Newsletter Smithsonian Institution National Museum of Natural History May 2021 h ttps://na turalhistory.si.edu/research/anthropology/programs/arctic-studies-center Number 28 NOTES FROM THE DIRECTOR webinars have crowded our calendars and competed with normal work and personal schedules. Physical By William W. Fitzhugh isolating, the muffled voices of masked communicating, The year 2020, I am sure, will remain etched in our and the unending uncertainty of ‘where we go from memories even more clearly than other recent decadal here’ have left lives in limbo and futures uncertain. anniversaries like Y2K and 2010, not because of More broadly, COVID is forcing momentous changes astronomical calendrics, but for the pain, widespread in societies worldwide, with unknown outcomes. Gone suffering, and strangeness of the COVID-19 pandemic is the future we expected. Change is everywhere. experience across the globe. The Smithsonian has been closed to staff and the public since March; office files, Despite ‘these strange times,’ life at the ASC, Museum, collections, and research materials have been unavailable and Smithsonian moved forward. At the Natural to scholars, curators, and visitors; borders have been History Museum we welcomed Dr. Rebecca Johnson closed to fieldwork and conferencing; and we have lost as NMNH Assistant Director for Science, bringing direct contact with our friends and colleagues—some outstanding credentials in conservation biology and permanently. genetics from the Australian Museum. Ian Owens announced his departure from Deputy Director to head 2020 is also likely to be remembered as a watershed the Ornithological Laboratory at Cornell University. At for the changes it brought to our lives. Our explosive the SI Castle, SI Secretary Lonnie Bunch settled his entry into the “zoom” era is revolutionizing how leadership team and initiated a broad set of Smithsonian we work and interact with colleagues in both our policies promoting social justice and reflection on how professional and personal lives. While personally the Smithsonian can improve itself and strengthen its distant, we are electronically only a finger stroke away role as a morally tuned educational institution. With the from multitudes, and we are more connected than ever rise of the ‘Black Lives Matter’ movement, the urgency to distant families and friends. Zoom meetings and to address the continuing inequity, social injustice, The ASC virtual meeting on April 9, 2021, left to right: Nanсy Shorey, Igor Chechushkov, John Cloud, Dawn Biddison, Fiona Steiwer, Bernadette Engelstad, Stephen Loring, Aron Crowell, William Fitzhugh, Igor Krupnik, and Schuyler Litten 2 ASC Newsletter and racism in science and society has put these issues former narwhal show. I continued work on Quebec, prominently on the Smithsonian and NMNH agenda. Labrador, and Mongolia manuscripts and saw my book co-authored with Harri Luukkanen, The Bark Canoes One thing is certain: the pandemic has shown that and Skin Boats of Northern Eurasia published by we must upgrade our digital and remote outreach Smithsonian Books. With David Nordlander and Nana capabilities. One has to ask: why have such a huge Naisbitt, I submitted a collaborative proposal to the institution, such huge collections, if we can’t open our National Science Foundation with Dartmouth College storerooms, cannot exhibit objects for lack of exhibit for “Polar Explorer: Connecting Science and People space, and cannot make collections available digitally? through an Arctic Digital Library,” requesting funds With truth, social justice, and democracy at stake, the to test a prototype multi-institution digital network of Smithsonian mission is needed more than ever to reach Arctic research and educational materials. the broad public audiences nationally and world-wide who cannot visit Washington? Our growing cadre of ASC Associates have also been busy. Amy Chan, Director of the Carrie McLean At first, this newsletter seemed like it would be smaller Museum in Nome, Alaska, put the finishing touches on than usual because of COVID restrictions on research her Alaska drill-bow book, Our Stories Etched in Ivory and travel. So I decided to add a feature: “COVID-19 / Qulip’yugut Iksiaqtuumaruat Tuugaami, designed by and the Arctic”. What happened was unexpected; Igor Chechushkov. Ann Fienup-Riordan published stories have rolled in from every direction—some books on Yup’ik relations with animals and with that had been destined for delivery at our cancelled fish; John Cloud submitted a paper for a Sorbonne panel, “COVID-19: The Smithsonian Response” publication analyzing the Chesapeake battles of the from Iceland’s Arctic Circle Forum in October. We U.S. Revolutionary War; Kenneth Pratt wrote on are also featuring the talk given by our 2020 Ernest oral history records of ecosystem change in the Yukon S. Burch Lecturer, Brendan Griebel, “The Language Delta; Bernadette Engelstad published articles and of Inuinnait Heritage Research” describing a renewed prepared exhibit proposals featuring Inuit clothing; brand of collaboration being conducted by researchers, and Theodore Timreck completed his magnum film museums, and the community of Cambridge Bay, opus, Ancient Sea Peoples of the North Atlantic that Nunavut, Canada. documents five decades of ASC collaboration. This year has brought other milestones. Igor While 2020 has been surprising in many ways, we have Krupnik, navigating the Anthropology Department not been surprised by our many friends and supporters, through troubled COVID waters, has, with Aron whom we thank for their spirit and generosity. When Crowell, seen publication of their 555p edited Arctic earthquakes, fires, and upheavals struck we often heard Crashes volume—a certain future prize-winner. from abroad. This year the pandemic brought kind He and Aron also completed editing, with the communications from Koji Deriha, Elisa Palomino, assistance of Kenn Harper, a set of papers from the and many others. When the January 6, 2021 uprising special session in Nome, Alaska, in February 2019, took place at the U.S. Capitol, Jean-Loup Rousselot commemorating the centennial of the Danish Fifth wrote from Tallinn, Estonia: “We were almost crying, Thule Expedition (1921–24) led by Danish explorer- watching those pictures… [Europeans] go hand in hand folklorist, Knud Rasmussen. Dawn Biddison has [with the U.S.] in the same direction, even if we have produced a new multi-media educational website arguments once in a while.” with the Smithsonian’s Learning Lab/SCLDA that provides nationwide access to SI Arctic materials in In this year of human rights and equity issues, I collaboration with Indigenous scholars. The Alaska close with a note of thanks to our colleague, Noel office is funded largely by grants and donations. Along Broadbent. Noel has been an ASC Research Associate with Anthropology’s Repatriation and Recovering for many years. He and I met in 1971 in Uppsala Voices Programs, the Alaska office has been a model when he was ‘politically isolating’ in Sweden during showing how Smithsonian resources can reach beyond the Vietnam conflict; later he became a professor and D.C. masonry to communities regionally, nationally, created an Arctic Center at Umeå University in Umeå, and globally. Sweden. In 1989 he moved back to the U.S. to become the first Arctic Social Science program director at NSF/ While Stephen Loring and I have not been able to Polar Programs. Retiring 1997, he returned to Umeä, pursue fieldwork, we have been active planning exhibits. for a few years before returning to DC in 2004 to join Stephen assisted the NMNH “Dark Sky” exhibit, and the ASC. There he wrote Lapps and Labyrinths and he and I have helped develop “Visions of the Boreal became a cherished member of SI Anthropology. We Forest,” being produced by SITES, the Smithsonian’s begin this year’s NL with Noel’s brief account of his Traveling Exhibit Service, which is now touring our NSF tenure. ASC Newsletter 3 TABLE OF CONTENTS NOTES FROM THE DIRECTOR ........................ 1 COLLECTIONS .................................................. 50 Polar Explorer: The Arctic Digital Library ............ 50 DONORS and PARTNERS .................................... 4 The Vega Collection Project Advances into COVID-19 ‘All-Electronic’ Era ............................. 50 Polar Dreams ............................................................. 5 “Nelson In The Cloud” ........................................... 55 Bering Sea Art from Nunivak Island: a Chronicle of PANDEMICS 1918 AND TODAY ......................... 6 Richard D. Takilnok (Cup’ig, 1928–2007) ............. 58 How is Alaska Leading the Nation in Vaccinating The John Marr Collections from Nunavik at the Residents? ................................................................. 6 University of Colorado-Boulder Museum .............. 60 A 1925 Epidemic in the Lower Yukon, Alaska ......... 7 Pandemics in Labrador: 1918 and 2020–21 ............ 12 OUTREACH ........................................................ 62 Greenland and COVID-19 ...................................... 13 Filming Fifty Years of Smithsonian Archaeology ... 62 Smithsonian Educators Respond in the Covid Era ..... 14 Narwhal Exhibition on the Road after COVID-19 Award for Fish Skin Tradition ................................ 17 Breather ................................................................... 64 ASC ALASKA OFFICE ....................................... 18 PARTNERS, FELLOWS AND INTERNS ...... 65 Smithsonian Learning Lab ...................................... 18 Cruising the ASC, Before and During COVID-19 ... 65 Circumpolar Exchanges: Inuk Artist Glenn Gear ... 19 Building a Monograph ............................................ 65 Alaska Native Museum Fellowships ...................... 19 Compiling Data for the Deer Stone Project ............ 65 New Media: Weaving a Yup’ik Issran .................... 20 “More than Meets the Eye” ..................................... 66 Centennial Publication on the Danish Fifth Thule Expedition (1921–1924) ........................................... 21 BOOK REVIEWS ............................................... 67 Canadian Plans to Celebrate the Fifth Thule Paying the Land ...................................................... 67 Expedition ............................................................... 23 The Bark and Skin Boats of Northern Eurasia ........ 67 New Publications from Calista Education and NEWS ..................................................................... 23 Culture ..................................................................... 68 Oral History, Oral Present, Oral Future: The Applied Ethnology in Chukotka: Indigenous Language of Inuinnait Heritage Research ............... 23 Knowledge, Museums, Community Heritage. ........ 69 Celebrating Qaumajuq: Inuit Art Centre of The Whale Snow. Iñupiat, Climate Change and Winnipeg Art Gallery .............................................. 28 Multispecies Resilience in Arctic Alaska ................ 70 Burch Endowment Support for ASC Activities ...... 29 Art as a Mirror of Science—The Museum Cerny The 2020 Ernest S. Burch Memorial Lecture Inuit Collection ....................................................... 71 Program ................................................................... 30 Arctic Culture and Climate ..................................... 72 Sounds from The North: Location Time Art ........... 31 Tibetan silver: Gold and Bronze Objects and the Illusuak Cultural Centre Opens in Nain, Labrador ... 32 Aesthetics of Animals in the Era Before Empire .... 73 Pitul’ko Wins Research Excellence Award ........... 33 Besting the Best: Warriors and Warfare in the Cultural and Religious Traditions of Tibet.............. 73 RESEARCH .......................................................... 34 An Exploration of Prehistoric Ontologies in The “WUTE”: the Western Union Telegraph Expedition Bering Strait Region ............................................... 74 and Voyages of the Arctic Nightingale .................. 34 Books On Northeast Greenland .............................. 74 Searching for Basques on the Quebec Lower North Shore ....................................................................... 36 TRANSITIONS ................................................... 75 Analysis of Wind .................................................... 38 Dr. Stanislav Chládek .............................................. 75 Children at the Norse ’Farm Beneath The Sand’ .... 39 Remembering Selma Huxley Barkham ................. 76 “Arctic Crashes” Sails to Publication ..................... 41 Memories of Chiapas and Robert M. Laughlin ...... 78 Archaeological Notes from Mongolia .................... 42 Byron Mallott .......................................................... 78 A View North from the Tibetan Plateau .................. 43 Dale Gerard Kennedy ............................................. 79 Nunamit Workshop Explored Quebec LNS Inuit The S. A. Morse Diaries: Recollecting Lincoln Heritage ................................................................... 46 Washburn ................................................................ 79 A Bronze Age Logboat from the Starnberger See... 47 Reflections from Tallinn .......................................... 48 2020 ASC STAFF PUBLICATIONS ................... 82 4 ASC Newsletter THANKS TO OUR 2020/2021 DONORS AND PARTNERS* We extend our sincerest gratitude to the donors and partners who support the Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center. Ernest “Tiger” Burch Endowment STAFF Alaska Anthropological Association William Fitzhugh, ASC Director, and N. America Anchorage Museum Foundation Arch. Curator: fitzhugh@si.edu The Honorable Morgan Christen and Jim Torgerson Aron Crowell, Alaska Director and Arctic The CIRI Foundation Archaeologist: crowella@si.edu Perry and Louise Colbourne Cook Inlet Tribal Council Igor Krupnik, Curator and Ethnologist: Dartmouth Anthropology Goodman Fund krupniki@si.edu Dartmouth Institute of Arctic Studies Stephen Loring, Museum Anthropologist, and Perry and Arden Eaton Arctic Archaeologist: lorings@si.edu Peggy and Greg Favretto Dawn Biddison, ASC Alaska, Museum Specialist: Richard and Janet Faulkner biddisond@si.edu Susan M. Ferguson Nancy Shorey, Program Specialist: shoreyn@si.edu First National Bank Alaska Fiona Steiwer, Research Assist.: fsteiwer@gmail.com William W. and Lynne D. Fitzhugh Heather Flynn RESEARCH ASSOCIATES AND Government of Newfoundland-Labrador COLLABORATORS Florence Hart The Hintz Family Fund Inc. Bruce Bradley, Cortez, CO: Donald Holly primtech@yahoo.com Inuit Art Foundation Judith Varney Burch, Charlottesville,VA: Kenaitze Indian Tribe judithvarneyburch@gmail.com Innu Nation John Cloud, Washington, D.C.: cloudj@si.edu Betsy and David Lawer Bernadette Driscoll Engelstad, Kensington, MD: Lynden Family of Companies bdengelstad@gmail.com Memorial University of Newfoundland Ann Fienup-Riordan, Anchorage, AK: Mid-Coast Marine* riordan@alaska.net University of Montreal Norman Hallendy, Carp, Ontario, Canada, The Honorable Peter and Jo Michalski tukilik@icloud.com Rika and John Mouw National Science Foundation Scott Heyes, Australia: sheyes@hotmail.com National Park Service William Honeychurch, Yale University: National Resources Defense Council william.honeychurch@yale.edu Government of Newfoundland and Labrador* Kenneth Pratt, BIA, Anchorage, AK: Newfoundland Provincial Archaeology Office* kenneth.pratt@bia.gov The Coralyn W. Whitney Science Education Ctr. Wilfred E. Richard, Maine: 34pondroad@gmail.com Robert and Diana Paulus Ted Timreck, New York, NY: ttimreck@gmail.com Qanirtuuq Incorporated Cristopher B. Wolff, SUNY, Plattsburgh, NY: Rasmuson Foundation cwolff@albany.edu Rivendell School, Orford NH* The Frances and David Rose Foundation Sealaska Heritage Foundation* The Smithsonian Arctic Center (ASC) is sustained Gail Sieberts through a public-private partnership. Philanthropic SI Office of the Provost for Education and Access donations provide funding for essential community- Smithsonian Ctr for Learning and Digital Access based collaborations, impactful educational Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibit Service programming for the public, and continuous research in Smithsonian Recovering Voices Program the ever-changing Arctic region. Whiteley Museum Francis Ulmer To make a tax deductible contribution, please James Vanstone Endowment contact the NMNH Office of Development at Douglas and Kathie Veltre 202-633-0821 or NMNH-Advancement@si.edu ASC Newsletter 5 POLAR DREAMS: THE BIRTH OF INTERDISCIPLINARY ARCTIC SOCIAL SCIENCE, RESEARCH ETHICS, AND ITS GLOBAL VISION. NOTES FROM THE 1990S By Noel Broadbent “Polar Dreams” is a homage to Arctic Dreams: Imagination and Desire in a Northern Landscape by the late Barry Lopez. During the pandemic I found myself going through old files and notes relating to the first years of the Arctic Social Science Program at NSF, three program directors and 30 years ago. I want to revisit some of the issues I experienced during my tenure, 1989-1997, and some of the lessons learned from the program. I think it is important to remind people of these things. First, is the significance of the “Principles for the Conduct of Research in the Arctic” statement and its close connection with health issues that harken back to Noel Broadbent. Photo by www.pbs.org the Nuremburg war crime trials. Second, the continued significance of interdisciplinary science as it relates to global change. an Agenda for Action.” I had a small budget to work with, and I was to produce a program announcement, I was a northern (Nordic) archaeologist by training assemble a proposal review committee, and formulate in Sweden and had been the director of the Center an ethics statement for the Interagency Arctic Research for Arctic Cultural Research in Umea for seven Policy Committee. I was the only social scientist in years before starting at NSF. I had been involved in the Division of Polar Programs, which was in the circumpolar health issues through the International Geosciences Division at that time. Union for Circumpolar Health (IUCH) and had also worked in Zimbabwe through the Swedish International The working environment at the Division of Polar Development Agency; my research perspective was Programs was far from unproblematic; there was a decidedly international. good deal of antagonism toward “social” scientists by some, and also between the Antarctic and Arctic The Global Perspective (read Alaska) programs in general. My new program announcement was “welcomed” by having it torn in Three events set the stage for the Arctic social half and dropped at my feet by a senior executive of sciences program: the Exxon Valdez oil spill in the Antarctic program. The antagonism decreased Alaska, the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in Ukraine and somewhat, however, when I found myself coordinating northwestern Europe, and the collapse of the Soviet an archaeological clean-up of East Base, the first U.S. Union. The Arctic Council was being put together at research station in Antarctica in 1939; published in about the same time and, following the Arctic research National Geographic (March 1993). Although the later conference in Leningrad (St Petersburg) in 1988, the separation of the Arctic and Antarctic programs was international social sciences community came together understandable for political reasons I am not sure if this to create the International Arctic Social Sciences served global science. Association (IASSA), whose bylaws were approved in Fairbanks in 1990. IASSA was directly inspired Joint Funding: a strategy to increase funds and also by the International Union for Circumpolar Health a stimulus for interdisciplinary research (IUCH). One element, the formulation of research ethics, would have lasting significance, not only Funding was still a problem although I managed to get concerning indigenous involvement in research, but the more through joint funding with non-polar programs. legal and moral significance of informed consent, the I got extra money from other directorates, especially foundational concept at Nuremburg. informal science education, archaeology, cultural anthropology, and linguistics programs, etc., and I I was charged with initiating and operating the Arctic established a dissertation improvement grant program social sciences program at NSF starting in 1989. The in Polar Programs. I also put together a human factors guide was the PRB Report “Arctic Social Sciences: program jointly with NASA and funded research at the 6 ASC Newsletter South Pole looking into the effects of isolation, small PANDEMICS 1918 AND TODAY group interactions, and gender. Active indigenous participation in science was enhanced when I made it possible for Native communities to receive grants HOW IS ALASKA LEADING THE NATION IN directly, thus avoiding university overheads (up to 90%). VACCINATING RESIDENTS? WITH BOATS, The creation of an Alaska Native Science Commission FERRIES, PLANES AND SNOWBOBILES was also intended to encourage Native science. By Cathy Free Ethics and the Picou et al. Case With permission from The Washington Post 2 Feb, 2021 Grants were going out and the program was doing well in 1991 when the director of geosciences passed along Alaska, the state with the largest land mass in the a letter from Exxon to the NSF Director demanding nation, is leading the country in a critical coronavirus the termination of a university project involving measure: per capita vaccinations. About 13 percent of “secondary disasters” (economic, social, psychological) the people who live in Alaska have already gotten a of the Valdez oil spill. This was a peer-reviewed project shot. That’s higher than states such as West Virginia, that had conducted interviews and promised anonymity which has received a lot of attention for a successful of respondents in accordance with our “Principles for vaccine rollout and has inoculated 11 percent of its the Conduct of Research in the Arctic.” people. But the challenge for Alaska has been how to get vaccines to people across difficult, frigid terrain—often We wrote back, explained the peer review process, and in remote slivers of the state? “Boats, ferries, planes, suggested Exxon contact the principal investigators snowmobiles—Alaskans will find a way to get it there,” directly. I also provided an affidavit regarding the said the state’s chief medical officer, Anne Zink, 43. “Principles” statement and the ethical rules expected of the P.I. Exxon responded by suing the P.I.s, and Alaskans are being vaccinated on fishing boats, demanding copies of all project data, including inside 10-seater planes and on frozen landing strips. interviews, and the P.I.’s personal financial records. Doctors and nurses are taking white-knuckle trips to Exxon had previously won their legal challenges to towns and villages across the state to ensure residents social scientists in Alaska and had been given access are protected from the coronavirus. Contributing to to the respondents’ interviews. The Picou et al. case Alaska’s quick speed in getting the vaccine to its went on for a year. But for the first time in U.S. residents is a federal partnership that allows the state, jurisprudence the case was won by social scientists. which has more than 200 indigenous tribes, to receive Their data and subjects were protected because of additional vaccines to distribute through the Indian the “Principles” document which had been part of Health Service. their contract. This was a monumental achievement, Other reasons include the state’s small population established a legal precedent under U.S. law, and has of 732,000, as well as a high number of veterans, protected researchers and the public for three decades. Zink said. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs IASSA later endorsed its own statement as did other is working with the Centers for Disease Control and organizations around the world. Prevention to ensure that high-risk veterans receive Special thanks to Oran Young who was so influential priority for the vaccine. But one big reason is the state in convincing the NSF to start the Arctic social sciences is practiced in delivering precious cargo by transport not program, and to Jerry Brown, Peter Wilkniss, and often used in the Lower 48. Sometimes that even means Bob Corell at NSF for their wisdom and guidance adventures by sled. One all-female medical crew of four through the first years of the program and, last but not in December used a sled pulled by a snowmobile to least, Bill Fitzhugh at the Smithsonian, for 40 years of deliver vaccine to the village of Shungnak in the state’s inspiration, opportunity and friendship. remote Northwest Arctic Borough. “It’s just an easier way to get around when you don’t have a lot of roads,” [Editor’s Note: As the first director of NSF’s social said Kelli Shroyer, public communications director for science program, Noel Broadbent pioneered a niche the Maniilaq Health Center in Kotzebue, Alaska, where for social science that has continued to expand to this the crew started their journey. Shroyer added that people day. His promotion of research ethics and indigenous sometimes get picked up from the airport in a sled, collaboration turned a hard science approach toward and high school sports teams will at times travel to one recognition of social responsibilities of science, another’s gyms by sled, too. provided funding for indigenous organizations, and Zink was so impressed by the sled crew’s delivery in paved the way for similar policy changes throughout December that she posted about it on her Facebook the U.S. government.] page. “I love the pictures of vaccination distribution in ASC Newsletter 7 Alaska,” she wrote. “Recipients expressed how grateful “We have a lot of multifamily households, so we’re they were that even though they are so remote, they are extremely grateful to see these vaccines arrive.” getting this vaccine. They are not forgotten.” Collier, 61, was not at all surprised to learn that Jackson Elders from some tribes recall stories about the 1918 had piloted his boat through heavy seas to get the first flu pandemic, which decimated entire villages, she said. vaccines to her village. “People here look out for each “The stories have lived on,” Zink said. “One chief told other,” she said. Jackson has a new nickname since his me how his grandmother took his mother out to the turbulent voyage across the bay, he said. Some of his wilderness for a year so that she would be safe. When friends are now calling him “Captain Balto.” Balto was they returned, they learned that most of their village a lead sled dog for a team in 1925 that made a heroic had died… We are stronger as a state because of that transport of diphtheria vaccine across nearly 700 miles history… For me, the way that villages were able to of Alaska, from Nenana to Nome. The Iditarod Trail recover from that trauma speaks to what we need to do was the only accessible route at the time during winter. to keep moving forward.” Thousands of Alaskans are “I was glad I didn’t have to go that far,” Jackson said. playing a role in getting people vaccinated, Zink said. “But when we made it across [the bay], I got a little choked up, happy that I helped play a part in it.” Curt Jackson used to employ his water taxi, Orca, to shuttle tourists from the small city of Homer to villages across Kachemak Bay that aren’t accessible by roads. A 1925 EPIDEMIC IN THE LOWER YUKON, In late December, Jackson received a request to take ALASKA three nurses across the bay to Seldovia, a town with about 450 residents, including members of the Seldovia By Kenneth L. Pratt Village Tribe. Planes couldn’t fly that morning because Over the past 45 years, research performed pursuant to of weather, and the water was rough. When the women Section 14(h)(1) of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement climbed aboard his 32-foot aluminum landing craft and Act (ANCSA) has produced a massive, diverse and took seats in the windy darkness, Jackson said, he noticed unparalleled collection of data about Alaska’s indigenous that the woman in the middle, Candace Kreger, was history (see Pratt 2009). Managed by the Bureau clutching a bright blue cooler. That was when he realized of Indian Affairs, Alaska Region, it is known as the that the women were traveling with the precious doses. “ANCSA 14(h)(1) Collection.” This article provides an “With a strict time frame [for the Pfizer vaccine], there example of its rich content by briefly discussing selected was no option for us to postpone vaccinations,” said details about two sites in Alaska’s Lower Yukon region: Kreger, 40, a licensed nurse care coordinator from Tupicuar and Putukulek. They occupy a flat, marshy and Homer. “On any other day, the rough ride would not mostly treeless landscape—dominated by an intricate have been as nerve-racking if [the] vaccine hadn’t been maze of rivers, sloughs, lakes and ponds—inland from involved,” she said. the south bank of the Yukon River (Kuigpak). Neither site is described in the historical lliterature so the only For Ellen Hodges, a doctor from Bethel, Alaska, the source of data about them is indigenous oral history. coronavirus vaccination effort is the most rewarding Yup’ik elders Noel Polty (Kumkaq, 1919–1991) and project in which she has been involved, she said. Wassilie Evan (Anguyagpak, 1907–1993) provided the Hodges, 46, has flown to several villages in a six- majority of ethnographic information summarized below seater plane to vaccinate medical workers and elders, (e.g., Polty and Evan 1985). Quotes in English from who meet her on the runway. “We land in the isolated these elders were translated from Yup’ik by interpreter tundra, and they’ll be lined up waiting,” she said. Ben Fitka (Ussukcaq, 1921–1993). “Some places have up to 30 people, and some have Tupicuar and Putukulek were affiliated with the former only one.” Even if there’s just one person, the trip is winter village of Cuqartalek and, later, modern Pilot worth it. When the weather is especially cold, said Station (Tuutalgaq) and Pitkas Point (Negeqliim Hodges, medical crews often upgrade to 10-seater Painga). Used primarily as spring, fall and winter planes so people can climb aboard and get inoculated camps for fishing (blackfish, whitefish, lush, pike) and inside. “If you turn around the last two seats in the hunting (mink, muskrat), both sites were described as plane, it works out perfectly,” she said. “very old.” They were certainly in use prior to ca. 1900. Tribal leaders say they are appreciative of the creative Tupicuar approach the state has taken—resorting to planes, sleds and snowmobiles. “You have to be resilient and Tupicuar is located at the confluence of the Kuiggaarluk self-sufficient to live in Alaska,” said Crystal Collier, and Tupicuar rivers, about 14 km northeast of president and CEO of the Seldovia Village Tribe. Cuqartalek. One of Tupicuar’s former occupants was a 8 ASC Newsletter female shaman named Tut’angaq, who was originally 1985). Not long after the flu appeared Aviraulqutaq from a site near Qagan, a large lake some 20 km west and Pistu’rluq fell ill and died. Tut’angaq and Al’aller of Cuqartalek. Her power reportedly came from a parka “buried” them by placing the bodies in kayaks, which made out of seal intestines: by shaking the parka a voice were then folded in half. Uutuuk and Tan’gurralleq would speak to Tut’angaq and instruct her on how to were also sick with the flu. The boy was capable of cure a sick or injured person. It was also said that her traveling but Tan’gurralleq was not; so the women and bodily movements were similar to those of a river otter, boy left Tupicuar, heading downriver to Putukulek evidently due to someone having placed an otter on her to seek help for Tan’gurralleq. (Al’aller later moved mother’s stomach before Tut’angaq was born. to Kuigglualler, a site near the Kuigpak where her relatives lived [Polty and Evan 1985]). In the winter of ca. 1925 a “big flu” struck the Lower Yukon region and lasted for six or more months. By late winter the flu had grown to epidemic When the flu first appeared, Tut’angaq was living at proportions. Individuals who were uninfected and still Tupicuar with her husband Aviraulqutaq (who also capable of traveling were afraid of contracting the was from the Qagan area), son Uutuuk, sister Al’aller, flu, so most stayed put in their villages. As a result, brother-in-law Pistu’rluq and another man named Tan’gurralleq was not seen again until spring, when Tan’gurralleq. All of these individuals had wintered at a young man named Nung’aq passed Tupicuar on Putukulek before moving to Tupicuar (Polty and Evan his way to the Kuigpak and found Tan’gurralleq alive Study area showing its complex geography and associated Yup'ik place names. Local people used the portage at Elqiitaq as a short-cut (via the Kuiggaarluk) to the Qissunaq, which was reached at Putukulek. Using that route to Putukulek saved miles of paddling compared to traveling to the site by way of the Qissunaq’s extremely sinuous, uppermost stretches. Map created by Robert Drozda (base satellite imagery courtesy of Earthstar Geographics and ESRI) ASC Newsletter 9 but seriously ill. When Nung’aq reached Neq’lek he they traveled to Putukulek to bury the man. As Noel told Tan’gurralleq’s nephew, Yugissaq, of his uncle’s explained: condition. Yugissaq instructed Nung’aq to stay at Neq’lek because many people in the Kuigpak area were [Tut’angaq and Uutuuk] left his body [on the sick (Polty and Evan 1985). Yugissaq left for Tupicuar ground] folded in a canoe. It was there all that soon thereafter but he arrived too late: Tan’gurralleq summer. When I learned of how his body was was found lying dead inside a house with his head placed I went to the site in the fall [with Selapaq] resting on a 50-pound sack of flour. His body could and the two of us buried him. [Even though] flies not be handled because it had begun to decompose, so had laid eggs on his body (Polty 1985). Yugissaq buried Tan’gurralleq by collapsing the walls of the sod house on him. Tan’qurralleq had lost his The body and canoe were covered with sod (Polty and wife, Qivcauq, to the flu the previous winter; she died Evan 1985) then a wooden fence was built around the at Elqiitaq and was either buried there or at Negeqliim grave (Polty 1985). Painga, where her relatives lived (Polty 1985). Elder Wassillie Tinker (Uass’uk) recalled that he Tupicuar fell out of regular use as a result of the and his father had formerly hunted mink at Putukulek epidemic. But Yugissaq’s son and daughter-in-law during the fall and winter months (Tinker 1985). They (Noel and Agnes Polty) subsequently spring camped also netted whitefish in the fall and, after freeze-up, at the site on numerous occasions into the 1970s. In set blackfish traps in the Qissunaq. He stated that 1985, ANCSA researchers recorded the remains of four Putukulek is haunted by its many dead and he stopped semisubterranean dwellings at Tupicuar—one of which using the site for that reason. Putukulek’s ghosts was confirmed (Polty 1985) as the house in which reportedly made many strange noises. Sometimes in Tan’gurralleq was buried. No physical evidence of winter the loud sounds of someone approaching by other reported graves was found. Along with the three dogsled were heard, but the ever-approaching person people who died at Tupicuar in ca. 1925-1926, two never arrived (Tinker 1985). The site apparently was more individuals were known to have been buried not used after ca. 1959 because people had become too at the site: Matvii and Kumkaq (another uncle of frightened to live there. Yugissaq) (Polty 1985). In 1985, ANCSA researchers recorded the remains Putukulek of up to 18 semisubterranean dwellings at Putukulek, along with physical evidence of one grave, a fallen Putukulek is located at the confluence of the Qissunaq cross. It is unknown if the grave was that of Sugcuq and Kuiggaarluk rivers, about 5 km downstream on because the fence that once surrounded it had the Kuiggaarluk from Tupicuar and 10 km northeast disappeared by 1985, most likely carried away by of Cuqartalek. Most people who camped at the site floodwaters (Polty 1985). returned to Cuqartalek for the winter but some stayed at Putukulek from early fall until the arrival of summer Closing Remarks (when they moved to the Kuigpak for salmon fishing). In a nod to the current COVID-19 pandemic, this So, Putukulek can also accurately be called a former discussion about Tupicuar and Putukulek was framed winter village. around the impacts of epidemics that struck residents Elders knew of two graves (both marked with crosses) of those two sites nearly a century ago. The objective at the site, but its comparatively large size and antiquity was to show how indigenous people in one part of suggest others probably exist. One grave was that of a the Lower Yukon region dealt with such events; but man named Pugleralria who died of influenza (quseq the approach also highlights the traditional, kin-based [Polty 1985]) in ca. 1925-1926 (Evan and Polty 1984); composition of site populations. another was Sugcuq, who also died of influenza… Another point worth making is that little, if any, but in the spring of ca. 1939. At the time of his death, information about the 1925–1926 epidemic discussed Sugcuq was staying in the cabin of the female shaman here exists in the published literature concerning the Tut’angaq, who had moved back to Putukulek with epidemiology of Alaska (e.g., see Fortuine 1989): this her son Uutuuk in ca. 1926 following the death of her makes the related oral history accounts Yup’ik elders husband at Tupicuar. After Sugcuq died Tut’angaq and provided to ANCSA researchers even more important. Uutuuk “covered his body with a canoe, since they Noel Polty and Wassilie Evan both lost family members had nothing else [to use as a coffin]” and moved him to the epidemic; they dated the event by estimating to another part of the site (Polty 1985). When news of their respective ages at the time it occurred. During Sugcuq’s death reached Noel Polty and Selapaq (Dick the epidemic, Wassilie was living with his parents at Nick)—who were then living at Negeqliim Painga— Cuqartulek; his father died there from the flu. Noel was 10 ASC Newsletter living at Neq’lek with his parents and siblings, as well as Feature Yup’ik Name Variant ANCSA his father’s younger sister and her husband. The husband Type Name 14(h)(1) began to get sick soon after the epidemic appeared, so Serial he and Noel’s aunt were taken to Negeqliim Painga (the Number(s) husband’s family home), where he then died (Polty and Evan 1985). The Polty family also lost Yugissaq’s uncle, River Kialiq aunt and brother-in-law to the epidemic. Site Kialiq AA-10079 River Kuiggaarluk Big River Noel concluded his remarks about the epidemic as follows: Site Kuigglualler* Kwikloaklok AA-10044 They say not many people hunted that spring River Kuigpak Yukon River [ca. 1926] because people were sick all over the [region]…Very many, many people had died (Polty River Kuigpalleq Driftwood and Evan 1985). Slough; Kashunuk The relative method used to date the event, together River; with the remoteness of the study area and consequent Kashunuk lack of medical services available to its residents, raises Slough; the possibility that the 1925–1926 epidemic may have Deadwood been a continuation of the 1918–1919 Spanish flu. River Site Kuigpalleq Finally, two tables were created to further emphasize the value of the information contained in the ANCSA River Nangtuq Nantok 14(h)(1) Collection. Table 1 correlates Yup’ik place River names mentioned in elders’ accounts about Tupicuar Site Nangtuq AA-10077 and Putukulek with any known variants. The study Site Negeqliim Pikas Point area map accurately identifies the locations of the Painga* named features with their Yup’ik names (e.g., Kuigpak River Neqelget rather than “Yukon River”). Table 2 correlates the Yup’ik names of individuals mentioned in those same Site Neq’lek Old Man AA-9427 accounts with any variant Yup’ik and/or English names; Polty’s it also indicates known kin relationships between Camp the individuals. As such, the table could be useful to River Petmik Pitmik contemporary Lower Yukon region residents who are Site Putukulek Kwigorlak AA-9428, interested in family genealogical research. AA-9752, AA-11237 Table 1: Place Names Lake Qagan* Kgun Lake Feature Yup’ik Name Variant ANCSA Site Qanagpak Kanapak AA-9755 Type Name 14(h)(1) River Qissunaq Kashunuk Serial River; Number(s) Driftwood Lake Arulaikeq Slough Oxbow Lake Aassaqvik River Tupicuar Old Channel Canimaar Site Tupicuar AA-9750, AA-10078, River Cuqartalek Chakaktolik AA-11287 Creek Site Tuutalgaq* Pilot Station Site Cuqartalek Chakaktolik Site Elqiitaq AA-9749 Note: An asterisk (*) next to a Yup’ik place name River Kuiga means the associated feature is not shown on Figure 1 because it lies outside the boundaries of the map. Site Emainerpak AA-9748 Slough Igcenaq Site Igcenaq AA-9757 ASC Newsletter 11 Table 2: Personal Names Yup’ik Name Other Names Key Kin Relationships Yup’ik Name Other Names Key Kin Relationships Yugissaq Jacob Tunucuq/ Nephew of Polty Tan’gurralleq, Al’aller Al’airtell’er Sister of Qivcuaq and Tut’angaq; wife of Kumkaq; cousin Pistu’rluq of Aviraulqutaq; Anguyagpak Wassilie Evan father of Noel Polty (Kumkaq) Apa’liq Agnes Polty Wife of Kumkaq (Noel Polty) References Aviraulqutaq Husband of Evan, Wassilie, and Noel Polty. 1984. Oral history Tut’angaq; father interview. Jim Kurtz, interviewer; William Friday, of Uutuuk; interpreter. 28 August, Pilot Station, AK. Translated brother-in-law of and transcribed by Sophie Manutoli Shield, Dora David Yugissaq and Irene Reed, December 1985—February 1986. Tape Kumkaq Uncle of Yugissaq; 84VAK086. Bureau of Indian Affairs, ANCSA Office, person Noel Polty Anchorage. is named after Fortuine, Robert.1989. Chills and Fever: Health and Kumkaq Noel Polty Son of Yugissaq; Disease in the Early History of Alaska. University of husband of Alaska Press, Fairbanks. Apa’liq Polty, Noel. 1985. Oral history interview. Ken Pratt, Matvii interviewer; Ben Fitka, interpreter; Agnes Polty also Nung’aq Nick Elia Step-father of present. 28 June, Pilot Station, AK. Translated and Ussukcaq transcribed by Alice Fredson and Monica Shelden, May 2010. Tape 85STM006. Bureau of Indian Affairs, Pistu’rluq Husband of ANCSA Office, Anchorage. Al’aller; brother- in-law of Polty, Noel, and Wassilie Evan. 1985. Oral history Tut’angaq interview. Ken Pratt and Michael Elder, interviewers; Ben Fitka, interpreter. 23 August, Pilot Station, AK. Pugleralria Pavila Translated and transcribed by Sophie Manutoli Shield Qivcuaq Wife of and Irene Reed, December 1985—January 1986. Tape Tan’gurralleq; 85STM048. Bureau of Indian Affairs, ANCSA Office, aunt of Yugissaq Anchorage. Selapaq Dick Nick Pratt, Kenneth L. (ed.). 2009. Chasing the Dark: Sugcuq Elluqcuk; Perspectives on Place, History and Alaska Native Maqiyunqeggli Land Claims. Bureau of Indian Affairs, ANCSA Office, Anchorage. Tan’gurralleq Husband of Qivcuaq; uncle of Pratt, Kenneth L., and Scott A. Heyes (eds.). n.d. Yugissaq Memory and Landscape: Indigenous Responses to a Changing North. Athabasca University Press, Tut’angaq Wife of Edmonton. Aviraulqutaq; sister-in-law of Tinker, Wassillie. 1985. Oral history interview. Michael Yugissaq; sister of Elder, interviewer; John Tinker, interpreter. Pitkas Al’aller; mother of Point, AK. Translated and transcribed by Barbara Nick, Uutuuk September 1985. Tape 85STM064. Bureau of Indian Affairs, ANCSA Office, Anchorage. Uass’uk Wassuuk; Wassillie Tinker Postscript: Readers interested in learning more about Ussukcaq Ben Fitka Step-son of the content of the ANCSA 14(h)(1) Collection are Nung’aq encouraged to watch for a forthcoming book (Pratt Uutuuk Son of Tut’angaq and Heyes n.d.) scheduled for publication in 2021 by and Aviraulqutaq Athabasca University Press. Three of its chapters are based on records from the collection. 12 ASC Newsletter PANDEMICS IN LABRADOR: 1918 AND 2020–21 from a population of 263. Everyone was sick. People died not only from influenza, but also from exposure and By Ann Budgell dehydration. Some sick people were killed by dogs. In For the past year, I’ve been comparing our world Okak, bodies were buried in early January in a common now with COVID-19 to events during the influenza grave that took a month to dig. In Hebron, shrouded pandemic in 1918 in Labrador, Canada where 70% of bodies were slipped through a hole in the ocean ice. the Inuit inhabitants died in two communities, Okak It happened a hundred years ago, but these stories are and Hebron. I have spent considerable time researching known in Labrador and also by those responsible for the 1918 flu. Nigel Markham and I interviewed pandemic preparedness. Dr. Theresa Tam, Canada’s survivors for a documentary film, The Last Days Chief Public Health Officer, recalled viewing The Last of Okak, (National Film Board of Canada, 1985). I Days of Okak. At an event in Ottawa in September knew there was much more to the story, and in 2018 2018, she said, “One of my most striking memories my book, We All Expected To Die, Spanish Influenza was watching the film on the last days of Okak, and in Labrador, 1918–1919, was that stayed with me for the rest published. The title comes from of my life, and my career really, an interview with survivor John and partly inspired me to work Pardy of Sandwich Bay. He said, in this area…Public health in its “It was wonderful frightening most holistic terms has to take into because we all expected to die, account the underlying factors… you know.” the poverty, the overcrowding, Influenza arrived in north the impact of culture, history, Labrador in October 1918, the trauma on a population that second wave worldwide. The first can differentially strike those wave of flu in winter caused some populations.” On the federal deaths but was an unremarkable government website Tam writes, occurrence. Researchers believe “I will champion the reduction exposure to the first wave likely of health disparities in key prevented deaths from the more populations in Canada so that the deadly second wave. On the ice- poorest and most marginalized locked north coast, however, no among us have a chance to lead ships arrived until July, between healthy lives, both physically and the first and second waves. mentally.” The first wave missed them The north coast of Labrador completely. is now administered by the On October 20, the Moravian Nunatsiavut Government (NG), mission ship Harmony sailed an Inuit regional government directly north to Hebron Ann Budgell’s book, published in 2018 with authority over health. In from flu-infested St. John’s, November 2018, special events Newfoundland. The ship received commemorated those who died a warm welcome on Sunday, 27 October. People rushed in 1918. When my book was launched in Labrador, the out of church to help unload freight. Harmony stayed Minister of Health, Gerald Asivak, a descendant of flu until 4 November, then sailed south for Okak. The first survivors, was one of the speakers. I was welcomed into deaths in Hebron were recorded on 7 November, and schools and public meetings in Nain, Hopedale, and thereafter it was a waking nightmare. The few adults Makkovik, and met others with family stories of the flu. who were not sick struggled to keep houses warm and Awareness of the earlier pandemic has influenced at least supply water for sufferers. Neglected sled dogs actions taken since COVID-19 emerged. NG President rampaged, attacking the sick and the dead. Moravian Johannes Lampe knows keeping the virus out is the records show that 140 people died from a population of best strategy for fly-in communities with limited health 222 on that part of the coast. care. The nearest hospital is an hour away by air. On Harmony arrived in Okak hours after leaving Hebron March 27, NG required people who planned to fly north to first isolate for 14 days. Special programs have and stayed until November 8. Accounts say people began been established to assist people with food and heating to be sick on the 10th and 11th, and in two weeks, 184 subsidies. Only one COVID-19 case has occurred in the people died. When it was all over, the death toll was 207 Nunatsiavut area and that person recovered months ago. ASC Newsletter 13 international flights for about two months. International flights were reopened in late spring when the pandemic in Europe was declining. Greenland established strict rules of quarantine and testing for all passengers entering Greenland, and those rules are still in place. Before leaving Denmark, all passengers must submit information on their travels and destinations to the COVID-19 task force to have their travel plan approved. A negative test result is needed for boarding the flight in Copenhagen. Upon arrival in Greenland, all passengers are quarantined for a minimum five days before a re-test can be conducted. No passengers traveling to Greenland may leave the quarantine site until a re-test is negative. The Greenland Government advises that all unnecessary Group photo in Okak, Labrador, in 1908. Most of these travel be avoided. If travelers choose to circumvent people would have died in 1918. Moravian missionary COVID-19 directives, they will be held personally Berthold Lenz is in front left, with Harmony Captain J.C. accountable for any additional cost to their travels. The Jackson behind with dark mustache and pipe. Photo courtesy number of passengers on international flights are limited of Them Days from the Alice Perrault collection to about half the capacity of the plane. Labrador Inuit have been among the first Canadians to Since December 2020, it has not been possible to receive vaccinations. The Newfoundland government purchase a ticket for flights to Greenland. Since designated remote or isolated Indigenous communities the beginning of 2021, all international flights are as a priority. As of January 21, public health nurses controlled by the Government. This situation will have inoculated 71% of the residents over age 18 in continue until at least the beginning of March 2021. Nain, Makkovik, Hopedale, Postville, and Rigolet. An Only travelers, such as police, doctors, and specialists unexpected, but welcome outcome of these precautions with special exemption are allowed to enter Greenland. has been a near complete absence of influenza, as people are social distancing and masked. These procedures limiting the number of people traveling to Greenland, along with the rules for testing Dr. Theresa Tam interview: Public Record, www.cpac. and quarantine, have prevented the spread of COVID-19 ca/en/cpac-in-focus/unmasking-influenza in Greenland. Only 30 people have tested positive in the [Editor’s note: Ann Budgell is a former CBC journalist re-tests after their quarantine. So far there has been no living in St. John’s Newfoundland] spread of the virus within Greenland, and at this moment Greenland is COVID-19 free. We continue to live our daily lives almost as we did before the epidemic spread GREENLAND AND COVID-19 around the globe. We have experienced few limitations. Schools were closed during the first month of global By René Kristensen spread, but since April, all educational facilities are open Greenland, like the rest of the world, has been and operate near normal. experiencing difficulties and challenges caused by the But the downside of isolation has been no tourism, COVID-19 pandemic. Being an island state in the Arctic which is the second largest industry in Greenland and with a population of only 56,000 and few connections has suffered immensely during the past year. Many to the rest of the world, has made it possible to isolate tourist operators have been forced to either close or Greenland from the COVID-19 pandemic. shut down. In addition, restaurants and other businesses associated with tourism have suffered. And the fishing In the early spring of 2020 when the first cases of industry, which is the most important source of income COVID-19 were spreading in Iceland and Denmark, the in Greenland, has experienced difficulties. The closure Government of Greenland applied strict regulations on of restaurants in most of the world has decreased flights from Copenhagen and Iceland. For a period, all seafood demand. Large stocks of fish and shrimp are flights, both international and domestic, were grounded— piling up in Greenland’s industrial freezers, and the international flights to keep the virus out and domestic price of fish products has declined. flights to prevent the virus from spreading within Greenland if it already had slipped into the country. Still, Greenland remains extremely vulnerable to a Domestic flights were grounded for about a month and pandemic like COVID-19 because of its limited medical 14 ASC Newsletter Spanish Language—populated a series of Google spreadsheets easily accessible and shared by national educators, caregivers, teens, and lifelong learners. Currently, the Distant Learning page provides links to over 1,200 high-quality Smithsonian Education (#SmithsonianEdu) resources. Locally in Washington, D.C., OUSE and the Learning Lab team responded to a request from the District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS) Chancellor to provide digital education resources which aligned to DCPS K-8 curriculum for the first semester of the pandemic; and later to support the DCPS Cornerstones Ann Andreasen (right), Will Richard (left), René Kristensen curriculum, Living Through History—addressing the (2nd from left), and residents of Uummannaq Children’s dual pandemics of COVID-19 and social justice; and Home. Photo by Will Richard DCPS Family Cornerstones curriculum. These initial successes evolved into a new initiative called Learn facilities. Most hospitals do not have the equipment or with Smithsonian DC—with increased collaboration to staff to handle and treat the virus. Denmark initially follow into 2021 and beyond. offered to assist, but the recent pandemic surge in Denmark in November and December, it could no longer Early in conversations, Smithsonian educators guarantee support for Greenland. understood the need not only to provide high-quality, hi-tech resources for schools to supplement and The vaccination program in Greenland began in early address digital content, but also the need for low-tech 2021, with the first batch of vaccines administered in resources that do not require computers for learning. Nuuk and Ilulissat for health care staff. So far, only a OUSE partnered with nationally syndicated USA Today few Greenlanders have received the vaccine. The latest to provide educational inserts for the newspaper’s news is that the smaller communities should not expect weekend circulation that subscribers across urban and the vaccine to be available for another three or four rural America received—Summer Road Trip, and most months. Therefore, the best option for Greenland is recently—Winter at Home. Packed with word puzzles keep the country isolated, to ride it out, and to get the and games, DIY activities, and a focus on Smithsonian general population vaccinated as soon as possible. objects that spark creativity and exploration, the guides reach people without having to access the internet and SMITHSONIAN EDUCATORS RESPOND IN are bilingual (English/Spanish). THE COVID ERA With all Smithsonian museums currently closed, By Tracie Spinale educators across the Smithsonian radically shifted how they deliver content. Before the pandemic, Smithsonian When the majority of schools across America closed museums like the National Museum of Natural History, their physical buildings in March 2020 and moved National Air and Space Museum, National Museum to virtual instruction due to COVID-19 threats, the of American History, and Smithsonian American Art Smithsonian convened the Smithsonian Education Museum collaborated with teachers to educate students Response Team. Led by the Smithsonian Office of the through distance learning webcasts and online content; Undersecretary for Education (OUSE), and supported Award-winning programs like Smithsonian Science by the Smithsonian Center for Learning and Digital How, STEM in 30, Smithsonian's History Explorer, and Access (SCLDA), a dozen educators representing classroom video conferences. Smithsonian museums, the zoo, and offices, assisted schools facing the immense challenge to shift However, museums and offices which formally relied curriculum to digital delivery. The Smithsonian’s upon in-person workshops were challenged to reimagine decades-long investment in digitization and the web how their content might shift online, have greater allowed the team to adapt and add a Distance Learning relevance, or meet people where they are. The American page to the Smithsonian’s existing digital education History Museum expanded their social studies training portal, Smithsonian Learning Lab. to include live webinar programs—Social Studies Online with the Smithsonian and Smithsonian Estudios Smithsonian digital resources for grades PreK- Sociales en Línea (in Spanish)—which can be viewed on 12 covering core curriculum areas—English YouTube. The National Museum of African American Language Arts, Social Studies/History, Science, and History and Culture developed outreach programs ASC Newsletter 15 using the Zoom platform, including Artists at Home: The list of web-sites in the same order as they are School Outreach—which educators adapted from an mentioned in the text: in-person interactive summer arts program for teachers Smithsonian Education Response Team: www.si.edu/ and students in grades 3-8. The National Museum of the newsdesk/releases/smithsonian-offers-distance- American Indian developed virtual fieldtrips through learning-resources-during-school-closures Microsoft Teams and Zoom and developed a Youth in Distance Learning page: learninglab.si.edu/ Action series on YouTube which addresses social justice. distancelearning Smithsonian Learning Lab: learninglab.si.edu The Smithsonian Science Education Center created English Language Arts: s.si.edu/national-ela education materials in multiple languages, COVID-19! Social Studies/History: s.si.edu/national- How can I protect myself and others? with the World socialstudieshistory Health Organization. To further teacher professional Science: s.si.edu/national-science development, the Smithsonian Center for Learning Spanish Language: s.si.edu/national-spanishlanguage and Digital Access and its education network created Caregivers: s.si.edu/national-caregivers a webinar series and supporting materials called Easy- Teens: s.si.edu/national-tweensteens PZ with the Smithsonian which presents thinking Lifelong learners: s.si.edu/national-lifelonglearners routines and strategies for teachers to use digitized DCPS K-8 curriculum: s.si.edu/dcps-kindergarten museum objects in the online classroom. These are just DCPS Cornerstones curriculum: learninglab.si.edu/dcps some of the highlights of the digital programs which Living Through History: docs.google.com/ the Smithsonian reimagined or created during the spreadsheets/d/1a_snAWsi37qP8bL4u6FklIaMc- pandemic; the schedule for real-time events is posted LtFMUZkAiqsnt7jrU/edit#gid=0 on the Distance Learning page calendar. DCPS Family Cornerstones curriculum: dcps.dc.gov/page/family-cornerstones-dcps-family-activity-tool As educators and students shift back to the in-person Summer Road Trip: s.si.edu/SummerRoadtrip classroom, the Smithsonian education community is Winter at Home: s.si.edu/WinterAtHome forever changed by the impact of the pandemic and Smithsonian Educators: www.si.edu/educators distance learning during the COVID Era. Smithsonian Smithsonian Science How: naturalhistory.si.edu/ education programs recorded an increase in the number education/distance-learning/smithsonian-science- of pageviews and visitors accessing online content. how-webcast-archives This impact indicator will drive the type of programs STEM in 30: airandspace.si.edu/node/71551/ the Smithsonian delivers in the future. Smithsonian Smithsonian’s History Explorer: historyexplorer.si.edu educators anticipate the day when students can safely Classroom video conferences: americanart.si.edu/ return to museums. education/k-12/videoconferencesSocial Studies Online with the Smithsonian: www. While nothing virtual can replace the experience of youtube.com/playlist?list=PLFGZwzyPnxTs4p0Tw physical proximity to collections and exhibitions, or Y4FtqmRLIk1eAM1y live attendance at a workshop, pandemics revealed that Smithsonian Estudios Sociales en Línea: www. Smithsonian educators can reach a virtual audience youtube.com/playlist?list=PLFGZwzyPnxTu7E4NF using Smithsonian web education platforms and nqBAgAZBNg59T0uc through webinar outreach to teachers and students Artists at Home: School Outreach: nmaahc.si.edu/ using media platforms like YouTube, Zoom, and learn/educators/artists-home-school-outreach Teams. Whether in-person, virtually, or a hybrid-mix, Youth in Action: www.youtube.com/watch?v=29YmT1NIflk&list=PLS6nSmuURFJCsZkMblYU0IKyX Smithsonian educators learned that we can impact LL67fhtF a far greater audience as a knowledge partner if we COVID-19! How can I protect myself and others?: are responsive to the needs of the national and local ssec.si.edu/covid-19 PreK-12 ecosystem. By collaborating with educators Easy-PZ: learninglab.si.edu/org/sclda to help students make sense of the world we live in, Distance Learning page calendar: learninglab.si.edu/ Smithsonian Education strives to become a household distancelearning name associated with learning and inquiry during the (See also links in D. Biddison Learning Lab piece in COVID Era and beyond. the Alaska section, and in the Griebel-Burch report.) 16 ASC Newsletter A VIRTUAL ALUTIIQ FISH SKIN Since then, June conducted nearly twenty virtual fish WORKSHOP DURING COVID-19 TIMES skin workshops among different Alaska Village Tribes and communities. The workshops focused on what By Elisa Palomino and June Pardue fish skin heritage means to different Arctic Indigenous With a subsistence economy largely dependent on the groups and how they value fish skin heritage differently. marine environment and its animal resources, the island The workshops engaged cultural diversity and audiences and coastal regions of southwest Alaska provide access with different abilities, from museum curators to amateur to a broad range of fish used in the past for clothing tanners and young Indigenous students. Fish skin craft production. The traditional Alutiiq wardrobe includes practices have the potential to offer opportunities for garments made from animal skins, including fish. These greater access to cultural heritage. In particular, it garments were expertly sewn by women from Kodiak provides new opportunities for re-connecting Arctic Island. Traditionally, Alutiiq education consisted of communities with common cultural heritage. In the acquiring survival skills: how to navigate the seas in digital age, workshops can make new and sustainable all weathers; hunting and fishing skills; tanning animal connections between the virtual world and craftspeople. skins; and how to repair your fish skin To navigate parka while out in the Arctic wilderness. perilous times, Today, many Alutiiq people continue to ancient shamans provide for their families by subsistence drew inspiration hunting, fishing and plant gathering. They from nature, continue to live in the same territories, harmonising the using the same resources as they did fire, water, earth, centuries ago, living in harmony with and air elements. each other, honoring the ocean and all In times of of its bounties. Through their traditional disorientation, Indigenous distress, and practices and challenge like respect for nature the COVID and the animal pandemic, it kingdom, they is crucial for live in harmony Linda Hobson (left) and Seth Hobson preparing reinstituting with nature and with each other willow bark. Photo by balance to reconnect with to navigate the Renae Zackar nature. The fish hardest of times by skin tanning listening to their workshops collective wisdom. have offered a way to help us through these challenging times, strengthening In the midst of our connection with nature while also the COVID-19 benefiting the wider community. The isolation, June From left: Seth Hobson, Sea Hobson, and Renae Zackar scraping fish skins. Photo by Ida Nelson increase of communication and availability Pardue, an Alutiiq of different individuals across the planet and Inupiaq artist during the COVID lockdown has provided from Kodiak Island, Alaska, and I conducted a virtual a closer relationship with each other and with nature. fish skin tanning workshop from her kitchen table in The crisis has brought a shift in perception of nature Anchorage in April 2020. June passed down not only and the role of humanity towards nature as keeper. The the endangered Arctic fish skin craft, but also how her idea of traditional Indigenous knowledge and resilience people were coping with the crisis by tapping into their comes from paying attention and being a part of your knowledge of the natural world, its resourcefulness, environment and having experience and learning from it story-telling abilities and creative skills. The workshop collectively (Clement 2020). taught, through an online platform, new fish skin tanning technologies and skills, giving students the The Alutiiq Indigenous fish skin tanning workshops opportunity to engage with remote Arctic communities, have challenged and merged the digital environment bringing an awareness of indigenous traditions and with that of crafts during the pandemic. Reintroducing traditional knowledge addressing and responding knowledge of ancestral tanning practices has involved to health crises such the COVID pandemic through participation of multigenerational community collaboration and connection with nature. members. The activities around the tanning workshops, ASC Newsletter 17 such as storytelling and people gathering together, have AWARD FOR FISH SKIN TRADITION created opportunities for young people to learn from elders, the backbone of Native communities. By Elisa Palomino Traditional education involving survival skills was The film, Preservation of Hezhen Fish Skin Tradition and still is necessary for cultural continuity in the through Fashion Higher Education has won the Best Arctic. Young generations must be equipped both Green Fashion Film award at the Milan Fashion Film Festival. The film identifies the historical, cultural, with traditional skills to thrive culturally and with environmental, and socio-economic importance of fish digitalization skills needed for success in the modern skin as an innovative sustainable material. Secondarily, it world. The workshop has proposed taking the best proposes a vision of sustainability as an anthropological both worlds have to offer but remembering always the study of the resourcefulness and resilience of the values taught by the ancestors. Hezhen indigenous peoples, their lifestyles and fish skin practices; and third, it can help to preserve them. The Through these virtual workshops, students have built application of the craft to fashion has been tested through on the knowledge, skills and traditions of Fish skin a participatory workshop with fashion students from tanning technology, engaged in learning activities Central Saint Martins taught by Hezhen craftspeople to based on traditional ways of knowing and learning, investigate how this material and the transmission of fish demonstrated awareness and appreciation of natural skin skills can contribute to sustainability practices in resources, and understood how humans and nature fashion. The Hezhen are one of China’s smallest ethnic interact. The workshops follow minorities, living in northeastern the methods of the Sharing China in the Amur river basin with Knowledge project at the Arctic a traditional economy based on Studies Center’s Anchorage hunting and fishing. In 2006, the Hezhen method of making clothes Office, where discussions with with fish skin was listed as intangible Alaska Native fish skin makers cultural heritage, and Wenfeng have been previously recorded. You—our main craftsperson during Our fish skin project hopes to the workshop—was appointed its expand in the future by creating principal guardian. a fish skin digital platform based on Arctic Indigenous people's Foning Bao participated in the knowledge, documenting Hezhen fish skin workshop. The traditional Alaskan fish skin experience of working with the processing technologies. Hezhen ethnic minority was invaluable for her. She collaborated Our gratitude goes to William Film Title: Preservation of Hezhen Fish with the Hezhen community to Fitzhugh, director of the Arctic Skin Tradition source the fish skin raw material, Studies Center, and his team: learned from their ancestral Stephen Loring, John Cloud, Nancy Shorey, techniques and was inspired by their resourcefulness Bernadette Driscoll, Dawn Biddison and Aron to create in her final year the CSM BA Knitwear Crowell. We are grateful to the Alaska Native heritage collection. As a sustainable knitwear designer, she programs, student participants in the workshops, restricted herself to the use fish skin and ‘full fashion’ museum curators, fish skin tanners, and elders and knit skills to build her entire final collection. Zero youths of Alaska Native tribes and communities. fabric, zero cut, and zero waste were the key points of her work. She used the fish skins in combination with References crochet both in garments and accessories. The very humble material became fun, playful, and full of color. Clement, M. 2020. How Indigenous communities respond to disasters. Retrieved 8-09-2020 from www. The film, accessed at https:// thenewhumanitarian.org/feature/2020/08/18/ fashionfilmfestivalmilano.com/project/preservation- Indigenous-communities-disaster-humanitarian- of-hezhen-fish-skin-tradition-through-fashion- response-coronavirus higher-education/ features Wenfeng You and Sun Yulin (Hezhen Indigenous fish skin craft inheritors) Palomino, E., Rahme, L. (2021) Indigenous Arctic Fish and Foning Bao (CSM BA Fashion Knit graduate). Art Skin: A study of different traditional skin processing Directors are Elisa Palomino, Zhongjin Zhang (CSM technology. Society of Leather Technologists and BA Performance Design and Practice), and Joseph Chemists Journal. Vol. 105. Issue 1. Boon (CSM BA Womenswear). 18 ASC Newsletter ASC ALASKA OFFICE SMITHSONIAN LEARNING LAB: NEW ASC SITE COMPLETED By Dawn Biddison In the fall of 2019, the Alaska office of the Arctic Studies Center (ASC), in partnership with the Smithsonian Center for Learning and Digital Access (SCLDA), received internal Smithsonian Institution funds from the Youth Access Grant Program for the project “Digital Access to Community Knowledge and Smithsonian Collections for Alaska Native Education.” This funding was matched, as required for the award, by The CIRI Foundation and generous private donors in Alaska. To learn more about the development of the project, see Smithsonian Funds ASC Learning Lab Site for Alaska Schools, ASC Newsletter 26: 12-13, 2019. The project’s goal was to build a site on the SCLDA platform Learning Lab with educational resources created by ASC Alaska staff in collaboration with Alaska Native partners over nearly twenty years of work and through new work. ASC Museum Specialist Dawn Biddison, completed the project in December, Distance Learning section of the “Smithsonian Arctic Studies with assistance from Tracie Spinale at SCLDA. The Center in Alaska” site on Learning Lab. goal of creating a single location for ASC Alaska Image by Dawn Biddison exhibition related resources and ongoing public programs was met, and the project exceeded its goals Peoples”; “Gifts from the Land: Lifeways and Quill by creating three new educational units in addition to Art of the Athabascan Peoples”; “Iñupiaq Lessons: the six educational units built from five existing and Language and Culture”; “Tsimshian Bilingual Guide: one new set of resources. The new site was extensively Twining Cedar”; and “St. Lawrence Island Yupik promoted to educators, and a new section of content is Lessons: Language and Culture”. Four new units were already underdevelopment. completed working collaboratively—and virtually due to COVID-19—with Alaska Native educators—“Alaska The ASC-AK Learning Lab site “Smithsonian Arctic Native Designs: Parkas”; “Fun with a Purpose: Alaska Studies Center in Alaska” (https://learninglab.si.edu/ Native Games”; “Athabascan Potlatch Values”; and org/sasc-ak) features three categories of content—plus “Yup’ik Ingenuity: Local Materials”. Each unit has one work in progress section—all with connections a lesson, complete with all materials, answers and to objects from the Smithsonian collections. The first activities. Materials for the lesson consist of new essays, section presents information about the Native cultures archival and contemporary photographs with in-depth of Alaska, with content edited and expanded from captions, and Smithsonian collections objects with the Sharing Knowledge website and the Living Our detailed Indigenous and historical information. There Cultures exhibition, as well as new content and writing. are also links to additional related resources. The unit on Each cultural collection contains a combination of text parkas was completed through additional funding from a and images: a cultural overview written by an Alaska new program with The CIRI Foundation. To learn more Native scholar; contemporary and archival photographs about this program, please see the article “Alaska Native linked to in-depth captions, and Smithsonian objects Museum Fellowships” in this issue. from the region linked with collections information, knowledge from community experts and a curator- The Community Videos section provides eleven written historical summary. collections for learning about and practicing Alaska Native arts and languages from collaborative programs The Distance Learning section presents nine education with Alaska Native Elders, scholars, artists and units for teaching and learning at home or in a culture-bearers. Each program was extensively filmed classroom. Five units were drawn from past projects— and carefully edited to include insights from Alaska “Salmon Give Life: Learning from Alaska’s First Natives, cultural context, historical photographs and ASC Newsletter 19 film footage, with additional detailed information artist Maureen Gruben from Tuktoyaktuk, Northwest provided in lower-third and intertitle texts. A twelfth Territories, and Iñupiaq Sonya Kelliher-Combs from collection presents videos from research, talks and Anchorage, but this was cancelled due to COVID-19 events from Living Our Cultures exhibition events. and substituted with work from home (see Shorelines, Inuit Art Quarterly, Fall 2020: 40-47). The fourth and final section “Work in Progress” is a placeholder to let people know that more resources are on Glenn Gear arrived in Anchorage to very cold January the way. It currently contains the start of a new program weather and with great enthusiasm about his time in “Conversations,” which will be a series of moderated Alaska. Glenn is an animator, filmmaker and visual artist, virtual discussions, including audience participation, originally from Newfoundland, who finds inspiration by with Alaska Native and Canadian Inuit artists providing exploring his identity as an urban Inuk with ancestral insights and information on current issues. Conversations ties to Nunatsiavut. For his animated short films, Glen will be recorded and posted on Learning Lab with utilizes collage and archival materials to explore issues of additional resources. The program will be joined and supported by the Inuit Arts Foundation. A pre-program “individual and collective history, the exchange between talk “Land Acknowledgement: How to Honor Alaska Indigenous and settler populations, folklore, gender, and Native Peoples” will be held in January featuring Ahtna archival material.” A selection of his films played in the Athabascan artist Melissa Shaginoff. Six Conversations ASC exhibition space throughout January. During his are in the planning stages for every other month starting residency, Glenn studied the Smithsonian and Anchorage in February, 2021. Museum collections and gave an artist talk. He turned the ASC archaeology lab into an animation studio, where he also hosted open studio hours for Alaska Native CIRCUMPOLAR EXCHANGES: INUK ARTIST artists and for museum staff and visitors. Glen made GLENN GEAR community connections by meeting staff at the Alaska By Dawn Biddison Native Heritage Center and Cook Inlet Tribal Council, and shared the goal that he return to teach animation In the fall of 2019, a new partnership began between workshops. There was time for a weekend winter road the Alaska office of the Arctic Studies Center (ASC) trip with views of the mountains and ice-clad mudflats of and the Inuit Arts Foundation (IAF) led by ASC Turnagain Arm, and the muskox and wood bison of the Museum Specialist Dawn Biddison and by IAF Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center. Executive Director and Publisher Alysa Procida and IAF Editorial Director Britt Gallpen. The plans The Inuit Arts Foundation and Arctic Studies Center were to bring Canadian Inuit artists to Alaska and plan to restart the Circumpolar Exchanges program Alaska Inuit artists to Canada for individual and in 2021. Meetings will begin in January. Look for collaborative work, and for opportunities to foster program updates in the next ASC Newsletter. new relationships between Inuit artists, organizations and communities. The first “Circumpolar Exchanges” ALASKA NATIVE MUSEUM FELLOWSHIPS: residency in Anchorage was with Inuk artist Glen A NEW PROGRAM WITH THE CIRI Gear from Montreal in January, 2020. The next artists FOUNDATION scheduled with travel booked for April were Inuvialuk By Dawn Biddison In the fall of 2019, Nadia Sethi at The CIRI Foundation (TCF) contacted Aron Crowell and Dawn Biddison to meet with their staff about a new initiative in support of Alaska Native museum opportunities through the new grant program Alaska Native Cultural Heritage and Artistic Sovereignty in Museums Project. The Alaska office of the Arctic Studies Center was asked to host the first program, which was co- developed with and funded by TCF over the winter of 2019–2020. The Museum Sovereignty fellowship was planned as a paid, intensive, in-person mentorship with Dawn over eight-weeks in the spring of 2020, and was Inuk artist Glenn Gear at Turnagain Arm. reorganized into a fourteen-week virtual mentorship in Photo by Dawn Biddison the fall/winter of 2020 due to COVID-19. 20 ASC Newsletter The fellowship focused on creating a free online Before the first Alaska Native Cultural Heritage and educational resource about Alaska Native heritage Artistic Sovereignty in Museums Project was completed, utilizing new research and writing with museum and The CIRI Foundation asked the Arctic Studies Center to archival collections. The mentorship also addressed provide the next one, which was gladly accepted. ASC larger themes regarding museum practices, including looks forward to partnering again with TCF to mentor an decolonization. The fellowship recipient was Amelia Alaska Native in museum-related work. “Amy” Ahnaughuq Topkok, an Iñupiaq from Kotzebue who lives in Fairbanks and whose parents The list of web-sites in the same order as they are are from Shishmaref and Noatak. Amy has worked mentioned in the text: at University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) since 1994 and is the Biomedical Learning and Student Training Center in Alaska Learning Lab site: https:// program Reporting and Outreach Coordinator. In learninglab.si.edu/org/sasc-ak addition, she teaches courses at UAF on Alaska Native Alaska Native Design: Parkas: https://learninglab. dance and performance. Since the subject of her MA si.edu/q/ll-c/W4o8K4pBDVcFswN2#r/30467 work at UAF was Iñupiaq parkas, which she plans NEW MEDIA: WEAVING A YUP’IK ISSRAN to build on when she pursues her Ph.D., the selected (GRASS CARRYING BAG) subject for the educational resource was Alaska Native parkas with a focus on the Iñupiaq atigi (fur parka). By Dawn Biddison Amy’s fellowship provided her the opportunity In 2019, the Alaska office of the Arctic Studies to conduct new interviews and write essays on Center partnered with Qanirtuuq Inc., the local tribal the subject of her academic interest and to learn organization for the village of Quinhagak, Alaska, to about creating educational materials. She studied research and document the Yup’ik tradition of weaving the Distance Learning units on the Smithsonian an issran (grass carrying-bag) in their community. Arctic Studies Center in Alaska Learning Lab site Local artist Grace Anaver joined the team as lead and co-developed a framework for a new education artist, under the guidance of her older sister Pauline unit. Amy learned about selecting museum objects, Beebe and assisted by her younger sister Sarah Brown. archival images and contemporary photographs, and Locally harvested taperrnaq (coarse seashore grass) was about writing in-depth captions. Grant funding gave gathered and processed for drying and curing in July, and honorarium to three Iñupiaq culture-bearers for her to grass from the previous fall was dyed. In August, Grace conduct extensive interviews about the Iñupiaq atigi, developing her knowledge base and providing content for her writing. Amy spoke with Elder Mary Sue Anderson, her aunt, whose memories included how her grandmother Emily Paizuzraq Kiyutelluk Barr trapped and tanned squirrels at Ublasaun, a former winter reindeer herding camp northeast of Shishmaref, and how her grandmother made an atigi with them. Amy also spoke with skin-sewers Mary Lou Sours of Noatak and Nasugraq Lane, originally from Point Hope. In writing three essays for the project, Amy worked with Dawn over drafts to brush up on her writing skills and to increase the role of Indigenous knowledge in her writing. The resulting education unit Alaska Native Design: Parkas presents nineteen photographs of people and museum objects with detailed captions, three essays and a lesson. There are also three additional resources, including a guide for making a qaspeq/atikłuk—the Yup’ik and Iñupiaq word for a summer shirt or dress, similar to an atigi but made from fabric—written by Amy for a past workshop and now improved with additional information and editing, Cover of the DVD set “Material Traditions: Weaving a which she can utilize in the future along with all of her Yup’ik Issran (Grass Carrying-Bag).” Image by Dawn research and writing. Biddison; photo of Lance Anaver by Erika Larsen, 2015 ASC Newsletter 21 taught Yup’ik grass weavers and learners how to twine Thule Expedition (FTE) from Greenland to Chukotka an issran in the Nunalleq Culture & Archaeology Center. in 1921–1924, led by Danish-Greenlandic ethnographer To learn more about the field research in Quinhagak, see Knud Rasmussen. The FTE retrospective, organized Yup'ik Twined Grass Bags: Renewing an Ancestral Art, by Igor Krupnik and Aron Crowell, has generated ASC Newsletter 26:6-8, 2019. The collaborative project new historical assessments of the expedition and its was managed, filmed and edited by Museum Specialist results, innovative research based on its voluminous Dawn Biddison, who produced a DVD set with eleven records and collections, and increased understanding of videos, Material Traditions: Weaving a Yup’ik Issran the FTE’s enduring value for community-based cultural (Grass Carrying-Bag). heritage. The project began with planning meetings and archival research in Copenhagen and Washington In the videos, viewers meet Grace in an extended DC, leading up to an all-day session of research papers interview and learn about the cultural context of at the 2019 meeting of the Alaska Anthropological Yup’ik grass-weaving, supplemented with archival Association in Nome, the endpoint of the expedition’s photographs and photographs of woven grass objects Arctic journey (see ASC Newsletters 25:38-42 and from the Smithsonian and Anchorage Museum 26:38-42). An exciting recent outcome was Brendan collections. Additional videos provide detailed Griebel’s 2020 ASC Burch Lecture, which presented information, instructions, patterns and demonstrations work by the Inuinnait (Copper Inuit) organization from when and how to harvest grass—including how Pitquhirnikkut Ilihautiniq / Kitikmeot Heritage Society to accommodate practices for the changing climate— to access, restore, and mobilize Inuit knowledge to all of the techniques needed to complete an issran. documented during the FTE (Griebel, this issue). Viewers learn directly from Grace and along with students. The videos are posted on YouTube at the The FTE project will reach a new milestone later this Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center Alaska channel year (2021) with the publication of 18 articles and nd on the Smithsonian Learning Lab platform at the essays by Danish, Russian, Canadian, and American Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center in Alaska site authors in a double issue of the Alaska Journal of with links to issran examples from the Smithsonian Anthropology. Crowell and Krupnik are the co-editors collections. The Learning Lab site also offers a related of the volume, which leads off with a foreword by educational unit Yup’ik Ingenuity: Local Materials Bernadette Miqqusaaq Dean of Rankin Inlet, with a lesson, activities and materials, including Nunavut, who participated in the Nome conference and archival and contemporary photographs and museum whose grandparents hosted Rasmussen at their snow object photographs, all with in-depth information. DVD home on Southampton Island in 1922. sets were widely distributed to project participants, to Alaska Native organizations and schools, and The Fifth Thule Expedition was many things—a bold to libraries, archives, and museums in Alaska and adventure in Arctic travel and fieldwork, a crowning nationally. achievement of Danish polar exploration, a cooperative research program that relied heavily on Inughuit and The list of web-sites in the same order as they are Inuit knowledge and support, and an early example mentioned in the text of “insider ethnography” conducted by Rasmussen, who was part Greenlandic Inuit and a fluent speaker Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center Alaska channel: of Kalaallisut and Inuktitut. Rasmussen’s overriding https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNpC1tX- interests were in oral traditions, spiritual beliefs, and kqJaSU7ZSxUWAfA mythology, which he recorded for the Iglulingmiut, Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center in Alaska site: Nattilingmiut, Qairnirmiut, Inuinnait, Inuvialuit, Iñupiat, https://learninglab.si.edu/q/ll-c/ and Cup’ig peoples of Canada and Alaska. Cultural sbmuMYcg9n5Gv0QC#r/38039 studies by Rasmussen and Kaj Birket-Smith were Yup’ik Ingenuity: Local Materials: https://learninglab. complemented by Therkel Mathiassen’s archaeological si.edu/q/ll-c/y3BDjoz5n87sBu0N#r/30376 research in the Central Arctic, which uncovered evidence CENTENNIAL PUBLICATION ON THE DANISH of the ancestral Thule culture and of the Thule migration FIFTH THULE EXPEDITION (1921–1924) from Bering Strait to Greenland. In the frame of polar scientific history the FTE stands out as an audacious and By Aron L. Crowell unequalled attempt to survey the entire geographical and historical continuum of Inuit cultures across the polar Since 2018 the Arctic Studies Center has collaborated regions of three continents, and to resolve theoretical with the Danish National Museum, the Danish Arctic debates about their origin and development. Not all of Institute, and a team of international and Indigenous these aims were achieved at the time, yet as the scholars scholars to commemorate the centennial of the Fifth to commemorate the centennial project demonstrates, 22 ASC Newsletter the FTE continues to generate new scholarship and and by schooner from Nome to Cape Dezhnev (East meaningful understandings of Arctic cultures. Cape) on the Russian side of Bering Strait. The papers are: “Whaling and Whale Spirits in the Western Records of the FTE include its massive Final Report, Arctic: Notes from the FTE (Aron Crowell); “Spirits a series of 35 monographs by Rasmussen, Birket- across the Arctic: Selected Drawings Collected by Smith, and Mathiassen that fill entire shelves in Knud Rasmussen in Nome, 1924” (Birgitte Sonne); Arctic libraries; extensive object collections at the “Tracking Nayagnir: A Shaman’s Encounters with Danish National Museum in Copenhagen; 4,000 still Murder, Western Law, the Lomen Brothers Company, photographs in various repositories, many posted online and Knud Rasmussen” (Kenneth Pratt); “The FTE’s by the Danish Arctic Institute; 25,000 meters of movie Siberian Legacy” (Daria Schwalbe, Anne Lisbeth film shot by expedition photographer; and a plethora of Schmidt, and Kristofer Schmidt); and “Dezhnev FTE correspondence, diaries, maps, and field reports in (Kengisqun): The Westernmost Point of the FTE” the Knud Rasmussen Archive, Royal Danish Archive, (Sergei Shokarev). and Greenland National Museum and Archive. Part Three, Fifth Thule Expedition Resources Today, Papers in the upcoming volume of the Alaska Journal of highlights research and resources in museums, Anthropology draw on these resources and reveal their archives, and private collections: “Inuit Pencil rich potential for new discoveries, interpretations, and Drawings and Co-Creation: Rediscovering the Artwork applications. The authors and titles (with “Fifth Thule Made During the FTE” (Martin Appelt, Bjarne Expedition” abbreviated) give a quick preview of the Grønnow, and Anne Mette Randrup Jørgensen); Utqiagvik whalers and umiat at the ice edge. Courtesy of Danish Arctic Institute. Photo by Leo Hansen scope and diversity of the AJA collection. Appearing “Records of the FTE in Danish Archives” (Bent in the Introduction are the “Foreword” (Bernadette Nielsen); “Tracing the Lost Films of the Fifth Thule Makusak Dean); “The FTE: A Western Arctic Expedition in Alaska” (Scott MacKenzie and Anna Perspective” (Aron Crowell); and “From Greenland Westerstahl Stenport); “Menadelook: An Iñupiat to the Pacific: Celebrating the Centennial of the FTE, Teacher’s Photographs of Wales, Diomede, and 1921–1924” (Kenn Harper and Igor Krupnik). Part Nome during the FTE Years” (Eileen Norbert); One, Intellectual History, includes: “Plans for the FTE “Rasmussen’s Engraved Walrus Tusks from Chukotka” and the Great Sled Journey across Canada and Alaska” (Mikhail Bronshtein); and “Epilogue: Reflections on (Knud Michelsen); “The FTE and the Indigenous the FTE Centennial” (William Fitzhugh). Participants Who Made It Possible” (Marie Kleist); “Assessing the Significance of the FTE for Inuinnait As guest editors of the special FTE issue of the Alaska and Inuit Knowledge” (Brendan Griebel, Darren Journal of Anthropology, Igor Krupnik and I are Keith, and Pamela Gross); “Inuit Cultural Heritage: grateful to the authors who co-created this exceptional Museum Collecting before the FTE” (Bernadette collection of FTE papers; to dozens of peer reviewers Driscoll Engelstad); and “Competing Arctic Pasts: (you know who you are!) who gave their time and Cohort Assessment of the FTE Legacy” (Igor Krupnik). attention to improving the texts; to Kenneth Pratt and Brian Wygal, editors at the journal; and to the Danish Part Two, Alaska-Chukotka Crossroads, emphasizes National Museum, Danish Arctic Institute, Smithsonian Rasmussen’s observations and interactions during Institution Archives, Peabody Museum, and other the final leg of the expedition when he and a small repositories that made their collections available for Inughuit team traveled by dogsled and skin boat study and publication. We all look forward to the along the Alaska coast from Utqiaġvik to Kotzebue, publication, anticipated this fall. ASC Newsletter 23 CANADIAN PLANS TO CELEBRATE THE NEWS FIFTH THULE EXPEDITION Reviewed by Kenn Harper ORAL HISTORY, ORAL PRESENT, ORAL FUTURE: THE LANGUAGE OF INUINNAIT Some of the initiatives underway in Canada to celebrate HERITAGE RESEARCH the centennial of the Fifth Thule Expedition are being By Brendan Griebel made by Danes residents in Canada. [Editor’s note: Dr. Griebel adapted his 2020 Ernest S. The Federation of Danish Associations in Canada will shortly publish a book by Knud Michelsen (a relative Burch Memorial Lecture for the presentation below. The of Knud Rasmussen) geared to a Danish-Canadian event was given virtually because of COVID-19 travel audience, in a limited edition expected to be 500 restrictions and was followed by a panel discussion copies. It will be titled Ambassador on a Dog Sled. In reported in the article follow this one. There one can find December, the Federation of Danish Associations in Dr. Griebel’s and the panelists’ bios.] Canada published an article by Kenn Harper, “‘It is I wanted to start this talk by recognizing the man to the Eskimos that Own My Heart’: Knud Rasmussen and whom this speaker series is dedicated. As a researcher, the Fifth Thule Expedition,” as the lead title in its 2020 Ernest S. Burch, Jr. was keenly interested in Heritage Book (Ottawa, pp. 22-31). questions about the Inuit past and understood the key Harper will also be writing a brief article for the to exploring this history was Inuit themselves. He publication “Danes,” published by Danes Worldwide carefully constructed arguments for how and why Inuit for the Danish diaspora and distributed in 114 countries. ethnography—or the gathering of firsthand accounts Inhabit Media, an Inuit-owned publishing company and oral histories—was needed to qualify the Arctic based in Iqaluit and Toronto, plans to publish another past. Burch became attuned to Inuit stories through version of Knud Michelsen’s book edited and geared extensive fieldwork among the Inupiat of Northern specifically to the interests of their primary readership, Alaska and the Caribou Inuit along the western shores Canadian Inuit. Their books also appeal to a general of Hudson’s Bay. He listened to what Inuit had to say, Canadian readership, and this volume will be targeted to and in doing so he was richly rewarded with a storied young adult readers. past rarely granted to those outside the culture. In 1976, the Government of the Northwest Territories, In light of Burch’s work, I want to focus my talk on Department of Education, published an oversized his conviction that the inclusion of Inuit orality holds three-volume set of books called simply Fifth Thule the key to the successful reconstruction—and hence Expedition. The books were thin, ranging from 19 to a fuller understanding—of the Inuit past. I would like 32 pages, and published bilingually in English and to forward a second argument: that the Inuit past—or Inuktitut using the syllabic orthography. They were also more precisely Inuit orality about the Inuit past—also unique in that they were written in the first person, in holds the key to supporting a future for Inuit language Knud Rasmussen’s voice. They were illustrated with and traditional knowledge. Across the Arctic, Inuit photographs from the expedition and drawings by communities are using language as a key for building the well-known Inuit artist Germaine Arnaktauyok. greater understanding about their history, but also for Inhabit Media is also considering republishing these strengthening the collective body of cultural knowledge volumes to celebrate the centennial. being transferred to future generations. A presentation on the Fifth Thule Expedition was I would specifically like to describe what the intersection expected to be a part of Nordic Bridges, a year-long of Inuit history and language looks like through the cultural initiative between the Nordic countries and perspective of Inuit directed research. For over a decade, Canada, to be co-ordinated by the Harbourfront Centre I have been an employee of a research facility called in Toronto, but with exhibitions to appear in many Pitquhirnikkut Ilihautiniq, or the Kitikmeot Heritage venues across Canada. Unfortunately, the entire initiative Society, located in the western Nunavut community of has been postponed until 2022 because of COVID-19. Cambridge Bay. Pitquhirnikkut Ilihautiniq is led by an Similarly, there will be a Fifth Thule Expedition Inuinnaq Executive Director and a board of twelve local component to the next Inuit Studies Conference. The Elders. Unlike many research institutions, its emphasis next conference will be held in Winnipeg, but the date is is not only on generating new data, but making sure that as yet unknown because of the pandemic. There is still existing knowledge—deeply embedded in Inuinnait time for other initiatives to be brought forward as the culture—continues to inform present and future ways of FTE centennial spans three years. being in the world. 24 ASC Newsletter Inuinnait are a regional group of Inuit who live in the on the land became less used. This in turn, brought Central Canadian Arctic. For hundreds of years, this about the gradual disappearance of highly customized group has lived in a specific landscape and become technology, terminology, and social relationships that highly attuned to its environment. Prior to initial contact accompanied these activities. with western civilization and its material culture, Inuinnait lived a purely land-based existence, relying on Pitquhirnikkut Ilihautiniq’s Inuinnait heritage their immediate surroundings for the tools they made, programming is grounded in the blunt reality that the the clothes they wore, the food they ate, in short… for Inuinnaqtun language and contexts of oral history everything. The term Inuinnait quite literally means ‘the are disappearing from popular use. Inuinnaqtun and people’ in their language. Over the last several decades, its supporting knowledge is described by many to be its use as a collective name has emerged to replace ‘sleeping’—its absence qualified as dormancy rather ‘Copper Inuit,’ or ‘Copper Eskimos,’ terms attributed to than loss. But how to ease the language into a more them by early explorers due to their distinct use of the wakeful state? Our solution lay in making Inuinnaqtun— naturally sourced copper as metal for their tools. both the language and the greater ecosystem it implies—the specific focus of our heritage research. Beyond their geographic territory and use of copper, Inuinnait define themselves from other Inuit groups I wanted to start my description of the Inuinnait heritage through their program by thinking about the past and the language clothing styles, we use to describe social practices, and it. I am, by trade, an material technologies, archaeologist. This but perhaps most profession encourages importantly through a certain way of their language thinking and talking called Inuinnaqtun. about old objects and Inuinnaqtun has locations as though an estimated 600 they truly belong to a speakers distributed different era. They are across the four ‘artifacts,’ ‘remains,’ communities material testaments to of Ulukhaktok, a past event. When I The geographic distribution of Inuit languages. Note the Inuinnaqtun first began my work Kugluktuk, language positioned in the Central Canadian Arctic. as an archaeologist Cambridge Bay, and Source: noahedits/wikipedia.org in Cambridge Bay, Gjoa Haven. Most I was specifically of these speakers are there to research Inuit stories about archaeological Elders. The disappearance of a language precipitates artifacts and sites. Like Ernest Burch, I was mostly the loss of culturally unique knowledge. Inuinnaqtun seeking correlation, this idea that Inuit narratives could not only means to speak, but also to create, to practice, be recorded to better position archaeologists’ own stories to do, to think—to be—like an Inuinnaq (Inuinnaq, or theories about what, exactly, happened. Over the meaning a human being); a larger cycle in which course of multiple archaeological excavations with local language allows people to both name their world and Elders, it quickly became clear that they were speaking properly function within it. a different language of archaeology. Conversations While knowledge and awareness of Inuinnaqtun about the objects or sites being excavated were not continues to be embedded in the memories, skills, and always anchored in the past. They were often not even technology of modern populations, it is increasingly about the past or even the materials being discussed. based on experience with urban as opposed to land- Rather, they provided much more subjective narratives, based living. The transition from land to town happened ones that included personal memories and experiences; quickly among the Inuinnait. They were among the last descriptions of technologies and social practices; Inuit groups to be contacted by western culture, most place and seasonality; people, their relationships and families not encountering non-Inuit explorers and traders their regional names; and, perhaps most importantly, a until the mid-to-late 1910s. By the mid-1950s, Inuinnait highly focused Inuinnaqtun terminology for all of these phenomena. life was shifted into towns and a system of residential schooling further removing children from their families, Rather than sifting through these narratives for language, and land. As Inuinnait life adjusted to the information that helped to support archaeological realities of settlement, practices associated with living questions at hand—the specific age of sites visited, for ASC Newsletter 25 example, the functions of old tools, or possible diets of Greenlandic ethnographer Knud Rasmussen led a past people—we began to ask how Inuinnait stories could research team across the whole of the North American be used to access and communicate a more comprehensive Arctic—from Greenland to Siberia, acquiring detailed Inuinnaqtun perspective. The most obvious way for our observations, collections, and documentation about team to approach this work was to redirect storytelling the Inuit cultures they encountered. The linguistic and and language about history into the present community cultural fluency of Knud Rasmussen—resulting in by creating opportunities for experiential learning about part from his mixed European and Greenlandic Inuit historical practices, technologies, and places. The resulting heritage—allowed him to communicate with Inuit workshops—which typically focus on the revival of in their own tongue and earn their trust as an insider. traditional technologies, hunting practices, and cultural Rasmussen spent a total of three months specifically skills—use the firsthand memories of Elders to transfer documenting Inuinnait life. skills and language in a setting where people are engaging with each other, deepening knowledge of landscape, In 2015, we began to consider the meaning and and can actually feel the meaning of new words they’re utility of Rasmussen’s work for contemporary learning. Inuinnait. We partnered with the National Museum of Denmark—the recipient of many of Rasmussen’s While ideal for bringing Inuinnaqtun back to collections—and over the years made several trips communities, these workshops have their limitations. with Elders and staff to view and interpret their Sometimes collective memory of the past has gaps. object and archival collections. Elders Bessie Pihoak Perhaps no one remembers the name of an old tool. Or Omilgoetok and Joseph Tikhak, both descendants the name is remembered, but the details of how to make of Inuinnait who met with the Fifth Thule Expedition, it, forgotten. Both the strength and the weakness of an spent days in the museum’s collection rooms telling oral culture, is that its entire knowledge resides in people. stories and gathering information about the items, Where does one go when these people can’t be found, including identifying their uses, social context, and or no longer exist? How does one re-cover intangible terminology. Despite being almost 100 years old, knowledge about the past? For some of our projects, we many of the objects were familiar to the Elders from had to start looking for information outside the culture. their childhood and opened gateways to related stories from that time. As generations grow more distant from traditional lifeways, there is an increasing reliance on secondary Rasmussen’s writings about Inuinnait society are a sources for the recovery of traditional knowledge. wealth of linguistic information. In some cases, they This brings the issue of knowledge access to the are the only source material for Inuinnaqtun terms: forefront. The reality for many northern communities names of tools, songs, and people. These recorded is that a great number of historical sources lie beyond words quite literally define whole new ways of thinking collective memory, and beyond the Arctic itself. about Inuinnait history. But getting at these terms Museums, archives and memory institutions, both in is not so easy. While fluent in the West Greenlandic North America and around the world, hold a significant language, Rasmussen used a very unusual script for portion of existing Inuinnait knowledge. Beginning his writing, which he adopted from German Moravian around 1910, anthropologists, traders, and explorers missionaries. Because of its orthography, this script is began to travel throughout the Inuinnait region, particularly difficult to read for translation purposes. receiving information directly from knowledge holders Luckily, Rasmussen provided a phonetic key, a and recording them in the relative permanence of guideline to the specific sounds accompanying each photographs and fieldnotes. Numerous objects were letter. This key frustratingly diverted the text through collected. As time and social change reduced the four other languages: English, French, German and number of these resources made, used and owned by Scottish. A team of language experts across the Inuinnait, exported collections have remained intact Inuinnait communities was organized, with each team and are full of potential to guide contemporary efforts overseeing the transcription of Inuinnaqtun songs, for cultural revival. But how to get at them? Most stories, and terminology from these writings. Each often, by going to museums. Our team has worked with word of Rasmussen’s text was carefully eased back to multiple museums over the years to visit collections orality, Inuinnaqtun experts combining their existing and begin the process of reclaiming Inuit knowledge knowledge of available sounds within the language and from them. For the purposes of this paper, I will finding closest equivalents within the foreign languages describe one specific case study. Rasmussen set as keys. 2021 marks the 100th anniversary of the Fifth Thule Once translated into contemporary Inuinnaqtun Expedition. Between 1921 and 1924, the Danish- orthography, translation of meaning still had to occur. 26 ASC Newsletter The songs and spiritual chants of Inuinnait are their these users shape the framework to their specific needs, own form of poetry, riddled with metaphors, allegory any new functions, features, or upgrades developed and narrative devices. The song of a hunter waiting by one user is immediately available to anyone else for seal, for example, might never make a mention of using the framework. The costs of maintaining the the animal as it would be a sign of disrespect. Another system over time are also distributed, making it more word might be used to reference the animal without sustainable. (3) It is a relational database, which means naming it outright. To understand the meanings of the that each piece of information entered into a Nunaliit song, one has to draw on this larger Inuinnaqtun body database is a discrete document. A museum record of cultural association and context. of an Inuinnait parka, for example, would be its own document. A photo of that parka, a separate document. The case studies described focused on bringing the past A photo of someone wearing the parka a separate into the present. But for Inuinnait-directed research, document, a comment that someone makes about the there is also a further requirement of knowledge person wearing the parka, a separate document. And so transmission: in other words, ensuring that the past, on. This allows for a system in which data is a cloud of and the present’s engagement with the past, is brought free-floating documents with no prescribed structure. into the future. Our team decided at an early stage that As documents become increasingly related through use, this future would be digital. I like to think that this was they form ever-changing pathways of interconnection prompted, in part, by the fact that the Inuinnaqtun word and association. for computer is the same word as for brain: qaritaq. What, we asked ourselves, would a digital version of an Using Nunaliit as its foundation, the first Inuinnait Inuinnaq story-teller’s brain even look like? How would heritage platform was developed in 2007 to visualize it function? We worked with this concept of digital and explore place name research conducted by our memory to begin mapping out the ways that history organization. Called the Kitikmeot Place Names resided in both the individual and collective mind. We Atlas (atlas.kitikmeotheritage.ca), the platform was determined three key points about oral history that would designed to enhance western cybercartography with guide our work: (1) it relies first and foremost on orality Inuinnait language and understandings of land. The and spoken language; (2) it encourages connectivity, platform features a continuous, zoomable map that bringing together the many parts of an Inuinnaqtun allows users to navigate the Inuinnait region and ecology including language, people and land; and (3) it select specific place names for further investigate. is the product of an individual’s life experience. What As a language-focused map, it also provides users they heard, what they saw, what they remembered. In with the pronunciation of each place name by a figuring out how a digital format could accommodate fluent Inuinnaqtun speaker. Places can be linked to these qualities, we came up with the idea of a knowledge multimedia files of Elders and land user interviews bank. A knowledge bank, as we saw it, would be an about activities and traditions associated with the enduring repository of everything a community believed specific landscape. In some cases, specific places was important about its heritage. While it would never were enhanced by 3D panospheres, allowing users replace firsthand experiences with historical content, to virtually view the described environment. To date, it could serve as a way to remember and continue roughly 1500 Inuinnait place names have been entered telling them, not as a single event or unique object, into the system. but as a larger atmospheric cloud of conversation and association. As we became better acquainted with developing these platforms, we began to map out new ways of engaging We understood early that a knowledge bank would with Inuinnait knowledge and orality. In partnership have to be custom built. In 2006, we partnered with with the Danish National Museum, we created a new the Geomatics and Cartographic Research Centre at model for sharing digital Inuinnait knowledge. In 2017, Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada to develop our the National Museum transferred all its digital records own solution to storing, organizing and preserving of Inuinnait photos, objects, stories, songs, and place Inuinnait knowledge. At the time, the Geomatics names to Pitquhirnikkut Ilihautiniq under a creative Centre was pioneering a cybercartography framework commons license. We used this digital collection to called Nunaliit. There were several qualities about create a platform called the Fifth Thule Atlas (www. this framework that immediately struck a chord: (1) It thuleatlas.org), specifically designed to provide access was open source. All its code is publicly available and to all Inuinnait knowledge gathered by Rasmussen’s non-proprietary. Nobody owns it, nobody profits from expedition. it. (2) It is what’s referred to as a distributed network, meaning that it connects multiple users through the The Fifth Thule Atlas allows for Inuit knowledge to be same underlying system. A benefit of this is that as accessed in three different ways. Firstly, users can locate ASC Newsletter 27 knowledge in a spatial manner through a geographic An early priority for our digital work was to ensure map tracing out the Fifth Thule Expedition’s travel that virtual forms of knowledge remained anchored routes and encounters with Inuit camps. Each location in the physical world. We wanted the ability to point can be clicked to access Inuit information related to that to a location when asked by the community where place: photos of Inuit encountered, transcribed songs their knowledge is being stored. To accomplish this, and stories collected at a particular site. The second we installed a local server to house our entire dataset. form of interface is an interactive PDF version of the Controlling the physical location of digital knowledge Expedition’s reports. These can be navigated much like comes with multiple benefits. A server linked to a a traditional book, but have added features of keyword WiFi network can give local people faster and easier searchability and allows users to access and comment access to its content. It can also prevent information on each reference to Inuit knowledge. Comments can from leaving the community, building the community’s take the form of audio, video or text. The Atlas’ final capacity as decision makers regarding who can access interface allows users to directly access categories of what information. content such as place names, people, oral traditions, photographs, or maps. To close my talk, I wanted to go full circle and bring it back to the work of Ernest Burch, Jr. Burch had The Fifth Thule Atlas was our first foray into thinking a critical stance on storytelling, and a very strong about how material collections in particular can benefit opinion of what a good story about history entailed. from this digital approach. Last year, we developed Among the many criteria he lists for such stories are a prototype collections accuracy, reliability, and management software consistency. A good story, that we call the Inuinnait he believed, is one that Knowledge Bank. The provides a firm handle Inuinnait Knowledge on history; a statement Bank holds digitized about the past that so records from a growing tightly and convincingly number of museums and braids available threads of archives in addition to its own digitized archival evidence that one has no collection. The ultimate choice but to grab hold, goal for the Inuinnait and hang on. Knowledge Bank is to But what stories are lost have a centralized and through this process? searchable record for What is silenced? I’ve every digitally available Figure 2. A successful seal hunt at a knowledge transfer land spent a lot of time thinking Inuinnait object, photo, camp outside of Cambridge Bay in 2014. about how Burch’s criteria and archives document Photo by Brendan Griebel for storytelling applies around the world. to the Inuinnait heritage The Inuinnait Knowledge Bank is specifically program that we’ve created. My first impulse is to designed to foster new opportunities for documenting say it doesn’t, that their respective goals to define the the Inuinnaqtun language. Inuinnaqtun terminology past, and to shape the future, are just too far apart. can be layered over objects, photos, and audiovisual But deeper consideration shows there are elements of media within the digital collection. We have overlap. Inuinnait oral history has its own culturally simplified the process for Inuit to write, speak or internal processes for determining fact from fiction, for video record Inuinnaqtun descriptions of collections. weeding out the tall tales. Getting it right in Inuinnait Users can re-structure the relationship of existing oral histories is found in expansiveness rather than a records, creating a web of related documents to better narrowing down to key truths. Truth is not found in the illustrate their Inuinnaqtun context. We are exploring most reasonable conclusion, but in the accuracy of the improvements such as content tagging to allow an many details that bring it together. But sometimes the even broader audience to describe, categorize, ‘like’, truth of stories resides simply in the fact that they are and share new language and information with one told between people to deepen their sense of belonging another. in a language, in a culture, in a way of life. It is this sense of truth that gives a culture the foundation to The Inuinnait Knowledge Bank currently lives at the understand, on their own terms, where they’ve been May Hakongak Cultural Centre in Cambridge Bay. and where they are, and where they want to be. 28 ASC Newsletter CELEBRATING QAUMAJUQ: INUIT ART Designed by Michael Maltzan Architecture of Los CENTRE OF THE WINNIPEG ART GALLERY Angeles—and constructed in association with Winnipeg’s Cibinel Architecture Ltd.—Qaumajuq is By Bernadette Driscoll Engelstad a stunning four-story edifice of 40,000 sq. ft. Inspired For over 60 years the Winnipeg Art Gallery (WAG) by monolithic forms of drifting ice—a familiar sight to has been a pivotal center for the exhibition, research, Inuit—these colossal shapes seeded the architectural and publication of contemporary Inuit art. During this vision of Michael Maltzan on a design expedition period, the WAG has developed an internationally to Nunavut. In contrast to its undulating white stone renowned collection now comprising almost exterior, Qaumajuq incorporates a curved glass street- 12,000 sculptures, prints, drawings, weavings, and front encouraging views into the ground floor at all embroidered and appliqué textiles by Inuit artists hours of day and night, underscoring the architect’s from across the Canadian Arctic. Under the inspired vision of light and accessibility. On each level, bridges leadership of Director Stephen Borys, the WAG will connect Qaumajuq to the Gallery’s original building, a soon open Qaumajuq, a world-class center of Inuit art, landmark structure with sharp geometric lines designed to celebrate this collection. Qaumajuq is the Inuktitut by Winnipeg architect Gustavo da Roza, soon to th name chosen by Inuit, First Nations, and Metis elders celebrate its 50 Anniversary. Over twenty skylights and language-keepers working with the WAG’s in the ceiling of the third-floor gallery illuminate the Indigenous Advisory Circle. Pronounced KOW- 8,000 sq. ft exhibit space. Monumental commissions ma-yourq or by Inuvialuit sculptor, Abraham HOW-ma-yourq Anghik Ruben (b. Paulatuk/Salt Spring (depending on the Island, BC) and Manitoba-based artist regional dialect), Goota Ashoona Glass-enclosed Qaumajuq (b. Kinngait/Cape Visual Vault, translates as ‘it is Dorset) highlight Qaumajuq. Courtesy bright, it is lit’. Qaumajuq’s exterior of Winnipeg Art plaza, named Nutaaq Given the Gallery Tummaqtuyuq, exquisite nuance Inuvialuktun for of the Inuktitut “big steps forward”. language, the In anticipation of process of its formal opening naming offers a View of Qaumajuq in early 2021, a meaningful insight with Northern Lights spectacular display into Inuit cultural Display, Winnipeg Art of the Northern philosophy. Gallery Lights has been Qaumaujuq, projected onto the for example, is exterior façade directly linked to the stem word ‘qau’ of Qaumajuq, meaning light, daylight, dawn (Dorais brightening the dark 2020:294). However, beyond describing winter evenings. the physical aspects of light (e.g., qaummalak, lightning; qauppat, tomorrow—when there will be light), qau The foyer is anchored by a multi-storied, glass- also embraces the intellectual concepts of knowledge enclosed visual vault displaying over 4,500 sculptures and enlightenment. As recorded by linguist Louis from the WAG and the Government of Nunavut Jacques Dorais, qaujimaniq refers to the acquisition of Fine Arts collection, on long-term loan to the WAG. knowledge, i.e. the fact of having become aware. The Organized by WAG senior curator, Dr. Darlene Wight term qaumaniq describes the angakkuq’s attainment of and Inuit assistant curator, Jocelyn Piirainen, this esoteric (shamanic) knowledge—a process detailed by expansive presentation of Inuit sculpture in stone Knud Rasmussen based on discussions with the Iglulik provides an unparalleled opportunity to witness the shaman, Aua (Rasmussen 1929:112-119). Therefore, remarkable breadth of work created by Inuit sculptors Qaumajuq not only reflects the brilliant physical light from the early 1950s to the present. Individually of its new home but the complex, often enigmatic, even and in their totality, these carvings provide striking metaphysical layers of human knowledge and cultural evidence of the creative imagination, distinctive artistic insight embodied in the skilled artwork and creative styles, variety of subject matter, and ingenious use vision of Inuit artists. of natural materials by Inuit artists in communities across the North as well as in more southern locales. ASC Newsletter 29 The name Illavut (“our relatives”), adopted by the Settlement Region)—Inua features works by long- Indigenous Advisory Circle for the visual vault, aptly established, mid-career, and emerging artists, including describes the intimate and often familial relationship many newly-commissioned works. The list of artists on of Inuit to the works on display as well as to their the WAG website (https://wag.ca/event/inua) invites creators, reflecting the multi-generational dedication one to search out images, websites, and YouTube of Inuit men and women to art production, not only videos of the featured artists and their works, providing as a conduit of creative expression but perhaps more a captivating introduction to the Inua exhibit while critically as a vital means of supporting one’s family awaiting the much-anticipated opening of Qaumajuq. in a time with few economic opportunities. Indeed, many younger artists today recall childhood memories It is noteworthy to add that in addition to Inuktitut of watching their parents, grandparents, siblings and names conferred on Qaumajuq, the elders and community members engaged in carving, drawing, and language-keepers working with the Indigenous printmaking. Advisory Circle have bequeathed formal names in Michif (Metis), Ojibway, Cree, and Dakota to In addition to the prominent display of sculpture in physical spaces throughout the WAG (https://wag.ca/ the visual vault, Qaumajuq opens with a challenging, qaumajuq/indigenous-naming-wag). In this way, the thought-provoking exhibition entitled Inua, sure to Winnipeg Art Gallery signals a renewed relationship not only with Inuit artists and the North, but with all Indigenous communities. As Stephen Borys states, “We understand that the history of our Inuit art collection is tied to colonialism. We see these names as steps along our path to integrating and honouring indigenous knowledge.” In this way, the Winnipeg Art Gallery’s long-standing history with Inuit art has begun to forge an even broader path to a fuller, more respectful recognition and acknowledgement of Indigenous art, artists, and societies across Canada (Fig. 3). References Dorais, Louis Jacques. 2020. Words of the Inuit: A Semantic Stroll through a Northern Culture. Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press. Rasmussen, Knud. 1929. Intellectual Culture of the Iglulik Eskimos. Report of the Fifth Thule Expedition 1921–24, vol. 7(1). Copenhagen: Glydendal. BURCH ENDOWMENT SUPPORT FOR ASC Tuniigusiia/The Gift, 2020, by Goota ACTIVITIES IN 2020 Ashoona (Kinngait/Cape Dorset; Elie, Manitoba). Gift of the Manitoba Teachers By Igor Krupnik Society The Ernest S. (‘Tiger’) Burch Endowment with the NMNH was established in 2012 by the family of our late colleague and long-term research associate, Ernest S. unseat preconceived notions of Inuit art production. (‘Tiger’) Burch, Jr., with the aim to support, promote, Entitled Inua (spirit, force)—elaborated in the acronym and interpret the study of Arctic Indigenous peoples and INUA: Inuit Nunangat Ungammuaktut Atautikkut their cultures. The fund ensures that our work and the (‘Inuit Moving Forward Together’)—the inaugural legacy of Tiger’s many decades of collaboration with the exhibition brings together over 100 works of art Smithsonian continues. As in previous years, the Burch by 40 sculptors, graphic artists, filmmakers, and Endowment remained the prime source of funding for innovative clothing designers. Curated by a talented various ASC operations in 2020. team of Inuit artists and scholars representing the four regions of Inuit Nunangat—Dr. Heather Iglorliorte Due to the COVID-19 pandemic restrictions, many (Nunatsiavut), Krista Ulujuk Zawadski (Nunavut), regular activities of the Arctic Studies Center (ASC) AssinaJaq (Nunavik), and Kablusiak (Inuvialuit staff supported by the Endowment were put on hold. 30 ASC Newsletter There was hardly any conference travel, no summer THE 2020 ERNEST S. BURCH MEMORIAL fieldwork, no visiting scholars, interns, and fellows LECTURE PROGRAM to support. Since March 2020, all operations were conducted via teleworking, online conferencing, and By Igor Krupnik and William W. Fitzhugh other electronic channels. That, in turn, allowed the ASC to re-direct some of the Burch funds to support online On October 27th, the Arctic Studies Center hosted the outreach programs conducted out of its Anchorage office 2020 Annual “Ernest S. Burch Lecture” and a follow-up (primarily by Dawn Biddison) and online work by two Zoom webinar organized jointly with the Department Anthropology contractors, Sadie Colebank and Sara of Anthropology. The focus of the event was on Babouri, on the joint collection project with the Oberlin museums and anthropologists working with Indigenous College (see “Nelson in the Cloud” in this issue). communities in facilitating the use of collections as heritage, language, knowledge, and artistic resources. The Endowment supported the ASC annual public The event began with a lecture by our invited speaker, event, the “Tiger Burch annual lecture” that helps Dr. Brendan Griebel, who presented a talk titled “Oral promote the impact of Arctic anthropological research History, Oral Present, Oral Future: The Language to wider audiences and colleagues across the globe. of Inuinnait Heritage Research.” His talk featured Begun in 2014, the “Tiger Burch Lecture” has emerged activities of the Kitikmeot Heritage Society (www. as one of the key events that ASC hosts every year kitikmeotheritage.ca) of Cambridge Bay, Nunavut. for the Museum community and the public. The 2020 Brendan Griebel is a Canadian researcher of Inuit annual ‘Burch Lecture” was delivered on October material culture and the relationships betweenArctic 27, 2020, by Canadian anthropologist, Dr. Brendan history, materiality, and collective identity. He holds a Griebel (see below). In addition to Dr. Griebel’s lecture, Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of Toronto the 2020 ‘Burch Event’ included a two-hour webinar and has spent two decades engaged in land-based and (panel) with six in-house and invited speakers on the experiential research with Inuit scholars and knowledge topic of Museums and Anthropologists working with holders in the Canadian Arctic. He is a long-term Indigenous communities to facilitate the use of museum employee and the former Executive Director of collections as heritage, language, knowledge, and Pitquhirnikkut Ilihautiniq (Kitikmeot Heritage Society) artistic resources (see below). The Burch Endowment in the Inuit community of Cambridge Bay in Nunavut, paid the speaker’s award; it was agreed that a portion of also a member of Carleton University’s Geomatics the unused 2020 travel funds would be reserved for Dr. and Cartographic Research Centre, and Co-Founder Griebel’s research visit to NMNH in 2021. and Director of The Museum of Fear and Wonder, a private museum located approximately one hour north As in the previous years, the Endowment provided of Calgary, Alberta in Canada. Dr. Griebel’s talk is much-needed support for the production of the recently provided in this issue. published ASC volume, Arctic Crashes. People and Animals in the Changing North (Krupnik and Crowell, Following Dr. Griebel’s talk, we screened four YouTube eds., 2020—see this issue). It paid for graphic work for videos on heritage and knowledge documentation the next major ASC publication, the proceedings of a programs with Indigenous communities that had been special session organized by the ASC in Nome, Alaska prepared by Dawn Biddison in our Anchorage Office. in 2019 dedicated to the centennial of the 5th Thule The first of these was extracted from “Weaving a Expedition of 1921–24, led by Danish-Greenlandic Yup’ik Issran/Grass Carrying-Bag”; the second was on explorer, Knud Rasmussen. This collection is to “Material Traditions: Athabascan Moosehide Tanning appear as a special issue of the Alaska Journal of and Sewing”; the third was from “Sculpting Ivory”; Anthropology in summer 2021 (see Crowell, this and the fourth from “Twining Cedar: Annette Island issue). The endowment continued to provide funds Tsimshian Basket Weaving” (see the links below): for other ASC operations, such as the production of the ASC Newsletter, the ASC membership in the (1) https://www.youtube.com/ Arctic Consortium of the United States (ARCUS), watch?v=aNADxHHCnPU&list=PL3wBN-dh9DMS and research travel in the first two months of 2020. CNafPQaxFpWPG456yKWH0&index=1&t=24s As our post-COVID life resumes, we plan to continue using Burch Endowment to advance our research and (2) https://www.youtube.com/ public programs, in conference travel and fieldwork, watch?v=yTPWADw6Ol8&list=PL3wBN-dh9DMQ and to promote our research and Burch’s legacy OB7AvbKb2NLHQ9NtbG55K&index=1: to the international Arctic research community via (3) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NMJ7n7- publications, conferences, and professional exchanges. loo&list=PL3wBN-dh9DMRrXiXA10N3mOsiKzvN 2Hiy&index=1&t=11s ASC Newsletter 31 (4) https://www.youtube.com/ projects 1964–2020 in the main gallery with watch?v=YrFOFxftByQ&list=PL3wBN-dh9DMT- MorrowSound spatialized music and soundscapes, and 043en5-6YYpTuLogAwkU&index=1&t=746s projected videos of performance works and of media with my music and sound 1975–2020 in the media This video ‘intermission’ was followed by a two- room. hour discussion panel, “Museums, Communities, and collections: Current Practice and Future Horizons,” In October 2020, Recital Edition Los Angeles released moderated by Dr. William Fitzhugh and featuring America Lament, a vinyl album with a red cover. six invited panelists: Bernadette (Yaayuk) Alvanna- Sean McCann cut a thoughtful compilation of my Stimpfle from Nome, Alaska; our own Joshua Bell, music created over 60 years. Anders painted his main Gwyneira Isaac, and Dawn Biddison, a former SIMA gallery red and his media room blue. He draped black student of 2014, Krista Zawadski, now in Rankin audio cables like circus tent ropes in both rooms. Inlet, Nunavut Canada, and the event speaker, Brendan You can visit the walkthrough of posters, the opening Griebel. Each panelist shared their experience in performance of Serenade II and closing event Four community collection sharing projects by providing Winds Winter Solstice celebration at: https://kohta.fi. insights on their experiences with these projects. This was followed by another Q&A session. The bio- statements of this year’s speaker and panelists are shown below. and the discussion panel is available at: https://smithsonian.zoom.us/rec/play/f6UFZUPdRT- f9lRyfMfwHf1cIaSSnHys1JRvFK1uNxvHFGI QjQmuwrchHt3KOqPTKugkU2yCc2pwjUtk._ qD2rUUzWILTyrz0 Our experience with our virtual Burch event revealed both the power and limitations on public communications (such as Zoom ‘fatigue’ and time zone differences) in the COVID-19 era. We were indebted to Nancy Shorey for administrative support and Katherine Barca for organization, assistance, and masterminding the virtual environment. SOUNDS FROM THE NORTH: LOCATION TIME ART America Lament, an album of 60 years of Charlie Morrow music By Charlie Morrow Days get longer here in Helsinki now that it's Solstice celebrations are a major part of my work, February. A 97-year-old local just said, “summer's featuring a premier of a new Wave Music for a herd coming!" Further south in the U.S. state of Maine, of like instruments, like 40 Cellos, 60 Clarinets, and locals boast two seasons, “wintaaaaa” and “the 4th of a boat. Enjoy my 1975 first solstice event poster for Julyyyyyyy.” New York Parks and Recreation. Here's a description of Solstice24, one hour in each of twenty-four time The past twelve months, Year One in this time of zones, co-produced with Smithsonian Institution COVID-19, has been very surprising for me. Spring Arctic Studies (https://www.smithsonianmag.com/ 2020, a Russian painter could not take himself or smithsonian-institution/its-global-solstice-party- his paintings to Helsinki's Kohta Taidehalli for his and-youre-invited-180959462). scheduled show. To fill the slot, director curator, Anders Kreuger, created retrospective, Charlie Serenade II song cycle includes a north English tenor, Morrow: A Gathering, October 20 to December 21, Ian Honeyman, in kilts, French Horn soloist Ville Winter Solstice. Hiilivirta, and Otso Pakarinen playing keyboard soundscapes, electronics, and guitar. I begin Serenade Anders in Helsinki and Jay Walbert, who manages II setting with the sad Keats poem with which my Barton, Vermont archive, toured archive assets Benjamin Britten ended his Serenade written around digitally to inspire Anders to create a theme and the time of my birth in the1940s. Four Winds – A workflow for the retrospective. COVID-19 restrictions Winter Solstice Concert is a composition for four shaped this show: paper posters from events and horns in Finland, USA, Australia and Japan, and 32 ASC Newsletter works of Phil Dadson in Auckland, New Zealand, ILLUSUAK CULTURAL CENTRE OPENS IN Phill Niblock in New York, NY, and Åsa Simma in NAIN, LABRADOR Kiruna, Sweden. By Lena Onalik and Joan Dicker A Gathering of Healers, Anders' inspiration for the retrospective show title, is a small artist book for five The Illusuak Cultural Centre located in Nain, workshops with texts by collaborators and me. It was Nunatsiavut (Labrador), saw its grand opening take created for our 1977 event in New York. A new edition place on November 21, 2019. Elders and youth from will be issued by Kohta Taidehalli and Recital Edition, each of the five Labrador Inuit communities, Labrador Los Angeles on Equinox, March 21, 2121. MP Yvonne Jones, and representatives from the Government of Canada, took part in the ceremony. Immerse!, a book and podcast, are in production Nunatsiavut President, Johannes Lampe stated, containing my 40-plus interviews with collaborators in “Illusuak will help bridge the generation gap between creating immersive experiences. William Fitzhugh's elders and youth, encouraging open dialogue, the overview of cultural context is key for connecting the sharing of traditional knowledge, and the vision for the future. The stories that will be told in Illusuak will Charlie Morrow: A Gathering. Morrow at left. \The new Illusuak Culture Center in Nain, Labrador. Photo by Anders Kreuger Photo by Lena Onalik human world over time with the research, collections, make Labrador Inuit proud. By understanding where publications and shows of Arctic Studies. Brian Katz, we came from and how we survived as a people, who inspired my 3D sound work in the 1990s, shares Labrador Inuit will have a better appreciation of who how he mapped the acoustics of Cathedral of Notre we are as individuals and as a culture continuing to Dame before the tragic fire. The data sets are valuable evolve in a modern world.” in themselves and for restoration. Miya Masaoka shares her work with sound, external and internal. Illusuak is located in the center of Nain, on the shore facing the harbor. Designed by architect Todd In this time of pandemic, I managed all from a flat Saunders to replicate a sod house, this is where the in downtown Helsinki. I think of Marcel Proust in name “Illusuak” came from. The Centre consists of isolation as he fashioned a literature of memory. My exhibit spaces, theatre, café, and the offices of some isolation is purely physical. I have tools of modern of Nunatsiavut Department of Language, Culture, and communication and production and a network of Tourism, as well as Parks Canada staff for the Torngat collaborators. Mountain’s National Park Reserve. [Editor’s note: Charlie Morrow has provided Entering Illusuak, one is presented with faces of ASC and SI with exhibit soundscapes and solstice Nunatsiavut—8x10 inch photographs which highlight programming. He is at www.morrowsound.com, an people from each of the five Inuit communities. The interview at toneglow.substack.com/p/0365-charlie- Illusuak café and gift shop run by NGC, (Nunatsiavut morrow] Group of Companies) offers tea, coffee and delicious ASC Newsletter 33 baked goods, with meals offered three days a week. and showing people what this building has to offer.” A large mural of caribou done by Jason Jacques of Community member Tracy Denniston says, “I love Postville is on the wall as you enter the exhibit space. how it represents our culture seeing the photographs The exhibit consists of artifacts from the region, as soon as we walk in. The lights are amazing for our storyboards, a life-size Igloo story nest, interactive sewing groups. The view is great. It’s beautiful to see stations where you can sing karaoke, and a large the site of Nain Harbour.” 3D map of the Labrador Inuit Land Claims region from its southern boundary at the mouth of Lake To date, the Illusuak Cultural Centre and café have Melville to the northern tip of the Torngat Mountains. hosted a wedding, graduation ceremony, a Residential The multipurpose theatre supports audio/visual School Survivor’s event, a Young Men’s Day Festival presentations, film screenings, lectures and live musical celebration, and a Nalujuit night event. and dance performances. It has a seating capacity for 80 people. PITUL’KO WINS 2021 SCOPUS RESEARCH EXCELLENCE AWARD By William Fitzhugh On March 31, 2021 the science publishing giant Elsevier announced the winners of the annual Scopus Russian Research Excellence Awards given across a broad range of disciplines, based on citation indices. One of those chosen for work in the Humanities was One of the Illusuak display halls. the ASC’s colleague, Photo by Lena Onalik Vladimir Pitul’ko, an archaeologist who for forty years has researched the The coronavirus pandemic has impacted Nunatsiavut. ancient cultures of the Russian High Arctic. Aside from the complete shutdown of research in the Best known for his excavations at the 8000-year old region, four months after opening the Centre it had to habitation site on Zhokhov Island and the 30,000-year be shut down and did not open again until November old Yana River RHS site, Pitul’ko, a leading researcher 2020. Programming continues to be impacted due to at the St. Petersburg Institute of the History of Material COVID-19 restrictions. Under the new manager, Joan Culture (Russian Academy of Sciences), is well- Dicker, programming includes after school student known in North America for research into cultures at social visits, a Senior’s tea social, and storytelling the gateway to Beringia and the New World. His work once per week. The café and exhibit space is open has included large teams of environmental scientists to the public weekdays from 8:30AM-4:30PM. Says together with his partner, Elena Y. Pavlova, and his Joan Dicker, “I really enjoy working here as Illusuak multi-authored publications have appeared in leading Manager. It is something that I wanted to do after I journals and collections. Much of his work has been retired from teaching, to welcome people to a place financed by grants from the NYC Rock Foundation via of culture and tradition. I love welcoming visitors Adelaide and Ted Carpenter, and other organizations. 34 ASC Newsletter RESEARCH “WUTE”: THE WESTERN UNION up western North America, across Bering Strait by TELEGRAPH EXPEDITION AND VOYAGES underwater cable to Siberia, to eventually connect to OF THE ARCTIC NIGHTINGALE telegraph systems in Russian capitals and from there to western Europe. By John Cloud With support from powerful Russian nobles and The Smithsonian Institution (SI) commonly imperial officials, the project began in 1865. Sections recognizes the participation of various SI researchers of the proposed route were delegated to specific in natural and ethnographical history associated with major work parties in the U.S, British Columbia, the Western Union Telegraph Expedition (WUTE) Russian America, and Siberia. The project was of 1865–67. WUTE’s foundational fieldwork and directed by Colonel Charles Bulkley, a former collection-building program created the model for Army Superintendent of Military Telegraphs, who subsequent SI programs and had a direct bearing organized the parties in military-style units. Hence, the on the US decision to buy Alaska from the Russian SI researchers in natural history and ethnology were America Company in 1867. Research over many the Scientific Corps, while the unit responsible for years, but especially connected to the Alaska getting researchers, engineers, and vast quantities of Sesquicentennial in 2017, reveals a much more supplies to the shores of two continents was the Marine nuanced story. Division. The initial supply fleet proved inadequate to To understand the truncated history of the WUTE, it the task, so the Marine Division secured the flagship should be recognized that, for all parties, what occurred Nightingale, and its captain, C. M. Scammon, to lead was a response to major wars. The Russian American the expeditions. Company was a private profit-seeking enterprise which was owned by rich and powerful members of the royalty of the Russian Empire. In the 1850s, the Crimean War between Imperial Russia and Imperial Great Britain had gone disastrously for both empires, with mass slaughter, debt, and political stalemate. Meanwhile, the American transcontinental telegraph from New England to San Francisco was completed in 1861 when the country became engulfed in the Civil War. The Russians needed new revenues, and the Americans wanted a western telegraphic connection to Europe, because many expensive plans for an eastern telegraphic connection across the Atlantic Ocean had failed. A wealthy American entrepreneur, Perry Collins, approached the president of the Western Union Telegraph Company, Hiram Sibley, about a project to establish a telegraph system from San Francisco The route of the proposed Telegraph System Capt. C.M. Scammon, from the Overland Monthly magazine, (Robb, 1966) undated ASC Newsletter 35 The Nightingale, built in England, 1851 Pelagic mollusk, collected by Dall in the North Pacific Ocean from the Nightingale in 1866. (Source: SI Archives) Capt. Scammon’s chromolithograph of the flags and Scammon’s own illustration of sea otter hunting from a pennants of the WUTE fleet. baidarka. (Source: SI Libraries) (Source: Bancroft Library, UC Berkeley) Nightingale was a fast clipper ship, built for the Over many years, the Smithsonian has made much of lucrative Shanghai-to-London route carrying the pioneering collections and observations made by Chinese tea. In 1860, its owners converted it to an members of the Scientific Corps before the WUTE illegal slave ship to carry Africans to plantations in project was abruptly terminated in 1867 when the South America. In 1861, the U.S. Navy’s slavery trans-Atlantic telegraph cable was completed. But it is patrol seized the ship and sailed its enslaved cargo to worth noting that the only way the Scientific Corps got freedom in Liberia, although many died of diseases to Alaska and Siberia in the first place was by sailing on route. The U.S. Navy acquired the ship, refitted it on the Nightingale. One participant in particular, to carry stores and coal, and made it part of the US William Dall, whose prolific work for the Smithsonian, Blockading Squadron to seal off the Confederacy the Coast Survey, the US Geological Survey, the during the Civil War. After the war, it was acquired by the Western Union Company as the flagship for National Academy of Sciences, etc. is well-known, the WUTE flotilla. The company hired Captain became, amongst other distinctions, a major classifier C.M. Scammon, a legendary mariner and whaler, to of mollusks. And his foundational mollusk specimens command Nightingale. In his new role for WUTE, were netted from the deck of the Nightingale. Scammon abandoned whaling and was transitioning The abrupt termination of the WUTE truncated much to becoming a marine biologist. research. Nevertheless, Capt. Scammon synthesized In addition to Nightingale, the WUTE fleet included his decades of work studying marine mammals, and, in various other sailing ships and two paddle-wheel steam 1874, at his expense, he published his masterpiece, The ships to explore the Yukon River and other shallow Marine Mammals of the North-Western Pacific Coast, rivers. Russian vessels were engaged for the work in Described and Illustrated: Together with an Account Siberia. of the American Whale Fishery. The book includes an 36 ASC Newsletter appendix by William Dall, in which Dall “synthesized” Scammon’s and the SI’s classifications. The volume has voluminous ethnographic descriptions of human interactions with marine mammals. The WUTE Scientific Corps did pioneering research, but it is past time to acknowledge that possibly the most productive platform for natural history in the history of the WUTE was the long, sleek deck of the Nightingale. (For more, see Fitzhugh and Selig, The SI- Alaska Connection, Alaska Jour. 1981: 193-208.) SEARCHING FOR BASQUES ON THE QUEBEC LOWER NORTH SHORE: THE UNIVERSITÉ DE MONTRÉAL- SMITHSONIAN COLLABORATION Petit Mecatina Basque-Inuit land and underwater site. Photo by Will Richard By Brad Loewen It’s been a pleasure to collaborate with the Arctic Studies Center and Dr. William Fitzhugh over the years. Bill and I sat down for lunch at the Pointe-à- Callière Archaeology Museum in 2006 and worked on an archaeological partnership between the Smithsonian Institution and the Université de Montréal (UdeM). At the time, Bill was surveying and excavating sites on the Gulf of Saint Lawrence north shore. He had identified Basque and Inuit features on land, and a diver had discovered underwater features that Bill suspected had a relation to the land site. This site became a training ground for a steady stream of UdeM students in maritime archaeology. A key person in the partnership was Erik Phaneuf, an experienced underwater UdeM and Smithsonian divers at Petit Mécatina Basque archaeologist—and UdeM graduate—who enjoyed underwater site. Photo by Will Richard working with the students and fit well into the routine of early “Basque” ceramics were all Iberian in origin. life on the Pitsiulak. With his unique abilities, cheer and Related historical studies confirmed that Basques in professionalism, Erik made it all happen. this region, known as Grande Baie, overwhelmingly th Hare Harbour—or Petit-Mécatina as Canadian came from Spain. As the 17 century wore on, Basque archaeologists call it—opened our eyes to aspects of ceramics found at Petit-Mécatina evolved with the the Basque presence in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence that introduction of products from southwest France as well previous archaeologists had entirely missed. The first as new styles of Muel (Aragon) majolica and Bilbao aspect was the Basque cultural chronology in the Gulf coarse earthenware. We can now trace the gradual shift of Saint Lawrence. While previous researchers had of Basque supply lines in Spain toward those in France, simply pasted a 16th-century date on any Basque site, while maintaining a distinctive “Basque” character. Petit-Mécatina showed a Basque timeline that extended Before Bill’s work at Petit-Mécatina, many into the late 17th century, and the wound glass beads archaeologists thought that “Basque” sites were even date to the early 18th century. The site forced devoted to whaling. A lasting impression of our us to rethink Basque material culture. Early Basque collaboration with Bill was his initial perplexity that ceramics, including roofing tiles, are highly distinctive Petit-Mécatina had none of the massive masonry within North American historical archaeology, and features called tryworks that characterize whaling sites. previous analyses loosely ascribed them to France For Canadian archaeologists, this site has become a or Iberia. Studies that grew out of Petit-Mécatina, reference for other Basque activities, notably the cod especially by Basque archaeologist Sergio Escribano fishery. The underwater component is exceptionally Ruiz and UdeM graduate students Saraí Barreiro informative about cod fishing, as fishermen threw the Argüelles and Vincent Delmas, showed that these bones of thousands of fish into the water, as well as the ASC Newsletter 37 occasional tool, pot, or other artifact. UdeM students The 2019 Field Program learned how to excavate an underwater site using stratigraphic methods developed on land sites. Petit- In the summer of 2019, Bill asked me to organise Mécatina’s underwater sequence shows a lower level an underwater survey of Bonne-Espérance harbour. of brush cleared from the site and wood chips from Having finished the excavation at Petit-Mécatina, Bill construction activities, a middle level of cod bones had shifted his attention to this region where he was mixed with other artifacts deposited during the period working on a couple of sites called Hart Chalet, Grand of fishing activities, and an upper level of roofing Island, and Kettle Head. He had heard that, about thirty tiles that had fallen into the water as their supporting years ago, a local scallop fisherman had dredged up a woodwork collapsed. Bill and I have long discussed the Saintonge chafing dish that was typical of 17th-century underwater features and their chronological relation to Basque material culture. The Université de Montréal the land features. For UdeM students, the experience task was to work with the fisherman to find the spot of an underwater stratigraphic excavation was unique, where the chafing dish had been found and look around and Petit-Mécatina has become a reference for such an for other signs of an early Basque site. approach. We now know that other Basque sites have a comparable underwater sequence that show cod fishing, We proceeded in a counter-clockwise order around the even at the specialized whaling station at Red Bay. harbour. Our first dives found only an old lawn mower. We struggled with tidal currents at the harbour’s In partnering with the Smithsonian, Canadian eyes southern entrance. The fisherman came by to tell us we were opened to the juxtaposition of Basque and Inuit were getting warmer, and we soon found 18th and 19th- features in the terrestrial component of Petit-Mécatina. century ceramics from New England. We thought about Previously, researchers considered Basque whaling and the “schooner fleet” from Newburyport, Massachusetts fishing crews in Canada as little autonomous islands that anchored in Bonne-Espérance for the Labrador of European culture, bringing all their supplies and fishery. Erik was getting impatient and doubled down eschewing contact with Indigenous peoples. Petit- on his student divers. He and Saraí were in two metres Mécatina showed us not one, but two phases of Inuit of water, near the rocky shore of Bonne-Espérance occupation amidst the complex of Basque buildings that Island, when they came across heaps of Basque roofing included a cookhouse and a smithy. The site also showed tiles. It did not take long to understand that the tiles that the site’s occupants prepared charcoal for use in the had tumbled from land, and we scrambled up to find forge, using wood collected nearby and a charcoal pit. a pristine site combining a Basque tryworks and a The Inuit likely produced this charcoal over winter, in rudimentary Inuit-style winter house. Half an hour order to supply the Basque blacksmith who arrived in later, we had another, similar site. summer. The Basque-Inuit “partnership” likely had many other aspects that archaeologists have not yet detected. In the days that followed, we returned to a couple The ideas that grew out of the Petit-Mécatina project–a of nearby sites where Bill had previously collected long-term Basque presence from Spain, diversified fragments of coarse redware that looked like roofing activities, a gradual shift from Spain to France in Basque tiles. Both of these sites were reoccupied in the 19th supply networks, Inuit year-round partnerships—have and early 20th centuries, leaving abundant vestiges. led to a re-evaluation of Basque-Indigenous relations We think they may have older Basque components throughout the Gulf of Saint Lawrence. that careful excavation may reveal. It now looks as UdeM Students Serai Barriero-Arguelles, Emilie Teasdale, Marianne Dorais, and Erik Phaneuf preparing to dive at Old Chaffing dish from Bonne Esperance Harbor found by a Salmon Bay. Brad Loewen at right. local fisherman. Photo by William Fitzhugh Photo by William Fitzhugh 38 ASC Newsletter though Bonne-Espérance harbour may hold the biggest concentration of Basque vestiges west of Red Bay. Known as Brest in the 16th and 17th centuries, this location has long remained mysterious, but ongoing research after the COVID-19 pandemic will doubtlessly shed light on this major site in Canadian history. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we haven’t returned to Québec’s Lower North Shore, and the sites discovered in 2019 still await us. Since 2006, more than a dozen UdeM graduate students have trained with the Smithsonian in underwater archaeology, in some cases for several years. All remain in archaeology, and four have gone on to doctoral studies. I’d like to think A wind model over a topography map near the Late Bronze UdeM has helped Bill achieve his scientific goals in Age settlement of Kamennyi Ambar and the 1930s GULAG Québec, both intellectually and pragmatically, while the village in Russia. The map predicts a relatively low winter Smithsonian Institution has certainly helped to train a wind speed, suggesting that in Bronze Age people generation of young Québec maritime archaeologists. purposefully chose the site location We are all making sacrifices to control the sanitary crisis as part of the intense international effort, and we are hoping the pandemic will soon abate and let us get back and demonstrated the applicability of the proposed into the field! In closing, I wish to thank the Whiteley methodology to study archaeological landscapes. Museum, Garland Nadeau, Eileen Schofield, and During the 2019 Gateways Project fieldwork in Florence Hart whose hospitality and support have Quebec, we created detailed topographic maps of the made our project both productive and enjoyable. 17th–18th-century Inuit winter villages of Hart Chalet, Belles Amours, Grand Isle-2, and EiBh-9 (see ASC ANALYSIS OF WIND REVEALS PATTERNS Newsletter 2017–2020 reports). At the same time, we IN PREHISTORIC SETTLEMENT conducted a wind survey, i.e., collected data on the LOCATIONS wind speed and direction in various locations around the sites using a hand-held anemometer. Collected data By Igor Chechushkov was used to create high-resolution wind prediction maps which were compared with the actual daily wind A comparative approach is a long-standing feature of speed. While the proximity to the sea was the most ASC research. A recent paper by Igor Chechushkov, important factor, our models suggest that the Inuit Iliya Valiakhmetov, and William Fitzhugh published could have chosen quieter locations. by the Journal of Anthropological Archaeology (61, 2021) implements this approach to northern prehistory. Similar work was conducted in the southern Urals in In this paper, we conducted a comparative analysis of partnership with the State Museum-Reserve “Arkaim” site locations in the Quebec Lower North Shore, the (Chelyabinsk, Russia). There, we collected landscape southern Urals in Russia, and the steppes of Mongolia. and wind data at twenty-two Sintashta Late Bronze Utilizing WindNinja computer models, our methodology Age walled settlements and enriched our sample by incorporated intense field observation of local conditions, comparing it with unwalled Bronze Age settlements including gathering high-resolution topography and and a 1930s GULAG village. We found a tendency wind-speed data both in Canada and Russia. towards locating these sites at the least wind-exposed winter locations, even though other factors contributed As the first step, we analyzed published and to the decision-making process. unpublished data collected by Dr. Jean-Luc Houle in Mongolia during his dissertation research at the Our work allowed us to conclude that the studied University of Pittsburgh. Using high-resolution ancient populations cared about their winter locations satellite topographic data, regional wind averages to at least some degree. The cold winter wind of the gathered by local weather outposts, and WindNinja northern latitudes in Eurasia and Canada could be a software, we mathematically tested Houle’s hypothesis factor in locating and protecting their winter villages. that winter campsites are located at foothills least Further, in the southern Urals, the protection from exposed to the winter wind, as opposed to summer extreme climate events could lead to the development locations near the river. Our analysis agreed well of social complexity as societies had to aggregate to with Houle’s ethnographically supported conclusion build their winter shelters. ASC Newsletter 39 Reference form and extent, almost like a living organism. The excavation revealed 43 rooms from eight phases of Chechushkov, Igor V., Iliya A. Valiakhmetov, and occupation from year 1000 to about 1350. At times William W. Fitzhugh. From adaptation to niche the site was unoccupied, and all the rooms were never construction: Weather as a winter site selection factor occupied at the same time. in northern Mongolia, the Quebec Lower North Shore, and the southern Urals. Journal of Anthropological Most of the finds connected to children date to the Archaeology 61 (2021): 101258. later occupation period. Here it was possible to identify fixed places like fireplaces, walls, and door CHILDREN AT THE NORSE ’FARM openings. One room could be identified as a weaving BENEATH THE SAND’(FBS) room because it contained implements for textile By Joel Berglund During the 1990s the Greenland National Museum and Archives researched the remains of a Norse farm from Greenland`s medieval period. The excavation was presented in Vikings: The North Atlantic Saga published in 2000 by the Smithsonian Institution for the millennium exhibition on the Norse North Atlantic world. For a description of environment, excavation, and history see my chapter, “The Farm Beneath the Sand” (Berglund 2000). Children were an important part of Norse Greenland population since they were the future of the society, but mostly their archaeological presence is not very distinct. We meet them in the excavations through their Excavation of the Farm Beneath The Sand showing walls toys or in the graveyards as skeletons. As artifacts, their and rooms of the farmhouse. toys represent a special group because they held no Photo by Joel Berglund practical meaning in the adult world. The archaeological material concerning children at the Farm Beneath the Sand (FBS) is not extensive and can hardly represent the numbers of children who ran about the farm. No doubt bits and pieces of unidentified skin, wood, bones, and textiles might have been a toy, since anything can be anything in a children`s world. A few things were made by adults and can be interpreted as articles for children`s play and care for them. But most interesting are the few examples of toys made by children, things that represent something concrete. Wood carved by a child showing a horse The children’s external world was their surrounding tethered to the ground. environment that enabled the farms to survive by Photo by Erik Holm animal husbandry, hunting, and fishing. Of most importance was production of enough hay to keep animals like sheep, goats, and a single horse alive through the winter. The inland ice that determined the farm’s climate was only a few km away. During winter the temperature could drop to minus 50 degrees Celsius and in summer could climb to plus 26. The children’s internal world was the farmhouse with all its rooms, corners, animal sheds, and different hiding places. The house was a complex, and over Steatite sherd carved by a child showing the gable its use for more than 300 years it constantly changed view of a house. Photo by Joel Berglund 40 ASC Newsletter production. To this domestic context you can add dark carving on a piece of wood showing a long-legged places sparsely lit by fire sticks (torches), the smell of animal—probably a horse—tethered to the ground. animals housed under the same roof, vermin, and sour What is interesting is that the child showed the horse smoke from peat fires and sheep excrement. Such was tethered—that the child transformed the scene into the internal environment children grew up in—if they physical form. We only know one other similar find, survived their first critical years. and this one was carved by an adult. The world of the children reflect on a small scale the Another interesting piece is a steatite sherd with a carved adult world they were born into, and their toys and figure looking like the Latin letter A with a round top. plays were an imitation of this. Toys from FBS show But since the farm’s inhabitants used runes when writing, this very clear, and can be divided into following it has to be something else. I dare to believe the carving categories: human, domesticated animal, fish, birds, shows a house with a gable with saddleback roof! Unlike tools and building. the previous find, this carving does not show an act, but just a house. If I am right, this is the first and only Despite the reality that adults were central to their lives, contemporary picture of a building in Norse Greenland. deciding virtually everything that happened, only one toy was found to represent a human figure: a 5.8 cm Among the toys were two tools, namely a knife and long peg of wood carved with a crude head. The other a miniature wooden shoe last. The knife is probably end was pointed, perhaps so the figure could be placed the most common Norse implement found in sites, standing during play. This is the nearest we come in and adult shoe lasts are not uncommon. That a shoe seeing the image of a human inhabitant of FBS. last appears as a toy shows how important shoes were. Small miniature vessels of steatite point to play at Research on the bones shows a varied animal producing food, even though we don’t know who the husbandry involving sheep, goats, cows, horses, and dogs, all of which were naturally a great part of the cook was. Hunting and fishing was the second leg of children’s everyday life. Among the toys was a crude the farm economy and is also represented among the toys. We have a wooden flatfish (probably a halibut), bones of which are known from the farm as are bones of different birds. Small bird figurines were also among the toys and can be interpreted as swimming birds. The number and kinds of toys is probably not representative but generally seems to reflect the life at the farm. The toys must have been played on the floor or ground simulating the place where the scene shown took place. From this one can assume these toys were used by children between 2 and 5 years old. Childhood was over by seven, and until then children were part of the women´s domain. Finds of religious symbols at FBS underline that the inhabitants were Christian, and when people died they were buried in a church yard, which was about 20 km away, at Sandnes. This church was in use in the 1300s, Miniature toys, steatite vessels, a bird, a shoe last, and a and some of the buried people must have been from wooden knife. Photo by Erik Holm FBS. The oldest to be buried were around 50 years and the youngest were between zero and five. Child mortality was quite high, in line with Scandinavia at that time. Life was dangerous for the young ones. Apart from injuries from accidents there were diseases that left no mark on the skeletons. One thing could, however, be identified: inflammation of the middle ear. This seems to have been a frequent suffering, along with infection of the trachea/respiratory passage. Both probably caused many deaths resulting from the unhealthy conditions in cold, damp sod houses that also Miniature halibut of wood. Photo by Erik Holm housed many domestic animals. ASC Newsletter 41 After nearly 400 years, the Farm Beneath The Sand was left for good in the late 1300s. The reasons were various, but as long as a farmer’s life was possible, they continued. When conditions in the Western Settlement became too bad, they moved south to the Eastern Settlement or maybe off to other parts of the Norse Atlantic World. [Editor’s note: Joel Berglund is former vice director of The Greenland National Museum and Archives. He is now retired and living in Sweden.] “ARCTIC CRASHES” SAILS TO PUBLICATION By Igor Krupnik The 7-year Arctic Crashes Arctic Studies Center (ASC) Igor Krupnik celebrates the publication of the “Arctic project last reported in the 2017 (ASC Newsletter 24) Crashes” volume, August 2020 was finally wrapped up in 2020. The project began in 2014 as a collaborative research effort with a team partnering with the Smithsonian Institution Scholarly of anthropologists, archaeologists, biologists, and Press (SISP), which had already published two books indigenous experts from the United States, Canada, in the ASC Contributions to Circumpolar Anthropology Denmark, Greenland, and the Netherlands on what series and the Early Inuit Studies volume in 2016. was then envisioned as two-year study titled, “Arctic People and Animal Crashes: Human, Climate and The 570-page volume, Arctic Crashes: People and Habitat Agency in the Anthropocene.” The program Animals in the Changing North was released in August was funded by a grant from the Smithsonian ‘Grand 2020 in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. SISP Challenges’ Consortia and by the ASC Ernest S. shipped copies to all individual authors and major (Tiger) Burch endowment. The project goal was to international journals for reviews; but the bulk of explore the roles of people, climate, and ecosystem the 500 print-run are still locked in the ASC offices change in the historical dynamics of key Arctic in Washington and Anchorage, and in the press wildlife species, such as seals, walrus, bowhead whale, warehouse, waiting to be mailed to colleagues and beluga, narwhal, polar bear, caribou, and cod. In this readers worldwide. context, “crashes” referred to rapid collapses of animal populations or of their ranges due to human impacts Arctic Crashes was originally timed to celebrate the th or natural cycles of population variation influenced by 50 anniversary of the publication of the seminal climate, predation, and disease. monograph by Danish zoologist Christian Vibe (1913–1998), Arctic Animals in Relation Climatic Besides individual research ventures (on which we Fluctuations (1967), the first focused study of the role have reported in ASC Newsletters 21–23, 2014–2016), of climate and sea ice change on Arctic animals and the project included two international symposia held in people who hunted them. Vibe relied primarily on the Anchorage in March 2015 and in Washington D.C. in Greenlandic hunting statistics from the early colonial February 2016, public lectures, a website, and outreach era, but his more general outcomes were aimed to be materials. A specific aim of the project was to give a circumpolar. Our goal was to revisit Vibe’s framework prominent voice to Indigenous and local ecological and his interpretation by using wider geography, knowledge and interpretations of human–animal–climate modern data, and Indigenous knowledge. relations. Additional cross-disciplinary collaborations included scholars from the fields of population ecology, The book includes 25 individual contributions genomics, history, and climate research. All ASC staff organized in four major sections reflecting four and many of its associates participated as researchers, specific approaches in studying animal population speakers, collaborators, and contributors on the project. “crashes”: via archaeology, Indigenous people’s knowledge, population biology, and historical In 2017, we began working on a major publication records. It opens by a general overview chapter by volume to disseminate the results to the scholarly Igor Krupnik that introduces the past and present-day community and the public. Igor Krupnik and Aron analytical framework in studying ‘Arctic Crashes’ Crowell spearheaded the effort as volume co-editors (including Vibe’s approach) and the history of the 42 ASC Newsletter ‘Crashes’ project. The next five chapters written by ARCHAEOLOGICAL NOTES FROM environmental archaeologists (Morten Meldgaard, MONGOLIA Ben Fitzhugh with William Brown and Nicole Masarti, Max Friesen, William Fitzhugh, and By William Honeychurch George Hambrecht) cover a broad swap of northern land- and sea-scapes, from the Kurile and Hokkaido 2020 was a challenging year for archaeological Islands in the Pacific to Iceland, Greenland, Labrador, research in Mongolia since international expeditions and the Faroes in the North Atlantic. The following could not work in the field with Mongolian colleagues eight chapters address ‘cultural synergies’ among due to the COVID crisis. While this was disappointing, Indigenous users, anthropologists, and resource it did not stop major advancements in scholarship on managers who work with northern communities (Ann periods of Mongolian prehistory and history, from Fienup-Riordan, Judith Ramos (Daxootsú), Merlin the Neolithic to the Mongolian Empire. I wrapped Koonooka (Paapi), Amy Phillips-Chan, Kenneth up an eight-year project in eastern Mongolia in the Pratt with Matt Ganley and Dale Slaughter, region of Delgerkhaan Uul where more than 2500 new archaeological sites have been discovered. Following Brenda Parlee and the Inuvialuit Game Council, several seasons of settlement and burial excavation, Martin Nweeia with three Inuit and one Greenlandic our fieldwork suggests how eastern communities of contributors—the late Cornelius Nutarak, Charlie the Mongolian steppe were integrated into the first Inuarak, Pavia Nielsen, Jayko Alooloo, and nomadic state more than 2,000 years ago. When Bernadette Driscoll Engelstad). we think of ancient states the despotic powers of Today’s studies of animal fluctuation owe much to insight Mesopotamia or Egypt come to mind, but our results from population and molecular biologists (G. Carleton indicate that the first Mongolian state was likely built Ray, Michael Etnier, Karen Mager, and Brenna by political consensus among aristocratic houses, one Fraiser) as well as from those who, like Vibe, dive of which may have been centered at Delgerkhaan Uul. into historical records (Aron Crowell, Douglas Veltre, We also have discovered and excavated a Neolithic site Igor Krupnik, Moira McCaffrey, Hunter Snyder, from 4000 BC which sheds light on the way hunter- and Frigga Kruse). Pitseolak Pfeifer, originally from gatherers lived long before domesticated sheep, goat, and Iqaluit, Nunavut, and Shari Fox, who lived for 15 cattle were introduced to Mongolia from western Eurasia. years in Clyde River, Nunavut co-authored an eloquent Finally, our research on imposing stone-built burials from Foreword describing northern residents’ vision of human- the Bronze Age reveals some of the earliest domestic animal relations. Historical archaeologist Kent Lightfoot horses from central and eastern Mongolia dating as early provided a concluding overview of the “Crashes” stories as 1440 BC. Our researchers believe that these horses from the perspective of the Anthropocene-era human- were involved in the very first horse trade to Shang animal-environment relations. Dynasty China where they were used to drive chariots belonging to the Shang emperors at 1200 BC. The chapters written by 35 contributors range from the shores of Northeast Asia to Svalbard in the North Another archaeological project, assisted by Bruno Atlantic and collectively provide coverage of human Frohlich, made discoveries related to the Mongolian relations with over a dozen key northern species. Of course, we could not reflect in one book on people’s interactions with all animal species critical to human sustenance in the North. Yet the emerging collective narrative produces a colorful tapestry of individual stories over space and time that reflects the multitude of changes at regional, community, and animal subpopulation levels. Our shared goal was to “weave” these local or species-wise stories into a common vision and to offer perspectives on today’s urgent concerns about the future of a warming Arctic, and its animals and people. Stephen Loring and Carleton Ray provided the beautiful photos for the jacket. We are grateful to our SISP partners, its director Ginger Minkiewicz and book copy editor, Meredith McQuoid-Greason, as well as to our ASC partners, Chelsi Slotten and Dawn Biddison, who helped convert the many voices of the “Crashes” Landscape of Delgerkhaan Uul. team into a beautiful book. Photo by Sarah Pleuger ASC Newsletter 43 Empire of Genghis Khan. About 700 km northwest of Genghis Khan’s conquest of the region in order to secure the Delgerkhaan Uul project, the northern Mongolian its great agricultural potential for the expanding empire. Tarvagatai Valley has been explored since 2010. During a reconnaissance along a dry riverbed, we noticed a partial These results are now in the process of publication, human burial eroding out of the river bank. We carefully but we already have our eye on a future project to take extracted the burial remains and studied the complicated place in 2021. Our eastern archaeological team will soil stratigraphy on either side of the burial feature which begin work at the Gobi Desert site of Chandmani Khar indicated the presence of an extensive settlement site. Uul near the Mongolian border with China in order to Mongolia is well known for its horse-riding nomads and further study the Bronze Age horse trade southwards. herders who move seasonally with their herd animals, but To complement our data collection, we will collaborate excavations and analysis of what is now known as the with another team of archaeologists working on the Tsagaan Ereg settlement has revealed the importance of Inner Mongolian side of the border and compare results. farming as well. This will be the first cross-border archaeological project between Mongolia and Inner Mongolia and should Tsagaan Ereg is a large settlement made up of several uncover important new information on the beginning of round pit-houses with wooden supports for roof horse riding in East Asia. coverings, hearths, and birch bark flooring dating to 1220 AD. These habitations were probably used as seasonal dwellings during the warmer months when A VIEW NORTH FROM THE TIBETAN the neighboring floodplain could be plowed and sown PLATEAU with grain. Analysis of plant remains from each pit- By John Vincent Bellezza house yielded grains of wheat, barley, and millet and copious amounts of wheat pollen indicating a nearby Why the topic of Tibet in a newsletter devoted to Arctic farming plot. On the far edge of the settlement, a granite studies? This elevated landmass extends almost to threshing stone was unearthed with organic materials the 27th parallel, the same latitude that circumscribes dating to the Mongolian Empire. This evidence from central Florida, Saudi Arabia and southern Pakistan. Tsagaan Ereg supports historical accounts describing Aside from the spread of Buddhism as far north as Tuva and Buryat, isn’t it a bit counterintuitive to speak of the Tibetan Plateau in the same breadth as the Arctic? Afterall, in myriad archaeological, ethnohistorical and ethnological studies carried out in the West and Russia (and erstwhile Soviet Union) over the last century, the southern bounds of the North European-Siberian realm are usually set no further south than greater Mongolia and the boreal fringe forests and steppes of Central Asia. As has been repeatedly demonstrated, in terms of their material culture assemblages, ethnologies, genomes, and linguistic affiliations, these northern territories share manifold links through time and space and are well Excavation of a Bronze Age stone-built burial made with large stones. Local herders arrived to assist! Photo by William Honeychurch Excavations at the Tsagaan Ereg settlement looking north Mouth of the Tarvagatai Valley looking south. Photo by along the Tarvagatai Valley. Photo by William Honeychurch Patricia Glass 44 ASC Newsletter suited to allied programs of research and publication for its extreme altitude (averaging around 4,000 m), fora. Tibet (shorthand for the Tibetan Plateau, which Tibet would be a warm temperate and subtropical is divided among five modern states) has been the odd land. In fact, in the southeastern region of Pemako, man out in this equation. However, as I shall show, this the Brahmaputra rivers cut a channel so deep that view of the areal extent of the far northern world may be subtropical biomes exist north of the Himalayan crest. neither warranted nor helpful in understanding the full Farther east, in what is now northwestern Yunnan, historical scope of cold-adapted human culture. grapes (and, yes, wine-making) prickly pears and pomegranates are cultivated in the Tibetan-speaking This article reviews prospects for conducting reaches of the Salween, Mekong and Yangtze river archaeological and ethnohistorical study of the Tibetan valleys in Mediterranean-like microclimates. Plateau in association with (but not limited to) Siberia, Central Asia, Mongolia, Xinjiang (East Turkestan), and But this is only part of the picture; Tibet is also home the Northern Zone of the PRC. I will briefly describe to extremely high tablelands and valleys, where native avenues of research I have been pursuing for more than inhabitants have biologically adapted and culturally two decades, before noting some of the promising areas adjusted to living permanently at elevations of up of inquiry awaiting the attention of archaeologists and to 5200 m (with even higher seasonal habitation). ethnohistorians (those who have traditionally set the Two-thirds of the Plateau is covered in montane geographic boundary of their work north of the Tibetan steppe, alpine meadows and high altitude deserts, Plateau). I hasten to add that botanists, biogeographers environments best suited to stockbreeding and and others working in the natural sciences have seen hunting. These non-arable tracts of the Plateau have things quite differently, clearly aware of hundreds of a frigid climate and are prone to snowfall even in the palearctic species of flora and fauna found in Tibet and summer. The highest regions of Tibet are concentrated concepts such as the ‘Himalayan third pole’ (where, in the western half of what is now called the Tibet incidentally, average annual temperature increases in Autonomous Region (sometimes referred to as ‘Inner the last two decades are as great as the Arctic). Tibet’) and the eastern half of Qinghai (traditionally, part of the Tibetan province of Amdo as well as While certain aspects of ancient cultures in Tibet find correspondence with those in the far north, this is not to insinuate that Tibet is arctic in anything but analogy. It is not. The Plateau squarely sits in the middle latitudes and is subject to that celestial geometry, making for more equable diurnal cycles, higher minimum winter temperatures, monsoonal effects, etc. If it were not An Apha Hor family Two herders belonging to the Apha Hor tribe, Upper Tibet Weaving on a backstrap loom, Purang, Ngari, Upper Tibet ASC Newsletter 45 containing enclaves inhabited by people of Mongolian The archaeological record (funerary, monumental, stock). It is in the former territory, which I call Upper artifactual and artistic) is unambiguous: there were Tibet (after traditional ascriptions), that is the focus of multiple cultural and technological congruences between my research. So, let’s zoom in there, beginning with a Tibet and more northern territories, some of which quick look at its ethnohistory. were brought about through interregional exchanges (potentially comprising intellectual currents, religious Ever since the work of Nebesky-Wojkowitz and trends, economic imperatives, political entanglements, Helmut Hoffman in the mid-20th century, scholarship demographic shifts, etc.). Before giving a bird’s eye has been aware of uncanny similarities between Tibetan view of a few of these congruences, let us set our time spirit-mediums and the shamans of central and north parameters (modified to fit Tibetan archaeological Asia. I follow a bit in the tracks of my predecessors evidence, a work still in progress). The Late Prehistoric in my book Calling Down the Gods (2005). Parallels era includes the Late Bronze Age (ca. 1200–700 BCE), between Tibetan and northern trance practitioners are [Early] Iron Age (ca. 700–100 BCE) and Protohistoric manifold, embracing their worldview, healing ethos, period (ca. 100 BCE to 600 CE). The Late Prehistoric bipartite or three-tiered cosmology, the composition and era is followed by the Tibetan Early Historic period, function of their helping spirits, as well as there being which is made up of the Imperial period (c. 600–850 remarkable similarities in their material accoutrements CE) and post-Imperial period (850–1000 CE). Later (e.g., drums, arrows, use of feather and horned periods under Lamaist (Buddhist and Yungdrung headdresses, animal horns, mirrors, etc.). For one thing, Bon) domination need not concern us here (the role the resonance in mythologies regarding bear ancestors, of the Mongols in the transmission of cultural and cross-species marriage and ursine healing rites in Upper technological resources to and from Tibet is a story for Tibet and northern Asia is most impressive. another time). I refer readers to my website and works Yet, before we get too carried away and start viewing cited below. Here I will touch upon just a few areas vital Tibetans as long-lost cousins of hyperborean tribes, for coming to grips with the full thrust of cross-cultural it is crucial to remember that abstract and material transmission in Late Prehistoric Inner Asia. parallels between peoples are the result of many kinds Funerary and monumental evidence—the erection of demographic, cultural and environmental forces, of cognate unmarked menhirs (called long stones most of which do not signal direct spatio-temporal in Tibetan) in Upper Tibet, the Altai, and southern ties between far-flung societies. This observation Siberia appears to have been part of an ongoing trans- is especially pertinent here, for genetic population cultural bequest of considerable proportions in the Late histories conducted thus far indicate that Tibetans Prehistoric era. The main areas of correspondence are (speaking around 30 different languages) are most with the Deer Stone-Khrigsuur complex (Late Bronze closely related to other Tibeto-Burman groups like Age), Tagar culture (Iron Age), and Turkic balbals the Tu and Nakhi, sharing in common far fewer (Protohistoric period). The orientation, geographic haplogroups with Turco-Mongolian speaking peoples settings and funerary associations of menhirs and their and others of north Asia. I will only mention in passing complement of collateral monuments in the heart of resemblances in the dress, coiffures, ornamentation, Asia allude to the mutability of seminal ideals and and comportment of Tibetan shepherds and northern technologies, those that cut across the bounds of sundry groups. They are quite self-evident. cultures. Although tombs of diverse types characterize Again, this does not necessarily mean that any particular Inner Asia in the Late Prehistoric era, there are certain object or behavior was handed down from the taiga to widespread morphological commonalities, particularly the Plateau or vice versa. Maybe yes, maybe no. If you among the burial structures of the Slab Grave culture subscribe to shamanistic theory (seeing contemporary of eastern Mongolia and Transbaikalia and the shamanism as a survival of Bronze Age or even Stone funerary slab enclosures of Upper Tibet belonging to Age religions,) you will be more tempted to posit direct a comparable time frame. More telling are parallels in kinds of connections, perhaps as part of a Eurasian grave goods with the remains of horses and caprids, religious substrate. I am not so sanguine. The length equestrian gear, weapons, semi-precious stone beads and nature of historical continuities in shamanism are (carnelians, agates, turquoise), and cowries diffusing still questioned and there is dubious profit in lumping far and wide in the north and in Tibet during the Late together the tribal religious traditions of boreal groups prehistoric era. An alternative point of reference are with Tibetan folk practices. There is a vast amount of Tibetan archaic funerary ritual texts, which describe specificity exhibited by contemporary cultures, let alone mortuary traditions with analogies in the burials of equate sophisticated religious traditions existing in the so-called Scytho-Siberian cultures (e.g., horned ancient Tibet with household shamanism. One must be headdresses, avian and cervid motifs, special treatment ever vigilant in attributing cause and effect. of the mane and tail of psychopomp horses, etc.). 46 ASC Newsletter Artifactual and rock art evidence: there is a growing body NUNAMIT WORKSHOP EXPLORED QUEBEC of copper alloy objects with zoomorphic and geometric LNS INUIT HERITAGE motifs produced in Tibet in the Late Prehistoric era available for study, which can be compared stylistically By William Fitzhugh to those produced elsewhere in Inner Asia. Research In January 2019, a conference of academics and recently carried out by others has identified Central Asian community residents of the Quebec Lower North traits in the ceramics of lower Ladakh (on the western Shore (LNS) spent two days exploring Inuit culture and margin of the Tibetan Plateau) dating to the Protohistoric heritage in Quebec City. Hosted by Laval University and period. Finally, there is rock art, the various geographic with support from an SSHRC grant, thirty participants groupings of which bring to light many cognate themes presented papers on what is known and remains and subjects. These include mascoids, chariots, big game unknown about the Inuit who have lived on this coast hunting, dueling scenes, so-called ‘giants’, handprints, and whose culture, language, and history have been Eurasian animal style figures, etc. Through an abundance overshadowed by European dominance and government of evidence, Tibet might be best classified as ‘South neglect. Nicolas Shattler of St. Augustine led the Inuit Inner Asia’, while ‘North Inner Asia’ encompasses all delegation, which included several other Inuit from the territories typically seen as making up Inner Asia. LNS. Among the participants were historians, linguists, The foregoing discussion is just a glimpse into a anthropologists, archaeologists, folklorists, genealogists, field of study with great potential, but one that will lawyers, and included a strong Laval student contingent. demand many kinds of expertise going forward. A Unlike the Inuit of Nunavut and Labrador, Quebec rigorous regimen of excavation and analysis in Tibetan Inuit have not had formal land claims discussions with regions, one that goes well beyond the glorified their governments. The purpose of the conference was treasure hunting approach of many recent campaigns to share information on what is known about Inuit (where molecular, isotopic and botanical evidence is history, culture, and life in the northeastern Gulf of frequently discarded), is the order of the day. Of high St. Lawrence—a neglected part of the Inuit world— priority is the sequencing of DNA extracted from and make plans for future partnerships. Despite their ancient osteological materials, both human and animal. many contributions to traditional European life here Analytical methods and chronometric technologies (dog sleds, harpoons, ulus, sea mammal hunting, etc.), meeting international standards must be brought Quebec Inuit have not received much attention from to bear on all parts of the Tibetan Plateau. This is anthropologists or historians. Many aspects of their essential if we are to secure the basis for a more refined culture and history have not been recorded and exist investigation of the Tibetan legacy and its place in the only as oral history in today’s Inuit population. Early Eurasian cultural mosaic of antiquity. historical reports are spotty and vague and emphasize confrontation and hostilities. And until recently, their References history has been obscured by the absence of physical Bellezza, John Vincent. 2014. The Dawn of Tibet: The evidence in the form of documented archaeological Ancient Civilization on the Roof of the World. Lanham: sites. Recent archaeological work has confirmed Rowman & Littlefield. Groswater and Dorset Paleo-Inuit occupations between 2500–2000 years ago, and Inuit winter villages during Bellezza, John Vincent. 2008. Zhang Zhung: the 17–18th centuries. So while Inuit presence has Foundations of Civilization in Tibet. A Historical been sporadic historically, their reappearance as a new and Ethnoarchaeological Study of the Monuments, Rock Art, Texts and Oral Tradition of the Ancient Tibetan Upland. Philosophisch-Historische Klasse Denkschriften, vol. 368. Wien: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. [Editor’s note: John Belezza is a Senior Fellow, Institute for the Science of Religion and Central Asian Studies, Bern University. See Book section for reviews of two recent Bellezza books. For the author’s full bibliography, extensive series of articles and other information about his research work, see www. tibetarchaeology.com. All photos by John V. Bellezza, 1999–2005; all portraits were taken with the express Nicholas Shattler of St. Augustine, Quebec. permission of the subjects.] Photo by Will Richard 2011 ASC Newsletter 47 returning immigrant population in the 19th century and A BRONZE AGE LOGBOAT FROM THE continued presence today is a demographic reality. STARNBERGER SEE, BAVARIA, GERMANY The conference took the form of a workshop more than By Timm Weski an academic conference and provided opportunity for broad discussion between academic and community The Starnberger See is situated about 30 km south representatives. As described in the workshop’s of Munich. In 1986 volunteers of the Bayerische concluding report, “our objective was to mobilize Gesellschaft für Unterwasserarchäologie discovered knowledge on Inuit heritage from the LNS pertinent the remains of a logboat in the shallow water near the to the Nunamit Foundation’s endeavor to obtain shore of Roseninsel (Island) in the lake. Since 2011 the recognition of their distinctive way of life.” island has been part of the UNESCO World Heritage “Prehistoric Pile Dwellings in the Alps”. The logboat The report continued: “The event marked the beginning had sunk on its starboard side, and the bow rested of the Nunamit Foundation’s journey toward having higher than the stern. Therefore, the portside, the bow, a greater voice in the production of knowledge and about two-thirds of the upper parts of the starboard about their cultural heritage through oral tradition, side are missing because they were not covered by archaeology, and archival research. In the spirit of the sediment, like the rest of the hull. [Canada’s] Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and as a means to fulfill SSHRC’s objectives for Indigenous The vessel was initially recorded underwater by the volunteers under leadership of Hubert Beer with Research Capacity and Reconciliation strategy, financial help of the Bayerisches Landesamt für we used the opportunity of the grant to position Denkmalpflege. After it was raised it was handed over knowledge about LNS Inuit history at the heart of to the Archäologische Staatssammlung München, present and future academic research, and to encourage where it was conserved with PEG, a process which took dialogue between LNS Inuit and researchers about several years. Dendroarchaeological research, which traditionalInuit knowledge and its place in scholarly produced a date of 900 BC, was conducted by Sybille research. Ultimately, the forum we held should enhance Bauer, Dendrolabor Trier, and later by Franz Herzig understanding and reconciliation and lay the foundation from the Dendrolabor of the Bayerisches Landesamt for a long-term research program for building LNS für Denkmalpflege. Although a detailed drawing Inuit research capacity as a tool for education.” of the boat with sections of the hull had been made directly after it was raised, this documentation proved Part of the Nunamit program calls for sharing knowledge and information and participating in how that information is gathered, created, and used. The Nunamit Foundation is also seeking recognition of Inuit subsistence and other rights needed to sustain their culture and way of life. In addition to gathering information for an eventual land claims or other agreements with government entities, Inuit and others on the LNS are eager to develop resources that can provide educational materials documenting Inuit history and culture for schools and the public. Ultimately a research partnership between universities and LNS Inuit can create new economic benefits from eco- and heritage tourism when Route 138 is completed along this stretch of road-less coast. The Nunamit Foundation program seeks to promote a general awakening on the LNS of the importance played by Inuit culture in social, political, and economic development, as so amply demonstrated by the recent spectacular transformation in Labrador resulting from land claims coupled with Memorial University’s recent SSHRC partnership project, “Tradition and Transition Among the Labrador Inuit”. We thank Nick Shattler, Excavating the stern in 1988. Photo Lisa Rankin, Reginald Auger, and Brad Loewen for BY Bayerische Gesellschaft für their efforts organizing the conference and the SSHRC Unterwasserarchäologie proposal that was submitted in early 2021. (Weski 2020: Fig. 3.4) 48 ASC Newsletter insufficient, in not yet been particular at the recorded from stern with its prehistoric times protruding balk in Central Europe. and several auger holes. Further, it This logboat was discovered is much longer that the position than others on the lakebed known from the was not identical Starnberger See, with the original which usually Top view in position on the lakebed. 2: Sections in position on the lakebed. 3: measure 5–7 m. floating condition; Side view of the starboard side in reconstructed floating condition. 4: Top view Some were used instead the hull had in reconstructed floating condition. The red lines indicate the tool marks. Not as late as 1900 to be turned about to scale. Graphic by Sven Gollub (Weski 2020:Fig. 10.1-4) AD. The few 45º anticlockwise small branch from the present roots in the hull position in the museum. A complete photometric and imply that the original oak must have grown in a thick 3D-documentation was done in 2019 by Sven Gollub forest. Even at 900 BC trees of this quality must have for his bachelor thesis under the supervision of Jens been rare. Since there were no bulk goods like salt to Czaja of the Fakultät für Geoinformation, Hochschule be transported across the Starnberger See, the logboat München / Munich University of Applied Sciences. could have been a warrior or ceremonial vessel. As the lake is too small for amphibious warfare, the latter With the help of these data it was possible to ‘move’ is more likely, though many questions remain to be the hull from its position on the lakebed into its original answered. floating condition. This showed that the balk at the stern, which is carefully worked out of the starboard side, was References originally above, or just below, the waterline. On the inside of the block which forms the “transom”, a step Timm Weski, Der urnenfelderzeitliche Einbaum aus dem was cut on the starboard side. The balk makes the shape Starnberger See bei der Roseninsel. Bergung–digitale of the stern unique. Unfortunately, the center of the trunk Vermessung–Dendroarchäologie–kulturhistorische at the bow could not be identified, so its original shape Einordnung (with contributions by Hubert Beer, Jens could not be reconstructed. The present length of the Czaja, Sven Gollub and Franz Herzig). Bayerische boat is 13.34 m, but it must originally have been slightly Vorgeschichtsblätter 85, 2020:7-39. longer. The breadth of the hull about 1 m from the stern was 1.12 to 1.20 m and the depth 0.78 m. Further REFLECTIONS FROM TALLINN forward, about 5 m from the stern, the dimensions were 1.03 to 1.05 m and 0.63 m. By Jean-Loup Rousselot Inside the hull were toolmarks showing how it was As is the practice in Europe, museum employees hollowed out. Oblong grooves were carved into the leave their posts at the age of 65 to make room for inside of the trunk, and the wood between these cuts the younger generation of researchers. This forced was removed. For some of these tasks a hatchet with retirement happened for me ten years ago. I chose to a half-circle blade was used. Further, there are— keep it simple for everyone, so I decided to get away particularly in the stern block—several auger holes from the anthropology museum in Munich where I had whose function remains unknown. A thick, conical one worked for almost 25 years as curator of the Arctic runs straight through the transom, and, together with Collections and as Assistant Director of the museum. the square balk outside the hull and the step, may have On the one hand, I did not want to interfere with those been part of some superstructure. Another auger hole at who had taken over my fields of activity; however, it is the bow indicates it supported some kind of decoration. difficult to be silent when you are witnessing decisions In the starboard side there are several large, oval holes you do not understand. of unknown function. There are no hints for the means On the other hand, I was ready to start somewhere of propulsion, but paddles are a likely answer. On else, something new. That something new was the other hand, the holes noted, together with a rock to transmit the anthropological knowledge that I carving in Brandskog, Sweden, suggests forward- have acquired through fieldwork and the study of facing or “push” rowing, although this technique has ethnographic collections. I wanted to pass it to the ASC Newsletter 49 European public as a continuation of the museum's Another reason to come to Estonia was to study the work, and also to the Alaska Native students who Finno-Ugric people, as I was invited by the Tallinn had enrolled in the Arts Department at the University Academy of Arts to participate to seven summer of Alaska in Fairbanks. I hoped to demonstrate the expeditions to Central Russian, Karelia, Hungary, complexity and sophistication of Native technology, Siberian Estonians, and Saami. giving credit to the ingenuity of their ancestral technology and approach, to promote self-confidence To discover recent history is for anyone coming from and, hopefully, to make the young generation proud of Western Europe probably the most unusual experience their culture and ancestors. that one can have because of the fifty year occupation (1939–1991) of the Baltic countries by the Soviet So, I moved to the eastern end of Europe, to Estonia, Union and by the Nazis (1941–1944). For Westerners where my wife is from. There, I had the opportunity this history is a major reason to visit the Baltics. to teach using the Russian America collections of the So, I am giving tours and lectures on the Cold War Estonia National Museum as an educational tool. This period. After the destruction of society orchestrated presented me with a unique opportunity to manipulate, by Stalin and his secret police, a more benign form of touch, discover, and “read" materials collected by the communism prevailed among the Baltics; no longer early Russian navigators of the early 19th century. were there mass deportations to Siberian Gulags, but Another aspect of these early collections is that it still was a life without freedom. The silent majority there was no systematic could live in peace as long collecting, as would be they didn't raise their voice, the case fifty or seventy while the life of single political protesters—the years later with the Bureau dissidents—was a living of American Ethnology. hell by the secret police. In this case the items were collected as rarities As a result, Estonia is a kind because of their unusual of huge open air museum shape, designs, and of Soviet architecture materials. ruins, mostly of gigantic dimensions. Here too, a When I moved to the fieldwork situation is offered Eastern Baltic, I was to historians since most of going to an area which Kadri and Jean-Loup Rousselot visiting Alsace, Saarburg, the actors are around, both was the cradle of Arctic Germany the perpetrators and the anthropological research. victims, the freedom fighters, During the Russian and the indifferent majority. America era, its explorers, navigators, and colonial They are neighbors in the same apartment building or in administrators were often from the Baltic Provinces of the same village. the Russian Empire. Many sons of families of modest means, but who possessed strong technical skills The picture of my wife, Kadri (Catherine in Estonian), and the knowledge of a naval officer, could make an and me in Alsace is also connected with recent Baltic exceptional career in the Imperial Russian Navy. In history. We wanted to hear about people who have the storages of the old learned societies of the cities been forced by Nazi Germany to fight in German units rimming the Baltic Sea there are not only ethnographic against Communist Russia. This was the case of many collections, but also diaries, maps, and correspondence young Alsacians, Moselans, and Luxembourgers, of the explorers of the North Pacific regions that are whose homelands had been annexed by the Third Reich. In Estonia it was more a general mobilization to primary sources central to historical research. A number avoid a Soviet occupation that made them serve with a of these Russian America collections made by Estonian Nazi uniform. naval officers serving in the Russian imperial navy are today in Tallinn. Besides writing articles and translations on the preceding subjects in Estonian journals, I have A group of veteran Arctic Soviet researchers called contributed to several books as noted below. And now I Estonian Polar Club, of which I became a member, am writing a little book on a newly discovered Russian provided a way for me to established connections American collection of mostly Yupik ethnography, with the outside world through the group’s monthly as well as an introduction to a book on polar bear meetings of researchers from the Antarctic and Arctic. mythology in Siberia and North America. 50 ASC Newsletter COLLECTIONS POLAR EXPLORER: THE ARCTIC DIGITAL region. Once tested, the approach can be expanded by LIBRARY encouraging institutions to digitize their polar resources By William W. Fitzhugh and David Nordlander and contribute data to the PE network linking regions, environments, and peoples for the benefit of science For the past several years, David Nordlander, and humanities around the globe. Although PE is a William Fitzhugh, and Nana Naisbitt have been pilot, it is also the seed from which a vast new set of laying the groundwork for developing an inter- data can eventually grow and become available. institutional network of Arctic information similiar to the Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL) and the Some Arctic material from field notes and books has NMNH Encyclopedia of Life. Initiated by two National already been digitized for Harvard’s Biodiversity Science Foundation (NSF)-sponsored workshops Heritage Library, which the PE partners have in 2016 and 2017, plans for launching a prototype identified as the best model or platform. Since 2005, drawing upon collections from Dartmouth’s Arctic the Biodiversity Heritage Library, now enhanced by collections (Stefansson Archives and others) and the Smithsonian Library participation, benefits natural Smithsonian’s IPY (International Polar Year) 1882-3 science museums, libraries, and universities, in addition and other collections have advanced to the proposal to institutions beyond the sciences. BHL’s infrastructure stage. If funded, work assembling digital materials to will be adapted to begin building the Arctic Digital test the discovery and delivery process could begin in Library. This prototype project will plan overlay historic late 2021 and continue for the next three years. cultural data from the Arctic onto environmental data of the BHL to begin to erase the false separation of Today the need for Arctic information is greater than human culture and the natural world. A successful Polar ever. Arctic collections, widely dispersed among Explorer launch will unlock the huge trove of cultural, various institutions across the globe and often housed historical, and human data currently held in myriad in remote locations, contain crucial historic information institutions needed for building more realistic predictive that is essentially hidden and difficult to access. The models by integrating people, earth, and biological scientific community often expresses excitement and sciences. A focus on the Arctic is timely given the urgent interest in these collections but fails to incorporate the need for understanding this rapidly changing region, its data into their research because the data are currently human and environmental history, and its growing future very difficult to extract. There is an accessibility importance to humanity. problem at a time when access to that information is critically needed. THE VEGA COLLECTION PROJECT Polar Explorer will amass and integrate four centuries ADVANCES INTO COVID-19 ‘ALL- of Arctic records into a highly-searchable portal that ELECTRONIC’ ERA places data into the hands of scientists, Indigenous By Igor Krupnik and Martin Schultz populations, researchers, educators, and the public who will be able to mine historic data readily using The co-authors introduced initial steps in the ‘Vega advanced modern protocols. These ‘hidden’ records Collection project,’ named after the Vega expedition contain data about Arctic climate, botany, zoology, ship (1878–1879) in the previous issue of the ASC glaciology, northern indigenous populations, health, Newsletter. Our project began in fall 2019 when education, land claims, land use, history of polar the authors explored the massive collection of what expeditions, mining, engineering, government and eventually turned out to be 1,100 objects from governance, and more. For the first time, Arctic the Swedish polar expedition under Adolf Erik scientists will be able to tap humanities collections for Nordenskiöld (1832–1901) during its wintering off scientific purposes, pulling valuable scientific data from the Arctic shores of the Chukchi Peninsula. It marked historical records for modern analysis and comparison the first successful sailing through the ‘Northeast across space and time. Polar Explorer can become a Passage’ along the shores of northern Eurasia. One of primary resource for Arctic information for all. many outcomes of that journey was an ethnographic collection acquired among the local Chukchi people The proposed project is a collaborative partnership of now housed at the Etnografiska museet, a part of the Dartmouth College, Smithsonian Institution, Sealaska Statens museer för världskultur (National Museums Heritage Institute, and the community of Cambridge of World Culture), in Stockholm. We described our Bay, Nunavut, Canada. Our intent is to test a model pilot effort to explore the history of the Vega Chukchi using collections encompassing the entire circumpolar collection over its 140-year life and to virtually ASC Newsletter 51 ‘reunite‘ it with the descendants of Indigenous people bequest in the archives of the Sjöhistoriska museet who once interacted with the Vega crew. (Maritime Museum) in Stockholm (Inv. No. 1968:715). Etnografiska museet never showed much interest in The project advanced in 2020, in spite of the realities these collections, apart from placing scores of Chukchi of the COVID-19 era. The proposed second study of objects in its permanent exhibit display (since 2000) the objects in museum storage was put on hold, as were and making them available in the online database. our plans to seek funds to bring the team of Chukchi experts on a visit to Stockholm. All activities had to Connecting Objects to People morph into online searches and communication. Even with these limitations, we managed to achieve some of The second goal we identified was cultural reunion, the the goals we set out in last-year’s overview. re-connection of objects with Indigenous knowledge holders from the home area. Local people never had Expanding Vega Collection Database access to any records originated from the Swedish expedition and to the collections held in a distant The first goal was a physical (or virtual) reunion of museum in Stockholm. Though the name “Vega” is the objects. At the beginning of our survey, about 660 familiar in Chukotka and recent reprints of the Russian objects were identified as ‘Chukchi’ and attributed translation of Nordenskiöld’s account of the Vega to the Vega collection in the museum database. Yet voyage are available, few people could relate it to the early ledger records from the 1880s and historical description of their ancestors’ life. photographs from the Vega exhibit at the Royal Palace in 1880 revealed a somewhat larger set of objects, like During our initial work in Stockholm in September 14 mattocks and hacks (picks) arranged in two wall 2019, we contacted Eduard Zdor, Chukchi displays. The current database lists only10 such objects. environmental activist from Chukotka, Russia, now a One mattock may now be a part of the Smithsonian Ph.D. candidate at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. NMNH-Anthropology collection (ASC Newsletter He grew up in the community of Neshkan (Najtskaj in 2020). In addition, many composite items displayed Nordenskjold’s transliteration), some 30 km (18 mi) in 1880 in their entirety, such as harpoons, bow drills, east of the Vega 1878–79 wintering site. His and his fireboards, etc., were disassembled over the years, and wife’s, Lilya Tlecheivyn’e, relatives still live there. their constituent pieces needed to be reunited. In some These people are the ‘descendant community’ for the cases, as parts of composite objects, they never had objects, photographs, and ethnographic descriptions numbers of their own. We also found objects that had generated by the Vega expedition. missing parts which may have been lost on the way to Stockholm or later in museum storage. One example In spring 2020, scores of images from the Etnografiska is a missing paddle from a kayak model with a hunter museet online database, http://collections.smvk.se/ (1880.04.471). Wooden pegs clearly indicate he was carlotta-em/web were shared with Eduard Zdor and once holding a paddle. Another challenge is that the Lilya Tlecheivyn’e, and through them, with local collections were not fully inventoried until the 1950s, Chukchi experts residing in Neshkan. As people’s more than 70 years after the expedition returned, based comments started to flow back, Lilya organized on an object list produced by the Natural History them, adding the Chukchi terms added for constituent Museum in the 1880s (see ASC Newsletter 2020). As of early 2021, the number of Chukchi objects from the Vega collection surpassed 1,100, thanks to the addition of several formerly ‘unassociated’ objects and some 130+ archaeological specimens excavated at the old site of Ryrkaipyi (Jirkajpij). More items from the original Vega stock of 1878–79, including pencil drawings, photographs, archival documents, and other cultural resources are still to be added to the database from both the Etnografiska museet and other Swedish and foreign institutions that received portions of the collection. In winter 2020 a full list of Vega captain Louis Palander's photographs became available, featuring nine dry plate and 76 wet plate photographs, some with short descriptions of the image Martin Schultz and Igor Krupnik assembling the “Vega” subject, names of the individuals, and place names Chukchi objects in the collection storage of the Etnografiska where photos were taken. This list is part of Palander’s museet. Photo by Johan Jeppsson 52 ASC Newsletter elements, like in the following description of a wooden Kyttagina (68), and Nikolai Ettyne (56), in April 2020 fireboard (milghyn—Fig.2, 1880.04.0332): (translated from Russian notes by IK). The two women have been long-living residents of reindeer herding This object was used for lighting the fire or family camps and users of their respective family fireboards.] hearth. Based on its condition, it was barely used [because of its light color—IK]. Often the family Of the five fireboards listed in the Vega Chukchi has several fireboards in its daily use. Unlike the collection, only one (no. 04.0334) has a carved family sacred [ritual] fireboards, this object does human head, but it is a newly made model of a family not have a roughly carved human head at its end. ritual fireboard, with no traces of prior use and no The ritual fireboards are always of dark-brown color sign of a carved mouth for feeding. The rest are covered in soot and grease from multiple ‘feeding’ common household fireboards, also with minimal ceremonies. During such feeding ceremony the use or produced specially for collectors. These and board is rubbed with a combination of bone marrow similar comments illustrate the continuous intimate and blubber [fat], usually at the place where the knowledge of objects that has been retained in the mouth would be on a human head. According to home community for over 140 years. Such information Nina Kyttagina, not all sacred fireboards have can vastly enrich the museum records with specific carved mouth, eyes, or nose. Each family commonly information on object use, making process, symbolism, had its own fireboard and only members of that and other aspects missed by both the Vega crew and by family could use it. It is forbidden to share fire later generations of registrars and curators. from the family hearth with other dwellings in the camp. The fireboard set usually includes several Expanding knowledge about ethnographic collections objects, besides the fireboard (milghyn), including: by inviting Indigenous elders and experts to museums, Ngileq, a round wooden stick; Tinguchgyn, a small engaging them in joint documentation projects and bow made of reindeer antler (another name is shared stewardship is an increasingly popular practice gyrilgyn) with a bowstring of bearded seal hide that in today’s museum work (see ‘Nelson in the Cloud’ is threaded through the holes at its ends and fixed article in this issue). Yet each example of such ‘newly with two knots; drill socket piece (arm protector, added knowledge’, thanks to insight by today’s gyrgychychochyn) made of reindeer antler, kneecap, Native experts, is something short of a miracle. Even or any piece of large animal bone or walrus ivory. if it takes place many decades later, it increases our understanding of the objects and reverses generations Certain family fireboards eventually become sacred of knowledge loss. Such virtual reunion may be slow objects and are kept in special secluded places. and painful, as details of former cultural expertise have During family ceremonies the boards are ‘fed’ been lost and not every object can be recognized by together with other family sacred objects. For ritual today’s experts 140+ years after the initial collecting. feeding of family objects, people use a mixture of bone marrow from reindeer front legs (qymlat) and Vega Collection within the Chukchi Museum marrow from crushed reindeer bones with added ‘Universe’ seal blubber (ypalgyn or palgyn). The third goal was to place the Vega collection in [This description is based on phone interviews with proper cultural context by comparing it with major the Neshkan residents Irina Nutetgivev (46), Nina Chukchi ethnographic holdings in other museums. In early 2020, we estimated the total number of Chukchi ethnographic objects held in various museums worldwide to be around 7,000–8,000, not counting archaeological specimens, photographs, and Indigenous drawings. This estimate has been revised somewhat upward, as several significant historical collections were brought to our attention lately. Of this number, almost 40% belong to the three largest collections: at the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) in New York (about 1,300 objects collected by Waldemar Bogoras in 1900–1901), the Russian Ethnographic Museum (REM) in St. Petersburg, Russia (at least 1,300 objects collected by Nikolai Sokolnikov in 1901–1909), and Peter the Great Museum of Fireboard (milghyn), 1880.04.0332, assemblage with fire Anthropology and Ethnography (Kunstkamera) in St. drill and bow. Photo by Johan Jeppsson Petersburg (over 1,000 objects collected by Nikolai L. ASC Newsletter 53 Gondatti in 1894–1897). This makes the Vega Chukchi but does not account for the presence of truly large collection of about 1,100 pieces, and counting, the objects—two full-size Chukchi kayaks, fur clothing, world’s fourth largest. hunting tools, and house utensils. The collection also includes several models of objects that were Smaller, but also significant Chukchi ethnographic clearly ordered and made by the local people for the collections are held by the Arseniev Museum in Vladivostok (ca. 250 objects, Chukchi and Yupik expedition. combined), the “Chukotka Heritage” Museum Center To explore the composition of Nordenskiöld’s Chukchi in Anadyr (about 500 objects, plus a similar number collection, we organized it by seven major object groups of pieces of Native souvenir art and carved ivories), (categories), such as ‘equipment’ (17.3%), including the Magadan Regional Museum (ca. 160), and in some hunting and fishing tools (10%), clothing and clothing museums in Europe, like Kulturhistorisk Museum, tools (11.7%), ‘weapons and ammunition’ (18.4%, University of Oslo (about 400 objects from 1920– over 100 arrows, dozens of arrow points and shafts, 1923), Museum Fünf Kontinente in Munich (330), several bows, and quivers); and the huge number of Musée du Quai Branly in Paris (over 300, late 1800s), small ivory figurines often listed as ‘amulets’ (over and Weltmuseum in Vienna 340 pieces, 38%). There (ca. 250). In addition, there are remarkably few objects is a 1,500-piece collection related to children and at the Sergiev-Posad child life, and only a small Museum near Moscow, number of objects related to Russia, of Chukchi women’s life, like clothing, and Yupik carved and sewing, housekeeping. ornamented ivories from the 20th century. Such gender skewing is typical for early collecting Although we still lack the conducted primarily by male documentation on when researchers and travelers. An and where individual additional factor could have objects in the Vega been the Chukchi strategy collection were obtained to protect (prevent?) women (likewise we do not know and children from interaction who produced them), all with the Vega crew. were procured at the ship’s wintering site between Nordenskiöld’s collecting October 1878 and July shortcomings are particularly 1879 from people visiting visible in the very low the ship, also on the crew’s share (2.2%) of spiritual visits to nearby camps. We and symbolic objects. assume that Nordenskiöld, Certain types of such Small ivory carvings from the Vega collection: 3a – seal, a geologist with a prior objects are common in other 1880.04.0640-3; 3b – bird, 1880.04.0855-7; experience in ethnographic historical Chukchi museum 3c – two-headed torso, 1880.040578. collecting from his trips collections, like ritual Photo by Rose-Marie Westling to Greenland and Arctic fireboards (Chukchi gyrgyrti, Russia was the prime see above), family wooden collector, although we cannot exclude other crew guardians (tain’ykvyt), commonly made as strings of members. small objects; shaman drums (yarar) and amulets, carved wooden figurines and dishes (enanentytko’olgyt), According to Nordenskiöld’s own writing (1881: 438- hereditary family lances (poigyt), and others. Such 441), his main collecting strategy was bartering with objects are rare or absent in the Vega collection; if his Chukchi visitors, primarily for small objects, in present, they are mainly new objects with no traces exchange for European goods. Money was of no value of use and produced for sale (see above). One reason and Nordenskiöld was short of many of the usual trade might be that the expedition had already made a large objects (knives, needles, tools, firearms, metal buttons, collection of wooden idols at a Nenets sacrificial pile on etc.), and even tobacco, except for two boxes of Dutch the Vaygatch Island. clay pipes that he used as gifts or ‘souvenirs,’ and stock of Swedish silver coins. It perhaps explains why the The specific cultural ‘profile’ of the Vega collection Vega collection contains so many small ivory carvings may be properly understood only in comparison with 54 ASC Newsletter other large Chukchi collections, even if from slightly collection site and more objects are retrieved in storage later time, like Waldemar Bogoras collection at and reunited with the core collection. Detailed input AMNH in New York and part of the Nikolai Sokolnikov on about a half dozen objects have been secured from collection at the Russian Ethnographic Museum (REM) the Chukchi experts in Neshkan, and this work will in St. Petersburg. For the former, we used the AMNH continue. Ethnographic objects of the Vega expedition Anthropology collections website (https://anthro. have been organized in major categories to construe amnh.org/collections) for all counts; for the latter, we Nordenskiöld’s collecting strategy and to compare it relied on the data kindly provided by Natalya Kosyak, with those of Waldemar Bogoras in 1900–1901, Nikolai REM Siberian collection manager, since REM Siberian/ Gondatti in 1894–1897, and Nikolai Sokolnikov in Arctic collections are not accessible online. 1901–1907, based on their collections at AMNH, MAE, and REM. The comparison of three major collections supported The sheer size of the our preliminary findings. collection, its level of First, Nordenskiöld had documentation, and its secured a remarkably diverse respectable age of 140+ stock of Chukchi ivory years make it a true ‘heritage carvings, even though carved treasure.’ No effort should and decorated ivory pieces be spared to help reunite had been popular with other the objects in Stockholm collectors. Second, the share with descendants. Even of women’s and particularly if no memories of these children’s objects in his interactions remain today, collection is indeed smaller the objects carry enormous than in other major holdings. cultural and heritage value Third, the ‘weapons and to local people. They could ammunition’ category was revive their interest in popular among all early heritage, strengthen cultural collectors and accounts for pride, and inspire restoration the large number of arrows, of certain practices based bows, and quivers: all had on preserved museum been out of daily use due to specimens. It is now an the introduction of firearms. Nordenskiöld obviously .“Spinner” (Swedish, snurra), a sinew twister, established practice to though its lack of wear and elaborately decoration open museum collections tried to collect objects that reflected all sides of Chukchi indicate it was probably made for collectors, to Indigenous people and daily life. Yet he was 1880.04.0959. Photo by Johan Jeppsson partner with communities less successful than other anxious to connect to collectors, like Bogoras and Gondatti (also Nelson in cultural treasures of their Alaska), perhaps due to the latter’s lengthy interactions ancestors. with local people, fluency in their language, and active As the Vega online collection database is filled with traveling across Native camps. data and images from museum records and the added The Vega Chukchi collection also revealed that the information from Chukchi experts, it has a great practice of making object models for sale or barter, potential to become an international treasure. Today, such as those of boats, fireboards, hunting tools, sleds, it functions with the Swedish-language interface only, even tents was well established among the Chukchi whereas its main audience in the home area in Russia by 1878. Nordenskiöld, the first reported collector in needs search and reading options in Russian and the area, skillfully relied on this practice to expand Chukchi, plus an English interface for international the coverage of indigenous culture, particularly when users. We believe that the Vega collection has a people were reluctant to part with their precious potential to serve as a model in ‘digital reunification,’ family objects. akin to efforts undertaken by other large museums in Oslo, Copenhagen, and Helsinki using their objects Potentials from the Arctic areas. Our Vega collection study is still a ‘work in progress.’ Finally, the Vega collection—thanks to its size and The Etnografiska museet continues to populate the early age—could serve as a starting point and a driver ASC Newsletter 55 to reunite the Chukchi collection ‘universe’ of some across the country and internationally in the late 1800s 8,000+ ethnographic objects dispersed across many and early 1900s. Our goal is to create an online portal museums in Russia, Europe, and North America. Our to a user-friendly database through which information pilot study inspired some initial steps to compare about all parts of Nelson’s Alaska collection can be three major holdings of Chukchi heritage objects accessed by anyone who is interested in learning more. in Stockholm, in New York, and in St. Petersburg. As a joint effort between students, faculty, and staff More could be achieved when other museums open at Oberlin College and the Smithsonian’s Department their Chukchi collections for a shared online access, of Anthropology, we hope to create a platform that is perhaps in the footsteps of the Reciprocal Research beneficial to both the Alaska Native peoples whose Network (RRN: https://www.rrncommunity.org), cultures are represented in these ethnographic objects an online museum alliance built around the First and to the many institutions who maintain the items Nations Northwest Coast ethnographic collections, today. or an earlier venture by the Japanese Ainu specialists, “The Overseas Ainu Collections,” a world catalog The project first took seed in April of 2016 when Arctic of Ainu collections. It may create an online platform Studies Center curator Igor Krupnik flew to Oberlin and a meeting place for Chukchi heritage experts College in northeast Ohio to participate in a panel on and museum professionals interested in Chukchi Alaska Native peoples and climate change. While there culture. Reconnecting historical museum collections he viewed the College’s 36-item Alaska Native collection with Indigenous experts and communities of origin (part of the Oberlin College Ethnographic Collection) is an increasingly popular path to move objects from that includes fish skin bags, hunting and fishing gear, museum drawers and to start their new life as a source and ivory implements. Eighteen of the Alaskan items of heritage knowledge, cultural pride, education, and were obtained by the naturalist Edward William Nelson. community empowerment. During that visit Dr. Krupnik and Oberlin College anthropologist Amy Margaris began to envision what Acknowledgement. At the Etnografiska museet in they playfully termed “Nelson in the Cloud,” a “sort Stockholm we are grateful to former and current of digital reunion where objects that are physically staff members Monika Sargren, Linda Wennbom, disseminated across many institutions, including Oberlin Johan Jeppsson, Magnus Johannson and Tony and the Smithsonian, could be reassembled for cohesive Sandin. We owe our special gratitude to Eduard study” (see “Bark Blankets and ‘Esquimaux Implements Zdor and Lilya Tlecheivyn’e and their partners in from Alaska” in the ASC Newsletter 2017). the community of Neshkan, Irina Nutetgivev, Nina Kyttagina (1952–2020), and Nikolai Ettyne. At the Why focus on the collections of Edward William Russian Ethnographic Museum in St. Petersburg, we Nelson, in particular? Nelson was a prominent figure th received precious help from Natalya Kosyak, Siberian in late 19 century Alaskan ethnology and collected an collection manager, and Julia Kupina, museum astonishing 10,000 or so cultural items from diverse director. Rachel Hand at the Museum of Archaeology Alaska Native communities. Many of those were and Anthropology in Cambridge, UK, and Elena everyday objects including toys, sewing supplies, Mikhailova at the Museum of Anthropology and and hunting tools. Nelson described his observations Ethnology in St. Petersburg, Russia offered critical of Alaska and the items he collected in his 1899 insight on some of the earliest Chukchi objects in their ethnography The Eskimo About Bering Strait. Because respective institutions. A much larger version of this Nelson was trained as a natural historian, he recorded paper has been published in the Vienna-based museum these cultural items in a scientific manner similar journal, Archiv Weltmuseum Wien. to how one would record biological or geological specimens in that day. Yet we recognize that they are more than physical specimens: they are also reservoirs “NELSON IN THE CLOUD”: DIGITALLY of cultural, spiritual, and ecological information that REUNITING A HISTORICAL COLLECTION can be of tremendous benefit to Alaska Native as well as scientific communities today. By Alaina Helm and Amy Margaris Over the next few years the “Nelson in the Cloud” seed The “Nelson in the Cloud” project is a collaborative began to germinate as Oberlin fully digitized its Alaska effort begun by Oberlin College and the Arctic Studies Native collection and consulting visits by Rosemary Center in September 2020 to digitally reunify the world’s Ahtuangaruak (Iñupiaq) and Sven Haakanson Jr. largest collection of Alaskan ethnographic objects. The (Sugpiaq/Alutiiq) helped expand our understanding objects were obtained by naturalist Edward William of these valuable objects. Current Oberlin College Nelson on behalf of the Smithsonian in 1877–1881, Senior Alaina Helm’s contributions to the project and subsequently exchanged with many museums began as a student in Margaris’ 2019 course “Learning 56 ASC Newsletter with Indigenous Material Culture” which centered on Rosenthal, and assistants Sarah Baburi and Sadie Oberlin’s Alaska Native Collection. Generous support Colebank. from the Oberlin College made it possible for Iñupiaq Elder Rosemary Ahtuangaruak and her granddaughter Currently, the project has several evolving Shanae Ahtuangaruak to make the journey from components. A list of over 800 items exchanged Alaska to Oberlin’s campus for an inspiring and by the Smithsonian with museums and educational transformative week-long Consulting Residency. institutions worldwide is systematically being Rosemary Ahtuangaruak’s knowledge as an Iñupiaq evaluated and, through email communication with person enlightened us and enlivened the collection as curators and caretakers, the items on it are being a representation of cultures still living today. At (the located. A few hundred items are now housed at the elder) Ahtuangaruak’s urging, students in the class Harvard Peabody Museum, for example, and smaller recorded the consultation sessions; they incorporated numbers can be found at the American Museum the video into a digital book of Natural History, the British Museum, and the that showcases Oberlin’s Cincinnati Art Museum. entire Alaska Native Many other items are less collection as contextualized straightforward to track by Ahtuangaruak’s down. Some were sent to observations, and includes individual collectors, and Native village and object these parts of the collection names whenever possible. can sometimes be found Helm then took the lead in museums with which when a number of students the individuals worked. from the course were Sometimes only a place inspired to continue working name was provided, in with the Alaska collection which case the ease of and create a related, full- locating an object depends scale exhibition that was on the city, as some cities slated to be installed in the are home to a single, campus library in spring obvious candidate museum 2020. When COVID-19 or university while other intervened, these dedicated cities may have dozens students spent their summer of possibilities. Language working with Margaris to barriers present a further convert the exhibition to challenge in tracking down a digital exhibit platform A page from the interactive book created by Oberlin the whereabouts of specific where it is now available students in collaboration with Rosemary Ahtuangaruak. objects, as not all items are for anyone to visit. The complete project can be explored at: scalar. located in English speaking (The exhibition can be oberlincollegelibrary.org/arctic-ethnology/index parts of the world. Finally, experienced at https://www. some objects may prove artsteps.com/view/5ec9415 impossible to identify dfbf64b58219aa3e8). even if the correct institution is located because information is too vague, or records may have been Through participation in these two projects, Helm lost. One potential example is a single “skull” sent to became familiar with Oberlin’s Alaska Native Prague. The record on this object does not provide a Collection, the importance of Native collaboration, and specific institution or date and offers no identifying some of the challenges of creating a digital resource. features except for the original Smithsonian collection When Margaris proposed that Helm next pilot the number. It does not even specify if the skull is human “Nelson in the Cloud” project, Krupnik enthusiastically or animal. Despite these challenges, between 300-400 signed on as project collaborator. Our team has since of the items that Nelson obtained have been already grown as we have sought additional scholars to help definitively located as of January, 2020, with many refine our vision and pilot a database. Contributors more leads still being followed. Additionally, over now include Megan Mitchell, who is Oberlin’s Digital 6,000 ethnographic objects collected by Nelson are Initiatives Coordinator, and on the Arctic Studies housed at the Department of Anthropology collections Center side, Museum Specialist Dawn Biddison, at the Smithsonian today. This brings the total number anthropologists Aron Crowell, Stephen Loring, of ethnographic objects to be digitally reunited to and William Fitzhugh, collections manager David nearly 7,000. ASC Newsletter 57 As these items are being located, an interesting would make it difficult for the Smithsonian to host the snapshot of the worldwide museum exchange network database, yet Oberlin does not have sufficient funding is developing. Alaskan ethnographic materials collected or resources to commit to maintaining it in perpetuity. by Nelson have now dispersed across five continents Additionally, we must ensure that the database can be and dozens of countries. Items can be found all over kept up to date once it is created, a challenge because the eastern United States and Europe, and have made it will contain information from many institutions it to Oceania, Asia, and South America. An important that may continuously be updating their own catalog observation about the whereabouts of this collection records. One solution is to maintain two paired is that no objects were sent to anywhere in Africa and databases, one documenting the current Smithsonian even more significantly, none made their way back to collection only and the other documenting the Alaska. extended collection across the globe. A set of mirrored databases could allow for uniformity of information As we begin to get an idea of where these items and searchability while removing the challenges of are and what information exists about them, we are incorporating the larger portion of the collection still at also working on a second project component: a pilot the Smithsonian into an external database. database housed at Oberlin College using a free, open- source digital platform called Omeka. Currently about What are the project’s next steps? This spring Helm and 20 sample items from several different institutions two additional Oberlin undergraduates will continue to have been added to the pilot, which has given rise to track down objects. All metadata are being collected into several questions a single document about how best to which will be ready to proceed to make the upload into a database best possible product. once its final structure We want to ensure has been agreed that each object is upon. Consultation associated with all with Alaska Native relevant metadata stakeholders along while also providing the way will also a means to access be key. Historically, more information many ethnographic about an object from and archaeological its home institution, collections have when available. As a been displayed and means for making the studied in an academic database searchable, Present location of some of Nelson’s scattered collections we have discussed setting without input (blue = known institutions, red = known cities) using techniques such from the peoples as simplifying object who had originally names and including a range of possible ways an object created these cultural items. Our team has begun can be referenced (such as with outdated or alternative investigating examples of other digital collections names, like Yup’ik and Yupik). A complete and management projects that have been created by, or accessible database would allow objects to be searched in collaboration with, Indigenous peoples, including by type, location, or culture and yield uniform results. Mukurtu, the Vanuatu Kaljoral Senta (VKS), and especially the Reciprocal Research Network (https:// The final product of the “Nelson in the Cloud” project www.rrncommunity.org) which like our project will require several key features that our team is still in collates cultural materials that are physical housed across the process of refining. The database needs to respect institutions. and meet the needs of Alaska Natives interested in learning about their own culture while also meeting Ours is a major undertaking with potentially far- the needs of researchers around the world. Our product reaching results. The creation of a worldwide database needs to adhere to the copyright and data sharing that can unite institutions across borders and language standards of a variety of institutions, as we require the barriers would serve as a model for dispersed use of catalog data (and potentially images) from a collection of all sorts, from biological specimens to variety of sources. archaeological artifacts, in addition to the ethnographic objects our project was conceived. Most importantly, An additional challenge to organizing the database is “Nelson in the Cloud” is envisioned to be a platform network hosting and maintenance. Logistical obstacles where digital representations of physical objects can act 58 ASC Newsletter as a means for growth. By connecting people around the ways we used to be. I sure use to draw scitches the world to the network of institutions that now act arts before my eyes can see good, but now, failed, as stewards for this significant collection of Alaskan because of my poor near sights. I’m thank you, you items, a “Nelson in the Cloud” database would allow have one of my work and you like it. Now a days, Alaska Native communities to access and understand I’m doing slowly on Carving Ivorys. All of that have where and how their cultural items have been living, such as Walrus, Seals, Wales, and fishes, distributed across the globe. It would help stewarding foxes, Musk-oxen and some birds that interested. institutions keep their records on the included items up Thank you again for your letter and you love the art. to date, empower Indigenous stakeholders and scholars Sincerely Richard Davis (Takilnok). to connect and work together, and contribute to cultural revitalization efforts that are happening in Native Born in Tacirmiut, a seasonal hamlet on a large bay at communities across Alaska. Nunivak’s south coast, Richard was originally named Tekrilngur. Like many other Nuniwarmiut families, [Editor’s Note: Readers might be interested to learn his spent the winter months in a sod-roofed semi- about the Ainu database project created by Japanese subterranean home at Mekoryuk, their main village on scholars that created a world-wide inventory of Ainu the island’s north shore. In pursuit of seasonally-shifting cultural items and led to the Smithsonian exhibition resources, such as fish, seals, walrus, and sea fowl, they documented in the catalog, Ainu: Spirit of a Northern rotated to various spring, summer and fall encampments. People (Fitzhugh and Dubreuil 2000. Smithsonian Institution Press. See also: Kyuzo Kato and Yoshinobu When Richard was about nine years old, an Iñupiat Kotani (eds.), 1987, Bulletin of the National Museum of Protestant missionary moved from Hooper Bay to Ethnology Special Issue 5.] Mekoryuk, also site of the island’s trading post. Soon, almost all Nuniwarmiut converted, including Richard and a young local shaman named Kangleg. The BERING SEA ART FROM NUNIVAK ISLAND: island’s small school was relocated from the village A CHRONICLE OF RICHARD D. TAKILNOK of Ellikarrmiut (Nash Harbor) to Mekoryuk in 1940. (CUP’IG, 1928–2007) At the time, as Lantis recalled, 12-year old Richard By Harald E. L. Prins “was a youth with almost no schooling.” The newly- arrived American husband-wife teaching team from Arctic art has its casual vagrants, surfacing in distant Arkansas reported that Nunivakers still had “but few places. This graphite-and-ink drawing found its way dealings with white men and therefore they speak only from Alaska to a small antique store in Maine, a the Eskimo language. There are a dozen on the entire halfway point between trash and minor treasure. That is island who speak a little English, and only two of these where I spotted the kayak-faring walrus hunters scene go to school.” framed behind dusty cracked glass. The unidentified piece was not dated, but I guessed it was made in the Richard was still young when his father Atakuilngur mid-1900s. The unique design of the kayaks caught my died. His widowed mother Apurin invited Kalirmiu, eye—a distinctive model typical for Nunivak Island in a kinsman later renamed Peter Smith, to help provide the Bering Sea. The faded signature was still visible: for the household and mentor her son. Traditionally, Richard D. Takilnok. when boys turned thirteen or fourteen, they were given a small kayak. In the next five years or so, most grew I rescued the large drawing (15" x 20") and imagined into capable seal hunters, equally adept with harpoon, the Cup’ig artist might be interested in knowing his atlatl, and rifle (typically 0.22 caliber). Once they had artwork was valued. I tracked him down with the help harvested a full-grown bearded seal, an animal that of anthropologist Margaret Lantis, who had done ritually outranked other seals (and even walrus), they ethnographic fieldwork on Nunivak in 1939–1940 and were considered on top of their game. later revisited the island a few more times. Commonly known as Richard Davis, he probably resided in Historically, Nuniwarmiut hunters preyed on bearded Mekoryuk, the island’s only still existing village (not seals and walrus primarily in the spiritual ceremony- counting seasonal encampment sites). So, I wrote to rich spring season. These sea mammals yielded plenty him there. On 15 October 1988, the 60-year old elder of leather and flesh, plus blubber (used for light and responded: heat). Their large intestine provided the raw material for waterproof parkas. Moreover, seal and female Very much surprised, rec’d a letter. And I’m thank walrus hides were greatly valued as kayak cover. you for thinking how I am doing at this time. I am, of course, doing fine with all my family. However, On their spring-time migration from wintering spots in I’m not much doing anything now, but living as the Bering Sea north to the thawing Chukchi Sea and ASC Newsletter 59 beyond, small herds of migratory walrus pass through When a young hunter shot his first walrus, Lantis Nunivak’s coastal waters, usually for a few weeks in noted, the haul “was celebrated by distribution of the April and early May. Weighing twice as much as a meat, a sweat bath, song, and dance. The walrus head walrus cow, a bull can grow to over 3.5 meters and was kept in the qazgi [men’s house], for five days…” weigh as much as two tons. Endowed with prominent tusks, up to 1 meter long and weighing over 5 kilos, During the first half of the 20 th century, tuberculosis walrus have long been prized because of unquenchable was rampant in Alaska’s indigenous communities. demand for raw ivory and ivory carvings. This contagious disease claimed many lives among the Nuniwarmiut whose numbers fell to about 225 Venturing out for a walrus hunt at dawn, Richard people. In 1941, one of the American teachers living in would have teamed up with two or three companions, Mekoryuk reported: “About 75 percent have T.B. Many each equipped with a one-bladed paddle, a rifle plus of them sit around with one foot in the grave and the ammunition, and a harpoon tied with a long leather other foot on the ice. I don’t know how they live.” thong to an inflatable sealskin float lashed on In the early 1950s, top of the wooden sled perhaps while serving as secured on the kayak’s an “Eskimo scout” in the deck behind the cockpit. Alaskan National Guard, In his youth, these Richard was also infected. kayaks were painted Diagnosed with T.B., he with designs, usually was transferred to the representing “animals Alaska Native Services whose characteristics (ANS) hospital in Juneau. the owners hope will be More than 1800 km from transferred to their boats.” home, he made drawings The aforementioned of the traditional hunting shaman, noted German life he had enjoyed and anthropologist Hans now longed for. His art Himmelheber in 1937, work, stylistically informed Nunivak hunters approaching walrus by Richard Takilnok. by ivory engravings had an orca “painted on Photo by Harald Prins (scrimshaw), caught the his kayak to help him attention of Alaska Native during storms. Others Arts and Crafts manager Don Burrus who reported in depict fast-moving animals like seals or minks to speed 1952: “Richard Davis of Mekoryuk, no[w] confined to up the kayak. [And] a painted human figure extending the tuberculosis ward of the ANS hospital in Juneau, has from the bow to the stern with arms and legs spread out been producing a type of drawing that shows signs of may also be used to promote stability.” Nuniwarmiut becoming a consistently selling item.” preferred to target walrus asleep on ice floats, but the adventure could be dangerous due to shifting ice, sudden The following year, Richard was transferred to the winds and strong currents. Moreover, a wounded walrus, Mt. Edgecumbe Hospital on an island outside Sitka. if not quickly killed, may charge a hunter and overturn Perhaps to distinguish himself as a Native Alaskan his kayak. Even hardened Alaskan Natives don’t survive artist, he signed his work as Richard D. Takilnok—as very long in ice-cold seawater. he phonetically spelled his Cup’ig name (Tekrilngur). In 1954, he submitted a “black and white” drawing at As shown in Takilnok’s drawing, walrus hunters tried the Sitka Community Fair and received a red ribbon for to paddle as quietly and close as possible without it. Next, he entered the 1954 American Indian Painting agitating the beasts and causing them to escape into Competition in San Francisco with a graphite-and-ink water. A precision shot (behind the ear) from a kayak drawing titled, “The Hunt’s On,” winning “first place.” in open sea requires a sharp eye, as well as a good rifle This was purchased by the Indian Defense Association and a steady boat. Away from the shoreline, hunters of Northern California and gifted to the De Young could not lash their kayaks together to provide the Memorial Museum in San Francisco for its permanent desired stability. Instead, two companions maneuvered collection, In 1955, still ailing, Richard was transferred their narrow skin boats into a close flanking position, to the ANS hospital in Anchorage. A year later, he was tightly wedging the central kayak manned by the one of three “Alaskan Eskimo” artists represented in the designated sharpshooter. After a successful kill, the 11th Annual Contemporary Indian Painting Exhibition in hunters towed their catch back for butchering on the ice Tulsa, Oklahoma, with Southern Cheyenne artist Dick floe closer to their spring encampment or home village. West serving on the three-men award jury. 60 ASC Newsletter Undoubtedly, Takilnok made quite a few fine drawings THE JOHN MARR COLLECTIONS FROM while hospitalized for T.B. But what happened to these NUNAVIK AT THE UNIVERSITY OF minor treasures? Not yet identified to date is one of 40 COLORADO-BOULDER MUSEUM Alaskan artworks selected from “hundreds submitted” by the Farthest North Art Guild for a traveling exhibit By Madison T. King touring the United States in 1959–1960. The “original purpose of the exhibit was to promote statehood,” and, When I first encountered the Marr Collection at the explained one of its organizers, “to let you see Alaska University of Colorado Museum of Natural History in through the eyes and abilities of her artists.” Only one Boulder there was not a well-developed understanding other Alaskan Native, a Tlingit, was included in this of the extent of the collection or the context through exhibit, which also showed at the U.S. Commerce which it had come to be. So, as an undergraduate Department in Washington D.C. After almost ten years student participating in a practicum on collections in Alaskan hospitals, Richard was finally discharged research, I began studying the objects. What began as and returned to his Cup’ig family and friends on an initial attempt to reassemble the collection eventually Nunivak where the traditional way of life was rapidly transformed into an opportunity to learn about the changing. Very few hunters still used kayaks, for most process of sharing museum resources and archival now ventured out in motor-powered wooden boats. material with descendent Inuit and First Nations (Eeyou/ Innu/Northern Cree) communities in Northern Quebec. Meanwhile, the island’s musk oxen herd, transplanted from Greenland in the mid-1930s, had multiplied. By Marr and the Collection the mid-1960s, they numbered about 500. Grazing on Nunivak territory reserved as a National Wildlife Dr. John W. Marr (1914–1989) was a well-known Refuge, these Ice-Age survivors were under strict professor in the Biology Department at the University protection by Alaska’s Fish and Wildlife Service. The of Colorado in Boulder. In addition to making many department offered Richard a salaried position, initially important contributions to the scholarship of alpine part-time, as the island-based guardian of the thriving ecological research in the tundra throughout the course wild herd. Meanwhile, he had married and become a of his career, Marr also established the Institute of father who primarily relied on hunting and fishing to Arctic and Alpine Research as part of the University feed his family. He also built a new house and his own of Colorado in 1951. While on research expeditions wooden boat, leaving him little opportunity or energy in the Arctic, Marr also collected ethnographic objects for drawing. from the Inuit communities with whom he crossed paths. There are two expeditions of Marr’s that are In 1968, the American Indian Museum-Heye of particular interest to the research presented in this Foundation in New York City published American article, as they resulted in the objects and photographs Indian Painters: A Biographical Dictionary, featuring that now comprise the Marr Collection. almost 1,200 individuals representing a few hundred tribes or nations. Included in this artistic multitude are In 1939 Marr accompanied an expedition to the Great Richard Davis Takilnok and thirteen other Alaskan Whale River and Richmond Gulf area as a student “Eskimos.” When Davis died in 2007, few on the of Professor William S. Cooper at the University of island knew this 79-year-old Nuniwarmiut elder Minnesota. While carrying out ecological research on had been a talented graphic artist. Nonetheless, his the forest-tundra ecotone, Marr also collected two pairs drawings remain distinctly valuable, not only because of mukluks that were later accessioned into the museum. of their aesthetic appeal, but also as a Native Alaskan During this expedition Marr also took several hundred hunter’s representation of his own maritime culture in photographs, which eventually came to be housed at the Bering Sea. the John W. Marr Papers Archive at the University of Colorado Special Collections and Archives Department Acknowledgements. Pioneering ethnographic research in Norlin Library. The majority of the photographs by Margaret Lantis (1939–1940) resulted in landmark consist of aerial shots of large stretches of alpine forest. publications on Nunivak consulted for this essay. Also About thirty photographs, however, depict Inuit or First informative are writings by Hans Himmelheber (1936– Nations people and their villages. These photographs 1937), translated and edited by Ann Fienup-Riordan became closely associated with my research on the Marr in Where the Echo Began. Fairbanks: U Alaska Press, Collection, as they relate directly to the communities 2000. Anthropologists Dennis Griffin and Kenneth from which the objects originate. Pratt, specialists on Nunivak culture and history who authored multiple publications, provided much The second trip took place in 1948, under the title, appreciated critical feedback. The map is courtesy of a “The University of Colorado Botanical Expedition.” James VanStone publication. Marr and his wife, Johanna C.W.R. Marr, traveled ASC Newsletter 61 to Ungava Bay area in Northern Quebec (Nunavik) documentation. The report includes an image of every with two graduate students from the university. Their object in the collection (along with a description of purpose was to study vegetation growth at the northern materials and history), a copy of each photograph from tree limit near Kuujjuaq, along the Leaf River. It was the archive, and my own written work which explain during this trip that the rest of the objects within the the context of the museum and of Marr. Marr Collection were obtained. During the three- month expedition, the Marrs collected a variety of My hope was that this report would not only ethnographic objects from Inuit communities in the supplement the museum records, but that it could also area. According to a letter from Marr to the museum serve as a resource for the originating communities. during the accession process, many of the objects In order to share the materials with the descendent were personally made by Inuit community members communities, however, I had to first identify and locate as gifts for Johanna them. This was to wear and use. one of the most Other objects were challenging parts obtained by Johanna of my research, as by trading with all documentation people she met associated with during their stay. the objects and photographs simply The objects that were referred to the collected during artists and subjects these two trips were as “Eskimo.” There accessioned by was no record the University of of specific Inuit Colorado Museum or First Nations of Natural History individuals or in three separate instances. The first villages, so it was accession occurred not clear with whom in 1939, when the we should share the museum purchased materials. a single pair of With the help and mukluks from John guidance of Dr. W. Marr. The second Inuit women at Richmond Gulf, Dr. John W. Marr (1914-1989). Stephen Loring, accession occurred 1939. Box 35, Folder 2, Photo 39- Founder and inaugural director who provided in 1948, when the 234, John W. Marr Papers, Norlin of the Institute of Arctic and museum purchased valuable insight Library, University of Colorado, Alpine Research. Photo courtecy many of the 1948 regarding the Boulder Ecological Society of America expedition objects specific groups that from Johanna. The occupy the areas third accession occurred in 1957, when John W. Marr from which the objects and the photographs came, I was donated the remaining objects to the museum after able to clarify both the communities from which the Johanna’s passing in 1955. Today, the full collection material originated and the appropriate classifications as consists of twenty-nine ethnographic objects, including either Inuit or First Nations. mukluks, dolls, raw materials, and articles of clothing. Sharing the Material Reassembling the Collection Equipped with an approximate knowledge of who I assembled the information above regarding the the originating communities may have been, and context of the Marr Collection and the archival assistance from two cultural institutes in Quebec, I was photographs over the course of a year, under the able to connect these collections to their originating guidance and supervision of my mentor, communities. Thanks to a few valuable introductions by Dr. Loring, I was put into contact with Sarah Dr. Jennifer Shannon. Everything that I learned during Gauntlett of the Avataq Cultural Institute, and Laura my attempt to reassemble the Marr Collection resulted Phillips of the Aanischaaukamikw Cree Cultural in a final report which acts as a comprehensive guide Institute. To begin, both the Aanischaaukamikw Cree to the collection, the photographs, and the associated Cultural Institute and the Avataq Cultural Institute 62 ASC Newsletter were sent copies of my final research report. Both OUTREACH institutions expressed interest in retaining copies of the materials that had resulted from the research. With FILMING FIFTY YEARS OF SMITHSONIAN the assistance from staff at the University of Colorado ARCHAEOLOGY Special Collections and Archives Department, both institutions received high-resolution, digital TIF copies By Theodore Timreck of the thirty photographs from 1939 which feature Indigenous people and their villages in the Richmond My new film, Ancient Sea Peoples of the North Gulf and Great Whale River area. Atlantic, argues for considering the entire North Atlantic coastal region as an integrated historical and I hope that these connections with the cultural archeological zone. This is based on the idea that the institutions will help to fulfill two primary goals. The Maritime Revolution which occurred during the last first aim is that Inuit and First Nations community Ice Age is an under-appreciated part of human history members have easy access to these materials when they and that similar environmental adaptations can produce seek information from their own archival institutions similar cultural traits in different regions of the earth. and that these materials will contribute to the growing But underneath this argument lies a deeper question body of knowledge available to the contemporary Inuit about the history of the indigenous peoples of North and First Nations communities. The second aim is that America who once lived along the Atlantic coastline. the cultural institutions will be able to pass on to the This topic is barely discussed in anthropological University of Colorado Museum of Natural History textbooks and has been somewhat of “black hole” in any new information that is learned about the resources Eastern Native American history. as they are circulated throughout the contemporary communities. As I learned from the Aanischaaukamikw I was introduced to the problem by William Fitzhugh Cree Cultural Institute, the flow in information is to when I accompanied him with a film crew to Nulliak occur in this way in accordance with The First Nations Cove, a 4,000 year old Maritime Archaic Indian Principles of OCAP. By regulating the ownership, settlement not far from the famous chert quarries of Ramah Bay in northernmost Labrador. Sitting along control, access and possession of the information in the ridge of a raised beach terrace overlooking the this way, the institutions can practice agency in how Labrador Sea, Bill asked, “the real question is, where information pertaining to their community is used. did these people come from?” Taking all of this into account, it would be wonderful to someday supplement the existing catalog records with The huge Nulliak site demonstrated that by 4,000 the specific names of those who crafted the objects, and years ago ceremonial landscapes including mound those who are the subjects in the archival photographs. burials already existed in the Far Northeast and that Indians who lived there and used Ramah chert for their Reference implements had to navigate wide, ice choked ocean Marr, John. 1948. Ecology of the Forest-Tundra expanses and must have had large boats and a well- Ecotone on the East Coast of Hudson Bay. Ecological developed maritime-adapted lifestyle. Monographs 18(1):117-144 In the same decade that Fitzhugh and his crew discovered these quarries and settlements in Labrador, Canadian scientists had also identified Native burial mounds in southern Labrador that were more than 7,000 years old. These finds were so anomalous that they were almost never included in the academic timelines and descriptions of Native history—they didn't fit comfortably into the accepted Native history of the Western Hemisphere. Now more than forty years ago, I found it an irresistible intellectual and artistic challenge to visually convey the story of this enormous disjunct in American and perhaps even the world's model of human cultural development. The 1970s was a time of controversy between the deeply Inuit mother and child dolls. University of Colorado entrenched scientific model of Native history and the Museum of Natural History Cat. #s 6827, 6828. Photo by seemingly inexplicable discoveries that were beginning Madison King to appear, and would continue to emerge in the following ASC Newsletter 63 decades. This became a narrative I wanted to create out theories of indigenous history. But because of of the beautiful Labrador land- and seascapes and the accidental discoveries, and above all, a passion for fascinating stories of the scientists searching —often by looking at the often surprising discoveries, and then accident—for a Native civilization that wasn't supposed being willing to change their theoretical frameworks, to exist. the rewards of the scientific method came to be validated. Over decades, following their own separate As a filmmaker and later as a website producer, I joined paths, those three scientists independently discovered the Arctic Studies Center as a Research Collaborator pieces of a larger but connected puzzle that might and worked with other scientists from the Smithsonian’s forever change Native history. Anthropology Department to document fieldwork in many places in North America and Europe, but Perhaps the most important lesson I learned from especially in locations around the Circumpolar North. my Smithsonian colleagues was best practices for In the process of recording the fieldwork of William collaborating with Native representatives in studies Fitzhugh, Stephen Loring, of cultural research and Dennis Stanford, Douglas representation. Over the Owsley, Noel Broadbent, following decades, these Pegi Jodry, Chuck Smythe, collaborations became Rosita Worl, Darrin Lowry, worthy of study in and others, I found them themselves. What I learned willing to help me develop was that best practices, when my cinematic ideas about successful, turned out to the unanswered questions be a completely individual in North American Native and often unique process history. Their patience with of collaboration between my sometimes “fringy” Ancient Sea Peoples of the North Atlantic. Courtesy of each scientist and each tribal notions has always been Theodore Timreck representative. In my case, appreciated and helped I was fortunate to team up inform my North Atlantic with tribal representatives movie. like Rosita Worl and Doug Harris whose lifetime In my conversations with work has been to forge a researchers, I emphasized remarkable understanding of that interviews on film or Native tradition, scientific tape are not the same as peer- method, and the business of reviewed proclamations. anthropology. The moving image offers the opportunity to safely stretch In my recent movie, Doug the imagination, to offer a Harris, the tribal preservation more personal perspective Theodore Timreck in his New York City studio. Photo by officer of the Narragansetts, in order to suggest where Theodore Timreck helped me understand a responsible thinking might way of balancing scientific be heading in the future thinking with tribal tradition based on the discoveries of the present. In hindsight, and contemporary politics. Harris, who appears when reviewing these interviews of more than twenty throughout the video, represents the tribal voice that years ago for this film, I recognized that the emotional suggests the possibility of a future where archeological honesty and scientific balance these researchers brought research and cultural preservation, working in to their work often turned out to be quite prescient. partnership, may reveal an here-to-fore unimagined Native history that once existed as far back as the Ice Another result of these years of film and video Age on the submerged North Atlantic shelf. This may documentation is that the narrative represents a turn out to be the true, long term value of presenting generation of Smithsonian scientists’ perspectives on forty years of research documentation and trying to the process and vagaries of discovery. For example, put those discoveries into perspective for scholars, the Fitzhugh, Loring, and Stanford were laboratory public, Native Americans, and the future. neighbors at the National Museum of Natural History for decades. When they began working there, their The movie illustrates some of the steps in our own research interests were easily defined by their Eastern short segment of a longer process that began with the vs. Western focus, as determined by the accepted Folsom discovery in the 1920s and will continue well 64 ASC Newsletter past our time as surprising discoveries continue to experience, coupled with scientific research, heighten shatter the “glass basement” and expanding time frame our understanding of these animals—and our changing of Native American history. global climate. [Editor’s note: Since the mid-1970s Ted Timreck has The travel version contains many of the elements in the documented ASC research, conferences, and public original show, including a 16-foot fiberglass model of activities by producing documentary films, educational an adult male narwhal suspended from the ceiling, an media, our original website (recently replaced by a audio soundtrack of narwhals and other Arctic sounds, generic profile), and exhibitions. His television works a video entitled “What the Inuit Know” produced by include “Franz Boas” for the PBS Odyssey series the National Museum of Natural History, and a NASA and “The Lost Red Paint People” and “Vikings in visualization of the changes in Arctic Sea ice over the America” for PBS/NOVA. He is a recipient of the past ten years. The exhibition includes a cast models of a Peabody Award, and his television portraits of artists narwhal skull and an extinct narwhal relative, Bohaskaia (PBS national specials and American Masters series) monodontiodes and pop culture objects from plush toys include Charles Ives, Thomas Eakins, Augustus Saint to clothing, coffee mugs, and even a corkscrew. To make Gaudens, and Frederick Law Olmsted. Recently he the animal accessible to all populations, SITES created completed a “Hidden Landscapes” series telling the a touchable 3D print model for blind and low vision story of the early Eastern Native American sea cultures visitors. Interpretive panels were resized, and photo that offers a new perspective on the ancient history murals were reprinted on fabric. of North America. This theme is further explored in a 110-minute film titled “Ancient Sea Peoples of the Host venues may rent the 2,000 sq. ft. exhibition for North Atlantic.” His website is www.twtimreck.com] a twelve-week period and will receive installation instructions, rigging equipment, promotion and NARWHAL EXHIBITION ON THE ROAD education materials, digital resources, and access to AFTER COVID-19 BREATHER SITES staff for help in developing exhibition programs. By Carol Bossert The exhibition will open in May 22, 2021 at the Schiele Museum of Natural History in Gastonia, North The narwhal, with its unique left spinning spiral tusk, Carolina, and will then travel to The Monte L. Bean has inspired legend in Inuit society and fascinated Life Science Museum in Provo, Utah, and the Sam people across cultures for centuries. The exhibition Noble Museum in Norman Oklahoma. SITES thanks Narwhal: Revealing an Arctic Legend, on view at the Dr. William Fitzhugh, Director of the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History from 2017–2019, Arctic Studies program, Dr. Martin T. Nweeia, is now a traveling exhibition circulated by Smithsonian Harvard University, and Dr. Marianne Marcoux, Institution Traveling Exhibition Service (SITES). The Fisheries and Oceans Canada for advice and support. exhibition digs deep into the narwhal’s Arctic world The exhibit was initially developed by the National to explore what makes this mysterious animal and its Museum of Natural History and was redesigned for changing ecosystem so important. Through first-hand travel by SITES. For information about booking, accounts from scientists and Inuit community members, contact Carol Bossert, SITES Project Director at the exhibition reveals how traditional knowledge and bossertc@si.edu. Narwhal: Revisiting an Arctic Legend as installed at the Smithsonian Natural History Museum, 2017–2019. SITES staff get the 16-foot narwhal model ready for travel. Photo by Jim Fernandez Photo courtesy of ELY, Inc. ASC Newsletter 65 PARTNERS, FELLOWS AND INTERNS CRUISING THE ASC, BEFORE AND DURING BUILDING A MONOGRAPH COVID-19 By David Rubenstein By Fiona Steiwer As a junior history major Little did I know when I at Middlebury College walked through the halls in Vermont, I have a of Smithsonian’s National deep-seated interest in Museum of Natural History uncovering historical to meet with Dr. William narratives. While the Fitzhugh for the first time fields of historical and that I would be spending archaeological research a majority of my time are markedly different, working with the lovely they both aim to reveal the individuals of the Arctic details of humanity’s past. Studies Center—in my This similarity drove me studio apartment. Over a to pursue an internship at year ago in October of 2019 I began working at the the Arctic Studies Center during the summer of 2020, ASC on digitizing transcripts of field notes written by where I assisted Dr. William Fitzhugh in compiling one of the first Americans to visit Alaska from the 19th data from the Gateways Project for publication. century and piecing together the 2019 ASC Newsletter with Nancy Shorey and William Fitzhugh. In addition The information that I gathered primarily dealt with to these projects I was quickly thrown into further work the archaeological findings on Petit Mécatina in and activities across the museum’s campus. Northeastern Québec. I was particularly struck by the willingness of Basque whalers and fishermen to Some of my favorite memories include spending work together at this site with Inuit people who had time at the Museum Storage Center with Dr. Stephen recently arrived from the North during the 16th and Loring, where we explored the Anthropology 17th centuries. From my perspective, this behavior collection, picking out pieces that I had selected from demonstrated a remarkable cultural flexibility by both the online index to highlight in the upcoming Night groups, who were quick to overcome their differences Sky exhibit. Later that same day I was also able to and accommodate aspects of a foreign culture. While I provide support for a tour for a class of students from am still unsure of my final career, I deeply appreciate Hampden-Sydney College. It was a great way to learn the experience and guidance that I received while more about the collections while connecting with other working for Dr. Fitzhugh. The internship taught me archaeology students. skills that I will undoubtably use in whatever career I pursue. I look forward someday visiting the sites I Another memorable experience was working researched this past summer. with the ASC team the weekend of the Mongolia Conference. Through this experience I was able to learn so much about not only the archaeology of the COMPILING DATA FOR THE DEER STONE region, but the art, food and local D.C. Mongolian PROJECT community, while gaining experience in event By Morgan Taylor logistics and planning. Mongolia always held a certain fascination for me. The ASC team has been by my side through many When I was very young and enamored with dinosaurs milestones: my senior year of undergrad, my graduation and all things prehistoric, I knew it as a good place from American University, and my first post-grad job for finding fossils. Then as I grew older, I learned of opportunities. Thank you so much to everyone who has the Mongolian art of throat singing and became more been there along the way. I hope that everyone in the interested in learning the culture of its people and even ASC community is staying healthy and occupied during a little of their language. That was perhaps what drew these times. Looking forward to getting back to work me most strongly to pursue an internship working with with all of you in person someday soon. Dr. William Fitzhugh of the Arctic Studies Center in 66 ASC Newsletter the spring and early summer of 2020. A senior English where I was expected to know what I wanted to do. This major at George Mason University at the time, I had presented a problem for me because I have always seen an interest in exploring a career as an editor, and to me myself following a multitude of career paths. I didn’t there was no better opportunity than this. I had been know how I was ever going to be able to choose just surprised to find that an organization specializing in one. With this looming over me, I arrived at the Arctic Arctic cultures would include Mongolia on its radar, Studies Center. but as I quickly learned from Dr. Fitzhugh’s work, there was a tangible link between a number of early When I arrived, I began working with Dr. William Mongolian societies and more recent Arctic societies, Fitzhugh. His extensive research has resulted in lots of one which was especially prominent in the deer stones collections from his trips to the Arctic. Most of these that were being studied and documented. have found a home in the large floor to ceiling cabinets lining the hallways, called quarter-units. My job, Prior to the internship, I had had only a vague idea along with another intern, was to get a feel for where of what archaeological work entailed. I was highly everything was, and then find things that had missed impressed by the level of precision that went into being returned to Canada. For me, this task provided an the documentation of every excavated site and opportunity to see what types of artifacts and samples every collected artifact. got collected. I got to look Pictures too were among at soapstone lamps, Ramah the data I worked with, Chert flakes, lumps of and it was fascinating charcoal, soil samples, and to see glimpses of not bags and bags of animal only the archaeologists bones. themselves in their element, but also the Mongolian I also spent time with Dr. landscape, its people, and Igor Krupnik, who had its archaeological treasure accumulated a similar trove. One truly special volume of information but opportunity I had while of a different kind—paper. working at the internship Dr. Krupnik has written was the chance to assist many books over the years with the annual Mongolian Conference, held at the and keeps both digital and paper copies of all drafts, Smithsonian in early February of that year. My eyes correspondence, and reviews. I organized some of the were opened to an entire world dedicated to the files in reverse chronological order and then arranged documentation and preservation of Mongolian history them into bins to be placed in his quarter-units. This and culture, from its archaeological artifacts to its task showed me what day to day work at the museum historical art and its long song tradition. was like. The papers were a large part of the job. Being in a museum is of course all about the artifacts and the In all respects, I am immensely grateful for my expeditions, but it also has a more public-facing side— experience, and especially to Dr. Fitzhugh and Ms. using the collections and information to create exhibits, Shorey for giving me the opportunity to begin with. something to be shared with everyone. I learned so much in such a brief period of time. My interest in Mongolia remains, and is now perhaps When my ten weeks came to a close, I was of course stronger than ever. Mongolian is now cemented as sad to be leaving but, I was also anxious to start my one of three languages I want to learn in the future, senior year because I finally had a sense of what I and, though for most of my life I had not seriously wanted to do. Over that summer, I had learned that considered travelling, I would love to one day visit the there was so much more to a museum than meets the land under the Eternal Blue Sky. eye. The exhibits are truly just the tip of the iceberg; there are so many incredible things going on behind “MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE” the scenes and so many incredible people like Dr. Fitzhugh, Dr. Krupnik, Dr. Loring, and Ms. Shorey, By Charlotte Bodenhagen making it all possible. This year I am a freshman at college majoring in history. One day I hope to do When I spent a summer at the Smithsonian Museum of something in a museum and help bring stories and Natural History, I was a rising senior in high school. I information to the public. And wherever I end up, I was about to begin a year filled with applying to college, know that the skills and insights learned that summer which meant that I was coming to the point in my life will be invaluable. ASC Newsletter 67 BOOK REVIEWS PAYING THE LAND, BY JOE SACCO developing world. A single page might show an Elder as she or he is now, and with images from photographs of Metropolitan Books/Henry Holt and Associates, the same person half a century ago when she or he was 2020, 264 pp. a developing young indigenous radical, and vignettes Reviewed by John Cloud from the childhood of the same person. The history of resource extractions is there, but as the book develops, Joe Sacco draws an overwhelming theme is the horrors of the Canadian “graphic novels” system of residential schools, in which entire generations but none of them of Dene children were taken from their parents and sent are fictional. He away to government supported schools run by Christian has made a career religious orders. Their explicit purpose was to strip away of going to difficult indigenous culture and language from the children, places—Bosnia generally accompanied by horrendous physical and during and after sexual abuse. Their stories are harrowing, but true. bloody wars there, Israeli-occupied Nevertheless, Sacco has made a celebrated career out Palestine—to of going to difficult places and finding the good there, illuminate the lives of where it can be found. There are many remembrances people living through of the quiet joys of summer life in fish camps, and the it all. In his most awesome responsibilities attendant on Dene people, recent project, he who don’t believe they own the land but that the land spent years travelling owns them. One comes away from Paying the Land through the vast knowing a good deal more about NWT than one ever area of the Canadian expected to learn, the hallmark of the best books. Northwest Territories (NWT). His guide and expediter was a non-indigenous THE BARK AND SKIN BOATS OF NORTHERN woman, Shauna Morgan. How could that be? Ms. EURASIA, BY HARRI LUUKKANEN Morgan is not Dene, a speaker of a great branch of the AND WILLIAM W. FITZHUGH, WITH Athabascan language family, but she is a member of the CONTRIBUTIONS BY EVGUENIA City Council of Yellowknife, capitol of the NWT. NWT ANICHTCHENKO has an area larger than France and Spain combined, but a human population of less than 45,000 people. Smithsonian Books 2020, 276 pp. But at any given moment, between a third and a half of the territories’ humans are in Yellowknife, the seat of Reflections by William W. Fitzhugh power and money, of courts and medical care, of jails Finally, the day and schools, multi-national energy companies, big box came—15 September stores, snowmobile dealers, smoke shops and liquor 2020—when our stores—the fabric of modern Canadian life. decade-long study of The original project of Mr. Sacco and Ms. Morgan was indigenous Eurasian the story of NWT Dene First Nations and the histories boats saw the light of “resource extraction” that have driven life in the of day! The ‘canoe territories for centuries now—furs and meat and fish, book’ has been a 15- later mining gold, diamonds, uranium, and still later, year epic of research, oil and gas extracted by fraking. The major process was writing, illustrating, talking, over cups of tea, with women and men who are and publishing and truly Elders in their First Nations’ communities. But for me, it was like their stories ranged back in time to their childhoods, completing three and the stories their grandparents told them, and the PhDs. For my histories of treaties made—and broken—that go back colleague Harri to the foundations of what is now “Canada”. Luukkanen, it has also been his longest Sacco has an incredibly detailed graphics style, like an research and publication journey, and even when most R. Crumb who has spent his life in the struggling and of the research and initial drafting had been completed, 68 ASC Newsletter we both endured multiple rounds of editing with three skin boats, spreading first from Europe across Asia to the different editors before the manuscript was finally ready Far East and Bering Strait. Skin boats persisted only in for press. Evguenia Anichtchenko assisted at many Arctic regions because of their advantages in ice-infested points along this journey, helping select illustrations, waters, while bark canoes persisted hundreds of years photographing boats and models in Russia, translating longer—even into the 20th century—in the Far East, Russian literature, and writing a final chapter that where rural, river-based hunting and fishing was not carried the story into Alaska. commercialized. Throughout the project we had great support from Having produced this book by digging into all the Carolyn Gleason who saw the import of the work available written and museum resources, we readily for “completing the circle” that began with the acknowledge its deficiencies. You are not going to build Smithsonian’s publication of The Bark and Skin Boats yourself an historically accurate replica of a Ket Yenisei of North America by Edwin Tappan Adney and birchbark canoe or a Chukchi kayak with our book, and Smithsonian curator Howard I. Chapelle, in 1964. you will not be able to trace back the origin of the canoes If truth be told, their publication odyssey was far or kayaks to their origins in the late Paleolithic. Even longer than ours, at least for Adney, who spent much kayak origins are completely mysterious. We could not of this life with canoes and their American Indian answer definitively whether skin boats had a parallel makers, interviewing them, documenting their work in life alongside massive dugout canoes (or were they photographs and elegant line drawings, and preparing skin boats?) seen in the White Sea petroglyphs. There text for a monograph he never was able to complete. is still controversy over whether those rock art images That task fell to Howard Adney, who assembled the are dugouts or skin boats. Was there a deep history of pieces, wrote up what Adney had not finished, and skin boat use by peoples of the Okhotsk Sea, stretching completed the corpus for publication. Since 1964, their north from Japan to Bering Strait? We are not sure, book has never been out of print—probably the longest although we believe it likely. We also know that many, run for any Smithsonian publication and the darling of many boats and boat remains eluded our search in small sportsmen, small boat enthusiasts, and replica-builders. Russian and Far East museums where language barriers and internet access blocked us. We also know that much Not being naval-scale architects and draftsmen, and of the history of bark and skin boats still awaits chance not building on a lifetime of ethnographic and museum discovery in bogs, lake bottoms, and other preserving field studies, Harri and I could not create an ‘Adney environments. That is work for another and future and Chapelle’ for northern Eurasia; but we were able to day. But if we are lucky, our Eurasia ‘boat atlas’ may create a parallel, if not a proper sequel. Our work has stimulate interest and new research that will eventually a more historical dimension since it is based largely on help answer the questions of a deeper history. published sources, as well as—to a far more limited extent than we originally anticipated—archaeological information. For once you leave the well-documented NEW PUBLICATIONS FROM CALISTA and archaeologically explored field of European nautical EDUCATION AND CULTURE archaeology and plank boats of the past 3,000 years for the history of indigenous crafts, you encounter Reviewed by Ann Fienup-Riordan Mother Nature’s penchant for re-cycling. Archaeological Although CEC’s work with elders ground to halt during petroglyphs can take you back 6–8,000 years on the 2020, we used our time to put the finishing touches on rocks of northern Eurasia, but physical remains are three books, two now in print and the other on the way. rare for bark and skin boats that were the stock-in- trade for the small-scale societies of this region. Only Our first book is Nunakun-gguq Ciutengqertut/They a few finds of paddles exist, because they are more Say They Have Ears Through the Ground: Animal easily recognized. Otherwise, remains of boats are truly Essays from Southwest Alaska by Ann Fienup- ephemeral. Their skin covers may last only decades, Riordan with Alice Rearden, Marie Meade, David and their light wooden frameworks, when they survive Chanar, Rebecca Nayamin, and Corey Joseph, to be exposed by shovels and plows, are misidentified published by University of Alaska Press. In southwest as birch logs or twigs. Few have ever been excavated Alaska, Yup'ik people believe that all animals, even scientifically, and the few remains that have been tiny insects, possess minds. Animals are not viewed documented—barely more than a thousand years old— as resources but as co-inhabitants of a sentient world are little more than scraps that tell little about the original and as nonhuman persons responsive to thoughts, craft. The appearance of metal tools like axes and planes, words and deeds. These essays—based on information and metal nails, resulted in the rapid spread of sturdier shared over twenty years at community meetings and plank boats, and these craft quickly replaced bark and regional gatherings with elders—focus on some of the ASC Newsletter 69 most important species (including moose, bears, seals, Kevin Jernigan, and Jacqueline Cleveland will be salmon, and birds) and how relations with these species published this spring by University of Alaska Press. have both changed and remained the same over the Close to one hundred men and women from all over past two decades. In a place where hunting and fishing southwest Alaska shared knowledge of their homeland are still part of day-to-day life, these views of animals and the plants that grow there. They speak eloquently remain very much in action. Hunters are advised that about time spent gathering and storing plants and plant if they are overconfident and brag, they will not catch; material during snow-free months, including gathering animals will hear them and they will get nothing. greens during spring, picking berries each summer, Conversely, what one gives away will be replaced. And harvesting tubers from the caches of tundra voles, if you are compassionate, others will wish for your and gathering a variety of medicinal plants. The book future success. is intended as a guide to the identification and use of edible and medicinal plants in southwest Alaska, but Our second book, Kusquqvagmiut Neqait/Fish and also as an enduring record of what Yup'ik men and Food of the People of the Kuskokwim by Ann Fienup- women know and value about plants and the roles Riordan, Alice Rearden, and Marie Meade, was plants continue to play in Yup'ik lives. published by the Alaska Native Language Center. Based on conversations with Yup'ik men and women living in the Kuskokwim River communities of PRIKLADNAYA ETNOLOGIIA CHUKOTKI Napaskiak, Napakiak, and Oscarville, this bilingual (APPLIED ETHNOLOGY IN CHUKOTKA: book details traditional knowledge surrounding the INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE, MUSEUMS, harvest and use of the six species of whitefish, as well COMMUNITY HERITAGE), BY OKSANA as salmon, pike, burbot, and blackfish, on which people KOLOMIETS AND IGOR KRUPNIK, EDS. relied so heavily in the past and continue to harvest to this day. For Kuskokwim residents, successful Press Pass, Moscow and Anadyr, 2020 harvesting of fish requires practical skills, including Reviewed by Igor Krupnik knowledge of fish migrations, when and where to set nets, and how deep to set them. Men and women must This 470-page Russian collection celebrates a rare also act appropriately, both in the village and in the anniversary. In spring 1895, 125 years prior to its wilderness, to ensure a successful harvest. Although publication, a small crew led by the newly appointed much has changed in southwest Alaska over the years, ‘chief’ of the Anadyrskii district in northernmost this distinctly Yup'ik view of the world remains. Elders Siberia, Nikolai L. Gondatti (1860–1946) started from who we spoke with firmly believe that Yup'ik youth the village of Markovo on the Anadyr River towards today--as well as non-Native fisheries managers--need the Bering Strait. Gondatti, an educated colonial to understand these essential truths. administrator and the former Secretary of the Russian Society of Lovers of Natural Science, Anthropology, Our third book, Yungcautnguuq Nunam Qainga and Ethnography in Moscow, was keen to explore Tamarmi/All the Land's Surface is Medicine:Edible his immense new domain and its Native residents. and Medicinal Plants of Southwest Alaska, by Ann He made it all the way to Uelen on the Chukchi Sea Fienup-Riordan, Alice Rearden, Marie Meade, shore (and back to Markovo eight months later), while 70 ASC Newsletter meticulously recording local population sites, economic communities, such as Markovo, Uelen, Dezhnev, production, cultural features, languages spoken in several once populated sites around Cape Dezhnev each village, and other notable details. This journey, (East Cape) and Provideniya Bay. The book concludes the editors believe, was the beginning of the scientific with four short essays dedicated to the renown investigation of Indigenous people of Chukotka, five Chukotka ‘heritage keepers’—Yupik educator and years prior to Waldemar Bogoras’ work in the same activist Lyudmila Ainana (Aynganga), Chukchi writer area for the Jesup North Pacific Expedition. Valentina Itevtegina (Vek’et), the late Michael Krauss (1934–2019) who was the leading expert on aboriginal One hundred and twenty-five years later an international languages of Alaska and Chukotka, and Russian Yupik group of 18 contributors from Russia, U.S., and Denmark linguist, Ekaterina Rubtsova (1888–1970). decided to return Gondatti’s name back to where his scholarly and administrative career had started, by The volume published in Moscow in 300 copies publishing a collection of 23 papers dedicated to his features almost 200 historical and modern legacy. These papers evaluate his contribution to applied photographs and an extensive list of sources in chapter ethnographic research in the North and his impact bibliographies. on modern studies of Chukotka Indigenous people. It presents a The volume is a joint publication of two area research useful collection institutions, the History Lab of the North-Eastern of research, Interdisciplinary Research Institute (SVKNII) and the museum, and “Chukotka Heritage” Museum, both located in Anadyr, documentary as well as of a diverse group of outside contributors from resources for Moscow, St. Petersburg, Provideniya, Copenhagen, and ethnologists, Washington, DC. All volume authors—anthropoЭlтoа кgниiгаs –t сsб,ор ник научных статей, эссе и документальных материаhлоiв s– tпосвящена памяти пионера этнографическогоo rians, historians, linguists, educators, museum educatoиrзsуч,е нaияn Чуdко тки, второго начальника Анадырской округи Николаpя Лrьeвоsвиeчаr vation heritage professionals, including a strong contingГонeдnаттtи (o186f0 –1946). Мы видим свою задачу в том, чтобы вернутsь иpмяe Гоcндiаaттиl ists, and НАРОДНЫЕ ЗНАНИЯ, МУЗЕИ, area’s Indigenous researchers—have deep conneнcа Чtуприкiкотку, оценить его вклад в развитие КУЛЬТУРНОЕ НАСЛЕДИЕлаoднnыхs э тнографическNих зaнаtнiийv e heritage to Chukotka and are passionate about its history,и lсвoязcь с современными исследованиями на Севеaроl-В остоке России. cultures, and languages. workers, as well К 125-летию поездки Н. Л. Гондатти as the wider на Чукотский полуостров в 1895 году Gondatti should be justly credited as one of the ground of those pioneers who introduced ‘applied’ research in interested in Chukotka in the 1890s. He was a meticulous student history, cultures, ISBN 978-5-6044362-7-1 of Native life that he observed in the field and and contemporary documented from people’s memories and oral history. life of Chukotka During his 1895 trip, he covered almost 3,500 km Indigenous (1800 miles) traveling by dogsled, small boat, and people. steamer. The full story of his trip and its key scholarly outcomes are, for the first time, evaluated in the book’s WHALE SNOW. IÑUPIAT, CLIMATE CHANGE introduction by volume editors, Igor Krupnik and AND MULTISPECIES RESILIENCE IN ARCTIC Oksana Kolomiets. By selecting Gondatti as the ALASKA, BY CHIE SAKAKIBARA book’s main ‘hero,’ the authors cover the fields that were key to his professional interests and legacy. The University of Arizona Press, Tucson, 2020 Prime among them were Indigenous economies, traditional ecological knowledge, demography, and Reviewed by Igor Krupnik cultural history (seven papers in Part 1). Besides his administrative and research duties, Gondatti was also This moving book written by geographer-turned- a trained museum collector as well as a thoughtful and anthropologist Chie Sakakibara from Oberlin College committed documentor, as revealed in Part 2 (three and illustrated by Iñupiaq educator and artist Nasugraq papers) dedicated to contemporary Chukotka museum Rainey Hopson is a must-read addition to an extensive and collection resources and Gondattti’s personal set of studies on the North Alaskan Iñupiat people and archival records, including unpublished diaries from his their whaling culture. The main reason is that it is a sojourns in Chukotka in 1896–1897. different kind of book—personal, emotional, and very vibrant. It is filled with stories about individual men, The book also credits Gondatti as a pioneer of ‘local- women, and youth from North Alaska, with whom the scale’ (community-focused) research in aboriginal author built personal connections over years of her histories and local cultures in Chukotka. Part 3 (six Alaskan fieldwork. Though based partly on Sakakibara’s papers) explores histories of specific Chukotkan doctoral thesis she defended at the University of ПРИКЛАДНАЯ ЭТНОЛОГИЯ ЧУКОТКИ ASC Newsletter 71 Oklahoma (OU) in 2007, it morphs into a multi- The Acknowledgments section in the book runs for layered narrative that combines history, contemporary 11 pages and contains literally dozens of names, anthropology, environmental science, dance and music, including those who became Sakakibara’s kin in two but first and foremost portraits and voices of Iñupiaq extended families that adopted her and let her hunt families, whaling crews, elders, knowledge experts, with them over several seasons. Second, the book is and environmental activists, primarily from Utqiagvik rich with data and personal narratives from two North (Barrow) and Tikigaq (Point Hope). Alaskan Iñupiaq communities—Utqiagvik (Barrow) and Tikigaq (Point Hope), with their distinctive The book’s poetic title, Whale Snow came from histories and whaling traditions. Prior scholars usually an earlier children’s book with a similar title, focused on either the former (Robert Spencer, Uqsruagnaq|Whale Snow (2004) written by a whaler’s Barbara Bodenhorn, Ann Jensen) or the latter wife and the former president of the North Slope (Froelich Rainey, Tiger Burch, John Bockstoce, Borough School Board Debby Dahl Edwadson. Yet Tom Lowenstein), since it takes substantial effort to its constituent five chapters tell very serious stories get versed in community’s intricate social network and about various gain acceptance into it. challenges that the Iñupiat whalers Sakakibara’s new book weaves her many experiences and communities into a powerful narrative. Yes, rapid climate change is face in today’s happening in North Alaska, and it poses new challenges world: supporting to both the bowhead whales and the people who live their economy and with them by hunting them. Nonetheless, the Iñupiat lifestyle (“Into the face the future by being strong, confident, and proud Whaling Cycle”); of their culture and of their deep connections to the rapid climate Whale built by the generations of their ancestors. They change (”Our Sila survived epidemics, missionaries, traders, zealous Is Changing”); government teachers and administrators very much like self-government the Whale survived the assault of commercial whalers. and indigenous People’s strength is tied to their unbroken link to the empowerment sustainability of the Whale and, as Sakakibara argues, following together they are certain to endure. Alaska Native Land Settlement ART AS A MIRROR OF SCIENCE—THE Claims (ANCSA) MUSEUM CERNY INUIT COLLECTION, and protracted EDITED BY MARTHA AND PETER CERNY negotiations regarding Stämpflii AG. Bern. 2020 whaling catch quotas (“The New Harpoon”); threats to Indigenous cultural heritage and home landscapes Reviewed by Igor Krupnik (“Our Home Is Drowning”); and the fundamental, Museum Cerny (formerly Cerny Inuit Collection) in if intricate, role that whaling continues to play in Bern, Switzerland has long been on the ASC contact maintaining Iñupiat identity and cultural strength and travel map. It is a private museum of the Arctic, (“No Whale, No Music”). The book is illustrated with primarily of Inuit art, located in the heart of Europe over 40 contemporary photos of whale hunting, daily where one could hardly expect to find a first-class family life, festivities, and other public events taken collection of modern Inuit artworks by renown by the author and by Bill Hess, also by posters, pencil Indigenous artists from Canada and Greenland and drawings, and Iñupiaq school materials. now expanding into the Russian Arctic. We keep Two features make this book special and useful to crossing with its Arctic displays run by its cheerful scholars and popular readers alike. First, Sakakibara owner, Martha Cerny, at various Arctic meetings; in has a detailed and intimate knowledge of today’s North 2018, I had a chance to visit the museum in Bern and Alaskan whaling culture, which is uncommon for a enjoyed touring its public space and collections (ASC visiting anthropologist. She succeeded not only in Newsletter 2019). getting close to some very knowledgeable Elders (what In 2020, Museum Cerny, established by the collector- many anthropologists do), including powerful senior couple, Martha and Peter Cerny, published its second women and men, but she also built strong relations to illustrated 104-page thematic catalog. This volume several Iñupiat extended families and whaling crews. is focused on the ways Indigenous artists reflect on 72 ASC Newsletter their vision and knowledge of the Arctic lands, sea, of Bern reviews actions and decisions needed to animals, spirits, and rapid changes brought to the constructively address the new challenge of global region by the global warming. The catalog is filled Corona virus pandemic. This gamut of perspectives with beautiful photographs of art pieces from Arctic interspersed with beautiful photos of Indigenous Canada, Greenland, Alaska, and Northern Russia taken artworks produces a powerful message: the Arctic by photographer Severin Nowacki, but it also contains climate is changing, and so are people’s lives (and art), several short essays that help put Indigenous Arctic art but the Arctic will endure—not the least because of the into a more scholarly context reminiscent of several strength and creativity of its people. We salute Museum catalogs produced for ASC exhibits. Begun in the early Cerny on putting this beautiful and thought-provoking 1990s as a private collection of ca. 140 Inuit artworks catalog into the world. from the Eastern Canadian Arctic, the Cerny collection has grown to more than 1400 objects. As it became circumpolar, thus more diverse over the past years, it ARCTIC CULTURE AND CLIMATE, EDITED enabled Museum Cerny to produce several thematic BY AMBER LINCOLN, JAGO COOPER, AND displays and travelling exhibits and to bring Indigenous JAN PETER LAURENS LOOVERS art into the context of today’s global issues, such as Thames and Hudson and The British Museum, 2020 climate change, the future of the Arctic, and how art and science may jointly address it. Reviewed by William W. Fitzhugh Besides Martha and An important Peter Cerny, the exhibition at The catalog contains British Museum opened familiar names of in October, 2020, other partners and in the midst of the friends to the ASC. Coronavirus epidemic Michael Bronshtein and closed five months from the Russian later in February, Museum of Oriental 2021. For most of that Art in Moscow time the museum was explores in his essay closed to visitors, its how Indigenous halls silent except for art in Chukotka essential workers. The from ancient OBS exhibit, full of wonders (Old Bering Sea) from the BM and other and Punuk time to institutions, was in modern days reflects its own kind of deep people’s relations to the changing natural world. Yvon freeze, and schedules Csonka, who hosted a panel at the 18th Inuit Studies did not allow it to be extended to be available when the Conference we organized in D.C. in 2012, addresses doors may open again, hopefully this spring. rapid climate change impact on other critical challenges that Arctic people—and their art—face today. What we have instead is the exhibition catalog—and Glaciologist Konrad (Konnie) Steffen, who tragically a marvelous one at that! The editors and exhibition died last year on the Greenland icesheet, reviews producers, conservators, designers, and authors have scientific evidence of the dangerously accelerating created a beautiful book that will do well to record Arctic meltdown that threatens ecosystems, animals, the exhibition that few could see. Our ASC Newsletter and people’s sustenance in the North. Martin Schultz, production schedule does not permit the full review now the Museum Cerny curator and my partner on the this book deserves. It is full of wonderful images and study of the “Vega” expedition ethnographic collection fine texts by noted scholars. The broad synthesis casts in Stockholm (see ASC Newsletter 2020), considers a sweeping net centering the circumpolar environment, how Indigenous art serves as a window to Arctic the changing Arctic, and the cultures and peoples history and to the history of Arctic museum collecting who have lived there for more than 30,000 years. in particular. Theresie Tungilik, an artist from Rankin Subsistence, climate, archaeology, history, art, and Inlet, Nunavut, also art advisor to the Government of contemporary times and themes are woven into a Nunavut, offers an Inuit vision to how climate change panoramic view documented in essays and shorter is affecting Inuit livelihood and arts. Thomas Stocker, pieces by scholars and Indigenous experts. While we climate and environmental physicist at the University lament the circumstance requiring the exhibit, like us, ASC Newsletter 73 to ‘socially isolate’, you will enjoy a publication that objects (many from the private collection of Jeremy celebrates the Arctic, marking a time of momentous Pine) or bronze castings to rock art: the former from change. While looking back, around, and within, this elite craftsperson and latter produced by hunters and book also leads us toward a new and exciting Arctic herders and have suffered ravages of the elements that Future. make interpretation of their form somewhat subjective. Bellezza is not insensitive to issues of looting, TIBETAN SILVER: GOLD AND BRONZE trafficking, private collecting, and museum acquisition OBJECTS AND THE AESTHETICS OF that attend his objects. He draws on a wide variety of ANIMALS IN THE ERA BEFORE EMPIRE, BY literature to support his thesis that pre-empire Tibet was JOHN VINCENT BELLEZZA not a geographically isolated cultural entity. Tibetan history and culture has always been open to trade and Bar publishing, 169 pp., 2020 external connections, receptive to new styles, materials, inventions, especially so during its pre-empire history. Reviewed by William W. Fitzhugh His voluminous, highly documented, referenced, and foot-noted study shows Earlier this year I Tibet participated in asked John Bellezza and in some cases to write a short piece probably influenced, on his historical and the cultural life of archaeological work northern neighbors. But in the Upper Tibetan the stronger influence Plateau. He began with was from northern- the obvious question: derived EAS at least “Why the topic of Tibet until the middle of the in a newsletter devoted Iron Age when Tibetan to Arctic studies?” insularity began, perhaps Flip back a few pages hastened by herding and you can read his decline and cooling answer. His question climate. It is reasonable reminded me of one that assimilation of I asked twenty years northern ideas not ago about Mongolia cultural or demographic and the Arctic after replacement dominated culture change in the BCE era. first seeing Mongolia’s Bronze Age deer stones. My Of particular interest to me was the existence of animal- answer became the first chapter in a book (Fitzhugh themed trapezoidal openwork bronze plaques dating ca. et al. 2005). Mongolia’s Bronze Age deer stones 5th century BCE, reminiscent of shield-like ornaments and Early Eskimo art display similar beliefs and on Mongolian deer stones. This volume represents a iconography about spirit transformation also found major step forward in studies of EAS art and its regional in Eurasian Animal Style (EAS) art of roughly the expression in Inner Asia and northern China. same or slightly later period: masking, multi-iconic forms, spirit-transformation, predator-prey symbolism, and shamanic ritual. Tibet’s links with Mongolia and BESTING THE BEST: WARRIORS AND northern Eurasia are not based just on geography and WARFARE IN THE CULTURAL AND climate; they are also linked by Bronze Age ties to RELIGIOUS TRADITIONS OF TIBET, BY EAS art and burial ritual. Like Bellezza’s other books, JOHN VINCENT BELLEZZA Tibetan Silver and Besting are packed with literary, linguistic, historical, and philosophical discussion. I Lumbini International Research Institute, Lumbini confine my comments to parts of each dealing with 2020 northern connections. Reviewed by William W. Fitzhugh Tibetan Silver documents hundreds of animal figures Whereas Tibetan Silver by John Bellezza investigates seen in silver and gold objects (bowls, plaques, votive Tibetan culture and belief through the lens of animal art, figures, and others) and in rock art. One day perhaps Besting the Best reconstructs Tibetan history from the archaeological finds will allow inclusion of data from pragmatics of politics and power, drawing on ancient Tibetan perishables from dry caves or permafrost. traditions, religious literature, performance art, martial Even so, it is difficult to move from gold and silver tradition, and material culture. Archaeological and rock 74 ASC Newsletter art evidence is used in the second half of the book to BOOKS ON NORTHEAST GREENLAND illustrate weapons, technology, and martial imagery in vessels and rock art. Disquisition on theories of war Reviewed by William Fitzhugh and archaeological seriation provide anthropological context for a work that is deeply invested in knowledge THE WAR IN NORTH-EAST GREENLAND, BY of Tibetan, Lamaist, and Buddhist thought, mythology, JENS ERIK SCHULTZ. 103 p. Xsirius Books. 2020. ritual, and literature. Too little is known of Tibetan Rønde, Denmark. ISBN 978-87-994555-3-9. archaeology (other than Aldenderfer research) to gain KONG OSCAR FJORD: PÄ PODAGELSE I much much understanding yet of northern connections NORDØSTGRØNLAND / DISCOVERING other than EAS art. However, during the Bronze and NORTH-EAST GREENLAND, by Peter Schmidt Early Iron Age a megalithic complex called the ‘Long Mikkelsen. 151 p. Xsirius Books. 2020. Rønde, Stone Grid’ necropolis appears, known only from Denmark. In Danish and English. ISBN 978-87- surface features and rare isolated finds and 14C dates. 994555-5-3. www.xsirius.dk Its tall, square-walled tombs are flanked to the east with parallel lines of hundreds of unmarked vertical slabs. During a memorable These structures bear no specific resemblance to the cruise around Greenland mound burial traditions of Inner Asia and Xinjiang but several years ago I had do remind one of 7th-8th century Turkic bal-bal memorial the pleasure of meeting structures with square boxes, human figures, and lines of Peter Mikkelsen and stone slabs. If ritual sites display few signs of northern learning about his connection, this is not the case with military hardware experience as a member like horse gear, bows, arrows, and spears—all similar of the Danish North- to Inner Asian forms. The other northern connection East Greenland Sirius is found in rock art, for which Bellezza provides a Sledge Patrol in 1977- fine sampling showing weapons, dress (including 79. Before reading ‘mushroom’ headdress figures and bi-triangular bodies), Schultz’ The War in chariots, combat scenes, and the central role of horses. North-East Greenland I Most of these images date to the Bronze and Iron Age. was familiar only with Besting the Best is a cornucopia of knowledge and 20th century events from together with its companion volume provide readers with the 2005 biography of an incomparable treasury of knowledge about a place Willie Knutsen, Arctic Sun on My Path: The True Story still largely unknown to archaeology. of America's Last Great Polar Explorer, written by his son, Will C . Knutsen, describing Willie’s attack on AN EXPLORATION OF PREHISTORIC German weather stations by US Navy-recruited Boston ONTOLOGIES IN THE BERING STRAIT fishermen. Unlike Knutsen’s American vantage point, REGION, BY FENG QU Schultz describes the Germans’ repeated attempts— with some success—to install meteorological stations Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2021. 229 pp. documented in German and American war archives for 1942-44. The main character in the story is Hermann Previewed by William W. Ritter, whose pacifist leanings caused him to make a Fitzhugh futile attempt to avoid WWII by becoming a fur trapper This book is a revision in Svalbard and Northeast Greenland. Nevertheless, he of the author’s PhD ended up being put in charge the German ‘invasion’ of thesis at the University East Greenland in 1943. The conflict between Ritter’s of Alaska investigating personal views and his military duties becomes a major the arts, symbolism, and theme in the story of how war was conducted by ‘good’ underlying religious and ‘bad’ individuals in a vast, remote, winterized land. and ritual frameworks Shultz’ personal knowledge of Northeast Greenland of Bering Strait Eskimo and his acquaintance with key players adds depth to cultures of the past the account. The book has some issues with English 2000 years, drawing translation and storyline but is packed full of photos, on archaeological and illustrations of war records, letters, and maps. As far we ethnographic data, and can tell, there is no connection between the Eli Knutsen anthropological and who was murdered by one of the German Nazis and social science theory. Available later in 2021. the American Willie Knutsen who helped destroy the ASC Newsletter 75 Germans’ first attempt to establish a weather station in TRANSITIONS southeast Greenland, other than their same (common) last names. DR. STANISLAV CHLÁDEK (1937–2020): A BRIGHT-EYED MARINER By Stephen Loring “Believe me, my young friend, there is nothing— absolutely nothing—half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats.” Water Rat’s sage advice to Mole in Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in The Willows plays as a leitmotif of sorts for those of us in collections management catering Kong Oscar Fjord is a very different production whose over the years to the large format, coffee-table format introduces Northeast whims and inquiries Greenland through Mikkelsen’s personal travel, of an eccentric—but photographs, maps, and memories. Part diary, part passionately inspired— gazetteer, and part historical atlas, the book is based on cadre of scholars, Mikkelsen’s three years on the Sirius Sledge Patrol and students, researchers, subsequent visits over forty years. The story unrolls technicians, artisans, paddlers, and river rats drawn to from place to place, documenting spectacular vistas, the Museum by the legacy of ancient canoes, umiaks, landforms, historical sites, and modern settlements. and kayaks sequestered in dark halls in defiance of One of my favorite mini-chapters, “Nyhavn,” includes the passage of time. I remember my own youthful Mikkelsen’s 2007 photo of “Washburn House,” which wanderings in the attic of the Natural History Museum (NMNH), stumbling upon the “boat room” where birch- is seen strapped to the ground by heavy steel cables to bark canoes and brittle Alaskan kayaks lounged in dust avoid being blown away in violent storms. This house and obscurity. The dimly lit place had about it the air is where the American geologist A. Lincoln Washburn of an undiscovered tomb, no doubt enhanced by the lived with his family studying “floating soil” and presence of a huge linen-wrapped mummy of an ancient permafrost while on the Boyd Expedition of 1955 (see Egyptian bull that shared the attic eyrie. I remember it Morse-Washburn story in this NL). The book includes as a place that defied the logic of time and place and a brief history of Northeast Greenland, the geography destiny, that of all their brethren—the thousands and of the King Oscar Fjord region, photo-essays on fjord thousands of their predecessors and kin—that these locations, with special attention to historical sites like old few watercraft should survive the depredations of Norwegian trapper huts of the 1920-30s, and the Sirius neglect, the destruction of rapids, ice and storms—was patrols cabins of the 1950s. This book is a photo-journal something quite remarkable. Alas (maybe but not really) complement to Mikkelsen’s more scholarly works on the otherworldly ambiance of the old “boat room” is Northeast Greenland: One Thousand Days with Sirius no more. With renovations to the NMNH preceding the (2005) and North-East Greenland 1908-60: The Trapper construction of the Ocean Hall, and with the building of Era (2008). the Museum Support Center, the old museum storage places in the attic have been emptied and the boat collection relocated to a state of the art conservation facility, each boat with its own custom-crafted aluminum cradle and brace. Museum collection repositories attract all types of researchers, but boat people are a different sort all together. They have an attention to form and function that goes far beyond the measurements they take with calipers, tapes and cameras. Their thoughts seem attentive to different matters—resiliency, buoyancy, maneuverability, stability—to a reality far removed 76 ASC Newsletter from the pages of academic journals and books, they in his 2016 publication Po Stopách Lovců Velryb v sense with a weather eye. Severním Pacifiku (In the footsteps of whalers in the North Pacific), published by Pavel Mervart: Červený No one better epitomized this eccentric breed, nor Kostelec, Czech Republic, 2016), a stunningly beautiful brought a more finely honed appreciation of the book, sadly, for most of our readers only available in museum’s Aleutian collections, bidarkas included, than Czech. The volume revives discussions of Aleutian Dr. Stanislav Chládek, a singularly well informed, hunting prowess, mortuary practices, and shamanistic audacious, and indominable sea-kayaker who passed beliefs that are deeply informed by Chládek’s immersive away at his home in Colorado this past November. experiences in and about the ‘birthplace of winds’. He was 83. A native of Czechoslovakia, Dr. Chládek conducted biochemical research at the Czechoslovak I should mention as a quick aside that Stan’s Academy of Science prior to moving to the United archaeological proclivities in extreme environments States in 1969 as a professor at Texas A&M University, were not limited to northern seas. Working in and later as a researcher and a professor at the Michigan close association with North and Central American Cancer Foundation and Wayne State University. archaeologists, Stan visited and photographed many of the ancient Mayan ritual caves in Mexico, Guatemala, A born adventurer and kayak enthusiast, Chládek was and Belize which are documented in his Exploring an accomplished whitewater racer, and with his wife Maya Ritual Caves: Dark Secrets from the Maya Ema competed as part of the Czechoslovak National Underworld (AltaMira Press, 2011). team. (One of their daughters—Dana—won the bronze medal in whitewater slalom in the 1992 Barcelona Stan was such a delight to talk with (true, exasperating Olympics and the silver medal at the 1996 Atlanta some times) but his was a wonderful heart filled with Games.) As much a force of nature as a man, Chládek’s unrestrained enthusiasm. I am sure Water Rat would enthusiasm for sea-kayaking took on ever increasing agree. I find as we grow old(er) that for many of challenges with audacio-fearless trips to the North Sea, us life's dreams are exchanged for memories; Stan Antarctica, and the South Shetland Islands. In 1999 he dreamed bigger than most, as are our memories of him. and a companion became the first to circumnavigate His wife Ema is fond of saying that life with him was Easter Island in the South Pacific in kayaks. not always easy, but it was never boring. Beginning about twenty years ago, I along with my I thank Ema Chládek for assistance with biographical Anthropology Department colleagues Bruno Frohlich details. and Dave Hunt, began to entertain increasingly longer and more detailed telephone inquiries from Stan about all aspects of Aleutian (Unangan) history, culture, and REMEMBERING SELMA HUXLEY archaeology. These conversations led to subsequent BARKHAM (1927–2020) visits to the museum so that he could research and By Oriana and Serena Barkham photograph the museum’s singularly impressive Aleutian collections. Stan knew intuitively that the Published in People, 18 Jun, 2020 (edited and reprinted ancient Aleut were without doubt the most skillful with permission) and intrepid small boat watermen the world had ever known, as revealed by the practical aspects of their Selma Huxley Barkham material culture–tools and clothing, biadarkas and (March 8, 1927–May 3, paddles, as well as the sacred masks and mummies. 2020) was a historian and geographer of Stan’s interest in the Aleutian collections was international standing singularly informed by a series of boldaudacious sea- in the fields of Basque kayak expeditions he conducted to the eastern and and Canadian maritime central portion of the archipelago, including a trip to history. the Islands of the Four Mountains where he was able to visit and document the current conditions of some of The yellow tent was up the burial caves that had been previously collected— and straining on its guy some would say looted—in 1936 by the Smithsonian’s ropes in the Labrador infamous “bone doctor,” Aleš Hrdlička. wind. The black flies were viciously biting. Rain poured down. They were Stan’s infatuation with the Aleutians, his explorations cold and soaked to the bone. But Selma Huxley in museum archives and collections, as well as the Barkham, with her two youngest children in tow, was encapsulation of his several kayak expeditions as told ecstatically happy. She had found what she was looking ASC Newsletter 77 for: eroded pieces of red roofing tiles scattered on the toponymy, etc. In People magazine, in 1973, she wrote, shores, in vegetable patches and in gardens. “Mercantile community in inland Burgos.” v. 42(2): 106-113; in 1977, “First will and testament on the The locals of Red Bay, Labrador, called the red tile ‘red Labrador coast.” v. 49(9): 574-581. rock’, and some, as children, had used it to write on school slates. But Selma knew that the tiles had been The year after Selma’s 1977 excursion to Labrador, brought in ships across the Atlantic from the Basque Parks Canada sent a team of underwater archaeologists Country in the sixteenth century. On the way over to to look at the places where she found ships had sunk Terranova, the New Found Land, the tiles were used as in Chateau Bay, Red Bay, and other locations. Her ballast. On the return journey, the ships’ hulls were filled research was so exact that a diver found one of the with barrels of whale oil, and sometimes with dried or wrecks the first day of diving in Red Bay. green salted cod. The tiles were left in Terranova where they were used to construct roofs over shelters and the Selma’s research was groundbreaking in many ways. ovens where whalers rendered blubber into whale oil. She received the gold medal from the Royal Canadian Geographical Society (1980), the first woman to Selma’s excursion to Labrador in the summer of receive this medal. Then followed the Order of 1977, funded by the Royal Canadian Geographical Canada (1981), the Lagun Onari (2014) from the Society, to identify Basque whaling sites in the 1500s Basque Government, the Order of Newfoundland and and 1600s, was a great success. In each port she had Labrador (2015), various honorary doctorates, and so painstakingly identified as having been used by the International Prize of the Sociedad Geográfica the Basques, she had found tiles. Years of interest, Española (2018), among other honors, for her meticulous research, and grueling hours in archives exceptional work, which was described as ‘a classic had paid off. Selma had been told that most archives piece of historical-geographical research’. along the Spanish Basque coast had been burnt during th th the Napoleonic wars, but she soon discovered that for While the 16 and 17 centuries became alive for 400 years, legajos (books of notarial documents) from Selma because of her research, the present was also towns across the province of Gipuzkoa, had lain in equally interesting to her. She started exchanges of the attics of the 1543 University of Oñati. Don José Basques with Newfoundlanders, of Basques and María Aguirrebalzátegui, one of the village priests, Mi’kmaq, and groups of them began visiting each had rescued many over the years, filling three huge other’s countries. She worked up and down the coast university rooms with legajos. Most of the documents of Labrador and Newfoundland with locals talking th had to do with local problems, but a few referred to The about their villages’ links with the Basques, about 16 New Found Land, ‘Terra Nova’. When she presented century wills written on their shores, about contact her work to the Public Archives she was given between Basques and Inuit and Montagnais, and other contracts to collect and microfilm documents referring First Nations, about shipwrecks. She helped them put to Canada in archives throughout the Iberian Peninsula. up historical plaques in their villages. She organized conferences for eleven years on the Northern Peninsula The information she gathered provided Selma with of Newfoundland, bringing in experts in different knowledge on individuals, families, homes, movements, fields to talk about local history, ecology, geology and ships, voyages, and towns along the Spanish Basque cartography. She keenly felt her historical research coast in the 16th and early 17th centuries. In parish could help the local economy—and it has. Historical records, Selma found records of births, deaths, marriages tourism now brings many visitors to Newfoundland and baptisms. In insurance policies in Burgos, she and Labrador because of her work. Red Bay is now a found insurances of ships and their voyages; in notarial UNESCO World Heritage Site. archives, she found contracts, wills (some written in ‘Terra nova’), powers of attorney, loans, donations, Selma Huxley Barkham’s work has been used by policies, proceedings, agreements. In lengthy lawsuits archivists, historians, cartographers, topographers, anthropologists, archaeologists, conservators, in other archives, she learned of disagreements between museographers, linguists, and more. Albaola is re- crew members, claims made by widows of fishermen building the San Juan, which she located by piecing who had died in ‘Terra Nova’, and ships that had sunk together information from documents from three on the other side of the Atlantic. different archives, and by working in different countries Selma began to write articles on her discoveries. Given on early maps to find where the port of Buttus was, and the breadth of her research, she wrote on various then by looking at depths and prevailing winds to find topics: women’s lives in the 16th century, merchants, where it had sunk. Selma’s work, her 50 publications trade routes, corsair activity, early Labrador ports, in Spanish, English, French and Portuguese, her many lectures, and her generous sharing of her research, has 78 ASC Newsletter led to a wide variety of further work. Unfortunately, speech and song, and the astonishing vocabulary of she has not always been duly credited. Tzotzil-speaking people. There are precise words for the sound of a tortilla when it is flipped from its first Selma’s work is seminal. As the citation for the cooked side to the other, and the various sounds of corn gold medal of the Canadian Geographical Society farts of dogs. And there are prayers and chants that states: ‘This medal is an occasional award intended bridge the Spanish peasant Christianity imposed on to recognize a particular achievement in the field of Mayans starting with “El Encuentro”, back to classic geography, also to recognize a significant national Mayan cosmology and rituals. Tzotzil is the language or international event. In this case, the Society felt of Tzotzil Venik, “the People of the Bat”. To this day, Barkham deserved this recognition on both counts. the limestone landscape is dotted with sacred caves. MEMORIES OF CHIAPAS AND ROBERT M. A memorial for Bob Laughlin, Chiapas-style, would LAUGHLIN (1934–2020) involve pine needles scattered on the floor, candles, lots of copal incense smoke. In Tzotzil, the congealed By John Cloud resins of plants in the genus Bursera, closely related to incense plants in the Old World in the genus Boswellia; I'm a relatively new frankincense and myrrh, is called, amongst other names, Research Collaborator in pom riosh which translates as “god's honey”. Plus, there Anthropology at NMNH, would be lots of “posh”, bootleg rum from up in the hills, but I knew Bob and but all the distilleries in Ivy City can suffice for that. Mimi Laughlin since the early 1970s, when I first In Tzotzil, there's no “hello” or “goodbye”. When one lived in the highlands of leaves, you say “Ta shi bat” which means “Now I’m central Chiapas, “sikil going”. The response: “Batan!” “Then go!” And so, osil” in Tzotzil Mayan, Bob Laughlin: Batan! You have earned your rest. “cold country”. Everyone converged in the original BYRON MALLOTT (1944–2021) capital of Chiapas, now called San Cristobal By Mike Sfraga de Las Casas. San Cristobal, “Saint Christopher,” was and is the patron saint of travelers, and everybody in As Alaska emerges from Chiapas travels—for work, for love, to see the world, or another long, snowy, at least Mexico City, whatever. The “de Las Casas” part yet aurora-filled Winter, references Fray Bartolome de Las Casas, who was a into the sights and major Spanish defender of the Indigenous people in the sounds of spring, it is early Spanish Empire. Even though the city is over half a with sadness that I write millennium old, in Tzotzil, the bowl-like valley the city to share the news of a sits within is still called “Jobel”, the genus-level name leader, friend, mentor, for tall perennial grasses in the genus Muhlenbergia. It and former Lieutenant was and is the best grass for thatching roofs. Governor of the State of Alaska, Byron Mallott. Bob Laughlin (1934–2020) became a “Z”, a The scholars, staff, and functioning member of the Zinacantecos, one of the fellows of the Polar Tzotzil peoples of the highlands. Zinacanteco men wear Institute send their deepest condolences to Byron's wife, cotton tunics (pok’ ku’u’ul) and women wear cotton Toni, their five children, ten grandchildren, and two shawls (pok’ mocebal) all woven by the women on great-grandchildren. backstrap looms, using very thin stripes of white and red mercerized cotton thread, rendering the cloth bright Byron was born and raised in the small Southeast pink. Zinacanteco men wear broad hats with cascades Alaska village of Yakutat during World War II, where of brightly colored ribbons, “the flowers of the hat”. On his early days were shaped by the peaks and glaciers of trails in the mountains, even in fog and rain, one can the St. Elias Range, and expansive waters of the Gulf of spot Zinacatecos from hundreds of yards away. Alaska. In 1965, at the age of 22, he was elected Mayor of his hometown. Twenty-nine years later, in 1994, he Laughlin’s great work was his Great Tzotzil Dictionary was elected Mayor of Juneau, Alaska's capital city. His of San Lorenzo Zinacantan (https://repository.si.edu/ commitment to the people of Alaska went beyond twice handle/10088/1360). It was, and remains, a remarkable serving as Mayor and included a host of important and achievement, evoking the sheer poetry of Mayan influential roles such as aide to U.S. Senator Mike Gravel ASC Newsletter 79 (D-AK) on the path-breaking Alaska Native Claims DALE GERARD KENNEDY 1957–2017 Settlement Act, director of the Rural Alaska Community Action Program, and Alaska's first commissioner for the By William W. Fitzhugh and Saltwire.com Department of Community and Regional Affairs. Dale Kennedy, 60, a Indeed, Byron's service to the state knew no bounds. He vocational archaeologist and held positions as president and chief executive officer historian of northwestern of First Alaskans Institute, executive director and then- Newfoundland, Canada chairman of the Alaska Permanent Fund Corporation, passed away July 28th, president, chairman, and chief executive officer of 2017, in St. Anthony, Sealaska Corporation, president of the Alaska Federation Newfoundland. In addition of Natives (one of the most consequential Indigenous to being a gifted musician, peoples' organizations in the world), founding director of he spent years documenting the Alaska Commercial Fisheries and Agriculture Bank, the history of his community. and long-term director of the Alaska Air Group. His interest in local archaeology led him to co- Byron served the KwaashKiKwaan clan of the found the Bird Cove-Plum Raven tribe of Yakutat, as well as Indigenous peoples Point Archaeology Project throughout Alaska, the Arctic, and beyond by which for many years was simultaneously leading in two worlds; one committed one of the most successful to his people and traditional culture, and the other locally-run, community- advancing governance and social justice policies and based archaeological programs in Newfoundland. I got institutions. His unmatched gift of storytelling and to know Dale when he asked me to confirm the identity oratory elevated every issue on which he chose to place of an unusual Maritime Archaic (MA) site he had a spotlight. In 2014, while running as a Democratic found deep in the forest east of Plum Point. Previously, candidate for Governor, Byron partnered with MA sites had always been found near the shore, in Republican Gubernatorial candidate Bill Walker to situations like Port au Choix. form the “Unity Ticket,” and he was elected Lieutenant Governor of Alaska. But here was a settlement site with diagnostic Maritime Archaic chipped and ground stone tools on an old Beyond the elected offices, board appointments, and raised beach far from the shore. Dale assembled a executive positions, he was a man who welcomed all mixed team local and professional archaeologists and with open arms and a smile—if you offered an open investigated this and several Dorset sites at Bird Cove. mind and open heart. His commitment to Indigenous He created a local history and archaeology museum peoples everywhere is well known, celebrated, and and with Selma Barkham hosted an annual conference irreplaceable. Those who worked with Byron remember for several years that attracted a large and boisterous his passion was fueled by a deep sense of justice and clientele of locals, professionals, and bureaucrats. For injustice, and a passion for Indigenous culture and rights. his outstanding community efforts and archaeological His commitment to the people of Alaska and the Arctic work, he was awarded the James Pendergast Award, were inexhaustible; it's who he was and why many of us the highest honor an avocational archaeologist can were drawn to him, learned from him, and will miss him. receive in Canada. Byron and I shared a number of interests including a passion and admiration for ancient Polynesian THE S. A. MORSE DIARIES: RECOLLECTING navigators. He would always greet me with a bear hug LINCOLN WASHBURN and then a handshake, in that order. And we departed By Stearns A. Morse company with the same hug and handshake. And in a nod to those Polynesian navigators we so admired, we In August 2020 I received a remarkable letter from would say—almost in unison—“sail on” and go our Nuna (Washburn) MacDonald in upstate New York, separate ways. enclosing part of an old letter from me to her mother Tahoe Washburn, widow of the Polar scientist Lincoln Byron was known to his people as Dux̱ da neik, K'oo Washburn, with a hand-written response to me from ta' in Tlingit: “a person who would lead us into the her just after his death, trailing off at the end and never future.” He has departed this earth but left a legacy of sent. It had to do with a photo of their daughter Nuna knowledge, compassion, leadership, mentorship, bear and me on skis in the Ford Sayre Ski Program in hugs, handshakes, and smiles. He has certainly led us Hanover not far from the Washburn home. This surprise into the future... Sail on, Byron. brought forth a flood of remote connections about 80 ASC Newsletter our scientific and personal careers that were mostly I traded folk songs with guitars. There also were Don divergent but that ended up in rejoiced contact. What Foote and eventually Tony Williamson. Don married I did not know at the time of the ski program was that Berit Arnestad, who on learning I was about to begin their father, Linc, had been a member of the Dartmouth a NSF-supported study of the Kiglapait Layered Ski Team, a major in geology (as was I), and member Intrusion in Labrador, asked my wife, Dorothy, are you of the 1936 Olympic Ski Team, performing in Slalom going too? And to my horror she replied “I don’t know. and other events in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany. I haven’t been asked.” She was then asked and said “yes,” and we switched from tents to a house and began The ski program was the second effort I was greeted raising daughters in the wilds of Labrador. with on return from the Army. (I had been at language school in Oberammergow and worked and lived Tony Williamson worked on McGill’s winter climate bilingually to some degree.) station in western Labrador, spent a winter in Nain, Labrador learning the Inuk language and hunting- When I returned to Hanover the Professor of fishing subsistence with the help of the Moravian German Language minister, my close friend and Literature, Herr Fred Grubb, and went Stephan Schlossmacher, west to help Don Foote, encountered my Berit, Les Viereck, father downtown, and and many others shoot pronounced “Tony is back! down the proposed He speaks Bavarian!”). making of an unwanted The first was to fly to harbor in northwest Labrador to measure the Alaska with nuclear temperatures in the two bombs. Tony returned to major Labrador fjords— Newfoundland-Labrador Hebron Fjord and Nain for a career in enabling Bay—that were under distant groups of native study by the Blue Dolphin people communicate their Labrador Expeditions. desires and needs and The Project directors, Cdr. became a rare, dear part David Nutt and Larry Lincoln and Tahoe Washburn in Yellowknife in 1936. of our family (his brother Coachman, had taught me Photo from Nuna MacDonald Jed Williamson married how to do the sampling Dorothy’s sister Perry. in previous summers in Tony, like Fred and Don, Labrador. The trip, supported by the Office of Naval died young, leaving great holes in our lives.) Research, was successful and I guess qualified me to be an oceanographer. Like Tahoe and Link Washburn, Dorothy and I raised children who knew the Arctic. A middle daughter has Instead I became an igneous petrologist, one who paddled seven of the far north Canadian rivers (and the studies old rocks crystallized from the molten Wild Ammonoosuc below our family’s farm). Long condition–and in my case, relatively deep in the Earth before that, with NSF help we built a 51-foot research and Moon. Linc Washburn, however, practiced his vessel with greenheart sheathing for work in ice. geology as a geomorphologist, with special interest Dorothy cooked and steered, called out the ice ahead, in Arctic regions and ice. His first encounter with that and took care of the daughters for several summers. science was in the remote fjords of East Greenland We used this ship, named Pitsiulak, in Labrador for ten in the Boyd Expedition. With other Americans and years and then gave it to the Smithsonian Institution Canadians, Link founded the binational Arctic Institute for their Arctic archaeology studies under William of North America, based in Montreal and became Fitzhugh. Bill took the ship to Baffin Island where for its first full-time Director. Out of this came the new several summers our youngest daughter Sophie served journal Arctic. It was in that magazine years later that I as Operations Officer. published my obituary of David Clark Nutt, who with his wife Barbara made us part of their family and our Sophie eventually became Master of the famous strong connection to Labrador. Arctic and Cape Verde Island schooner Ernestina- Morrissey, the historic State Ship of Massachusetts, The second AINA Director was Max Dunbar. While I presently being rebuilt in Boothbay, Maine. This is was doing my graduate work at McGill, we frequently the ship that took young David Nutt for four seasons had Friday beer and music at the Institute, and Max and with Captain Bob Bartlett in the Far North. That ASC Newsletter 81 experience qualified him to be a navy officer during research was published in 1958 in Arctic. That same WWII. He became the youngest Commander, retired year he published “An experimental study of strength from active service, bought the schooner Blue Dolphin, of young sea ice” in EOS, the Transactions of the and sailed it to Labrador for many seasons studying American Geophysical Union, with his second author oceanography. When the Blue Dolphin encountered big Don L. Anderson. In due course I became an officer glacier ice off Labrador and dropped pieces into water, of the American Geophysical Union, at a time when it sizzled. David Nutt told the polymath biologist Pete Don Anderson of Caltech was AGU President. We were Scholander that the ice was getting rid of its captured good friends for a long time. He was a seismologist and atmosphere. Pete then measured it for CO2 and showed wrote The Theory of the Earth and won seven medals. that the Greenland ice retained a climate record many thousands of years old. That’s where it started, offshore Linc kept up research in Greenland, Canada, and Labrador! Antarctica while I began teaching petrology and mineralogy at Franklin and Marshall College in As young newlyweds Dorothy and I moved from Pennsylvania. The Department was first-class and Montreal to Hanover greatly supportive; the Center, New Hampshire, Chair, John Moss and his while I finished my wife Margey, rented us Ph.D. thesis. To make a house to live in on their ends meet, I became a farm, and in due course member once again of we built a TechBuilt the U.S. Army Corps of house on another corner Engineers charged with of their farm. While purchasing an X-ray we were at our college, diffractometer suitable Linc and Tahoe moved for work at 40 degrees to the University of below zero, centigrade. Washington and built The institution that hired a model Quaternary me was the Cold Regions Research Center where Research and Engineering many groups of faculty Laboratory (CRREL) could work together. that gained its name Lincoln and Tahoe in Resolute, with summer ice in the 1980s. While there, Linc also from SIPRI (Snow, Ice Photo from Nuna MacDonald established another new & Permafrost Research journal, Quaternary Institute) when it moved from Illinois to Hanover. Research. He published his own research for 60 years, The whole deal was instigated by Linc Washburn and including a Geological Society of America Memoir many others, including David Nutt, John Sloan Dickey 22, and another, Memoir 90. My own GSA Memoir, (Dartmouth’s President) and the Canadian Arctic published eight years after my Ph.D. research on the professor, Trevor Lloyd. Labrador Kiglapait Intrusion, was number 112 (1969). Unfortunately, the lab space designated for that X-ray In due course I became increasingly involved in annual instrument burned up during construction. Instead meetings of the AGU and, to a lesser extent, the GSA. of working at the Laboratory, my boss sent me to At their annual receptions I eventually found many study and make experiments at Dartmouth. There I old friends, including Linc and Tahoe Washburn. Well, was welcomed to use the instruments in the Geology never was there such a pleasant re-connection. Hence Department. With the skills of the Physics Machine in the end there came the final correspondence that only Shop (a place of wonder and delight) we built a cold reached us in the dry August 2020 of Swiftwater, New housing for the Geology X-ray diffractometer, placed Hampshire, in the form of a letter from their daughter a glass slide at liquid-nitrogen temperature with a coat Nuna, which spurred this small memoir. Her memories of water, put it into the diffractometer, and made a enrich ours and extend the Linc Link. conventional X-ray diffraction pattern. Postscript: Glaciologist and Polar scientist Lincoln A pleasure of being in the ice business at that time Washburn is particularly notable for working in Arctic was acquaintance with Wilford F. Weeks, a practical winters and summers with the help of his remarkable student of ice at CRREL and adjunct professor at wife, Tahoe. In the above I have generally spelled his Dartmouth Earth Sciences. Among other things, he common name as ‘Linc’, which is what his wife Tahoe had spent parts of three winters in Hopedale, Labrador wrote in later correspondence. But Tahoe also wrote a to determine the physical properties of sea ice. This wonderful book about their early lives in Arctic Canada 82 ASC Newsletter 2020 ASC STAFF PUBLICATIONS Fitzhugh, William W. 2020 Visualization and Spatial Analysis of Archaeological Landscape Ritual in the Mongolian Altai. In: Proceedings of the 13th Annual Mongolian Studies Conference, edited by Saruul- Erdene Myagmar and W. Fitzhugh, pp. 13–21. Arlington, Va: Mongolian Cultural Center. (by D. G. Cole and W. Fitzhugh) 2020 Kettle Head and the Inuit of Grand Isle: Basques, Boulder Pits, and Excavations on the Quebec Lower North Shore. Provincial Archaeology Office 2019 Annual Review, Resolute, 1990s. Photo from Nuna MacDonald Government of Newfoundland and Labrador, pp. 61–70. St. John’s.(W. Fitzhugh, M. Mlyniec, I. Chechushkov, and B. Loewen) in the 1930s to 1941, Under Polaris: an Arctic Quest 2020 The Gateways Project 2019: Excavations at (1999, University of Washington Press), in which she Hart Chalet, Grand Isle, and Bonne Esperance. writes: “This book is dedicated to my husband, Link, in 201 pp. Arctic Studies Center, National Museum gratitude for sixty-three marvelous years, including our of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution. numerous travels in the lands of my childhood dreams; Washington DC. (W. Fitzhugh with contributions and also to all our beloved friends of the North.” by I. Chechushkov, M. Mlyniec, and A. Piegols) In this book she wrote his name ‘Link’ throughout. Well, whether ‘Linc’ or ‘Link’, it’s all the same, and a 2020 Bark and Skin Boats of Northern Eurasia. wonderful man. 276 pp. Smithsonian Books. Washington DC. (by H. Luukkanen and W. Fitzhugh; by E. [Editor’s note: I too have a Linc-link, in my case, Anichtchenko) through my father’s association with him as a Dartmouth ’35 classmate. I met Linc first as a 13- 2020 Horse Sacrifice and Butchery in Bronze Age year old visitor to their Hanover home with my father. Mongolia. Journal of Archaeological Science: I reconnected when planning my Labrador research Reports 31. 102313. (by W. Taylor, M. Fantoni, C. and kept in touch with him over the years. One time Marchina, S. Lepetz, J. Bayarsaikhan, J-L. Houle. I visited his home after he had moved to Yale and V. Pham, and W. Fitzhugh) found him boning up—with some frustration—on new computational methods that were creeping into 2020 Early Pastoral Economies and Herding geology. And there’s more. My son Benjamin Fitzhugh Transitions in Eastern Eurasia. Nature Scientific joined the University of Washington and, like Linc, Reports, 10:1001. (W. T. T. Taylor, W. Fitzhugh, became director of its Quaternary Research Center. and 28 others) For more on “Link” see his obituary in Arctic: https:// journalhosting.ucalgary.ca/index.php/arctic/article/ 2020 Treasures from the Earth: Echoes of the Past. view/63315/47252. This report is adapted from an In Yua: Spirit of the Arctic. Highlights from the original publication in the Littleton Courier, NH Oct- Thomas G. Fowler Collection, by Hillary Olcott, Dec 2020.] M. Robb (Ed)., pp. 42–67. San Francisco: De Young Fine Arts Museum. 2021 From adaptation to niche construction: Weather as a winter site selection factor in northern Mongolia, the Quebec Lower North Shore, and the southern Urals. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 61: 101258, (by I. Chechushkov, I. Valiakhmetov, W. Fitzhugh) ASC Newsletter 83 Dawn Biddison Chukchi Peninsula). Oksana P. Kolomiets and Igor Krupnik, eds. (in Russian). Moscow and (DVD set) Material Traditions: Weaving a Yup’ik Anadyr: ‘Heritage of Chukotka’ Museum Center, Issran (Grass-Carrying Bag). Directed, filmed 470 pp. and edited by Dawn Biddison. Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center, 2020 Studying “Arctic Crashes”: Human–Animal Relations in a Time of Rapid Change. In Arctic Krupnik, Igor and Aron L. Crowell, editors Crashes: People and Animals in the Changing 2020. Arctic Crashes; People and Animals in the North, Igor Krupnik and Aron Crowell, eds., 2020, Changing North. Smithsonian Scholarly Press, pp.3–21. Washington, D.C. Pacific Walrus, People, and Sea Ice: Relations Crowell, Aron L. at Sub-Population Scale, 1825–2015. In Arctic Crashes: People and Animals in the Changing 2020 The 1960s–1970s Harbor Seal Crash in North, Igor Krupnik and Aron Crowell, eds., Alaska: A Historical and Ecological Perspective. 2020, pp.351–374. In Arctic Crashes; People and Animals in the Changing North, edited by Igor Krupnik and Aron Uwelellet – Social Organization of the Uelen L. Crowell, pp. 317–335. Smithsonian Scholarly Chukchi Community in the 1920s and 1930s. Press, Washington, D.C. N.I. Vukvukai, V.K. Itevtegina (Vek’et), Igor Krupnik. In Applied Ethnology in Chukotka. 2020 Living Our Cultures, Sharing Our Oksana P. Kolomiets and Igor Krupnik, eds. Heritage: An Alaska Native Exhibition as Moscow and Anadyr. pp. 370–401. Indigenous Knowledge Nexus. Alaska Journal of Anthropology 18(1):4–22. Avatmiit: History of the Native Residents of the Provideniya Bay Area. In Applied Ethnology 2019 The Ethnoarchaeology of Ambush Hunting: in Chukotka. Oksana P. Kolomiets and Igor A Case Study of ≠Gi Pan, Western Ngamiland, Krupnik, eds. Moscow and Anadyr, pp. 299–326. Botswana. African Archaeological Review 36:119– 144. doi.org/10.1007/s10437-018-9319-x. (by First Native Residents of Anadyr (according R. Hitchcock, A. L. Crowell, A. S. Brooks, J. E. to N.L. Gondatti’s census of 1896). In Applied Yellen, and J. I. Ebert) Ethnology in Chukotka. Oksana P. Kolomiets and Igor Krupnik, eds. Moscow and Anadyr, pp. Krupnik, Igor 269–280. Prikladnaia etnologiia Chukotki (Applied Beginning of Applied Ethnology in Chukotka Ethnology in Chukotka: Indigenous Knowledge, (Introduction). In Applied Ethnology in Museums, Cultural Heritage. Celebrating 125th Chukotka. Oksana P. Kolomiets and Igor Anniversary of N.L. Gondatti’s 1895 Trip to the Krupnik, eds. Moscow and Anadyr, pp. 11–31. Contact Information Arctic Studies Center Arctic Studies Center homepage Department of Anthropology https://naturalhistory.si.edu/research/anthropology/ Natural History Building, MRC 112 programs/arctic-studies-center Smithsonian Institution For ASC publications visit: https://repository.si.edu/ P.O. Box 37012 handle/10088/36085/browse 10th and Constitution Ave. N.W. Washington, D.C. 20013-7012 Magnetic North–ASC Blog: http://nmnh.typepad.com/ (202) 633-1887 (phone) (202) 357-2684 (fax) arctic_studies/ ASC Twitter Account: @arcticstudies ASC Anchorage Office ASC Facebook Account: https://www.facebook.com/pages/ Anchorage Museum Arctic-Studies-Center/133066950060693 625 C Street Anchorage, AK 99501 ASC Anchorage Sharing Knowledge website: http://alaska. (907) 929-9207 si.edu This newsletter was edited by William Fitzhugh, Igor Krupnik, Stephen Loring, Aron Crowell, Dawn Biddison and Nancy Shorey. Designed and produced by Nancy Shorey, Fiona Steiwer, and Igor Chechushkov Arctic Studies Center Presorted Standard Department of Anthropology Postage & Fees Paid Natural History Building, MRC 112 Smithsonian Institution Smithsonian Institution P.O. Box 37012 G-94 10th and Constitution, NW Washington, DC 20013-7012 Official Business Penalty for Private Use $300