Pacific Northwest Archaeological Society

Hi, I’m DALE CROES, Director of the Pacific Northwest Archaeological Society (PNWAS). We are a non-profit (501c3) celebrating 40 years of public education; we support preserving the rich archaeological heritage of the Pacific Northwest. Our program is in Olympia, WA, and we provide quarterly talks through ZOOM by archaeologist conducting current Pacific Northwest archaeological projects and research (see below).

We ask your help with an extraordinarily rich frozen site full of amazing wood and fiber artifacts that was severely impacted by typhoon Halong on the western Alaska coast. Dr. Richard Knecht, Director of the Nunalleq site explained the emergency and rescue effort by the Nunalleq community in a recent, October 9th, PNWAS ZOOM meeting he presented the day he arrived in Quinhagak, Alaska, after seeing how 60 perpendicular feet of the site had washed away. The native community he works in partnership with (see Dr. Knecht showing community youth artifacts in title photograph) they have been walking the beach, finding numerous ancient wood and fiber artifacts for 4 miles along the beach. Even with this catastrophe Dr. Knecht presented his PNWAS talk with some updates, and we recorded in our PNWAS YouTube Channel. Please see this talk to understand the magnitude and importance of this site: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYwWLHA0OLU&t=431s.

Dr. Knecht has asked PNWAS to help the effort through fundraising to help with the needs of this rescue effort. All your tax-deductible donations would go to the Nunalleq Museum, and support the need for storage tubs, artifact labeling and preservation work for the 100s of additional wood and fiber artifacts being rescued from the front beach areas of the site, the preservation chemicals needed to stabilize wood and fiber artifacts, Polyethylene Glycol (PEG), which costs ~$2,000 a 55 gallon drum before the cost of shipping drums to the remote community of Quinhagak, AK, and the equipment and subsistence of the many outside volunteers staying at the Nunalleq Museum helping to recover and doing lab work involving the artifacts (see YouTube examples).

Your donation will provide the vital margin needed to make this current rescue effort a success. Besides the letter thanking you for a tax-deductable donation, we will make you an official member of the Pacific Northwest Archaeological Society and Dr. Knecht will give you an update on the results of your help, in a PNWAS ZOOM talk in a Thursday evening December 11th presentation. All members will get a link to the ZOOM talk. We’ll also record his update ZOOM presentation in case you cannot attend and put it into our PNWAS YouTube Channel so you can watch at your convenience.

Join me in this collective effort to help Dr. Knecht, the Nunalleq Native Community, and volunteers rescuing these heritage artifacts, preserving these ancient wood and fiber artifacts for all future generations of Nunalleq young people. Nothing is more important to their future than preserving their past heritage. Every contribution, no mater how small, brings us closer to rescuing as much of this heritage as possible.

Thank you for your generosity at this critical time!!!! We look forward to you joining us with this effort as members of the Pacific Northwest Archaeological Society, Dale