Tikigaq 1826-1988. A North Alaskan Metropolis: Traditional and Transitional Architecture in an Arctic Landscape.

Ref.: 229
Área temática: 03 Integridad visual de los paisajes urbanos históricos
Fecha de recepción: 23/10/2008

AUTORES (* Autor principal)

LOWENSTEIN, Tom * (Reino Unido de Gran Bretaña e Irlanda del Norte) - Independent scholar

ABSTRACT

Tikigaq peninsula (Point Hope, northwest Alaska) is the oldest continually inhabited site on the north American continent. The peninsula lay just above sea-level and consisted of stratified beach ridges which built up from the south shore while the north shore (including traditional dwellings) was eroded by equinoctial storms.

Before contact in 1826, the Inupiaq population stood at ca. 1,300 and the peninsula's `metropolis' housed residents in semi-subterranean sod-insulated driftwood and whale bone winter iglu-s.

Social and religious life was conducted in five ceremonial houses and these, like the domestic iglu-s were built into ridges. This architecture extended and varied the `waves' of natural undulating turf and gravel contour. All this was modified in winter by shifting snow drifts. A background of sea ice pressure ridges and hills to the east framed the same pattern of wave and furrow.

The village was sited in the midst of its cemetery in which the dead were exposed on driftwood and whale bone burial racks. Domestic and ceremonial houses were also surmounted by storage racks which repeated the elevation of cemetery platforms. Local narratives attest the rich life-textures created within this largest of Arctic villages with its crowded quasi-urban environment.

In 1887, commercial whalers settled five miles from Tikigaq on the peninsula's south shore. These Euro- and African-Americans attracted Inupiaq Eskimos from beyond Tikigaq and this `modernizing' cosmopolitan site became known as Jabbertown, whose frame houses survived until ca. 1910 when the whale was depleted and the market in baleen (whale bone) declined.

Following Jabbertown's demise, its dwellings were removed to Tikigaq by sled and skin boat and by 1910, 20% of the population lived in frame houses, while the first Native-constructed frame house was built in 1913. This remains the furthest northwest building on the American continent. Other transitionally Euro-American-style buildings were mission houses and churches; these like all frame houses incorporated elements of Native design: south-facing storm sheds, sod insulation, seal oil lamps, storage racks etc.

The peninsula landscape was transformed in 1909 when the missionary ordered demolition of the Native cemetery. Thousands of whale bone grave markers and human relics were transported to a Christianised site west of the village. Three shamans' graves remained in situ. The rest of the whale bones were re-set in a rectangular fence enclosing the new cemetery. This rectilinearity conformed to the Euro- American architecture which accompanied or displaced iglu domes and beach ridges. The end of Jabbertown and importation of its dwellings coincided with the loss by erosion of the last ceremonial houses and construction of new cemetery.

Although the population moved into new tract houses one mile inland in 1976-77, the stylistic elements of `Old Town Site' remained in evidence on my field trips, 1973-1988.

The paper would explore
1. the landscape and architecture of the original metropolis;
2. analyse sources and deployment of local materials;
3. discuss utilitarian functions and symbolic meanings of traditional architecture and building materials.
4. explore how new buildings using lumber, glass, tarp insulation and metal modified village topography;
5. define the geometry of the altered landscape.

Conclusion:

1. Exploration of the visual integrity of `old' Tikigaq.
2. Exposition of village-related memories of Tikigaq people born between 1891 and 1950.
3. Discussion of historical relationships with igu, ceremonial house, frame dwelling and church.

Illustrated with Power Point using late 19th and early 20th century photographs and author's photos 1973-1988.

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