How can we reverse the knowledge taken from communities through historical accounts, museum collections and anthropological research? In 2014 I started making model Angyaat (open skin boats) with my community and by 2016 we built a full sized one. In two years we brought back knowledge of how to build a traditional Anyaaq which had been set aside since 1860's.

​

Dr. Sven Haakanson is an American Anthropologist whose research endeavors focus on ethnography, visual anthropology, indigenous studies, ethnographic and museum studies, and petroglyphs. Dr. Haakanson received a B.A. from the University of Alaska in Fairbanks and a M.A. and Ph.D. from Harvard University. He is the 2007 recipient of the MacArthur Foundation Fellowship for his work to offer contemporary meaning to the languages, customs, and culture of the Alutiiq Tribe of Old Harbor, Alaska. Dr. Haakanson is currently an associate professor of Anthropology at the University of Washington and works as the Burke Museum's Curator of Native American Anthropology. 

​

Photos and video courtesy of the Burke Museum.