Weaving Grass Socks

Native weaving and Frontier Scientists video featured in new Arctic Museum exhibit

Long before the creation of modern furnaces or microfibers, hardy and inventive people survived Northern cold. Native crafters created clothing that was beautiful, durable and functional. Museum exhibit: “Threads of Change: Arctic Clothing and Identity in the North” opens at The Peary-MacMillan Arctic Museum and Arctic Studies Center at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine, on […]

Alutiiq basket weavers share insight with Russian curators

Fairbanks, Alaska, April 24, 2012 – “The Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (MAE) and the Russian Ethnographic Museum in St. Petersburg Russia have the earliest collections of Kodiak baskets, grass and spruce root, in the world,” said Sven Haakanson, executive director of the Alutiiq Museum and Archaeological Repository. In 2010, Haakanson traveled with six Native […]

Tern Tail and Shark’s Tooth

Laura Nielsen for Frontier Scientists The Karluk One archaeological site, situated on the shores of modern-day Kodiak Island, Alaska, was exceptionally well-preserved. The location of an ancient settlement where Alutiiq people once resided, the site was occupied from 1400AD to 1800AD and held an abundance of astounding artifacts. Its location turned out to be unfortunate. […]

Find Seal Intestine filed in Coral’s Cabinet.

Liz O’Connell for Frontier Scientists – When Coral Chernoff begins to work on a project she goes to her metal file cabinet and finds what shes needs: seal parts, whale bone, bear’s bread, grass. Filed away where an office worker normally puts manila file folders and bits of paper is where Coral stores parts of […]

Weaving In Time – Alutiiq Baskets

Laura Nielsen for Frontier Scientists A row of knotted grass can hold so many stories you’d be amazed. Long grass or spruce root, yarn, sinew, even paint, all go into the baskets lovingly crafted in Alaska. Native Alutiiq weavers have carried on the traditions, but some techniques had been lost. -Had been. In this vodcast by Frontier […]

Weaving in time – Alutiiq baskets

A row of knotted grass can hold so many stories you’d be amazed. Long grass or spruce root, yarn, sinew, even paint, all go into the baskets lovingly crafted in Alaska. Native Alutiiq weavers have carried on the traditions, but some techniques had been lost. -Had been. In this vodcast by Frontier Scientists, learn how […]