Alaska Native Heritage Center

Yesterday I spent most of the day at the Native Heritage Center. There was a group of natives there who danced and told stories. They were so fun to watch. They had dance offs and invited everyone to dance with them for their last song.

Then I walked through the art gallery. This "stained-glass" window was made from the lining of a seal's stomach. I met a native artist who carves on whale baleen. He told me that he was on the reality TV show "The Deadliest Catch" as a crabber and that he and one other man were the only two men who were willing to go out on deck during the most dangerous times. He told me some stories from his days on the ship. He said that he has almost lost his life 3 times. He was pretty awesome.



Then I met another native woman who you could just tell she had an awesome heart. She told me about my generation and we talked about God and healing and the human body. It was just really neat, because random people were just sitting on benches and would talk to me as I walked by. Really cool people.

Then I walked around the outdoor set-up of mock villages. This was my favorite part. Each setting had a native inside who would tell you stories about that particular tribe and show you their tools and how they lived/still live today. The first one I came to was Athabascan. They live in something similar to cabins. The smaller tall building is where they store food to keep it away from bears. The doorways would actually be only 3 feet tall and two feet wide to keep the bears out. The photo to the right is the pericardium (lining around the heart) of a moose- the first ziploc bag :).

The next village was Yup'ik/Cupi'ik. There is a men's house and a women's house. The men talk/teach about hunting, survival and how to be men. The women talk/teach about cleaning, cooking, sewing, weaving and caring for their families. The bottom half of these homes were below ground level to keep warmth in the winter and cool in the summer. They had a built in sauna (see right) under the floor where they would heat rocks in the fire, put them in this pit, and splash water from a wooden shovel onto the rocks. They'd sit around the steam until they were red hot, then run outside into the snow or an icy stream to rinse off all their sweat and close their pores. They would use the steam for purification and removing their scent before embarking on a hunt.

Then there was the Inupiaq/St. Lawrence Island Yupik site. Here they also have most of the home built underground and they used a tunnel to get inside and also to trap the cold. Along the tunnel were rooms used for freezing food, storage, sleeping and a kitchen area. At the end of the tunnel was a small oval opening to keep the polar bears out. Families slept on polar bear and caribou skins on raised platforms of driftwood, next to the walls. For lighting, there was a gut-covered skylight in the top and lamps made from volcanic rock with seal oil and moss for fuel. When hunting in their kayaks, ropes were tied to the end of their spears and at the other end of the rope was a "buoy" which was a hollowed seal skin filled with air, they felt like hard paper mache balloons! This way when a whale or fish was speared with several spears, it would exhaust itself trying to dive and would eventually die.

Moving on to the Unangax/Aluthq/Sugpiaq site. For the Ciqlluaq, the entry way was in the shape of an "S" so that when a bear came in (are you seeing the bear coming into the home trend here? lol) they would think it was just a dead end and turn around and leave. The Ulax's the entry was through the center of the roof and down a ladder. Birds wings were used to sweep and the little children swept since they were closer to the floor. They used spears, traps, nooses, bolas and nets to capture birds. They scaled down the side of cliffs to take some of the eggs out of each nest. Families were together during winter months, enjoying their harvest; and in the summer, groups were always out to seasonal camps for the rest of the year, hunting and harvesting. When traveling, they camped in tents made of seal skin (waterproof, breathable and insulating). Many garments of clothing were also made of seal. The skin of a bearded seal can stretch over 16 feet. They can weigh up to 750 pounds. The stellar sea lion was utilized in every way possible: food, hide for boat covers, line and cord, bone tools, fishhooks from teeth, flippers for boot soles, stomach for containers, esophagus and intestines for garments (see far left).

Last Stop- Eyak/Tlingit/Haida/Tsimshian Village. This building is made of 3 types of cedar and sitka spruce- and it smells heavenly!! The vertical supports are yellow cedar, only 1/3 of the whole beam is visible and the bottom of it sits on bedrock. The woman told us that this building didn't budge in the last earthquake! The two overhead beams on the edges were cut from the same spruce tree! You can see how tall and round they are. The walls were remarkable, able to slide and open up for a breeze in the summer, swollen shut by up to 13 feet of rain in the fall and held shut by freezing (the absorbed rain) through the winter! Then of course, they'd thaw out once the warmth of spring came. They made hats from weaving red cedar. These hats then kept bugs away, and during rain, would swell shut to become waterproof, then in the heat, they'd open for ventilation and shade. The lady said that when these are in the gift shop, they never stay long because they get bought so quickly. In these tribes, children inherit all of their rights from their mother and after a couple married, they lived with the wife's family. Baby diapers were made from rabbit fur and moss was put inside as an absorption agent to prevent diaper rash. Toddler clothing was made from fox pelts because it was warm and stretches as the child grows. The back of drums were supported by ligaments of deer and goat.

Then I watched two videos on how modern natives live and one on the history of their hunting. Can you imagine being in the middle of the Bering Sea or the Arctic Ocean in a self-made, seal skin and driftwood kayak. I mean that water is so cold that you will literally die on impact if you fall in from a boat today. These people hunted all kinds of birds and sea creatures from their kayaks!! Absolutely unreal. I just love hearing how people live off of the land and hearing their survival tactics and how they use every single part of what they harvest.

Also, this morning after church there was a woman standing by the exit letting people know to watch out for the moose in the parking lot. So I get pretty excited and drove over to where she said they were. At first I didn't see anything and then, bam, they were right in front of me!! Of course I didn't have my camera with me and I got some photos on my phone, but they're not very good. It was a mother and baby eating in the grass on the side of the fence right in the middle of a neighborhood! Awesomeness.

My schedule changes from 8:30 - 5:30 to 6:30-3, so pray that I can adjust to waking up 2 hours earlier!

Two more weeks of AK adventure,

Rachel