Preserving Sitka’s Clan Houses
A Conversation with Jerrick Hope-Lang on these Important Sites of Ritual, Community, Tradition and Memory
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.
![Sitka Indian Village, Alaska. Circa 1900](https://cdn.savingplaces.org/2024/07/23/12/45/29/749/3-crWikimediaCommons.webp)
photo by: Wikimedia Commons
Lingit Clan Houses in Sitka, Alaska c. 1900.
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.
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Why are the Sitka Clan houses, and the Point House specifically, important to you? How did you become an advocate for preservation?
Clan houses are an interesting concept because they're not just physical structures, they're a form of matrilineal, hereditary identity. My identity comes from my clan house. Prior to colonization, families lived in communal style homes, and those homes were central to learning your language, your crest, your songs, your stories. They were larger family structures for child rearing and bringing people up in their customs. These houses were our homes when we traveled to other places, this is where we stayed. This is where families met, this is where coffee was poured. This is where stories were shared.
Our clan house was torn down in 1997, and I can still remember it. What got me started was somebody [saying] ‘this is your clan’s land, what's going to be done with it?’ I hadn't really thought about that before. There's this piece of land, it's still here. Why don't we have this sacred space anymore? That's what started me on this journey.
In some ways, I feel homeless. I'm a person who owns a conventional home, but [these clan houses are] central to my identity. Step one, is getting the space back. Step two is, how do we rebuild? This is a model that could be inclusive not just to Indigenous people, but to show non-Indigenous communities what resilience is and what that looks like.
![A man in green and black traditional robes looks front and smiles at the camera.](https://cdn.savingplaces.org/2024/07/23/12/45/29/820/Jerrick%20Hope-Lang%20Headshot_cropped.webp)
photo by: Raven's Tale Studio
Jerrick Hope-Lang (Lduteen)
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.
![Two individuals looking out over the water in Sitka, Alaska in traditional clothing.](https://cdn.savingplaces.org/2024/07/23/13/21/49/833/Jerrick%20Hope-Lang%20in%20Sitka_cropped.webp)
photo by: Raven's Tale Studio
Jerrick Hope-Lang (R) and . Dr. Forest Haven (L) overlooking the water at Sitka, Alaska.
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?
In this situation, the land is sacred. The house is just a vessel to perform the duties and tasks of what a clan house is. In 1926, when people didn't even have citizenship yet, there was a push by the Lingít community to create this Native Town Site Act, but that forced title and our people to collectively own these spaces.
They weren't owned by the nuclear family, so the inheritance of those houses has become a convoluted process through the Bureau of Indian Affairs and it's complex as a recently colonized people. We've had to really jump into the framework of Western law very quickly, and part of the problem that I see with these properties is that our Indigenous values don't align with Western legal law.
We're caught up in this framework of ‘how do we leave these properties in perpetuity?’ Who do they end up going to and how do we leave them in a shape that clans collectively can work on having their spaces and having their land and managing them in the long term.
I think that's one of the biggest struggles with this. I thought when we used [the popular phrase, land back] in this nomination that people would say, oh, okay, well I hear about land back, but here's a tangible place-based model of how land back can support not only the people whose land is but the community that surrounds them.
America's 11 Most Endangered Historic Places
![Two kayakers alongside the Hudson-Athens Lighthouse.](https://cdn.savingplaces.org/2024/07/23/13/21/49/79/11Most24_Hudson-AthensLighthouse1_crDavidOliver.webp)
Wince 1988, the National Trust has used its list of America's 11 Most Endangered Historic Places to raise awareness about the threats facing some of the nation's greatest treasures.
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.
![Sitka Indian Village, Sitka, Alaska. 2024](https://cdn.savingplaces.org/2024/07/23/13/21/47/716/2-crJamesPoulson.webp)
photo by: James Poulson
View of the Sitka Clan Houses c. 2024.
![Sitka Tlingit Village, Sitka, Alaska, March 2024](https://cdn.savingplaces.org/2024/07/23/13/21/49/825/1-crJamesPoulson.webp)
photo by: James Poulson
View of the Sitka Clan Houses c. 2024.
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.
![A man faces forward in green and black traditional dress looking out over the water in Sitka, Alaska.](https://cdn.savingplaces.org/2024/07/23/13/21/44/829/Jerrick%20Hope-Lang%20facing%20forward_cropped.webp)
photo by: Raven's Tale Studio
Jerrick Hope-Lang looking out over the water at Sitka, Alaska.
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.
This is for all Lingít people, and the idea is to be inclusive and to share information, share knowledge. The possibility here is the ripple effect. This is where the pebble has landed, and we don't know what the outcome can be for other communities, and we're already networking ourselves in to see what that looks like.
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