Backers of the Anchorage-area Indigenous Place Names Project celebrated the completion of the effort’s fourth sculpture on Friday.
The new marker along the Coastal Trail says “Nuch’ishtunt,” which means “the place protected from the wind” in Dena’ina Athabascan. The Western name is Point Woronzof. A member of a British exploration party named it after a Russian ambassador in 1794.
Long before that, according to the book “Shem Pete’s Alaska,” the Dena’ina set up seasonal salmon fishing camps in the area. That ended when federal officials closed the area to commercial fishing in the 1950s.
Aaron Leggett is the president of the Native Village of Eklutna and a curator with the Anchorage Museum. He’s been working on the project since its inception in 2018.
At a ceremony celebrating the new signpost, Leggett shared an anecdote about meeting other young Alaska Natives when he was 19 years old and working at the Alaska Native Heritage Center.
“And I told them that I was Dena’ina. They said, ‘Well, what’s that?’ Then they said, ‘Well, where’s your village?’
I said, ‘We’re from here.’
They said, ‘No, where’s your Native village?’
I said, ‘We’re from here.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, Eklutna is 26 miles from downtown Anchorage.’
And some of them who had grown up in Anchorage said, ‘Well, I didn’t know Native people lived here.’”
He said he realized Dena’ina were largely invisible, and he wanted to work on reclaiming who Dena’ina are as a people.
That’s why project backers said these markers are important.
“Indigenous place making deepens the connection we have to place,” said Beth Nordlund, executive director of the Anchorage Park Foundation, which is also supporting the project. “This is bigger than signs. It’s a movement.”
The Indigenous Place Names Project began in 2018 with a goal of recognizing and honoring the Dena’ina language, knowledge and innovations. Backers celebrated the first two signposts along Chester Creek in 2021. They both say Chanshtnu, which means “grassy creek.” One is at Westchester Lagoon and the other at Chanshtnu Muldoon Park.
A third one, Hkaditali, is at Potter Marsh. It refers to driftwood that accumulates along the tidal flats.
Project supporters eventually want to put up 32 of these signs in high visibility areas around Anchorage and Eklutna. They each feature iron artwork representing a fire bag, which is a pouch used to carry materials for starting a fire. It’s also a symbol of living outdoors and sharing.
A lot of public and private groups support the project, including the Anchorage Assembly, the Rasmuson Foundation, Atwood Foundation, CIRI, The CIRI Foundation, Anchorage Museum, Anchorage Park Foundation and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
However, Nordlund said, funding has limited progress. She said a grant request is pending that could cover four years of work to get the rest of the signs in the ground.
“We will keep going till we can recognize, till we can all recognize, we are walking on Dena’ina land,” Nordlund said.
Jeremy Hsieh covers Anchorage with an emphasis on housing, homelessness, infrastructure and development. Reach him at jhsieh@alaskapublic.org or 907-550-8428. Read more about Jeremy here.
