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.
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.
Wrangell is a borough in Alaska, United States. As of the 2020 census the population was 2,127, down from 2,369 in 2010.
The Stikine River is a major river in northern British Columbia (BC), Canada and southeastern Alaska in the United States. It drains a large, remote upland area known as the Stikine Country east of the Coast Mountains. Flowing west and south for 610 kilometres (379 mi), it empties into various straits of the Inside Passage near Wrangell, Alaska. About 90 percent of the river's length and 95 percent of its drainage basin are in Canada. Considered one of the last truly wild large rivers in BC, the Stikine flows through a variety of landscapes including boreal forest, steep canyons and wide glacial valleys.
Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve is an American national park located in Southeast Alaska west of Juneau. President Calvin Coolidge proclaimed the area around Glacier Bay a national monument under the Antiquities Act on February 26, 1925. Subsequent to an expansion of the monument by President Jimmy Carter in 1978, the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA) enlarged the national monument by 523,000 acres on December 2, 1980, and created Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve. The national preserve encompasses 58,406 acres of public land to the immediate northwest of the park, protecting a portion of the Alsek River with its fish and wildlife habitats, while allowing sport hunting.
Wrangell–St. Elias National Park and Preserve is an American national park and preserve managed by the National Park Service in south central Alaska. The park and preserve were established in 1980 by the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act. The protected areas are included in an International Biosphere Reserve and are part of the Kluane/Wrangell–St. Elias/Glacier Bay/Tatshenshini-Alsek UNESCO World Heritage Site. The park and preserve form the largest area managed by the National Park Service with a total of 13,175,799.07 acres, an expanse larger than nine U.S. states and around the same size as Bosnia and Herzegovina or Croatia. 8,323,147.59 acres are designated as the national park, and the remaining 4,852,652.14 acres are designated as the preserve. The area designated as the national park alone is larger than the 47 smallest American national parks combined and is more than twice the size of all but two other national parks. Its area makes up over 15% of all national park designated land in the United States.
Prince of Wales Island is one of the islands of the Alexander Archipelago in the Alaska Panhandle. It is the fourth-largest island in the United States and the 97th-largest island in the world.
Kushtaka or Kooshdakhaa are mythical shape-shifting creatures found in the folklore of the Tlingit peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast of North America.
Tatshenshini-Alsek Park or Tatshenshini-Alsek Provincial Wilderness Park is a provincial park in British Columbia, Canada 9,580 km2 (3,700 sq mi). It was established in 1993 after an intensive campaign by Canadian and American conservation organizations to halt mining exploration and development in the area, and protect the area for its strong natural heritage and biodiversity values.
LeConte Glacier is a 21-mile (34 km) and 1-mile (1.6 km) glacier in the U.S. state of Alaska. It flows southwest to the head of LeConte Bay. It was named in 1887 by U.S. Navy Lieutenant-Commander Charles M. Thomas in honor of a California geologist Joseph LeConte. According to John Muir's book about indigenous peoples of the area, the Tlingits called it “Huti [sic]” which he claimed derived from a mythical bird that produced sounds of thunder when it flapped its wings.
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.
Alexander "Buck" Choquette (1830–1898) was a French-Canadian prospector and adventurer who was the discoverer in 1861 of the gold strike which led to the Stikine Gold Rush.
Fort Stikine was a fur trade post and fortification in what is now the Alaska Panhandle, at the site of the present-day of Wrangell, Alaska. Originally built as the Redoubt San Dionisio or Redoubt Saint Dionysius in 1834, the site was transferred to the British-owned Hudson's Bay Company as part of a lease signed in the region in 1838, and renamed Fort Stikine when turned into a Hudson's Bay Company post in 1839. The post was closed and decommissioned by 1843 but the name remained for the large village of the Stikine people which had grown around it, becoming known as Shakesville in reference to its ruling Chief Shakes by the 1860s. With the Alaska Purchase of 1867, the fortification became occupied by the US Army and was renamed Fort Wrangel, a reference to Baron von Wrangel, who had been Governor of Russian America when the fort was founded. The site today is now part of the city of Wrangell.
Matilda Kinnon "Tillie"' Paul Tamaree was a Tlingit translator, civil rights advocate, educator, and Presbyterian church elder.
The Wrangell Bombardment was the bombardment of the Stikine village of Old Wrangell by the United States Army in 1869. The army issued an ultimatum to the villagers, demanding they deliver a Stikine named Scutd-doo to justice following the retribution murder of Leon Smith by Scutd-doo. Scutd-doo's son, Lowan, had earlier been killed by soldiers following an altercation in which he bit off a finger of the wife of the quartermaster of Fort Wrangell.
The Angoon Bombardment was the destruction of the Tlingit village of Angoon, Alaska, by US Naval forces under Commander Edgar C. Merriman and Michael A. Healy in October 1882.
Capital punishment has never been practiced Alaska throughout its history as a state, as it was abolished in 1957. Between December 28, 1869, and April 14, 1950, between the Department, District, and Territory of Alaska, twelve felons, all male, were executed by hanging for murder, robbery, and other crimes. Some were European, some were Native American, and two were African. The territorial legislature abolished capital punishment in 1957 during preparations for statehood, making Alaska the first in the West Coast of the United States to outlaw executions, along with Hawaii, which did the same.
The Pioneer Square totem pole, also referred to as the Seattle totem pole and historically as the Chief-of-All-Women pole, is a Tlingit totem pole located in Pioneer Square in downtown Seattle, Washington.
