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.
In March 2024 Alaska Historical Society board members shared some of their favorite women in Alaska history. Follow along with us on Facebook or Instagram as we continue this series in March 2025.
“Pearl Laska Chamberlain’s life story exemplifies how tenacity, adventure and education go hand in hand.” – AHS Board Member Leanna Prax Williams
Born in West Virginia, Pearl earned her pilot’s license in the Civilian Pilot Training Program in World War II. Pearl was part of the WASPs (Women Airforce Service Pilots), worked as a cryptologist, and eventually made her way to Alaska toward the end of the war. Here in Alaska she taught future generations, both in the air as a flight instructor and in the classroom as a teacher. One of her flight students was Holger Jorgensen, Alaska’s first Indigenous commercial pilot. She additionally earned her master’s degree in 1959, earned her qualifications to serve as Fairbanks’ first special education teacher in 1964, and learned to fly an ultralight at age 83. Learn More from Chamberlain herself in this Project Jukebox Interview.
📸 Images via Alaska Digital Archives and Wikipedia
Continuing our Women’s History Month celebration with Matilda (or Tillie) Kinnon Paul Tamaree, Ḵaalyát. Matilda (1863-1955) was a Tlingit woman of the Teeyhitaan and a teacher and translator who worked for civil rights for Alaska Native people and for recognition of the value of Tlingit culture. In the years around the turn of the century, she (and another missionary) were leaders in the Christian Native temperance society and held Christian meetings in the Sitka Village that were part of the groundwork for the Alaska Native Brotherhood (1912).
The mother of Tlingit attorney William Paul, Shgúndi, she was indicted in Wrangell in 1923 for assisting Charlie Jones, who later had the name Shakes, who was Tlingit, to vote when that was still against the law. She was one of the first women to be ordained an Elder (a member of a church’s governing body) in the Presbyterian church, in 1931. Learn more about her here.
This post’s #WomensHistoryMonth pick was by Sitka local and AHS board member Rebecca Paulson.
Photo by William L. Paul, Jr., courtesy of Ben Paul.
Katie Hurley, born Olga Katherine Torkelson in 1921 in Juneau, served a long career as one of Alaska’s most effective leaders in the 20th Century. Katie began her service as secretary to Governor Ernest Gruening, followed by the role as the Chief Clerk of Alaska’s Constitutional Convention in 1955 and 1956. At various times she served in the Alaska State Legislature, was President of the Alaska State Board of Education, Executive Director of the Alaska Women’s Commission, President of the National Federation of Federal Employees, Chair of the Alaska Commission for Human Rights, Democratic nominee for Alaska’s Lieutenant Governor, and mother of three children. Katie died at 99 in 2021.
Learn more about Katie in an interview with her: www.ktoo.org/video/alaska-statehood-pioneers-katie-hurley/
Photo credits: Anchorage Museum, Steve McCutcheon Collection, B1990.14.5.ConConv.15.6, B1990.14.5.ConConv.10.17a, and B1990.14.5.ConConv.10.37; photos courtesy of Susan Derrera; and the Alaska State Library.
From first ascents of mountains to bear hunts to a world tour at age 91, our next feature for Alaska’s #WomensHistoryMonth toppled gender expectations. Dora Keen climbed peaks in the Swiss Alps, Ecuador, and Norway, and eventually made her way to Alaska. She and a group of local miners/Alaskans were successful in the first ascent of Mount Blackburn (Ahtna name: K’a’si Tl’aadi) in the Wrangell Mountains in 1912, 8 years before women in the U.S. got the right to vote.
Meet Ellen Paneok, skilled artist AND bush pilot. The daughter of Bernice Evak Burgandine of Kotzebue and Ron Burgandine (a member of the United States Air Force), Paneok was Alaska’s first Indigenous woman pilot, logging over 15,000 hours in her life. She was also a celebrated Inupiaq artist, especially renowned for her ivory scrimshaw. Paneok earned her pilot’s license while living in Anchorage, using her Cook Inlet Regional Corporation shareholder dividends to pay for lessons, supplemented by selling artwork. She also wrote numerous articles about her unique flying experiences, worked as an FAA inspector, and volunteered for many community organizations.
For More About Paneok’s life, visit https://jukebox.uaf.edu/ellen-paneoks-slideshow
Images from Ellen Paneok Estate via Project Jukebox
A #WomensHistoryMonth celebration from AHS Board President David Ramseur, “One of my favorite pioneering women in Alaska’s history is feisty state Senator Bettye Fahrenkamp of Fairbanks. Born in rural Tennessee, Bettye served in the Women’s Army Corps in World War II and moved to Fairbanks, in the Alaska Territory, in 1956 with her contractor husband, Gib. Bettye taught music in Fairbanks North Star Borough until 1974 when she entered politics, first on the staff of US Sen. Mike Gravel. She then served in the State Senate from 1979 until her death in 1991. In the Senate long dominated by men, the brassy chain-smoking Fahrenkamp became a force to be reckoned with – playing poker, drinking whiskey and bringing home the bacon to her district. She had her fingers on virtually every public policy issue of that era, from resource development to subsistence.
As a Fairbanks News-Miner reporter covering Bettye and the Fairbanks delegation in Juneau, one of my favorite memories of Bettye involved a foot massage. Legislators would gather weekly in the Capitol to conduct audio teleconference town halls with their constituents back home. One such evening, Democrat Bettye kicked off her shoes, plopped her feet into the lap of Republican Rep. Bob Bettisworth and demanded a foot massage. Bettisworth complied, out of view of their constituents. I included mention of the incident in my story on the meeting, to the dismay of Bettisworth. But Bettye laughed about it for the decade I knew her. In 1992, the Legislature named the Capitol’s Committee Room 2003 the “Fahrenkamp Room” in her honor”. – AHS Board President David Ramseur
In honor of Sunday’s Permanent Fund Dividend deadline (file for your PFD and Pick.Click.Give. to the Alaska Historical Society!), here is one of Bettye’s reelection commercials about her record on the Permanent Fund!
A #WomensHistoryMonth celebration from AHS board member Pierce A. Bateman: One of my favorite women from Alaska’s fascinating past is the artist-activist simply known as Huong. Born in 1950 in Vietnam, Huong’s childhood and young adulthood were shaped by the growing conflicts of the Vietnam War. She became a journalist and war correspondent, but on April 30, 1975, Huong’s world shattered as the People’s Liberation Army and the National Liberation Front captured Saigon and bombarded her city. Amidst the chaos of artillery, Huong jumped into a 58-foot fishing boat with only the clothes on her back and her year-old son. After a year-long journey, Huong ended up in Kodiak. Upon seeing the simultaneously rough and beautiful coastline of the island, she remembered thinking that she had finally found home.
Unable to continue her career as journalist due to her limited English language ability, Huong hoped to obtain a job in one of Kodiak’s many canneries. She was, however, unsuccessful. Discouraged, Huong sought a distraction and purchased a $2 watercolor paint set. Recalling her early days painting, Huong remembered “I hadn’t been trained in art at all. I just started to paint. One week later, when I go to the dock for a job to clean the fisherman’s boat, I didn’t find a job, but I sold my first painting for $20.” Thus began Huong’s career as an artist, and the rest, as they say is history. Huong painted tirelessly and traveled all over Alaska looking for inspiration for her art. By the end of 1984, she had three galleries throughout the state, taught art at the Kodiak Community College, was awarded the title of University Artists by the Alaska Pacific University. She even hosted an art show in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda, where Don Young proclaimed her as one of Alaska’s best ambassadors for the state. Huong eventually left Alaska and toured her art throughout each of the lower-48 states, before settling in Miami, Florida in 1990s. This is where she remains to this day working on her internationally famous Peace Mural. Though she is a long way from Alaska now, Huong says that the 49th State will always have a special place in her heart.
Photo credit 📸: Huong’s Collection
In 1959, Mahala Ashley Dickerson (1912–2007) became Alaska’s first African American attorney. She was a fierce and outspoken civil rights advocate for women and minorities. Born in Alabama, she moved to Alaska prior to Statehood. Despite opposition, she established a 160-acre homestead near Wasilla, where she lived for many decades and raised her triplet sons. She practiced law in Alaska until she was in her early 90s. Host Red Boucher interviewed Dickerson for his TV show “Alaska On Line” in 1998: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-3d0gHRgF0
Thanks to AHS Board Member Angela Schmidt for her great pick for our Alaska #WomensHistoryMonth series!
