Visit the Alaska Native Heritage Center in Anchorage, AK

My wife and I took a cruise to Alaska a couple of years ago. Just before we headed for Whittier where we would meet the cruise ship, our guide drove us to the Alaska Native Heritage Center in Anchorage. One writer on the LitSite Alaska website has called it a "fun way to learn more about the different groups of Alaska natives." So it is. Alaska is more than beautiful scenery; it has a rich heritage. The Heritage Center helps visitors appreciate the deeper beauty of the state.

The Heritage Center combines art, traditional dances, story telling, artifacts, films, demonstrations, and formal classes in order to fulfill its mission of educating people about the groups that were the foundation of Alaska. There are five such groups:

Athabascan
Yup'ik and Cup'ik
Inupiaq and St. Lawrence Island Yupik
Aleut and Alutiiq
Eyak, Tlingit, Haida, and Tsimshian

The learning does not happen only within the center's beautiful building. The 26 acre area includes authentic structures related to the life and culture of the groups. You'll see buildings, a totem pole, large animal bones, and more. According to the Center's website, the native groups comprise about 16% of Alaska's residents and are prominent in over 200 rural villages and communities. Despite the inroads of modern culture, many of the Alaskan Natives have retained the old ways of doing things.

During the time our group was there, we enjoyed watching a group of young people perform some of the traditional dances of the Native Alaskans. The music and steps may not be ones that we are familiar with, but it was easy to see that these young people had touched and been touched by ideas and traditions that modern people cannot appreciate fully. While we may be able to enjoy the music, we need to be taught the stories and traditions that are celebrated in the dances. Our time at the center gave us a small taste of Alaska's past.

At the heart of the Heritage Center is the "Welcome House," in which visitors can see the dances and hear the stories and music of the five Native groups. It is also in the Welcome House that the films, demonstrations and presentations are given, and formal classes are offered. It's as though visitors are being welcomed to a new way of seeing and understanding the largest state in the United States.

For a deeper understanding of our 49th state, the Alaska Native Heritage Center is a good place to start. It won't answer all your questions, but it will get you started.

Sources:

litsite.alaska.edu/aktraditions/heritage.html
www.alaskanative.net/2.asp