Native Voices explores the interconnectedness of wellness, illness, and cultural life for Native Americans, Alaska Natives, and Native Hawaiians. Stories drawn from both the past and present examine how health for Native People is tied to community, the land, and spirit. Through interviews, Native People describe the impact of epidemics, federal legislation, the loss of land, and the inhibition of culture on the health of Native individuals and communities today.

As part of programming for the exhibit, SNRC will host an Open House on July 11, from 4:00pm to 5:30pm. The open house will allow visitors to explore the exhibit after a brief introduction by the archivist Erin Fehr. A reception will follow.

On July 19, the next film screening of Heartbeat Alaska will be a companion to the exhibit. The screening will feature segments from different Heartbeat Alaska episodes that focus on health and illness from an Alaska Native perspective. The clips will show traditional practices like subsistence lifestyles that prevent certain diseases, sobriety and prevention programs, and more. The screening will take place in Ottenheimer Library, Room 535, at noon. Attendees are welcome to bring their lunch.

SNRC is one of 104 sites hosting the exhibit and the only location in Arkansas. The exhibit will be open Monday through Friday, 8am to 5pm. To learn more and view content from the exhibit, visit  http://www.nlm.nih.gov/nativevoices. For more information about the programming at SNRC, please contact Erin Fehr at ehfehr@ualr.edu or 501-569-8336.

The U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM) developed and produced Native Voices: Native Peoples’ Concepts of Health and Illness. The American Library Association (ALA) Public Programs Office, in partnership with NLM, tours the exhibition to America’s libraries.

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SNRC invites you to join us Wednesday, March 8, 2017, for the first public film screening of the Jeanie Greene Heartbeat Alaska Collection. “Barrow: A Village of Whalers” looks at the centuries-old lifestyle of the Inupiat people living in the northernmost Alaskan village that centers on the practice of whaling. The approximately hour-long documentary style film shows how the villagers work together to harvest the bowhead whale and the importance that the whale has in the mostly subsistence lifestyle of the Inupiat.

The film will be shown in Ottenheimer Library, Room 535 from 12:00pm to 1:15pm. Attendees are encouraged to bring their lunches. After the screening, a short question and answer discussion will follow led by SNRC Archivist Erin Fehr (Yup’ik).

The Jeanie Greene Heartbeat Alaska Film Collection was acquired by the Center in 2014. The collection totals 1263 video recordings that have been digitized through a $24,000 grant awarded by the Arkansas Natural and Cultural Resources Council. The collection is currently being catalogued by two ÌÇÐÄVlog´«Ã½ Little Rock interns: Heidi Davis (Tlingit/Haida) and Stephanie Rabadeux (Tlingit/Haida).

The screening is free and open to the public. For more information, please contact Erin Fehr at ehfehr@ualr.edu or 501-569-8336.

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The Sequoyah National Research Center (SNRC) at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock is pleased to announce that the Arkansas Natural and Cultural Resources Council awarded a grant of $24,000 to SNRC for the digitization of the Jeanie Greene Collection in May 2016.

The Jeanie Greene Collection, acquired in 2014, is an audiovisual record of contemporary Alaska Native life. In 1990, Jeanie Greene, an Inupiaq journalist, established the television show Heartbeat Alaska as a forum for Alaska Native people to share the stories that impacted their lives on a daily basis. Mark Trahant, Charles R. Johnson Endowed Professor of Journalism at the University of North Dakota and former SNRC advisory board member, states that Greene “had this remarkable idea in 1990 of letting people from the villages across Alaska tell their own stories. This became Heartbeat Alaska. This was a radical idea. The media had all but ignored the daily story of Alaska Native life, popping in only occasionally. But Greene’s approach of basically turning over a camera to a community changed the tone and the content.�

In addition to Heartbeat Alaska, the collection also contains recordings of her other television shows: Northern Lives, This Generation, and We Win, a faith-based show. The videos provide a window into important topics such as whaling, subsistence, environment, culture, language, and more. The collection contains 1,263 Beta and U-matic tapes that include thousands of hours of final broadcast productions and raw footage.

Once cataloging is complete, the videos will be made available online to allow broader access for Alaska Natives and interested researchers.

The digitization for the grant was completed by Preservation Technologies in Cranberry, Pennsylvania.

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