Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, left her mark on the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources on Thursday during her first full day as chair. Murkowski wielded a Tsimshian maul -- a hand tool used by Alaska's Tsimshian people -- to gavel in and out of the committee meeting. But the heavy object -- given to the senator's grandfather, Frank Murkowski Sr., in the mid-1930s -- left a small dent in the dais inside the Dirksen Senate Office Building.
C-SPAN captured video of Murkowski leaving the indentation.
Murkowski said the object has great personal significance for her because ever since she was a kid, it sat on the desk of her father, former U.S. senator and Alaska Gov. Frank Murkowski. It is also significant, Murkowski said, because the committee meeting was about approving the Keystone XL pipeline, which is planned to run from Canada through the U.S. and has drawn the ire of conservationists and a promised presidential veto. Like the pipeline, the maul has roots in both Canada and the U.S., she said. The Tsimshian people migrated throughout British Columbia and the southernmost islands of Alaska. They used mauls, like the one Murkowski wielded Thursday, to smash berries and other food staples for storage.
"I thought that there was an interesting connect there," Murkowski said. "The issue at hand was a trans-boundary agreement that would allow for infrastructure to pass from Canada to Alaska, and I was using a gavel that came from the first peoples of the British Columbia region, coming into Alaska."
Murkowski said she will probably never use the maul -- which is painted with a face and eyes -- as a gavel in the Senate chambers again.
At the end of C-SPAN's full video, Murkowski, speaking to Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., seems to say, "It's kind of evil looking, isn't it? "Murkowski clarified her off-the-cuff remark Thursday evening, saying she did not mean to offend anyone by her assessment of the maul.
"I should correct my words," Murkowski said. "It's not evil looking, but it is somewhat ferocious looking. I have to remember I am the chair. I do have that hot mic, so I will be paying attention to that."