2023 Conference Information

2023 Conference: Connections and Disconnections in Alaska History

Alaska Historical Society Annual Conference
Central Kenai Peninsula (and available virtually over Zoom)
Thursday, October 5 – Sunday, October 8

Thank you for joining us at the 2023 Alaska Historical Society Conference!

The conference opened with an afternoon tour of the Holy Assumption Russian Orthodox Church, a National Historic Landmark, followed by a reception at the Kenai Visitors Center with a performance by the Salamatof drummers. Thank you to the Church and the Salamatof drummers! Presentations ran Friday morning through Sunday afternoon at Kenai Peninsula College.

Conference Theme

This year’s conference theme, “Connections and Disconnections in Alaska History,” speaks to how historic developments have had both positive and negative impacts on the territory and state. We hoped the theme would inspire presenters to explore many facets of Alaska. An overview of the conference schedule shows it worked. Keynote speaker Diane Hirshberg will hone in on Alaska
education, especially that affecting Indigenous and rural youth, while examining why many Alaska students struggle to succeed.

Other panels take up Alaska transportation modes and industries and colorful and unorthodox contributors to Alaska history. Even the diversity of Alaska place names reflects our historical connections and disconnections. We’re especially pleased with a major focus on Kenai Peninsula history to help us better appreciate this year’s conference site. Viewing Alaska’s history through the lens of connections and disconnections helps us understand our past and inform discussions and decisions about today and tomorrow.

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Keynote Speaker

Diane Hirshberg is director and professor of education policy at the Institute of Social and Economic Research, University of Alaska Anchorage, and vice-president academic for the UArctic Thematic Network on Health and Well-being in the Arctic. Her research interests include education policy, Indigenous and circumpolar education, and the role of education in sustainable development in the Arctic. She co-edited the book Education, Equity and Inclusion: Teaching and Learning for a Sustainable North, published in 2023, which features her co-authored chapter “Adaptation isn’t Just for the Tundra: Rethinking Teaching and Learning in Alaska’s Arctic.” Her current work focuses on the role of education and knowledge sharing in self-determined sustainable development in remote villages and in supporting community efforts to build energy security and sustainability in northern and Indigenous communities. Hirshberg
teaches in the Master of Public Policy Program at UAA. She has a Ph.D. in education from UCLA, an MPA from Columbia University, and two bachelor’s degrees from UC Berkeley.

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Keynote Address: From Sheldon Jackson to the Fight for Tribal Schools: The Unfinished History of Colonization’s Impact on Alaska’s Schools and Students

Speaker: Dr. Diane Hirshberg

Across Alaska, students, especially Indigenous and rural youth, struggle to succeed in school, as measured by (admittedly flawed) standardized measures of proficiency such as graduation rates, dropout rates, and achievement test scores. Many factors are blamed for this, from high rates of teacher turnover to poor school facilities to inadequate teaching methods and curricula. However, too many policymakers, researchers, and educators fail to critically examine how historic colonization and assimilation efforts in Alaska created and propagated the current situation. Hirshberg will discuss the history of the schooling system in Alaska including its intended purposes from early territorial days through the residential schooling era to the present, and trace how the contemporary education system continues to reflect and suffer from this oft-unexamined history.

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Friday, October 6, 10:30- 12:00pm: SESSION 1: Alaskans Who Shaped Our History

Moderator: Patricia Partnow

  • Marcia Biederman – The Courage of a Haida Woman: How Agnes McAlpin Won Her Human Rights in Divorce Court
  • Ray Hudson – The Best People on Earth: Connections and Disconnections in the Writings of Philemon Tutiakoff
  • Michael Livingston – Benny Benson’s Bilking and Diminution (NOT recorded)

Read the abstracts for the sessions and short bios of each presenter in our full conference guide, located here.

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Friday, October 6, 10:30- 12:00pm: SESSION 2: Building Alaska through Industry & Education

Moderator: Michael Hawfield (substituting for Pennelope Goforth)

  • Taiyo Itoh – Development of Alaska Native Programs at the University of Alaska Anchorage
  • Bridget Groat – The Boom and Bust of Bristol Bay’s Commercial Salmon Fishery

Read the abstracts for the sessions and short bios of each presenter in our full conference guide, located here.

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Friday, October 6, 1- 2:15 pm: SESSION 1: Unorthodox Contributors to Alaska History

Moderator: Rachel Mason

  • Colonel Russ Vanderlugt – The Continuing Mystery of Mr. Petroff’s History, Part II (Part I can be accessed here)
  • Diane Rodill – One 1915 Alaskero Has a Name
  • Cynthia Wenworth – Charles Tanqiilnguq Hunt and the Village of Caniliaq: Yup’iit and Non-Natives at the North Mouth of the Yukon River 1937–1945 (NOT recorded)

Read the abstracts for the sessions and short bios of each presenter in our full conference guide, located here.

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Friday, October 6, 1- 2:15 pm: SESSION 2: Paving the Way to Statehood

Moderator: David Ramseur

  • Paul Dauphinais – Structures, Skills, and Statehood: How the Second World War Made Alaska Statehood Possible
  • Kristi Swain – The Legacy of Canadian-American Military Cooperation in Alaska

Read the abstracts for the sessions and short bios of each presenter in our full conference guide, located here.

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Friday, October 6, 2:30-3:45 pm: SESSION 1: Colorful Characters in Early 20th Century Alaska

Moderator: Erik Johnson

Read the abstracts for the sessions and short bios of each presenter in our full conference guide, located here.

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Friday, October 6, 2:30-3:45 pm: SESSION 2: Gunboats, Missions, and Tourism

Moderator: Angela Schmidt

  • Dan Monteith – From “Gunboat” Frontier to “Civil” Control: The Beginning of Social Injustice for the Tlingit in Southeast Alaska
  • Rebecca Paulson –  Presbyterians in Tlingit America
  • Bill Youngs –  Early Alaska Tourism and the Encounter with Alaska Natives

Read the abstracts for the sessions and short bios of each presenter in our full conference guide, located here.

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Saturday, October 7,  8 – 9:30 am: Planes, Trains and Power

Moderator: Erik Johnson

  • Pierce Bateman – The Air Passenger Crossroads of the World: Anchorage in the Age of the Jet Set, 1946–1991
  • Ian Hartman – Reflections on 100 Years of the Alaska Railroad
  • Philip Wight – Children of the Midnight Sun: A History of Alaskan Electrification

Read the abstracts for the sessions and short bios of each presenter in our full conference guide, located here.

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Saturday, October 7, 10 – 12 pm: Kenai Peninsula Historical Association Meeting

  • Presentations by Cooper Landing, Hope, Kasilof, Kenai, Nikiski, Seward, Soldotna historical societies

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Saturday, October 7,  1 – 3 pm: Living on the Kenai Peninsula

Moderator: Shana Loshbaugh

  • Adam Dunstan – Exploring the Relationship Between Salmon and Kahtnuht’ana Dena’ina Communities in the Nineteenth Century: A Cultural Keystone Species Approach
  • Jonathon Ross – Tikahtnuht’ana Ełnena: Qbełnenqultses (Cook Inlet Dena’ina Territory: From When Things Have Been Happening to the People)
  • Doug Baily – The Tanker Rebecca Incident: Alaska Comes of Age as an Oil State
  • Marilyn Sigman – Shifting Baselines and Response to Ecological Change in Kachemak Bay, Alaska

Read the abstracts for the sessions and short bios of each presenter in our full conference guide, located here.

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Saturday, October 7,  3:30 – 5pm: Alaska Place Names

Moderator: Philip Wight

  •  Roger Pearson, Gregory Weissenberg and Michael James Letzring – Russian Alaska:
    Toponymic Perspectives
  • Gerrit Verbeek – Choss Lore: An Atlas of Geographic Naming History in Southcentral Alaska
  • James Kari and Gerad M. Smith – Discussion of the Kari-Smith Atlas of Alaska Dene Place Names

Read the abstracts for the sessions and short bios of each presenter in our full conference guide, located here.

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Sunday, October 8, 8 – 9:30am: Lost Alaskans and Project Jukebox

Moderator: William Schneider

  • Ellen Ganley and Shir Lev Bach – Finding the Lost Alaskans: Volunteer and Researcher Experiences with the Morningside Hospital History Project
  • Karen Brewster – Conversations About Change: Observations of Environmental Change and Effects on People at Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park in Skagway, Alaska, and
    Bering Land Bridge National Preserve in Nome, Alaska

Read the abstracts for the sessions and short bios of each presenter in our full conference guide, located here.

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Sunday, October 8, 9:45 – 10:45 am: SESSION 1: Workshop

  • Freya Anderson – Copyright Q & A

Read the abstracts for the sessions and short bios of each presenter in our full conference guide, located here.

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Sunday, October 8, 9:45 – 10:45 am: SESSION 2: Early Cartography and Commercialization

Moderator: Michael Hawfield

  • Jared Freedline – Early Alaskan Identity: Views from Early Alaskan Cartography
  • Pennelope Goforth and Leslie Fried – From Purchase to Prosperity: The Jewish Founders of the Alaska Commercial Company and Their Contributions to the Acquisition in America’s Last Frontier

Read the abstracts for the sessions and short bios of each presenter in our full conference guide, located here.