20th Century Kodiak Alutiiq Villages
In the twentieth century, Kodiak was home to 14 Alutiiq/Sugpiaq communities. These small towns are descended from ancestral villages where people lived for hundreds of years. Click on a community name to explore its history and see photographs.
Skiffs in the Ouzinkie harbor, 1940s. Photo by Hender Toms, Lamp Collection, Alutiiq Museum.
Afognak village lies behind a long curving beach overlooking expansive Afognak Bay. The settlement is near the mouth of the salmon-rich Afognak River. Alutiiq ancestors settled here for millennia, harvesting the area’s rich riverine and marine resources. The historic village grew from these settlements, a Russian workstation, and a community of Russian families. These separate small settlements eventually coalesced into a single village.
For over a century, Afognak had two distinct parts. Nasqualek—Aleut Town, at one end, was home to Alutiiq families. Taryuq—Russian Town, at the other end, housed retired Russian men, their Native wives, and Creole children. The communities had vegetable gardens, a fleet of wooden rowboats, a schoolhouse, and a Russian Orthodox chapel—the Church of the Nativity of the Theotokos.
Afognak thrived until 1964 when tsunamis generated by the Great Alaska Earthquake flooded the village. Seawater washed away many buildings, damaged others, and polluted wells, forcing residents to move. The International Lions Club led the construction of Port Lions, a new community for Afognak residents on the shore of nearby Kizhuyak Bay.
Although Afognak is no longer inhabited, it is not abandoned. Ties to the village remain strong, and people continue to visit and harvest in the area. The local tribe, the Native Village of Afognak, hosts culture camps nearby.
Aiaktalik village rests on the north shore of Aiaktalik Island at the southern end of the Kodiak Archipelago. Historically, Aiaktalik was one of the largest Alutiiq communities with strong ties to the fur trade. In the Russian era, residents harvested sea otters. In the American era, Aiaktalik was a center of fox farming. By the late eighteenth century, the community had an Alaska Commercial Company store where furs were traded for food and supplies. There was also a Russian Orthodox chapel, the Apostle Andrew the First-Called.
Following the collapse of the fur trade and a devastating flu epidemic in 1918, Aiaktalik families began moving to neighboring Akhiok, Kaguyak, and Old Harbor. The village had no school, so some families left so their children could attend classes. Others moved to be closer to canneries with seasonal employment. The last families left Aiaktalik during World War II, when the local storekeeper, a Japanese man, was sent to an internment camp.
In 1957, some former residents returned to Aiaktalik, dismantled the chapel, and moved the boards to Kaguyak for reuse.
Little Afognak began as a cluster of small hamlets in Duck Bay on southern Afognak Island. The area had seasonal Alutiiq camps and a Russian settlement that coalesced into a village. There was a Russian workstation in the community until about 1830. When the station closed, some Russian settlers stayed to raise families, and the community grew. In the nineteenth century, Little Afognak had a largely Creole population.
At this time, the community was known as Seleznevo. It was named for the Seleznevs—a large, prominent family that built a Russian Orthodox chapel in the village. The community grew potatoes, raised cattle, and hunted whales, and supplied the Kodiak region with these commodities. Village whalers harvested animals from kayaks effectively using the traditional Alutiiq poisoned dart technology.
The village population dwindled in the early twentieth century. Two disasters led to abandonment. First, the 1912 Katmai ashfall decimated plant life. There was little for cattle to eat, and hungry bears killed much of the herd. Then, a 1918 epidemic of the flu killed entire households. Most of the survivors moved away.
Eagle Harbor rested on the southern shore of Ugak Bay, facing Saltery Cove and the rocky capes of Pasagshak. Archaeological finds indicate that people lived here long before Russian conquest, although the first written records of the village are from 1805. In 1838, more than 700 people in the Kodiak region died from a smallpox epidemic, decimating Alutiiq communities. Russian colonists moved survivors to seven villages, often near workstations. Eagle Harbor was one of the relocation villages. Russian traders moved people and a workstation to the village.
The village was well-located for harvesting. Residents hunted sea lions and took large quantities of salmon from area streams. Some families kept cattle, while others worked as trappers and sea otter hunters. The community had a Russian Orthodox chapel and a store. By 1920, families were moving out of Eagle Harbor. Trapping produced little income, the store closed, and people needed jobs. Village families gradually moved to Kodiak, Woody Island, and Old Harbor.
Tucked between the treeless rolling hills of southwest Kodiak Island, Karluk rests on the banks of the salmon-rich Karluk River. The Karluk region was once a population center. Archaeological finds illustrate that fishing families settled the river valley repeatedly for over 7,000 years.
The salmon that supported Alutiiq communities also drew Russian and American colonists to Karluk. In 1786, Russian traders established a workstation beside the lagoon. Here, Alutiiq workers processed fish for shipment to other Russian posts. In 1878, the Karluk Packing Company built Kodiak’s first commercial cannery on Karluk Spit. Other canneries followed. By the late 1890s, millions of salmon were processed annually at Karluk. This intensive fishing depleted the river’s salmon stocks. Efforts to bolster the population with a hatchery failed, and the canneries were forced to close or move.
With careful management, Karluk salmon rallied in the twentieth century. Although the fish population never returned to historic levels, the area still supports large runs. Villagers continue to make a living from these fish, by feeding their families and as sport fishing guides.
In the 1860s, people who were displaced from the village of Qaguyaq—Old Kaguyak by the 1838 smallpox epidemic returned to their homeland. Kaguyak village became a large settlement with many homes, several stores, and the Russian Orthodox Chapel of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul. The community rested on a small spit fronting a freshwater lake at the head of Kaguyak Bay.
Kaguyak was a destination for Alutiiq hunters, who traveled to the village to trade furs for food, tools, and household supplies. Kaguyak’s population waned due to the spread of disease and the decline of the sea otter population. By the early twentieth century, the village had less than a hundred residents.
In 1964, a tidal wave generated by the Great Alaska Earthquake flattened the village, contaminated its freshwater source, and killed two of its residents. Kaguyak was never resettled. Following the destruction, residents temporarily relocated to Anchorage and Kodiak. Eventually, they settled permanently in Old Harbor and Akhiok, where many people had family ties. Kaguyak has not been forgotten. Alutiiq people continue to use the area as a seasonal fish camp, and there is still a Kaguyak Tribal Council.
Surrounded by grassy hills and tundra flats, Akhiok is Kodiak’s southernmost village. The community began as a sea otter-hunting settlement established by Russian traders. Villagers moved several times, settling the present location in 1881. As the fur trade waned, fishing gained economic importance. For decades, many families worked seasonally in area canneries. Today, many Akhiok families fish commercially for salmon, halibut, and crab.
Akhiok has always been a small community. Following the Great Alaska Earthquake of 1964, several families from Kaguyak moved to Akhiok after their village was destroyed. Today, Akhiok has about 65 residents. Community facilities include a gravel airstrip, a public school, a tribal hall, a cemetery, and the Protection of the Theotokos Russian Orthodox Chapel.
On Friday, March 27, 1964, life changed dramatically for the residents of Afognak village. A magnitude 9.2 earthquake ripped open the seafloor off the coast of Kodiak, creating a series of tsunamis that devastated the village. Residents were forced to evacuate as seawater engulfed the community.
With an outpouring of assistance, the village was rebuilt in Settler Cove near the mouth of nearby Kizhuyak Bay. In December of 1964, forty families moved into new houses. They named the community Port Lions in recognition of the generous aid for rebuilding provided by the International Lions Club. About 165 people live in sixty-two houses in Port Lions, making it Kodiak’s second-largest rural community. Only the village of Old Harbor has more residents.
Today, Port Lions is one of a few Kodiak villages served by the Alaska state ferry. The M/V Tustumena links the community with Homer and Seldovia to the north and Kodiak to the east. Port Lions’ deep harbor is also home to commercial vessels, reflecting the community’s economic focus on fishing.
In 1784, Russian traders built a settlement in Three Saints Bay, where Alutiiq hostages were forced to hunt and prepare food for Russian use. In 1793, traders moved the settlement to the present location of Kodiak. The Native community remained and became known in Russian as Starrie Gavan—Old Harbor. Its residents moved several times, finally settling in the present location of Old Harbor.
Old Harbor has long been a refuge for people from other communities. Survivors of the 1838 smallpox epidemic were resettled in the village, and in the twentieth century, people from Aiaktalik and Eagle Harbor joined the community. In 1964, Old Harbor was badly damaged by the tsunamis generated by the Great Alaska Earthquake. Just one of the 35 homes and the community’s Three Saints Russian Orthodox Church survived the flood. Families had to rebuild their homes.
In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, residents participated in whaling at nearby Port Hobron and worked in area canneries processing fish. Commercial fishing became an economic mainstay in the late twentieth century. Today, there are guest lodges in Old Harbor. Residents enjoy sharing the village with visitors and are known for their hospitality.
Kodiak was the second major Russian settlement on Kodiak Island and the first capital of Russian America. It was originally called Pavlovskaia Gavan, Paul’s Harbor, or St. Paul’s Harbor. Although archaeological sites indicate that Alutiiq people lived in the area for millennia, the historic era Native village, Tangirnaq, was on nearby Woody Island.
The name Sun’aq is thought to come from the Russian word for ship, sudno. Sun’aq was originally the name of the Three Saints Bay settlement. When the capital of Russian America moved to Kodiak, the name moved with it.
Today, many Alutiiq families live in Kodiak because it is the economic center of the archipelago with job opportunities, stores, health care, and other conveniences. However, they maintain strong connections with their ancestral villages, returning seasonally to hunt and fish and on holidays to visit family. Many of the city’s Alutiiq residents work in the region’s major industries—fishing, healthcare, and tourism.
Woody Island lies just two miles from Kodiak within a cluster of islands at the north entrance to Chiniak Bay. Alutiiq people lived here for thousands of years. When Russian traders arrived, the largest Alutiiq settlement in the region was on Woody Island. Known by its Alutiiq name Tangirnaq, this village was home to hundreds of residents who called themselves Tangirnarmiut—the people of Tangirnaq. Russians called this settlement Ostrov Leisnoi, or wooded island.
In the historic era, the Alutiiq residents of Tangirnaq were made to work in many enterprises. They hunted sea otters, processed salt, made bricks, and harvested ice for Russian enterprises. In 1893, Baptist missionaries established a church and an orphanage near the village. In the early 1900s, the U.S. Navy built a wireless station on the island. During the Second World War, the Army added a sawmill and a communications station.
In the 1960s, the community’s public school closed, and ferry service to Kodiak stopped. Many families moved to Kodiak. While no Alutiiq families live on the island now, people continue to harvest subsistence foods around Tangirnaq and consider it their home. Tangirnaq Native Village and Lesnoi, Inc. govern Woody Island’s tribal members and lands, respectively.
Tucked deep into the protected shoreline of Uganik Bay’s Northeast Arm, Uganik Village was a small Alutiiq community inhabited until around 1916. Alutiiq people were living in the village when Russian traders arrived on Kodiak in the late 1700s. The community was briefly uninhabited following the 1837 smallpox epidemic when traders moved Uganik survivors to Karluk. However, families moved back in the following decades.
Russian administrative control of Alutiiq labor ended with the Treaty of Cession that sold governing rights to Alaska to the United States. Records suggest that the large, consolidated villages created after the smallpox epidemic were too big for many. As a result, some people moved back to ancestral communities near traditional family harvesting areas. Uganik was one of these places. By 1890, the community was home to about twenty-two people and had a small wooden Russian Orthodox Chapel known as St. John the Baptist.
Ouzinkie lies in the forests of Spruce Island, just ten miles from Kodiak. The village’s name comes from the Russian word uskiy, meaning narrows. It refers to the slender strait separating Spruce Island from Kodiak Island. It also reflects Ouzinkie’s origin as a nineteenth-century retirement community for Russian traders.
In Ouzinkie, Russian traders built ships and raised cattle. Alutiiq people lived in the community, many as the spouses of traders, and in a tiny, nearby settlement known as Elovoe. Twentieth-century residents continued to raise cattle, worked for local canning companies, and supported the defense of Kodiak in World War II. In 1964, a tidal wave generated by the Great Alaska Earthquake destroyed the village waterfront.
Today, Ouzinkie is home to about 100 people, many of whom fish for a living. The community has a Russian Orthodox Chapel and is near a special religious site—Monks Lagoon. With assistance from Ouzinkie residents, the Russian Orthodox Church leads a pilgrimage to the lagoon every August to visit the retreat and grave site of Saint Herman.
Larsen Bay is a cluster of houses, large metal-roofed cannery buildings, sturdy wooden docks, and boardwalks overlooking Uyak Bay. Named for Unga Island entrepreneur Peter Larsen, the present community developed in 1888 when the Arctic Packing Company built facilities opposite the present village.
In 1911, the Alaska Packers Association built a large cannery next to the future site of Larsen Bay village. In about 1930, families living in Uyak Bay began to settle beside the cannery. Gradually, people from nearby Karluk and Uganik joined them. The cannery, which operated seasonally until 2023, provided employment. Today, many Alutiiq families lead guided hunting and fishing excursions around scenic Uyak Bay.
Larsen Bay was once home to a large ancestral village. In the 1930s, Aleš Hrdlička, a physical anthropologist from the Smithsonian Institution, led investigations at the village site. He unearthed many graves over four years of research and removed hundreds of ancestors’ remains. In 1991, Larsen Bay residents secured the return of these remains. It was one of the first repatriations of Native American remains in the United States.
