Alaska Native Heritage Center healing garden to double in size
New monuments will be added
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) - The Alaska Native Heritage Center healing garden will expand over the next five years, roughly doubling in size, thanks to grant funding.
The center was awarded $3.5 million from the Mellon Foundation and several thousands of dollars more from the Bureau of Indian Affairs, which will be used to build an additional nine moments at the center’s healing garden.
“For me to work in this position and to work in the community is very rewarding,” said Marilyn Balluta, the senior manager for the community healing garden and monuments. “The project name Ngíisdla is a Haida name that means to heal, to recover from the traumas of our people that has happened through either boarding school, generational trauma ... I could go on with the list.”
Each monument will be created by an Alaska Native artist, the center said. The artist and type of monument to be built has yet to be decided.
Currently, the healing garden has one monument; a totem pole that represents the healing journey for Alaska Natives and Native Americans, which was raised in October 2023.
The next monument to join the garden, the center said, will be dedicated to Alaska Native Veterans.
“With the veterans, they are very serious about this monument. That it is going to be a place for them to go, to reflect, and to heal, and to have their own ceremony,” Balluta said.
Balluta told Alaska’s News Source that the center has already met twice with a group of Alaska Native veterans to discuss the project.
“The first time we met with them was a very powerful, very moving meeting with them because they shared their stories,” Balluta said. “They felt like they were in a safe environment and they were surrounded by other veterans that they knew they could get support from.”
An additional monument in dedication to Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls and Two-Spirit people will also be added to the garden at a later time.
Currently, the center is working on the garden’s landscape and design with the goal to have its Alaska Native veteran monument on display in the fall.
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