The weird thing is in a way Cody the more I started to understand who I was as a

denai and a person and that history the more I understood Anchorage in our place and how do we create a better future.

Because what I've seen is we tend to make the same mistakes over and over and over again

and we never learned from them.

That was Aaron Leggett, the president of the Native village of Aclutina.

He is also the senior curator of Alaska history and indigenous culture at the Anchorage Museum.

In both of those responsibilities, he's been a champion and an educator of the Alaskan identity.

He's found that critical thinking is key to understanding how Alaska's

history can help us navigate the present and the future. In this conversation, Aaron talks about

his responsibilities as the President of Aclutna and how the museum fits into the larger conversation surrounding Alaska Native equity.

So here he is. Aaron Leggett.

Welcome to Chatter Marks, a podcast of the Anchorage Museum,

dedicated to exploring Alaska's identity through the creative and critical thinking of ideas,

past, present, and future.

My name is Cody Liska and I'll be your host. You're one of my favorite people to talk to because you're such a wealth of knowledge. With that said it was

pretty impossible for me to narrow down my questions to one single topic so I'll be asking you all kinds of different questions.

Well great yeah I'd like the sort of free range of ideas.

So let's start with this.

What can you tell me about the statue of Captain Cook in downtown Anchorage and the call to have it removed?

Okay. the call to have it removed. Okay, so the statue in downtown Anchorage, the Captain Cook Memorial, was... the story is that in 1976 to commemorate the bicentennial of the United States.

You remember there was a big celebration, you know, they repaint, you know they repaint you know they re- did the quarter painted fire hydrants everybody got

real patriotic at that time you know kind of like right after 9-11.

...