SITKA Administrative History

Chapter 5:
SITKA NATIONAL HISTORICAL PARK, 1966-1986 (continued)

Staff

Park historian William T. Ingersoll left Sitka in the fall of 1966. Another historian, Raymond Geerdes, succeeded him and stayed until 1968. With the appointment of Daniel R. Kuehn in 1969 the park was soon to again have a superintendent. Appointed to oversee Sitka as an historian, Kuehn was designated superintendent when Regional Director John A. Rutter split the management of Glacier Bay and Sitka National Monuments.

During Kuehn's tenure a number of significant artifacts were added to Sitka National Historical Park's collections. These included the Herring Rock Robe, a collection of 136 spruce root baskets, 200 of E.W. Merrill's glass plate negatives, and Katlean's hammer. Kuehn also obtained the permanent loan of a number of Coho Clan artifacts including a 12-foot totem, a Chilkat robe and suit, and a large carved frog.

Like his predecessors and successors, Kuehn was active in the Sitka community. He helped to found the Sitka Ninth Infantry, which paraded in authentic uniforms made by the Harpers Ferry Center. The group was a popular feature of historical ceremonies such as those held annually on Alaska Day, October 18. Adopted into the Kiksadi Clan, Kuehn also held leadership posts in the Alaska Native Brotherhood, the Chamber of Commerce, the Sierra Club, the Sitka Historical Society, and the Sitka Rotary Club. [293]

Geerdes had hired Ellen Hope Lang (later Hays), a Sitka resident and Tlingit, to work at the park. Lang was an employee at the park for almost 10 years. After a brief interlude in 1973 when Vernon Ruesch served as superintendent, Lang became the park superintendent. She held that position until 1978 when she accepted a position in the Alaska Regional Office of the National Park Service at Anchorage as Native liaison, from which she has since retired. In addition to her park duties, Lang was active in community and statewide historical and cultural groups. On April 17, 1967, she became the first woman member of the Alaska Native Brotherhood, a southeast Alaska Native organization founded in 1912. From 1975 to 1981 she was a member of the State Historic Sites Advisory Committee for historic preservation, and from 1972 to 1978 a member and president of the Alaska Humanities Forum state committee. Her other community activities included the Board of Trustees for Sheldon Jackson College and the Central Council, Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska. After retiring from the National Park Service, Hays continued her involvement with Sitka National Historical Park by assuming a leadership role with the Southeast Alaska Indian Cultural Center.

Susan Edelstein followed Lang as superintendent from 1978 to 1980. During Edelstein's tenure, Gary J. Candelaria accepted the position of Chief Interpreter and Park Ranger. Formally trained as a forester at Oregon State University, Candelaria started working for the National Park Service in 1975 at Saratoga National Historical Park in New York. In 1977 he transferred to Ozark National Scenic Riverways Park in Missouri. There he decided that he wanted to work at a historic site and at a small park. The Sitka opening appealed to him, he applied, and in March 1979 started working at the park. He has been active in several of the historical groups at Sitka; serving on the board and as president of Sitka Historical Society, as branch manager of the Alaska Natural History Association, and most recently, as part of the group to plan activities at Sitka to commemorate the bicentennial of the signing and ratification of the U.S. Constitution.

The present superintendent, Ernest J. Suazo, came to Sitka National Historical Park in October 1980. Prior to working at Sitka, Suazo had been in the National Park Service's management training program in Washington, D.C. There he carried out several special assignments. Earlier, Suazo worked as an administrative officer at Dinosaur National Monument and Chamizal National Memorial. The stability of the staff during the recent years of the park's history has been important for the park, especially for providing continuity in the Russian Bishop's House restoration project

In contrast, there has been frequent turnover of project supervisors for the Russian Bishop's House restoration project. Staff from Denver Service Center, the Alaska Regional Office, and Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park at Skagway have had leadership responsibilities for phases of the Russian Bishop's House restoration and leadership responsibilities have shifted as well. One individual, Gene Ervine, initially worked on the project as a laborer. He became involved with the Russian Bishop's House again as part of the Park Service's Harpers Ferry Center where the interpretive exhibits are being designed and built.

Throughout the contemporary period, the park participated in a variety of intern programs with the local schools to provide training for students and to obtain workers at the park. In addition, the park staff accepted a number of people given Alternative Sentencing by local courts. In 1982, for example, these programs involved 54 people who performed 1.93 work years of labor at the park.