Legends of the Gwich'in of the Western Arctic

Today we received a set of CD's titled Legends of the Gwich'in of the Western Arctic: Stories from the people of the Mackensie and Peel Rivers. The set includes one Gwich'in and one English CD. The legends were written into radio dramas and aired on CBC Radio in 2009 and 2010. Feel free to stop by and listen! Thanks to the Gwich'in Social and Cultural Institute for providing these CD's.

Bering Bridge

Sometimes we run across rather interesting items unrelated to language. The commemorative flags pictured above were found during the move of our off-site storage last week. They appear to come from the Bering Bridge Expedition of 1989, however I have been unable to locate similar photos in order to confirm this. The Bering Bridge Expedition was a joint Russian-American crossing of the Bering Strait by dogsled. It was led by Paul Schurke, who three years earlier had accompanied Will Steger on a dogsled expedition to the North Pole. The trip came just before the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the media attention led to greater easing of travel restrictions between Alaska and Russia. However, some two decades later regular travel between Alaska and the Russian Far East has yet to develop.

Off-site storage moved

Yesterday ANLA moved its off-site storage to a new home two floors down in the Rasmuson Library. While moving is never fun, the new location in the periodicals annex has better lighting and climate control. This area stores (among other things):

• newly accessioned collections which have not yet been cataloged
• materials which have already been digitized
• cassette tapes awaiting digitization
• large collections outside our main collection scope

New book of Upper Tanana stories

The archive just received a new book of Upper Tanana stories by Cora David, edited by Olga Lovick. It has been cataloged as item UT003L2011.

The book is published by the Alaska Native Language Center. Information on purchasing this book can be found here.

Online Dictionary Resources

Looking for a dictionary of an Alaska Native languages? Many dictionaries can be access online via ANLA or other websites. See the dictionaries page in the collections section of the ANLA site.

Eyak Qualifiers

A major new chapter on Eyak grammar is now available. The 92 page draft manuscript by Michael Krauss entitled Eyak Qualifiers can be downloaded as part of item CA961K2009.

Open House November 18

In celebration of Native American Heritage month the Alaska Native Language Archive and Alaska Native Language Center will host an open house, November 18, 1:00-5:00 pm, on the fourth floor of the Brooks Building, UAF campus. All are welcome to come by and share refreshments. Learn about ANLC's publication program and tour the language archive. For more information call 474-7874 or email fyanlp@uaf.edu.