A Rich Culture
Cape Fox Corporation, a Saxman Village company, is the parent company of Cape Fox Lodge. Saxman Village is 2 miles south of Ketchikan. Many of our corporate native Alaskan shareholders live in Saxman, and many are employed by Cape Fox Corporation. All shareholders benefit in the success of our corporation and Lodge. The Lodge was built by natives in 1990 and renovated in 2019. Cape Fox Corporation and Cape Fox Lodge are committed to our local native Tlingit community’s economic and educational well-being, and we are also committed to preserving Tlingit art and spirituality.
TLINGIT ESSENTIALLY MEANS HUMAN BEINGS
Tlingit society is divided into two clans, the Raven and the Eagle. Raven and Eagle clans have their own songs and totems.
IT IS ESTIMATED THE TLINGIT NATIVES ARRIVED IN ALASKA 11,000 YEARS AGO
They migrated from Asia across the Bering Land Bridge. The Tlingit established themselves in Southeast Alaska and established a permanent village at Cape Fox in the a small chain of wind stripped islands approximately 50 miles southeast of Ketchikan, at the most southern point of Alaska.
Non-native visitors called the Tlingit “Cape Fox,” meaning “being hidden.” The Tlingits thrived in Cape Fox village as hunter-gatherers for hundreds of years. Every summer they would leave their winter village for what is now Ketchikan for a season of subsistence fishing.
SETTLEMENT IN SAXMAN
The new settlement was named after Presbyterian missionary Professor S. A. Saxman, who had come to the area to build a school and a church to help Christianize and educate the Tlingit people; however Professor Saxman was lost at sea in search of the settlement location.
THE LOOTING OF CAPE FOX VILLAGE
Years later railroad magnate Edward Harriman took his family and a group of prominent scientists on a trip to Alaska―known as the Harriman Alaska Expedition. The voyagers set sail from Seattle in late spring 1899, and traveled as far as the Bering Strait. During its return, the team decided to visit the original Cape Fox Village that the tribe left to relocate in Saxman. They found 24 immense totem poles, cultural head gears, masks, and other artifacts.
Believing the village to be deserted, the expedition looted it and later distributed the relics to various museums and universities across the United States. It wasn’t until May 29, 2001, under mandate of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, that the Tlingit Clan recovered most all the items taken by the Harriman Expedition.
Pictured is the Harriman Expedition 1899.
To learn more visit: visit-ketchikan.com