Morning Thanks--an odd cemetery

It's little more than a roadside stop, and, unfortunately for us, it was mostly closed up when we stopped--the gift shop and church at least. The grounds were open and greatly mysterious without having done any research.

In northern Minnesota, we'd once traveled through the Red Lake Ojibwa Reservation with a man who called the place home. One of the places he brought us was to a cemetery where loved ones did the deceased the honor of building little houses over their gravesites, almost like you see here. Without more information, it was difficult for me to understand what was going on because the little cemetery--still accepting newcomers, obviously--seemed goofy, something of a toy village.

The place is called Eklutna Historical Village, not all that far from Anchorage, home of the oldest building (origins somewhat unknown) in the region, the church--

a Russian Orthodox Church. The combo seemed incongruous--a strange and unique cemetery that reminded me of Red Lake but was obviously arranged around a Christian church.

It is what I couldn't help thinking it was--a hybrid mix of cultures. The 600-year old place belongs to Native people, the Dena’ina Athabascans, who were visited long, long ago--1840s?--by Orthodox missionaries from Russia. Some folks still worship in the church (a newer one, actually), but the graves are covered in an ancient, Native way, with brightly painted "spirit houses" intended to provide shelter to the spirits of the dead, a notion, I'm quite sure, they didn't pick up from Christian missionaries.

Loved the place, even in its inelegance. It offers witness to the kind of cross-cultural melding that can and does take place among diverse peoples who refashion themselves to the shapes of new inspirations, new faith. The Denai'ina Athabascan people worship in a Christian church but bury their loved ones in a way that predates--by hundreds of years perhaps--the traditions of the missionaries.

Loved the strange place because I couldn't help noticing the redolence of hope is simply all around. That redolence of hope is always worthy of our thanks.