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.
New dates for the AHS Annual Conference are Thursday through Saturday: October 8-10 and 15-17. The conference theme remains “Power and Place.”
Sitka from water, showing the Three Sisters in the background. Sitka Harbor-7, Alaska State Library Photo Collection.
Over the last few months, COVID-19 pandemic has had a huge impact on our lives. We’ve stopped gathering and traveling, and much of our usual interaction for work, school, worship or shopping is now done from home or with social distancing. Last month, the AHS board made the difficult, but necessary, decision to cancel the planned face-to-face annual conference in Sitka, October 14-17. Instead, we will hold the meeting digitally by Zoom, stretching it out over two weeks, Thursday through Saturday: October 8-10 and 15-17. To avoid Zoom fatigue, we’ll meet for 1-1/2 hours in the morning and 1-1/2 hours in the afternoon each day. There are no concurrent sessions; everyone can attend every session. The sessions will be recorded, so if you miss one or want to hear a paper again, you can access it later on the AHS website.
Participants can register for the whole conference for $50, a fee significantly less than what we would normally charge for the face-to-face conference. The $50 fee is intended to offset the cost of hiring someone to set up the digital conference. Registration will soon be available on the Conference Website linked to the AHS website. For more information, check the conference website or the Conference Information page on the AHS website.
We want to make sure that everyone who registers can access the panels. Please let us know, by sending an email to rachel_mason@nps.gov or calling 907-240-4917, if you are interested in participating in a training session in how to use Zoom. We also plan to offer training especially for presenters in how to give a paper via Zoom, including how to use PowerPoint slides. Training sessions will be held prior to the conference, likely in the first week of October. If you have impaired vision or hearing, or have other accessibility issues, please let us know in advance so that we can provide captioning or other support.
