SITKA, ALASKA
Sitka National Historical Park says its relationship with the Southeast Alaska Indian Cultural Center is “not organizationally or financially sustainable.”
The move comes as special agents from the National Park Service’s Anchorage office are investigating financial mismanagement at the cultural center. Park Superintendent Randy Larson confirmed the investigation but said he couldn’t provide further details.
Gary Lang, is president of the cultural center’s board of directors. He says the investigation is related to last week’s resignation of the cultural center’s executive director, Gerry Bigelow, but that he couldn’t provide more information. A phone message left Tuesday afternoon for Bigelow was not immediately returned.
In the meantime, Lang and his board are absorbing the news that after four decades, the center will no longer be housed at the park. He says they found out at 4 p.m. Monday that the partnership comes to an end on June 23.
“It was pretty ridiculous,” Lang said. “And I stated to them that giving us 10 days notice to find a new place … was a big shock to not only myself, but also the artists.”
Although the park and the cultural center have had a partnership for 42 years, the arrangement wasn’t formalized until 1993. The formal agreement was renewed about every five years, and recently has been extended for a few months at a time. It’s now on its third extension. Artists and the center get space to work, and the park gets on-site artists to offering demonstrations for park visitors.
The park annually contributed money to the cultural center, with the expectation that the center would become self-sufficient eventually. Larson, the park’s superintendent says the center had a hard time generating enough income to support itself without park assistance.
Wood carver Tommy Joseph, one of the artists who works at the center, says the park didn’t make it any easier, revamping its fee structure. Before, he says, visitors had to pay $4 to get into the whole vistors center, including the hallway that houses the cultural center.
“Just two months ago they changed that so everything is free, except to come down the hall, and our numbers have dropped drastically,” he said. “The busiest day of the year or the season, normally I would have 400 or 500 people, sometimes more. That day I had 12 people in.”
Still, Joseph says he built his career over the 21 years he spent at the park, where he was able to be in the public eye. He’s thankful for that, but he also says the future is uncertain.
“I’m actually working on trying to find my own place to go and be and do,” Joseph said. “Right now I don’t have anywhere. I’m here until Thursday, and then I’m not. So we will see.”
That’s Thursday, June 23. After that, the artists and their personal possessions must vacate the park’s visitor center.
Larson, the park’s superintendent, declined to speak on tape, but said the park has offered to store some works of art and artifacts until a suitable home can be found. He also says the park is interested in maintaining a Native arts and culture program on site, and will be engaging community members in dialogue about how best to do that.
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