Weaver Delores Churchill and filmmaker Ellen Frankenstein smile outside the Gold Town Theater after a screening of “Tracing Roots,” Sunday, March 31, 2019. (Ben Hohenstatt | Capital City Weekly)

Weaver Delores Churchill and filmmaker Ellen Frankenstein smile outside the Gold Town Theater after a screening of “Tracing Roots,” Sunday, March 31, 2019. (Ben Hohenstatt | Capital City Weekly)

Dream Weaver: Haida elder talks learning and becoming a master weaver

She’s a dream weaver.

Luck played a role in Delores Churchill becoming both a renowned weaver and a generous repository of weaving knowledge.

After a Sunday screening of “Tracing Roots,” a film about the master Haida weaver and her quest to learn more about a centuries-old hat, Churchill spoke about the circumstances that led to her decades-long infatuation with weaving and effort to perpetuate the endangered Alaska Native art form.

“There are many things that happened in my life right at the right time to make sure weaving could continue be taught,” Churchill said during a 40-minute discussion after a movie screening Sunday at the Gold Town Theater.

While Churchill’s mother, Selina Peratrovich, was an acclaimed weaver and weaving teacher, Churchill didn’t grow up seeing basketry in her future.

“When I went to school in Canada, they told me because I was academically inclined … they told me, ‘You would never be an artist.’ They said, ‘people who are academically inclined will not be artists.’ So, I never really thought about art, and in fact, I’d walk by my mother when she was weaving.”

That indifference meant that when Churchill eventually showed up in a community college classroom for a weaving class taught by her mother, she was initially told by her mother to go home.

However, every student was needed for enrollment, which worked out in Churchill’s favor.

“The head of the art department, he said to her, ‘We need her registration,’ so I really got to stay,” Churchill said.

Later, a random encounter at a speaking event lead Churchill to a discovery that increased the number of people she could teach.

“There was a white woman there, and I was telling her when my mother died, I probably wouldn’t teach basketry anymore because it took so long to prepare the material. I said, ‘It takes us all summer to prepare the material for two classes in the winter because we have to split it by hand, and it just takes a lot of time.’”

The woman suggested using a leather stripper to help make preparing materials easier.

“It really did change the art of basketry,” Churchill said. “I don’t think people would have learned as fast as you could using that (leather) stripper, which strips the weavers and warp to the right size, so you can use it for weaving.”

Thanks to those events, Churchill is a veritable Rosetta Stone of indigenous weaving and knows the styles of Tsimshian, Tlingit and Haida weavers among others.

Those insights were at the center of the film made by Ellen Frankenstein showed at the Gold Town Theater. “Tracing Roots” tells the story of Churchill’s attempts to see the hat found with the body of Kwäday Dän Ts’ìnchi, also known as the Long Ago Man or Canadian Ice Man.

Churchill was interested in determining if the man’s heritage could be discerned from the characteristics of the hat.

Ultimately, she was able to see the hat and photograph it, but it could only be shown in the movie in the form of sketches.

Churchill found stylistic indications that left the cultural identity of the man, who died about 300 years ago, uncertain.

In a few centuries, Churchill said there probably won’t be similar questions on the lips of whoever might happen upon her work.

“I think everything I’ve done is so well documented, I don’t think anyone will have a problem,” Churchill said.

Curator of collections for Alaska State Museums Steve Henrikson and weaver Delores Churchill talk after a screening of “Tracing Roots,” Sunday, March 31, 2019. (Ben Hohenstatt | Capital City Weekly)

Curator of collections for Alaska State Museums Steve Henrikson and weaver Delores Churchill talk after a screening of “Tracing Roots,” Sunday, March 31, 2019. (Ben Hohenstatt | Capital City Weekly)

More in News

The Dimond Courthouse in Juneau, Alaska, is seen in this undated photo. (Michael S. Lockett / Juneau Empire file)
Juneau man pleads guilty to murder of infant

James White pleaded guilty yesterday to the murder of 5-and-half-week-old Kathy White

U.S. Coast Guard Rear Admiral Megan Dean shakes hands with the new Arctic District commander Rear Admiral Bob Little on Friday. Vice Admiral Andrew J. Tiongson, commander of the Pacific Area, smiles. (Jasz Garrett / Juneau Empire)
US Coast Guard receives new commander, new name for Alaska

The Arctic District’s new icebreaker will visit Juneau next month

City and Borough of Juneau City Hall is photographed on July 12, 2025, in Juneau, Alaska. (Photo by Erin Thompson/Juneau Empire file)
Municipal election candidate filing period opens July 18

The filing period runs from July 18 at 8 a.m. to July 28 at 4:30 p.m.

The Mendenhall River roars more than 13 feet above normal levels in August 2023. (Mark Sabbatini / Juneau Empire)
Suicide Basin predicted to fill by Aug. 8

The change in the prediction of when the basin will fill was based on heavy rain last week

(Michael Penn / Juneau Empire file photo)
Police calls for Monday, July 14, 2025

This report contains public information from law enforcement and public safety agencies.

The Norwegian Bliss arrives in Juneau on Monday, April 14, 2025. (Jasz Garrett / Juneau Empire file photo)
Ships in port for the week of July 16

This information comes from the Cruise Line Agencies of Alaska’s 2025 schedule.… Continue reading

A male sea otter pup, estimated at 2 weeks old, was rescued near Homer and admitted to the Alaska SeaLife Center rehabilitation program on June 23, 2025, in Seward, Alaska. Photo courtesy of the Alaska SeaLife Center
Seward’s SeaLife Center admits 2 seal pups, 1 orphaned otter

The three pups join the Alaska SeaLife Center’s ‘growing’ patient list

Alaska Seaplane pilot Vance Tilley stands in front of the Piatus PC-12 in Klawock on June 23 during the inaugural trip of the new service between Juneau, Ketchikan and Klawock. (Photos by Gemini Waltz Media/courtesy Alaska Seaplane)
New Juneau-Ketchikan nonstop flight service launches

The flight leaves Juneau at 3:45 p.m., and the trip lasts 1 hour 25 minutes

Most Read