Installed and dedicated in September 2025, Valdez Rising – Suacit: 'People of the Place That Rises Into View' stands as a powerful sculptural memorial at the entrance of Nayurluku Park at Meals Hill in Port Valdez, Alaska. More than a monument, the work is a layered narrative of place—honoring the people, cultures, and resilience that have shaped Valdez across generations.
The project is the result of a collaboration between Classic Foundry / Seattle Art & Industrial, The Port Valdez Company, Inc., regional Indigenous Alaska Tribes, and the City of Valdez. Together, they created a public artwork that reflects not a single perspective, but a shared history—one marked by cultural encounter, environmental extremes, loss, and renewal.
Classic Foundry was selected for the $250,000 commission through a competitive CODAworx call for proposals in 2021, rising to the top among more than 80 international sculptors. The final selection was made by a community arts committee in partnership with The Port Valdez Company, underscoring the project’s commitment to local voice and civic engagement from the outset.
The installation comprises three monumental bronze sculptures, each measuring 6 by 4 feet. Together, they memorialize the founding of Valdez in the early 1900s by gold prospectors George Cheever Hazelet and Andrew Jackson Meals, alongside their Native guide Tl’adet—also known as “Indian Charlie.” Equally present are the region’s Indigenous peoples depicted in traditional regalia, early European missionaries and settlers, and the broader Valdez community itself. The sculptures also speak to the town’s dramatic environmental context and hard-earned resilience, acknowledging recovery from defining events such as the 1964 earthquake and tsunami and the catastrophic Exxon Valdez oil spill of 1989.
Concept and design were led by American sculptor Gar LaSalle, who worked closely over three years with John H. Clark, President of The Port Valdez Company. Their process was deeply consultative, involving Tribal Elders, the Valdez City Council, Bill Harris of Harris & Sand & Gravel Co., and City Manager Nathanial Duval, who oversaw engineering and site coordination for the park and installation. Initial proposal graphics were developed by Armenian artist Tsovinar Muradyan. Bronze fabrication was directed by Romanian artist Ion Onutan, with patination completed by American artist John Kisma — each contributing specialized expertise to the work’s final form.
Valdez Rising – Suacit is both memorial and mirror. It invites reflection on the complexities of shared history while standing firmly as a symbol of endurance—of a place and its people rising, again and again, into view.
