Akhiok Records Preserved

Paper is fragile!  Historic books and documents can be very difficult to preserve.  Often made of poor quality or acidic materials, which deteriorate with time, paper objects are subject to a host of destructive forces - mold, mildew, bug infestations, and fading from ultra-violet light.

In May, a rare opportunity arose to preserve Russian Orthodox books and documents from the Chapel of the Holy Trinity in Akhiok.  In the spring of 2010, with the help of the Akhiok community, Executive Director Sven Haakanson rescued a delicate and aging collection of books and documents from the display case at the Akhiok school.  The documents had been found in the church attic and moved to the school about 1991.  During his visit to Akhiok, Haakanson observed that the books and documents were in jeopardy.  Many of these items were molded and are in need of immediate intervention to save them.   With permission from the community, Haakanson brought them to the Alutiiq Museum.

After a stay in the museum’s scientific freezer, staff members carefully unpacked the boxes of materials and quickly recognized their importance.  Not only are Akhiok resident’s names handwritten in Cyrillic in many of the books, but several of the small legers document the births and deaths of community members, as well as historic information from the early nineteen hundreds.  The materials represent an extremely rare source of written documentation on Alutiiq community history.
Lucky for the museum, paper conservator Seth Irwin was in the midst of a statewide consulting tour.  Irwin is the first professionally trained paper conservator to visit Alaska.  With support from Akhiok-Kaguyak, Inc., Irwin spent three weeks in Kodiak photographing, assessing, and cleaning the collection.  His work stabilized the materials.  Now that they are safe to handle, the museum hopes to develop a project to translate and share the historical information they contain.

Haakanson is particularly enthusiastic about the outcome of the project. “It is wonderful to know these records from Akhiok will be available for decades to come,” he said.   “We are privileged to have such rich documentation of community history, and having a professional paper conservator help to care for this record is truly priceless.”

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