Copper River Stories

Project Date: 2001-2003 (pro bono)
Project Manager: Thea Agnew Bemben
Clients: Friends of Kennicott, Copper River Watershed, Wrangell Mountains Center
Location: Communities along the Copper River from McCarthy to Cordova

Copper River Stories is a regional collaborative effort by community organizations with the common goal of engaging local people in telling the stories of this remarkable region.

From glaciers to tidewater, the Copper and Chitina Rivers and their tributaries drain a mighty landscape. The corridor these rivers carve stretches over 200 miles, and connects two seemingly different worlds. The upper watershed, characterized by the glacier-covered volcanoes that form the Wrangell Mountains, is a place of bright hot summers anddeep winters. Downstream, the same river flows into the clear waters of the Gulf of Alaska and Prince William Sound, a rainforest world home to shorebirds, otters and orcas.

The Chitina and Copper River corridor, from Kennicott to Chitina to Cordova, is a landscape mapped with stories of encounters between people and place. With the recent boom of tourism in the region, and expected growth in coming years, demand is growing to hear the voices of this region. With the passing of each year, however, voices are disappearing. In the words of one local writer, the erosive power of the Copper River is both literally and figuratively erasing the record of historic settlements along its banks.

Activities to date include:

• Raised in the Wrangells talking circle brought together women and girls who had grown up in the Wrangell Mountains.
• Copper River Stories Expedition brought together teaching artists (writers, painters and poets) with student artists for a week-long float down the Copper River. Work created during the trip was published in a special issue of the Kennicott Star, the newsletter of Friends of Kennicott.
• Cordova Walking Tour & Interpretive Signs: Cordova organizations designed a walking tour of the town center highlighted by thematically linked interpretive signs. Similar design elements were incorporated into interpretive signs in Cordova and will be expanded throughout the region, creating a visual link between communities.
• Writers Workshops held in McCarthy and on a raft trip down the Copper River encourage local writers to articulate their own stories and memoirs. An annual anthology is published. (In cooperation with Wrangell Mountains Center & Prince William Sound Community College.)
• Kennicott Arts & Lectures Series: Local scientists, artists, historians and homesteaders share their experiences of living and working in the region with local residents and visitors, in cooperation with Wrangell Mountains Center and Porphyry Productions.