This conversation guide was developed in partnership with Alaska Humanities Forum and their Kindling Conversations Program. 

It explores the following prompts in connection with the film Visiting Elders at the Initak by Shishmaref educator Roben Nuiluk Itchoak:

• Reflect on a story from your ancestry that has been passed down (or lost) over generations.
• Share a memory of a traditional craft or skill that you or someone in your family has practiced.
• Describe a place significant to your heritage, like a specific location where traditional practices were performed. What stories or memories do you associate with this place?

Initaq is the Kigiqtaq term for meat drying rack. 

“This film was created to inspire students to document what is important to them and to demonstrate how to create visual stories that honor our ancestors by leaving a record for the future.” Using primary sources from the Library of Congress along with personal photographs, video footage, and her own personal library, Itchoak features The Roots of Ticasuk from an Indigenous perspective that has not been highlighted before.

This film was created at the first Anchored Histories workshop in partnership with the Alaska Humanities Forum.