Alaskan historian Anjuli Grantham joins anthropologists, archaeologists, curators, historians, culture bearers and others to examine rarely-told stories from Alaska's history.
From shamanic whalers, to Yankee harpooners raiding Alutiiq villages, and the Russian-American Company's dependence on whale meat and materials to survive in Alaska, the history of whaling in the Gulf of Alaska combines spirituality, economics, and geopolitics.
When the USS Resaca left Sitka in 1868, it carried a puffin skin parka made by Alutiiq or Unangan women. Here, learn about the work of Alaska Native women in Russian America, the art of Alutiiq skin sewing, the internal economy of Russian America, and the raising of the US flag in Sitka.
The first salmon canneries were established in Alaska in 1878. In this episode, learn about traditional Tlingit salmon fishing, early American cannery operators, and the foundation of Alaska's most iconic industry.
The US Army might have seen wilderness when they arrived to establish Fort Kenai in 1869, but there they encountered Dena'ina peoples, a Russian-American Company trader, and took part in social and political transitions as Alaska first became a US possession.
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