Newhalen Digital Language and Cultural Archive Project - Newhalen Tribal Council’s project goal is to strengthen cultural continuity and language preservation in Newhalen by establishing a sustainable, tribally owned digital archive that ensures preservation of the Yup’ik Lake Iliamna dialect. The project responds to rapid language and cultural knowledge loss, with only seven fluent speakers ages 70–85 and five comprehenders remaining in Newhalen, no children acquiring the dialect as a first language, and existing learning resources described as limited, fragmented, or unavailable online. By the end of Year 3, Newhalen Tribal Council will archive 300 materials on the Lake Iliamna Yup’ik dialect, storytelling, subsistence knowledge, and cultural knowledge. They will do this through seasonal Elder gatherings, interviews, language recordings during seasonal activities, storytelling at celebrations and events, school and Bible Camp recordings, processing, translation, transcription, cataloging, Elder review and verification, metadata creation, upload to a Mukurtu-based digital archive, use protocols, trainings, and sustainability planning. Expected outputs include 300 digitized, catalogued, and archived items, including 40 Elder interviews/storytelling recordings, 30 subsistence/cultural videos, and 230 digitized photos/documents; an archive platform developed, tested, and publicly launched; more than 70 members trained to use the archive; a sustainability plan completed and adopted by the Council; and recruitment and outreach materials created.
