Iñupiaq men in qayaqs, Noatak, Alaska, circa 1929. Edward S. Curtis Collection, Library of Congress Digital Collections.
Crossing the Chilkoot Pass, circa 1898. Courtesy Candy Waugaman and Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park.
The Gold Rush boomtown of Nome on the Seward Peninsula, 1900. Courtesy of U.S. Geological Survey Photographic Library.
Thank you to all who attended our 2026 Conference in Homer or on Zoom! Please enjoy the recordings of our Conference sessions.
If you’d like to make a gift to support these learning opportunities and others, you can do so here.
New Directions in Alaska’s History – access the conference guide for session descriptions.
WELCOME & TRIBUTE TO STEVE HAYCOX
» Will Schneider – The Festschrift
» Dagmar Phillips – My Husband, Steve Haycox
» Ian Hartman – Welcome to the Festschrift
FESTSCHRIFT Honoring Steve Haycox
» Holly Guise – “Frontiers” and Inclusion in Alaska Native History
» Pierce Bateman – The Politics of Alaska’s Cold War Subnational Diplomacy
» Will Schneider – Wickersham, Dimond, and Gruening: Roots of the Government-Native Relations in
20th-Century Alaska
» Annaliese Claydon – Of Shearwaters, Whales, and Seals: Some Entanglements of the Bering and Tasman Worlds, c. 1850-1900
SESSION 1 Land Transformation and Brown Rat Dynamics
» Doug Capra – If You Can Remember the Sixties: The Back-To-The-Land Movement and the Hippie Invasion of Alaska
» John Branson – From Tanalian Point to Port Alsworth
» Christopher Setzer – The Ratting of Alaska: A Cross-Pacific History
» Tim Troll – Sailing Back to the Bay Project
FESTSCHRIFT Honoring Steve Haycox
» Lisa Weissler – Oil and Alaska Politics: Learning from History
» Phil Wight – Myths and Materialism: Alaska’s Energetic Past and Fractious Future
» David Ramseur – Alaska-Russia Relations: The Vital Role of Alaska Native Peoples
» Andrei Znamenski – Alaska in Geopolitical Imagination of Current Russia
SESSION 2 Borders, Trade and Currency
» Viktor Shmagin – Shock, Awe and Strategic Confusion: The Russian-American Company Against Tokugawa Japan
» Gretchen T . Bersch – Use of Civil War Scrip in Alaska
» Brandon Boylan – Alaska’s Role in Foreign Policy
» Kajetan Jamkowski – Maurycy Beniowski’s 1772 Map of His Escape from Siberia through the North Pacific:
History and Cartographic Analysis
FESTSCHRIFT Honoring Steve Haycox
» Leanna Williams – Flight, Fame, and Frontier Alaska Aviation in the Popular Imagination, 1926-1938
» Charles Wohlforth – First Drafts: The Changing Role of Journalism in Recording Alaska’s History and Establishing its Cultural Narrative
» Ross Coen – Still Searching for that Usable Past
» Ian Hartman – Steve Haycox: The Making of an Alaska Historian
SESSION 3 Trailblazers of the North
» Karen Brewster & Judy Bittner – From Seward to Nome: Protecting the Iditarod National Historic Trail
» Forest Wagner – Inhabiting the Interior: Winter Ultra-Athletics and the Evolution of the Alaskan Trail Experience
» Tyler Kirk – Dogsled Diplomacy: Toward a Visual History of the Intercontinental Hope ’91 Sled Dog Race and the End of the Cold War
KEYNOTE PRESENTATION
» Mass Injustice against Japanese Americans during World War II – Sam Mihara
SESSION 4 Guardsmen and Grand Slams
» Joshua Millard – Baseball’s Northern Front: The Military Influence on Fairbanks Baseball & Alaska’s Most Iconic Game
» Kristie Swain – The Alaska Territorial Guard and the Canadian Rangers: Historical Comparison and
Contemporary Relevance
» John Fournelle & Hilary Hilscher – Herb Hilscher and OSS’s “Black Radio” Aleutian Operation
SESSION 5 Stories of Resilience and Recognition
» Mary Ludwig – Through the Eyes of a Child: Northern Colonial Intersections
» Rebecca Poulson – The Mission: The First Forty Years of Sitka’s Presbyterian Native Boarding School, 1881-1921
» Honoring and Preserving the Contributions of Women in Alaska through the Alaska Women’s Hall of Fame
Doug Vandegraft – Historic Bars of Homer
SESSION 6 Carvings and Communities
» Mark D. Foley – Joe Kakarook’s Scrimshaw Mastodon Tusk: Created for the Alaska Commercial Company
» Adam Dunstan – Alaska Native Histories of Cooper Landing, Alaska
» Chloe McKay – Latin Cultural Spaces in Anchorage, 1970-Today
SESSION 7 Rails, Wings, and Waterways
» Larry Talley – Alaska Mailboats
» Bryan Taylor – Alaska’s Pioneer Access Roads Program on the Kenai Peninsula
» Cynthia Wentworth – Alaska Railroad: Alaska’s Lucky Break
» Christie Ericson – Pioneer Aviator Ingrid Pedersen: “A Rare Bird”
KEYNOTE PRESENTATION
» The Iñupiaq Learning Framework: What We Learned – Pausauraq Jana Harcharek
SESSION 8 Top-Down History
» Tom Kizzia – Birthright Citizenship and the Fourteenth Amendment
» Jo Michalski – The Smithsonian Perspective
» Audience/Participant Discussion
SESSION 9 Preserving the Past, Honoring the Land
» Deirdre Bryan & Tom Davis – Exploring Anchorage’s Places and Spaces: Introducing the Public Historic
Resources Database
» Kaitlin Armstrong – Contaminated: The Legacy of Lands Conveyed Under ANCSA
» Katie Ione Craney & Klara Maisch – C’ulc’ena’ Łuu’ / Gulkana Glacier
