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Thank you for bringing this up. It's outrageous that it isn't more known outside of Canada (and inside). The last one only closed in 1996. EDIT: and good on yo

Thank you for bringing this up. It's outrageous that it isn't more known outside of Canada (and inside). The last one only closed in 1996. EDIT: and good on you for honouring her.

calvinmorrison 6y ago
I think something similar existed in Alaska. I had relatives up in south east Alaska ( the chain of islands that hang down, with cities like Juneau, Ketchican. While visiting we were shepherded around in a little school van by a retired teacher who worked at the local boarding school which was managed by Indian affairs. It was quite interesting talking to him - essentially kids who lived a traditional remote lifestyle in fishing and other villages all over the various islands would come to the school for months at a time for an education. I'm sure I didn't hear that 'other' side of the story, but it's pretty clear what was happening - taking kids away from their traditional families and putting them into American style education is a softer form of cultural destruction. I also spoke with his former students who had moved to the big city (think 3,000 people), and the city itself is mostly a mix of native, old russian and americans. In some ways their lifestyle was the same, their income was still fishing but they were living in a mostly normal American town - aside from the fact it was in the middle of no where and there were more boats and than cars in the city. I'd like to go back up there, everything I have learned about tlinget and the people I spent time with was a really interesting and awesome opportunity. Similar things happened to the scotts when scottish gaelic stopped being taught in school and was transferred to English. Now of course almost everyone in Scotland besides the Outer Hebrides speaks English. In many ways the Tlinget I met in SE Alaska were aware of what was going on and there was a lot of cultural preservation and focus on their language and traditional lifestyle, but again what else would you expect when you talk to people who work at the local cultural center? It's hard to say what the 'average' Tlinget experience is and since it's pretty sparse up there, experiences vary wildly. Anyway - Go to Sitka, AK, it's beautiful!

Thank you for bringing this up. It's outrageous that it isn't more known outside of Canada (and inside). The last one only closed in 1996. EDIT: and good on you for honouring her.

calvinmorrison 6y ago

I think something similar existed in Alaska. I had relatives up in south east Alaska ( the chain of islands that hang down, with cities like Juneau, Ketchican. While visiting we were shepherded around in a little school van by a retired teacher who worked at the local boarding school which was managed by Indian affairs. It was quite interesting talking to him - essentially kids who lived a traditional remote lifestyle in fishing and other villages all over the various islands would come to the school for months at a time for an education. I'm sure I didn't hear that 'other' side of the story, but it's pretty clear what was happening - taking kids away from their traditional families and putting them into American style education is a softer form of cultural destruction. I also spoke with his former students who had moved to the big city (think 3,000 people), and the city itself is mostly a mix of native, old russian and americans. In some ways their lifestyle was the same, their income was still fishing but they were living in a mostly normal American town - aside from the fact it was in the middle of no where and there were more boats and than cars in the city. I'd like to go back up there, everything I have learned about tlinget and the people I spent time with was a really interesting and awesome opportunity. Similar things happened to the scotts when scottish gaelic stopped being taught in school and was transferred to English. Now of course almost everyone in Scotland besides the Outer Hebrides speaks English. In many ways the Tlinget I met in SE Alaska were aware of what was going on and there was a lot of cultural preservation and focus on their language and traditional lifestyle, but again what else would you expect when you talk to people who work at the local cultural center? It's hard to say what the 'average' Tlinget experience is and since it's pretty sparse up there, experiences vary wildly. Anyway - Go to Sitka, AK, it's beautiful!