William Shakespeare never visited Alaska, but the Arctic did come to him.<\/p>\n
On Wednesday, professor Rick Knecht of the University of Aberdeen in Scotland held a teleconferenced lecture at the Alaska State Library, Archives and Museum to explain what was happening in Alaska at the time the English language\u2019s most famous author was living and working.<\/p>\n
Knecht\u2019s lecture was part of the state library\u2019s exhibit on Shakespeare\u2019s First Folio, which is on display in the library through Aug. 24.<\/p>\n
[394-year-old Shakespeare volume goes on display in Juneau<\/a>]<\/p>\n \u201cDuring Shakespeare\u2019s time, people were familiar not just with North America, but with the North,\u201d Knecht said.<\/p>\n Knecht\u2019s lecture was broadcast statewide on the Online With Libraries network; 14 people attended in person at the Juneau museum and sat in a dark hall next to the First Folio\u2019s glass case.<\/p>\n [All Juneau’s a stage at Shakespeare First Folio exhibit<\/a>]<\/p>\n Martin Frobisher\u2019s three expeditions in search of the Northwest Passage took place in the 1570s, when Shakespeare was a young man. Frobisher\u2019s voyages, which took him to Baffin Island and points in what is now northern Canada, represented the first significant contact between the Canadian Inuit and the English-speaking world. Two Native Canadians even traveled back to England as hostages under Frobisher\u2019s care, but they soon died of disease.<\/p>\n After setting the scene, Knecht offered the latest developments from his archaeological excavations at the Nunalleq site in Southwest Alaska<\/a>. Close to the modern town of Quinhagak in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta, Nunalleq was a bustling community when Shakespeare lived.<\/p>\n Burned about 1670 during a particularly brutal attack, the village has become an extraordinarily valuable source of information regarding coastal life in the Delta.<\/p>\n \u201cAll the wood and organic stuff that we normally lose has been preserved by the (permafrost) ice until now,\u201d Knecht said.<\/p>\n Since 2009, Knecht has led digs at the site that have uncovered more than 47,000 artifacts \u2014 from ulu knives to masks and never-before-seen woven grass mats and dog harnesses. The permafrost of the site has even preserved things as fragile as human and canine hair.<\/p>\n \u201cThe preservation is so good that the wood, freshly thawed out of the ice, is still bright,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Grass objects sometimes are still green when they\u2019re removed from the site, \u201cand you can watch it turn brown as the air hits it.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe site\u2019s thawing out really quickly, but it\u2019s left behind this incredible archaeological record that we rarely see,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The site has helped explain how Delta residents lived on caribou, sea mammals and fish. It\u2019s provided insights into their lives and lifestyles.<\/p>\n While Shakespeare was able to record his words in print, written history didn\u2019t come to Alaska until Europeans did. That makes archaeology critical to understand Alaska\u2019s prehistory.<\/p>\n Knecht\u2019s team isn\u2019t excavating the site this summer \u2014 they hope to be back in 2017 \u2014 but the work is running against a deadline, he explained.<\/p>\n While Shakespeare\u2019s words have been preserved, Nunalleq is threatened by climate change. The permafrost that preserved the site is rapidly thawing, and beach erosion has already claimed the sites that were excavated in 2009, when the project started.<\/p>\n \u201cI wish we\u2019d started much earlier,\u201d Knecht said.<\/p>\n \u2022 Contact reporter James Brooks at 523-2263 or james.k.brooks@juneauempire.com. Follow him on Twitter at @AK_OK.<\/p>\n Read more news:<\/strong><\/p>\n Down in the dumps: Airport closes lavatory dumpsite after surprise FDA inspection<\/a><\/p>\n Juneau on track to see the most burglaries in a decade<\/a><\/p>\n