Tag: SVT
New Exhibit Opens at Seldovia Museum
by Jan Year
There are some new faces in the Seldovia Museum! Twenty-three of them, actually. Although they have been in town since last summer, they are just now starting to be seen. They remained unnoticed because they spent most of their time sealed in boxes in the Museum office. But now they have taken up residence in the Seldovia Museum and Visitor Center lobby, as the Seldovia Museum’s newest exhibit.
St. Lawrence Island doll by Caroline Penayah of Savoonga
The faces belong to a collection of Yup’ik, Cup’ik and Inupiaq dolls. Collected over many years by Homer’s Gert Seekins, the dolls offer a window into life in some of Alaska’s most remote communities. The dolls are made largely from natural materials such as fur, bone, ivory, leather and even fish skin, and the skill of the artists is evident in the fine details of faces and clothing. Most styles of Alaska Native dolls are represented in the collection. Often a doll can be traced to a specific village in Alaska simply through the style in which it is made. The variations in traditional clothing and activities in different parts of Alaska are evident in the different clothing styles, materials and appearances of the dolls that come from those areas.
The exhibit title, “When I Remember, I Make a Doll”, comes from a statement by Eva Heffle, a well-known dollmaker who is generally credited with developing ‘activity dolls’. These dolls are shown carrying out the tasks and celebrations of traditional village life. The Eva Heffle doll in the Seldovia Museum is depicted using her teeth to crimp the leather around a mukluk seam. Ms. Heffle used her doll-making to keep alive the memory of the traditions she learned as a young girl growing up in Kotzebue – traditions she found herself starting to forget when she moved to the more urban lifestyle of Fairbanks.
Close-up of an unusual doll made of fish skin, by Anita Paniyak of Chevak
Although we use the term “dolls” to refer to these figures, they were never intended to be toys. They are works of art and representations of traditional ways of life. Several of the artists whose work is included in this exhibit have had similar pieces included in collections ranging from the Alaska Native Art collection at the Anchorage International Airport to the Smithsonian Institution.
The Seldovia Museum is located on the first floor of the SVT building on Main Street, and is open 10:00 am – 5:00 pm, seven days a week. The doll exhibit will be on display throughout the summer. Come by the Museum and see this lovely and educational collection!
What’s That On the Side of Jakolof Bay Road?
Is it a bird house, UFO, a Little Chief Smoker? No, it’s just air monitoring equipment being used by Seldovia Village Tribe’s Environmental Office to continue its road dust monitoring this summer.
“Exposure to PM10 can cause breathing and respiratory conditions, damage to lung tissue and even cancer,” Environmental Assistant Tracie Merrill said. “The elderly, children and people with chronic lung disease, influenza or asthma are especially sensitive to the effects of particulate matter.” In addition, road dust can substantially reduce visibility, putting motorists and pedestrians at risk.
Kenai Peninsula and Kachemak Bay Recreational Clam Harvest Results for May 2013
by Michael Opheim
The Kachemak Bay Research Reserve (KBRR) in cooperation with staff from the Ninilchik Traditional Council, Port Graham Village Council, NOAA Kasitsna Bay Laboratory, Jakolof Bay Oyster Company, Homer Fish and Game Sport Fish Division staff, have been doing a shellfish monitoring program for beaches on the Kenai Peninsula and Kachemak Bay.
The KBRR just received the May sampling of recreationally harvested shellfish on the Southern Kenai Peninsula. The collections occurred over the time period of May 10 – 27, 2013.
This year Clam Gulch was added to the monitored beaches for razor clams (north and south of the access road), blue mussel monitoring in Jakolof Bay was added, while blue mussels in Bear Cove was discontinued due to a lack of adequate numbers of specimens for collection. We hope these changes to the monitoring program will provide valuable information to recreational harvesters about the status of PSP toxins in Kenai Peninsula shellfish.
All shellfish must have less than 80 ug (micrograms) of paralytic shellfish toxin/100g of tissue to be considered safe for human consumption.
May results for Paralytic Shellfish Toxins (PST) are as follows:
Clam Gulch – South beach, razor clams less than 10.0 ug/100g (Date collected: 5.27.2013)
Clam Gulch – North beach, razor clams less than 5.0ug/100g (Date collected: 5/11/2013)
Ninilchik – North beach, results yet to be determined.
Ninilchik – South beach, razor clams less than 10.0ug/100g (Date collected: 5/10/2013)
Port Graham Bay, horse clams less than 10.0 ug/100g (Date collected: 5/26/2013)
Jakolof Bay, butter clams 11.5ug/100g (Date collected: 5/24/2013)
Jakolof Bay little neck clams – insufficient number of harvestable clams could be located during this monitoring event.
Jakolof Bay blue mussels, less than 10.0ug/100g (Date collected: 5/27/2013)
China Poot Bay butter clams 8.38 ug/100g PSP (Date collected: 5/26/2013)
Homer Spit blue mussels less than 10 ug/100g PSP (Date collected: 5/25/2013)
Bear Cove, little neck clams less than 34ug/100g (Date collected: 5/23/2013)
This program is not sufficient to certify beaches as “safe” or completely ensure harvester safety from paralytic shellfish poisoning (PSP). All samples tested during this monitoring effort showed levels well below the 80ug/100g threshold. These results reflect only that Paralytic Shellfish Toxin levels found in samples taken during the monitoring period were safe.
Seldovia Time
