Alaska News • • 16 min
Reuniting Our Nations
video • Alaska News
We are here. We're Indigenous, and we're not going anywhere. These are our homelands. Our people matter. We want to be the author of our own destiny.
[SPEAKING OJIBWE] Today, we have the honor of being included in the very first Davidson Pole to be raised in Alaska, and this is a historic moment. Reg and Robert raised the first pole in 1969 in Haida Gwaii. It was monumental over there. It brought back a lot of the culture, and it brought back the dance and feelings for our Haida people of pride. [SPEAKING Haida] My name is Reg Davidson.
I've been carving for over 50 years now.
I did a totem pole for my nephew. Kent came to the pole raising and he says, "Are you interested in carving a couple of poles for us?" I said, "Yeah, sure, I'll do it." I'm the tribal president here of the tribe in Craig, Alaska. I've known Reg several years. Just conversation, you know, just small talk. So, hey, Red, you want to carve a pole in Craig?
He said, absolutely. I thought he was not serious, but, you know, a couple months went by and it was serious. He was ready. So we, he came up, we picked out a log, and I mean, the rest is going to be history.
We have not had a pole raising in Craig over 20 years. I feel like we're bringing back our history, and that's exciting. Because as elders, we worry about the future generations, that our culture isn't going to live on. Well, this tells us our culture is alive. Well, I think it's important that people know that this is Haida land.
Our families were here for generations. It was a Haida village to begin with. Now we're just saying, "Hey, we're here. We've never left, and this is our land." The importance of the pole is we're putting culture back in our town. We've been a colonized town for several years.
We want to make sure the tribe is leading the way in introducing culture back into our community.
This pole is reuniting our nations.
There's a border that separates us from Masset and Skidegate, and creating this tie is very important to us to have a tie back to the Haida Nation. Some timing issues, we had some boats come from Masset today. We're definitely going to wait for them to get here. We'll probably be starting to move around 12:15, 12:30. Can I grab her a chair?
We're going to go. We got staff working on it. So tell me what I'm supposed to do. All the way down. You're going to ride on the pole?
So Robbie's going to say the Eider prayer. You just walk down the side with rubbing it with the cedar bough. Oh, okay. I could do that. Okay.
We're gonna come this way. Anas degwi! 1, 2, 3! Hoo! Hold it!
Hey, yeah!
1, 2, 3, Woo-hoo! Horses, whoa, whoa, horses! Hold your horses!
Oh my God!
Dinner at 4:00 at the Craig Gym. Dancing at the high school. At the high school. The nervous is over. It's time to celebrate.
[FOREIGN LANGUAGE] a part of our very first Golden Bowl here at Grady, and particularly special as it marks his first Golden Bowl in Alaska!
No audio detected at 6:30
Woo-hoo! It was really exciting today to watch the community come together—. [SPEAKING NATIVE LANGUAGE] And knowing that we're going to be able to honor him on this day when he's no longer among us, I think will make all of you feel proud about what you do for your school. So thank you so much again for being I remember in 1969 when we were moving the totem pole. I was helping pull the ropes and she told me in Pashto, "This robber had an uncle that doesn't belong here anymore.
He belongs to the Rotimo." So, "Raj," she prayed to us, Thank you so much.
I really appreciate being here.
No audio detected at 8:30
Oh, the event was incredible. Life's all about connections, and you can see it. Di budhne was kaskeeda. My mind is relieved because this is a big event, right? This was a long time in the making.
And to see Craig finally come alive, now everything seems to be— "Kewat luwan, kainaslang," is what they say. Everything is starting to come alive.
We're going to have to roll the whole thing over with our hands too. The Warriors, if I can get a bunch of Warriors, come forward. Holy smokes, there you go, that's easy. Grab the sawhorses. Go, boy.
How's it feel? How's it feel? All right, let's start moving it this way, guys. Okay, let's on this end. Come this way.
Walk this way. Walk this way. Keep coming. Okay, hold back there. Heavy end, swing this way.
No audio detected at 11:00
Hold on, got to go this way. This way. Oh, we got it! Yeah, we don't need something to rise up on. Yeah.
Just for that air, we need it. Rope's got to go this way. Rope goes to the corner of the fence. Let's cut, let's cut.
No audio detected at 13:30
[FOREIGN LANGUAGE] The first figure is a beaver, and then on the bottom is a beaver's tail, and inside the beaver's tail is a bird called kwiila, which means a bird that whistles that nobody sees, so the artist can do it any way he wants. And above the beaver is a wasko, supernatural being. It's a sea wolf. And so the bottom figure and the wasko have yellow on it because the wasko, supernatural being, and the rest of it has green on, blue-green. And then there's an eagle with a frog, their tongue is connecting.
And then on top is a black fin whale, and then I put a grizzly bear on it. All this is mostly eagle crest, but Raven didn't like it, so he wanted one of his crests on it. [MUSIC] [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] I know, I know it. I know.
No audio detected at 15:00
No audio detected at 15:30
No audio detected at 16:00