A Kiks.ádi clan house at 203 Kaagwaantaan Street that was slated for demolition is now owned by a nonprofit with a mission to restore and sustain clan houses and the cultural heritage of Tlingit people.
Katlian Collective finalized its purchase of the house Friday following months of negotiations between community members and the former owner over the future of the physical structure of Kaxátjaa Hít, the Shattering Herring House of the Kiks.ádi clan.
The sale to Katlian Collective was recorded today by the Alaska State Recorder’s office in Anchorage, said Lduteen Jerrick Hope-Lang, founder and director of the nonprofit collective.
Xéetl'ee Katelyn Stiles, a member of Kaxátjaa Hít, said Monday that the purchase means that “our future generations will have a living clan house, and connection.”
In Tlingit society, “the clan house is the center of your identity and your kinship systems,” Stiles said. “It’s much more than the physical structure, but also the structure itself holds our ancestors.”
The Shattering Herring House is one of eight clan houses still standing in Sitka, of more than 40 that existed at one time. It’s at least the third place where the house has been situated in Sitka, since it existed among the oldest Kiks.ádi clan houses on Noow Tlein or Castle Hill, Hope-Lang said.
Research by Sitka Tribe of Alaska personnel shows that the Shattering Herring House at 203 Kaagwaantaan Street was built in 1888, remodeled after a 1953 fire, and stripped and rebuilt in the 1990s. The original, post-and-beam foundation is evident below the house.
Now the house owner, Katlian Collective plans to “work with members of the house to restore clan house function there,” Hope-Lang said.
While considering ways to restore the structure of the house, clan members know it will be “a place to hold our at.óow (sacred clan property), our history, our names, our genealogy and our songs,” and plan for clan house member to be caretaker of the house, Stiles said.
Restoring these traditions with “the actual house where our ancestors lived and gave birth, also, feels really special, like the house is waking up and asking us to take care of it,” she said.
The purchase marks a new chapter for the nonprofit collective’s work, which currently is geared at repatriating the land and rebuilding the clan house where X’aaká Hít, the Kiks.ádi Point House, stood on Katlian Street until it was demolished in 1997.
Hope-Lang, who is of X’aaká Hít, has been working on purchasing the property for years. He said that, in the process, he discovered that his grandparents’ generation also had been working to reclaim it.
Many houses, including the Point House and the Shattering Herring House, fell out of clan ownership under western property law.
He said that systematic processes of colonization, led largely by Presbyterian missionaries, dispossessed many Tlingit people from their cultural heritage, including their clan houses.
The project to revitalize clan house culture in Sitka gained momentum when, early last-year, Hope-Lang and other community members submitted a nomination that elevated the Sitka Indian Village on the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s list of “11 Most Endangered Historic Places.”
Hope-Lang then founded the nonprofit Katlian Collective with pro-bono assistance from Sonosky Chambers law firm.
In February, the nonprofit held concerts with Portugal. The Man, Samantha Crain and Ya Tseen in Juneau and Sitka to raise funds, and elevate awareness for clan house revitalization.
Soon after, Katlian Collective committed funds and invited the whole community to help care for Kayaash Ka Hít (Platform House) of the L’uknax.ádi (Coho) clan following the loss of longtime caretaker Daanax.ils'eik Chuck Miller, who was a close mentor of Hope-Lang.
Yaandu.éin Michael Miller, the son of Daanax.ils'eik and current caretaker of Kayaash Ka Hít, said today that when he was growing up in the living clan house, “our house was always filled with Tlingit families.”
“Whether it was for song practice, koo.éex prep, beading or just stopping by to say hi, our doors were always open,” Miller said of the function of cultural landmarks such as clan houses.
Katlian Collective leaders, family of Daanax.ils'eik, and many community members were working on some remodels to Kayaash Ka Hít, and learning about the function of the house, “when we found out about the fate of the Shattering Herring House,” Hope-Lang said.
Hope-Lang heard in mid-February that, during a meeting on Feb. 12, the city’s Historic Preservation Commission had given a recommendation in support of a demolition permit for the house at 203 Kaagwaantaan Street.
The owner of the house was preparing to sell the house to buyers who would be demolishing it to develop new lodging. Members of the clan house and greater community were not yet aware of the demolition permit application, and were not present at the meeting.
After hearing about the meeting, and the pending demolition permit, Hope-Lang contacted Stiles. She immediately began working with her clan house to fight the demolition permit.
Commission Chair Koolyéik Roby Littlefield called a meeting on Feb. 27 to consider rescinding the recommendation to demolish the house. Ahead of the meeting, Stiles provided the HPC and the Planning Department with a packet documenting the historic and cultural significance of the house. Many others sent written testimony to the HPC in support of preserving the house.
Eighteen members of the public showed up to the Feb. 27 commission meeting, including members of “opposite” Eagle moiety clans, and non-Native supporters. Most attendees testified in opposition to the idea of demolishing the house.
During the meeting, the HPC voted 5-0 to rescind their earlier decision to support the permit, and then voted 5-0 not to support the issuance of the demolition permit.
However, the HPC’s advisory vote had no real bearing on the permit, and the city Planning Department had no grounds on which to deny the demolition permit.
“So, the city was moving to approve the demo permit,” Stiles said. “Our clan house made an emergency plea to STA to step in and support us to try to find a resolution.”
Ahead of the next HPC meeting on March 10, STA Tribal Council members signed onto a letter asking the city to postpone issuance of the demolition permit and engage in consultation with the tribe.
The HPC voted 5-0 to postpone further consideration of the permit to their April 9 regular meeting so that the city could “coordinate with STA on determining whether there were other factual and/or legal bases for permit denial,” per meeting minutes.
This allowed STA and the city to work in a way that better resembled a government-to-government relationship, Stiles said.
During the next, April 9 meeting of the HPC, commission members voted to support any efforts by STA to submit a legal appeal of the demolition permit.
“STA had an option to appeal ... and the Tribal Council had decided they were going forward with the appeal,” Stiles said.
Throughout this process, the Katlian Collective board of directors had been meeting about the topic, and decided to allocate funds to attempt to preserve the Shattering Herring House. Members of the nonprofit board include Ghunaaxhdují Willoughby Peterson, Kaasda Tláa Edith Johnson, Yaash kanda.éts’ Kevin O’Neal-Smith, Neilgáa Koogéi Taija Revels and Ixt ik Éesh Steve Johnson
Hope-Lang also worked through personal channels to move towards purchasing the house on behalf of the clan house.
Shannon Dailey at Sitka Realty drafted a legal offer to deliver to the former owner, Hope-Lang said. Dailey volunteered much of her time to broker the deal, which the parties signed Friday.
Elders, community members, the STA Tribal Council, STA’s legal team, HPC members and city staff in the Planning Department also helped create an avenue for a resolution, Stiles said,
The nonprofit purchased the Shattering Herring House as it is experiencing a time of revitalization, and its members are learning about ceremonies and connection to history, land and Tlingit ways of life.
Stiles said that many members of the house live away from Sitka, and that the clan house could be a place to welcome people home.
She said that there are many people in town who are also related to the house, as "child of," "grandchild of," or the clan house is their "outer shell."
And, there could be more people in town who belong to Kaxátjaa Hít as an opposite of their father’s clan, if their mother is not Tlingit, Stiles said.
Stiles received her name, Xéetl'ee, which belonged to the late "Betty" Elizabeth Didrickson, during an outdoor ceremony honoring the herring held by the Kiks.ádi in Sitka in 2021.
Xéetl'ee’s mother, Cindy Didrickson Stiles, received her name Seexweit Tláa during the next year’s herring ceremony. The name belonged to the late Polly James Didrickson, who was Betty’s mother. Ari Didrickson also holds the name.
At the same ceremony, Xéetl'ee’s cousin received the name of Polly’s mom, Mary Gisher, Geeshagé.
Xéetl’ee, Seexweit Tláa and Geeshagé worked closely in recent months to communicate with family members regarding the pending demolition of the house, and later shared the good news of the prospective purchase by Katlian Collective.
“This experience brought us together, talking about the house, and deciding we don’t want it to be demolished,” Stiles said. “We all signed a letter together, most of our members, about 30 members.”
“It started a lot of conversations about, ‘How do we envision the future of this,’ and in all of this I’m thinking about my son, and future generations, and Geeshagé, my cousin, and her girls and her boy who got their names a couple of years ago, and all the kids that still need their names,” Stiles said.
“Those girls are going to carry on the matrilineal line of Kaxátjaa Hít, and having a living clan house, they will want to come home, or they will know there is a place for them to come to and learn who they are,” Stiles said.
Both Hope-Lang and Stiles expressed deep gratitude to the former owner, and other parties involved in the purchase, for helping usher the house into a future of restoration under clan ownership.
