a decades-long career is drawing to a close, in Alaska we look forward to continuing our work with Dr. Aron L. Crowell as he begins a new volume of life in the field of Arctic studies. A ROAD LESS TRAVELED: WORKING WITH ARON CROWELL IN ALASKA By Dawn Biddison I first met Aron Crowell in 2002 while I was working on my M.A. research in Anchorage, where I volunteered for the summer at the Arctic Studies Center (ASC) helping with Smithsonian collections research. The timing was perhaps luck, perhaps kismet, but the kind of progressive and truly collaborative work with Alaska Natives that Aron was doing drew me to the ASC in Alaska and has kept me here for over twenty years. Aron met the annual challenge of finding funding for my position, and I have greatly appreciated his stalwart support in this and in allowing me to develop my work. Aron retired at the end of December 2024 and will hopefully continue his presence at ASC-AK as a Smithsonian Research Associate. I began my Trust position in 2003 at ASC-AK by assisting Aron on the research, writing and curation of the ‘Sharing Knowledge’ website and the exhibition Living Our Cultures, Sharing Our Heritage: The First Peoples of Alaska, which opened at the Anchorage Museum in 2010. This team effort involved numerous colleagues at NMNH and NMAI and Alaska Native experts, and we met the challenges of our work together with patience, perseverance, and humor, along with very high standards out of respect for the Igor Krupnik, Aron Crowell, and Kenneth Pratt share lighthearted conversation at Old St. Joe’s Hall in Nome, Alaska during the 2019 Alaska Anthropological Association Meeting. Photo by Amy Phillips-Chan ASC Newsletter 17 Indigenous communities of Alaska. After the exhibition opened and my work shifted to community outreach and engagement on Alaska Native heritage projects, Aron made sure that my experience and responsibilities grew with each project, until I was proficient enough to work independently, which was made possible by the supportive environment he provided. As I walk through the Living Our Cultures exhibition each day to get to my office, I am often reminded about the many ways this project was cutting edge for a museum exhibition and how Aron’s enlightened approach to museum work prepared the way for ASC- AK to make active use of Smithsonian collections and of staff skills for the benefit of Alaska communities and beyond. This is something I continue to appreciate and honor. ARON CROWELL—AN APPRECIATION By Ben Fitzhugh Congratulations to Aron as he moves into the next phase of his consequential career! He has been a pioneer and pathsetter in Alaskan archaeology and museum anthropology since the 1980s, and, in so many ways, I have looked up to, followed, and grown from Aron’s seminal research and community-engaged approach over the years. Our careers have proceeded largely in parallel (though mine started a decade later), mentored by Bill Fitzhugh and by the happenstance of having served as crew members (in different years) in Richard Jordan’s 1980’s research on Kodiak, Alaska, that contributed to a transformational cultural revolution in cultural revitalization there (Pullar 1992). Aron’s interests in human-environmental interactions and historical ecology as well as his commitment to indigenous archaeology preceded and paved the way for many of my own, and in some of the same regions and communities. When I first arrived on Kodiak in 1987 as a rising university junior to participate in the Bryn Mawr excavations at Karluk 1 led by Jordan, I participate in an archaeological survey and midden sampling project in Larson and Uyak Bays. Making use of the same small Smithsonian research vessel, the Becky I, and with at least one of the same crew members (Phillip McCormick), we revisited, sampled and refined maps of sites previously reported by Aron from a survey he led two years before (Crowell 1986). A few years later, I wrote my dissertation proposal, in part, to evaluate interpretations Aron and his collaborators generated from the 1989 Exxon Valdez Cultural Resource Program (Mobley et al. 1990; Erlandson et al. 1992), and starting in 1993, two years after he completed his dissertation fieldwork at the pioneering Russian- American settlement of Three-Saints Bay (Crowell 1997), I started my own dissertation research surveying Sitkalidak Island and the Straits adjacent to Three Saints Bay, working with many of the same partners from the Native community of Old Harbor. It took me longer to embrace historic or colonial-era archaeology in my own work, but since 2019 partnering with former Ph.D. student, now colleague, Hollis Miller, I have been excavating an Alutiiq/Sugpiaq village site on Sitkalidak that was directly affected by the Russian conquest in 1784. Residents of Ing’yuq village (KOD 114) would have witnessed (and been victims of) Gregorii Shelikov’s attack on the Awa'uq Refuge Rock (five miles away), and they lived through the subsequent imposition of expanding Russian control emanating initially from Three-Saints Bay and later the Russian American Company’s Kodiak and later Sitka strongholds (Miller, Pestrikoff-Botz and Swenson, in press). Through the years, running the Alaska Arctic Studies Center, Aron has supported countless opportunities for Native elders, artists, and scholars to work with archaeological and ethnographic collections, repatriate knowledge and inspire cultural revitalization, and support regional community institutions like the Alutiiq Museum on Kodiak (Crowell et al. 2001). Most recently we have both—in somewhat different ways—sought to understand the effects of climate change and geological hazards on communities and their subsistence harvesting practices around the Gulf of Alaska and broader North Pacific Rim (Crowell and Arimitsu 2023; Fitzhugh et al. 2020, 2022). Aron, I wish you well and selfishly hope retirement does not diminish your collaborations or Aron Crowell with Alaska Native Elders and exhibition contributors Claire Swan and Mary Bourdukofsky at the Living Our Cultures exhibition opening at the Anchorage Museum. Photo by Brian Adams, 2010 18 ASC Newsletter publications in the coming years. Either way, thank you, for the inspiration of your work over the past 40 years! ARON CROWELL: A GLIMPSE FROM THE SIDELINES By Bernadette Driscoll Engelstad Unlike many friends and colleagues who have contributed richly detailed memories of working with Aron, my own experience has been glimpses from the sidelines—momentary views over time that have filled me with deep admiration and respect. As a graduate student in the summer of 1987, I first witnessed Aron’s intense intellectual focus as he and Bill worked out the final details for the Crossroads exhibition, readied the catalogue for publication, then planned and hosted a landmark seminar of international scholars. Aron’s move to Anchorage demanded the same level of intensity as he oversaw the transfer and planned the installation of the Smithsonian’s Alaska collection at the Anchorage Museum. His collaborative spirit has been clearly evident in numerous exhibitions and catalogues, including Looking Both Ways: Heritage and Identity of the Alutiiq People and Living Our Cultures, Sharing Our Heritage: The First Peoples of Alaska. As a co-editor of Animal Crashes and the Alaska Anthropological Association journal issue dedicated to the Fifth Thule Expedition, I came to appreciate his editorial skill first-hand. For over 40 years, Aron’s professional skills and personal qualities have been a lifeline for the Smithsonian’s Arctic Studies program and to Arctic research more broadly. His thoughtfulness, professional insight, attention to detail, and readiness—no, insistence—to work closely with collaborators, ensuring a positive and rewarding experience for all, comprise the unique constellation of professional strengths and personal qualities that has made Aron critical to the success of the Smithsonian’s Arctic Studies program. Aron will not only be deeply missed, but impossible to replace. MEMORIES FROM AN AKAA PARTNER By Kenneth Pratt I am grateful for the experiences I had working with my friend and colleague Aron Crowell, several of which involved our respective services to the Alaska Anthropological Association (AkAA), an organization for which Aron previously served as President and a member of its Board of Directors. Aron and I served as Co-Chairs of the 2013 Annual Meeting of the AkAA, organizing all aspects of the meeting (e.g. contracting for meeting space, developing the agenda and program)—a demanding and time-consuming task that was performed apart from the duties of our individual jobs. I gained great respect for Aron’s attention to detail, ability to effectively juggle lots of moving parts without dropping anything, and his considerable “people skills.” We joined forces again for the 2017 AkAA meeting, co-chairing a symposium titled, Reconstructing Alaska Native Histories through Oral Tradition and Archaeology. As it happens, the symposium title aptly describes a primary interest Aron has pursued throughout his career and emphasized in numerous of his publications. I also worked closely with Aron on a special volume of the Alaska Journal of Anthropology (2021) titled, “From Greenland to the Pacific: Centennial of the Fifth Thule Expedition, 1921–1924,” guest-edited for the journal by Aron Crowell and Igor Krupnik. Aron proved enormously helpful on this project by volunteering to review every article in the volume to ensure their conformance with the journal’s style guide. The international diversity of the contributing authors made this a huge task, which Aron performed superbly and without losing his well- developed sense of humor. Thank you, Aron, for your many contributions to the study of Northern Indigenous peoples and your continuing friendship. Happy Trails! ARON CROWELL IN BOTSWANA By John Yellen My friendship with Aron is not through the snows of Alaska but rather the sands of the Kalahari Desert. It was 49 years ago when Alison Brooks, my wife, and I directed an archaeology project on the border between Botswana and what then was “Southwest Africa”, today Namibia. Aron and another student agreed to come with us to excavate a Middle and Later Stone Age site. We were two days hard drive from the nearest town, and one of the day’s drive was essentially across almost trackless sand—a set of tire tracks over dunes and valleys. We lived and worked with “Bushmen”. The women still wore only animal skins and the men hunted with poisoned arrows. We built a camp of traditional southern African huts and drove to our site six days a week. I have three strong memories of Aron. The first is that unfortunately he did not wear shoes and treating his axe cut between his first and second toes was not easy. Shoes do serve a purpose. The second is the smile on his face when he and the other student walked into camp with a long pole between their shoulders and a dead kudu hanging from it. One could see clearly the bite marks on its throat, and although they in fact didn’t realize it—they had followed a noise—they had chased a leopard off its kill. Finally, there was Aron’s trip to the Tsodilo Hills which had rock paintings and ASC Newsletter 19 were ca. 80 completely trackless kilometers from our camp. Because Alison’s father was ill—a plane had flown over and dropped a note—Alison and I returned for a month to the US. We left one student in a town, but Aron insisted to remain alone with no vehicle or contact with the outside world in our camp. (Alison and I thought it a terrible idea and made him sign a “release.”) Shortly after our return Aron walked into camp (with shoes I think) deeply tanned. He had walked with Bushmen for weeks across the desert with no vehicle tracks at all, to Tsodilo and back again, living largely on what Bushmen culled from the bush. He looked so happy and proud, it is something I wish I had had the courage to do. PARTNERS FOR ‘TOGETHER WE THRIVE’ By Margaret Benson With deep appreciation and gratitude, I wish Aron Crowell a happy and well-deserved retirement from the Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center. Over the past several years, a project team from the National Museum of Natural History (Departments of Education & Anthropology) and the National Zoo collaborated with Aron as a Co-PI on a Together We Thrive education grant. The project produced new frameworks to provide culturally relevant and community-based museum, science, and education experiences and resources to communities. Aron generously and consistently contributed his experience, strategic know- how, and wisdom in measured and thoughtful ways to support our collective achievements. He played a pivotal role in guiding the work to create community- based ways for the Smithsonian to engage with communities in meaningful ways. The project will have a lasting impact. Thank you, Aron, for your partnership and collaboration in helping us weave science, education, and communities together. NMNH BOARD VISITS ALASKA By Aron Crowell Kirk Johnson led a trip to Alaska this past summer (August 4–9, 2024) by the National Museum of Natural History Advisory Board, including a morning in Anchorage to visit the Arctic Studies Center, tour its Living Our Cultures, Sharing Our Heritage: The First Peoples of Alaska exhibition, learn about our cultural and archaeological research, and meet Alaska Native educators, community leaders, and artists who are collaborating with the ASC on its ‘Together We Thrive’ culturally responsive science education grant from the Smithsonian’s Office of the Undersecretary for Education. NMNH leadership including Allison Willcox (Deputy Director), Rebecca Johnson (Associate Director for Science and Chief Scientist), Virginia Kromm (Chief Advancement Officer), and Chun-Hsi Wong (Associate Director for Operations), accompanied the group. Kirk Johnson’s remarks to the board at lunch graciously focused on the history and accomplishments of the ASC since its founding in 1988 under director William Fitzhugh and opening of the Alaska office in 1993 under Alaska director Aron Crowell. Following the morning at ASC, the Board visited the Alaska Native Heritage Center, hosted by ANHC CEO and director Emily Edenshaw, followed by an evening reception to meet ASC Alaska supporters including Jo and Peter Michalski, Heather Flynn, Diane Kaplan (Rasmuson Foundation), Gretchen Guess (Rasmuson Foundation), Jim Torgerson, the Honorable Morgan Christen, Tim Troll, and Phillip and Lauren Blanchett. The next NMNH Board gathered at Brooks River Falls. Photo by Chun-Hsi Wong Melissa Shaginoff (NMAI) and Aron Crowell discussing with the Board members how oral historical knowledge complements archaeological data and artifacts 20 ASC Newsletter day the Board and NMNH delegation took wing to the village of Igiugig in western Alaska to commemorate the NMNH repatriation of ancestral remains led by NMNH Board member and President of the Tribal Village of Igiugig, AlexAnna Salmon. INDIGENOUS ART AND SCIENCE: THE WOVEN TOGETHER PROJECT By Dawn Bddison “The workshop allowed me to understand more about Alaska Native resilience, science and community. In the process of weaving, I got to connect with everyone around me and learn valuable cultural knowledge.” — Jacob Belleque (Yup’ik) The Woven Together: Taperrnat Research and Art Project brought together forty three Alaskans across ages and seasons for teaching, learning, and sharing time together through researching, harvesting, processing, and weaving taperrnaq, the singular form for beach wild rye in Yugtun, the Yup’ik language. Its name is tl’egh in Dena’ina Qenaga, the Dena’ina language, and tapernaq in Sugt’stun, the Sugpiaq language. It’s scientific name is Leymus mollis, and it is commonly called beach rye grass in Alaska. Six grass fieldwork outings focused on beach rye grass took place across one year in three locations: Anchorage, Naknek and Homer, which are the traditional and present-day lands of the Dena’ina, Yup’ik and Sugpiaq peoples. Grass harvesting and weaving workshops were convened in Anchorage/Hope, Naknek and Homer. The thirty-four Alaska Native participants represented Ahtna, Cup’ig, Dena’ina, Iñupiaq, Sugpiaq, Tlingit, Unangax̂, Upper Tanana and Yup’ik heritage. A new Learning Lab site was created for the the project, featuring information about and photographs of participants, grass items in the Smithsonian collections and archival images, interview and instructional videos, and curriculum for three grade levels. “Connecting with others through this experience provided me with confidence, healing, knowledge, and joy. This project showed me ways where Indigenous Knowledge, traditional ecological knowledge, and Western science are braided, or woven, together. As an Indigenous student, it’s common to see IK and TEK utilized as “proof” or “evidence” to support Western science and not validated as scientific knowledge on its own. Higher education can feel extremely isolating due to this. This experience gave me guidance on how both sciences can be used in support of each other while still remaining validated in their own way. I feel more confident as an Indigenous student pursuing a field of study that commonly questions and compares IK and TEK to Western science. Rather than viewing it as limiting, as I once did, I now feel empowered to carve spaces for my research to fit. The grass outings contributed to my education, art and connection to the weaving community I’m a part of.” — Taytum X̂anix̂ Robinson (Unangax̂) During winter days in March 2024, Woven Together participants began fieldwork outings to spend time with beach rye grass in Naknek, Anchorage, and Homer. They noted information about Tribal lands, Alaska Native names, weather conditions, site descriptions, sounds, measurements and plant descriptions. They took grass samples and photographs of the site and blades. They continued their outings across the seasons, for a total of six that concluded in December. Participants on travel Fieldwork outing in Homer. Left: Wanda Reams, Sadie Sam, Carly Garay and Yarrow Hinnant. Right: Krystalynn Scott harvests an herbarium sample at Kincaid Park, Anchorage. Photos by Matt Reams and Dawn Biddison, 2024 https://learninglab.si.edu/q/ll-c/rDzoR3eWiFxMmUPB ASC Newsletter 21 in other locations where rye grass grows conducted fieldwork there: Kasilof, Quinhagak and Unalaska. Two additional outings were organized for Hope and Platinum. But before any fieldwork began, participants met online with Knowledge-Keepers Lucy Andrews (Yup’ik), Lucy Kuhns (Yup’ik), and June Simeonoff Pardue (Sugpiaq/Iñupiaq) to learn about Alaska Native values, protocols, and knowledge about rye grass. As an extension of the fieldwork outings, Alaska Native participants harvested beach rye grass samples in July to October for the U.S. National Herbarium in Washington, D.C., and the University of Alaska Museum Herbarium in Fairbanks, AK. In contrast to existing Smithsonian records for Leymus mollis in Alaska, documentation for these new records include content about the context of the plant: the Alaska Native names of the plant and its location, the name of the Tribe for the land where the sample was harvested, observations about the harvesting location, and photos of where the plant came from and who harvested it. Samples were collected in Anchorage, Homer, Hope, Kasilof, Naknek and Platinum, and they include samples of the renowned “purple” grass. Requests were made for analysis to learn why some plants have this rare coloring. “The first day is the hardest. The first day was the most sore my fingers were. It was the most nervous I was. A lot of it, being a Native person, is like ‘Oh, I don’t know these things.’ And there’s feeling that—a little bit of shame, and I think apprehension of, ‘Oh, I’m learning.’ But then as you start to do the second one, the joy and the excitement of, ‘Oh, I’m starting to know the medium’ and ‘we’re getting close to being finished,’ is so rewarding. Even as we were talking about being able to bring this to culture camp, and if we had the chance to teach teachers, and teach Elders, and teach community members, you know, the younger kids being able to see it and be exposed to it, is going to help with that process, so that the learning becomes a joy and less about shame.” — Emily Maurveluviiluq Brockman (Yup’ik) Workshops were convened for fieldwork participants and additional community members to learn from Knowledge-Keepers about sustainably harvesting beach rye grass, curing it for future use, and weaving with it. The first weaving workshop was held in Anchorage, bringing together Knowledge-Keepers Emily Johnston (Cup’ig) and Lucy Andrews (Yup’ik) who taught students how to process and weave taperrnat into tegumiat (dance fans). These students were invited to come together again in September for a one-day workshop with Emily in Hope on how to harvest beach rye grass. Two workshops were held in Homer. Emily taught students how to harvest taperrnat and the curing process of braiding, drying and sun- bleaching it. A month later June Simeonoff Pardue (Sugpiaq/Iñupiaq) taught students how to weave a grass mat with the grass they harvested. The final workshop was held in Naknek, where Lucy taught students about harvesting, processing and weaving taperrnat into mats and earrings. Another element was added to the project that seven of the project participants had time to join: a free, eight-part, online narrative photography workshop led by professional photographer and educator Jenny Irene Miller (Iñupiaq ). It was provided as another source of learning skills and as an opportunity to reflect on their project experiences. Left: Workshop participants in Anchorage: Lucy Andrews, Emily Johnston (row 1 left to right); Savanna Cillqaq VonScheele, Mercedes Chix̂tax̂ Kashatok, Laura Zimin, Emily Maurveluviiluq Brockman, Taytum X̂anix̂ Robinson, Stevi Rae Angasan, Megan Donhauser (row 2); (not pictured) Jacob Belleque, Rebecca Sedor, Anfesia Idigax Tutiakoff. Right: Workshop participants in Homer: Jennifer Robinette, Yarrow Hinnant, Sadie Sam, Wanda Reams, Melissa Shaginoff, Lorita Van Sky, Lucy Kuhns, Shawn Jackinsky, June Simeonoff Pardue, Jenny Irene Miller, Krystalynn Scott. Photos by Maggy Benson and Dawn Biddison, 2024 22 ASC Newsletter The group activities for the Woven Together project concluded in February of 2025 with a three-day gathering in Anchorage. The event brought together eight Washington, D.C. School District teachers and twelve Anchorage School District teachers for professional learning and cultural immersion experiences. Highlights included presentations by Ben Jacuk (Dena’ina/Unangax̂; Indigenous Researcher, Alaska Native Heritage Center) on Alaska Natives and boarding schools and by Panigkaq Agatha John- Shields (Yup’ik; Assistant Professor, University of Alaska Anchorage) on Alaska Native education. Woven Together fieldwork and workshop participants provided in a panel discussion. Artist and graduate student Taytum X̂anix̂ Robinson taught a weaving experience for the D.C. teachers. Smithsonian staff from D.C. also traveled north for the events: project partners Maggy Benson (PI), Learning Manager, Office of Education, NMNH, and Laura Klopfer, Head of Learning and Visitor Education, Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute; and grant partners Monique Chism, Under Secretary for Education, Smithsonian Institution, Karen Garrett, Senior Program Officer, Office of the Under Secretary for Education and Colleen Popson, Grants Manager, Office of the Under Secretary for Education. “If you don’t document it, and you don’t share it, you’ll lose it. As an Alaska Native who is actively involved with the preservation of our traditional ways, I believe it is important to share widely what we learn so that this information can be passed down through the generations.” — Laura Zimin, Sugpiaq Documentation outcomes from the Woven Together project are featured on a Learning Lab site with multi- media educational resources, including curriculum for three grades. Photographs introduce project participants and activities, share grass items from the Smithsonian collections and show archival images from communities. A series of videos provide interviews with Knowledge- Keepers and instruction within a cultural context for harvesting, processing and weaving taperrnat. The curriculua “Woven Connections: Exploring Science, Sustainability, and Culture Through Grasses” shares science, arts, and cultural values of grasses and weaving in Alaska. Through a series of ten interconnected lessons for three different grade levels, each curriculum bridges Indigenous ecological knowledge and scientific inquiry, fostering a deeper understanding of cultural practices and their connection to the natural world. By combining hands-on activities with cultural learning, Woven Connections equips students with knowledge, skills and respect for the heritage of Alaska Native communities and by extension all communities. “All my life I have been craving connection with Indigenous Knowledge-Keepers in a safe and peaceful environment. These workshops were a dream come true. Learing how to respectfully harvest a crafting material directly from the land felt empowering. To learn alongside other Alaska Natives was very healing. To experience trial and error, playfulness and joy together made my heart sing!” — Sadie Sam (Upper Tanana) The Woven Together project was co-developed by Dawn Biddison at the Alaska office of the Arctic Left: Workshop participants in Naknek: Brandi Johnson, Lucy Andrews, Lydia Emory, Ester Pepin, Michele Frank, Laura Zimin, Kendra Holstrom, Shanyce Pacheco (row 1, left to right); Maura Donnelly, Sheila Ring, Shirley Zimin, Verna Adams, Stevi Angasan. Right: Fieldwork outing in Platinum: Laura Zimin and Stevi Angasan. Photos by Dawn Biddison, 2024 ASC Newsletter 23 Studies Center in collaboration with Alaska Native community partners: Kay Larson Blair and Aleesha Towns-Bain, Bristol Bay Foundation, and Laura Zimin (Sugpiaq), University of Fairbanks, Bristol Bay Campus. The Alaska Native Museum Sovereignty Advisory Circle reviewed the project, provided feedback that was implemented and was approved by the group. Tribal representatives were met and corresponded with in advance from areas where the work took place: the Native Village of Eklutna, representing Indigenous peoples in the Anchorage area, the King Salmon Tribal Council, Naknek Village Council, Ninilchik Village Tribe, Platinum Traditional Village and the Traditional Village of Togiak. Dawn met with staff from additional community organizations during the project, including the Alaska Humanities Forum, Alaska Plant Materials Center, Anchorage School District, University of Alaska Anchorage School of Education and the University of Alaska Fairbanks College for Community and Rural Development. The Woven Together project is part of a Smithsonian ‘Together We Thrive’ project, A Community-Based Approach to Culturally Responsive Sustaining Education. The project was carried out in Alaska and Washington, D.C., in collaboration with the Smithsonian project team members from the National Museum of Natural History (Arctic Studies Center— Alaska, Department of Anthropology, and the Office of Education, Outreach & Visitor Services) and the National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute. The D.C. and AK-based projects, together, are an effort to co-create and situate more place-based education experiences and resources that are specific to science and local communities. Woven Together has received grant support from two Alaska Native non-profit organizations, the Bristol Bay Foundation and The CIRI Foundation, and from the Our Shared Future, Reckoning with our Racial Past Initiative at Smithsonian Institution. To learn more about the TWT project, please read the article by Aron Crowell in the 2022 and Dawn Biddison in the 2023 ASC Newsletters. NEW MEDIA By Dawn Biddison The new collection Woven Together: Taperrnaq Research & Art has been added to the Learning Lab site Smithsonian Arctic Studies in Alaska and features photographs, curricula and videos. The photographs share images and information from the community fieldwork outings and the harvesting and weaving workshops about teaching and learning with taperrnat, beach wildrye in the Yup’ik language. There are also photographs of woven grass items from the Smithsonian collections, as well as contemporary and archival images that link these historic items to Alaska Native communities. In addition, there is a set of narrative photographs made by Jenny Irene Miller, who participated in the project and taught an online class about this medium, and a set made by her students. A series of videos provide interviews with Knowledge-Keepers who shared their expertise with project participants and who are featured in instructional videos about harvesting and weaving. In this collection and in the “Distance Learning” section are three sets of 10 lessons with additional readings for teachers and students that share science, art and cultural values of grasses and weaving in Alaska. To learn more about the Woven Together project, please see the “Indigenous Art and Science” article in this issue. EXPLORING THE HISTORY OF “NUNIVAK- STYLE” WHOLE-TUSK IVORY CARVINGS By Ken Pratt and Dennis Griffin Early in 2024, Arctic Studies Center curator Stephen Loring requested the authors’ assistance in identifying the Nunivak Island artist(s) who made several whole-tusk, walrus ivory carvings in the Smithsonian Institution collections. Both authors have extensive research experience on the island and close relationships with Nunivak community members. Loring explained that the Smithsonian hopes to include the whole-tusk carving shown here in a planned National Museum of Natural History exhibition titled, “Linking Nature and Culture: Walrus Ivory,” which will be part of a celebration of the 250th anniversary of the United States. The Smithsonian seeks to have community engagement with any object placed on display, specifically requiring attribution of the artist (when possible) and formal permission for the display from the relevant tribe. After providing Loring with Grass socks E260721-0 in the National Museum of Natural History collection. Photo by NMNH, Smithsonian Institution https://learninglab.si.edu/q/ll-c/rDzoR3eWiFxMmUPB https://learninglab.si.edu/q/ll-c/rDzoR3eWiFxMmUPB https://learninglab.si.edu/org/sasc-ak 24 ASC Newsletter contact information for the appropriate Nunivak tribal official, the authors began researching the history of whole-tusk ivory carving on the island, a topic neither had previously investigated. The three-dimensional, “Nunivak-style” whole-tusk ivory carvings, many of which incorporate cribbage boards, are shrouded in mystery. They are collectively believed to date from ca. 1920 to the mid-1950s. Dorothy Jean Ray (1980:121–122) reported that they were made only on Nunivak Island and the style—which “was the invention of one carver” (unidentified)—was not imitated by carvers from other areas of Alaska. However, accession information on several tusk-carvings of similar style (one of which lacks an attribution to Nunivak Island) suggest they may have been made prior to 1920. Furthermore, only one whole-tusk carving has been definitively correlated with the Nunivak artist who made it (see below). A film made on Nunivak by Amos Burg for Encyclopedia Brittanica in 1941 shows a whole-tusk being carved, and the carver’s name is known; but no image of the finished carving has been found, nor has the carving itself. Most of these carvings were produced as part of a business venture of the Nome-based Lomen Brothers Company, which had a company agent (Paul Ivanoff) stationed on Nunivak who oversaw the work. The company provided Nunivak carvers with raw ivory from which craft items were made for sale within the region (e.g., to ships crews, visiting officials, storekeepers [Lantis 1984:211]), or to be peddled in larger markets outside Alaska. The ivory crafts market was well-established in Nome when the Lomens started the Nunivak carving program. Objects made in both areas were oriented toward the souvenir market through Detail of NMNH 394454 tusk showing a carnivorous walrus attacking a seal. Photo by S. Loring Abraham Anghik Ruben holding a Nunivak-style whole-tusk carving with a group of fish at its base (NMNH 394454). The tusk is approximately 83.8cm long x 7.62 cm diameter. Photo by S. Loring at least the mid-1950s, so were essentially “anonymous art” (Ray 1980: v-vi): i.e., artists typically did not “sign” their carvings in any way. In the case of carvings from Nunivak Island, it is also presently unknown if carvers and any of the specific objects they produced were linked in Lomen Company records. Thus, only artists with unique styles (and whose names were documented) might eventually be confidently matched with objects they carved. Just as Ray did not name the carver who reportedly invented the Nunivak-style of tusk carving, or cite a source for that information, museum accession records for similar Nunivak tusks located to date lack attributions to the artists who carved them. The difficulty of connecting a specific carver to a specific Nunivak tusk carved before ca. 1950 is further increased by the fact that all the potential tusk carvers have now been deceased for at least 50–70 years. Nunivak elders Nakaar Howard Amos and Nussaalar Muriel Amos (personal email communication with Ken Pratt, 07/13/2024) recently summarized the problem by stating: “Whomever has carved any whole tusk(s) is our guess. They were not identified by our ancestors as to who carved each of those tusks.” The implication is that tying their personal identities to the whole-tusk carvings they created was not important to the Nunivak carvers. Collectors/purchasers of those carvings might have been indifferent to knowing which artist created which carving: i.e., during the period in question, the ivory craft trade was driven by capitalistic objectives, not the production of “art” or showcasing the incredible artistic skills of Alaska Natives. A well-known photograph showing a Nunivak whole- tusk ivory carving was taken in 1927 by Edward S. Curtis (1930: facing p. 86). It shows the carver, whose ASC Newsletter 25 “The Ivory Carver, Nunivak” by Edward S. Curtis Manford E. Magnus