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Re: Statues
Juneau has some good ones.
This guy again!
I'm sure I've got a photo of this guy somewhere!
But we do have some less well regarded monuments. Nimbus for example. It got cut off its base by a very not-into-it legislature.
"Warrior Within," despite having gone through an approval process, was a real hot button issue for Wasilla. Removed. https://www.frontiersman.com/news/under-wraps-wasilla-high-school-sculpture-covered-after-concerns-voiced/article_855dcbd2-5924-11e1-a773-0019bb2963f4.html
Here's a pic from the artist's website. It got covered with a tarp right away.
I don't generally like the idea of removing public art but it happens. Sometimes the park is getting an overhaul and the weird fish sperm fence gets taken down in the process or we collectively decide a controversial piece like Nimbus deserves a new context & home at the museum.
I find the discussion of Captain Cook in Anchorage (and around the world) very interesting. How will the statue be given new context? What does the community want to celebrate and memorialize? https://www.adn.com/alaska-news/anchorage/2020/06/18/city-weighs-response-to-calls-on-social-media-for-the-removal-of-anchorages-statue-of-captain-james-cook/
I'll resist weighing in on Cook right now and instead stay a bit more local. This guy is William Seward, he stands in front of the Alaska State Capitol.
Seward was Lincoln's right hand man and a fierce abolishonist. He's famous here for the Treaty of Cession, the Alaska Purchase. Also known as Seward's Icebox or Seward's Folly.
But for many Alaskans, Seward represents the theft of their land and the colonialist idea of Manifest Destiny.
So while Seward was buddies with Harriet Tubman and did have some good relationships with Alaska Natives, he's become the avatar for Alaska colonialism. He's represents not just his own legacy but something much larger and more insideous.
So maybe the question needs to be raised, does a symbol of colonialism (even with the nice contextual signage) belong at the foot of the state capitol?
Seward is one of a handful of politicians to have earned a shame pole. Erected in 1880 and renewed in 2017. https://alaskahistoricalsociety.org/about-ahs/special-projects/150treaty/150th-resource-library/new-articles/the-seward-shame-pole-countering-alaskas-sesquicentennial/
If I had my way, we would relocate the Seward statue (and all the great contextual signage) over to the State Museum and put something less controversial and more uniquely Alaskan in its place.
I propose a twenty foot tall marmot holding a forget-me-not.
Or maybe something even more powerful.
