"George Attla - Making of a Champion"

Website Now Online

A new educational website detailing the rich history and current work of legendary Alaska sled dog racing champion George Attla is now online.

Four years in the making, the website, attlamakingofachampion.com, was created by Fairbanks-based science educator and audio producer Kathy Turco, who worked closely with Attla and utilized source material from more than 50 photographers, journalists, historians, archivists and dog mushers.

The project was supported by a $5,000 Alaska Humanities Forum 2008 general grant. To visit the website click here.

Its multi-media trove includes gripping black-and-white photographs and television clips from 1970s and 1980s dog racing coverage and sports news interviews with Attla, the Athabascan Indian from Huslia, Alaska, nicknamed “the Huslia Hustler,” who limped to starting lines and powered his dogs along the trail with his signature stiff-legged kick, the result of childhood surgery that permanently fused a knee.

Attla is a 10-time winner of the Open World Championship Sled Dog Race, the world’s premiere sled dog sprint race, which is held over three days in Anchorage every year (snow conditions permitting) as the centerpiece of the annual Fur Redezvous festival. Attla first won the race in 1958.

One dramatic video on the new website shows an utterly exhausted Attla crossing the finish line in record setting time on the final day of the 1975 Open North American in Fairbanks. That year, Attla won all four major sprint dog races in Alaska (the Fury Rondy; the Open North American; the Race of Champions in Kenai/Soldotna; and the Alaska State Championship in Tok). That feat was unprecedented and has yet to be matched.

A 1975 television interview archived on the site has Attla praising the strength and passion of his dogs on the cusp of his record-breaking season.

“I’ve got 32 [dogs] running and I’d say 24 are exceptionally good dogs,” he says.

Off-camera, the interviewer responds: “So you’re very confident about this year?”

“Yeah right,” says Attla, cracking a smile. “I’ve got a lot of spare parts.”

The "George Attla – Making of a Champion" website also contains archived newspaper articles spanning seven decades as well as several recent video interviews with Attla discussing not only his racing career but his present work promoting dog mushing among Alaska Native youth.

"A dog never makes a mistake," says Attla in one interview excerpt. "He is just a dog and he does what he does because he is a dog and thinks like a dog. It is you that makes the mistake because you haven’t trained him to do what you want him to do when you want him to do it. Or you have misjudged what he is able to do, physically or mentally. So if a mistake is made in the team, it is you that has made it, not the dog.”

Photo: Maxine Vehlow

Leadership Anchorage Group Releases McLaughlin Video

One of three Community Service Group Project teams in the recently graduated Leadership Anchorage Class of 2012 has just released the final product of their group effort. It's a short documentary video promoting the volunteer mentor program at McLaughlin Youth Center.

The state's primary facility for youthful offenders is always in need of volunteer mentors to guide its clients as they finish their time at the center and re-enter day-to-day life. The LA 15 group produced this video with clients and McLaughlin staff explaining the depth of need for the volunteer mentor program. The LA cohort then visited civic groups across the municipality to present the video and encourage members to get involved.

To view the video, click here.

LA 15 cohort members Katherine Jernstrom, Olympia Lewis, Greg Schmidt, and Brit Szymoniak

2012 General Grants Announced

This year the Alaska Humanities Forum awarded 23 general grants totaling $155,344. Below are summaries of AKHF-supported projects for 2012, organized by project title, sponsoring organization, its location and granted amount.

Hoonah’s Heroes

Women Make Movies

New York/Hoonah

$10,000

Hoonah’s Heroes is a feature-length documentary profiling the extraordinary stories of Vietnam-era War veterans from the village of Hoonah, a Tlingit community on Chichagof Island in southeast Alaska, about 30 miles west of Juneau. Twenty-eight Tlingit men from Hoonah entered the US Armed Forced during the Vietnam War, adapting their outdoor survival and hunting skills to become expert snipers and infiltrators. All but one of the 28 men survived, making Hoonah not only the American town with the highest per capita enlistment rate in the war but also the town with the highest survival rate of combat soldiers.

Most Hoonah men made their living as commercial salmon fisherman. In the early 1970s, the veterans found that the fishing livelihoods and ways of life which they had grown up with in Hoonah prior to their military experience and expected to return to were no longer possible due to two new fishing restrictions and laws introduced at the time.

Hoonah’s Heroes will explore these and other pivotal moments during the war that affected the rest of their lives, including coping with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and addiction. Hoonah's Heroes will examine their contemporary lives and probe why so many men from this tiny island fought with pride for a nation they saw as indifferent. The film being directed and produced by New York City independent filmmaker Samantha Farinella.

ICEBOUND

API Arts and Outreach Inc.

New York

$10,000

This 90-minute documentary tells the story of the 1925 “Serum Run,” in which at least 34 mushers and 150 sled dogs relayed antitoxin across the Alaska wilderness to save the people of Nome from a deadly outbreak of diphtheria. ICEBOUND will be broadcast nationally on PBS as well as on German and French television. The filmmakers interviewed more than 30 elders, scholars, mushers, journalists and descendants of those who participated in the Serum Run.

Kodiak’s Filipino Community Stories

Kodiak Historical Society/Baranov Museum

Kodiak

$8,500

Although Filipino-Americans have lived on Kodiak Island for more than 150 years and now constitute 35 percent of Kodiak’s population, until this project there have been no museum exhibits or published research on the island celebrating and exploring their culture and stories.

The Baranov Museum, in collaboration with the Filipino American Association of Kodiak, is engaging high-school students in ethnography and digital storytelling about the history of Filipino-Americans on Kodiak, culminating in a museum exhibit during National Filipino American History in October 2012. A digital story kiosk will permanently display the stories at the museum after the temporary exhibit is completed.

The Alutiiq Word of the Week Book

Alutiiq Museum & Archaeological Repository

Kodiak

$8,483

This project will result in the publication of a 276-page paperback volume compiling the complete set of 458 cultural lessons from the Alutiiq Museum’s award-winning education program, Alutiiq Word of the Week. The book will also include an introduction to the Alutiiq language plus about 50 previously unpublished historic photographs from the museum’s archives.

THE DEFENDERS OF ALASKA NATIVE COUNTRY

Perseverance Theatre

Juneau

$8,000

Supports the development of “THE DEFENDERS OF ALASKA NATIVE COUNTRY,” a new play by Tlingit/Inupiaq playwright Ishmael Hope that focuses on the story William Paul, an Alaska Native leader who for more than five decades was instrumental in the Native civil rights and land claims social justice movements in Alaska.

Dena’ianq’ Huch’ulyeshi: The Denai’ina Way of Living Catalog

Anchorage Museum Association

Anchorage

$8,000

Dena’ianq’ Huch’ulyeshi: The Denai’ina Way of Living will be a catalog to accompany the first-ever comprehensive exhibition on Dena’ina history and culture, organized by the Anchorage Museum in partnership with the Alaska Native Heritage Center and scheduled to open in May 2013. One thousand hardcover and 3,000 softcover copies of the catalog will be printed.

Documenting Art Technologies

Friends of the Sheldon Jackson Museum

Sitka

$8,000

Through interviews and photography this project will document three Alaska Native artistic technologies – fish skin processing, gut processing, and bentwood hat processing – during public workshops held in Sitka by master artists. This will form the basis for three new technical papers in the “Concepts” series published by the Alaska State Museum.

Traveling By Story Through Copper River Country

Copper River Watershed Project

Cordova

$8,000

This grant funds the recording of oral history interviews of individuals living in the Copper River basin, including original homesteaders and the last generation of Ahtna language speakers. Interviews will be posted to the Copper River Watershed Project’s Tour Our Watershed website.

Alaska Statehood Pioneers: In Their Own Words

KTOO – Capitol Community Broadcasting

Juneau

$7,500

In 2004 noted Alaska historian Dr. Terrence Cole conducted extensive on-camera interviews with living delegates of the Alaska Constitutional Convention (November 8, 1955 – February 6, 1956) as well as individuals who worked at the convention. Alaska Statehood Pioneers: In Their Own Words will digitize and archive these interviews as an oral history collection at the University of Alaska Fairbanks Alaska Film Archives. Additionally, Juneau-based public broadcasting network KTOO will use the interviews to create a ten-part television series that will be broadcast statewide, added to the Alaska Film Archives collection, and housed on the web as free video-on-demand programs along with the full interview transcripts. DVD copies of the interviews will be made available for libraries, schools and state agencies.

People, Place & Parkland: Oral Histories of Pre- and Post-Park Wrangell St. Elias National Park

Wrangell Mountains Center

$7,550

McCarthy

This project will help complete the oral history record of Wrangell St. Elias National Park, the largest national park in the United States, by focusing on perspectives that are underrepresented in the existing record. The homesteading lifestyle has persisted longer in the park area than in most other regions of Alaska, and early white settlers did not entirely displace native inhabitants whose ancestors had lived continuously in the region for thousands of years. This project will focus on living individuals whose familiarity with the area predates the establishment of the park in 1980.

Moose Jaw’s Cabin

Alaska Children’s Institute for the Performing Arts

Kenai

$7,305

“Moose Jaw’s Cabin” will be a four-episode children’s television series with each episode exploring a different time period in Alaska’s history and highlighting important events and individuals. The episodes will cover, in order: Russian America (The Baranov era); the Alaska Gold Rush; the history of Alaska aviation; and the contributions of Alaska Natives to the state’s development. The episodes will be hosted by Moose Jaw, an old sourdough who lives in a cabin that has a magic door leading back in the time. “Moose Jaw’s Cabin” will air on KTUU-TV on Saturday mornings during NBC’s children’s programming.

Formline Interpretation Project

Sealaska Heritage Institute

Juneau

$7,000

Sealaska Heritage Institute is creating a 30-page booklet titled An Interpretive Guide to Northwest Coast Formline. Using a combination of new illustrations and archived photos, the booklet will teach basic interpretation of traditional Northwest Coast art produced by Tlingit, Haida, Tsimshian and other indigenous people of the Northwest Coast of North America, from pre-European contact to present. It will cover the history of formline as well as characteristic shapes and colors, and clan crests as proprietary intellectual property. The booklet will be distributed free to regional schools and libraries. A PDF version will be available for free download on the Sealaska Heritage Institute website.

Kachemak Bay Writer’s Conference

Kenai Peninsula College

Homer

$7,000

The annual Kachemak Bay Writer’s Conference provides writers, students and literary enthusiasts with an opportunity to explore the art and process of creative writing and contemporary literature while fostering connections among writers, editors, agents and the reading public. The 2012 conference will be held June 8-12 in Homer and will feature 18 nationally recognized authors of nonfiction, poetry and fiction from Alaska and the Lower 48. Barry Lopez, arguably the nation’s premiere nature writer, will be the keynote presenter. Lopez won a National Book Award for his non-fiction work Arctic Dreams: Imagination and Desire in a Northern Landscape.

Koyukuk River Traditional Place Names: Hughes to Koyukuk

Yukon River Drainage Fisheries Association

Anchorage/Husila

$7,000

This project will map traditional Koyukon Athabascan place names and document their meaning and history of use. Place names and their significance were gleaned from numerous oral history interviews conducted in the Athabascan villages of Husila and Koyukok last September. These interviews will be transcribed, summarized and then archived by individual and community. Follow-up interviews for needed clarification will be conducted in Huslia. Final products will include a coffee table atlas to be distributed to communities, schools and organizations in the region.

The Peratrovich Legacy

League of Women’s Voters Alaska Educational Fund

Juneau

$7,000

This project will purchase DVDs of For the Rights of All: Ending Jim Crow in Alaska for distribution to middle and high schools, University of Alaska Southeast facilities, and libraries in Juneau and throughout Southeast Alaska. This 2009 PBS documentary film, which was funded in part by the Alaska Humanities Forum, brings to life the remarkable story of Alaska’s civil rights movement – the inspiring story of Alaska Natives who, through non-violent social change, overcame prejudice and bigotry to win justice for all Alaskans. The Peratrovich Legacy (named after civil rights activists Elizabeth and Roy Peratrovich) will also provide a discussion guide for teachers and moderators to be collaborative with the film.

20^th Annual Last Frontier Theatre Conference

Prince William Sound Community College

Valdez

$6,000

Every summer the Last Frontier Theater Conference gathers around 300 playwrights, actors, directors and theater enthusiasts from near and far to spend a week immersed in classes, readings of new plays, panel discussions, and performances. Featured artists at this year’s conference will include internationally produced Australian playwright Timothy Daly; Artist Director of the William Inge Center for the Arts Peter Ellenstein; University of Alaska Fairbanks Assistant Professor of Directing Stephan Golux; Founding Artistic Director of the Circle Repertory Company Marshall Mason; and Alaska playwright Dawson Moore;

Homer Communities of Memory Project Jukebox

University of Alaska Fairbanks

Fairbanks/Homer

$5,000

In 1996 the Alaska Humanities Forum sponsored the Communities of Memory Project that held meetings in towns across the state where residents shared their remembrances about the history of their community and the qualities that made life there special. This 2012 grant will support the production of an on-line interactive program using ten oral history testimonies form the 1996 Homer Community of Memory project. These stories will be added to the existing Communities of Memories Jukebox website and available in digital form in the Oral History Collection at Rasmuson Library, University of Alaska Fairbanks.

Prince William Sound Museum Exhibit Model Construction

Prince William Sound Economic Development District

Whittier

$5,000

Funds the construction of 15 new state-of-the-art scale models of aircraft, warships and submarines pertaining to the history of World War II and the Cold War in Alaska, 1941 - 1991. Models will include a 1/72^nd scale Soviet Tupelov TU-95 Bear long-range strategic bomber and a 1/48^th scale model of a U.S. F4E Phantom fighter jet for the “Cold War Over Alaska” exhibit, and a 1/350^th scale model of the WWII-era U.S.S. Hornet aircraft carrier made of 433 highly detailed parts.

Sharing Our Knowledge: A Conference of Tlingit Tribes and Clans

Tlingit Readers, Inc.

Sitka/Juneau

$5,000

Bringing together Native and non-Native cultural experts, students and scholars in a multi-disciplinary and cross-cultural atmosphere, the “Clan Conference” concept was pioneered by the late writer and educator Andy Hope III in 1993 in Haines/Klukwan. The 2012 conference will feature presenters speaking on linguistics, archaeology, cultural anthropology, ethnohistory, indigenous law and other topics.

Sitka Lutheran Church Oral History Project

Sitka Lutheran Church

Sitka

$4,536

In the 1970s and 1980s, project director Harvey Brandt interviewed Sitka Lutheran Church congregants to record an oral history of Sitka. This project will preserve this oral history by digitizing 30 VHS tapes and 40 audiocassette tapes of edited interviews onto archival quality DVD/CDs. Mr. Brandt will also conduct follow-up interviews to clarify selected issues concerned the 1966 fire that destroyed most of downtown Sitka, including the Sitka Lutheran Church archives. Copies of the DVD/CDs will be sent to the Alaska Historical Society, Sitka Historical Society, Kettleson Library, Sitka Lutheran Church Archives and the Library of Congress.

Alaska History Ledgers Digitizing and Transcribing: Lost Aleutian Logbooks 1875-1907

J. Pennelope Goforth

Anchorage

$4,470

Alaska Commercial Company (ACC) agents in the Aleutian Islands kept detailed logbooks chronicling their maritime fur trading with the Aleutian people. As part of this project about 700 fragile pages contained in six tattered ACC ledgers will be scanned, digitized, transcribed and archived in keyword searchable PDF format. Each page will also be scanned and saved as a high-resolution tagged information file (.tiff).

Traveling Exhibition of “When Crab Was King: Faces of the Kodiak King Crab Fishery 1950 – 1982.”

Kodiak Maritime Museum

Kodiak

$4,000

The photography exhibit “When Crab Was King: Faces of the Kodiak King Crab Fishery” had a highly successful run at the Kodiak Maritime Museum last year. This grant supports the creation of a traveling version of the exhibit, including a cell phone audio tour, which will be shown at museums and cultural centers throughout Alaska.

Alaska Native Hybrid (working title)

Rob Kinneen

Anchorage

$2,000

Directed by Tlingit chef Rob Kinneen, a proponent of using local, indigenous foods in groundbreaking Alaska cuisine, Alaska Native Hybrid will be a documentary based on a series of webisodes (short online documentaries) designed to inspire young Alaskans around the issue of cultural identity, using modern takes on traditional food as a means of opening dialogue.

C3 Mission:

To positively impact student achievement by recruiting the right educators and by instilling cross-cultural competence for the right fit within school districts.

C3 is a three-year pilot project funded by the Federal Alaska Native Education Program. It seeks to boost teacher retention and student achievement in rural Alaska school districts by providing new to Alaska, early career teachers with cultural orientation and immersion, and by pairing them with mentors in the Alaska Statewide Mentor Project.

Currently, the project is focused within two rural Alaska school districts: Lower Kuskokwim School District (LKSD) and Northwest Arctic Borough School District (NWABSD).

Each year C3 accepts 30 newly hired teachers from these two partner districts.

To view and/or download an application for the 2013 C3 Program, click here.

Participants receive these benefits:

• 3.0 credit 500-level multicultural education course through the University of Alaska

• Invitation to visit a rural Alaska Native culture camp in a village setting

• Training in cross-cultural communication and traditional teaching and learing styles

• Networking and support opportunities with community members, mentors and peers

What Is A Culture Camp?

Culture camps are located throughout Alaska. They are usually designed to connect Alaska Native youth to their traditional culture and their environment. They center around fishing, hunting, and gathering activities, and involve Native elders as teachers in a real-world classroom. Traditionally, extended families of Alaska Natives move each summer from their villages to remote camps to secure enough food for the long winter.

Many families still make summer camp an important part of their year. However, for many families, Western culture, and all that it brings with it, has caused an erosion of these traditions. Culture camps are a way to instill these traditional values in young people.

C3 participants share the roles and responsibilities of the young people in the camp, immersing themselves in the traditional ways and cooperative daily life of the camp.

2013 Camp Dates:

Lower Kuskokwim: June 9 through 20

Northwest Arctic Borough: July 12 through 23

For more information, contact C3 Project Manager Carmen Davis at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. ,  (907) 272-5338.

2011 GOVERNOR’S AWARDS FOR THE ARTS AND HUMANITIES RECIPIENTS ANNOUNCED

For immediate release: September 28, 2011
Contact: Dr. G. W. Kimura, President and CEO, (907) 272-5308.
It is with great pleasure that we announce the 10 outstanding individuals recently selected by Governor Parnell as the 2011 recipients of the Governor’s Awards for the Arts and Humanities.
The awards will be presented during a dinner event at the Captain Cook Hotel on Wednesday, October 19, 2011, and are sponsored by the Alaska State Council on the Arts, the Alaska Humanities Forum and the Office of the Governor.
With six awards going to outstanding contributions to the arts and one joint arts and humanities award, the three humanities award recipients demonstrate an unwavering commitment to the enrichment of the civic, intellectual and cultural lives of all Alaskans.
2011 RECIPIENTS OF THE GOVERNOR’S AWARDS FOR THE ARTS AND HUMANITIES

• Dr. Maryanne Allan, Fairbanks, Margaret Nick Cooke Award for Alaska Native Arts and Languages
• Dr. Ray Barnhardt, Fairbanks, Humanities Award
• Arthur William “Bill” Brody, Fairbanks, Individual Artist Award
• Jeff Brown, Juneau, Lifetime Achievement Award
• Carol Comeau, Anchorage, Arts and Humanities Award
• Tom Heywood, Haines, Arts Advocacy Award
• Dr. Angayuqaq Oscar Kawagley, Fairbanks, Humanities Award
• Mike McCormick, Whistling Swan, Eagle River, Business Leadership Award,
• Mike Powers, Fairbanks Memorial Hospital, Fairbanks, Business Leadership Award
• Jim Rearden, Homer, Humanities Award

HUMANITIES AWARD RECIPIENT BIOS

Dr. Ray Barnhardt
A professor of cross-cultural studies Dr. Ray Barnhardt is also co-director (and co-founder) of the Alaska Native Knowledge network at the University of Fairbanks. The network serves as an invaluable resource in compiling and exchanging information related to Alaska Native knowledge systems and ways of knowing and serves as a model venue for highlighting the importance of indigenous knowledge throughout the world. His published collaborations with Dr. Oscar Kawagley on indigenous cultures and education have transformed the way these subjects are viewed. Barnhardt is the recipient of distinguished service awards from the Alaska Federation of Natives and the Alaska Association of Secondary School Principals.
Carol Comeau
Anchorage School District (ASD) Superintendent Carol Comeau is the recipient of a joint award from the Alaska Humanities Forum and the Alaska State Council on the Arts honoring her nearly 50 years of service to education and the humanities. Comeau began her career at ASD in 1974 as a noon duty attendant and teacher’s aide. Twenty-six years of experience later she was named superintendent, a post she has held for the past 11 years. During Comeau’s tenure she’s worked tirelessly to incorporate and improve vital programs such as the district’s Culturally Responsive Education Plan, recognizing the importance of incorporating Alaska’s diversity into education.
Deeply rooted in her community, Comeau’s been involved in numerous boards and committees working toward bettering the community including the Best Beginnings initiative, the Alaska Center for the Performing Arts, the United Way, the Boys and Girls Club, the Anchorage Chamber of Commerce, coaching Little League, and the revitalization of Mountain View. Both in her professional life and her active participation in her community, Comeau has been a champion for academic achievement and cultural education.
Dr. Angayuqaq Oscar Kawagley
A pioneer in the field of Native knowledge, scholar and educator Dr. Oscar Kawagley spent his lifetime raising awareness of the values of Alaska Native languages and cultures. His unique perspective and ability to work across cultures has left a legacy that will have a positive impact for years to come. Kawagley, who passed away in April of 2011, worked in close consort with fellow Governor’s Award recipient Dr. Ray Barnhardt in the field of indigenous language and culture and the two were recipients of the University of Alaska, Anchorage’s William Demmert Leadership Award in 2011 for their groundbreaking work.
Jim Rearden
Journalist and scientist Jim Rearden has been chronicling the history of Alaska and lives of its residents throughout a prolific career spanning six decades. His first magazine articles were penned in the 1950s when he was a professor of wildlife management at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. After a 10-year career as an area biologist with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, Rearden spent 20 years as outdoors editor for Alaska Magazine, Alaska field editor for Outdoor Life magazine, and wrote literally hundreds of Alaska-centric feature articles that appeared in more than 40 magazines around the world. Rearden served on the Alaska Board of Fish and Game for seven years in the 1970s, and was appointed by President Gerald Ford to the National Advisory Committee on Oceans and Atmosphere. The author of more than two dozen published books, Rearden was named Historian of the Year in 1999 by the Alaska Historical Society, and awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Fairbanks in 2005.

CALL FOR NOMINATIONS

The Alaska Humanities Forum Seeks New Board Member Applications.

The Alaska Humanities Forum (AKHF) is seeking candidates to serve on the AKHF Board of Directors. With the exception of six members appointed by the Governor of Alaska, the twenty-person volunteer board is self-perpetuating and fills vacancies through an open nominations process.

Each year six director-positions are vacated in the fall. New members are elected in September and begin their three-year term in January. Directors serve for a term of three years renewable for another three years.

Directors are selected for knowledge of or involvement in the humanities.

In electing individuals to serve, AKHF strives for the broadest representation and for balance between the academic and public spheres.

From the academic sector, the board elects teachers, scholars, and educational executives.

Public nominees represent a wide variety of professional backgrounds.

The AHF board sets policy, evaluates grant proposals, participates in fundraising activities when necessary, and promotes the activities of AKHF.

Each director is expected to make an annual financial contribution to support AKHF's operations and programs.

The AKHF board meets 5-6 times per year. Three of the meetings are in person and two or three are via teleconference. Directors serve without compensation but are reimbursed for travel expenses. Before submitting the application, the nominator should have an expression of the nominee's interest in serving.

Board of Directors Nomination Form

2011 General Grant Awards Announced!

Alaska at 50

Alaska became a state in 1959. Alaska at 50, edited by former AKHF CEO Greg Kimura, is a book commemorating this statehood anniversary with essays from some of today's most noteworthy and recognizable writers and researchers. Each of the over twenty contributors brings a strong voice to the history of Alaska and a glimpse into the possibilities for the next fifty years. Written in highly accessible prose, this book has three overarching sections: art, culture, and humanities; law, economy, and politics; and environment, people, and place. It should be read by every Alaskan and anyone interested in the forty-ninth state. Each contributor had the freedom to be as creative and bold as his or her topic and expertise allowed, resulting in a masterful overview of Alaska statehood and a vision for the next fifty years.

Click here to order