Carvers making history renovating site

User Rating: / 0
PoorBest 

JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) – “We usually start with a ‘hoo haa’,” said master carver Wayne Price. “Can I get a ‘hoo haa’?” he called out to his adzing team.

The chorus of voices echoing back was different than most carving groups: of the six adzers working under Price, four are women.

The group is working to restore the Chief Shakes tribal house and surrounding totem poles on Wrangell's Shakes Island. The house, which was built in 1940 as a replica of a 19th century Tlingit tribal house, sits on the site historically occupied by Chief Shakes' lineage and continues to be used for Tlingit ceremonies today. The restoration project, which has been planned for years, involves taking down the old structure, refurbishing the totem poles, and raising a new structure with hand-adzed timber.

And as they work to renovate the historic tribal house, the adzing team is making history themselves. This is believed to be the first time women have been a significant part of an adzing team, according to the Wrangell Cooperative Association (WCA), the tribe of the Stikine River region, which owns Shakes Island and is administering the restoration project.

“We will never see this again in our lifetime,” said Carol Snoddy at WCA, of seeing so many women adzers doing what has traditionally been considered a man's job in Tlingit culture.

Perhaps even more noteworthy is that the presence of women on the team is not something the team members focus on when discussing the project. What's most important, they all say, is teamwork and being a part of something much larger than all of them.

“It just so happens that four of them are women,” Price said simply.

The group formed after an adze-making class held in Wrangell by Price and Washington-based carver Steve Brown. The original plan was to hire two local adzers after the class, but they ended up with three: Tammi Meissner, Susie Kasinger and Linda Churchill. They were “the last ones standing” from the class of 26, Price said.

“Over the last ten or 12 years I've been collecting carving tools, getting ready for this moment,” said Kasinger, who first carved panels as a teenager, taking classes at Wrangell's Johnson O'Malley (JOM) program. “I'm really excited and happy to be here.”

Churchill is the daughter of the late Wrangell carver Eddie Pat Churchill. “My dad has always taken me under my wing and encouraged me,” she said. She joined the adze-making class when her nephew wanted company, but soon she started spending more and more time in the carving shed.

Similarly, once Meissner chanced upon the class, she was hooked. “This is where I'm meant to be right now,” she said. “Working with wood is something I want to do the rest of my life.”

Joining the Wrangell women are three more experienced adzers – Justin Smith, Josh Lesage and Vanessa Pazar – all of whom have worked with Price on past projects.

“Wrangell is unique in its community support and acceptance of women carvers,” Pazar said in a WCA press release, adding that she has experienced some resistance to “women using a man's tool and doing a man's work.”

News of the historic significance of the women on the adzing team has helped the project draw national attention, Snoddy said, and the WCA has heard from the Oprah Foundation and National Geographic, among many others.

For the carvers who have worked on other projects, the scope of this restoration is significant. Justin Smith, who grew up in Whitehorse, has been around carvers and artists all of his life, and he is struck by the size of this project.

“Chief Shakes was a very powerful person,” Smith said. “What an honor to be doing this for Chief Shakes and his people. To keep doing this and keep it alive and strong for the next generation.”

“We're really honored to be working on our clan house,” added Meissner. “It means a lot, knowing that we have to take our time, and thank those that come before us, all of the adzers and all of our ancestors. It's remarkable.

“When you really get into the adzing, it doesn't feel like you're doing it. It feels like someone else is taking over for us.”

By learning to “read the wood,” the adzers can study tools and techniques used long ago, Price said, as far back as the 1740s.

“It's a language you can only learn if you learn how to adze,” he said.

A restoration project of this scope is new to everyone on the team, Price said, and they constantly run into new and unexpected challenges.

“Everything that's impossible just takes a little longer,” he said.

And it's always about teamwork, Price said, and keeping spirits up, “any given day we are on this project, rain or – rain. Or rain. Rains here a little bit!”

At the end of September, the group took all the totem poles down for refurbishing during over the course of 10 days with 60-knot gusts, sideways rain and ankle-deep mud.

“The morale was very high, everybody was happy to be there, nobody backed off one inch,” Price said.

The tribal house restoration project is on schedule to be completed by next fall. A huge potlatch will be held to celebrate the completed restoration.