Generations of Alaska Native Culture in Klawock with Mary Edenshaw

Mary Edenshaw of the Klawock Heenya Corporation joins Jennie to share about growing up in Klawock, raising her family there and how the Klawock community welcomes visitors to learn more about the land and people of Southeast Alaska.

Learn more about Klawock here

Support Alaska Uncovered on Patreon as a free or paid subscriber

Book a trip planning session with Jennie

Shop all Alaska Travel planners and premade itineraries

Follow Jennie on Instagram

Transcript

Jennie Flaming: 0:00

Jennie, welcome to the Alaska uncovered podcast with me, your host, Jennie Thwing Flaming, my occasional co host and full time husband, Jay and I bring you accurate, helpful and entertaining information about Alaska, travel and life in Alaska, before we start the episode, we would like to thank our Patreon members for making this podcast possible. You can join them at the link in the show notes. We are so grateful for your support of independent podcasts. Enjoy the show my guest today is Mary Edenshaw from the small community of Klawock in southeast Alaska, and I'm so excited to have Mary here today to talk about Klawock, to talk about culture, to talk about her story and life as an Alaskan, this is really going to be fun. So Mary, welcome to Alaska uncovered. Thank you for being here. Thank you for having me. Yeah, this is, this is a real treat. So to start off, Mary, can you tell everyone? Just introduce yourself to everybody. Who are you? Where are you from? What's your story? Absolutely,

Mary: 1:24

my name is Mary Edenshaw, I'm from Klawock Alaska. I am Tlingit. My clan mate is Raven, from the dog salmon house. I have been married for 30 years to my high school sweetheart, Doug Edenshaw. He's from Heidelberg. We have two children. My son, is 24 my daughter is 20 I am currently their Chief Executive Officer of Corporation. You know, working for our people as and being their voice is my passion, and always has been my passion. A little bit of history is my great grandfather, Robert pradovich senior. He was a Tlingit chief here in colog and the mayor of co op for many years. I was unfortunate to not know him, but hear many wonderful stories about him, from my grandmother, my maternal grandmother and my mother, who both single. You know women who raised us. You know we come from a predominant female family to where you have to, you just have to be strong willed and work very hard to make things happen. But just to hear those stories of my great grandfather and what he did for cloak, I feel like that was what guided me in my journey throughout my life. So that's a little bit about myself. Yeah,

Jennie Flaming: 3:04

yeah. I love that. I love that you're married to yours high school sweetheart. That's so fun. I didn't know that. I

Mary: 3:11

know it's throws people off, because it's so unheard of that, yeah, we've been together. We actually been together for 37 years.

Jennie Flaming: 3:18

Wow, that's awesome. So, can you tell us a little bit more about Klawock, like, what, what makes it a special and unique place in Alaska and kind of, what's the story of the people there?

Mary: 3:37

Yeah, absolutely. So, what makes cloak so special to me, growing up with a single mom with five daughters, is you this community is so close knit, and it truly, you know, exemplifies it takes a village to raise a child, because my mom had to work so hard to raise us girls and everybody helped out everybody in the community, whether they were blood related or not. And I think that's also what brought me back to Klawock, was that I wanted to raise my kids in that same environment. And it's to this day, if you come to Klawock as a guest, you will be treated like family. I've seen it time and time again, and I, you know, and I think being raised that way, I've been told, like, when I go to see trade or, you know, other events that involve the tourism, they were just like, it's such a pleasure to talk to you, you know. And it's not something that's scripted, it's just something we all know. And so if you're, yeah, if you're coming to Co Op, you will get treated very well, you know, as a guest in our community, and a lot of times you'll just end up being family, you know, it's just one of those things. And I think that's what makes it so special here,

Jennie Flaming: 4:57

yeah, yeah. I. Awesome. That's beautiful. I wonder. I just realized I should have had you explain to everyone where Klawock is located. I know I said Southeast Alaska, but that is a big place. So could we get a little more specific with like, where are you exactly,

Mary: 5:18

yes, Klawock is located on Prince of Wales Island, which is west of Ketchikan, and it's about a three hour ferry ride from Ketchikan, which is the nearest Alaska Airlines stop, yeah, but yeah. Prince of Wales Island is a very large island with other communities, but Co Op is centrally located on Prince of Wales Island.

Jennie Flaming: 5:40

Cool, yes, that, yeah, if you're listening to this, like, break out a map and just see how large of a place we're talking about. Yeah, it's, it is definitely big, cool, absolutely,

Mary: 5:54

yeah. Okay, so

Jennie Flaming: 5:56

Mary, I'd love to hear a little bit about the visitor industry in Klawock, but maybe before that, you know, one thing that you've shared with me previously is about how Tlingit people in cloak have been able to reclaim some culture that was lost because of colonialism. And I'm wondering if, before we get into the visitor industry, like in detail, if you would be willing to share a little bit about some of what that's looked like there?

Mary: 6:33

Yeah, absolutely one. I mean, just giving a little bit of history on my family. So my grandmother, her, her, her era. You know, everybody was shipped out. I mean, when, when Alaska was bought from Russia, and we, when the Westerners came in, you know, churches came in and there were no schools. There weren't any of that. All we had was our culture. All we had was our way of life. I'm just now reading a book about a superintendent that lived here in Klawock, that came here one of the first schools, and just hearing his perspective in that book, and what he saw and what he tried to change was, you know, kind of took my breath away reading that. You know, my great grandfather was the mayor at that time, but my grandma was small enough. She got shipped away at 13 years old to chimewa boarding school. And, you know, she she wasn't able to practice any of her culture, speak her language, any of that in, you know, one day, I was sitting with her, because she helped raise us girls, and she was reading a card from her brother, her only brother, and it was in Tlingit, which he he made it a point to remember, that was his goal, to never forget his culture. But my grandma was a little bit different. She kept looking at the card and she laughed. And I was like, Grandma, what? What are you laughing at? What's so funny with the card? And she goes, I thought I didn't know what it was saying. And she showed me, she said, It's in Tlingit. I remember it. Oh, wow, yeah, yeah. And so that with our culture, you know, my mom was shipped off to boarding school in her later years, up to Mount Edgecumbe, which she never talked about, they never talked about. We had to prompt that. We had to ask those questions. Yeah, yeah. So there was that gap, and when we finally had a high school in Klawock in, in my age group, went to high school, it was a privilege to be able to go to school in your hometown. Yeah, we lost that gap of our culture, and they were just reintroducing it, but we weren't too sure. So when we were bought from Russia, and the BIA came in, and they started like this Johnson O'Malley fund that was supposed to help with culture. It wasn't a whole lot of money, but Co Op did what they could with it, and some of our people that that knew the culture and continued to use it would try and teach us some of the ways to put up food, you know, farm line drawing and all of that stuff. So we had some of it. But when my kids were in school, we made it a point. I was on the school board here in co op for 22 years, and we made it a point to have our Native education predominant in our school. It's so cool, it is, and it's still there today, but like my son knows how to carve a totem pole, my daughter knows form line and, you know, and she could talk about it. She could talk about, you know, the that. And so for us coming back to our culture, I mean, I'm one to say that I'm getting some of it. The more I read and the more I ask. Questions, but it's something that I have to continue. We have to continue to talk about. And so when we have people come into our community, I always say that our culture is so important to us because we almost lost it. Yeah,

Jennie Flaming: 10:17

yeah, that is a really big deal that that is awesome. And I'm really, really glad for for visitors to hear that and know that and like how precious this is for sure. Yeah,

Mary: 10:35

absolutely, absolutely. And just getting, you know, with with this industry, we, we've, I mean, tourism and people coming to Klawock, it's not very new in terms of people coming in to see or coming to, you know, fishing lodges are a big deal on Prince of Wales Island. But, yeah, it's not the same because they're not owned locally, yeah, and if they're owned locally, they're not owned by somebody that knows the culture. They're not owned by somebody who's Native Alaskan, yeah, yeah. And, and so with us coming in, coaquina Corporation, partnering with not enough for this cruise industry, it, it really gave us the opportunity to say, this is this is cloak, this is our culture, because it's our people, it's us, and we're able to say that and share that with with everybody, and we're happy to do that. Yeah, yeah.

Jennie Flaming: 11:36

That is a real gift to visitors, for sure and super unique. Yeah, Mary, can I just want to go back for a minute before we talk more about the visitor industry. When you were talking about totem poles and form line drawing, I think that most visitors are probably familiar with what a totem pole is, but my guess would be, most people are less familiar with form line drawing. Could you share just a little bit about what that is and recognizing that this is audio format, so without the visual? I know that's kind of challenging, but yeah, if you could share a little bit about that, that would be awesome.

Mary: 12:20

What little bit I definitely do know from and this is working with our native arts teacher who who replicated all of our totems, recarve them, taught my kids. His name is John Rowan, but, you know, he said that form line is, is the drawing, you know, I mean, he talks about form line in a way of how you put these designs together. You know, there's the ovoids, and you put the, you know, you have the killer whale, yeah, but, but then you put the form line in there. And I'm not 100% sure, because, yeah, like I said, It skipped a generation with me, and like, if we were to ask my daughter, she would be able to explain it a little bit better, yeah, but yeah, it's just a feature in in the indigenous art that we have Yes, Yeah. Yeah. And so I'm not too sure how to to say it, how to visually say it,

Jennie Flaming: 13:26

yeah, I know. I realize that's kind of a challenging thing to ask about. I feel like it's one of those things that, like, if you see something and you see some of those familiar patterns and shapes, you'll be like, oh, yeah, that's what I'm looking at. But then it's very hard to describe, like, what, what that is. But anyway, yeah, it's definitely, if you're listening, you can definitely, um, kind of look up, like, online, uh, visuals to kind of go along with that as well as, of course, totem poles. This is also something that we touched on a couple months ago in the episode that we had with Alaska Mary. We talked about form line a little bit there as well. But, yeah, okay,

Mary: 14:15

okay, yeah. But again,

Jennie Flaming: 14:17

it's she kind of was the same, like, yeah. How do I describe what that is? That's very hard, yeah, so cool,

Mary: 14:27

yeah. It's well, and then if you you know, like the definition, I think people should look up exactly what you said, look up form, light art, and you'll be able to it would make more sense. Yeah,

Jennie Flaming: 14:41

yeah. And I think probably, you know, just kind of thinking of it as a style of art is probably like, the right, like, when you said ovoid, like, again, but I've already seen this, right? So when you said ovoid, I was like, Oh yeah, that does really capture it. But anyway, you should look up visually, formline. Folks listening. Okay, well, we're gonna take a short break, and when we come back, we'll talk more with Mary about the visitor industry in Klawock. Hey everyone. Jennie here, just wanted to break in quickly and let you know that it is not too late visit Alaska this summer. If you're swirling and having trouble deciding on what to do, then book one of my 30 minute consults. That is exactly what I do with those as help you figure out either where you're gonna go, so you can get that booked, or if you already know where you're going, but you're not sure about what tours to do, how to spend your time. I help people with that all the time as well. So get in touch with me. Book one of those times, and I hope to meet you. It's one of my favorite parts of my job. All right, let's get back to the show. Okay, we are back with Mary Edenshaw from Klawock in southeast Alaska, on Prince of Wales Island, which is sort of near Ketchikan. And we've been talking about a little bit about her story, a little bit about life in cloak and Tlingit culture there. So Mary, I would love to move into talking a little more about the visitor industry, since that's such a big part of what you're doing now, and many people listening to this podcast are planning trips to Alaska and interested in that. So can you tell me a little bit about how clock kind of decided intentionally to step into the visitor industry, and kind of what that looks like for you right now.

Mary: 16:48

So what prompted us to, actually, I mean, it's not new to Klawock to to invite cruise ships into cloak. Back in the day they tried to, they tried it, it were unsuccessful. And then we moved into logging. And that's how long ago. It was early 90s.

Jennie Flaming: 17:12

Yeah, I was just going to ask you when, when that was okay, yeah,

Mary: 17:16

it was early 90s. And then we moved into the logging industry. Built a dock that could house large export logs and and then we never thought about it again. It, you know, it was one of those things the city tried it, put it, you know, was unsuccessful. And I got a call one day from the CEO of Huna totem, and he said, you know, Hey, are you interested? And I thought, You know what Prince of Wales, the logging industry, the fishing industry, it's just one of those things where you just don't know what you're going to get from year to year, but at least you know as Alaska becomes more attractive to travelers. I thought, this is a great opportunity for us, as well as other people, to come and see a different part of Alaska. You know, we're southern southeast. We're not, we're not on, you know, catch can Juno. We're a remote village in Alaska. And, yeah, so I opened the, you know, I thought, Great, let's hear what you have to say, and with their experience and expertise, you know, I I was skeptical, because I just wasn't sure that know enough about the industry and learning, you know, this is going to be year two for us, and I'm simply amazed by the people that know what they do. Yeah, yeah. It's just shocking to me, because in my mind, you know, as I get older, I'm, I'm okay to say that I don't know everything. Yes,

Jennie Flaming: 18:48

yes, yes, yeah.

Mary: 18:51

And so one of those, you know, listening to everybody and and people that come here, we've invited people from all over the world to come and see Klawock, and I've had the pleasure of visiting with them, you know. And we are in a rain forest here on Prince of Wales Island. And so, you know, you have to be prepared for the rain. You never know what you're going to get. And, you know, that type of thing. And they just and I think I take it for granted, because I'm looking out my window right now, overlooking the bay full of, you know, wildlife, yeah, yeah, this lush rainforest. And I, and I never said lush rainforest until I got into this industry, because I've heard it from every guest that comes in. And yeah, yeah. I literally for the six ships that we had this past year. I was down there for each and every ship, and I stood there and people who wanted to talk to me, I just enjoyed every second of it, sharing what we have here, but for them to say, Oh, my goodness, the lush green, you know, forest is amazing. Mean, but I mean, I could talk about that forever, but, you know, just that in and us having the opportunity for economic development was one of the things that I was looking at as well our people, you know, they've been in the seasonal industry our whole lives. You know, my mom worked in the cannery. I remember as a little girl, you know, having to take coffee and cookies out to the work crew out in the cannery because my uncle was the boss. And you know that that was our summer job. Yeah, you know, we employed people for six days that hadn't worked in a long time. But it just to invigorate them on a local level. And to be excited for this coming season was exciting for me because, yeah, our economy needed it, so we welcomed it with open arms. You know, this, this, I mean, this boost to our economy is going to be year round. It's just not going to be seasonal, because the people we employ live here, yeah, it's going to make a big difference.

Jennie Flaming: 21:06

Yeah, yeah, that is huge, right? Because I'll just say for those of you listening, you know many, not all, but many businesses in the visitor industry only have visitors during part of the year, but there's lots of work that goes on even when visitors aren't there to make that a good experience. So yeah,

Mary: 21:33

absolutely, absolutely. So

Jennie Flaming: 21:37

what are some of the things? Well, let me ask you this, Mary, so I know that the ships that are currently calling at Klawock are smaller cruise ships. Yes, I

Mary: 21:52

believe they are. They are. They're more boutique lines, yes,

Jennie Flaming: 21:57

and um, what are some of the if it's okay for you to tell us what I mean, people can look it up on the internet, but which cruise lines are currently coming to clock, and if you're listening, just know that this changes from year to year. So we're recording this in winter 2025 so as of right now, yeah,

Mary: 22:20

absolutely. Seaborn was our first one in their returning Yeah, we have the seven seas explorer coming in. The Riviera is going to be coming in. Oceana, it's going to be coming in. I'm going to pull it up really quick, okay, because I think it's really important. Yeah,

Jennie Flaming: 22:41

and you're, you are going to have more ship visits in 2025 than you did last year. I think yes, isn't that what you told me before?

Mary: 22:50

Yes, absolutely, we're going to have 23 calls. Cool.

Jennie Flaming: 22:55

Oh, that's exciting. Yeah, yeah,

Mary: 22:57

I'm super excited. I think everybody else is excited as well, because it's it's it they can. Everybody was skeptical to see if it will work. Even myself, Yes, see that growth, yeah, yeah, to see that growth is exciting to me.

Jennie Flaming: 23:16

Yeah, very much. So that's really great. So for folks who are traveling on these smaller cruise lines and are lucky enough to get to come to cloak, what sort of experiences do people get to have while they're in port for that day?

Mary: 23:36

Absolutely, the tours that we offer is, of course, whale watching, yes, yeah, whale sightings that are right in our back door. So we have a whale boat that comes up to the dock, does a couple of tours. There we have what we call the taste of cloak, which is on the cloak river. And so you go out to the co op River, get to see where we you know, where the sockeye and the coho, the fish come right up the river. And then you also are able to taste, you know, salmon, oysters that are locally grown, some halibut. We have some pairings that go with that, with wine and champagne and oyster beer. You know, we have a couple turns of that. We of course, offer kayaking on the clock lake. We have cloak highlights, and this is my favorite, because it involves our culture. And you take a tour to master carver, John Rowan's carving shed. You get to talk to him, Look at his latest art project, and just hear his amazing stories that he has to tell. And he's open to questions, photos, all of that, from there you walk. That's awesome. I know that that

Jennie Flaming: 24:49

is the highlight a treat. Yeah,

Mary: 24:51

yeah, that that's why that is my favorite. And you'd take a walk down to the river, and this isn't an. Area where the tasting is. This is a separate area at the mouth of the river, so you get to take a peek, and we talk about the plants and different kind of trees that we have in the area. And then you go up to totem pole Park, and you're able to hear the stories of the Totems. And then go back to the ship. We also offer an artisans market where it's open to all artists or anybody who wants to sell gifts or even just to be there, tell stories, whatever. It's just open area. And then we also offer a complimentary shuttle that goes to Craig, which is seven miles away, a new a different community. And even if you just wanted to take a bus ride, you know, go through and take a look at the area that one's complimentary. And you could go and there's some shops down there and just see the it's a larger community. So you're able to take a look and and then back to the port. Those are, those are our main offerings we're working on.

Jennie Flaming: 26:05

Those all sound amazing.

Mary: 26:09

Oh, they they are. I've done them myself, just because, you know, I had to pull in every favor for six calls because it is something. It's a bit of a challenge to ask somebody to commit seven days if you have a full time job. Yep, absolutely, yeah. So my husband was on the whale boat last year. My daughter was running the van while she was in town. And, you know, everybody fun? Yeah, it was, it was a it was a huge event. And that's why I was saying, Klawock will welcome you. Is, at first, our community was scared to get into this because they thought, oh my gosh, we're going to end up like catch a camp. Well, we'll never be catch again, because we're not never going to be that large and, yeah, it's just not going to

Jennie Flaming: 26:56

there's a lot of lot of daylight between the two. Yeah, absolutely.

Mary: 27:01

But then after, you know, so we heard them, and we made sure that everybody had a purpose. Everybody, you know, our guests, had a purpose. They were doing something, you know, you weren't just walking around town without something to do. And our community was like, where is everybody? The crew should extend, but where is everybody? And so that was, you know, we had people that wanted to interact, wanted to be a part of it. And so we welcomed them to the port, you know, come down, come visit. You know, everybody wants to hear a story.

Jennie Flaming: 27:31

Yeah, yeah. Oh, wow, yeah. And I really appreciate you sharing how kind of risky and scary it can be to, yes, there's a lot of economic opportunity, and, you know, that can be wonderful, but it's also risky to open up your home, you know, and just not sure, be sure what's going to happen. I mean, it's, it's not easy. It's really amazing that you, you mobilized everyone to give it a shot. I love that.

Mary: 28:05

Right on. Thank you. Oh, yeah,

Jennie Flaming: 28:07

okay, um, Mary, I'd love to know if somebody wants to visit Klawock and they are not taking a cruise, is that an option? And if it is, how would you do that?

Mary: 28:26

It's definitely an option to and we do have guests, a corporation we own the Klawock river Inn and I converted our office space downstairs, our little level into some rooms, and we rent it, rent it out. But we see many walks of life that come in, and the way you come in is, of course, Alaska Airlines to catch a can, yeah, and then you could either take the ferry, if a ferry, or you could take Island air, or or you could even fly down from Juneau and Alaska sea planes. But there's, you know, those ways to get to the island. And you know, we've had so many people. We have a Veterans Memorial totem pole, and we have veterans that will come and put their pins at the bottom in respect of our culture and that poll.

Jennie Flaming: 29:20

And we had amazing

Mary: 29:22

it was I had an reason. Why, I know is we had some guests that are in that I was visiting with, and they they rode their motorcycles across the country. And, wow, over, yeah, they came over. Wanted to ride their bike all over Prince of Wales, and specifically to put their pin at the bottom of the Veterans Memorial Pole.

Jennie Flaming: 29:41

Wow, that's amazing. Yeah, it was cool. It was really cool. Yeah, yeah. So, um, would someone, if they were coming over on the ferry, would they need to rent a car and catch a can and bring it on the ferry? Or is there another way to. Kind of get back and forth from between cloak and the fairy dock.

Mary: 30:03

There is a few options. So you could definitely rent a car and catch a can. I'm not too sure who with, but most people, they'll rent locally. We do have a couple of car rental places. There's a community shuttle that you could schedule appointments with. There's also a taxi service that will pick you up. And they also do, you know, private shuttle versus the community shuttle, right? Yeah, and so those, those are your options to come over if you're bougie like me, I always rent a car. Right?

Jennie Flaming: 30:44

Yeah, well, that's cool to know that there are other options. And that makes sense, because probably people who who live, maybe not even just in cloak, but also on the island, if they're going to catch a can, wouldn't necessarily want to take their car over every time,

Mary: 31:00

right? Yeah, exactly, exactly, yeah. And there's many of Airbnbs, other places to stay here, on Prince of Wales and in Klawock. So the options are definitely open.

Jennie Flaming: 31:14

That's awesome, cool. Well, that that is wonderful, because there are definitely people, you know, listeners, who are like, I want to do something different. I want to do something beyond the same, you know, a thing that everybody else is doing. And, wow, this would really be a special way to do that, for sure. Yeah, yeah. So, um, anything else you want to share, Mary, either about clock or the visitor industry or visiting. Before we get to my couple of wrap up questions,

Mary: 31:51

not that I can think of. I just I definitely to your listeners, you won't be disappointed, that's for sure.

Jennie Flaming: 31:59

Yeah. Love it. Okay, so Mary, if a visitor is coming to Klawock, what do they absolutely need to make sure to eat while they're there?

Mary: 32:12

What do they you know, what I say, you need to eat fish. Yeah, you need to. In, you know, if you could get smoked king salmon, smoke, I smoke coho, whatever. Smoke Salmon, I see I'm a big one on smoked fish. Because, yeah, I mean, growing up here, we were lucky to have the grocery store stocked once a quarter, you know? So we grew up on canned fish. And yeah, I mean, I always tell my husband I ate it so much growing up, I thought I hated it, but now I could eat it every single day.

Jennie Flaming: 32:55

Yes, yes. Like, like, you come full circle. Back to being all for fish,

Mary: 33:01

Yeah, completely, completely, I, that's what I say. Is anything local, and mine is, if you could get the smoked salmon, that's, that's the key. Yes.

Jennie Flaming: 33:13

Love it. Okay, so finally, Mary, what piece of advice do you have for visitors who are coming to Alaska, anywhere in Alaska, really, for the first time,

Mary: 33:31

My piece of advice, which I don't get traveling anywhere, is, be prepared for the weather to change within 15 minutes.

Jennie Flaming: 33:42

Yes, really good advice. Yeah,

Mary: 33:46

yeah, be prepared, because I've seen it snow, hail, rain and be sunny all in the same two hours. Yes,

Jennie Flaming: 33:55

yes, that's a really good one. Love it Well, Mary, thank you so much for joining me today and coming on the podcast and sharing your story on the story of cloak with our listeners. Thank you so much.

Mary: 34:11

Absolutely I'm happy to share any time you