How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Growing Older — I hadn’t been back to visit my alma mater in nearly ten years. This fall, I finally returned. I stayed on campus for little over an hour, and I saw everything I needed to. In nine and a half years since I graduated, I’ve spent plenty of time looking back…

Remember What the Day Commemorates, and Consider If You Really Want to Celebrate It — Given that I am: a historian who focuses on the 19th century, and a proud Alaskan, people might be forgiven for assuming that I would care about Alaska Day, and that I might even celebrate it. I do not. Every year, I can’t even remember what day Alaska Day is…

Explanations for Relative Peace in the Late Nineteenth Century — This article is a slightly-adapted version of a presentation I gave in September at the Sharing Our Knowledge Conference. The conference was held in Ḵaachx̱an.aakʼw, the town commonly known as Wrangell, on the lands of the Shtaxʼhéen Ḵwáan (Stikine People) in Lingít Aaní (Tlingit Country). If you’d prefer to listen…

24 Exceptional Titles from My Reading Record — Recently I reached an anniversary—the 14th anniversary of when I started keeping track of every book I’ve read. I started writing down all the books I read back in August of 2008, when I was 17 years old, so I have effectively kept a record of every book Iʼve read…

The Harmful History of Alaska Schools Means They Should Include Native Values However They Can — Disclosure: I am an employee of the Ketchikan Gateway Borough School District, but the following article represents my personal views only, not those of my employer. It’s been over a week since the news came out that two parents have filed suit against the Ketchikan Gateway Borough School District because…

A Valuable, But Limited View on Alaska’s History and Culture — Alaska: An American Colony is one of those books that nearly every lover of Alaska history has seen or heard of, even if they haven’t actually read it. I had been planning to read Stephen Haycox’s book for years, and now that I finally have, I’m very glad I did…

Students Would Be Better Off With Fewer School Transitions — I’d like to share a radical, potentially unpopular opinion: I don’t believe middle schools should exist. Many people may think such a statement sounds crazy: Middle or junior high schools have been institutions in most American communities for decades. They may seem like essential stepping stones in students’ education. …

A Review of Ted C. Hinkley’s “The Canoe Rocks: Alaska’s Tlingit and the Euramerican Frontier, 1800–1912” — This year I am taking a sabbatical from my work as a high school history teacher in order to write a book on the nineteenth-century history of the Lingít (Tlingit) people. …

My Plans for 2022–2023 — This post is adapted from the application I submitted to the Ketchikan Gateway Borough School District Board of Education, which was approved by the board on February 23rd, 2022. In May 2013, during my final year as an undergraduate student, I completed an honors thesis entitled “Lingít ḵa Waashdan Ḵwáan…