Kal’unek – From Karluk

Marnie Leist opens a drawer in the Alutiiq Museum’s collections room.  The cool, metal compartment glides gently forward, revealing its precious contents; an assortment of wooden artifacts from the Karluk One village site.  For the past year, Leist has been organizing and inventorying this collection–the museum’s largest.  With grant funding from the Institute for Museum and Library Services, she is working her way through 20,000 objects, creating the first comprehensive inventory of this remarkable collection.  Karluk One’s wet, muddy environment preserved objects not usually found in archaeological site, and thus a wealth of information on Alutiiq culture.

Over the next two years, the museum will transform this collections project into a publication.  “Marnie’s work is setting the stage for a published catalog,” said project coordinator Amy Steffian.  “This is the museum’s most widely displayed and consulted collection, yet there in no, general account of the site and it contents.  With the collection organized and the inventory complete, we can create a publication to share the collection further.”  A second grant from the Institute for Museum and Library Services will make this possible.

Photo: Toy kayaks carved of bark.  Koniag, Inc. collection, Karluk One.

To tell the Karluk One story, the museum plans a broad community approach.  Archaeologists will write about the site’s place in the settlement of the Karluk River, as well as its excavation and features.  Community leaders, educators, and students will share essays about working on the excavation.  Artists will write about consulting the collections for information and inspiration.  Scientists will share their finds studying Karluk One tools, and plant and animal remains.  Alutiiq speakers will help staff determine the Alutiiq names for objects.  Sven Haakanson will photograph objects for the publication, and Don Clark and Alisha Drabek will act as reviewers.

The project is well timed for many reasons explained Steffian.  “The site is gone.  It washed away back in 1997.  We can’t continue to study it.  Moreover, many of the people who can help interpret Karluk One, who worked there or have cultural, linguistic, or scientific knowledge of its contents, are aging or have spread across the globe.  We want to capture understandings of the site and its impact on the heritage movement before that knowledge is gone.  This project will share Karluk One and its collection with the public, but it will also record a piece of local history.”

Share Link: