You Want Kodiak History Exhibits to Include...

At the end of 2012, the Baranov Museum asked you to complete an exhibit survey so that museum staff could confidently move forward in planning for the renovation of the museum's permanent exhibits. Your answers were analyzed and seriously mulled over, and while there were many interesting tidbits that emerged, here is the response to one of the most important questions:

Question: What aspects of Kodiak history and culture do you think it important to see in new exhibits in the museum?

Topic /  % that agree and strongly agree

Russians in Alaska  91.1%

Natural Disasters  87.5%

Immigration and Cultural Diversity  80.9%

Commercial Fisheries  78.8%

Recent Past  77.9%

Alutiiq History and Culture  73%

Business and Industry  66.6%

Military  65.2%

Fine Arts  60.9%

Community Development  56.3%

Note: Bold indicates most common answer was "strongly agree."

From this information and other data gathered through the survey and conversations, museum staff came up with the two "big ideas" that will guide the new exhibitions:

1. Kodiak is an international crossroads/ Kodiak is a crossroads of diversity
2. The Russian American Magazin has witnessed 200 years of Kodiak history

But before we were certain to move forward with these major themes, we wanted to make sure that the survey results really reflected the feelings of the community. As a result, we held a series of four community conversations, during which we shared the survey results over lunch with Kodiakans. During the conversations, we also asked everyone what they thought about the "big ideas" listed above. The results? Yes, the survey does accurately portray what Kodiak citizens think is important about our history. And yes, Kodiakans really do see our island home as a crossroads of diversity, and are interested in learning more about Kodiak history through the eyes of the oldest building in Alaska.

So, where are we now? While we still have lots of work to do, thanks to the participation of the Kodiak community, we have determined that the exhibits will discuss the following aspects of Kodiak history, and whenever possible, examine the history through the eyes of the building:

A Russian Colony in an Alutiiq Land: We will show Kodiak in the international realm of the 18^th/ 19^th centuries and show the connections that existed on the ground between Russian and Alutiiq peoples. The Russian-American Company was completely dependent on Kodiak Alutiit.  As a result, we propose to look at the Russian era with an eye towards the czar and an eye towards the sea otter hunter.

From Eastern Frontier to "Out the Westward": Kodiak Becomes American: What happened when Russia left, and U.S. officials rarely showed their faces?

Local Resources in an International Market: The fur trade (from the Russian fur trade to fox farms in the 1930s) and commercial fishing have attracted diverse individuals to Kodiak, and the commodities were/ are important to international markets.

Forces of Change: The Katmai eruption in 1912, World War Two, and the 1964 earthquake and tsunami profoundly changed Kodiak.

What do you think about these ideas? Please call (486-5920) or e-mail (anjuli@baranovmuseum.org), or leave a comment below to share your thoughts. We will be hosting other community conversations in the near future, so please keep your eyes open for announcements.

What is Special About Kodiak's History?

What is your favorite story to tell about Kodiak’s history? What object or group of objects in the museum do you find the most interesting? What do you wish to see more of in the museum?

What is your vision for the museum?

These questions are not at all rhetorical. We want to know what you think! Thanks to grants from the Institute of Museum and Library Services Museums for America program and the Alaska State Museum, the museum is at the very beginning of a multi-year effort to renovate our exhibits so that we can better tell the history of Kodiak. This year, we will be consumed with planning and research. Unfortunately, the words “planning” and “research” are boring, when in reality they entail work that is quite thrilling. Now is the time for pairing imagination, creativity, and vision with the tangible objects in our collection, the incredible history imprinted within the Russian-American Magazin, and the inspiring and tragic aspects of Kodiak’s long history. Now is the time for dreaming!

We are working with exhibit designer Sarah Asper-Smith, owner of Juneau-based company ExhibitAK. Over the course of the year, Sarah will transform our visions into architectural drawings of exhibit cabinets, floor plans, and graphic representations of the look and feel of the re-imagined spaces. Essentially, we are responsible for content, and Sarah will translate that content into blueprints and schematics. The next step will be securing funding for implementing the plans, constructing cabinets, and installing the new exhibits. The whole process will likely be completed over the course of a few years.

With the renovated exhibits, we only have a few constraints. Namely, we will not be making any permanent changes to the structure itself. In fact, we firmly believe that the National Historic Landmark in which the museum is housed is our finest asset, and we are excited to consider ways that we can better interpret the oldest building in Alaska. Additionally, we want to focus on telling stories that can be supported by the objects, photographs, and manuscripts within our collection.

We are a community museum, and we feel it is very important that we reflect the values and needs of Kodiak. That is where you come in. Please take the time to fill out our online survey. Doing so enters you in a drawing for a $100 gift certificate to the museum store. Please spread the word. Also, you can leave a comment below, e-mail me directly (anjuli@baranovmuseum.org), call the museum (486-5920) or stop by and let us know your thoughts.

Over the next year, we will be holding community meetings and coming up with ways that individuals can participate and contribute to the process. Please stay tuned. More importantly, please spend a few minutes thinking about Kodiak’s history and culture, and let the museum know what you think makes our community special.

Welcome to the Collection!

Usually twice a year a volunteer group known as the Acquisitions Committee meets to decide which objects should be incorporated into the Kodiak Historical Society’s permanent collection. It’s a fun group of long time and lifelong Kodiak residents who are familiar with our community’s history and passionate about its preservation. 

Acquisitions Committee members, lifelong Kodiak residents,
and sisters Myrtle Olsen and Martha Randolph pose in front of the
objects recently added into the permanent collection.

This week we had a meeting and decided to welcome 18 objects into the museum’s collection. These newest additions to the collection are like a grab bag of Kodiak history. They range from the very new, like a wooden salmon roe box from Larsen Bay’s Icicle Seafoods cannery, to older objects, like the 1840 mint Russian coin that was likely in circulation in Kodiak during the Russian era.  They represent commerce, like the Bank of Kodiak money barrel and Kraft’s clipboard, and entertainment, such as the Tony’s Place bar glass from the 1940s. And, just in time for the upcoming Crab Festival, we got Crab Fest commemorative coins from 1974 and a pin from the silver jubilee celebration in 1982.

Kraft's operated in Kodiak for over 90 years. This
notebook with pre-printed shopping list is one
object that can tell the business's story long
after its closing. KHS, 2012-11-01.

Few of these objects are particularly glamorous, and someone may wonder what a museum would want them for in the first place. A notebook with a pre-printed shopping list from an old grocery store?  The value of many museum objects doesn’t necessarily rest in their beauty, or how much they cost, or their association with an important person, but in how they document and communicate everyday lives. These mundane objects are tied to specific places that existed in a specific moment in Kodiak’s past. While we can no longer go to Kraft’s to peruse their produce department, from the shopping list we can see that within the bins were onions, carrots, potatoes and, if you were lucky, asparagus.

This Tony's bar glass likely
dates to the early 1940s.
KHS, 2012-03-01.

During future Acquisitions Committee meetings, I ’m hoping to welcome more objects that relate to Kodiak’s businesses and industries. Please get in touch with the museum if you have a stash of local business memorabilia that you are interested in donating to the museum. Future generations will thank you!

Kayak Piece

The Baranov Museum Hosted a Historical Writing Workshop in the fall of 2010. This is a version of what I wrote as a teacher / participant in the class.

When we study kayaks of Alaska, we often see them through the eyes of early Russian explorers. Baidarka is the Russian name for kayak, and it is not only the Russian language that filters our insight into this miraculously living boat. We construct an image of the kayak through the written words of awe-inspired and baffled Russian sailors, Naval Officers, and Missionaries. The kayak was “so light that a seven year old child could easily carry” one, noted Veniaminov, or St. Innocent of Alaska, a missionary who learned several Alaska Native languages and travelled by dog sled and reindeer around the North he loved. Lisyansky, famous or infamous depending on who you’re speaking with for his defeat of key Tlingit clans during the battle of Sitka, addressed the kayak in more practical terms: “At first I disliked these leathern canoes, on account of their bending elasticity in the water, arising from their being slenderly built; but when accustomed to them, I thought it rather pleasant than otherwise.” We gain insight and even awe about the kayak from these observations, but we have to dig through them like a midden pile to find salvageable truth about these man-made sea creatures that could approach even 10 knots of speed. Today’s kayak can go 5 knots at the fastest.

Veniaminov noted the kayak’s elasticity in water, and attributed it to their slender size. If we allow ourselves to approach the kayak with that same elasticity of imagination spiced with the ancestral memories and stories of Alaska Native peoples, we find ourselves awash with the elegance of nature. The elasticity emerges from dozens of joints constructed from animal bones; driftwood collected patiently over a period of years, each grain lovingly noted; female sea lion and sea otter skins oiled until their transparency reflected the ocean waves; thorough sinew stitching completed with the meticulous prayers of survival. The kayak was never complete and like any living creature required grooming, new skins, new oil on old skins, and patched punctures. The delicate creature-in-becoming offered the privilege of stepping into another world, an animal world, that of seal or salmon or whale. One Alutiiq elder from Old Harbor described her grandfather’s story of sitting in his kayak, holding his paddle between his teeth as the other end vibrated in the water, responding to waves and sea creatures. That was his sonar, his livelihood.

The Alutiiq kayak features a unique bifurcated bow that one can explain in many practical ways; the “bulb” effect in which waves are broken by a protrusion, and hull flexibility, a theory that is not particularly backed by any scientific evidence. Local children in the Baranov Museum consistently catch another, deeper meaning when examining the Kayak on exhibit. That looks like a salmon! Or That is definitely a Humpy or That is like a breaching whale! I smile at the immediate wisdom of the young. A sailor named Sauer integrated the practical and animal explanation in 1802, stating that “the head of the boat is double to the lower part, sharp, and the upper part flat, resembling the open mouth of a fish, but contrived thus to keep the head from sinking too deep in the water.” An unknown and unnamed Russian noted that “the entire stempost represents the head of an otter with its mouth open.”

It is perhaps too easy for me to create a gaping gulf between Alaska Native boat-builders and early Russian explorers in my desire to understand the kayak of yesterday. One Alutiiq elder I encountered in a language class seamlessly resolved this tension with her simple statement we have many Russian words – that’s now a part of our language. The grace of her acceptance of another language and culture despite the devastating changes amongst her people reminded me of a kayak dancing with the waves.