On Sitka’s Kaagwaantaan Street, overlooking a busy waterway where fishing boats unload their catches and float planes glide in to land, there’s an unassuming gabled house with faded red siding. If you peer underneath the house, you’ll see charred wood nestled next to newer lumber – evidence of a 1953 fire that damaged parts of the 19th-century structure.
The house is called Kaxátjaa Hít, or Shattering Herring House. Xéetl’ee Katelyn Stiles, who is Kiks.ádi and of the Shattering House, recently walked around it and took note of the fire-damaged wood. For her, the burn marks are part of the house’s story.
“I still see that as, you know, our history,” she said. “That’s where Xéetl’ee, my namesake, gave birth. So, yeah, I just find it all really beautiful how it is.”
Clan houses like this one have historically served as cultural centers for Lingít people – places where members gathered for meetings, ceremonies, and even to give birth. But earlier this year, Stiles – whose great-great-grandparents lived in Shattering Herring House – learned that it was slated for demolition.
“It will always be a clan house”
In Lingít tradition, clan houses are passed down matrilineally and belong to all members. In the western legal system, properties often go to a spouse or children, who don’t belong to the same clan, so houses can fall out of clan ownership. Sometimes multiple clan members are on the deed, making renovation or demolition more difficult.
Lduteen Jerrick Hope-Lang knows those challenges firsthand. Hope-Lang is of the Point House, a Kiks.ádi clan house in Sitka that was passed down via will and demolished in 1997.
In 2022, Hope-Lang worked with the Point House’s legal heirs to acquire the land. It’s now held on behalf of the Kiks.ádi clan by a nonprofit organization, the Katlian Collective, with plans to rebuild. And last year, he helped bring national recognition to Sitka’s Indian Village as a historic endangered place.
“These are precious, and they’re worth saving,” he said. “By preserving these things, we’re more able to accurately tell the history as we see it.”
The Shattering House fell out of clan ownership, but Stiles said that doesn’t change its cultural value.
“In my opinion, if it was a clan house, it will always be a clan house,” she said.
“Emotional and terrifying”
In February, Stiles learned through a meeting of the Sitka Historic Preservation Commission that the legal owner intended to sell the Shattering House to a couple who planned to demolish it and build residential housing on the land.
“It was, of course, very emotional and terrifying,” she said.
Stiles helped gather community and clan members to testify against the demolition. They reached out to the Sitka Tribe of Alaska, asking for them to weigh in. She connected with Hope-Lang, who met with his board of directors, trying to identify ways to help.
In a Feb. 27 special meeting of the Historic Preservation Commission, 18 people testified, mostly against the sale and demolition of the house.
“It really sort of brought us together,” Stiles said. “We want our, you know, grandkids and their kids to know who they are.”
During the meeting, the Historic Preservation Commission recommended against the demolition. But as Stiles learned, they couldn’t actually stop it from happening.
City and Borough of Sitka Planning Director Amy Ainslie said that under the city’s general code, the city didn’t have authority to deny the demolition permit on the basis of historic preservation. In a March 10 letter to the Historic Preservation Commission, she wrote that she approved the demolition permit “with an extremely heavy heart.”
“Everything happened so quickly”
But on April 22, the legal owner agreed to sell the property to Katlian Collective on behalf of the Kiks.ádi clan. Hope-Lang said the nonprofit was able to reroute funds intended for the Point House restoration project to buy the Shattering House.
“I think the ultimate end goal is, we’re stronger with this house standing next to ours,” he said. “So it doesn’t feel like it really pulls away at the end of the day.”
He said they haven’t figured out exactly what happens next.
“Everything was happening so quickly,” he said. “Now we’re kind of in the process phase of how it will be used, how it will be restored, and really the Katlian Collective’s goal in this is to support the clan and what it wants to do. And ultimately, we just didn’t want to see it demolished.”
Hope-Lang said he hopes to get Sitka’s clan houses listed on the National Register of Historic Places. He envisions a future where all the houses in Sitka’s Indian Village have been restored.
“I think it’s not outside the possibility of the 43 or 44 clan homes that existed there, that they couldn’t all be restored or rebuilt,” he said.
Stiles said she hopes to see the city and tribal governments collaborate on historic preservation of clan houses. She said it’s a “huge relief” that Shattering Herring House won’t be demolished — and that her young son will have a cultural space to grow up in.
“He’s, you know, learning to sing and drum,” she said. “I’m so happy that he will have a clan house and know that he’s a part of that.”