“It’s Big Foot!” exclaims Lyla Radcliffe, 10.
She and her friends totter away, yelping and giggling.
They were working their way through a haunted house at the Alaska Native Cultural Charter School, where Alaska Big Foot, Otter Monsters and the Little People were a few examples of Alaska Native legends bringing it to life. The haunt is called the Trials of Aangaayuk, which translates from Yugtun to “spirits of the dead.”
Radcliffe shared that Alaska Big Foot was the highlight for her.
“I screamed several times,” she confided.
Manuel Acuña, a parent and vice president of a nonprofit Friends of the Alaska Native Cultural Charter School, spearheaded the project. He said it is “more than just spooky.”
“A lot of these stories in Alaska Native culture, like many cultures around the world, they were created to keep children safe, to teach them life lessons that are incorporated into these stories,” he said. “It's also educational, and it's also instilling that pride for a lot of our kids who are Alaska Native or just people who live in Alaska.”
Acuña said it started as a haunt in his yard – and grew too big. Now, he said this is the fourth year the school has hosted it.
More than 40 volunteers and students put together a series of dark tunnels inside the library, he said. They filled them with sets and props, many of which they made from papier-mâché, monster mud and foam, as well as animatronics they modified. Over a dozen students – from the charter school and the Kusilvak Career Academy – helped out as scare actors.
“It's a real great opportunity for our kids because they get to learn a new skill,” said Tanisha Charles, the president of the Parent Teacher Organization with the school. “They're putting together these characters, they're building, they're setting up lights. So it's a new experience for them.”
At the core of the haunt are seven stories from various Alaska Native cultures. At the school entrance, students and parents get a chance to read about them.
“They did pretty good incorporating all of our old stories and all of the different rooms and how they look different,” said Alyson Ruley who lives in Anchorage but is originally from Napakiak in the Bethel area. She came to the haunt with her husband and two children.
The visitors start by stepping through the portal into the spirit realm. They walk through a witch’s hut and the cemetery to the sounds of howling, thunder and sinister laughing. Then they enter the catacombs coated in spiderwebs and into an ice cave with an actor sitting down in a well.
“She represents Qalupalik, who is from Inuit culture, and she's like the northern culture's version of the boogeyman,” Acuña said.
Closer to the end of the haunt, visitors make their way through seaweed hanging in the tunnel of Ottermen from Tlingit culture. When they pass the village of Little People, or Ircenrraat, glowing red eyes trail them, floating through the darkness.
Parent Ruthie Hale said that story is common in Alaska Native cultures.
“We actually believe in Little People,” she said.
Her daughter, Elizabeth Weaver, 12, noticed the station while she was walking through the haunt.
“It was kind of cave-ish,... and their faces were, like, creepy and everything, and they were just, like, really scary,” Weaver said. “I think it was really nice because you get to learn about it and stuff.”
The last chance to experience the Trials of Aangaayuk is between 6 and 9 p.m. on Oct. 30.at the Alaska Native Cultural Charter School in Anchorage.
