Climate Change
Dear Editor: One hundred and fifty years ago, when the transfer happened, Earth’s carbon dioxide count was 287 parts per million (ppm). Now, after a century and half of burning tons of fossil fuels our primary greenhouse gas is up to an alarming 410 ppm and every day we see examples of the devastating effects of climate change.
Thanks to the 50 or so volunteers who made signs and then biked, drove all electric vehicles, or marched with us in the Climate Solutions entry of the Alaska Day Parade. The solution signs they carried said:
End Food Waste, Quit Beefing - Eat Seafood, Convert (homes and businesses from oil) to clean local electricity, Heat Pumps, Walk + Bike, Electric Vehicles, Revamp Solid Waste System, Compost, Reduce Reuse and Recycle, Eat Local, Protect the Forest, Carbon Fee and Dividend, (use) Rain Power, Shop Green, Vote Wisely, Stop Idling – Start Saving, Reduce Plastic Pollution, Wood Energy, Divest , Support Green Groups, Walk More Drive Less, Reusable Bags and Bottles, Get Facts, Buy Carbon Offsets.
Thanks for considering these ideas, and thanks to everyone along the route who gave our group so much encouragement and positive feedback. One final huge appreciation goes to Frea, Harry, Mia and everyone from Haa Toowu Litseen Drum Group who joined us and taught us a traditional welcome song. It was an honor to be with you and with so many people who care about the Earth, our one and only home.
Gunalcheesh, salamat and thank you.
Doug Osborne, Sitka
Roundtable
Dear Editor: Last Friday, Sitka National Historical Park hosted a Roundtable of experts to start the process of reimagining the museum displays at the Russian Bishop’s House. The day-long “Subject Matter Experts” Roundtable focused on the Russian era in North America and the role the “RBH” played in that time.
The project is expected to take about four years to plan, design, construct and install new exhibits that reflect current scholarship and interpretation of the Russian American experiences of the Tlingit, Russian, Finn, Alutiiq and other peoples in Russian America. The first floor museum has been largely unchanged since the National Park Service re-opened the historic RBH to the public after more than a decade of restoration in 1988. (The old-timers among us remember it as the dilapidated “Orphanage” of the 1950s, and the really old-timers remember it as apartments, the site of a printing press and a school in the 1930s and 1940s.)
The redesign of the RBH is a pretty big deal. The House is just one of four buildings left standing from the Russian America era in all of North America – (Building 29, on Lincoln Street, is another of the four) – as well as its most historic site.
The Roundtable attracted an international cast of experts. They included representatives from the Sitka Tribe of Alaska – Chairwoman KathyHope Erickson, STA Council member and Sitka School District Cultural Program Director Nancy Douglas, and Tlingit artist Jennifer Younger. Four distinguished scholars in the field of Russian America also attended in person or by teleconference. Two are Russian-born: Sergei Kan (Dartmouth College) and Ilya Vinkovetsky (Simon Fraser University, Canada). Renowned experts Kathryn Arndt (Rasmusen Library, University of Alaska-Fairbanks) and David Nordlander (Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, Harvard University) also participated. His Grace Bishop David, Orthodox Church of America’s Bishop of Sitka and Alaska, offered great insights into his distinguished predecessors, six of whom were canonized as saints long after they had lived, visited and/or died at the RBH. The state’s deputy State Historic Preservation Officer Jo Antonson sat in, as did the NPS regional senior historical architect, Grant Crosby.
As Friends of Sitka National Historical Park, a new non-profit whose mission is to support the park through fund-raising, advocacy and volunteerism, we provided air tickets for two scholars and asked for local help in supporting the event. The Aspen Suites generously responded with free lodging for the visiting scholars, and Mean Queen provided a discount on lunch service for the event. We appreciate their support for this first step in the process of renewing the RBH museum, the crown jewel of the largely-overlooked history of Russian America.
Friends of Sitka National
Historical Park
snhpfriends@gmail.com
