For the Lingít people in Alaska, Clan Houses serve as more than just physical gathering spaces. They are places of ritual, of community, of tradition, and places that hold memory even when the original space changes over time.

Jerrick Hope-Lang (Lduteen) who is working to preserve X'aaká Hít Point House in Sitka, Alaska nominated the Sitka Clan Houses to the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s list of America’s 11 Most Endangered Historic Places. For Hope-Lang this is about protecting not just a piece of his identity, but of a way of life. The site was included on the 11 Most Endangered list in 2024.

Hope-Lang said, “As we've been losing ancestors at an alarming rate, I think there’s an opportunity here. I think all that space is sacred. I think everything that I see, even if it's not my clan or my clan house, is valuable to me. It's a visual representation of who I am and where my ancestors might've stood, where my families may have gone to mourn the loss of clan leaders or where we celebrated the birth of people or their names. When I look at them in the shape that they're in, it is disheartening, but I'm also aware of why they are where they are.”

To hear more about the Sitka Clan Houses, their history, and the work to preserve them Amy Webb, senior director of preservation programs, spoke with Hope-Lang.

Why are the Sitka Clan houses, and the Point House specifically, important to you? How did you become an advocate for preservation?

Tell me about how the interest in your clan house expanded to thinking about broader preservation of these important spaces?

My initial response was, ‘I need to get this land back. I need to rebuild my own house,’ [but then] you start to uncover that you need your neighbors who are the clan houses to model ourselves after. If you remove your blinders and look to the left and the right of my property, you realize this situation isn't specific to our clan house. It isn't specific to the Sitka Indian Village or Southeast Alaska. Reciprocity is a big part of our culture. I figured, if we're going to lay the groundwork for what the Point House can be in the future, we shouldn't just do it for ourselves.

Initially I just wanted to rebuild a house. I didn't want to work in historic preservation. I didn't want to look at the National Register. I didn't want to be a grant writer. There are all these things that I didn't think I needed to be, but I think man plans and God laughs. In some ways it's opened this scope of work that I think I have the tenacity and follow through to work through. In learning other people's stories and other people's cultures and other houses histories, I become a better Lingít myself.

Can you talk a little bit about some of the challenges that you have come up against as you work to preserve the Clan houses?

The first thing I didn't realize was reconstruction was so frowned upon. Even looking within Southeast Alaska, there are clan houses that were built within the last hundred years. One of them was by the Works Progress Administration [which] rebuilt a clan house in Wrangell and it was used during that time. The interesting dynamic is because that clan house was built in the forties, now it's eligible for historic preservation tax incentives and grants. It's frustrating because I look at this model working 60 years ago or 70 years ago and those things being eligible now and wondering why those don't apply to present day structures.

With historic preservation [of the clan houses] we are not just looking at preserving bricks and mortar, we are preserving culture and decolonizing the push that was made by the Presbyterian missionary [in Alaska that pushed for a nuclear family over a community living space]. There's a chance to preserve a neighborhood and the history that happens inside that neighborhood, and I think reconstruction needs to be looked at.

You’ve said to me that the Clan Houses are a vessel for all the traditions and cultural elements that happen with them, and that feels antithetical to the traditional preservation movement. How does the land back movement play into that?

You have to recognize that Alaska isn't all just Indigenous people anymore. I think there's still this new understanding or belief that there's a stigma attached that for non-Indigenous community to recognize their responsibility in colonization and what that might look like and how they can support it. There's some fear surrounding it, [which] I tried to remove, but I think some people get it and some people don't.

There have been shifts in the preservation movement to make it more inclusive. What are some things that you would like to see changed?

I think preservation models can be centered in the present day. So much of historic preservation is looking to the past, and although we look to honor the past and recognize the past, these houses will outlive us. At some point, even the Point House that I build at some time will come down. So, the idea that houses can come up and come down is part of Lingít cultural identity. I don't see [a space] in historic preservation to focus on the people inside of the home. It's more of the physical structure, but we're rebuilding our culture, and this is a form of restorative practices. I've tried to wrap my head around how historic preservation as a model could meet us where we are. Maybe one of those would be exemptions from the Secretary of [the] Interior[‘s] standards, as controversial as that might sound.

I don't know how historic preservation could meet the criteria for every Indigenous person's needs. A Tlingit person's needs may not reflect the needs of a person in New Mexico or Oklahoma. Our standards may be different. So as opposed to having everybody coming to the Secretary of [the] Interior and saying, well, this is what Northern Shoshone need versus what Lingít need, they're so separate.

I think tribal governments are creating their own historic preservation models within tribal governments to appease the Secretary of [the] Interior[‘s] standards. I don't know what the future of that looks like.

What are the ways that others could support the work that you're doing to preserve these sites?

That this is the hardest part to talk about, but it involves money. Until we see real shifts in the narrative of historic preservation, money is the way that we need help. We did find some smaller base donors that we're appreciative of, but we are incorporating our own 501(c)3. We are in the process of writing our bylaws, so we're moving in that direction. [However], it's another colonial construct, having to work with attorneys and develop land trusts. We are at the forefront of everything, and we're asking for advice.

In kind donations are other ways that are tangible to support our work. We're very lucky, as we had an attorney who saw our story and is representing us for free in this. We are fiscally sponsored through a native-led 501(c)3. So that's another mechanism that we're looking at to work with this long-term.

Since the 11 Most announcement what has happened with the project?

It’s a place-based model that's evolving and changing. If people looked at this project and said, I can support this now, the level of work isn't stopping at the Stika Indian Village. I've been meeting with clan leaders and talking about what the future of clan houses looks like. More broadly this has sparked a general interest in a lot of people coming forward. We just started a film through a grant that we received from Vision Maker, where we're documenting this experience by recording our elders and have them tell us why these things are important now, and to leave things better for the next generation.