A grant will help stabilize the Noow Hit Tribal House, the last and only surviving example of Tlingit vernacular architecture in the Chilkat Valley, Alaska, a Tlingit stronghold that once had over 75 tribal houses/Tom Ganner, courtesy of Chilkoot Indian Association

The National Park Service is distributing $603,149 for 10 projects across the country to support the protection of America’s Native cultures.

“These grants help the National Park Service work with American Indian Tribes and Alaska Native organizations to preserve their cultural heritage and reconnect people with their traditions of the past that help inform their future,” said Park Service Director Chuck Sams.

This year’s grants will support projects like:

• The stabilization of the Noow Hit Tribal House for the Chikoot Indian Association in Haines, Alaska. This traditional gathering place for the Tlingit people is listed in the National Register of Historic Places.

• The Wyiot Tribe’s workshops to train Tribal citizens in California to become Tribal Monitors, so they can engage in site preservation and public education in a meaningful way.

• The Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation’s plan to conduct Oral Histories of approximately 40 Tribal elders in Kansas to preserve the historical account of the Nation and its people, their cultural heritage and traditional practices.

These important projects are critical to preserving Tribal heritage for future generations, a Park Service release said. Other projects funded by these grants will locate and identify cultural resources, preserve historic properties listed in the National Register of Historic Places, support comprehensive preservation planning, preserve oral history and cultural traditions, provide training for building a historic preservation program, and support cultural and historic preservation interpretation and education.

Applications for at least $500,000 in 2023 funding will be available this coming winter. For more information about the grants and the Tribal Heritage Grant program,  visit the Tribal Heritage grants website.

Congress appropriated funding for the Tribal Heritage Grant Program in 2022 through the Historic Preservation Fund. The HPF uses revenue from federal oil leases on the Outer Continental Shelf to assist with a broad range of preservation projects, mitigating the loss of a nonrenewable resource with the preservation of other irreplaceable resources, without expending tax dollars.

Established in 1977 and authorized at $150 million per year through 2023, the HPF has provided more than $2 billion in historic preservation grants to states, Tribes, local governments and nonprofit organizations. Administered by the NPS, Congress may appropriate HPF funds to support a variety of historic preservation projects to help preserve the nation’s cultural resources.