Western

Alaska

Kenai Mountains-Turnagain Arm National Heritage Area

Situated between Cook Inlet and Prince William Sound, the Kenai Mountains-Turnagain Arm (KMTA) National Heritage Area is situated in the mountains of the Kenai Peninsula and includes communities such as Girdwood, Seward, Portage and Whittier, Alaska. The heritage area includes the Iditarod National Historic Trail, the K'Beq Cultural Site, and Kenai Fjords National Park. Alaska Native entities, non-governmental organizations and communities help to manage and maintain an interconnected system of trails, waterways and transportation corridors from which visitors can learn about the natural and cultural history of the region.

Relevant search terms include: Kenai; Seward, Alaska; Cook Inlet

Alexandrovsk, English Bay in its traditional way
Call Number: F914.E53 A43

Newspaper in English and Sugpiaq, prepared by English Bay School in the Kenai Peninsula Borough School District. The newspaper includes legends, and description of social life and customs.
Frederica de Laguna, Mary Jane Downs Lenz, and Catharine McClellan collection of Tlingit, Atna Athabaskan, and Southern Tutchone recordings, 1954
Call Number: AFC 1962/014

Copies of audio recordings as well as field notes and transcripts made by Frederica de Laguna with assistance of Mary Jane Downs Lenz and Catharine McClellan in Yakutat, Chitina, and Chistochina, Alaska and Kluskshu, Yukon in 1954. The recordings in this collection contain songs and stories primarily by Tlingit and Ahtena of the Yakutat and Dry Bay area of Southeast Alaska and some of Aleut, Haida or Southern Tutchone origin. The collection includes songs and stories on Tlingit history as well as ceremonial and cultural protocols including personal songs, mourning songs, drinking songs, love songs, hymns, shaman songs, children's songs and tales. Also included with many songs and narratives are introductions, discussions, vocabulary, explanations and/or translations by the performers or by Frederica de Laguna.

Photographs and audio interviews featured in the gallery below are taken from the collection Beyond the Breakwater: Gulf of Alaska Small-Boat Fishermen: Archie Green Fellows Project, 2021-2022 (AFC 2021/007). Part of the Archie Green Fellowship, which is intended to support new research documenting the occupational folklife in contemporary America, features 20 in-depth oral history interviews and photographic portraits of commercial fishermen based in four fishing communities across the Gulf of of Alaska. The two women featured in the gallery - Ann Daigle and Renée Purpura - are both lifelong residents of the Lower Cook Inlet.

Marissa Wilson, Josh Wisniewski, photographer. Ann Daigle, lifelong resident of Lower Cook Inlet. From Beyond the Breakwater: Gulf of Alaska Small-Boat Fishermen: Archie Green Fellows Project, 2021-2022 (AFC 2021/007: 004). Library of Congress,

Ann Daigle interview conducted by Josh Wisniewski and Marissa Wilson, 2021-12-01. Part of the collection Beyond the Breakwater: Gulf of Alaska Small-Boat Fishermen: Archie Green Fellows Project, 2021-2022 (AFC 2021/007: 004). Library of Congress,

Marissa Wilson, Josh Wisniewski, photographer. Renée Purpura, a lifelong resident of Kachemak Bay region of Lower Cook Inlet in Southcentral Alaska. Part of the collection Beyond the Breakwater: Gulf of Alaska Small-Boat Fishermen: Archie Green

Renée Purpura interview conducted by Josh Wisniewski and Marissa Wilson, 2021-11-20. Part of the collection Beyond the Breakwater: Gulf of Alaska Small-Boat Fishermen: Archie Green Fellows Project, 2021-2022 (AFC 2021/007: 003). Library of Congre

California

Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta National Heritage Area

The Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta National Heritage Area lies at the junction of California's two largest rivers - the Sacramento and San Joaquin - which formed a diverse wetland habitat with bountiful natural resources. Over the years, the region has seen population booms related to the Sierra Nevada gold rush, the influx of Chinese, Italian and Portuguese immigrants as railway work expanded in the West, and increasing settlement by Japanese, Mexican and Filipino immigrants. The heritage area aims to conserve the natural resources of this unique wetland area while celebrating the multicultural heritage and agricultural history of this inland Delta.

John Peabody Harrington collection of Southern Valley Yokuts cylinder recordings
Call Number: AFC 1981/024

Collection of field recordings of Southern Valley Yokuts music recorded by John Peabody Harrington and his wife Carobeth Harrington Laird in the San Joaquin Valley of central California in 1916-1917.
Warren Mintz collection of interviews with migrant fruit pickers
Call Number: AFC 2007/051

Collection of field recordings of interviews conducted by Warren Mintz between 1966 and 1968 during fieldwork for his Ph.D. dissertation, "A search for a successful agricultural migrant: a study of five fruit harvests on the west coast of the United States." Interviewees include migrant fruit pickers, crew chiefs, managers of farm labor camps, and ranche managers. Includes a cherry harvest in San Joaquin Valley, California.
On the banks of the Sacramento [textual transcription]
Call Number: AFC 1940/001: Folder 23

Song. Forms part of the W.P.A. California Folk Music Project collection.

Nevada

Great Basin National Heritage Area (NV, UT)

The land that makes up the Great Basin National Heritage Area is home to four federally-recognized tribes and their reservations: Confederated Tribes of the Goshute, Duckwater Shoshone, Ely Shoshone, and the Kanosh Band of the Utah Paiute. In addition to the history and enduring folklife of these tribal entities, the heritage area also celebrates the area's natural landscape, recreation opportunities, and the pioneers who have explored the region over generations.

Nevada Arts Council "Honest Horses" exhibition collection, 1999-2003
Call Number: AFC 2014/019

Collection of field recordings of interviews and administrative files generated by and curated by Paula Morin and the Nevada Arts Council for an exhibition titled "Honest Horses: a portrait of the mustang in the Great Basin," circa 2002, and later as a traveling exhibition. Morin photographed wild horses in the Great Basin and interviewed Nevada residents and others about the complex issues regarding wild horses and ecology.
Paula Morin collection: Honest horses, wild horses in the Great Basin, 1999-2001
Call Number: AFC 2013/038

Collection of photographic documentation of wild horse herds in the Nevada Great Basin made by Paula Morin during her work for the Nevada Arts Council, 1999-2001. The photographs were exhibited by the Nevada Arts Council in an exhibition titled "Honest Horses: A Portrait of the Mustang in Nevada's Great Basin." The collection includes 21 prints described by the artist as giclee prints made from handpainted black and white photographs; and related publicity materials.

Washington

Maritime Washington National Heritage Area

The Maritime Washington National Heritage Area encompasses 3,000 miles of western Washington's saltwater coastline from Grays Harbor County to the Canadian border. This area includes 18 federally recognized tribes, 13 counties, 32 incorporated cities, and 30 port districts, all connected by the nation's largest ferry system. In addition to searching for materials in the AFC archive relating to specific towns and cities within this heritage area, the region can be divided into general geographic regions. To provide insight into the collections within AFC's archives which are relevant to this heritage area, this section has been arranged according to the following sample search topics:

Corinne and Frank Fasinski interview on Sasquatch
Call Number: AFC 1975/035

An interview regarding the creature "Sasquatch" from the Pacific Northwest. Corinne Fasinski, a former school teacher, describes the reports of Sasquatch appearances, specifically from Tacoma, Washington, related to her by children and from her reading of newspapers. Frank (Francis) Fasinski discusses various explanations for the sightinings of the possible origins of the name, "Sasquatch."
Seattle Folklore Society collection
Call Number: AFC 1995/006

Collection of sound recordings of events, including concerts, sponsored by the Seattle Folklore Society between 1965 and 1973; some recordings are undated.

During World War II, over 13,000 Japanese Americans were forcibly removed from their homes and incarcerated in the Minidoka concentration camp in the Idaho desert. Minidoka's inhabitants were largely relocated from Washington, Oregon and Alaska.

Personal Narratives of Evacuation and Relocation of Japanese Americans During World War II, 1924-2018: Veterans History Project
Call Number: AFC 2001/001/112872

Personal narratives relating to the forcible evacuation and relocation of Japanese Americans during World War II. Narrators include internees, many of whom served in the United States military during World War II or subsequent confliect. Also inlcuded are a small number of civilian employees of the War Relocation Authority and military personnel whose service included assignments at internment camps. Personal narratives of Minidoka Relocation Center included in collection.

Folksongs from the Olympic peninsula and Puget Sound
Call Number: AFC 1973/034

Folk songs include logging songs and sea songs from the Olympic peninsula and Puget Sound. Thesis of Winifred I. Knox, Julliard School of Music, 1945.
Washington State Workers : Archie Green Fellows Project, 2012-2013
Call Number: AFC 2012/032

Collection of sound recordings, photographs, moving images, interview logs and some transcripts documenting the culture and traditions of a cross section of union workers in the State of Washington, including teachers, newspaper guild members, dock workers, electricians, linemen, marine engineers, printers, flight attendants, grocery workers, librarians, stage crew, machinists, musicians, postal workers, merchant seamen, labor organizers theater employees, and members of the building and construction trades. Oral history interviews were conducted from January 2012 to November 2013 by Deborah Fant. Includes interviews with individuals who lived and worked in Olympia, Washington.

This collection includes an online presence. Interviews in the collection span the breadth of the Washington Maritime National Heritage Area, including those who lived, worked and recorded from the Olympic Peninsula.

Ruze Dalmatinke concert collection, 2012 July 18
Call Number: AFC 2012/023

Video recording and photographs of a concert in the Coolidge Auditorium as part of the Homegrown concert series. From the town of Vela Luka on the island of Korcula, Dalmatia, Croatia, Marija Damjanovic Franulovich and her family immigrated to the United States after World War II. The group Ruze Dalmatinke is led by two of Marija's daughters who have sung together since childhood. Their parents' home was a center of Croatian culture for the entire Puget Sound region in Washington state.
Little, but oh my!: the story of Berte Olson, Puget Sound's first female ferryboat captain
Call Number: AFC 2015/003: SR 10

Storyteller Jill Johnson brings colorful, strong-willed Berte Olson, her family, and the age of small ferryboat companies on Puget Sound to life. Berte Olson was the first woman to skipper a ferry boat on the Puget Sound and own her own ferry boat company.

The Rainy day song book: traditional and contemporary songs of the Northwest
Call Number: M1629.6.N7 R3 1978

Folk songs of the Pacific Northwest, published in Bellingham, Washington by the Whatcom Museum of History and Art.

National Heritage Areas: Resources in the American Folklife Center