150 Years: Kenai Peninsula History Conference
DRAFT CONFERENCE AGENDA (as of March 14, 2017)
FRIDAY, APRIL 21
8:30 a.m. Door opens - registration and snacks in the commons
Introductory remarks
9 Shana Loshbaugh – conference project director
KPB Mayor Mike Navarre
KPC Director Gary Turner
9:30 break
First session
9:40 Wayne Leman – Ninilchik Russian: Language Persistence on the Kenai Peninsula
10 Mira Bergelson – Ninilchik dictionary project
10:20 David Nordlander – Kenai Heritage within a Range of Web-based Primary Sources on Alaska History
10:40 break
Second session
11 Alan Boraas – The Battles of Kenai and the Fate of the Russian American Company
11:20 Tom Bundtzen – Mineral Resource Development in Alaska Prior to the 1867 Purchase
11:40 Shana Loshbaugh – Soft Gold: Sea Otters in Alaska and Kenai Peninsula History
Lunch break
noon – 1:30 p.m. – live Russian folk music from trio “Moscow Nights”
Third session
1:30 James Kari – Stages in Dena'ina Place Names Research
1:50 Greg Weissenberg – What’s in a Name?
2:10 Roger Pearson – The Imprint of Imperial Russia on Alaska’s Landscape Today
2:30 Jeff Meyers – Russia’s Folly: The Reason for Russia’s Cession of Alaska
2:50 Mike Dunham – The Emancipators: Davis, Alexander, Koh’Klux, and Seward
3:10 break
Movies!
3: 30 p.m.
Highlights of the 1974 Kenai Area History Conference
Kenai’s Russian Heritage
Archaeology and Memory: Ancestral Alutiiq Villages of the Outer Kenai Coast, Alaska
The Wreck of the Torrent
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SATURDAY, APRIL 22
8:30 a.m. Door opens - registration and snacks in the commons
9 Book fair opens in the commons
Keynote talk
9 Andrei Znamenski – Cultural Brokers: A Story of People Who Shaped Popular Orthodoxy in the Kenai Area
9:50 break
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First Session
10 Janet Klein – The Fort Kenai Collection
10:20 Joel Isaak – Dena’ina history – overview
10:40 break
Second Session
11 Debra Corbett – Stu’tlinint (the Dena’ina village at the Skilak Lake outflow)
11:20 Dorothy Gray – Preservation of the Holy Assumption Russian Orthodox Church & National Historic Landmark
11:40 Daria Safronova-Simeonoff - Celebrations of Civil and Church Holidays in Kenai Deanery, Alaska after 1867
lunch
noon – 1:30 p.m. “The Lure of Alaska” original poetry read by Kenai’s Dave Thompson
Third Session
1:30 Kris Farmen -- Fictionalizing the Heart: Searching for Truth and Humanity in Alaska’s Russian Past through Literary Fiction
1:50 Brent Johnson – Joshua Slocum’s Kasilof Misadventure
2:10 Jackie Pels – Mary Forgal Lowell
2:30 Aron Crowell – Sugpiaq history – overview
2:50 break
Wrap-up Session
3 Panel discussion (panelists: Kris Farmen, McKibben Jackinsky, Tom Kizzia, Marge Mullen & others pending)
3:30 Panel Q&A
4 Audience discussion
4:30 Final remarks
6 p.m. – book fair closes
