Borough plans careful look at Institute grounds

The borough’s plans to subdivide the former Wrangell Institute Native boarding school property will wait until a thorough inspection of the site is conducted for cultural artifacts and remains.

“We are working with both the Army Corps of Engineers and the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and working with the tribe (Wrangell Cooperative Association),” to ensure the property is searched “before any activity takes place,” Mayor Steve Prysunka said last week.

“It is incredibly sensitive that we do it really well,” Prysunka said. “What I care the most about is that our Native community and our entire community” are part of the effort, understand the purpose and the work, and believe the results, he said.

The plan, Prysunka said, is to look over the entire site, “so that we have great peace of mind.”

The BIA operated the Native boarding from 1932 to 1975. The borough received the property in 1996. The Army Corps is involved because the borough has applied for a wetlands fill permit to develop the site, just south of Shoemaker Bay, as a residential subdivision.

The borough has met with the Army Corps and the State Historic Preservation Office, and suggested the use of cadaver dogs, Borough Manager Lisa Von Bargen said Tuesday. “They think that’s a great idea.”

The tentative plan, she said, is to search the grounds with trained dogs, then follow up with ground-penetrating radar as needed.

The borough has contacted the Wrangell Cooperative Association, and “we’re taking their counsel,” Von Bargen said.

Search dogs could be brought in later this year. The borough will be looking to the BIA to cover the costs of searching the property, she said.

As part of the effort, the borough would talk with residents who worked or lived on the property, to learn as much as possible about the operations and what existed before the land was cleared, the mayor said.

The classrooms, dorms and other school buildings were demolished in the 1990s and early 2000s.

The school had about 260 students at its largest enrollment in 1959-1960, according to a 2005 report from the University of Alaska Anchorage.

The U.S. Department of the Interior, which oversees the BIA, has committed to investigating its past operation and oversight of Native American boarding schools. At its peak, the government operated more than 200 boarding schools nationwide and funded over 100 more, mostly run by religious denominations.

The department will work to “uncover the truth about the loss of human life and the lasting consequences” of policies that over the decades forced children from their families and communities, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland announced last month.

The recent discovery of children’s remains buried at the site of what was once Canada’s largest Indigenous residential school has magnified interest in the troubling legacy both in Canada and the United States.

In Canada, more than 150,000 First Nations children were required to attend state-funded Christian schools as part of a program to assimilate them into society and convert them to Christianity.

The Wrangell Institute was much different than the boarding schools in Canada, Prysunka said. Unlike in Canada, the school “was not run as a closed system,” where children could be hidden away from their home communities, he said.

The U.S. government’s unprecedented work will include compiling and reviewing records to identify past boarding schools, locate known and possible burial sites at or near those schools, and uncover the names and tribal affiliations of students, Haaland said.

“To address the intergenerational impact of Indian boarding schools and to promote spiritual and emotional healing in our communities, we must shed light on the unspoken traumas of the past no matter how hard it will be,” the secretary said.

Neither the Department of the Interior nor the BIA have yet publicly announced their plans for investigating former boarding school sites. Several religious orders operated boarding schools in Alaska separate from the BIA, as did the state.

A member of New Mexico’s Laguna Pueblo, Haaland is the first Native American to serve as a Cabinet secretary.

The Army Corps is not taking action on the borough’s wetlands fill permit application, pending completion of requirements under the National Historic Preservation Act, Carol Rushmore, Wrangell’s planning administrator, reported to the borough assembly for its Tuesday night meeting.

The borough is working toward redeveloping the 134-acre property in two phases, eventually offering 40 lots ranging in size from 17,000 to 41,000 square feet.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.