Indigenous Worlds, Russian History, and the Living Landscapes of Southeast Alaska

Travel through Southeast Alaska’s Inside Passage, where glaciers, whales, and coastal communities offer a firsthand introduction to Tlingit culture, history, and enduring connections to the land.

Seeing the World Through Indigenous Perspectives

For the Tlingit people of Southeast Alaska, land, ancestry, and spiritual life are inseparable, shaping a worldview rooted in relationships and responsibility. Through conversations with Tlingit elders, cultural historians, and Indigenous educators, students explore how traditional knowledge, clan histories, and cultural practices preserve identity across generations. These encounters invite students to reconsider their own understanding of history, belonging, and the places they call home.

Navigate

Southeast Alaska’s Inside Passage by ferry and kayak, from glaciers to coastal communities.

Listen

to Tlingit elders and cultural historians share stories of ancestry, identity, and tradition.

Reconsider

the connections between land, history, and responsibility through Indigenous perspectives.

Program Description

Travel beyond the map and into a landscape where geography, ancestry, and spirit are deeply intertwined. The Tlingit, or People of the Tides, are an indigenous people of the Pacific Northwest coast whose ancestral homeland spans Southeast Alaska, British Columbia, and the Yukon. This immersive 10-day experiential learning expedition invites Deerfield students to explore Southeast Alaska’s stunning Inside Passage; but rather than viewing Alaska as a passive backdrop or a simple "landscape," students will study what anthropologist Steve Langdon deemed an “existencescape”, the Tlingit understanding of how the physical land, human history, non-human relatives, and spiritual presence form one living, interactive ecosystem.

Beginning in Juneau and moving on to Hoonah, Gustavus, and Sitka, students will: examine the Tlingit concept of ancestral lineage, exploring how the actions of the past ripple directly into obligations for the future; analyze the impacts of Russian and American colonization, the historic fight for civil rights in Alaska, and contemporary cultural revitalization; and contemplate clan histories, kootéeyaa (totem poles), and traditional stories as legal and historical records. Along the way, we will encounter many of the natural features that we often associate with Alaska–whales and eagles and bears and salmon and glaciers. We will kayak in Glacier Bay National Park; walk on Mendenhall Glacier; and travel by ferry on the Alaska Marine Highway. Guided by Tlingit elders, cultural historians, and indigenous educators, we will explore how the Tlingit worldview shapes identity, history, and a sustainable ethos that will help us deepen our relationships with our own home places, wherever they may be.