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| Chief John Kadashan |
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| Friend and guide to John Muir |
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John Kadashan (1834-1914) was born in Wrangell and trained in
the Tlingit traditional ways. In his later years, even though he was referred to as “Chief Kadashan”,
he was renowned as a “Peace Maker.” |
A man in his thirties he became acquainted with the
world traveler and naturalist, John Muir. It was he, Sitka Charlie, and another indivdual named Toyetta, who
were the guides for John Muir when Muir was exploring the inside passage of Southeast Alaska and Glacier
Bay in 1879 and 1880.
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| Kadashan's western style home |
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The elder Kadashan was one of the first Tlingit’s to look at meshing Christian values with Tlingit
traditions. He was the first to build a western (Victorian) style house in Wrangell, Alaska--- however
to keep his cultural heritage alive he let his totem poles stand promenently in the front yard, and continued to
maintain his old style smoke house in the back of his modern home. His totem poles still are alive and stand on Shakes Island in Wrangell.
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In
his later years the elder Kadashan realized that the influence of western culture was going to become a dominating influence
to his people, and so he accepted this as a reality and began to prepare for the events that he knew eventually were
to transpire. He sent his children to Sheldon Jackson Training School in Sitka, Alaska so that
they could learn of the western ways and be tutored under Christian virtues. His purpose
for the rest of his life was to work toward bringing the native values together with western society’s ideals.
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| Elizabeth Kadashan |
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| Kadashan's grandmother, about 10 years old |
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His daughter, Elizabeth , was born to Kadashan
and his wife, Kwankeh, in 1886 at Wrangell. She was educated at Sheldon Jackson Training School, founded
by the Christian missionary Sheldon Jackson, in Sitka. She married one of her classmates, Ray
James, from Sitka where they made their home and began to raise a family. Such a marriage was considered
highly desirable by the missionaries and the couple were given land near the school to build a home. Providing
land for Indian couples was a practice of the mission once the youngsters were educated. The area in which the house was built is
near the Sheldon Jackson campus called “The Cottages.” The couple had eleven children.
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One of the
sons was Keikalseich whom she named John, after her father's Christian name. Kadashan's father
was also educated at Sheldon Jackson Training School. It was here where he met Stella Johnson,
a pretty half Tlingit/Swedish girl from Yakutat. When they graduated from high school they eloped
that very afternoon. They also made their home in Sitka.
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| John James and Stells at Sheldon Jackson |
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| Kadashan's parents |
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On February 4, 1937 they had a son, whom John named
Bertrand, after his best friend and basketball teammate, Bertrand Leask, who hailed from Metlakatla.
Elizabeth gave him her father’s Tlingit name, Kadashan . |
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When Kadashan was six months old his father, brother
and two other friends went deer hunting in the chill of November. They anchored their seine boat off Neva Point near Sitka
and spent the night there. They wakened early the next morning to take advantage of a minus tide to dig for clams. Kadashan's
father stayed aboard the vessel to prepare breakfast. When the others returned they had planned to have their breakfast,
go back to shore and hunt deer for the rest of the daylight hours. While rowing from the vessel to shore, so the story
goes, the skiff sprung a leak and started to sink very rapidly. When Kadashan's father realized what was happening,
he dove into the water to save his brother. They all perished in the cold water. There was a boy scout group camping
nearby and they were awakened by the commotion but was unable to make a timely rescue because it was still dark this
time of the year.
After his father's death his mother tried to live in Sitka with great
difficulty. Soon after Kadashan’s birth her father-in-law “walked into the Forest” after a long bout
with tuberculosis. He was soon followed by Elizabeth who, like her sons, drowned when her skiff overturned while rowing
from a fishing vessel to shore. Of the eleven children Elizabeth and Ray had only one, the youngest, survived illnesses of
her siblings, accidental drowning of her brothers and fire, which is how her sister, Flora, perished.
| Silver Salmon |
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| Kadashan's Crest |
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She also has scares from her own house burning in Wrangell. Carol (Kadashan) Feller
Brady now lives in Juneau and has written a book about her life and the challenges of her times called Through
the Storm Towards the Sun. Without proper family support, Kadashan's
mother remarried and through this union gave birth to another son, Walter. The marriage didn’t last and when Kadashan
was three years old she returned to Yakutat where she could be closer to her immediate family. Here she married
John Adams, a former Sheldon Jackson classmate, who adopted and raised her boys.
Kadashan has called Yakutat home
ever since. In his short story collection THIS IS YAKUTAT, the story The World
Forgotting by the World Forgot is pretty much autobiographical and the story makes reference about
the village of Guseix where his ancestral roots stem. He is a Lukna’axdi(silver salmon) of the Raven Clan from
the Boulder House in Gunaxoo, is the son of a Sheet’ka Kaagwaantaan, and great grandson of a Shangukeidi. His
grandfather is Swedish from his mother’s side of the family. His crest is the Silver Salmon.
| Raven (Yeil) |
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| Kadashan's Moeity |
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