Ellen Hope Hays (December 29, 1927 - October 8, 2013) was the first Alaska Native woman to be appointed superintendent of a national park (Sitka National Historical Park). [1] During her 16-year career with the National Park Service, she worked to teach and preserve the culture of Alaska Natives. [2]
Ellen Hope Hays was born in Sitka, Alaska, to Andrew and Tillie Hope. [2] She was the seventh of fourteen children. [2] Her ancestral and matrilineal family is the X’aaká Hít (Point House) of the Kiks.ádi Clan (Raven moiety) of the Tlingit. [3] Her given clan name is Kaakaltín (Raven Looking Forward). [1] [2]
She battled tuberculosis throughout her life and lost some of her sisters and her grandfather to tuberculosis. [1]
Hays was not allowed to speak Lingít as a child. She grew up in an English-Presbyterian Christian household where she was only allowed to speak English. [1]
Hays attended the Sheldon Jackson School and University of Alaska, Sitka Campus. [3]
Hays rediscovered her heritage, or what she called “Old Customs” of the Lingít People, at the start of her professional career. [1]
On April 17, 1967, Hays became the first woman to be admitted into the Alaska Native Brotherhood, Sitka Camp Number One. A few years after she was admitted, she became the President of the same Camp Number One. [1] [2]
In 1967, Hays began her career with the National Park Service (NPS) as a clerk and typist. She became a park technician at the Sitka National Monument, now Sitka National Historical Park, in 1970 and a park ranger in 1972. As a park ranger, Hays launched the Southeast Alaska Indian Cultural Center (SEAICC). [1] [2]
On July 9, 1974, she became superintendent of Sitka National Historical Park making her the first Alaskan Native woman to hold an NPS superintendent position. She was the third woman ever to hold this position and the first one in the Pacific Northwest. Four years later, she became the first Native Alaskan Liaison Officer in Anchorage, Alaska where she oversaw all National Park relations with the Alaskan Native Tribes. She remained in this role until her retirement from the NPS in 1983. [1] [2]
Hays remained active in Alaska Native affairs until her death. [1] [2]
Hays was awarded an honorary Doctor of Law degree by the University of Alaska in 1996. [1]
She was a member of a number of organization including the Alaska Native Brotherhood, The Alaska Native Sisterhood, the Alaska Federation of Natives, the Southeast Alaskan Native Women's Conference Planning Committee, the Tlingit & Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska, The Tlingit & Haida Community Council, Washington Chapter, the Institute of Alaska Native Art, the Alaska State Council on State Museum Planning Committee & Advisory Committee, the Sitka Village Planning Council, Sitka Historical Commission, the Sheldon Jackson Board of Trustees, the Council of Elders, and the Sitka Tribe of Alaska. [1]
Hays' first marriage was to Roger Lang. The couple had one child, Karen Valorie Lang. [2] In 1978, she married Henry Hays. They moved to Bainbridge Island, Washington in 1994 and lived there until returning to Sitka in 2013. [2]
Hays died in Sitka, Alaska on October 8, 2013. [2]
The Tlingit or Lingít are Alaska Native Indigenous Peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast of North America and are one of two-hundred twenty-nine (229) federally recognized Tribes of Alaska. Their language is the Tlingit language, in which the name means 'People of the Tides'.
Totem poles are monumental carvings found in western Canada and the northwestern United States. They are a type of Northwest Coast art, consisting of poles, posts or pillars, carved with symbols or figures. They are usually made from large trees, mostly western red cedar, by First Nations and Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast including northern Northwest Coast Haida, Tlingit, and Tsimshian communities in Southeast Alaska and British Columbia, Kwakwaka'wakw and Nuu-chah-nulth communities in southern British Columbia, and the Coast Salish communities in Washington and British Columbia.
Sitka is a unified city-borough in the southeast portion of the U.S. state of Alaska. It was under Russian rule from 1799 to 1867. The city is situated on the west side of Baranof Island and the south half of Chichagof Island in the Alexander Archipelago of the Pacific Ocean. As of the 2020 census, Sitka had a population of 8,458, making it the fifth-most populated city in the state.
The Tlingit language is spoken by the Tlingit people of Southeast Alaska and Western Canada and is a branch of the Na-Dene language family. Extensive effort is being put into revitalization programs in Southeast Alaska to revive and preserve the Tlingit language and culture.
Sheldon Jackson was a Presbyterian minister, missionary, and political leader. During this career he travelled about one million miles and established more than one hundred missions and churches, mostly in the Western United States. He performed extensive missionary work in Colorado and the Alaska Territory, including his efforts to suppress Native American languages.
Sitka National Historical Park is a national historical park in Sitka in the U.S. state of Alaska. It was redesignated as a national historical park from its previous status as national monument on October 18, 1972. The park in its various forms has sought to commemorate the Tlingit and Russian experiences in Alaska.
Nora Marks Keixwnéi Dauenhauer was a Tlingit poet, short-story writer, and Tlingit language scholar from Alaska. She won an American Book Award for Russians in Tlingit America: The Battles of Sitka, 1802 And 1804. Nora was Alaska State Writer Laureate from 2012 - 2014.
William Lewis Paul was an American attorney, legislator, and political activist from the Tlingit Nation in Southeast Alaska. He was known as a leader in the Alaska Native Brotherhood, and became the first Native attorney and first Native legislator in Alaskan history.
Elizabeth Peratrovich was an American civil rights activist, Grand President of the Alaska Native Sisterhood, and member of the Tlingit nation who worked for equality on behalf of Alaska Natives. In the 1940s, her advocacy was credited as being instrumental in the passing of Alaska's Anti-Discrimination Act of 1945, the first state or territorial anti-discrimination law enacted in the United States.
The history of the Tlingit includes pre- and post-contact events and stories. Tradition-based history involved creation stories, the Raven Cycle and other tangentially-related events during the mythic age when spirits transformed back and forth from animal to human and back, the migration story of arrival at Tlingit lands, and individual clan histories. More recent tales describe events near the time of the first contact with Europeans. European and American historical records come into play at that point; although modern Tlingit have access to those historical records, however, they maintain their own record of ancestors and events important to them against the background of a changing world.
The Alaska Native Brotherhood (ANB) and its counterpart, the Alaska Native Sisterhood (ANS), are two nonprofit organizations founded to address racism against Alaska Native peoples in Alaska. ANB was formed in 1912 and ANS founded three years later. For the first half of the 20th century, they were the only organizations working for the civil rights of Alaska Natives in the territory and state.
Celebration is a biennial Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian cultural event held during the first week of June in Juneau, Alaska, United States that occurs once every three years.
Baranof Island is an island in the northern Alexander Archipelago in the Alaska Panhandle, in Alaska. The name "Baranof" was given to the island in 1805 by Imperial Russian Navy captain U. F. Lisianski in honor of Alexander Andreyevich Baranov. It was called Sheet’-ká X'áat'l by the native Tlingit people. It is the smallest of the ABC islands of Alaska. The indigenous group native to the island, the Tlingit, named the island Shee Atika. Baranof island is home to a diverse ecosystem, which made it a prime location for the fur trading company, the Russian American Company. Russian occupation in Baranof Island impacted not only the indigenous population as well as the ecology of the island, but also led to the United States' current ownership over the land.
Walter Alexander Soboleff was a Tlingit scholar, elder and religious leader. Soboleff was the first Native Alaskan to become an ordained Presbyterian minister.
Alaska Natives are a group of indigenous people that live in the state of Alaska and trace their heritage back to the last two great migrations that occurred thousands of years ago. The Native community can be separated into six large tribes and a number of smaller tribes, including the Iñupiat, Yup'ik, Aleut, Tlingit, Haida, Tsimshian, and others. Even with just a small number of communities that make up the entire population, there were more than 300 different languages that the Natives used to communicate with one another.
Matilda Kinnon "Tillie"' Paul Tamaree was a Tlingit translator, civil rights advocate, educator, and Presbyterian church elder.
Elaine Elizabeth Abraham was a Yakutat Tlingit Tribe elder and registered nurse who contributed to improving health care delivery in rural Alaska. Later active professionally in the field of education, she assisted with the creation of the Alaska Native Language Center, and, as a statewide administrator at the University of Alaska, in 1976, led the establishment of community colleges in underserved parts of the state.
Rosita Kaaháni Worl is an American anthropologist and Alaska Native cultural, business and political leader. She is president of the Sealaska Heritage Institute, a Juneau-based nonprofit organization that preserves and advances the Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian Native cultures of Southeast Alaska, and has held that position since 1997. She also served on the board of directors of the Sealaska regional Native corporation for 30 years, beginning in 1987, including as board vice president. The corporation, with more than 22,000 shareholders, founded the heritage institute and provides substantial funding.
Women's suffrage in Alaska was won fairly easily for non-native women in 1913. Prior to becoming a territory, non-native women were able to vote in school board elections. Women's suffrage work took place in the Alaska chapters of the Women's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU). After Alaska was admitted as a territory, the first Territorial Legislature passed a women's suffrage bill in 1913 and was signed into law on March 21. This law only applied to non-native women since Alaska Natives were not considered citizens of the United States. Alaska Natives continued to fight for the right to vote, along with other civil rights throughout the twentieth and twenty-first century.
Esther Kasakan Littlefield, also called Aan-woogeex', was a Tlingit artist who made blankets and ceremonial regalia including button blankets. She was awarded the National Heritage Fellowship in 1991.
