The Organized Village of Kake (OVK) with the assistance of the Sealaska Heritage Institute (SHI) diffused the historic Civil War Parrott Shell ordnance that a Kake family had passed among family members for decades.
“It has been in our family over 100 years,” Kake elder Michael Jackson said when State Troopers and Elmendorf Air Force explosives experts had first traveled to Kake to investigate the shell on June 23, 2011.
The Air Force x-rayed the contents at that time and had the ordinance placed in a safe building in Kake until it could be diffused.
On July 14, SHU Archivist Zachary Jones secured private consultants who specialize in Historic wartime ordnance. The consultants removed nine ounces of gunpowder and broken fuse particles to make the ordnance inert.
Jones stated the ordnance could have created a crater about four or five feet in diameter if it exploded.
The diffusion of the ordnance coincided with the OVK 23rd Annual Culture Camp for the Kake youth, and information was shared with the older overnight campers, ages 13-18, and community members the evening of July 14.
“This is the first time we’re bringing it out in public,” Jackson told the youth. “We know you guys are interested in history because you’re learning how to be Kake people, Keex’ Kwaan. You’re part of the ancestry that the U.S. Territorial Army came across. And that they had an encounter with us, a violent one. But it’s part of our history, it’s part of our healing.”
Since the shell was made inert, other Kake community members have shared where other shells are located. Another Parrott shell was donated by a Kake descendant to the Alaska State Museum in Juneau. A similar round shell was found while breaking trail at the site of the current Kake High School and is property of the Kake School District.
The OVK and Kake want to share the shells and their history, working in partnership with SHI, to other communities and the State of Alaska.
• Contact reporter Klas Stolpe at 523-2263 or at klas.stolpe@juneauempire.com.
Comments (3)
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Bombs are not "diffused." They are "defused." Use the dictionary more often.
I don't know Murray....
I don't know Murray...they're sort of diffused when they explode!
1st Time in Public?
Because it was brought out in public in June, it was reported so that it could be safely deFUSED, I thik Mike Williams is trying to spin this story. Additionally, in the family possession for 100 years? Me thinks, per family members accounts in Kake and the original Juneau Empire story, the shell was found when they built the community hall during excavation 40-50 years ago, which is far less than 100 years ago.
Another factual mistake is the US ARMY, it was the NAVY that shelled the village. Unbelievable, the lack of fact checking and spell checking in this story (not only is defuse spelled incorrectly, but see the 4th paragraph where SHI is improperly referred to as SHU).
Furthermore, why is the Sealaska Heritage Institute involved in this find? There is no regalia or item of cultural significance involved, it is of general historical significance.
I'm surprised Rosita Worl didn't claim the thousands of years old reptilian fossil on behalf of the Sealaska Heritage Institute and claim that it was the ancestor of the Tlingit people and start to solicit blood sample volunteers.