When the Richard Foster Building celebrated its official opening this weekend, program directors celebrated an open avenue to pass on cultural knowledge.
The facility houses the Katirvik Cultural Center, Carrie M. McLain Memorial Museum, and the Kegoayah Kozga Library.
To give tourists and locals a brief view of native culture and local history, Cultural Center curator of exhibits and collections, Amy Russell-Jamgochian, included several themes which run throughout the exhibit. She explains the pieces emphasize the connection to land and sea and how native culture has adapted and changed. To foster the idea that local culture is alive and well, the museum provides a community space that can be used to facilitate the teaching of local knowledge. Russell-Jamgochian says it’s meant to imitate the traditional qasgi clubhouse. “When elders and young people have a comfortable place to gather, the traditional ways of educating young people can happen.”
That community area will be used by all three groups. Having moved into the building earlier this summer, library director Marguerite LaRiviere has already been hosting programs. With help from Cultural Center Director Lisa Ellanna, the center’s three entities have already started collaborating. She recently did a kuspuk story hour for the preschool kids with the chance for counting and singing in Inupiaq.
State Representative Neal Foster thinks the youth engagement will prove beneficial. “One of the things we needed is to try and draw our youth in to help take over as we get older to take over our Native corporations, to take over our tribal institutions,” says Foster. “And you gotta do it when they’re young. So bringing them here to this facility is gonna teach them what our region is all about.”
The cultural center’s name, “Katirvik,” comes from the King Island Inupiaq word for “gathering place.” The Richard Foster building is located on 7th Avenue and is open 12-7 Monday through Thursday and 12-6 Friday and Saturday.
