SITKA Administrative History

Chapter 5:
SITKA NATIONAL HISTORICAL PARK, 1966-1986 (continued)

Southeast Alaska Indian Cultural Center

The Board of Indian Arts and Crafts, U.S. Department of the Interior, established an experimental Native arts program at Sitka in 1962. The board had been created by law in 1935 to promote the development of Indian arts and crafts. At Sitka, they hired talented Natives to demonstrate their arts and crafts and to develop new and upgraded craft products. When the National Park Service began planning a visitor center for Sitka National Monument in 1963, they agreed to have a wing of the center for the Indian arts and crafts program. The craftspeople moved in July 1965 to the visitor center. [324]

On February 24, 1968, the Board of Indian Arts and Crafts met at Sitka. At the time, the board operated programs at Sitka, at Nome, and at the University of Alaska at Fairbanks. Board members present included Alvin M. Josephy, Jr. (with American Heritage in New York), Mr. and Mrs. Mitchell Wilder (Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas), Mr. and Mrs. Royal Haserich (Lone Star Ranch, Colorado), and Lloyd L. New (Institute of American Indian Art, New Mexico). Others present included Robert G. Hart (general manager of the board, Washington, D.C.), George Fedoroff (Alaska manager for the board, Anchorage), Peter Seeganna (employee of the board, Sitka), Robert E. Howe (Superintendent of Sitka and Glacier Bay National Monuments), Raymond Geerdes (Park Historian, Sitka), and nine Tlingit community leaders--one from Hoonah, one from Juneau, seven from Sitka--including Ellen Hope Lang and Charles Olson who were employees of the National Park Service.

The Tlingit people presented their ideas to the board. They proposed to develop a program that would help the park interpret Tlingit culture and the Tlingit people preserve their traditional art. They asked the board to remove the Eskimo art program from the Sitka center's program. Most appealing to the board members and the park service staff was that Tlingit people would be interpreting their heritage. The Board of Indian Arts and Crafts asked the National Monument staff and representatives of the Tlingits to develop a plan. The board would serve in an advisory capacity, and provide funding to set up the program. It was assumed that the park service would take over funding the program after the transition. [325]

The Alaska Native Brotherhood, Sitka Camp No. 1, Raymond Niel son, President, submitted its proposal to Park Superintendent Howe on April 16, 1968. The proposal revised the agreement between the National Park Service and Board of Indian Arts and Crafts for use of the building to "use by Thlinget cultures for perpetuation of such art forms appropriate to historic cultures of Southeast Alaska." [326] Approval from the park service and Board of Indian Arts and Crafts followed.

In 1969 the Southeast Alaska Indian Cultural Center opened in the visitor center. The Sitka Alaska Native Brotherhood Camp provided teachers to demonstrate traditional southeast Native arts such as woodcarving, costume making, and silverworking to students and visitors. A.P. Johnson was the center's director from 1969 to 1971 and also an instructor. The park provided craft shop facilities and equipment. The Board of Indian Arts and Crafts allocated $40,000 to the center over a three-year period.

Each participating organization viewed the center differently. To the Tlingits it was a place to teach and learn about their heritage; to the park service it provided Native arts and crafts demonstrations for visitors; and to the Board of Indian Arts and Crafts it was a living demonstration center.

The major obstacle to the program's success the first years was not the differing philosophies but lack of funds. The program expenses in 1971 were $40,850, in 1972 were approximately $20,000, and in 1973 were $34,947. The teachers/demonstrators were paid $3.00/hour, well below the wages of a seasonal laborer at the park who received $4.62/hour. [327]

From the start the program was well received by the southeast Natives, the park service, and the public. The Tlingit people planned and conducted the program successfully and took great pride in the center. Many took classes which brought them to the park. The greater Sitka community supported the program. In 1971, the Sitka Borough School District contracted with the center to provide a cross-cultural studies program in the elementary schools. In 1972, the Sheldon Jackson College Native Studies program allowed students to take classes at the cultural center and receive college credit for them. This arrangement continued until 1985. The National Park Service got credit from the Tlingit community, the Board of Indian Arts and Crafts, and the public for making the cultural center project happen.

The center's program included a permanent demonstration and teaching staff of two or three instructors annually, and visiting artists. Woodworking, silversmithing, and costume making were the major areas of concentration. Courses were also offered in spruce root basket weaving, skin and beadwork, Native foods, Tlingit dancing, and anthropology. Esther Littlefield was the instructor/demonstrator in the costume department from the opening of the Southeast Alaska Indian Cultural Center until her retirement in 1983. When Secretary of the Interior James Watt visited the park on August 25, 1983, he presented Littlefield with a plaque on behalf of the National Park Service for her dedication and service. [328] Over the years, the cultural center sponsored a number of special, short-term workshops. Probably the best known instructor was Nathan Jackson, wood carver, who carved several of the park's totem poles. The cultural center and park staff closely cooperated on carving of a Bicentennial pole in 1976. Items made at the center with materials provided by the center became the cultural center's property. Students were required to make two objects. One belonged to the student, the other to the center. Because of these arrangements, the center amassed a Tlingit art and craft collection.

In 1972 the National Park Service started funding the cultural center. That year a contract for $41,000 was made with Alaska Native Brotherhood, Sitka Camp No. l. The brotherhood appointed an Arts and Crafts Committee to supervise the program. The committee evolved into a five-member Cultural Center Board of Directors chosen by the brotherhood at their annual election of officers in October. Two park service employees, Ellen Hope Lang and then superintendent Daniel R. Kuehn served as voting members of the center's board of directors for several years. What later was viewed as conflict-of-interest, at the time was critical for the program's success.

The contract called for a minimum of 100 hours per week of cultural demonstration. A provision in the contract allowed for sale of items produced at the center. Proceeds from such sales would be returned to the center for the purchase of supplies, to pay visiting artists, or to send center staff members to outside cultural events. Later contracts were for up to $80,800, and the center operated year-round. Recent cuts in the park's operating budget forced the park staff to reduce the contracts to $40,000 for a four-month summer program. [329]

The contracts, initially for three years and more recently for one year, issued by the National Park Service required a demonstration and interpretation program. The Alaska Native Brotherhood, Sitka Camp No. 1, viewed the center as a teaching center, with interpretation and demonstration to visitors as a secondary function. Over the years the different philosophies be came more pronounced. The Board of Directors of the cultural center sought to change the name in 1981 from Southeast Alaska Indian Cultural Center to A.N.B. Cultural Center. The change was not made. At that time the Sitka park service staff asked itself and staff at the Alaska Regional Office whether or not the objectives of the park and cultural center were complimentary. Another concern was over issuing a sole source contract to the Alaska Native Brotherhood. Sitka staff held discussions with Alaska Regional Office staff and with the cultural center board. The issues remained unresolved. The cultural center board has been considering the possibility of acquiring land, building a center, and discontinuing its contract with the National Park Service. [330]

In 1986 the cultural center operated from June 1 to September 30. The Alaska Native Brotherhood, Sitka Camp No. 1, and the National Park Service signed a cooperative agreement allowing Tlingit craftspeople to use the space in the visitor center during the non-contract period. The Alaska Native Brotherhood, Sitka Camp No. 1, successfully competed in bidding for a contract for 1987.