New totem for downtown waterfront, Sealaska science building mark Indigenous Peoples' Day
- Mark Sabbatini
- 12 hours ago
- 6 min read
Ceremony honors carvers, ancestors of Sukteeneidí clan totem pole; new science center highlights traditional and high-tech learning programs for students
By Mark Sabbatini
Juneau Independent
A new totem pole joining a trail of others along Juneau’s waterfront, plus the opening of a science building fusing traditional and modern Alaska Native programs, made for a celebration spanning generations on Indigenous Peoples' Day.
Most of Monday afternoon’s ceremonial events involved the dedication of a new Sukteeneidí clan totem pole. A total of 30 poles are planned for the Kootéeyaa Deiyí (Totem Pole Trail), which originated with 12 poles dedicated in 2023. The totem for the Sukteeneidí clan was carved by Haida lead artist Lee Wallace and five apprentices: Charles Peele, Elizabeth Peele, Dave Ketah, Wesley Pawlik-Jensen, and Michael Milne.
Wallace, a Saxman resident, noted his family has "four generations of Haida carvers that came before me" during his comments about the totem to guests who filled the Shuká Hít (clan house) in Sealaska Heritage Institute's Walter Soboleff Building for the dedication.
"One of the reasons I accepted the offer to carve one of the kootéeyaas was my great-grandfather has a totem pole in the state building," he said, referring to the Old Witch Pole carved by Dwight Wallace. "My grandfather, John Wallace, has a totem pole that it was outside the city museum. So now with this particular Sukteeneidí pole there’s three generations of Wallace totem poles standing here in Juneau."
Wallace also noted two additional generations of family — his son Charles Peele and five-year-old granddaughter Elizabeth Peele — were involved in this project, and there were plenty of opportunities for the latter.
"She was there when the log was delivered to our home," Wallace said. "She helped peel off the bark. She swept the cedar chips. We gave her a paintbrush and she painted on the totem pole."
The Tlingit Sukteeneidí clan, whose traditional homeland is in Tebenkoff Bay near Kake, are of the Raven moiety from the Dog Salmon clan. The Western red cedar log for the totem is from a Sealaska Corp. sort yard on Prince of Wales Island, in keeping with the Alaska Native company’s providing of logs to carvers for the Kootéeyaa Deiyí project being funded by SHI via grants and other means.
The three-hour dedication featured traditional entrance and exit dances, speeches by Sealaska Heritage and other tribal leaders, and a ceremony to thank and feed the spirits of the trees whose logs were used for the Sukteeneidí pole. An introduction of Sukteeneidí clan members and mourning of those who have passed, gifts of a traditional woven bag presented to Wallace and blankets to the apprentices. A Sukteeneidí clan song also preceded the remarks by the people who worked on the totem.
Charles Peele, holding his daughter Elizabeth, explained the figures on the totem pole now standing toward the far end of the trail away from downtown near the Douglas Bridge.
"The bottom figure is the clan leader that was prominent in the story of the clan," he said. "The next figure up above the white — the helmet hat — would be the spirit man, the medicine man, if you will, who was there and who foresaw things that were to come, and recorded things for the clan to teach and acknowledge."
Other traditional clan elements are captured as much as possible, and "at the top we have the current clan leaders because we wanted this to be a representation of a living people, that this isn't just something that's from the past," Charles Peele said. "This is something that's tying history together."
The clan’s crest of "a dog salmon swimming in the tall grass at the mouth of a creek before going into the creek to spawn" is also featured, according to an SHI description.
Similar themes of looking to the present and future, while still remembering and drawing lessons from the past, were highlighted with the official debut of Sealaska Heritage’s Indigenous Science Building, located next to the Walter Soboleff Building that opened in 2015 and Sealaska Heritage Arts Campus that opened in 2022. All of the buildings are located along a street renamed Heritage Way in 2023 (formerly Seward Street) at the urging of SHI President Kaaháni Rosita Worl.
Worl, in opening remarks to those gathered for Monday’s ceremonies, implored the crowd repeatedly to say "Indigenous science" along with her in tribute to the new center.
"Our people have accumulated knowledge for the thousands and thousands and thousands of years that we have lived on this land," she said. "And it is only now that the federal government has realized that we bring a wealth of knowledge to our current world and that we can help with the issues that are facing with us. Our culture is strong. It had to be strong, considering all the things that we face — environmental changes, the rise and the falling of the seas, the advances and the retreats of the glaciers. We had to be strong to survive that."
After the totem dedication, people participating in the exit dance and others curious about the new center gathered outside to watch the traditional marking of the corners of the building’s face with handprints in red and black at opposite ends. Inside were edible foods, exhibitions and explanations for teaching ranging from traditional foods to woodworking to video podcasts.
Programs in the building started in March while its official opening was still in the works, said Krissa Huston. SHI’s STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art/Reading and Math) program manager. Some of the projects so far involve a range of facilities throughout the building.
"Since I got here, we have done an eDNA on salmon for the high school STEAM Academy, which is our high school summer camp," she said. "And so we got local samples from salmon here — wild and hatchery from DIPAC — and we were analyzing the environmental DNA."
There were 29 students "from across Southeast and down to California" at the 10-day camp during the latter part of July, Huston said.
"The students didn't (catch) the salmon, but they did fish processing up in the kitchen," she said. "So they did the fish processing with cultural specialists, and then they got their DNA samples, and then the food was prepared for the students to eat at the end of camp."
Microscopes and other traditional science lab equipment are in one of the basement rooms of the new building. In another are woodworking and other makerspace tools in what Huston called the "fab lab." Opposite from those two rooms is the high-tech wing of the complex, with a digital media lab featuring an isolated sound studio, an open studio with leisure furniture seating for video productions, a drone rig, and other equipment.
"This is all designed to teach and train young people how to use this," said Cory Wolfe, who’s been involved with video and other production for more than 30 years. He said he’s already working with students at Juneau-Douglas High School: Yadaa.at Kalé and the Zach Gordon Youth Center for after-school and other programs.
No projects for public viewing are out yet, but he said that is expected to change soon.
"Our first public broadcast is going to be at the Zach Gordon Youth Center at the beginning of their movie night Friday on Halloween," Wolfe said. "They're going to have a little five- to eight-minute podcast that they've been working on."
• Contact Mark Sabbatini at editor@juneauindependent.com or (907) 957-2306.
Other photos from the dedication of the Sukteeneidí clan totem pole and opening of the Sealaska Heritage Institute’s Indigenous Science Building. (All by Mark Sabbatini / Juneau Independent)
