"Basket Weaver" by Unangax artist Gertrude Svarny who began her art career relatively late for emerging artists. This is my personal favorite and came from a shoot that required many takes and patience. LM wrote in 1985 "Basket Weaver" reminds us of historic values laid down by our Aleut Elders. Photographer Gary Hagness captured a mood that is both calming and reflective of the central role of Unangan women in our villages. Basket Weaver Media: Whalebone, ryegrass, ivory.
Who We Are The Aleut Elder is a portal for knowledge about Unangan culture, history and language, Our education and advocacy are built around core values. Our passion is to bring forward Unangan values by connecting to our forebears. These values are trusting, caring, sharing and hard work. The Aleut Elder intends to strengthen the social fabric of Unangan people.
Our Mission The Aleut Elder will educate and share meaningful information from an elder's perspective by combining research and personal experiences.
What We Do
The Aleut Elder develops educational resources that cross generations. To that end we research, write, publish and network. The Aleut Elder supports and encourages Unangan writers, artists, storytellers and linguists.
The Aleut Elder will advocate candidly in support of Unangan shareholder's interests connected with ANCSA—The Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act.
We have 4 projects under way. The first is 2 years of research that is almost complete loosely titled "In the Time of My Grandfather" that covers about 100 years of significant events including fur seal harvesting (1850-1955) and focuses on education/learning in my village of St. George. I examine the Pribilof Islands in general and America's Native Tribes.
The second includes more details and in-depth look at the WWII evacuation and internment of Unangan (Aleuts) from 7 villages in our region, the unfair and racially based treatment of Unangan and a closer look at how the indecision sealed our fate. The decision was bounced around between Interior Secretary Eckes, President Roosevelt, the military and Alaska's territorial governor. I was with my St. George family in Funter Bay across the bay from where the St. Paul Unangan were housed. Unangan lost 10% of their beautiful people mostly children and precious elders. The first loss was a child that died in route to Funter Bay and buried at sea. Unangan do not bury our babies at sea.
The third involves continual analysis of The Aleut Corporation's financial and management performance based on Annual Reports, public information and individual sources that provide information to our newsletter, The Aleut Voice. We will review Village information that is of interest to readers.
The fourth is research that is basically complete for a "White Paper" titled Shareholder Apathy/Board Apathy in ANCSA Native Corporations with The Aleut Corporation being the primary corporate model.