NAGPRA

If you don't know it, learn it - Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. I am afraid it is the least enjoyable yet most satisfying part of my job at the Alutiiq Museum and Archaeological Repository. WARNING: Graphic descriptions below!

I first found out the museum cared for remains when I was checking the locations of collections. I opened one of the cabinets under the collections room table (my very long desk). I got on my knees, opened a drawer, and right in front of my face was a skull (with it's mouth open, like a scream). The mandible was simply separated, but that was that initial impression. Someone had obviously made a mistake in recording locations, and I simply just hadn't gotten far enough in my exploration of collection records to know about that particular cabinet. It's one of those memories that kinds of sticks with you.

I know what you may be thinking, but the museum is not hording bones. Rather, many of these remains were picked up along eroding beaches by visitors to the island (fisherman, etc.), saved from otters using them in their nest, and carefully excavated after communication with tribes. The museum has offered them a temporary home, dedicating a quite space for these people until they are hopefully all reburied. Since I have been there, the Deputy Director and I worked on publishing NAGPRA notices of inventory completion, a process that takes over a year. The museum was awarded a grant from the National Park Service to bring ANSCA corporation and tribal representatives together for NAGPRA training, raising awareness about Alutiiq remains not only in the Alutiiq Museum, but those around the U.S.

Earlier this month remains of five individuals were reburied, and there is one more repatriation request pending, which I hope can be taken care of this weekend. That's what I worked on for a brief, yet agonizing time today. Matter of fact, it is necessary to place the remains in a box. It is not a responsibility I take lightly. Unfortunately, I think it is taking a toll. Today, when I went to place the remains in a box, I noticed that the cranium had something like toilet paper in it so it would keep it's shape. It had to go. I will say no more!

Hermitage

http://manchesterhermit.wordpress.com/

Love of Life

Abby has this insatiable passion for exploring the world. Every day is exciting and new. She plays so hard at daycare that she exhausts her little self.
Shawen and I were lamenting that we have lost this passion. Every day is “exactly the same”, in the sense that the feeling of anticipation, that new day sun shining feeling just isn’t in there. At some point, although perhaps not meant to be so, we loose it. I hope to get it back. The question is: How much yoga will it take?

White Alice

A government project name White Alice? It sounds ominous, and it looks a little menacing, but actually it was just a communications system. In the early 1950’s, during the Cold War, the tropospheric* communications system was built in Alaska for an improved communications network. The trademark of White Alice was large, square billboard-like antennas scattered across the Alaskan landscape. The original 25 White Alice stations required three years to construct, with the first station becoming operational in 1956. The Kodiak station was on top of Pillar Mountain. It was dismantled in 1997. I wish I could have seen it.

*I think this is the correct definition, but maybe I am making it up!
Tropospheric scatter (or troposcatter) is the scattering of distant TV and FM radio stations by the troposphere so that they travel farther than the line of sight. This effect sometimes allows reception of stations up to a hundred miles away.

The inside of White Alice.

I think this is the station in Bethel - I just liked the pic.

On top of Pillar Mountain.

Photos courtesy of the Kodiak Military History Museum and the donor, Mr. Fletcher.

Flowers

Green and puple grass, simple is fine.

Here's more of the local weeds.

On my evening walks with Abigail I have been seeing sooooo many flowers! Some of the fireweed is already blooming and nearing the top. When it reaches the top it is a sign "summer" is over. I think, and hope, it is just confused by all of our sunny weather.

Abigail asks me to pick each different kind of flower she sees. She doesn't understand I just can't go picking people's flowers, although sometimes I break down to keep her from crying. Anything in public space is fair game though.

I really like the grasses, and although not local I love poppies. I like how the petals are paper-like and translucent. I also got to smell lilac for the first time in three years. Somehow I never noticed that lilacs grow here.