Land Acknowledgement
Yeey aaní káx̱ g̱unéi x̱too.aat.
May we begin to walk on your land.
Our land acknowledgment is an asking of permission, a hope, an expression of our desire to do right by the original stewards of this land. In the Tlingit language, this phrase uses the hortative mode, a verb form that encompasses the English phrases let it be, may it be, and it is wished to be. We never take our permission to be here for granted, and we strive to be newly worthy of it every day.
We are on Lingít Aaní, the unceded land of the Tlingit people. We are on the land of the Sheetʼká Ḵwáan, the People of Sitka, and we are on the land of the Kiks.ádi Clan. Our request for permission to walk upon the land goes out to all of these stewards. This permission has been formally renewed at the beginning of every program at Convocation, during which the Kiks.ádi have graciously welcomed our new students to their land, and heard our ask to continue the work of the school here.
Outer Coast is situated on the former campus of Sheldon Jackson College and its predecessor, the Sitka Industrial Training School. Associated with the missionary Sheldon Jackson, the Industrial Training School was part of the Indian Boarding School movement. It was an epicenter of the project to destroy Native languages and cultures in Alaska. We are deeply cognizant of this sobering history. We have a responsibility to commemorate it, and to stand for a model of education that, contrary to what came before, honors Indigenous cultures and languages.
Our campus is historically significant in other ways too. Just down the street is Puppy Creek, where the Tlingit hero Lḵʼayáakʼw was born. Nearby are the Herring Rock of the Kiks.ádi and the fort where the Kiks.ádi fought the Russians in 1804. In more recent times, the Sitka Industrial School was the seedbed for the Alaska Native Brotherhood and Sisterhood, two legendary civil rights organizations that helped secure the vote for Alaska Natives. Our campus was also a famed site of Indigenous-led boatbuilding, and in the 1960s and 1970s it hosted a revitalization of Tlingit language, art, and scholarship. We aspire to be worthy of this proud history as well as mindful of its painful chapters.
The phrase “Yeey aaní káx̱ g̱unéi x̱too.aat” was developed by two Outer Coast students, Kira Fagerstrom and Uluqi Olivia Olson, with Tlingit by X̱ʼunei Lance Twitchell, Professor at University of Alaska Southeast and Outer Coast Summer Seminar Faculty. Ḵúnáx̱ sh tóog̱aa haa ditee, has du yéi jinéiyi káx̱. We are so grateful for their work.
Mission
Outer Coast seeks to teach and inspire promising young people to create virtuous change in the world and in their own lives. It aims to accomplish this mission by providing a rigorous and challenging academic curriculum marked by exceptional pedagogy and faculty engagement; by imparting the value of labor and service to a diverse student body entrusted with broad powers of self-governance; by cultivating love for community and respect for nature within the setting of Sitka, Alaska; by fostering creativity, curiosity, honesty, generosity, resilience, self-reliance, and good humor; and by accompanying students in their search for self-understanding and moral worth.
Motto
Tl’átk ḵa Héendáx̱ Yéi Haa Yatee
We Are Part of the Land, Part of the Water
These words were said by Gadzóosdaa (Gadzûsda) Virginia Smarch (1913-1994), a Matriarch of the Daḵlʼaweidí Tlingit Clan in the village of Teslin. Gadzóosdaaʼs daughter Shaawatg̱aax̱í Annie Smarch Grunsky has graciously given Outer Coast permission for their use.
The motto has many layers of meaning. Like blankets stacked for gifting at a ḵu.éexʼ, each layer gives protection and warmth.
One layer of meaning is the simple acknowledgment that human beings are made of flesh and blood, that is, earth and water. From water and earth we come, to water and earth we return.
Another layer is the absolute intertwining of life and environment. We are not somehow separate from the conditions of our survival, but an integral part of them.
Yet another meaning is more specific to the bioregion in which Outer Coast sits, Lingít Aaní, the home of the Tlingit people. For millennia the Tlingit have made their home at the knife-edge between the land and the water, on the coasts and riverbanks and lakeshores of this region.
These words imply balance and reciprocity. We strive to bridge opposing elements, to hold them equally in our hands. Outer Coast sits steps from the ocean, and is nested between salmon creeks.
These words outline a commitment. We acknowledge that we must tie ourselves to both land and water to flourish. Their fate is our fate.
This is only the beginning of what these words can and do mean. As the passing of a gift over generations increases its value, so the meaning of this phrase will grow as it passes into new hands and hearts.
This motto is important to us not just for its meanings, but also for how it came to us. Two years into the COVID-19 pandemic, Outer Coast hosted a gathering of Tlingit language teachers and learners from all across Lingít Aaní. One group of passionate Tlingit teachers traveled—masked and triple tested—all the way from the Yukon via car, ferry, and plane to honor us with their presence. It was the first big gathering most of us had been a part of since COVID had shadowed the world. We spent a joyous four days together. Elders, students, teachers, and community members were held up by the Tlingit language, and by the landscape on which it dwells.
After this gathering, Yeiltʼoochʼ Tláa Collyne Bunn, Kooḵhittaan Sháa of Teslin and Whitehorse, returned home, and went to Shaawatg̱aax̱í to ask permission for her motherʼs words to be shared with Outer Coast. Years ago, Yeiltʼoochʼ Tláa and Shaawatg̱aax̱í had spent summers together working at Gadzóosdaaʼs fish camp. Shaawatg̱aax̱í generously agreed to share these words (and some of us have since gone to visit her in Teslin to thank her, and to offer our gratitude to all our friends across the mountains). Keiyishí Bessie Cooley, Kooḵhittaan Sháa of Teslin and one of the great living speakers of the Tlingit language, also helped with the Tlingit formulation of the saying.
This motto ties us to the past, to the communities over the mountains, and to teachers and elders whom we deeply admire. It inspires us to be worthy students and friends.
To learn more about Gadzûsda/Gadzóosdaa, a great tradition-bearer, teacher, artist, storyteller, and leader, please read the biography written by her great-granddaughter Shania Hogan (also named Gadzûsda). It is available here, by gracious permission of the author.