The camp includes instruction on Tlingit and Haida languages. Tlingit teacher Katrina Hotch teaching students in an outdoor classroom.
The institute uses games to make language learning fun.
Language game.
In this exercise, a teacher tells students to listen for a key word spoken in a Native language. The teacher then recites a number of Tlingit or Haida words. When the students hear the key Native word, they scramble to change partners.
In this exercise, students face each other and the first one to smile has to say the correct Native word for an image shown by a student.
This student won the smiling exercise many times.
Smiling exercise.
Koleen James shows students how to gather spruce roots ethically for weaving.
Students were instructed to each collect one spruce root from the spruce forest surrounding the camp.
Spruce root gathering.
The student with the longest root won a prize.
This competition was very close....
Winner of the spruce root challenge!
The camps include lessons on subsistence.
Instructor Katrina Hotch shows students how to fillet a salmon.
Student fillets a salmon.
The camps include lessons on how to make drums.
Haida language instructor Ben Young (right) shows students how to tighten the skin on their drums.
Ryan, an assistant, shows a student how to tie sinew to a drum.
Students with drums.
Student with drum.
Student with sinew and drums.
The students were very excited when a harbor seal was harvested for the camp.
Students following the seal to the camp.
Students crowded around to learn to prepare the seal.
Instructor Lyle James shows how to properly clean and butcher a harbor seal.
Harbor seals are an important subsistence food. The meat is harvested and the fat is rendered into oil.
Seal butchering.
Sealaska Heritage Institute Rosita Worl talked to students about their cultural identity and about key Native values.
Camp coordinator Sarah Dybdahl guides the students.
