http://www.adn.com/news/alaska/rural/story/9329624p-9244769c.html

Alutiiq anthropologist honored as a MacArthur 'genius'
Award comes with $500,000 for Haakanson

By MIKE DUNHAM
mdunham@...

(Published: September 25, 2007)

An Alaska Native anthropologist from the Kodiak Island village of Old
Harbor has received one of the most prestigious -- and lucrative -- awards
for intellectual achievement in America. Sven Haakanson, 41, is among 24
new MacArthur Fellows announced Monday.

A press release from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation's
Fellows Program called Haakanson "the driving force behind the
revitalization of indigenous language, culture and customs in an isolated
region of North America." It also mentioned his artistic accomplishments as
a mask carver and photographer.

The so-called "Genius Award" comes with a f $500,000 grant that recipients
may spend as they see fit. The selection process is famed for its secrecy
and candidates usually have no clue that they are under consideration.

Haakanson learned of the award in a crack-of-dawn phone call on Monday of
last week/ "They woke me up at 6:30 in the morning," he told the Daily
News. "Anybody calling you that early, you think: Is this a joke?"

When he realized the caller was serious, he felt humbled, he said. "To have
someone even nominate me is wonderful."

Then the caller informed him that he would receive a half million dollars,
no strings attached, over the next five years.

"I was shocked," Haakanson said, still sounding a little breathless.

For 20 years, Haakanson earned money as a commercial fisherman. He is the
son of the late Sven Haakanson Sr., the longtime mayor of Old Harbor and a
respected elder.

The younger Haakanson said his interest in anthropology began when he
attended a youth conference in Denmark in 1988 and heard University of
Alaska Fairbanks professor Lydia Black speak about the history of "Aleut
people."

"I thought to myself, 'Why am I on the other side of the world learning
about my culture when I should be at home doing that?' " After the lecture,
he sat and talked with Black for an hour or more.

Inspired by Black, he attended the University of Alaska Fairbanks, where he
received a bachelor's in English in 1992. He then went on to graduate
studies at Harvard University, where he earned his master's and doctorate
in anthropology. He was selected as the executive director of the new
Alutiiq Museum in Kodiak in 1999, a year before receiving his doctorate,
and had to defer taking the post until he could finish his degree.

Through the museum, Haakanson has spearheaded efforts to acquire and
exhibit rare items from Alutiiq history scattered in collections around the
world. His recent projects include taking a group of Kodiak elders and
artists to France to inspect Alutiiq masks collected in Alaska in the 19th
century. As a result of that trip, some of those masks will be displayed in
Kodiak, then in Anchorage next year.

He's also in the process of identifying a trove of petroglyphs and other
stone carvings near the village of Akhiok, on the south coast of Kodiak.
Working with villagers, he said, he has been able to locate 800 such
carvings in recent years.

He relishes such fieldwork, he said, but can break away only for about one
week each year. Administrative responsibilities keep him near the office in
Kodiak, where he lives with his wife, Balika, and daughters, Eilidh and
Isabella.

He hopes that the MacArthur money will free him up to get out to historic
Alutiiq sites more often, he said. And some will be used to send his
mother, Mary, on a pilgrimage to Orthodox churches in Russia.

But the majority will go into savings, Haakanson said, because "I don't
have retirement for my job at the museum."

This is the second time an Alaskan has won a MacArthur Fellowship. In 2004,
Katherine Gottlieb, president of Southcentral Foundation, received the
award for helping to streamline the health care services for Alaska
Natives.

Also on this year's list of 24 "geniuses" named by the MacArthur Foundation
today are scientists, engineers and artists, including short-story writer
Stuart Dybek, blues musician Corey Harris, historian Jay Rubenstein and
painter Joan Snyder.

John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Fellows

Proposed fellows are suggested by anonymous nominators who are selected by
the foundation. The 20 to 25 fellows chosen each year receive $500,000 over
five years to spend as they please. The MacArthur Foundation is a private
institution named for insurance mogul John D. MacArthur and his wife,
Catherine. John MacArthur was one of the wealthiest people in the United
States when he died in 1978. The MacArthur Foundation makes about $225
million in grants per year. Some of this year's fellows:

• Mercedes Doretti, a forensic anthropologist unearthing evidence of crimes
against humanity and of human losses omitted from historical record.

• Cheryl Hayashi, a spider-silk biologist revealing the architecture,
evolution and structural properties of spider silks and the possibilities
of developing new synthetic materials.

• Saul Griffith, an inventor engineering innovations that include optics,
high-performance materials and nanotechnology.

• Paul Rothemund, a nanotechnologist folding DNA to create complex shapes
and patterns that provide a powerful tool for building devices from single
atoms and molecules.

• Lisa Cooper, a public health physician improving medical outcomes by
analyzing and developing new approaches to patient-physician
communications.

• Shen Wei, a choreographer drawing from Western dance traditions and
Chinese opera, acrobatics and martial arts to create bold and visually
arresting dance-theater.

Source: The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation