Southeast Alaska, colloquially referred to as the Alaska Panhandle or Alaskan Panhandle, is the southeastern portion of the U.S. state of Alaska, bordered to the east by the northern half of the Canadian province of British Columbia. The majority of Southeast Alaska's area is part of the Tongass National Forest, the United States' largest national forest. In many places, the international border runs along the crest of the Boundary Ranges of the Coast Mountains. The region is noted for its scenery and mild, rainy climate.
A hammer is a tool, most often a hand tool, consisting of a weighted "head" fixed to a long handle that is swung to deliver an impact to a small area of an object. This can be, for example, to drive nails into wood, to shape metal, or to crush rock. Hammers are used for a wide range of driving, shaping, breaking and non-destructive striking applications. Traditional disciplines include carpentry, blacksmithing, warfare, and percussive musicianship.
Totem poles are monumental carvings, 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 formerly known as New Archangel while 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, the fifth-most populated city in the state.
Haines is a census-designated place located in Haines Borough, Alaska, United States. It is in the northern part of the Alaska Panhandle, near Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve.
Lutak is a census-designated place (CDP) in Haines Borough, Alaska, United States. The population was 49 at the 2010 census, up from 39 in 2000.
Klukwan is a census-designated place (CDP) in Alaska, United States. It is technically in Hoonah-Angoon Census Area, though it is an enclave of Haines Borough. At the 2010 census the population was 95, down from 139 at the 2000 census.
The Municipality and Borough of Skagway is a first-class borough in Alaska on the Alaska Panhandle. As of the 2020 census, the population was 1,240, up from 968 in 2010. The population doubles in the summer tourist season in order to deal with more than 1,000,000 visitors each year. Incorporated as a borough on June 25, 2007, it was previously a city in the Skagway-Yakutat-Angoon Census Area. The most populated community is the census-designated place of Skagway.
The City and Borough of Wrangell is a borough in Alaska, United States. As of the 2020 census the population was 2,127, down from 2,369 in 2010.
George Thornton Emmons was an ethnographic photographer and a U.S. Navy Lieutenant.
Amateur geology or rock collecting is the non-professional study and hobby of collecting rocks and minerals or fossil specimens from the natural environment. In Australia, New Zealand and Cornwall, the activities of amateur geologists are called fossicking. The first amateur geologists were prospectors looking for valuable minerals and gemstones for commercial purposes. Eventually, however, more people have been drawn to amateur geology for recreational purposes, mainly for the beauty that rocks and minerals provide.
Sheldon Jackson College (SJC) was a small private college located on Baranof Island in Sitka, Alaska, United States. Founded in 1878, it was the oldest institution of higher learning in Alaska and maintained a historic relationship with the Presbyterian Church. The college was named in honor of Rev. Sheldon Jackson, an early missionary and educational leader in Alaska.
The Chilkoot River is a river in Southeast Alaska, United States, that extends about 20 miles (32 km) from its source and covers a watershed area of 100 square miles (260 km2). The source of the river is in the Takshanuk Mountains to the west and the Freebee glacier and unnamed mountains to the east. From its source, the upper reach of the river extends approximately 16 miles (26 km) to the point where it enters Chilkoot Lake. From the downstream end of the lake, the lower reach of the river flows for about 1.5 miles (2.4 km) until it enters the Chilkoot Inlet, a branch at the northern end of the Lynn Canal.
The Battle of Sitka was the last major armed conflict between Russians and Alaska Natives, and was initiated in response to the destruction of a Russian trading post two years before. The primary combatant groups were the Kiks.ádi Clan of Sheetʼká Xʼáatʼi of the Tlingit nation and agents of the Russian-American Company assisted by the Imperial Russian Navy.
The Sitka History Museum, formerly known as the Isabel Miller Museum is the city museum of Sitka in the U.S. state of Alaska.
Louis Situwuka Shotridge was an American art collector and ethnological assistant who was an expert on the traditions of his people, the Tlingit nation of southeastern Alaska. His Tlingit name was Stoowukháa, which means "Astute One."
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 Early American Industries Association (EAIA) was founded in 1933 by a group of people interested in the traditional trades and crafts of early America. They met to discuss the rapidly disappearing practitioners of these trades, including those of the shop, farm, sea, and home. They were concerned about the loss of the skills and knowledge of the tools and practices of those trades and wanted to do something to preserve them. Their solution was the formation of the EAIA, subsequently incorporated on March 16, 1942, as a nonprofit educational organization interested in all aspects of the mechanical arts in America.
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.
Florence Scundoo Shotridge (1882–1917) was a Native Alaskan Tlingit ethnographer, museum educator, and weaver. From 1911 to 1917, she worked for the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. In 1905, she demonstrated Chilkat weaving at the Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition in Portland, Oregon. In 1916, she co-directed with her husband Louis Shotridge a collecting expedition to southeast Alaska that was funded by the retail magnate and Penn Museum trustee, John Wanamaker. In 1913, Florence and Louis Shotridge co-authored an ethnographic article entitled, “Indians of the Northwest” which appeared in the University of Pennsylvania's Museum Journal. In the same issue, Florence Shotridge independently published an article entitled, “The Life of a Chilkat Indian Girl,” in which she discussed both puberty customs for Tlingit girls as they transitioned into womanhood and Tlingit expectations for female behavior.
