At Cook Inlet Native Head Start in Anchorage.

Mark Daniels is building a a niilax It's gonna be That part.

won't be as wide as this one.

I'm gonna shorten it a little.

Unanga tribes built intricate frame boats out of driftwood that washed up along the treeless Aleutian beaches.

Waterproofing them with marine mammal skins.

The boats were key for hunting and travel.

And because of that, Russian colonizers demolished the boats.

back in the late 1700s, they were destroyed intentionally by fur seeking companies coming through from Russia to control the Unangaxpeople.

That's how they controlled their movements and were able to dominate them.

But Daniels and others have spent decades trying to recover the lost craft.

Scouring museums and sketchbooks For hints on how to build them.

Deriving clues from boat fragments tucked away in permanent collections.

if you can get access to those, that's where the secrets get revealed.

That's where you can decipher what the master builders were thinking.

Daniels is arguably the leading craftsman in this style of boat making, and he spends a lot of time teaching at culture camps in the Aleutians.

But he's not Alaska native, on I raised that concern with someone, an elder that I respected.

and this person pointed out to me said, you know, you need to quit worrying about that.

It's actually part of our story that we would lose these traditions through the coming of outsiders, but it would be an outsider that returned what had been taken.

so his goal now is to pass his knowledge back to its rightful place with the Unanga people, from to elders, and to create a new generation of builders and teachers.

We'd like to dedicate Unanga to our past, present and future.

Members of the Qagan Tayagungin Tribe in Sandpoint are among those who built a niilax with Daniels this year.

And in July, dancers, musicians and community members from Atka to Anchorage joined them to launch it.

The first time a nigla touched these waters in 200 years.

This is such a moving experience.

You're going to make me cry.

Ethan Petticrew grew up in southeast Alaska after his family was relocated from the Aleutians during World War Two.

He's been working on Unangax revitalization projects for decades, and he was instrumental in the Sand Point launch.

Our people haven't done this since 1800s, and this is such a spiritual, moving moment that I feel so connected to my great grandparents.

I said, walking with them and actually think I feel like I'm paddling with my great grandparents.

Five communities have built niilaxthis year.

Four have been launched.

The fifth in Unalaska is expected to touch water next summer.

In Sandpoint, I'm Theo Greenly.