“Dámaan St’áang Tl’ang Kínggang”: Connecting our Past, Present, and Future to Revitalize X̱aad Kíl in Hydaburg, Alaska

On the first page of “Dámaan St’áang Tl’ang Kínggang: Connecting our Past, Present, and Future to Revitalize X̱aad Kíl in Hydaburg, Alaska,” author Ka’iljuus Lisa Lang quotes a famous Haida saying: “The world is like a knife blade. When you are walking, watch your step. If you don’t watch your steps, you will fall off the edge of the earth.” This poetic, urgent and powerful narrative remains throughout Lang’s book as she writes that if the Hydaburg people don’t maintain a successful model of a language immersion program, their language will fall off the knife blade edge of the earth. According to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO,) X̱aad Kíl, or Northern Alaskan Haida, is critically endangered: Fewer than 50 people speak the language today, and there are no more living fluent first language speakers. As Lang analyzes the X̱ántsii Náay Haida Immersion Preschool’s impact on the community’s attitudes and values by conducting voluntary interviews with Hydaburg youth, adults and Elders, she finds the interviewees unanimously view identity, culture and language as deeply intertwined.

“We have no more choices – we have no more time. We cannot turn around. It is immerse or die. It is now or never. To lose our footing creates the illusion that we no longer care, that we no longer have our spirit and we no longer exist in this world. This painful and unacceptable reality is only one step away,” Lang writes.