A cultural experience...

Exploring beyond Juneau, a city which has no roads connecting the capital to anywhere else, is an interesting and a somewhat time consuming proposition.  Last weekend we took a trip to Prince of Wales Island which is approximately 200 miles (as the raven flies) south of Juneau.  To get there I flew out of Juneau at 10:30 am, arrived in Ketchikan around 12:30 pm (after a stop in Sitka to let off some passengers and pick up more), took a 5-minute ferry ride across the Tongass Narrows (from the Ketchikan International Airport to Ketchikan, where the "Bridge to Nowhere" - made infamous to those of us in the lower 48 during Palin's 2008 campaign - was to have been built), caught a ferry at 3:00 pm, arrived in Hollis at about 6:00 pm, and then took an hour drive to our lodge in Craig.

The island itself is large - either the third or fourth largest in the US, depending on where the information is coming from - at approximately 140 miles by 45 miles.  There are twelve communities on the island with about 2500 residents (by my calculations).  The history of the island is strongly rooted in Haida culture whose people historically occupied the southern half of the island and Tlingit culture whose people occupied the northern part of the island.  The main impetus for our trip to Prince of Wales was to witness a Haida totem pole raising in the village of Hydaburg.

The experience for me was nothing short of amazing.  The sense of community and, possibly even more apparent, the pride in the culture, was unlike anything I have experienced during my life. 

All told, four replica totem poles were raised over a period of two days.  We spent Friday in Hydaburg and were able to see the first two poles get carried a half-mile from the carving house to the totem pole park.  The poles were raised by willing and able community members and visitors using ropes and man power, all to the beat of traditional drums and song.

Following the raising a feast of traditional foods (and some non-traditional foods, i.e., spaghetti) was held in the local school gym and was open to anyone.  There was plenty of halibut (I had it prepared at least four different ways), salmon (two different ways), venison, crab (Dungeness), shrimp, and herring eggs on kelp available.  To gather the herring eggs, fronds of kelp are placed in areas of the ocean where herring are known to congregate.  The herring then lay eggs that stick to both sides of the kelp.  The egg-laced kelp is then collected again and placed in boiling water.  The texture is what was most obvious to me as the eggs popped while chewing; the flavor was quite good and was similar to other seaweeds I have eaten.

The top is all kinds of seafood dishes, and the bottom is the herring eggs on kelp - apparently I am not ready for food photography yet...

After the feast, there were dance performances put on by members of the village as well as visiting villages from SE Alaska.  The energy in the dancing was very electrical and involved all ages of the community beginning with a group of the younger generation.

...or indoor photography.

On Saturday Cathy took us on a tour of a few other parts of the island.  One of the stops was in the village of Kasaan where we hiked into another totem pole park that is in the middle of a forested area. 

We saw many of the remarkable views the island has to offer, but only saw a small portion of the entire island. It is easy to understand what the attraction continues to be for the people who live on and who visit Prince of Wales.