Wood Products for Culture and Heritage

Project Description

One of the standards of the Tongass Land Management Plan is to “aim to locate and protect areas that contain specific forest resources of heritage value used for Native art and craft forms” (USDA 2016). Carving and weaving projects for cultural and heritage use require clear, fine-grained red- (Thuja plicata) and yellow-cedar (Callitropsis nootkatensis) that is generally over 450 years of age. However, little is currently known about the cultural value, threats to access, and sustainable supply of these culturally important tree resources to Alaska Native peoples.

Adelaide Johnson, hydrologist with the Pacific Northwest Research Station, interacts with community members at a meeting in Klawock, Alaska. USDA Forest Service photo by Ali Freibott.
 

To address this, the Wood Products for Culture and Heritage project has four main goals:

• Learn about values and concerns associated with wood products for culture and heritage through discussions with community members and stakeholders
• Create opportunities for high school student interns to work with local carvers and weavers and engage in place-based forest research
• Harvest a tree locally for use as a community dugout canoe or totem pole
• Share information obtained from research to help guide forest managers with an aim to "ensure sustainability of wood carving and weaving seven generations into the future," according to a traditional ecological knowledge maxim

Yellow-cedar seedlings. USDA Forest Service photo by Ali Freibott.

This research is being conducted in partnership with the Sitka Conservation Society. Funds were awarded from the Pacific Northwest Research Station Civil Rights Action Group's Research with Underserved Communities Fund and the project began in the spring of 2019. Studies were initiated in the Alaska communities of Klawock and Hoonah. There has been stated interest in expanding the project to Angoon and Kake in summer 2020, contingent upon additional funding.

Accomplishments to date: 

• Community meetings in Klawock and Hoonah, Alaska
• Student involvement with carvers and weavers, participation in seedling experiment, involvement in community service, and discussions with community members
• Bark extracted from harvested wood, selection of wood for community totem pole
• Presentation at 2019 Southeast Alaska Environmental Conference with students
• Creation of a place-based educational tool

Weaver Deborah Head speaks to students about her art and heritage. 
 

Community meeting in Klawock, Alaska, facilitated by Forest Haven, a cultural anthropologist at University of California, Irvine. 
 

Research forester Justin Crotteau of the Pacific Northwest Research Station shows students how to use traditional forestry tools.
 

Students Alexia Isaacs, Kevin Isaacs, and Laci Lowery, who gave a presentation about their involvement with the project at the 2019 Southeast Alaska Environmental Conference. Photo courtesy of Julie Yates, Craig Middle School.

All photos not credited are USDA Forest Service photos by Ali Freibott.