Smithsonian Institution

The Smithsonian Institution's mission in Alaska is primarily carried out through the Arctic Studies Center, which opened an office in Alaska in 993 and which has produced a wide range of programs serving both the northern research community and Native interests.

The Arctic Studies Center (ASC) was created by the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History (NMNH) in 1988 to promote the study of Arctic peoples, cultures and environments. Building on 150 years of Smithsonian Arctic exploration and science, its mission lies in cultural, biological and environmental studies in the Arctic and sub-Arctic, particularly in Alaska but also throughout the circumpolar North. This year, the occasion of the Center's tenth anniversary and the fifth year since the establishment of ASC Regional Office in Anchorage, affords an opportunity to review the history and status of the Center's programs.

The Arctic Studies Center is the only significant Federal program devoted to Arctic cultural research and education. In keeping with the Smithsonian's commitment for "the increase and diffusion of knowledge," the Center conducts field research and museum studies; produces exhibition and outreach programs for Smithsonian visitors, regional audiences and national media; and maintains a variety of educational programs. Training museum professionals and conducting outreach to enhance the legacies of northern peoples are central to its mission. It is the sole U.S. agency with a stable institutional setting for cultural studies in the Arctic, and unlike most Federal agencies, because it is a trust instrumentality, it is chartered to work internationally. The ASC has developed a close collaboration with a number of northern Native communities and organizations through joint exhibition and research initiatives.

Guiding Principles

Building on 150 years of Smithsonian enterprise, three program componentsresearch, collections development and public programsare essential to the signature "Smithsonian" blend of scholarship and public education. Additional guidance is provided by the following overarching themes:

• Interdisciplinary approach. More than other inhabited regions, the North still remains a natural ecological system made up of elements that cannot be studied in isolation. ASC programs use cross-disciplinary approaches that integrate social, biological and natural science data.
• Circumpolar scope. Unique features of the holarctic region, such as the lack of significant geographic barriers, make the circumpolar world ideal for long-term studies of human-environment interactions on a truly global scale, historically and in the modern day.
• International character. Because a circumpolar perspective requires international collaboration, the ASC maintains close relationships with scholars and local peoples throughout the Arctic and participates in international organizations and agencies.
• Community focus/local access. Research and public programs are planned with local participation and community access in mind. Training, resource access and multi-level reporting provide access for a wide range of interest groups and education levels.
• Preservation of cultural legacies. An overarching guide is the enhancement and preservation of cultural legacies of northern peoples.

Research Programs

Research, including its conduct, analysis and reporting, is central to the ASC program and has been a Smithsonian guiding principle since its foundation in 1846. ASC research includes field-, laboratory- and museum-based projects that explore significant problems and topics of the Arctic and sub-Arctic world. Both individual and team-based work is conducted, often in an international setting.

The Center staff emphasizes anthropological archeology, ethnology, ethnohistory and related aspects of biology, geography, geology and ecology. Research problems of interest to ASC staff and research associates fall into a variety of culture change and transformation studies that focus on northern human-environment interactions from the Pleistocene to modern times. The ASC also investigates modern processes of culture contact and transformation from the perspectives of history, contemporary issues, demography, geography and ecology. Over the past 20 years Smithsonian Arctic and sub-Arctic studies have concentrated on research in three circumpolar regions:

• Native cultural history, environmental relations and Inuit-European transformations in the eastern Canadian Arctic;
• Trans-Beringian contacts and evolutionary systems in the greater North Pacific region; and
• Culture history and cultural transformations in the context of modernization and industrial development in the Yamal region of western Siberia (Russia).

Staff

The Center operates with a staff of anthropologists split between the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C., and the Anchorage Museum of History and Art in Alaska. Although the staff is small, research associate appointments add geographic and thematic depth and bring the Center into contact with other scholarly constituencies. Current research associates include Anne Fienup-Riordan (Anchorage), Ernest S. Burch, Jr., of Harrisburg, Douglas Siegel-Causey of the University of Nebraska, and Norman Hallendy of Carp, Ontario. Fellows, volunteers and interns are invaluable sources of assistance and receive research and training opportunities during their tenure at the Smithsonian. The staff maintains wide-ranging contacts with researchers in Alaska, Canada, Greenland, Scandinavia, Russia and Japan.

Each year the ASC hosts several visiting foreign scholars under its Visitor's Research Program, while the Community Scholars Program brings northern Native artisans and community scholars to work with Smithsonian collections in Washington, D.C. Special projects and grants bring more northern Natives to Washington and Anchorage for a variety of reasons, including collection study, training and consultation. Collaboration with U.S. and Alaska state government research and education programs provide further channels for affiliation.

Collections

Having pursued northern studies since the 1850s, the Smithsonian possesses one of the world's finest anthropological collections from Arctic regions. The most important early collections are ethnological materials acquired by Smithsonian naturalists between 1858 and 1890 from the Mackenzie District, Ungava, Baffin Island, Coppermine, Alaska and Siberia. In the early 1900s, with northern cultures being transformed by Western contact, Smithsonian researchers turned to archeology to explore the history of Arctic peoples and cultures. Inspired by the quest of finding the origins of Eskimo culture and the first traces of pioneering peoples out of Asia, Smithsonian archeologists obtained large collections from Kodiak, the Aleutian Islands and the Bering Strait. Between 1927 and 1965 the Smithsonian's Henry Collins excavated sites in Alaska and Canada, rising to become the heralded "dean of Arctic archeology." Recent work in Labrador, Baffin, the Aleutian Islands, the Gulf of Alaska and Siberia have expanded ASC activities throughout the circumpolar region. Unlike many museum collections, the Smithsonian's are comprehensive, systematic and remarkably well documented. Archival holdings, including field notes, photography, unpublished reports and other information gathered by the researchers who made these early collections, add substantially to the value of the Institution's northern collections. Today these records are valuable not only for scientific reasons but because they provide information on the context of early fieldwork Native assistants, information about local conditions, participation of private companies and the military, and governmental relations.

In addition to its ethnological and archeological collections, NMNH natural science departments also hold large collections of northern fauna, flora, minerals and paleontological remains. These collections document North American Arctic and sub-Arctic regions before the industrial age and are important resources for studies of global change, pollution baselines, food-chain pathways and paleo-environments.

Relationships, Policy and Partnerships

The ASC nurtures relationships with other museums, institutes and private and public organizations. While the basic ASC mandate lies in cultural studies, Center programs range across the natural sciences, humanities and arts and use resources of other Smithsonian offices and departments. Outside the Institution it maintains relationships with the National Science Foundation, National Park Service, State Department, NOAA and other Federal and Alaska state agencies. Most ASC programs are conducted as cooperative ventures with U.S. and/or foreign partners, university groups and Native communities.

The ASC represents the Smithsonian at various Federal agencies and on research boards such as the Interagency Arctic Research Policy Committee, the Arctic Research Commission and the Arctic Research Consortium of the United States. It helped lobby to create the Arctic Social Science Program in the Division of Polar Programs at the National Science Foundation in 1990. The Center has a prominent role in policy issues and takes seriously its advisorship to government and international bodies. The National Museum of the American Indian, which recently became part of the Smithsonian, works together with the Center in northern research and education.

Recent Programs

As the principal venue for the Smithsonian's Arctic enterprise, the ASC uses its resources for the benefit of the Nation and the world at large. In recent years it has expanded its earlier focus on North America into international research, collection sharing, exhibition and public education. These programs have brought Smithsonian programs to many foreign nations and local northern communities for the first time.

Crossroads of Continents
This first international joint venture with the Soviet Union/Russia led to Crossroads of Continents: Cultures of Alaska and Siberia, a ground-breaking exhibition that toured North America in 1988-1991. The project produced three international symposia, and its catalog and educational publications included Crossroads of Continents (1988) and Cultures of the North Pacific Rim (1994).

Crossroads Alaska/Siberia
The large Crossroads exhibition stimulated a smaller traveling exhibit to present North Pacific collections to local audiences in Alaska and the Russian Far East. NMNH, the National Museum of the American Indian, the University of Alaska Museum, and Russian Far East museums contributed objects for this exhibition, which was funded by NSF, the Smithsonian, the National Park Service, USIA and others. The exhibit toured 12 sites in Alaska in 1993-1996 and in 1987 was the first exhibition ever to travel in the Russian Far East. Color catalogues, educational materials and media programs were produced, and 5000 Russian language volumes were delivered free to Siberian museums, Native associations, village schools and local communities.

Jesup II
Conceived and launched in 1992 as an off-shoot of the Crossroads exhibition, Jesup II is a joint effort of U.S., Russian, Canadian, Japanese and European scientists to explore the legacy of the Jesup North Pacific Expedition (1897-1902) and the current status of Native cultures of the greater North Pacific region. In the past six years Jesup II has produced four international conferences (1992, 1993, 1994, 1997) and two volumes by an international research team.

Museum Partnerships in Alaska
In 1993 the ASC established a regional office in Alaska in partnership with the Anchorage Museum of History and Art. Anticipating trends later recognized by the Smithsonian's Commission on the Future (1996) and its derivative Affiliations Program, the NMNH-Anchorage agreement provides research, education and training to Anchorage and rural Alaskan communities. In 1996 the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian joined the Arctic Center's Anchorage effort by contributing to its public outreach activities. The first five-year affiliation agreement expires in December 1998 and is currently under renegotiation.

Community Archeology and Museum Training
Since 1978 the ASC has worked to provide access to Smithsonian collections, archival data and staff expertise to northern institutions and residents. Research programs and museum studies fellowships and internships create opportunities for northern residents and community scholars to work with museum collections and archives. In Anchorage, yearly museum training workshops have been held to train community scholars and Native museum professionals. Together with a traveling mini-exhibit series, these programs have helped stimulate local museums and culture center development in Alaska, Canada and Russia.

Archeology of the Frobisher Voyages
Archeological exploration of Martin Frobisher's "gold mines" of 1576-1578 provided insight into early European voyages and contacts with Native Inuit in the eastern Canadian Arctic. Sparked by study of an early Smithsonian archeological collection (C.F. Hall, 1862), fieldwork in 1990-1993 brought together an international team to study the first post-Norse European settlement and mining venture in the American Arctic. In addition to Archeology of the Frobisher Voyages (1993), the project stimulated a Canadian-American and British program that has produced several scholarly volumes, five PhD/MA theses and many international symposia, popular articles and documentary films.

National Park Surveys
During 1993-1996, ASC was funded by the National Park Service to conduct archeological surveys and paleoenvironmental research in Katmai, Kenai Fjords, Glacier Bay, Wrangell-St. Elias and Lake Clark National Parks, situated along the geologically dynamic coastline of the Gulf of Alaska. The data advanced knowledge of human adaptations and paleodemography across a broad region, while identifying impacts of glacial advances and changing sea levels on preservation of the archeological record. The results will assist the NPS in management and research planning efforts. NPS contributed salary, fieldwork, analysis and publication support, which has been vital in maintaining the ASC Anchorage office.

Western Aleutian Archeology and Paleoecology
Since 1992 the ASC has participated in the Western Aleutian Human Paleoecology and Biodiversity Project, an interagency (with U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service), international (U.S., France, Russia) and interdisciplinary research initiative set in the Near Islands, the westernmost of the Aleutian Chain. Building on the earlier Smithsonian scholarship and collections made by William Dall, Lucien Turner, Leonard Stejneger and Ales Hrdlicka, the research initiative is centered on unraveling the longterm settlement chronology, the dynamics of human and avian biogeography, and the nature of the evolution of chiefly societies in such a remote archipelago.

Historical Archeology of Russian Contact
The Center continued research and publication on the interaction of Russian fur traders and indigenous populations of southern Alaska. Earlier research on the Russian Three Saints Harbor colony on Kodiak Island was published in 1997 as Archaeology and Capitalist World System: A Study from Russian America (Aron Crowell, Plenum Press, 1997). Data from new contact period sites discovered in NPS surveys are providing information on material culture change and village abandonment that fill major gaps in historical knowledge about the effect of Russian contact.

Living Yamal
This project on the Yamal Peninsula of western Siberia grew from the need to evaluate western Siberian cultural resources in the face of industrial development. Three archeological surveys (1994-1997), a photograph exhibition, several video films and public and scholarly materials were produced by a Smithsonian-Russian team. The project introduced Smithsonian field and museum approaches across the Russian Arctic and pioneered museum-arbitrated roles between industry and Native culture. Another outcome will be publication of the monumental Historical-Ethnographic Atlas of Siberia (800 pages, 1200 illustrations) by SI Press.

Outreach, Media and Exhibits
Over the past ten years the ASC has developed a media and image profile that communicates its mission to national and international audiences. The ASC Newsletter has become an important vehicle for disseminating information to a large and growing clientele yearly. Numerous news releases and radio, TV and print stories document Center activities nationally and internationally. Video documentaries including Secrets of the Lost Red Paint People, Viking America, Northern Clans/Northern Traces and In Caribou Country have been produced and are broadcast repeatedly in North America and Europe. The Center also maintains a prize-winning homepage and multi-media communications system. In addition to its large traveling and mini-exhibit series, other special exhibits produced include Canadian Inuit Sculpture, shown in the Canadian Embassy Gallery, and Oil From Alaska, which opened at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History in the fall of 1997.

Arktis/Antarktis Exhibition
In 1996-97 the Center was invited to collaborate with the Kunst- und Ausstellungshalle (KAH) gallery in Bonn, Germany, to contribute anthropological perspectives to an exhibition on polar regions. Two exhibit segments, one on circumpolar archeology and another on the Nenets reindeer herders of western Siberia studied in the Living Yamal project, were prepared, accompanied by a documentary film, Northern Clans/Northern Traces, produced in collaboration with Spofford Films and Cybergrafix Corporation. The exhibit was displayed in Bonn through April 1998.

Arctic Studies Website
The success of ASC video programs and the prize-winning ASC website, http:/www.nmnh.si.edu/arctic/, produced with Spofford Films and Cybergrafix, shows the potential for new media in bringing ASC research and public programs to both mass and selective audiences. In cooperation with the Office of Polar Programs of the National Science Foundation, ASC prepared and mounted a series of web pages devoted to selected NSF-sponsored social science research projects. The Center will continue developing this delivery method with the aim to bring its research and educational programs to wider research and public audiences, especially to northern communities in Alaska.

Alaska Regional Office

The Alaska Regional Office of the Arctic Studies Center was established in 1994 through agreements between the National Museum of Natural History, the Anchorage Museum of History and Art (AMHA) and the Municipality of Anchorage. The five-year agreement called for cooperation in establishing a Smithsonian presence in Alaska to pro-vide Alaskans with access to Smithsonian cultural resources. At the same time an Alaska office would enhance the Institution's research capabilities through direct contacts with Native Alaska and its cultural resources.

The Anchorage agreement called for NMNH to establish a curatorial position at the Anchorage Museum to staff the office and assist AMHA Native cultural programs. Second, NMNH agreed to work toward bringing Smithsonian anthropological collections to Alaska for use in local exhibitions, training and research. Third, NMNH agreed to work with AMHA and other Alaskan agencies to develop a series of workshops and other training programs for Alaskan residents in museums studies, research and exhibition techniques. On its side, AMHA and the Municipality agreed to provide free facilities and core services to support the office. The agreement is subject to renewal after five years and will expire in late 1998.

For the past four years the Anchorage Office has been directed by Aron Crowell, an archeologist with extensive experience in museum programs and scholarly research. Affiliation with the Anchorage office of the National Park Service has allowed the ASC to pursue archeological surveys in National Parks in addition to conducting outreach and public programs. In 1997 a grant from the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian allowed the Center to add an education outreach coordinator to the Anchorage office staff.

For its first four years the Center occupied an office in the Anchorage Museum, with additional space for research and collection storage. In 1997 the Center moved into new offices in a building adjacent to the museum that had been turned over to the museum by the city and was renovated and equipped for Center use by Elmer Rasmuson, who was then a board member of the NMNH and has been a long-time friend and benefactor of the Anchorage Museum. These offices provide excellent facilities for the near future. Long-range plans announced in 1996 call for expansion of the AMHA complex within the next 5-10 years and will bring the ASC back into the museum proper. This will enable the Center to fully integrate research, collection and training activities with Anchorage museum programs.

Since its inauguration in 1994 the Anchorage Office has fulfilled its developmental stage plan, conducting a wide variety of research and educational ventures. Aron Crowell's research has been devoted to archeological fieldwork for his Gulf of Alaska program with the NPS and the analysis and reporting of this work. Archeological illustrator Mark Matson has assisted the effort in the Anchorage office under NPS funding. In addition to an important contract period study, several papers have appeared on Kodiak prehistory and geo-archeological studies conducted in Gulf of Alaska National Parks.

Major research has also gone into preparating the exhibition Looking Both Ways: Heritage and Identity of the Alutiiq People, including collection studies at NMNH, extensive work with archival photography and oral history sources (contract research by Dee Hunt), and in-depth discussions with Alutiiq elders about exhibition themes and the meaning and significance of material culture items and historic images (Crowell and Maria Williams).

In addition to research activities the Anchorage Office has conducted a series of outreach programs that have been enthusiastically received and reviewed. Theses include tribal museum and museum education seminars at the Alaska Federation of Natives meeting in October 1994, at the Museums Alaska meeting in September 1996 and at the Western Museums Association meeting in September 1998.

Preserving our Heritage: A Seminar on Community Research and Cultural Documentation was held in Anchorage in October 1995. ASC provided assistance to the Alaska Native Human Resource Development Program, University of Alaska, in conducting this seminar, attended by 40 students from throughout Alaska.

A workshop called Preservation of Cultural Objects was held at the Anchorage Museum of History and Art in May 1996. This five-day intensive training program was attended by 25 participants from 16 Alaska museums and was taught by Smithsonian ethnographic conservators Carolyn Rose and Greta Hansen.

The Anchorage Office held an Elders Planning Conference for the Exhibition Looking Both Ways: Heritage and Identity of the Alutiiq People at the Alutiiq Museum in Kodiak in September 1997. It was attended by 45 elders and Alutiiq cultural leaders from villages throughout southern Alaska, as well as a large public audience. It involved planning of exhibit themes through discussion of the William J. Fisher collection, historical photographs and archeological materials.

Another workshop, called Alaska Native Museums and Culture Centers: Planning and Management, was held at the Anchorage Museum of History and Art in February 1998.

Since 1994 the Anchorage Office, in cooperation with the University of Alaska Fairbanks and Ilisagvik College (Barrow), has sponored six undergraduate courses leading to a museums studies minor, as part of the Museum Studies Distance Delivery Classes. Students have participated remotely by audio-conference from 25 communities over the past four years. Classes visited the NMNH in March 1996 to study the Alaska collections. The program also involves student internships and projects at ASC and the Anchorage Museum. Another undergraduate course, called Museum Studies in Anthropology, was taught through the University of Alaska Anchorage during the spring semester of 1997.

In the Tatitlek CD-ROM Project, village students worked with research materials provided by ASC and technical training from the Chugach School District to create an interactive catalog of objects in the William J. Fisher collections.

Networks and Relationships

In addition to its current relationships with the University of Alaska in Anchorage and Fairbanks, the ASC has developed partnerships with the growing ranks of small regional museums and culture centers throughout Alaska, and its mini-exhibit tours have connected them with similar institutions in Canada and Russia. They are regular participants in the Alaska Anthropological Association and Museums Alaska associations and meetings. They have entered into formal agreements with the new Inupiat Cultural Center in Barrow and the Alutiiq Museum in Kodiak, and they expect more of these relationships to develop in the future. The Center's relationship with the University of Alaska Fairbanks Department of Alaska Native and Rural Development in Anchorage, directed by Gordon Pullar, has been of great assistance in mounting a variety of workshops and educational programs.

Conclusion

The primary ASC objective for its second decade is to maintain a multifaceted research and public programs agenda. The latter can be best achieved via expanded partnership, new exhibit projects and publication. They expect to continue working with Russian, Canadian, European and Japanese researchers, as well as circumpolar Native peoples. Their most challenging role is to fulfill the outreach and collection-sharing mandate proclaimed in the Smithsonian's 150th anniversary report, E Pluribus Unum: This Divine Paradox, the 1995 Report of the Commission on the Future of the Smithsonian Institution, without compromising scholarly quality or collection integrity.

During its first decade the ASC succeeded in building internationally acclaimed exhibits, research programs, training and publication projects. Thanks to these efforts, Smithsonian collections and expertise have been brought out of "the Nation's attic" into the North and have been introduced to a new constituency of scholars and northern peoples around the globe. With an international research program already well defined and a new foothold in Alaska secured, the Smithsonian has turned a corner and is ready for the challenges of the new millennium.