Tlingit artist wins competition to visually represent Juneau’s Celebration 2026

Published 1:22 pm Saturday, March 21, 2026

A Tlingit arist has is the winner of Sealaska Heritage Institute’s competition to visually represent Celebration 2026 in Juneau.

Washington-based artist Bill Pfeifer, Jr, (Wéidaaká Yóodóohaa) won with his piece, “Endurance and Strength: The Power of the Clan House.” Pfiefer, who now lives in Montesano, Wash., was born and raised in Ketchikan.

While he’s been creating art since he was a child, he studied computer science at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and Purdue University in Indiana. He took a handful of art and graphic design classes in college, but Pfiefer is primarily self-taught, according to a March 13 news release from Sealaska Heritage Institute.

He was inspired by Celebration 2026’s theme of Enduring Strength.

He said his design is a testament to the stewardship Native communities show each other and the land, which in turn empowers both the people and the place they call home.

“The Tlingit peoples’ strength comes from the matrilineal clan structure embedded into our culture,” Pfeifer said. “It has allowed us to endure through numerous different pressures. It’s because we can lean on each other and learn from each other that allowed us to be so strong as a people in that regard.”

His design features a clan house as the island’s foundation. The news release adds that a protruding tongue, which serves as the entrance, symbolizes the passing of wisdom and the importance of going home to a clan. On either side of the clan house, red hands extend to the earth and water, feeling the pulse of both the land and the sea.

“This reflects a two-way relationship of care: We support the trees and the mountains, and in return, they support us,” Pfiefer wrote in his design submission.

An orca is also shown swimming just below the water’s surface, “further embodying core Tlingit values,” the release says.

“While the clan house is our grounding, the ocean is our opportunity,” Pfeifer said. “We depend on our lineage to sustain each of us as individuals, even as we go out and adventure.”

Pfiefer’s design will be used as the logo on all Celebration 2026 media-related work, including posters, videos, social media, signage, printed materials and retail items.

This year’s theme, according to the release, speaks to how Southeast Alaska Native cultures and cultural values have carried people through many challenges over thousands of years in their homelands.

“We have survived environmental and climate changes, the loss of our lands, public policies that nearly wiped out our cultures, and epidemics that diminished our populations. Yet we survived. We are still here,” Sealaska Heritage Institute president Rosita Worl said.

Celebration is a major dance-and-culture festival held biennially in Juneau since 1982.

Celebration 2026 is set for June 3 to 6 in Juneau.

The lead dance group will be Lepquinm Gumilgit Gagoadim Tsimshian Dancers, which is a multigenerational group from Anchorage formed in 2005.

Sealaska Heritage Institute adds that accommodation in Juneau are limited, so it’s recommended people book hotel rooms early.