{"id":149,"date":"2026-05-22T20:21:19","date_gmt":"2026-05-22T20:21:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alaskamovingnetwork.com\/?p=149"},"modified":"2026-05-22T20:21:19","modified_gmt":"2026-05-22T20:21:19","slug":"this-is-how-we-heal-hoonah-honors-its-veterans-with-two-new-memorials","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alaskamovingnetwork.com\/?p=149","title":{"rendered":"\u2018This is how we heal:\u2019 Hoonah honors its veterans with two new memorials"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

HOONAH \u2014 More than a hundred people walked off a catamaran into Hoonah on Saturday morning. They were there to join dozens of other Hoonah residents who gathered to witness the unveiling of two memorials dedicated to veterans and their families.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\nThe first memorial is an archway anchored by two cedar totem poles, called koot\u00e9eyaas in Ling\u00edt, depicting a raven warrior and an eagle warrior. It\u2019s located near Icy Strait Point, and welcomes people as they walk down the seawalk path toward town.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\u201cWe see strength in these poles,\u201d said George Bennett, an Army veteran. He said Hoonah\u2019s roots in the military run deep, and it\u2019s important to pay tribute to those who served.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\u201cThey give us the strength when people walk this path, hopefully they will feel the strength that we have given back to our community through our participation to be a part of the armed forces,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Hoonah is home to many veterans. Alaska consistently has the highest percentage of veterans in the country, and Hoonah has one of the highest shares of any town. Former Alaska Native Brotherhood Grand President Marcelo Quinto said it\u2019s what makes the community unique.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\u201cI think we, our people, have always been in line to protect our part of the country and we\u2019re very proud of it,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\nMaster artist Gordon Greenwald designed and carved the memorial with help from three other carvers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\u201cNone of us are veterans, but we are honored to be able to honor you, folks,\u201d he said. \u201cWithout veterans, I feel we would not be free people.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\nA few hours later, another ceremony was held to officially unveil an honor wall at the Veterans Memorial Park in downtown Hoonah. The park is on land donated by Korean War veteran Stanley \u201cSteamie\u201d Thompson, who passed away in 2021.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The projects were a collaboration between the City of Hoonah and the Huna Heritage Foundation. The honor wall is lined with the names of hundreds of Hoonah veterans and the branch of the military in which they served. Huna Heritage Foundation leadership says they plan to continue to add names to the wall that might not have been recorded.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\u201cI think the honor is way long past overdue,\u201d said Naa Kwaa Edward Williams Sr., an Army veteran. He stood at the ceremony, reading the names on the wall. One is his dad, a combat veteran who served in the Korean War.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cYou don\u2019t realize, as a child of a veteran, the anguish and the pain that they caused you, and you live with, and then you understand the insanity of what they\u2019ve had to live through, and the pain that they had to go through,\u201d he said. \u201cI did not understand that until I joined the Army.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said growing up in Hoonah, he watched the community struggle with the trauma of wars and the impact it left on veterans who returned home. He said he\u2019s happy to see the community take steps toward acknowledging that pain and healing from it together.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\u201cI think for me the honor comes and grows the more we honor these kinds of things,\u201d he said. \u201cA lot of ugly has happened, whether in war or whether I came home to it, but this is how we heal. This is exactly how we heal, or at least I heal.\u201d
\n
Copyright 2026 KTOO<\/p>\n

Read more Anchorage air travelers caught in long TSA lines<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Alaska consistently has the highest percentage of veterans in the country, and Hoonah has one of the highest shares of any town.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":148,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\n\u2018This is how we heal:\u2019 Hoonah honors its veterans with two new memorials - Alaska Moving Network<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/alaskamovingnetwork.com\/?p=149\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"\u2018This is how we heal:\u2019 Hoonah honors its veterans with two new memorials - 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