Sealaska Heritage Institute: Celebration 2026 | Day 1 - Wednesday June 3

Dilong ist as eel itt gudunay laagam. Thank you for coming. We are happy that you are here.

Thank you. You know how heavy this drumstick is?

Hoo-ha! Hoo-ha! One more time! Hoo-ha! Yiddu ayahu anonyat kossani!

Most noble people of the land, most precious children of of the land. We are here today celebrating. Did you see the happiness on our children's face? Did you see their pride?

No shame, no shame. That's all been wiped away. And here we are today celebrating our culture. I want to say Welcome also to our military, our military General Davis who joined us here, and the vets who have served us and protected our country. Gunalchéesh, gunalchéesh, and aahzi.

Thank you to the vets. We chose a theme, Enduring Strength, to reaffirm that the Tlingit, Haida, and Tsimshian who have who have lived on this land for 12,000 years have had and have the strength and the determination and the will to overcome the adversities that we have endured during the past thousands of years and are now again facing challenges. Enduring strength is also a statement that we can overcome the the challenges that we are now facing with national political forces that seek to undermine our culture, diminish our basic civil rights and human rights, and to subjugate the people of color. We stand here proud and strong and knowing that our core cultural values will guide us through these challenges times. Unfortunately, we also know that some of our challenges have come from within with the unnecessary loss of many of our loved ones.

To those who are experiencing this sorrow, know that you have a tribe standing behind you and that the spirit of our clans have come forth to strengthen you and your our families. I know that we have the strength of our ancestors and of our spirits to live another 12,000 years on this land. Whose land is this? Our land! Hoo-ha!

Hoo-ha! And now I would like to introduce to you and have address you. Unfortunately, the chair of the Sealaska Heritage Foundation Board of Trustees, Vicki Soboleff, her plane was delayed and she was not here to greet you, but she has asked that Karen Tog from the Board of Trustees address you. Karen.

Greetings, everyone. Guna shogun.

Welcome to all our elders, veterans, dance groups and families, and our guests, and our military guests as well. I'm one of the Sealaska Heritage Institute trustees, Aguna To the Sealaska Heritage staff who have been working tirelessly to make sure that this event goes off without a hitch.

We're happy to have everyone here. Toiksim Nusim and a round of applause for our Tsimshian dance group who started us off this evening.

They did a wonderful job to start us off on the beginning of 3 days of celebration of our culture. Sealaska Heritage Institute's mission is to perpetuate, enhance Tlingit, Haida, and Tsimshian cultures. What better way to show our thousands of years of endurance than to be here sharing our songs and dance and all the beautiful goods crafted by our talented artists. We witnessed another tradition of endurance. A special shout out to all of our canoe captains, our pullers, and their individual support boats.

They showed what we can do when we come together to accomplish what what seems to be impossible goals. Canoes came from Wrangell, Petersburg, first one from Petersburg in 100 years, from Kake and Ketchikan, Sitka, Angoon, Hoonah, and I was on the one from Haines in a traditional dugout canoe by master carver Wayne Price.

I guess that's about all I had, but please be safe driving home tonight, and I hope to see everyone here in the next 3 days enjoying themselves. Gunasheesh.

And now I would like to introduce you to our chair of the board of directors of Sealaska Corporation, Albert Reinhardt from Wrangell, Kiksádi. I mean, did I say it wrong? Richard. Richard Reinhardt. Ooh.

Richard. Sorry about that.

Albert's my cousin. Yehéhánah shiyáw yekninéki, yehéhíksetini. Good evening, honorable people. It is good to see you all. Tashi ohatu asaq.

People call me Tashi. Kiksáti nakatsati. I belong to the Kiksáti clan. Gagan hit yudusaq ha nakahidi. Our people's house is called the Sun House.

Tiatan yadi aya'at. My father's people are the Tiatan. Hadas kachkan aya'at. And I'm also a grandchild of Haida. Stik'in kwon oey huan.

Rosita mentioned land, and I'm going to talk about that and tie it to enduring strength real quickly. First of all, I want to thank the local clans here that if I get it right, the Klin-ay-Dee, Luk-nah-ha-dee, Gah-nah-kah-dee, Yan-yay-dee, and Woosh-ki-tahn. There's probably some others. I'm sorry if I missed those, but I want to thank you for being on your land. And when we're talking about enduring strength, thinking about how our people came to this land, you know, a long, long time ago, we say time immemorial, but we came when the glaciers first receded, and then when the mountaintops and the valley floors were being formed, was since time immemorial.

We moved north through hardship, over mountains and, you know, through ice and hanging on to the edge of mountains and sliding down mudslides and capsized canoes and everything else it took to get here. And then we got our land and we fought for it and protected it, only to have in the last couple hundred years through colonization having taken away, where we're getting it back. Well, the reason I want to say that is we keep fighting for it, and we have 5 landless communities that continue to fight for it. And yesterday the House of Representatives passed our landless bill for the first time ever after 11 attempts. That's a big, big thing.

Now we just need to get it through the Senate and get the president the bill, but that is what we're after. I want to introduce next Sarah Dibdahl. I'm sorry, Rosita is going to do that.

He's trying to punish me because I forgot his name. I can't believe I did that. Did I? This, ladies, I want you to tell you this is the year This is the year of the women, right? This is the year of the women.

We have our first female president of Sealaska Corporation, Sarah Sevara Dibdahl.

She's T'akwaneedi, T'akwaneedi from Klawock. I got that right, right?

Tsu'aká kee wa'a. Tlingit kee naax. Unchee waatkee yuukhut duwasaak. Claycock hee naax. Sarah Dibdahl yuukhut duwasaak.

Yeet naahtsetee. Taakwaan eedi kaan neemipuu aayaaxt. Kokooseetan yadi aayaaxt. Heen ya'kwan daaxt. It's so wonderful to be here tonight with you all.

My English name is Sarah Dibdahl. My Tlingit name is Unchee waatkee. I am of the Taakwaan eedi clan and Neemipuu Nespers people. My father's people are the Kakusi'etan, and I come from Hinyakwan down on Prince of Wales Island. It's such an honour.

Gunaalcheesh. It's such an honour to stand in front of you this evening, see so many beautiful faces of our elders that are here. And when I was thinking about what to speak about, endurance and strength, and our clanhouses, it made me think about celebration and where celebration starts. It starts in our homelands. It starts in our villages.

And then we all start coming here and coming together to share. And it's like our canoes and our ancestors that did this. They always started in a canoe to go travel to each other. And that's what we're doing here for the next 3 days. We all got in our different ways, airplane, fairies to come and to be together.

And it was in our clanhouses that we learned our stories, that we learned our songs, that we learned our ways of life. And that's what has given us the strength collectively. Together collectively we're strong. But it's not the clanhouse structure itself. It's us.

It's the people. It's you. It's our elders that ensure that we get to stand up here today that know our stories, that know our clans, that our children dance with pride. It's our artists that ensure that those stories that we know, that we've known for 10,000s of years, they're in our art. It's held in our art.

Our stories are held in our art. And to our youth who are our future, they're here. They're seeing it. They're seeing us emulate our ancestors and they're seeing us carry forward, and it's such an honor. And I have to acknowledge Rosita Kahani because she has been a visionary and is actually one of my mentors.

As an intern for Sealaska, I remember I made the mistake of going into the boardroom not ready to talk, and she put me on the spot. And after that presentation, she said, don't ever go into a room not ready to speak. And I just have to say atlaengwinaachishka, honey, for just all that you've done for our people and that you continue to do to allow us to come together to ensure that our songs and our dances continue. I hope everyone has a happy celebration. Atlaengwinaachishkawa.

Thank you, Sarah. I am so, so proud of her. I also want to congratulate Richard and the Landless for 50 years for fighting for their just land entitlement and finally having success in the House of Representatives. And now I want them to march on to the Senate and have that same same kind of success there, for that land is their land, it's our land, and they deserve to have that just entitlement under ANCSA. So good luck to you, Richard, and good luck to the landless, and on to the Senate.

I said this was the Year of the Woman, and I'd like to introduce you to another Another one of our very women that we're proud of. She served in the House of Representatives, and she is from the Kwoshkikon Clan from Yakutat, and she is one of us, Mary Peltola. Hoo-ha. Hoo-ha. Hoo-ha!

Hoo-ha! One more, really good one. Hoo-ha! Hoo-ha! Gunasheesh!

Gwuyana manto! Agasshunga yupiugwam amdrishgmi! I'm Mary Peltola. I'm a Yupik Eskimo from Bethel. I'm also Kwax'kikwaaN.

I'm a very proud mother of two of the young people who danced here today. And I just, you know, I do have hay fever, but I was also I'm still crying.

It's so good to be here. Tlingit, Eyak, Haida, Tsimshian people, you've been really welcoming to me down here for almost 30 years. And I cannot tell you how wonderful that has been. And I really, really have to acknowledge Rosita and her team at Sealaska Heritage Institute and all Sea of Alaska for this wonderful celebration. When I was in Bethel this last spring for Chumay Festival, our dance celebration, someone asked me, "Did you grow up here dancing and running around like these little children?" And I said, "No." When I was growing up, dancing was underground.

Dancing was not something that we did in public. It was not something that we celebrated. It was not something that we openly taught our children. When I was young. That was in the '70s and '80s.

And in the '80s and '90s and 2000s, Native people across our state, from Southeast all the way across Alaska, we started dancing again. We started bringing out our regalia again. There were a lot of the regalia that Yup'iks have now that is very common, that was not common when I was growing up. I want to thank all of the regalia makers here whose hands are sore right now. Thank you.

When I was growing up, carving was not common. Now we have master carvers who are younger than me. For all of the carvers who have made this possible today, thank you.

Your Chilkat weaving is legendary. It is legendary. It is your land title. Your Chilkat blankets, your people have rolled them out and said, "You want the title to my land? This is the title to my land." To the weavers, thank you.

All the people who paddled here. This is not something that many of us grew up doing, and I'm so thankful that this has come back. This is such wellness. This is part of our wellness plan now. What a beautiful gift that the generations before us have brought back and shared with us, and I just really want to thank you.

And my last words, please be sure to vote on November 3rd.

She learned really good from the Tlingits, huh, making those speeches. And they said, "Just a little speech." She learned really good from the Tlingits, Mary. Well, remember what our theme is? Enduring strength. Well, let's save our strength for the next 3 days to celebrate our culture, to sing, dance, and be merry.

So have a wonderful celebration. Thank you so very much.