Sealaska will donate twelve cedar logs to the Wrangell Cooperative Association (WCA) to use towards the renovation of Chief Shakes Tribal House on Shakes Island.
WCA requested the six red and six yellow cedar logs late last year through Sealaska’s log donation program. Sealaska — a native corporation — announced last week its board of directors had approved of the donation request.
The logs will be used to replace the corner posts of the 70-year-old Shakes House.
WCA had requested Sealaska’s log donation because it had run out of the resources necessary to complete the renovation, said Dawn Hutchinson, who was the WCA Board President up until yesterday, when new board members were sworn in. The logs WCA had access to were not going to be big enough to replace the large corner posts of the tribal house, Hutchinson said.
“We had all but exhausted all that would be avail to us, and we still needed logs,” Hutchinson said. “We went to Sealaska because we absolutely needed more, and they came through.”
The large cedar logs WCA is set to receive are hard to come by, Hutchinson said.
“We had no access to those size logs,” she said.
Rosita Worl, vice chair of the Sealaska Board of Directors, said yellow cedar logs, like the ones WCA will receive, are becoming more and more rare. She said Sealaksa is looking into different types of wood, such as spruce, that would be used on clan houses in the future.
However, WCA’s request for the cedar logs was granted because the tribal house on Shakes Island is a historical and monumental structure well known not only in Wrangell but also throughout Southeast Alaska, Worl said.
It is also a community-supported project, World added, which is important. And, WCA had already made its own efforts to secure logs through the U.S. Forest Service and raised money for the renovation of the tribal house, she said.
“That is really important to take real ownership in it,” Worl said.
Along with replacing the corner posts of the house, the Chief Shakes Tribal House restoration project includes installing a new roof, sidewalls and redoing electrical work inside the historical house. Last year, a team of six adzers began carving the boards to be used for the new walls and flooring for the Shakes House.
Project Manager Todd White told the Sentinel he expects work on the restoration project to resume in April and hopes it will be completed in early 2013.
White said WCA is very appreciative of the donation from Sealaska and the logs will help to move the restoration project along.
Hutchinson echoed White’s appreciation.
“It’s amazing to me,” she said. “…We didn’t know where we were going to go on this, we thought we were going to have to buy logs, and they’re not cheap. So we are just so thankful to Sealaska for this.”
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