Anchorage Daily News

Peter Lind Sr. knows how to build a sod house. He grew up spending winters on the Alaska Peninsula in one that was not terribly different from those used by his Stone Age ancestors.

But that's not why he's famous.

Pete Sr. sets the standard for making practical and elegant Alutiiq hunting visors eagerly sought by collectors and museums around the world. In May, he received a major artist award from the Rasmuson Foundation.

For many years he was a commercial fisherman, following the trade of his Swedish father. But he was also a skilled carver of wood and ivory, using a cribbage board one time as the down payment on a fishing boat. And he was fascinated by his mother's Alutiiq roots. "I always wanted to learn my culture," he said.

That opportunity came in the 1980s, when he had the chance to study with the late Andrew Groenholt, one of the last Alutiiq elders who knew how to make the hunting tools of the past, including the all-important visor. The uniquely Alaska item had been discarded long before tourists showed up to invigorate the market for them. As a result, originals are extremely rare.

The wood headpiece cut glare and shielded the sea-born hunter's eyes from spray and rain. It helped him aim the throw of his spear at game. In a pinch it could become a spare oar. And, when spectacularly decorated, it designated leadership.

When Lind's carefully replicated visors came on the general market about 15 years ago, they were immediately appreciated by connoisseurs for both their artistic quality and their authenticity. Today a Lind visor or helmet costs more than $5,000. A limited edition copy of an antique Bering Sea visor, festooned with ivory walrus heads, is priced at $8,000 a copy. He also makes other traditional culture items like spears, harpoons and the ingenious Alutiiq kayak-bailer.

His son, Pete Jr., has acquired both his father's skill and talent in creating historic facsimiles as well as precise models. Like the elder Lind, Pete Jr. started life as a fisherman and kept at it until the mid-1980s. "Catches went down, fishing stank," he recalled. "I had to find another way to make a living."

The younger Lind is stretching his art beyond fully functional replicas. He's created a purely aesthetic, non-utilitarian, contemporary spirit mask in the form of a visor, for instance, titled "Spirit Hunter."

"I wanted to do something different," he said, "but something that still represented Alutiiq culture."

The state of Alaska bought his first spirit mask almost as soon as the paint was dry.

Father and son use traditional materials like cedar, ivory, moose sinew, baleen, feathers, seal and walrus teeth and red ocher for coloring. But little metal; for the old-time Aleuts, the few scraps of metal they saw came from a long ways away.

Which is why the art created by Darlene Lind -- senior's wife and junior's mom -- is so unusual. She makes bronze statues of Alutiiq figures. She was 60 years old before she ever attempted this art form, more or less on an impulse.

"We had a neighbor who made Navajo figurines in bronze," she said. "I looked at that and thought I might try it."

That year, 2002, her first bronze, a dancer in Alutiiq regalia, won a top prize in the statewide juried Earth, Fire and Fibre show.

She provides short narratives -- little poems -- with each of her pieces, like this from her bust of an elder woman:

"time gently kissed her/ leaving its mark/ age blessed her/ with wisdom and peace"

The description might apply to her late mother-in-law. Life growing up as a mixed-race girl in Bristol Bay could be confusing and difficult, she said. "But Pete's mom gave me an anchor."

The chain of talent doesn't stop there. Pete Jr.'s wife, Susan Jones -- born in Kodiak, June 5, 1965 -- does bead work and makes jewelry along with daughter Joleen, 25. Twelve-year-old twin daughters Marissa and Chelsea supply scrimshaw illustrations and designs. Son Travis, 16, designs and manages the Web site for the family business.

Three generations connect the Stone Age to the Internet Age.

The Linds all live in Homer now. They'll be taking turns driving to Anchorage to show their work at the Alaska Native Heritage Center this summer. You can find out more and contact them at www.alaska.net/~alaskantreasures (the elder Linds) and www.xyz.net/~slind (the younger Linds).

Find Mike Dunham online at adn.com/contact/mdunham or call 257-4332.

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