Volume 35, No. 2 Quarterly of the Alaska Historical Society Summer 2007 Notes from around the state or several years, Sitka’s Sheldon Jackson Museum has been sending photographs F to the local paper for Artifact of the Month. (See photo right.) This month’s artifact, a silver and ivory cribbage board, presents an un- solved mystery. The silver endpiece, carved by Rudolph Walton (Kaa wootk’) of Sitka, indicates Ivory and silver cribbage board with detail of end piece, carved by Rudolph Walton. the original recipient of the board was Secretary Photo courtesy Sheldon Jackson Museum, Sitka. of the Treasury General O.L. Spaulding…but who was L.P. Wright? Anyone with answers is invited to contact the museum at 104 College proceeded at full tilt. Native artifacts will be Drive, Sitka, Alaska, 99835 or their website, re-cased and shown off in the 600-ft. space. www.museum.state.ak.us/Sheldon%20Jackson/ sjhome.html or just Google it. There’s also al- The official opening will be this fall, and we ways 907/747-8981. imagine the curator will be happy to have a new office where the large artifacts (pianos, We welcome your letters, The Friends of the Museum would like to thank pool table, furniture, etc.) are not stored. news and pictures. the descendants of Dr. B.K. Wilbur for con- Please send them to the editor: tributing the cost of the cribbage board in his There’s a connection between Fairbanks and memory. Wilbur was a member of the Alaskan Valdez that goes back a long way. When the Dee Longenbaugh Society of Natural History and Ethnology and a Good Friday earthquake of 1964 happened, The Observatory, ABAA close friend of silversmith Walton. Fairbanks not only sent money, then experts 299 N. Franklin St. back to Washington to plead for help, but even Juneau, AK 99801 a “Cheer-Up Celebration” in Valdez featuring Tel: 907/586-9676 450 pounds of barbecued steaks and a live Fax: 586-9606 Valdez joined the centenarians of Alaska Dixieland band. Email: [email protected] towns this spring. The work on the new Native Heritage Gallery at the Valdez Museum paused So Valdez was happy to take in “smoke refu- while a reception was held. Back at work, the gees” last summer when the wildfires were revitalization and additions to the area choking the Interior. (Continued page 3.) You are invited to the feast! s the newsletter goes to press, the program for the annual Alaska Historical Society and Museums Alaska meetings is being finalized. The response to the so- ciety’s call for papers around the theme “Food for Thought” has been tremendous. Make sure you have the meeting — to be held in Homer, September 26-29 — on your calendar. Heather Beggs, with the Pratt Museum in Homer and this year’s conference chair, expects to mail registration, schedule, travel and accommodations information in late June. The society’s program will be available on the AHS website, alaskahistoricalsociety.com, by mid-June. Ann Chandonnet will be the AHS guest speaker at the conference. She has titled her talk “Our Daily Ice: Global Warming and Arctic Alaska’s Menus.” Ann, a journalist and food historian, lived in Alaska for over 30 years before retiring to North Carolina in 2006. Among Holiday gathering in Wiseman. her publications is Gold Rush Grub: From Turpentine Stew to Hoochinoo, published by the Univer- Photo from Arctic Village by Robert Marshall, 1933. sity of Alaska Press in 2005. Other speakers will talk about giant vegetables, crystallized eggs and dried beans, homesteading and fur farming, fish and more fish, and traditional cuisine. The AHS program committee chaired by Katie Ringsmuth with members A.J. McClanahan and Marilyn Knapp, are truly creating a feast. Plan to attend! Message from the President Phantoms of History hat if the Jews displaced by World War II had emigrated to Alaska, rather than to Israel? WThis leap of historical imagination forms the backdrop for Michael Chabon’s new detective novel, The Yiddish Policemen’s Union. Sitka becomes the center of Jewish civilization, a Jerusalem in the rainforest. I don’t know if it is Pulitzer Prize-winner Chabon’s writing skill or the exotic setting, but his book has shot to the top of the bestseller lists and he has packed in the crowds on his Alaskan counties as named by promotional tour, especially in Alaska. armchair geographers. Or consider another phantom: What if the county seat of Tundra County, Alaska, was Kaktovik? What if the Kayak County courthouse was located in the village of Attu? How about Malemute County, centered on Anchorage? Counties in Alaska? We don’t have counties! I found a strange document at the library the other day, a report titled Analytical Study for the Establishment of Counties in the State of Alaska, published just after state- After pointing out that the constitution grants local pow- hood in early 1959. It seems that some folks in San Fran- ers to cities and boroughs only, “that there will be NO cisco were so excited by the new addition to the Union counties in the state of Alaska,” Sundborg lambasts the that, at their own expense, they drafted an elaborate plan authors for being “wholly ignorant of Alaska’s geography to divide Alaska into 94 counties, each with a carefully and economy.” selected name. Southeast Alaska alone would have 18 counties. Copies of this book-length fantasy were mailed “In view of the major flaw which makes your whole to Alaskan legislators, mayors, and newspaper editors, to report worthless, there is no great point to be served in the editors of Time and Life magazines, to President Eisen- commenting on details.” But having warmed to the work hower, to Eleanor Roosevelt, to the Commandant of the at hand, Sundborg goes on: Coast Guard, to the Library of Congress, even to novelist “I can’t resist, however, giving you my views with respect Edna Ferber—in all more than 200 copies, complete with to some of the names you have selected for the 94 counties maps, were distributed. Alaska is never going to have....” He berates the authors What is astounding about their proposal is not only the for omitting Alaska’s delegate to Congress, Tony Dimond, practical problem of how, for example, Katmai County “...while doing honor to an assortment of dogs, non-Alas- with a population of only 110 and almost no cash econ- kans, anti-Alaskans and rascals.” He lists some of them: omy, would be administered. Calvin Coolidge, Admiral Byrd, and William McKinley, “the president who did absolutely nothing for Alaska.” No, what is more remarkable is all the work that obviously went into this document as the authors labored unaware Ever civil, he closes with “But why go on? Cordially yours, of the new state’s true political status. In a letter to the George Sundborg.” authors, an obviously flabbergasted George Sundborg—a It is a harmless diversion, imagining what the world would delegate to the 1955-56 Constitutional Convention and be like if key events had played out differently. Historians administrative assistant to Senator Ernest Gruening—let generally sniff at such pointless conjecture—isn’t there them have it with both barrels: enough to do, interpreting what did happen without chas- “To say I am amazed by this document is an understate- ing the phantoms of what might have been? ment....How a study made in 1959 could possibly have Maybe so, but wouldn’t Alaska be more interesting if we overlooked completely the Alaska state constitution...is had counties named for Sam McGee, Rex Beach, and a mystery which I am sure is confronting all of the many Balto? people to whom your distribution list shows you have sent copies of this wholly useless piece of scholarship.” Bruce Merrell, President 2 Alaska History News Notes from around the state Too bad it’s too late to hear everybody’s favorite, curators over the summer. A small cabin and a a lecture on true crimes in Anchorage’s history, bit of expense money are offered. Memorial Day but great to know the noon “Brown Bag Lunch” to Labor Day—probably taken this year, but sign and evening programs of the Cook Inlet Histori- up at [email protected] or phone Neil cal Society continue. Call Jim Barnett at 907/346- Darish at 907/554-4402. 2755, or come to the Anchorage museum. Wouldn’t it be fun to have a summer outing and show people around at the same time? Speaking of which, the Anchorage Museum at Rasmuson Center, as it’s now known, reports The news- the usual fine mix of displays, both permanent Chugiak-Eagle River Historical Society letter explains their flood was not of Biblical and traveling, art, music, and fun programs for proportions, but still enough to bring things to children. They feel especially honored to be halt for the time being. They had been making- given the Joe Redington Collection by the fam- do with two rooms in the old school, now com- ily of the musher and “Father of the Iditarod”. munity center. There had always been a problem These will be on display when cataloged. They Joe Redington Sr., father of the with heat. At first there was so much their also recently opened The Alaska Photography of Iditarod race. historical documents were turning brown and Bradford Washburn exhibit. A fine loan display Photo by Bill Devine, courtesy of the Anchorage photographs curled. So the heat was turned off. Museum at Rasmuson Center. Sharing Knowledge: Alaska Native Peoples and the That saved the documents but was very hard on Smithsonian Collections opened in April for a full the volunteers in the winter.