Last Friday Marya and I boarded the Alaska Ferry in Bellingham and headed for Juneau Alaska. We sailed off on a beautiful evening directly into the sunset.
The island you see is Texada Island in Georgia Strait well north of Vancouver . The ferry boat is wonderful. Spotlessly clean, great observations areas, friendly crew, The cabins, adequate, no luxury, food good, the scenery unbelievable.
In some places of the Inland Passage you could throw a rock from either side of the ship and hit the shore. This is a very typical scene.
Our mission was to return to the culture from whence it came, this extremely rare Basalt hand hammer found many years ago by a Haida woman half buried in the mud flats in front of her village on Prince of Wales Island.
I bought it from her forty years ago but felt it needed to be returned to its culture. It was featured on Antique Road Show a few years ago, and considered very precious, Made by Haida or Klingit artisans before contact by white man.
I bought it from her forty years ago but felt it needed to be returned to its culture. It was featured on Antique Road Show a few years ago, and considered very precious, Made by Haida or Klingit artisans before contact by white man.
So here we are presenting it to the Chief Curator of the Alaska State Museum in Juneau. We have just signed the deed of gift and he is thrilled with his new artifact promising to put it on display in the appropriate exhibit. I hated to part with it but decided that one never really owns something of this cultural value, we only possess them for a while, and I wanted to be sure this piece would be safe for future generations and seen by others. I treasured and enjoyed it for forty years.
And here is where it will likely be exhibited, in this lineup of hand hammers, or "pounders" in the Haida/Klingit longhouse exhibit. If you ever get to Juneau be sure to see this marvelous new museum and say hello to the ancient Raven hand hammer for me.
We had time for a little sight seeing. This is the Mendenhall Glacier just a couple of miles north of town. Salmon fishing season had just opened.
If you ever want to have a marvelous marine adventure, here is the agenda. It leaves from Bellingham and returns to Bellingham. If you get here, give me a call I live about five minutes from the ferry dock, I will show you the workshop.