May 7
Inian Executive Director, Zach Brown, recounts a tale of nettle gathering and its significance for the Institute and the history of the Inian Islands.
“Crawl back into those bushes. That’s it – really get in there.” On our hands and knees, we groped through the prickly brambles of salmonberry, searching for the even more prickly (and slightly toxic) stinging nettle.
We’ve done it! After three years of fundraising, and a couple years of imagination before that, Inian Islands Institute has finally gathered the full $1 million to purchase the Hobbit Hole property, this incredibly special homestead in the Alaskan wilds.
There’s only one thing left to do: Party!
The Hobbit Hole homestead, with deep roots as a Tlingit summer camp and more recently a fisherman’s haven, is now a field school for education, science, sustainability, community & culture.
In July, students from The Nueva School journeyed to Inian to learn first-hand about wilderness, global climate change, and ways of creating positive change in the world. Click the video, created by Josh Newman, to travel with them through their story.
Inian welcomes guest writer Edwin Su, a high school student from Harker School in San Jose, California. Edwin and his classmates participated last July in the first high-school-age programming at Inian Islands Institute.
Coming from an extremely urban background in the Silicon Valley, I never stopped to think where everything I consumed came from. The food that I ate, the energy I used, and the technology that fueled my everyday life was all a mystery to me despite how much I depended on them. My curiosity of the sources of these needs grew when I read the description of a course that was going to be taught at my high school in the summer. It was titled “Human Ecology: Our Place in Nature,” and it focused on educating students about how the environment is affected by people. Read more
Inian welcomes guest writer Peter Forbes, co-founder of the Center for Whole Communities in Vermont and Vice President of Inian Islands Institute’s Board of Directors. This post chronicles Inian’s Work Party, 2016.
3 people on their bellies hauling rock and sediment, 4 people replacing a rotten beam under a hundred-year-old shop, 6 people building a round deck in the pouring rain, 2 people struggling material up from shore, 3 people weeding an overgrown garden, 3 people cooking gorgeous food: work. We can’t underestimate the power of this work.
“Are you all from Inian Islands Institute?” A tall, smiling man approached and extended his hand. “I’m Jeff Skaflestad.”
“Jeff!” my companions exclaimed, shunning his handshake for a hug. We had just touched down in Hoonah, the nearest native village of the Tlingit people, who have lived in what would come to be called Southeast Alaska for thousands of years. Our charter flight from Gustavus only took about 20 minutes, flying across Icy Strait from the mainland to Chichagof Island. Read more
Inian Islands Institute was featured on Indie Alaska! Let this breathtaking video, created by Hanna Craig, take you on a journey through our story, from our origins through the bright spark of our future.
Inian Welcomes guest writer Professor Daniel Lee Henry of University of Alaska Southeast. This post originally appeared on 49 Writers.
Last month, 15 people descended upon a remote harbor near Glacier Bay for a week of boot camp to train minds and mouths in the art of environmental rhetoric. Despite the usual uncertainty, shyness, and/or trauma around speech, students signed up for a course because they saw no other way to change public attitudes and laws than to speak out.
Inian welcomes guest writer Kate Schafer, science teacher at Harker School in San Jose, California, and participant in our first Teacher Expedition in partnership with Discovery Southeast.
I teach at a school in the middle of Silicon Valley. It’s an amazing school filled with students that are serious and dedicated. They are focused on getting into colleges that will help them to get good jobs that their families will be proud of. I’ve been teaching there for a decade, and during that time, I have been continually amazed by their curiosity and desire to try and make the world a better place, but typically this is in the context of becoming a doctor, a lawyer or an engineer. Read more
Inian, modified from Linen Theme
by Elizabeth Hillstrom
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