Duke Island
Duke Island Area Traditional Cultural Property
3320 BP to present
Duke Island, located south of Ketchikan, is a culturally significant place to the Taantakwaan Tlingit, also known as the Tongass Tribe and namesake of the Tongass National Forest. The modern-day Taantakwaan Tlingit, the Sanyakwaan Tlingit, and the Tsimshian people of Metlakatla consider all of Duke Island and the islands surrounding it to be integral to their history and contemporary life.
It was in the spring of 1999 when the Ketchikan-Misty Fiords Ranger District first became aware there was something special about the Duke Island area to the local Native Peoples. The Taantakwaan Tlingit (also known as the Tongass Tribe and the namesake for the Tongass National Forest) strongly objected to a special use permit issued by the Forest Service to an outfitter guide to use Duke Island. The Tongass people stated that Duke Island was a very sacred place to them. The Forest Service soon cancelled the guides permit. No outfitter guides have been permitted to use the Duke Island Area ever since.
Duke Island is located in the extreme southern part of the Tongass National Forest. Duke Island acquired its name in 1879. W.H. Dall of the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey probably took the name from the Duke of Northumberland, after whom the southern tip (Cape Northumberland) of this island had been named in 1793 by British Explorer Captain George Vancouver.
When an extensive mineral exploration program for anomalous copper, nickel, platinum and palladium was proposed in 2005 on Duke Island by a Canadian company; the Forest Service received letters from several Taantakwaan elders, the Native Site Guardianship Council, and the Ketchikan Indian Community (KIC) that Duke Island is sacred and should be documented as Traditional Cultural Property (TCP). Later the Forest Service received a letter from KIC supporting a Resolution that the Duke Island Area is sacred and should be documented as a TCP and that the area included several other islands and numerous rocks including Kelp, Dog, Cat, Mary, Hotspur, and the Percy Islands.
The Forest Service awarded a contract to Dr. Daniel Monteith of Douglas Heritage Research located in Juneau, Alaska to complete a determination of eligibility for the Duke Island Area as a potential TCP in 2009.
A Traditional Cultural Property (TCP) can be defined generally as one that is eligible for inclusion in the National Register of Historic Places because of its association with cultural practices or beliefs of a living community that (a) are rooted in that community's history, and (b) are important in maintaining the continuing cultural identity of the community.
Under the National Historic Preservation Act Dr. Monteith determined that the Duke Island Area consisting of ~147,603 acres of Federal lands is eligible to the National Register of Historic Places as a Traditional Cultural Property based on all four Criteria.
- A) The area is associated with important events in the past and present that are tied to the cultural identity of the Taantakwaan and Sanyakwaan peoples (also known as the Cape Fox people).
- B) It is associated with the lives of persons of significance to Tlingit clans, including named shamans.
- C(4) The area represents a significant entity, some components of which lack individual distinction, as evidenced by the on-going gathering of traditional resources by Alaska Natives.
- D) Numerous archaeological surveys of the Duke Island Area has yielded evidence important for understanding the history and prehistory of the region.
The State Historic Preservation Officer concurred that the Duke Island Area is an eligible TCP under all four criteria on June 9, 2011.
In 1922 linguist/anthropologist T.T. Waterman collected over 90 Native place names and several short oral histories from Native informants concerning the Duke Island Area. In 1967 anthropologist R.L. Olson documented an extensive oral history of the Taantakwaan Tlingit and the Sanyakwaan Tlingit with much of it taking place in the Duke Island Area. It was on Duke Island where the Taantakwaan had their first contacts with European and American fur traders in the late 1700s. As of 2015 there are a total of 60 recorded archaeological and historic sites within the Duke Island Area including, winter villages, fish camps, fish traps, burials, shell middens, fort sites, legend sites, battle grounds, an abandoned customs house which operated during the Klondike Gold Rush, homesteads, old trappers cabins, fur farms, a World War II observation post, and the Tree Point Light House. The oldest site on the Ketchikan Misty-Fiords Ranger District is located within the Duke Island Area TCP and is a shell midden radio carbon dated to 3,500 ± 50 years Before Present.
The modern-day Taantakwaan Tlingit, the Sanyakwaan Tlingit, and the Tsimshian people of Metlakatla consider all of Duke Island and more broadly Duke Island and the islands surrounding it to be an integral part in their history and contemporary life. This area is an important location in the traditions, practices, lifeways, arts, crafts, and social institutions of the Native communities of Ketchikan, Saxman, and Metlakatla. Duke Island is recognized as Taantakwaan at.oow (property) among the Tlingit. The regalia, crests, histories, songs, and personal names, and the land itself, are thought of in Tlingit culture as property which links the Taantakwaan Tlingit and their neighbors to the landscape historically, legally, and spiritually.
The Alaska Natives of the modern-day communities of Ketchikan, Saxman, and Metlakatla have relied on the Duke Island area for a variety of terrestrial and marine resources for millennia from “ancient” times until today.
References
Autrey, John
1999 Morse Cove Duke Island Special Use Permit. CRM Report #R1999100552023, on file at the Ketchikan-Misty Fiords Ranger District, Tongass National Forest, Ketchikan, Alaska.
Douglas, William
1790 “Extract of the Journal of the Iphigenia” in John Mears, Voyages Made in the Years 1788 and 1789, from China to the North West Coast of America. To Which Are Prefixed, an Introductory Narrative of a Voyage Performed in 1786, from Bengal, in the Ship “Nootka”; Observations on the Probable Existence of a North West Passage; and some Account of the Trade Between the North West Coast of America and China; and the Latter Country and Great Britain. London: Logographic Press, 1790.
Goldschmidt, Walter R. and Theodore H. Haas
1998 Haa Aani’, Our Land: Tlingit and Haida Land Rights and Use. Edited with an Introduction by Thomas F. Thornton. University of Washington Press, Seattle.
Monteith, Daniel
2011 Duke Island Area Traditional Cultural Property - Determination of Eligibility. CRM #R2011100552001, on file at the Ketchikan-Misty Fiords Ranger District, Tongass National Forest, Ketchikan, Alaska.
Olson, Ronald L.
1967 Social Structure and Social Life of the Tlingit in Alaska. Anthropological Records Volume 26. University of California Press (Berkeley and Los Angeles) and Cambridge University Press (London).
Orth, Donald J.
1971 Dictionary of Alaska Place Names. Geological Survey Professional Paper 567. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C.
Sealaska Corporation
1975 Native Cemetery and Historic Sites of Southeast Alaska (Preliminary Report). October 1975. Report prepared for the Sealaska Corporation (Juneau) by Wilsey and Ham, Inc., Consultants, Seattle.
Stanford, Martin
2014 Search for Kegan the “Lost” Village of the Tantakwann And Other Archaeological Surveys and Monitoring In the Duke Island Area Traditional Cultural Property By Sea Kayak June 16-27, 2014. CRM #R2014100552006, on file at the Ketchikan-Misty Fiords Ranger District, Tongass National Forest, Ketchikan, Alaska.
2015 Drum Beats; An Archaeological Survey of Coastal Areas of Southeast Alaska, A Windows on the Past Expedition to the Duke Island Area Traditional Cultural Property. A Joint Project Between The USDA Forest Service and the University of Alaska Southeast-Ketchikan. May 18-22, 2015. CRM Report #R2015100552002, on file at the Ketchikan-Misty Fiords Ranger District, Tongass National Forest, Ketchikan, Alaska.
Vancouver, George
1798(1984) A Voyage of Discovery to the North Pacific Ocean and Round the World, 1791-1795. Vol. III, edited by K. Lamb. Hakluyt Society, London.
Waterman, Thomas Talbot
1922 Tlingit Geographical Names of Extreme Southeast Alaska with Historical and Other Notes. Unpublished Manuscript, Bureau of American Ethnology Manuscript Vault, MS No. 1863, 2915, 2916, and 2938. Archives of the Bureau of American Ethnology, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.
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