Canoe, 1929

The story that this object, to me, tells is one of survival. It really highlights for Athabascan or Dene people the ingenuity of using the resources that they had at hand.

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Hello, everybody. My name is Aaron Leggett. I am the Curator of Alaska History and Culture here at the Anchorage Museum. And I introduced myself in the traditional language of this place, where the Anchorage Museum resides, the upper Cook Inlet Dena’ina Athabascan language. And I’m glad to be here today.

So the object that I selected here today is Athabascan Birchbark Canoe. It was made by Randy Brown in a way that they were incredibly portable. They were light enough to be carried from lake to lake, from place to place, and so they could be used on large rivers like the Yukon or they could be used in some of the smaller tributaries and side creeks or lakes. So they were light enough that they could be carried by one person but were buoyant enough that they could hold that person and several hundred pounds worth of meat or supplies.

The way these were designed they were custom for each individual. The front is covered on here so that waves, you don’t get water in rolling over, is very much an important design element.

There’s a trick to knowing the right consistency of caulk because you want it to adhere to the seams and if the mixture is not right, it can start to crack. And you don’t want it to crack because if it cracks then you lose some of that waterproofness of it. So there’s all sorts of ratios of the pitch with the oil that would be mixed in, and you’re constantly kind of evaluating.

I look at the way it’s carved, the way you have to bend the rib, it’s pretty spectacular. To me, it really is the epitome of Athabascan technology.

This object relates to the idea of celebration, I think, in celebrating culture and celebrating the resources of Alaska. Birch and spruce are the two most important woods for Athabascan people.

Even though again, Randy was not Alaska Native, he certainly learned from some of the last true masters of this. And I’m really impressed that he’s wanting to pass on that knowledge that he had been privileged to learn so that it doesn’t disappear.