In 1899, Edward J. Harriman, a railroad tycoon, took his family and a team of twenty-three scientists, including naturalist John Muir, on a two-month expedition to explore Alaska's waters and coastal territory. This elite crew of scientists and artists spent two months surveying the Alaskan coastline on the ship George W. Elder. The twenty-three scientists included geologists, botanists, ornithologists, taxidermists, and zoologists. Their stops included Glacier Bay, Sitka, Yakutat Bay, Prince William Sound, Kodiak Island, the Shumagin Islands, Unalaska, the Pribilof Islands, Port Clarence, and Cape Fox. The expedition returned with over one hundred trunks of specimens and more than 5,000 photographs and colored illustrations.
On July 26, 1899, the expedition landed in Cape Fox, an abandoned Tlingit village. The village had been deserted for about five years, but many pieces of Tlingit artwork and totem poles remained there. Some members of the Harriman expedition removed several of the artifacts from the village, deeming them inanimate objects from a deserted village. Members of the expedition believed that the Indigenous cultures of Alaska would soon be extinguished by the growth and industrialization of modern civilization. Their desire was to rescue what they believed would be the last remnants of the Tlingit artwork and culture and put them on display in museums. However, to the Cape Fox Tlingit, these artifacts were a sacred part of their identity and a representation of their long history.
The Cape Fox artifacts were preserved in museums and academic institutions throughout the United States, including the Field Museum in Chicago and Cornell University. In 2001, a group of scientists retraced the steps of the 1899 Harriman Expedition. The 2001 scientists and crew, including the great-great-granddaughter of Edward Harriman, returned several artifacts to the descendants of the original Cape Fox Tlingit residents. The work in locating and restoring these artifacts back to the descendants continues to this day.
Cape Fox Cultural Foundation (CFCF) believes that preserving culture and traditions is important. By setting up the non-profit, the foundation not only provides resources for the area's residents but also educates others on the importance of culture and the Alaska Native way of life.
