Golovin elder who helped bring ancestors home from the Smithsonian named Elder of the Year

Golovin Native Corporation has named Jack P. Fagerstrom its 2026 Elder of the Year. The corporation said he traveled to Washington, D.C., to help bring ancestral remains and cultural artifacts held by the Smithsonian Institution home to Golovin, then organized and led their reburial.

Bering Straits Native Corporation published the honor Monday among profiles of 14 Elder shareholders recognized this year in its 2026 BSNC Elders of the Year release. The corporation's profile says Fagerstrom "was instrumental in the repatriation of cultural artifacts and ancestral remains from the Smithsonian Institution." It does not say when the trip or the reburial took place.

The Smithsonian has documented Golovin claims before. A Smithsonian case report says 120 sets of remains, represented by 110 catalog numbers, and 111 funerary objects from cemeteries on the Rocky Point Peninsula were offered jointly to the Native communities of White Mountain and Golovin after a 1993 request from Bering Straits Native Corporation. The report says 472 funerary objects from northeast Norton Sound were repatriated in 1996. The BSNC profile does not say whether that is the return Fagerstrom worked on.

Fagerstrom was born in Golovin on Jan. 23, 1960, to the late Floyd and Alice Fagerstrom. He has spent most of his life there.

He has served for many years on Golovin's search and rescue team. The corporation says he does not hesitate to join searches, even in storms so thick he can see only the front of his snowmachine skis. He once freed an eagle caught in a trap and released it.

Golovin Native Corporation also named Ruth Hunt, born in Nome in 1950 and a Kenai resident for 40 years, as an Elder of the Year. She is one of 14 Elder shareholders across the Bering Straits region honored this year, alongside recipients including Orville Ahkinga Sr. of Inalik Native Corporation and Theodore Katcheak of Stebbins Native Corporation.

Fagerstrom still lives in Golovin, the village where the ancestors he helped carry home are buried.