SEARHC hosts culture camp during Bearfest

SEARHC hosted an Alaska Native culture camp during Wrangell's annual Bearfest this past week. Running from July 24 to 28, the camp invited anybody interested to come together to make paddles and headbands, and to learn more about Wrangell's native culture.

"The high school shop was where we were doing the paddle making, then we had the sewing in the middle school commons with our elder, Donna Kuntz," Tammi Meissner said.

The wood for the paddles was donated by the Sealaska Corporation, Meissner said. Participants got to hand-sand their paddles and paint them. As most of the participants were native, she said, a lot of the paddles were decorated with native designs.

"But if they don't, they're welcome to paint whatever they want as long as they choose the design," she said. "And of course we have the traditional colors, which are black, red, white, but we also have a bunch of other colors where you can mix them. We have some halibut, and octopus on them, ravens, salmon."

Kuntz handled the headband sewing portion of the classes. She said that it was a lot of fun, and that she and the other participants gave each other a lot of good-natured hard time during the class. The important part of her classes, she said, was teaching them that sewing can be fun. In teaching them, she said that they all used native designs, mostly flowers. The use of color was another important aspect of the lessons, she said.

"The way I teach is don't be afraid of color," Kuntz said. "I really feel that if my ancestors, my great-great-great-great-great-great grandmother who beaded, if she had access to all these beautiful beads and different things like buttons, and stuff like that, she would have used them ... I think basically, traditionally, we use black, red, white, kind of a soft turquoise, and yellow. Anything we do other is extra."

Meissner said that the camps ran from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. each day, and the numbers ranged from 12 to 20 participants a day. While put on by SEARHC, she added that it was paid for by several grants, and that the school district was generous to let them use their space for free. The camp was designed to be part of a suicide-prevention initiative, to get kids in contact with their elders and help teach them more about their culture and history.