Alan Boraas
Encyclopedia
Alan S. Boraas is a professor of anthropology at Kenai Peninsula College
in Alaska
. He is known for his research into the culture, history, and archaeology of the peoples of the Cook Inlet area of Alaska, and in particular has worked closely with the Dena'ina people of the Kenai Peninsula
. He is an adopted member of the Kenaitze Indian Tribe, and is helping the tribe develop a program to teach the Dena'ina language.
With James Kari
of the Alaska Native Language Center
, Boraas coedited the book Dena’ina Legacy — K’tl’egh’i Sukdu: The Collected Writings of Peter Kalifornsky by Peter Kalifornsky
. Boraas also wrote the biography of Kalifornsky included in the volume.
. After high school he attended University of Minnesota
in Minneapolis. On a whim, he took a class in anthropology in his freshman, and loved it so much that he sought out a summer position as an archaeological helper, though normally the school hired only graduate students. His persistence paid off and he was offered work at an archaeological dig at Mille Lacs, Minnesota, where his farm background came in handy, as he was one of the few students who could operate the heavy equipment used to move dirt away from the site after initial excavation by hand. A highlight of his work there was his first archaeological find: a red stone spear point that he found in 1966. When he took it to the director, he was told, "That's about 2,000 years old." The experience hooked him on archaeology. He worked on the Mille Lacs project for two summers, then worked a summer with an on-call team responsible for evaluating archaeological finds at construction projects and other such happenstance discoveries. He graduated from University of Minnesota in 1969 with a B.A. in anthropology and a minor in geology.
His choice of school for pursuit of a higher degree was arbitrary: the first university catalog on the shelf for the As was for University of Alaska Fairbanks
(UAF). He attended UAF for a year and worked the following summer with a UAF team scouting the route of the upcoming Trans-Alaska Pipeline
for archaeological sites. He then transferred to University of Toronto
, where he earned a Master of Arts in Anthropology in 1971.
because it was inexpensive. He worked in a local cannery and helped build a cabin that is now part of the Soldotna Historical Society building. On his last day of work on the cabin, he was approached by Clayton Brockel, founding director of Kenai Peninsula Community College
, who asked him if he would like to teach Adult Basic Education
. Boraas worked half-time at the college helping adults earn high school equivalency degrees. He also taught Adult Basic Education at Wildwood, a former air force station that had been transferred to the Kenai Native Association as part of the Alaska Native land claims settlement
. At Wildwood, Boraas made his first contacts with members of the Kenai Peninsula's Alaska Native community. Boraas credited the teaching of Adult Basic Education with helping him learn that he could teach, and also the impact that teaching could have in people's lives. He credited the classes such as those held at Wildwood, funded through the Indian Action Program of the Bureau of Indian Affairs
, with contributing to the improvement of people's lives and communities, and helping to produce a generation of Native leaders.
By 1974, Boraas was teaching full-time, with half his time spent teaching Adult Basic Education, the other half spent teaching anthropology. He undertook his first archaeological dig in Alaska in 1974 along Ciechanski Road, at what proved to be a Dena'ina site. Then he decided to undertake a dig at Kalifornsky village, which had been abandoned in the late 1920s after an influenza epidemic left the population too small to sustain a village. Although the site was on land owned by the Kenai Peninsula Borough, Boraas felt it was right to ask former villagers for their permission to excavate the site. He met with Peter Kalifornsky
, who had been born in Kalifornsky village in 1911, and his older sister Mary Nissen. Boraas recalled that Mary Nissen "grilled me like a graduate school exam." Kalifornsky and Nissen gave their permission for the dig, but did impose some restrictions, which Boraas and his team respected.
and the Pratt Museum
in Homer
on an archaeological dig near Halibut Cove on Kachemak Bay, where remains were found both of Dena'ina occupation and of remains from an earlier occupation by a seagoing Alutiiq people known as the Kachemak Tradition.
's younger sister Fedosia Sacaloff died, leaving Kalifornsky as the last remaining speaker of the Outer Inlet dialect of the Dena'ina language on the Kenai Peninsula. At his sister's funeral, Kalifornsky asked Boraas and James Kari for their help on his third book, in which Kalifornsky wished to compile everything he had ever written. James Kari, a linguist at the Alaska Native Language Center
at University of Alaska Fairbanks
, had been working with Kalifornsky since 1972 on the Dena'ina language. Kalifornsky had written the materials in the book over a 19-year period, first writing them in Dena'ina and then translating them into English. Boraas and Kari helped to refine the English translations and acted as editors. Kalifornsky's book was published in 1991 under the title Dena’ina Legacy — K’tl’egh’i Sukdu: The Collected Writings of Peter Kalifornsky. Boraas also wrote a biography of Kalifornsky which was included in the volume. Kalifornsky died in June 1993 of lung cancer. Boraas later related to an interviewer that during work on the book, Kalifornsky had related "long soliloquies" about Dena'ina life to help Boraas better understand the stories and the meanings of Dena'ina words. Boraas recorded Kalifornsky's accounts on tape, but as of 2000, when the interview took place, he felt unready to go back to them because of the intensity of the emotional experience.
to drive out the Lebedev-Lastochkin Company. The 1799 Charter of the Russian America Company created a company with quasi-governmental powers in Alaska. The Cook Inlet region was ignored as the company sought sea otter pelts all the way down the coast to Chile. Trade reintensified in Cook Inlet once the otters were hunted nearly to extinction on the west coast of North and South America; however, the terms of the fur trade were much different than under the independent companies or the management of Alexander Baranov.
Boraas has also been studying the social impact of salmon canneries in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He has worked with the Kenaitze Indian Tribe to help with its response to the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act and is working with the tribe to develop a program to teach the Dena'ina language. Sasha Lindgren, a tribal enrollment officer who also worked seven years in the tribe's cultural heritage program, told an interviewer in 2000, "Alan is the one who said our language needs to become the literary language for the peninsula, just like Gaelic
is the literary language for Ireland
."
In 2002, Boraas attended the Renvall Institute at the University of Helsinki
in Finland
. Boraas’s presentation at the conference, which had the theme "Reconfiguring Native America," focused on the efforts of the Kenaitze Indian Tribe to rebuild indigenous identity. He also described archaeological excavations he was conducting with Kenaitze youth.
A number of Boraas' works are referenced in the Bibliography of Sources on Dena’ina and Cook Inlet Anthropology, of which he is coeditor. Boraas also compiled an online source on the Dena'ina language based on linguistic data compiled by Joan Tenenbaum.
Boraas writes a monthly column for the Anchorage Daily News
called "The Comment."
Kenai Peninsula College
Kenai Peninsula College is a unit of the University of Alaska Anchorage, and is one of four community campuses. The student body comprises almost 2,000 students at 4 locations.-Locations:...
in Alaska
Alaska
Alaska is the largest state in the United States by area. It is situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent, with Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia further west across the Bering Strait...
. He is known for his research into the culture, history, and archaeology of the peoples of the Cook Inlet area of Alaska, and in particular has worked closely with the Dena'ina people of the Kenai Peninsula
Kenai Peninsula
The Kenai Peninsula is a large peninsula jutting from the southern coast of Alaska in the United States. The name Kenai is probably derived from Kenayskaya, the Russian name for Cook Inlet, which borders the peninsula to the west.-Geography:...
. He is an adopted member of the Kenaitze Indian Tribe, and is helping the tribe develop a program to teach the Dena'ina language.
With James Kari
James Kari
James Kari is a linguist and Professor Emeritus with the Alaska Native Language Center at the University of Alaska Fairbanks , specializing in Athabascan languages of Alaska. In the past thirty-five years he has done extensive linguistic work in many Athabascan languages including Ahtna, Dena'ina,...
of the Alaska Native Language Center
Alaska Native Language Center
The Alaska Native Language Center, established in 1972 in Fairbanks, Alaska, is a research center focusing on the research and documentation of the Alaska's Native languages. It publishes grammars, dictionaries, folklore collections and research materials, as well as hosting an extensive archive of...
, Boraas coedited the book Dena’ina Legacy — K’tl’egh’i Sukdu: The Collected Writings of Peter Kalifornsky by Peter Kalifornsky
Peter Kalifornsky
Peter Kalifornsky , was a self-taught writer and ethnographer of Kenai, Alaska, who wrote traditional stories, poems, and language lessons in the Outer Inlet dialect of Dena'ina, a language of the Athabaskan language group...
. Boraas also wrote the biography of Kalifornsky included in the volume.
Education
- Oregon State University, Ph.D. (1983), Anthropology
- University of Toronto, M.A. (1971), Anthropology
- University of Minnesota, B.A. (1969), Anthropology; minor in Geology
B.A. and M.A.
Boraas was raised on a wheat farm in MinnesotaMinnesota
Minnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. The twelfth largest state of the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.3 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state...
. After high school he attended University of Minnesota
University of Minnesota
The University of Minnesota, Twin Cities is a public research university located in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, United States. It is the oldest and largest part of the University of Minnesota system and has the fourth-largest main campus student body in the United States, with 52,557...
in Minneapolis. On a whim, he took a class in anthropology in his freshman, and loved it so much that he sought out a summer position as an archaeological helper, though normally the school hired only graduate students. His persistence paid off and he was offered work at an archaeological dig at Mille Lacs, Minnesota, where his farm background came in handy, as he was one of the few students who could operate the heavy equipment used to move dirt away from the site after initial excavation by hand. A highlight of his work there was his first archaeological find: a red stone spear point that he found in 1966. When he took it to the director, he was told, "That's about 2,000 years old." The experience hooked him on archaeology. He worked on the Mille Lacs project for two summers, then worked a summer with an on-call team responsible for evaluating archaeological finds at construction projects and other such happenstance discoveries. He graduated from University of Minnesota in 1969 with a B.A. in anthropology and a minor in geology.
His choice of school for pursuit of a higher degree was arbitrary: the first university catalog on the shelf for the As was for University of Alaska Fairbanks
University of Alaska Fairbanks
The University of Alaska Fairbanks, located in Fairbanks, Alaska, USA, is the flagship campus of the University of Alaska System, and is abbreviated as Alaska or UAF....
(UAF). He attended UAF for a year and worked the following summer with a UAF team scouting the route of the upcoming Trans-Alaska Pipeline
Trans-Alaska Pipeline System
The Trans Alaska Pipeline System , includes the Trans Alaska Pipeline, 11 pump stations, several hundred miles of feeder pipelines, and the Valdez Marine Terminal. TAPS is one of the world's largest pipeline systems...
for archaeological sites. He then transferred to University of Toronto
University of Toronto
The University of Toronto is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, situated on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution of higher learning in Upper Canada...
, where he earned a Master of Arts in Anthropology in 1971.
Early work on Kenai Peninsula
He returned to Alaska, living in a city campground in SoldotnaSoldotna, Alaska
As of the census of 2000, there were 3,759 people, 1,465 households, and 969 families residing in the city. As of 2008, the population was close to 4,200. The population density was 541.9 people per square mile . There were 1,670 housing units at an average density of 240.7 per square mile...
because it was inexpensive. He worked in a local cannery and helped build a cabin that is now part of the Soldotna Historical Society building. On his last day of work on the cabin, he was approached by Clayton Brockel, founding director of Kenai Peninsula Community College
Kenai Peninsula College
Kenai Peninsula College is a unit of the University of Alaska Anchorage, and is one of four community campuses. The student body comprises almost 2,000 students at 4 locations.-Locations:...
, who asked him if he would like to teach Adult Basic Education
Adult education
Adult education is the practice of teaching and educating adults. Adult education takes place in the workplace, through 'extension' school or 'school of continuing education' . Other learning places include folk high schools, community colleges, and lifelong learning centers...
. Boraas worked half-time at the college helping adults earn high school equivalency degrees. He also taught Adult Basic Education at Wildwood, a former air force station that had been transferred to the Kenai Native Association as part of the Alaska Native land claims settlement
Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act
The Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, commonly abbreviated ANCSA, was signed into law by President Richard M. Nixon on December 23, 1971, the largest land claims settlement in United States history. ANCSA was intended to resolve the long-standing issues surrounding aboriginal land claims in...
. At Wildwood, Boraas made his first contacts with members of the Kenai Peninsula's Alaska Native community. Boraas credited the teaching of Adult Basic Education with helping him learn that he could teach, and also the impact that teaching could have in people's lives. He credited the classes such as those held at Wildwood, funded through the Indian Action Program of the Bureau of Indian Affairs
Bureau of Indian Affairs
The Bureau of Indian Affairs is an agency of the federal government of the United States within the US Department of the Interior. It is responsible for the administration and management of of land held in trust by the United States for Native Americans in the United States, Native American...
, with contributing to the improvement of people's lives and communities, and helping to produce a generation of Native leaders.
By 1974, Boraas was teaching full-time, with half his time spent teaching Adult Basic Education, the other half spent teaching anthropology. He undertook his first archaeological dig in Alaska in 1974 along Ciechanski Road, at what proved to be a Dena'ina site. Then he decided to undertake a dig at Kalifornsky village, which had been abandoned in the late 1920s after an influenza epidemic left the population too small to sustain a village. Although the site was on land owned by the Kenai Peninsula Borough, Boraas felt it was right to ask former villagers for their permission to excavate the site. He met with Peter Kalifornsky
Peter Kalifornsky
Peter Kalifornsky , was a self-taught writer and ethnographer of Kenai, Alaska, who wrote traditional stories, poems, and language lessons in the Outer Inlet dialect of Dena'ina, a language of the Athabaskan language group...
, who had been born in Kalifornsky village in 1911, and his older sister Mary Nissen. Boraas recalled that Mary Nissen "grilled me like a graduate school exam." Kalifornsky and Nissen gave their permission for the dig, but did impose some restrictions, which Boraas and his team respected.
Doctoral degree
In 1979, Boraas left Alaska to study for his doctoral degree. His dissertation was far removed from archaeology: its subject was the evolution of specialization between the right and left sides of the brain. He earned his doctorate from Oregon State University at Corvallis in 1983. He returned to Soldotna and worked with Kenai Peninsula Community CollegeKenai Peninsula College
Kenai Peninsula College is a unit of the University of Alaska Anchorage, and is one of four community campuses. The student body comprises almost 2,000 students at 4 locations.-Locations:...
and the Pratt Museum
Pratt Museum
The Pratt Museum is a local museum in Homer, Alaska concerning Kachemak Bay in Southcentral Alaska. The museum's motto is "art, science, and culture of Kachemak Bay." The museum focuses on subjects like early homesteading, Native Alaskan traditions, local contemporary art, and an exploration of the...
in Homer
Homer, Alaska
Homer is a city located in Kenai Peninsula Borough in the U.S. state of Alaska. According to 2005 Census Bureau estimates, the population was 5,364. One of Homer's nicknames is "the cosmic hamlet by the sea"; another is "the end of the road"...
on an archaeological dig near Halibut Cove on Kachemak Bay, where remains were found both of Dena'ina occupation and of remains from an earlier occupation by a seagoing Alutiiq people known as the Kachemak Tradition.
Peter Kalifornsky's A Dena'ina Legacy
In March 1989, Peter KalifornskyPeter Kalifornsky
Peter Kalifornsky , was a self-taught writer and ethnographer of Kenai, Alaska, who wrote traditional stories, poems, and language lessons in the Outer Inlet dialect of Dena'ina, a language of the Athabaskan language group...
's younger sister Fedosia Sacaloff died, leaving Kalifornsky as the last remaining speaker of the Outer Inlet dialect of the Dena'ina language on the Kenai Peninsula. At his sister's funeral, Kalifornsky asked Boraas and James Kari for their help on his third book, in which Kalifornsky wished to compile everything he had ever written. James Kari, a linguist at the Alaska Native Language Center
Alaska Native Language Center
The Alaska Native Language Center, established in 1972 in Fairbanks, Alaska, is a research center focusing on the research and documentation of the Alaska's Native languages. It publishes grammars, dictionaries, folklore collections and research materials, as well as hosting an extensive archive of...
at University of Alaska Fairbanks
University of Alaska Fairbanks
The University of Alaska Fairbanks, located in Fairbanks, Alaska, USA, is the flagship campus of the University of Alaska System, and is abbreviated as Alaska or UAF....
, had been working with Kalifornsky since 1972 on the Dena'ina language. Kalifornsky had written the materials in the book over a 19-year period, first writing them in Dena'ina and then translating them into English. Boraas and Kari helped to refine the English translations and acted as editors. Kalifornsky's book was published in 1991 under the title Dena’ina Legacy — K’tl’egh’i Sukdu: The Collected Writings of Peter Kalifornsky. Boraas also wrote a biography of Kalifornsky which was included in the volume. Kalifornsky died in June 1993 of lung cancer. Boraas later related to an interviewer that during work on the book, Kalifornsky had related "long soliloquies" about Dena'ina life to help Boraas better understand the stories and the meanings of Dena'ina words. Boraas recorded Kalifornsky's accounts on tape, but as of 2000, when the interview took place, he felt unready to go back to them because of the intensity of the emotional experience.
Later work
Boraas has studied the letters of Alexander Baranof in translation in order to better understand the Battle of Kenai, a 1797 battle in which the Dena'ina attacked the Russian fort at KenaiKenai, Alaska
Kenai is a city in Kenai Peninsula Borough in the U.S. state of Alaska. According to 2005 Census Bureau estimates, the population of the city is 7,464...
to drive out the Lebedev-Lastochkin Company. The 1799 Charter of the Russian America Company created a company with quasi-governmental powers in Alaska. The Cook Inlet region was ignored as the company sought sea otter pelts all the way down the coast to Chile. Trade reintensified in Cook Inlet once the otters were hunted nearly to extinction on the west coast of North and South America; however, the terms of the fur trade were much different than under the independent companies or the management of Alexander Baranov.
Boraas has also been studying the social impact of salmon canneries in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He has worked with the Kenaitze Indian Tribe to help with its response to the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act and is working with the tribe to develop a program to teach the Dena'ina language. Sasha Lindgren, a tribal enrollment officer who also worked seven years in the tribe's cultural heritage program, told an interviewer in 2000, "Alan is the one who said our language needs to become the literary language for the peninsula, just like Gaelic
Irish language
Irish , also known as Irish Gaelic, is a Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family, originating in Ireland and historically spoken by the Irish people. Irish is now spoken as a first language by a minority of Irish people, as well as being a second language of a larger proportion of...
is the literary language for Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
."
In 2002, Boraas attended the Renvall Institute at the University of Helsinki
University of Helsinki
The University of Helsinki is a university located in Helsinki, Finland since 1829, but was founded in the city of Turku in 1640 as The Royal Academy of Turku, at that time part of the Swedish Empire. It is the oldest and largest university in Finland with the widest range of disciplines available...
in Finland
Finland
Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...
. Boraas’s presentation at the conference, which had the theme "Reconfiguring Native America," focused on the efforts of the Kenaitze Indian Tribe to rebuild indigenous identity. He also described archaeological excavations he was conducting with Kenaitze youth.
A number of Boraas' works are referenced in the Bibliography of Sources on Dena’ina and Cook Inlet Anthropology, of which he is coeditor. Boraas also compiled an online source on the Dena'ina language based on linguistic data compiled by Joan Tenenbaum.
Boraas writes a monthly column for the Anchorage Daily News
Anchorage Daily News
The Anchorage Daily News is a daily newspaper based in Anchorage, Alaska, in the United States. It is often referred to colloquially as either "the Daily News" or "the ADN"...
called "The Comment."