22 Facts About Walter Soboleff

Walter Alexander Soboleff was a Tlingit scholar, elder and religious leader.

Walter Soboleff was born in Killisnoo, Alaska, on November 14,1908, to a Tlingit mother and a Russian father.

Walter Soboleff was born into the Tlingit name Ka'jak'tii, meaning One Slain in Battle.

Walter Soboleff's paternal grandfather, was a Russian Orthodox minister named Ivan Soboleff, who moved to Killisnoo from San Francisco during the 1890s.

Walter Soboleff first attended a US Government School in Tenakee before enrolling at the Sheldon Jackson School boarding school in Sitka when he was five years old.

Walter Soboleff began working as a Tlingit language interpreter for doctors at ten years old during the height of the 1918 flu pandemic in Southeast Alaska.

Walter Soboleff was hired for his first job at the Hood Bay fish cannery when he was a freshman at Sheldon Jackson High School in 1925.

Walter Soboleff earned 25 cents an hour at the cannery.

In 1925, Walter Soboleff sailed from Sitka to Seattle aboard the Admiral Lines steamship.

Walter Soboleff then hitchhiked from Seattle to enroll at college at Oregon Agricultural College,.

Walter Soboleff hitchhiked back to Seattle, where he stayed at a YMCA in the city until he could return to his studies.

Walter Soboleff won a scholarship to the University of Dubuque in 1933.

Walter Soboleff completed a bachelor's degree at the University of Dubuque in 1937 in education.

Walter Soboleff went on to earn a master's degree in divinity, from the University of Dubuque, in 1940.

Walter Soboleff returned to Sitka, Alaska, during the summer of 1940, where he initially worked in cold storage or seine fishing.

Walter Soboleff was ordained a Presbyterian minister and married his wife, Genevieve Ross, a Haida woman and nurse who was involved in the revival of the Haida language in Alaska.

Walter Soboleff moved to Juneau, Alaska, where he served as a minister at Memorial Presbyterian Church in 1940, a then-predominantly Tlingit church which grew to include members from other ethnic groups.

Walter Soboleff traveled to remote Alaskan settlements, fishing villages, and even lighthouses as needed by the Presbyterian ministry.

Walter Soboleff became a Tlingit and Native Alaskan advocate for cultural education, human rights and rights of indigenous people in Alaska.

Walter Soboleff died at his home in Juneau, Alaska, on May 22,2011, at the age of 102, of complications from bone cancer and prostate cancer.

Walter Soboleff married his second wife, Tshimshian Stella Alice Atkinson, in 1999.

In May 2015, the Sealaska Heritage Institute opened the Walter Soboleff Building, a cultural and research center in downtown Juneau, Alaska.