No. 1 - A neighborhood of historic Sitka houses on Katlian and Kaagwaantaan Streets, the Sitka Tlingit Clan Houses, was selected by the National Trust for Historic Preservation for inclusion in the 2024 list of America’s 11 Most Endangered Historic Places. The list spotlights eleven sites across the U.S that are culturally important on a national level, and that are facing threats. The listing comes at a time when an effort is underway to rebuild one of the historic clan houses in the neighborhood, also referred to as the Sitka Indian Village, or the Village. The clan houses are in a neighborhood established by Indigenous Tlingit in the 1820s to trade with Russians living inside the adjacent stockaded New Archangel settlement. Russian administrators recognized their settlement was dependent on trade with the Tlingit village for survival. Scores of clan houses lined the waterfront of Sitka Channel at the time of the 1867 Treaty of Cession, when the U.S. purchased Russian land claims. Over the years the clan houses were rebuilt using contemporary building methods, and most maintained earlier clan house features and functions. More than 30 clan houses were identified by the late Gil Truitt, a well-known Sitka educator of Tlingit heritage, on a 1945 map of the village. Today only eight of the buildings remain standing. One is in danger of collapse. The standing houses were all built prior to the mid-20th century. Our friend Jerrick Hope-Lang, a member of the Kiks.ádi clan, worked to nominate the village to the National Trust’s listing. He is leading an effort, the X’aaká Hít Revitalization project, to rebuild a clan house that was torn down in the 1990s. It would be the first Sitka clan house built in this millennium. Learn more about this Native-led Landback movement and join @PTM_PassTheMic in supporting their mission at www.PointHouse.org
0.0% ERengagement of this clip — above the author's average (0.00%)
top 75%outperforms 25% of the author's clips
5%of the author's average views
