A Tlingit of the Raven moiety of the Sockeye clan, he is studying Native culture along with the usual subjects in the high school curriculum.

He started early, in elementary school, when his mother leveraged him into Native dance.

"I was sort of pushed into a Native culture dance club," Timothy said.

The class, however, wasn't what compelled him. The same building where he attended his class housed a group preparing for a Native olympics competition. Despite being too young to compete, Timothy watched and was inspired.

Competitors performed a variety of events, such as the seal hop and the one-foot high kick, adapted from hunting skills used in northern Alaska, Timothy said.

Jackie Johnson, Timothy's mother, did the pushing. She said it wasn't just to get him interested in his culture. Johnson wanted to keep her son busy, and, besides, she wanted to join the dance club, which was linked to a culture camp.

"I pushed him in anything," she said. "I wanted to go to camp real bad."

That camp, Lkootkawaan, formerly the Chilkoot Culture Camp, is based in Haines. It was formed about 16 years ago by Austin Hammond, former leader of the Sockeye clan, who died in 1993.

The camp, where Timothy now works as a youth leader, also provides the name and the home of his dance group.

The Lkootkawaan dancers, along with about 1,000 other dancers, will be performing at Celebration '96. Held every two years, the event starting June 6 draws Natives from Alaska and the Pacific Northwest to Juneau for a weekend of cultural celebration.

This year's theme is about passing along culture to children, said Dennis Demmert, president of Sealaska Heritage Foundation, which is sponsoring the event along with Sealaska Corp., Southeast's regional Native corporation.

Timothy said his past and his culture is something he wants to help perpetuate.

"It's just that when I see older people and how they don't know much about their culture. .*.*. It's there, but people don't grasp it," he said. "I like to try to remember what it was like a long time ago."

Timothy, whose Tlingit name Aankadaxtseen translates to "When the birds fly together," wants to go further in his studies of Tlingit and Native culture. He wants to understand Native history and develop Native hunting and craft skills. He may devote his life to it by becoming a teacher for an Indian studies program.

"We're struggling to try to get our culture back," Timothy said. "Some people just don't care anymore."

He said many of his Native friends about his age are interested in their culture, but they're shy about it. In high school, some students make fun of Native culture, he said, and make comments and wisecracks based on stereotypes from the 1950s.

With peer pressure bearing down on them, Timothy said, some just laugh along with the joke. "They're, in a way, ashamed."

Largely due to Native youth, however, interest in learning traditional culture is growing, said Johnson. Since she got her son involved in the Lkootkawaan camp, she has become its co-director.

The cultural camp, where youngsters are taught about protocol, crafts, leadership and food preparation, Johnson said, is expanding.

From 20 to 25 students at a time attend two-week sessions there. In 1995, there were two sessions. This year, there will be four. Next year, the camp will run all summer long.

"Kids are more interested," she said. "They're asking their parents questions."

Demmert said that when the compulsory, American education system was introduced to Alaska Natives, it displaced the traditional system of teaching and learning. Add-on classes, such as after-school Indian study programs, did not fill the gap. Standard history classes do not give the status and depth to Native history and culture, he said.

Natives who grew up as western civilization came to Alaska had to compete in a world with different priorities and demands than traditional culture prepared them for, Demmert said. Trying to compete economically in a changed Alaska, he said, forced culture onto the back burner for many as illustrated by the refrain, "I don't have time for dancing."

"For many of us, when we become adults, we notice a vacuum, and we try to go back," he said. "Celebration is about retaining our traditions and strengthening them in the present."