LOST VILLAGES

OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS

BIORKA.KASHEGA.MAKUSHIN

by

RAY HUDSON

&

RACHEL MASON

As the nation’s principal conservation agency, the Department of the Interior has responsibility 

for most of our nationally-owned public lands and natural and cultural resources. This includes 

fostering the wisest use of our land and water resources, protecting our fish and wildlife, 

preserving the environmental and cultural values of our national parks and historical places, and 

providing for enjoyment of life through outdoor recreation. 

The Cultural Resources Programs of the National Park Service have responsibilities that include 

stewardship of historic buildings, museum collections, archeological sites, cultural landscapes, 

oral and written histories, and ethnographic resources. 

Our mission is to identify, evaluate and preserve the cultural resources of the park areas and 

to bring an understanding of these resources to the public. Congress has mandated that we 

preserve these resources because they are important components of our national and personal 

identity.

Published by the National Park Service, United States Department of the Interior, through the 

Government Printing Office with the assistance of Debra A. Mingeaud.

During World War II the remote Aleutian Islands, home to the Unanga{ (Aleut) people for over 

8,000 years, became one of the fiercely contested battlegrounds of the Pacific. This thousandmile-long archipelago saw the first invasion of American soil since the War of 1812, a mass 

internment of American civilians, a 15-month air war, and one of the deadliest battles in the 

Pacific Theatre. 

In 1996 Congress designated the Aleutian World War II National Historic Area to interpret, 

educate, and inspire present and future generations about the history of the Unanga{ and the 

Aleutian Islands in the defense of the United States in World War II. In a unique arrangement, 

the Aleutian World War II National Historic Area and visitor center are owned and managed by 

the Ounalashka Corporation (the village corporation for Unalaska) and the National Park 

Service provides them with technical assistance. Through this cooperative partnership, the 

Unanga{ are the keepers of their history and invite the public to learn more about their past and 

present.

This project was funded by the National Park Service, Affiliated Areas Program in support of 

the Aleutian World War II National Historic Area, in cooperation with the Aleutian Pribilof 

Heritage Group. 

For information about the Aleutian World War II National Historic Area,

visit www.nps.gov/aleu/ or contact: 

Alaska Affiliated Areas

240 West 5th Ave

Anchorage, Alaska 99501

(907) 644-3503

Ounalashka Corporation

P.O. Box 149

Unalaska, Alaska 99685

Visitor Information

(907) 581-1276

Visitor Center

(907) 581-9944

Lost Villages of the Eastern Aleutians: Biorka, Kashega, Makushin

Ray Hudson/Rachel Mason

Library of Congress Control Number:

ISBN-10: 0985394870

ISBN-13: 978-0-9853948-7-5
II LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

Three Storytellers. Note: All woodbock prints in this publication by Ray 

Hudson. © Ray Hudson. Reproduction in any manner prohibited without 

the artist’s consent.

Front cover: Nicholai Lekanoff, Sr., and his daughter Okalena Patricia Lekanoff-Gregory, Makushin, August 31, 2009. 

Photograph by Lauren Adams.

Title page: Biorka, rain, fog, September 3, 2010. Photograph by Carlene Arnold.
Contents

Preface V

PART ONE: THOSE OLD-TIME PEOPLE 1

Chapter 1 1

Chapter 3 29

Chapter 5 65

Chapter 6 83

Chapter 7 109

PART TWO: THE FINAL DECADES 131

Chapter 8 131

Chapter 9 141

Chapter 12 185

Chapter 13 195

Chapter 14 207

Chapter 15 219

Chapter 16 235

Chapter 17 243

Chapter 18 257

Chapter 19 275

Epilogue 283
IV LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

First and most importantly, 

we want to thank the elders...

“Helping George” at 

Kashega. September 

2, 2010. Photograph by 

Roberta Gordaoff.
PREFACE V

Preface

First and most importantly, we want to thank the elders who shared 

information about Biorka, Kashega, and Makushin. Without their 

participation, this project would have been, if not impossible, certainly 

less meaningful and detailed. In 2004 interviews were conducted with Nicholai 

Galaktionoff, Moses Gordieff, Nicholai S. Lekanoff, Irene Makarin, and Eva 

Tcheripanoff. By the time this book was begun, Irene and Moses had passed 

away. Nick Galaktionoff died a few weeks before it was completed. Special 

thanks go to Mary Diakanoff and George Gordaoff for conversations about 

their memories of Kashega. 

All errors of fact and interpretation are due to our inadequate understanding. 

We would encourage descendants of people who lived in these villages to record 

the accounts that exist within their families, however brief, however insignificant 

they might seem, so that future historians from among Unanga{ themselves will 

tell this story with greater accuracy and depth.

Several individuals preceded us in this project and we have built on their work. 

They include Linda Cook, Yvonne Meyer, Bruce Greenwood, and Annaliese 

Jacobs Bateman. Janis Kozlowski at the National Park Service (NPS) has long 

championed the Lost Villages Project. The project was made possible by the 

enthusiastic support of the Ounalashka Corporation (OC), partners with the 

NPS and managers of the Aleutian World War II National Historic Area. The OC 

generously contributed a Russian Orthodox cross to plant at the site of each of 

the villages of Makushin, Kashega and Biorka.

Carlene Arnold’s 2011 thesis on the evacuation, including interviews with Mary 

Diakanoff, Alice Petrivelli, and George Gordaoff, was of great help. Special thanks 

go to Marti Murray for her heroic genealogical work as a component of the 

Lost Villages Project. Her mini-biographies were especially valuable during the 

writing of the final chapters. We want to thank Mary Diakanoff for photographs 

of Kashega. The photographs from the Alice Moller Collection are courtesy of AB 

Rankin. Thanks also to Jennie Lekanoff for her photographs.
VI LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

Many individuals contributed to this volume: Candace Beery, Anna Jean Bereskin, 

Shawn Dickson, Jeff Dickrell, Okalena Patricia Lekanoff-Gregory, Cora Holmes, 

Alex and Rena Kudrin, Frederick Lekanoff, Michael Livingston, Jane Mensoff, 

John Moller, Michael Swetzof, and Lydia Borenin Vincler. Thanks also to Millie 

McKeown, Cultural Heritage Director at the Aleutian Pribilof Islands Association 

for making its library and archive available. Zoya Johnson provided translations 

from Russian material. Valuable late 19th century material was made available by 

J. Pennelope Goforth’s project, Bringing Aleutian History Home: the Lost Ledgers 

of the Alaska Commercial Company 1875-1897. We thank her for allowing the 

reproduction of a page from one of the ledgers. Debbie Corbett, Peat Galaktionoff, 

and Doug Veltre read the manuscript and made numerous helpful suggestions 

for which we are very grateful. Eileen Devinney skillfully edited and proofread 

manuscripts at several phases of this project. Francis Broderick of Archgraphics 

crafted the book with sensitivity, professionalism, and an eye for details. His 

persistence in rendering words in Unangam tunuu with accurate typography, 

locating historical images, and placing them so they enhanced the text are deeply 

appreciated.

We owe a great debt of gratitude to various archives. These include the National 

Archives and Record Administration in Washington, D.C. and Suitland, Maryland, 

along with its branch facilities in Seattle and Anchorage; Smithsonian Archives; 

National Anthropological Archives; Archives and Special Collections Department 

at the University of Alaska Anchorage; Alaska and Polar Regions Collections 

and Archives at the University of Alaska Fairbanks; Special Collections at the 

University of Washington; the Bancroft Library, University of California; and the 

Department of Special Collections, Stanford University Libraries. Special thanks 

to Tatyana Stepanova at the Alaska State Archives for helping to resolve a difficult 

question about the evacuation.

Each of us is indebted to specific individuals.

Ray Hudson: AB Rankin invited me along on a trip to Kashega in

1994. The late Steve McGlashan made a 1970 visit to Makushin possible. 

Although I met Andrew Makarin and George Borenin in the early 1960s,

I was unaware of the significant roles they had played in their villages. In the 

years prior to the Lost Villages Project, I benefited from conversations with 

Nicholai Lekanoff, Nicholai Galaktionoff, Dora Kudrin, Polly Lekanoff, Alice 

Moller, and Sophia Pletnikoff. Father Ishmael Gromoff and Matushka Platonida 

Gromoff provided translations during interviews with Sophia Pletnikoff, Nick 

Galaktionoff, and Andrew Makarin (this last was conducted by Dorothy Jones). 

I continue to be indebted to Flora Tutiakoff for sharing material from her late 

husband, Philemon Tutiakoff. It has been my honor to work from his copy of 

Kirtland and Coffin’s The Relocation and Internment of the Aleuts during World 

War II. 
PREFACE VII

Rachel Mason: All those who made the visits to Biorka, Kashega, and Makushin 

possible enriched this story. I would like to thank Debbie Corbett for making the 

boat charters possible. Many thanks to Captain Billy and the crew of the Tiĝla{

for their assistance, not only with the boat travel, but with events at the village 

sites, including digging holes to plant crosses. Thank you also to Lauren Adams 

of KUCB, Unalaska Community Broadcasting, as well as Laresa Syvertson and 

Alexandra Gutierrez, for recording the village visits on videotape. Thank you to 

Gregory Jones, Jane Mensoff, Patty Gregory, Josy Shangin, and Roberta Gordaoff 

for documenting our experiences in photographs. I am also grateful for the 

research and field assistance of Shannon Apgar-Kurtz in the early stages of the 

project, and for Marilyn Bost’s help in the final stages.

Finally, a word about the spelling of family names. Contemporary spellings often 

differ from the transliterations used by scholars. For example, today’s Shaishnikoff

family finds its ancestors referred to as Shaiashnikovs. Even among close relatives, 

spelling may differ, as with the brothers Walter Dyakanoff and Cecil Diakanoff. 

When quoting 19th century material directly, that spelling was retained. This was 

often phonetically odd in Alaska Commercial Company documents. Generally, 

scholarly transliterations were used when referring to 19th century individuals. 

When writing about individuals in the 20th century, however, we used spellings 

preferred by contemporary families. Thus, Abraham Yatchemenev (active c. 1850) 

appears as do both Alexei Yatchmeneff and John Yatchmenoff (for 20th century 

individuals). The 19th century Petukhovs became the 20th century Petukoff 

and, later, the Petikoff families. Similar quandaries exist with given names. For 

example, Ivan Denisoff was known as Ivan to his village contemporaries, but 

generally referred to as John in English language records and by exclusively 

English speakers. To force consistency would suggest a misleading cultural 

continuity. Aleut and Unanga{ (with its grammatical and regional variations) are 

used somewhat interchangeably, but with a tendency to employ Aleut in contexts 

where that word was historically used and Unanga{ at other times. Unangan, 

although typographically convenient and easier to pronounce, is the eastern 

plural and not the collective noun.
Ruins of the structure protecting the altar site at the Chapel of St. Nicholas at Biorka. Photograph by Marie Lowe.
 CHAPTER 1: THE THREE VILLAGES 1

PART ONE: THOSE OLD-TIME PEOPLE

Chapter 1

The Three Villages

When Andrew Makarin dismantled and burned the Chapel of St. 

Nicholas at Biorka in the mid-1960s, he formally extinguished the last 

of three traditional villages that had survived thousands of years on or 

near Unalaska Island in the eastern Aleutians.1 Born in 1889, he had become its 

most influential and tenacious resident. But now it was over. The last resident 

of Kashega, George Borenin, had moved away a few years earlier, while the 

third village, Makushin, had succumbed at the outbreak of World War II. The 

war had hastened the end of these three villages, but they had survived into the 

20th century long after others near them had disappeared. What resources had 

sustained them decade after decade? What crises had they weathered? How 

had relationships among them changed? What factors had led to their decline? 

Who had played key roles in their fortunes and misfortunes?

Once the flames from the burning chapel had died out and the ashes had cooled, 

a wooden shell was erected over the site of the altar to protect the consecrated 

ground. Surmounted with a cross, the four-sided pyramidal roof sloped down to 

the walls, the whole standing about five feet above the scorched earth. Andrew 

died a few years later. Decades passed. The few remaining houses collapsed. 

Storms splayed their walls and roofs like playing cards across an arc of land 

resting between a lake and Beaver Inlet, an arm of the Bering Sea. The wild 

rye that floods the shoreline grew closer until it nearly consumed the small 

structure. In 2009 and 2010 the National Park Service, as part of its Lost Villages 

Project, sponsored trips aboard the U.S. Fish and Wildlife vessel Tiĝla{ to the 

three villages for a few former residents, their children and grandchildren. 

1 Only one other traditional village remained in this region—Nikolski, on Umnak Island. For the 

depth and complexity of settlements in the Unalaska Bay area, see Knecht and Davis, “The 

Amaknak Bridge Site.” Called Iliuliuk throughout the 19th century, the village of Unalaska had 

been established by Russians as a fur-trading center between 1775 and 1778. Even as it 

absorbed surrounding villages, its core remained a commercial center controlled by outsiders. In 

a smaller but similar way, Akutan Village was established by late 1876 or early 1877 to meet the 

needs of the Alaska Commercial Company. 
Makushin was reached the first year while Kashega and Biorka were visited in 

2010. At Biorka, Irene McGlashan and Kathy Dirks (Andrew’s granddaughter) 

stood beside a new wooden cross erected near the now crumbling structure that 

had protected the altar site and sang Memory Eternal [Vechnaya Pamyat], the 

concluding hymn in the service for the dead. 

The razing of St. Nicholas Chapel followed by the erection of the protective shell 

and the visit forty-five years later provide fitting metaphors for the Lost Villages 

Project: fire and remembrance. This book is another portion of that project. It 

attempts to trace the history of these three villages through the crucible of the 

late 18th and early 19th centuries, into the initially prosperous decade under 

the United States, and then across the first half of the 20th century that saw 

debilitating poverty, war, relocations, and abandonment. 

The newly planted 

cross at Biorka, 

2010. Left to right: 

Irene McGlashan, 

Frederick Lekanoff, 

Jane Mensoff, 

Kathy Dirks, Brian 

Rankin, Eva Kudrin. 

Photograph by Greg 

Jones.
 CHAPTER 1: THE THREE VILLAGES 3

Map of the Original 

Language Areas in 

the Aleutian Islands. 

Map by Ray Hudson.

Map of the Five Late 

19th Century Groups 

(including the Pribilof 

Islands). Map by Ray 

Hudson.

Village Locations

Biorka, Kashega, and Makushin were villages in an area of the eastern Aleutians 

occupied for millennia by two relatively distinct groups of Unanga{. Over 

thousands of years, linguistic, cultural, and political differences had arisen across 

the thousand-mile chain of islands that were significant enough to produce 

rivalries and wars. There were eight major groups present when Russians first 

ventured into the Bering Sea in the 1740s, after a centuries-long eastward 

expansion across their northern continent.2 By the time the United States 

purchased Alaska in 1867, three groups were gone. Although the wars among 

those that remained had long been over, there were still rivalries and cultural 

differences that endured into the 20th century. 

2 Bergsland and Dirks, Aleut Tales and Narratives, 2-4.
4 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

The remaining five groups had boundaries that differed slightly from those of 

the 18th century. There was a Sasignan village at Chichagof Harbor on Attu in the 

Near Islands—with occasional occupation of a former village on nearby Agattu. 

The once populous region from Kanaga Island in the west to Amukta Pass in the 

east was now represented solely by Niiĝuĝis living in a village at Nazan Bay on 

Atka, a few die-hards who held to the old village in Korovin Bay, and seasonal 

users of scattered hunting and fishing sites in the Andreanof and Rat islands. The 

remaining three groups were found in the eastern Aleutians, an area that extends 

from Amukta Pass, through Umnak, Unalaska, Akutan and Unimak islands to the 

eastern limit of Unanga{ territory on the Alaska Peninsula. These people spoke 

the same basic dialect of Aleut, although there were regional variations. Like the 

other units, these three had names derived from their respective geographical 

positions. The Qawalangin—a word denoting “a location toward the east”—

occupied the area from Amukta Pass eastward to the north side of Unalaska 

Island. This included Nikolski Village near the southwestern tip of Umnak 

Island along with Chernofski, Kashega, and Makushin villages on the southwest 

coast of Unalaska Island. Continuing east, the Qigiiĝun lived from Wislow, on 

the northwest coast of Unalaska Island, through the Krenitzin Islands. This 

included Unalaska or Iliuliuk, along with Biorka and Akutan villages. The Qagaan 

Tayaĝungin—or “people of the farther east”—inhabited the diverse region east 

of the Krenitzins, including Unimak Island and the Alaska Peninsula with its 

adjacent islands. 

By 1867 Unanga{ settlements on St. Paul and St. George in the Pribilof Islands 

were well established. What began as artificial outposts of transient workers 

for the Russian-American Company had jelled into permanent and rooted 

communities by the third decade of the 19th century. The Pribilofs were most 

closely tied to villages in the eastern Aleutians. Nevertheless, until the mid20th century when they broke free from repressive government control, their 

history differed significantly from that of settlements in the Chain. Not unlike 

the two Pribilof Islands, the two Commander Islands off the coast of Kamchatka 

had transplanted Unanga{ settlements. Bering Island had a village primarily 

composed of people descended from Attu residents, while Atka had been the 

traditional home of the people on Copper Island.

Biorka Village was located on Sedanka Island. This island is an extension of the 

southeastern arm of Unalaska Island that forms Beaver Inlet. The two islands are 

separated by narrow Udagak Strait. Sedanka comprises a little over half of the 

southern side of Beaver Inlet. This inlet, along with Makushin and Unalaska bays, 

dozens of smaller bays, protected coves, and deep fjords sculpting the island, 

give Unalaska the longest coastline of any Aleutian Island. Biorka was originally 

located beside a lake in a shallow cove at Sedanka’s northwestern tip. In the 20th

century, people referred to this location as Achuuĝi{ Tana{taqa{ (“Outer Former 

Village”).3 The village itself was called Qakilu{. This name was retained when the 

village moved further inside Beaver Inlet, beyond deep Sisek Cove to a shallow 

3 Bergsland, Aleut Dictionary, 603.
 CHAPTER 1: THE THREE VILLAGES 5

cove at the mouth of Udamat Bay. The name of this cove, Sidaana{, was derived 

from the word for graphite which Unanga{ had added to their pigments to give 

the resulting paint on gut raincoats and other items a glistening appearance.4

This name also appears on the western side of Unalaska Island at Sedanka Point, 

near Kashega Bay. While there in 1761, Ivan Solov’ev, one of the first Russians 

to visit the area, was given a small amount of “silver dye with sparkles used for 

coloring faces.”5

Biorka Village. Map by 

Ray Hudson.

In the 19th century, the village was often called by a variant of the name of the 

bay, Sedanka. In the late 20th century, Irene Makarin referred to the “Biorka 

church house,” as Sedanka kamgaa ula{. The name Biorka appeared sometime 

in the early 19th century. The word is not Unanga{, and who bestowed it and why 

remain a mystery.6 (Apart from loan words, “B” is not found in Unangam tunuu, 

the Aleut language.) In 1809 the same name was used for an island in Southeast 

Alaska. Ioann Veniaminov, the great 19th century priest and ethnographer, spelled 

it “Bor’ka.” George Davidson, an early American geologist and cartographer, 

citing material from Father Innokentii Shaiashnikov in 1867, used “Biorka.” 

Henry W. Elliott called it “Borka” in 1886. The U.S. Bureau of Fisheries recorded 

“Burka” in 1888, and in the 1890 census Samuel Applegate of Unalaska spelled 

it “Borka.” In 1902 Marcus Baker wrote that it was “now commonly written 

and pronounced Biórka.” He said the name came “from the Norwegian Bjerk 

4 Veniaminov, Notes, 96.

5 Ponomarov and Glotov, “The Voyage to Umnak and Unalaska Islands,” 62.

6 rene Makarin distinguished “Biorka” and “Borka” with the former used for the old village and 

“Borka” for the more recent site. The Beginning of Memory, 200.
6 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

Ö or Swedish Björk Ö, meaning Birch Island.”7 This is either highly unlikely or 

remarkably inappropriate for a village among islands where there are no trees.

Makushin Volcano, rising 6,680 feet, dominates the broad northwestern arm of 

Unalaska Island. At the western point of this land mass is Cape Kovrizhka and 

just south of this is Volcano Bay. Makushin Village was originally located here 

along a wide beach at the northwestern entrance to Makushin Bay, a vast body of 

water branching into four other bays and two deep coves. In the 1870s the village 

was moved inside Makushin Bay, close to where another village had once existed. 

The new village was called Ignichiina{.8

Variations of the name Makushin appear in early accounts. The suggestion that 

the name derived from Russian makushka, meaning “the top (of the head),” is 

contravened by its application to the village (and not to the volcano) shortly after 

contact. The volcano was known as Ayaĝin and was not called Makushin until 

the 19th century.9 Knut Bergsland suggests Magusi{ may refer to “soaking” or be a 

reference to the lagoons in the vicinity.10

Kashega’s name evolved from the Unanga{ word Qusii{.

11 Veniaminov called the 

settlement “Koshigi.” Lydia 

Black emphasized that there 

is no evidence the name 

derived from “an alleged 

Russian surname.”12 Unlike 

Biorka and Makushin that 

were situated at the entrance 

to large complex bays with 

numerous villages, Kashega 

Village was nestled inside its 

own relatively small bay. This 

village was one of several 

along the southwestern coast 

of Unalaska.13 Kashega Bay is 

framed by McIver Bight on the 

north and Buck Bight on the 

south with Buck Island 

7 Baker, Geographic Dictionary of Alaska, 98.

8 Nick Galaktionoff in The Beginning of Memory, 152.

9	 The generic terms for volcano, anĝidachalu{ and anĝiĝii, refer to a mountain with a place for

emitting breath or smoke. According to Black’s marginalia in my copy of Sarychev’s Account of

a Voyage, Nick Galaktionoff said the name of Makushin Volcano recorded on page 60, Aijagin, 

referred to any volcano.

10 Bergsland, Aleut Dictionary, 605, 271.

11 Bergsland, Aleut Dictionary, 607.

12 Veniaminov, Notes, 40, note **. It was Sarychev who in 1792 was said to have named the location 

after Yeflm Koshigin who wintered at Unalaska in 1763.

13 A 1986 survey from Kof Point, at the north entrance to Skan Bay, down to Konets Head at the 

southern tip of the island, found sixty-two sites (Douglas Veltre, Allen McCartney, and Jean Aigner, 

Archaeological Survey).

Makushin Bay Area. 

Map by Rary 

Hudson.
 CHAPTER 1: THE THREE VILLAGES 7

between them. Alexander Baranov, the first manager of the Russian-American 

Company, described Kashega Bay as “one of the worst” on the island because of 

winds that hurled out of the west-northwest, northwest, north-northwest “and 

other points of the compass between.”14 The village was located at the 

confluence of streams flowing from two fresh water lakes. The larger and more 

western lake extends into a valley that leads past small streams and freshwater 

lagoons to Kuliliak Bay on the Pacific side of the island. This low pass effectively 

cuts Unalaska Island into two topographical sections. North are the precipitous 

Shaler Mountains that Veniaminov characterized as “high, steep, and 

impassable.”15 The terrain to the south moderates into a series of gentle hills.

Although these villages will 

be explored in detail in the 

course of this book, it is 

important to understand 

at the beginning that they 

were small settlements 

throughout the 19th and 

20th centuries—small but 

incredibly tenacious. While 

their numbers varied, 

each village retained a 

sustainable core. It is also 

important to recognize 

that these villages never 

existed in isolation. They 

were components of the 

social, political, and economic complex that formed the eastern Aleutians. More 

narrowly, each had ties to nearby villages with Biorka associated with villages 

in the area and in the Krenitzin Islands while Makushin and Kashega were 

inextricably bound to Chernofski at the southern tip of Unalaska Island. 

Kashega Village. 

Map by Ray Hudson.

Populations of Biorka, Kashega, and Makushin, 1834-1930

c.1834 1867 1890 1897 1920 1930

1834: Ioann Veniaminov, Notes on the Islands of the Unalashka District. 1984:259-260

1867: George Davidson, Alaska Territory. 1869:222.

1897: C. L. Hooper, A Report on the Sea-Otter Banks of Alaska. 1897:27-29.

1890, 1920, 1930: U.S. Census data

14 Khlebnikov, Notes on Russian America: Parts II-V, 120.

15 Veniaminov, Notes, 94.
8 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

Populations of Biorka, Kashega, and Makushin, 1834-1930

Biorka 44 85 57 48 46 22

Kashega 41 69 46 52 51 38

Makushin 35 49 51 71 33 31

1834: Ioann Veniaminov, Notes on the Islands of the Unalashka District. 1984:259-260

1867: George Davidson, Alaska Territory. 1869:222.

1897: C. L. Hooper, A Report on the Sea-Otter Banks of Alaska. 1897:27-29.

1890, 1920, 1930: U.S. Census data

Sources and Difficulties

A satisfactory history of these three villages would include 

archaeological findings, the collective narratives of the communities, 

and information about the lives of significant individuals. All three areas 

present problems. Biorka and Makushin are especially complicated 

because they were not anchored to specific geographic places. Both 

villages changed physical locations within historic times and yet retained 

distinct identities.

Little archaeological work has been carried out at any of the three village sites. 

Projects have been done in the vicinity of Unalaska Bay—most notably on 

Amaknak Island and at Reese Bay.16 However, only preliminary surveys have 

been made of Beaver Inlet, Makushin Bay, and the southwest coast of Unalaska. 

Generalities about life in the three villages can be inferred from other locations, 

but each year more discoveries are made in various sections of the Aleutian 

Chain and new theories are woven from fragmented data as we struggle to 

understand how, for at least ten thousand years, people adapted in different 

ways to a rich and challenging environment. A fuller account of life at Makushin, 

Kashega, and Biorka will have to await further archaeological research.

Written records about the villages are meager. None was ever the subject of 

a detailed report. They flourished and declined with little attention from the 

outside world. The scant information available comes primarily from two 

sources: first, brief reports submitted to Russian and American officials; and, 

second, Unanga{ oral traditions and memories. The difficulty with reports has 

to do with the need their authors had to impress those in charge, a tendency 

to brag, and an understandable ignorance about the area. On the other hand, 

Unanga{ oral narratives, transmitted over centuries, can be surprisingly 

faithful to the events or at least to the way the events are encapsulated in the 

memory of the people. For an example of this, see William Laughlin’s discussion 

of the integrity of the local account of the 1763/64 Medvedev massacre and 

16 Dumond, ed. Archaeology in the Aleut Zone of Alaska. McCartney and Veltre, “Longhouses of the 

Eastern Aleutian Islands, Alaska,” 249-265.
 CHAPTER 1: THE THREE VILLAGES 9

its confirmation in archaeological findings and historical sources.17 I say 

this despite Veniaminov’s caveat that although “more or less accurate” such 

narratives were “embellished by the imagination of the storytellers.”18 The 

problem with oral narratives centered on Biorka, Makushin, and Kashega is that 

they come to us, in a sense, once removed from the oral tradition. That they have 

arrived at all is remarkable and is almost entirely due to Nick Galaktionoff. In his 

youth he spent time with elders and listened to their stories. Among them were 

his grandmother, Marva Petukoff of Makushin, and his acquaintances Andrew 

Makarin (b. 1889) and Alex Ermeloff (b. 1881) of Biorka. It is important to note, 

however, that traditional inculcation in oral narratives was not part of Nick’s 

childhood training the way it had been for people a generation earlier, such as 

Makarin and Ermeloff. 

William Tcheripanoff of Akutan, born in 1902, explained that a prerequisite to 

learning traditional lore was an interest on the part of the child. Repetition was 

a core pedagogical tool. “Before [the age of] ten the adults let the children watch 

what they are doing,” he said.

The mothers give them stories, stories, stories, you know. The father, 

same way with him.... If he [the child] can’t stand it, well, they let him 

go. They have to have the interest to learn or they don’t teach them. 

That’s what my mother used to do to me. During fine weather like this, 

summer time, I want to play outside but had to sit down inside, in the 

mud-house, grass, you know. She would hold me on her lap and talk 

to me, talk to me.... One time I asked her, “Ma, you tell me that story 

yesterday again.” My mother say, “Ya, Bill, you’re not going to learn it 

now, not next year either. By and by, you’ll learn it.” Now I got it now, 

see? The same way with my father.19

Today’s elders grew up in the mid-20th century and what passes for traditional 

knowledge may actually have its roots in published material or in individual 

memories, rather than in collective village narratives. For example, the erudite 

Philemon Tutiakoff would sometimes deliver a pronouncement about earlier 

Unanga{ practices that, to the uninitiated hearer, might have been mistaken for 

orally transmitted knowledge when, in fact, he had learned it after reading the 

1984 translation of Veniaminov’s Notes on the Islands of the Unalashka District

or some other scholarly work. On the other hand, the fictional account he wrote 

about 18th century Unanga{ has traces of traditional practices that reflect the 

moral and societal norms of his childhood. 

It is appropriate to ask how reliable Nick Galaktionoff was as an informant about 

the “deep past.”20 Reflecting widespread Unanga{ interest in their history, he met 

17 Laughlin, Aleuts,120-126.

18 Veniaminov, Notes, 301.

19	 Hudson, ed., Cuttlefish One, 27.

20 Pratt, “Introductory Note,” 121.
10 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

many of the criteria the anthropologist Ernest S. Burch Jr. set for reliability.21 I 

first met him in 1964 and saw his gradual emergence as an aide to such scholars 

as Knut Bergsland and Lydia Black. Black used him as a principal informant on 

several occasions and wrote that he “is believed by others to be the sole surviving 

authority on ancient whaling lore. The overall time depth of his information 

extends to six generations...., that is, roughly, to the late 18th century.”22 Marva 

Petukoff may have incorporated elements of traditional training when she spoke 

with him; however, the stories Nick conveyed from Makarin and Ermeloff were 

told to him as an older teenager or young adult. Unangam tunuu was Nick’s 

first language and, in repeated tellings, Nick’s versions of these stories remained 

consistent. Information emerged gradually, usually following requests around 

specific topics. Although his interest in what was being said about his people 

led him to gather information from visiting scholars, when he repeated this 

information he often prefaced it with an acknowledgment of its source—just 

as he did when relaying traditional narratives. His virtual blindness excluded 

reading contemporary publications. 

Differing from traditional narratives, the personal recollections so generously 

provided by Nick and a handful of early 21st century Unanga{ need to be 

evaluated the way that all memories are measured: by their internal consistency 

and in conjunction with other accounts and records.

Writing about specific individuals who lived in these three villages presents its 

own challenges. We know there were people of renown in the Aleutians before 

recorded history. Remarkable burials were reserved for them and their families, 

interments that included mummification. There are accounts that personal 

relics—a strand of hair, a dollop of saliva—conveyed something of the power of 

notable elders.23 While individuals strove to attain fame through travels and 

victories in war, a deeply rooted reticence prevented bragging or self-promotion. 

“An Aleut values only the praise and good reputation which others accord him,” 

wrote Ivan Veniaminov.24 The anonymity treasured by these early residents of the 

Chain has resisted our best efforts to pry it loose. Thanks to Knut Bergsland and 

Lydia Black, we have over 160 personal names from the three villages predating 

the adoption of Russian names. Because these names were frequently derived 

from the accomplishments of ancestors, a study of them might reveal clues 

about specific events in the lives of those “long-ago people”—to use a local 

expression. It was not that the name of an ancestor was given to a child, but 

rather the name itself reflected a specific event in the ancestor’s life.25 These 

names, however, were bestowed in context; that is, when an elder named a child 

he did it only after telling the story surrounding the name. The name became a 

device for the preservation of history. Lacking the context, the majority of 

21 Burch, “The Method of Ethnographic Reconstruction,” 125-129.

22 Black, “Whaling in the Aleutians,” 12.

23 Veniaminov, Notes, 224.

24 Veniaminov, Notes, 184.

25 Veniaminov, Notes, 190. See Bergsland’s carefully annotated translation in Ancient Aleut Personal

Names, 59-60. 
 CHAPTER 1: THE THREE VILLAGES 11

ancient names are intriguing, but ultimately mystifying. We can only wonder what an ancestor of a 

Kashega chief did to be remembered in 1792 by the name Quga{ tunuch{ina{ (“Made the spirit 

speak”) or what deeds the ancestor of an old man from Makushin had done to produce the name 

Iĝana{ kuchich{ina{ (“Had the terrible one fished out from boulders”).26 Selected to illuminate one 

moment in a longer narrative, names were unique and were rarely repeated in succeeding 

generations. Unanga{ names did not suggest a continuity of spirit; the reincarnation of an ancestor 

was not conveyed through proper names.27

Beginning in the 19th century, a great many names 

appear in the birth, baptismal, marriage, and death 

records of the Orthodox church. Unfortunately, few 

names can be attached to specific events, continuing 

the difficulty of telling the story of these villages in 

personal terms. The best sources for even skeletal 

accounts are Andrei Grinev’s recent compilation 

Kto Est Kto v Istorii Russkoi Ameriki [Who’s Who in 

Russian American History], published in 2009, and, 

to a lesser extent, Richard Pierce’s Russian America: 

A Biographical Dictionary, published in 1990. Only 

in the 20th century, specifically with the efforts to 

understand the implications of the World War II 

evacuations, do distinct individuals emerge in 

village histories.

Given the difficulties involved in writing about these 

three villages, what value could there possibly be 

in a description of their slow journey to extinction? 

One answer is in understanding the significant 

differences between traditional Unanga{ villages 

and an “urban village” such as Unalaska. In varying 

degrees, these three villages extended the familial 

nature of 18th century communities into the 20th 

century. To describe the small differences that distinguished these three from one another is more 

difficult than to detail how they differed from Unalaska, the regional center for commerce and 

religion. And it is this latter difference that is more illuminating. Survivors of these villages, long 

after the villages had ceased to exist and the residents had moved elsewhere, would proudly identify 

themselves as Kashega people or Makushin people or Biorka people. Another reason is that the 

story of these villages expands our understanding of the impact of World War II on Alaska Native 

communities. A third reason is found in the contributions the last residents made as people today 

reclaim cultural identifiers and redefine what it means to be Unanga{ in the 21st century. There is 

no doubt that the handful of survivors from these three lost villages helped shape contemporary 

Unanga{ identity. They did this by living ordinary lives centered on the seasons, by raising families, 

by speaking Unangam tunuu, by the traditional skills they practiced and shared, by the ways they met 

a host of challenges, and by the stories they told their children and grandchildren. The last gift was 

memory.

26 Bergsland, Ancient Aleut Personal Names, 138, 135..

27 Bergsland, Ancient Aleut Personal Names, 64, 63.

Unalaska.
12 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

Sketch of an “Aleut at Shumagin Island” by Sven Waxell, mate of the St. Peter captained by Vitus Jonassen Bering, 

Second Kamchatka Expedition, 1741. wikimedia.org
Chapter 2

Darkness 

Of all the disconcerting statements in Veniaminov’s great work on the 

eastern Aleutians—and there are several—few are more arresting 

than his assertion that elderly Unanga{ told of famous shamans 

who, long before the first Russians appeared, said white people would arrive 

from the sea and afterwards all Unanga{ would come to resemble them and 

would adopt their customs. These elders also reported that at the time of 

the Russian arrival the shamans began prophesizing that “in the east, over 

their islands,” they saw “a brilliant dawn or a great light” inhabited by “many 

people resembling the newcomers, while in the lower world, of the people 

whom they had seen there before, very few remained” and “impenetrable 

darkness set in.”1

This darkness surrounds the earliest history of Biorka, Kashega, and Makushin. 

Nick Galaktionoff joked that when people asked him where Aleuts came from, he 

would tell them, “Tomorrow I come from Makushin!” By “tomorrow” he meant 

“yesterday” or “that time before.” 

“I was right,” he laughed, “‘cause I was born there.”2

And yet Nick had an older origin story that began when Unanga{ lived on the 

mainland, a time when ice covered much of the coastline.3 Food became scarce 

and animals began preying on villages, taking food and attacking people. The 

chiefs spoke with their people and explained that they would have to go across 

the ice. They covered the bottoms of their open skin boats with seal skin that 

still had the fur on it, and this smooth surface allowed the heavily laden boats 

to be towed. Several thousand people made the journey. As the days went by, 

1 Black translated this phrase as “and it had become impenetrably dark there” (Veniaminov, Notes, 

219). Here I use the translation Ivan Petroff made for the Tenth Census because of its rhythmic 

finality.

2 Nick Galaktionoff in The Beginning of Memory, 120.

3 Nick Galaktionoff in The Beginning of Memory, 119-120.

 CHAPTER 2: DARKNESS 13
14 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

the people became hungry. Children began crying. One infant tried nursing, 

but his mother’s breasts were empty since she had not eaten for days. They were 

starving on the ice. The child’s mother took a small piece of seal fat, inserted a 

stick sideways through it, and gave it to her child who sucked on it and quieted 

down. Some people died on the ice, but being unable to do anything for them, 

they were left there.

When people were fishing off the ice in their kayaks, when it was clear weather, 

they sighted these islands. That’s how they knew where the islands were on this 

side.4 The ice eventually started melting. This was way long time ago, Nick said, 

because now berries grow on these islands. The soil is volcanic and things grew 

up here gradually. Finally people started making themselves grass and mud 

houses, underground. The people were happy. The babies started growing bigger.

When family members died, they wrapped them in seal and sea lion skins and 

put them in a cave. As Nick was telling this story, he mentioned the burial caves 

on Kagamil, one of the Islands of Four Mountains, and this led to an account of a 

later time when the Four Mountain Islands acted as barriers between the eastern 

Unanga{ and traditional enemies from the central and western Aleutians. A chief 

from Unalaska called a meeting of Unalaska and Umnak chiefs. He wanted to 

station lookouts on the Islands of Four Mountains to watch for intruders from 

the west. “Because the west people,” Nick said, “they don’t like us. They want to 

fight the war with us.” Eventually, kayaks arrived from the west, but the people 

from those islands were starving. By positioning their oars straight up, they 

signaled that they had arrived unarmed. The local Unanga{ rowed out and talked 

with them. They gave the westerners food but told them to leave. The lookout 

was kept for years. 

Among Nick Galaktionoff’s most complete accounts are those which center 

on Beaver Inlet. The numerous small villages in the inlet were dominated by 

a village at the east end, near Sedanka Pass, at a location that might very well 

have been Qakilu{ (Biorka Village). “The outside people had seals like sheep,” 

Nick said.5 The chief of this village controlled hunting within the inlet from his 

outpost on top of Old Man Rocks, just beyond Sedanka Pass and off Egg Island. 

The taller of the two prominent rocks is about 100 feet high and flat-topped and 

would have provided both safety and a platform for keeping an eye on activities.6

“These inside villages had a hard time,” Nick said.

They had to have permission from the main village to get their food. 

These villages would get together and talk about hunting. The chiefs 

would go to the main village and ask for food or for permission to hunt 

4 That is, this is how people who later lived in more westward islands had knowledge about islands 

that were to the east. The first Russians to arrive in the Fox Islands were told, with some detail, 

about islands in the east.

5 Nick Galaktionoff, interview with Ray Hudson, April 2, 1976.

6 “Stories from Andrew Makarin, related by him to Nick Galaktionoff,” Hudson, ed., Cuttlefish Two,

54-55.
 CHAPTER 2: DARKNESS 15

sea lion or whale. Sometimes they would get permission and sometimes 

they wouldn’t. They would request a particular number of whales or 

seals. Then the leading chief would set a day when they would be allowed 

into the bay for hunting.7

Adding to the chief’s power, according to Nick, was the fact that hunters traveled 

from as far away as Kashega to secure whales. “Whales stayed to the east,” 

he said.8 Hunting for either whale or sea lion inside Beaver Inlet involved the 

preparation of a rope with magical powers. Once permission had been secured, 

the people—presumably women since making thread and cordage was a task 

men did not do—began braiding grass into a rope that stretched twice from the 

beach to the top of a mountain and back down. This mountain, between Amugul 

and Tanaskan bays, was called Kiichxi{ Kanga{ta{ [has a rope on top].9 When 

finished, the rope was sufficiently long to stretch across the inlet.10

Beaver Inlet Area. 

Map by Ray Hudson.

When the grass rope was ready, two baidarkas [kayaks] would load 

up and get ready, and they would set a watch. As soon as they saw 

something, a sea lion or a whale, come into the bay, the two men in the 

baidarkas would take off and block that pass with the rope. The grass 

would rest on the water and nothing could pass under it.

7 “Stories from Andrew Makarin,” Hudson, ed., Cuttlefish Two, 54-55. Note that this is an edited

account and not a literal transcript.

8 Nick Galaktionoff, interview with Ray Hudson, April 2, 1976.

9 Bergsland, Aleut Dictionary, 603.

10	 See Black’s discussion of this “ritual” rope in “Whaling in the Aleutians,” 16-17, 21.
16 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

Nick said that he did not know where the “poisoned” grass was gathered. 

Bergsland, from additional information supplied by Nick, suggests that female 

hair was incorporated into the braid.11 This would correspond to the prohibition 

of a woman approaching the sea during menses or during the mourning period 

following her husband’s death. If a woman inserted a strand of her hair into the 

seam of a skin boat covering, it repulsed animals and condemned the hunter to 

failure. 

Nick described a communal whale hunt that relied on the skills of select 

individuals who practiced ritualistic behavior. “After the pass was blocked, the 

chiefs would go around and find the best hunters because they couldn’t afford to 

miss getting the animal,” he said. 

“Aleuts planting glass, 

obsidian, and jade darts 

in school of humpback 

whales at Akoon Island, 

Bering Sea, Alaska.” 

H. W. Elliott, 1883. 

National Oceanic 

and Atmospheric 

Administration.

(Hereafter credited as 

NOAA.)

It might take them two or three days to finish the hunt. The hunter 

who speared the whale would have to cut the spear out of the animal 

and leave some of the meat still on the spear. He would cook the meat 

and fat over an open fire. The hunter would have to eat the meat first. 

Nobody would touch the whale until the next day to see if that guy 

was still all right. The reason nobody would touch it until the next day 

was because the people used poisoned tips for hunting the whale. You 

couldn’t tell who was using it or what was being used, so they let the 

hunter eat it first. 

These small villages were like families, I think. They would come in 

and the chiefs would sit down and give orders for dividing the meat.... 

After butchering the whale, two or three days of partying followed. The 

second chief would take several men and return to the main chief and 

11 Bergsland, Aleut Dictionary, 237.
 CHAPTER 2: DARKNESS 17

tell him what had happened—if they got the whale or what. If they 

didn’t get the whale, they would have to report that also. Sometimes 

if they failed to get the whale they would have to tell what special 

poisons or weapons they had used.

In Nick’s account of the Russian arrival, several events are compressed into a 

single narrative. A chief told the people that “a different people from somewhere 

else” would arrive someday. And so the watch in the Islands of Four Mountains 

continued until, on a clear morning, a ship was sighted coming from the west. 

The chief sent kayaks to villages across Unalaska Island and east as far as the 

Peninsula, warning people. Pretty soon, people from Biorka, Akutan, Chernofski, 

Kashega, Makushin, and other villages arrived. 

As the Russian boat approached shore, the chief sent four men to the beach, 

including one of the second chiefs, while other men hid. The Russian ship 

dropped anchor. Unanga{ had no word for anchor, so they used the word 

for a retrieving hook, qayu{tan achisix. Four Russians lowered a skiff and as 

it approached, one of the Unanga{ waved. There was no response. “Taya{ 

kusutuungin,” the Unanga{ said to the second chief, “Angry people.” He waved 

again. This time a Russian, holding a rifle, waved back. After the strangers had 

landed, misunderstanding led to gunfire. The second chief gave the prearranged 

signal and the Russians were surrounded. Three were killed and one was brought 

to the first chief who was pleased, hoping to learn the stranger’s language from 

him. Meanwhile, Unanga{ overpowered the sailors on board the ship, taking a 

large knife from one of them, but finding nothing on the ship except food. The 

chief told them to not eat any of the food, but to save the containers and remove 

the sails, ropes, guns and knives. Then the ship was filled with rocks and sunk.

That Makushin and Kashega played pivotal roles when Russians arrived in the 

eastern Aleutians is clear from existing reports. With Ivan Solov’ev as his 

foreman, Stepan Glotov brought the Julian to the southern tip of Umnak Island 

on September 1, 1759, where the vessel was greeted by spears hurled from atlatls. 

Two of the crew were killed, while Savin Ponomarev, the government 

representative aboard, and the skipper Glotov were wounded.12 Nevertheless, 

Glotov exercised restraint. With the dogged persistence of the early skippers, he 

began hunting and exploring around Umnak and the southern end of Unalaska 

Island while cautiously extending friendship. “And through this kindness and 

friendliness and comradely attitude towards the natives,” Ponomarev’s 1762 

report recorded, “the Russians succeeded, on the two designated islands they 

had explored, in bringing those natives together with all their companions under 

the rule of Her Most Powerful Majesty and inducing them to pay the tribute in 

12 Umnak oral tradition held that Sasiman was the “name of one of two old men who killed the 

first Russians who came and anchored inside the reef (outside present Nikolski).” Bergsland, 

Aleut Dictionary, 342, citing field notes of Gordon H. Marsh from Afinogen K. Ermeloff and Anton

Bezezekoff and “Ethnological Notes on the Aleuts” by Charles I. Shade. See also Laughlin, Aleuts, 

121, for Sasiman as one of the key participants in the attack against the Medvedev party.
18 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

furs.”13 When Glotov left the islands in late 1762, with over a thousand fox pelts in 

addition to a healthy cargo of sea otter skins, he had established temporary 

friendships with two chiefs on Umnak and three on Unalaska.14 Three Unalaska 

chiefs were named in the report, two of whom can be identified by village. 

Umakush was a chief of Ikalĝa (or Chernofski). Siida{ [Sedak or Sedan] was chief 

of the village at Umsalux or Sedankin, a village just south of Kashega at Sedanka 

Point. Ponomarev and Glotov understood that Unanga{ were willing to become 

Russian citizens, to pay the tribute in furs, and to welcome Russian vessels to their 

shores. How little they actually understood became clear on Glotov’s next voyage.

Promyshlenniks

of the Yeniseysk 

Governorate, Siberia 

collecting yasak

(tribute—likely sable 

pelts) from the 

indigenous people. 

Painter unknown, 

19th century, The 

Krasnoyarsk Krai 

Museum.

Promyshlenniks soon arrived in the Fox Islands, creating a notoriety that 

became the stereotype for all Russian fur hunters: brutal, bestial, selfish, with 

voracious appetites for women and furs. They showed few if any of those traits 

that ultimately resulted in friendships and alliances in the Central and Western 

Aleutians a few years later. Perhaps the most brutal voyage was that of men 

13 Andreyev, Russian Discoveries, 21. Originally, the iasak was a tribute or tax in furs paid to the 

sovereign by Siberian tribesmen. This duty was laid on Aleuts as they submitted to Russian 

authority and, in a sense, the success of the collection of the iasak was a reflection of the success

of colonization. In 1788 Catherine II abolished iasak collection in the Aleutians and gradually the 

practice ceased.

14 For the names of the chiefs, see Andreyev, Russian Discoveries, 21. Makarova wrote that there 

were 400 Umnak people under the two chiefs and about 300 on Unalaska under the three chiefs. 

(Makarova, Russians on the Pacific, 82, note 128.)
 CHAPTER 2: DARKNESS 19

aboard the Gavriil from 1760 to 1762 under the merchant Ivan Bechevin and the 

seaman Gavriil Pushkarev. Even though forty of the promyshlenniks from this 

vessel were convicted of crimes and sentenced to forced labor, their atrocities 

produced a prolonged and coordinated offensive attack by Unanga{.

Four ill-starred vessels sailed into the eastern Aleutians the next year. Between 

1763 and 1764 approximately 166 promyshlenniks died at the hands of outraged 

Unanga{. The best known of these encounters were those involving Petr Druzhinin 

and his men aboard the Sv. Zakharii i Elisaveta at Igunok Bay, known today as 

Captains Bay, and Denis Medvedev and his crew on the St. Ioann at the southern 

tip of Umnak Island. The slow demise of men aboard the Sv. Nikolai, commanded 

by Luka Nasedkin in Isanotski Strait near the eastern end of Unimak Island, is less 

documented. The story of the fourth ship, the Sv. Zhivotvoriashchaia Troitsa under 

Ivan Korovin, provides insights into the roles played by Makushin, Chernofski, and 

possibly Kashega in this coordinated and pivotal encounter between Unanga{ and 

Russians.

Korovin had arrived in Makushin Bay by mid-August 1763. Until December he 

had surveyed the area, divided his men into hunting parties (one for Volcano 

Bay and one for Konets Head at the extreme southwest tip of the island), taken 

aboard the interpreter Kaschmak [Qasmax] who had worked earlier with Glotov, 

and exchanged letters with Druzhinin and Medvedev. On December 8 an 

Unanga{ woman warned of an impending attack. On the same day three men 

from Druzhinin’s ship arrived over the mountains with news of their defeat. Soon 

seventy armed warriors affirmed both stories.

Unanga{ attacks at Captains Bay and Umnak employed similar tactics. Several 

bundles of choice furs, bound with tightly knotted cords, were carried to the 

Russian camps. Either while the Russians struggled to untie the knots or after 

they had set aside the knives used to loosen the bindings, Unanga{ struck. At 

Captains Bay two local men were killed before all the Russians were annihilated 

near the small stream where they had hoped to winter. Among the details that 

Alex Ermeloff told Nick Galaktionoff were these: after the Russians were killed, 

Unanga{ stormed the ship, poured flour and other provisions overboard while 

saving the emptied sacks, wooden boxes, knives, axes and anything made 

from iron. One man attempted to salvage the ship’s anchor, but it wouldn’t 

budge. Six baidarkas were used to tow the vessel into deeper water where it was 

destroyed.15

Druzhinin died in the first skirmish at Captains Bay. His men who were camping 

in small groups in nearby villages and coves were hunted out and killed. From 

among the men camped in Beaver Inlet, six escaped and made their way to 

Kalekta Bay only to discover the signs of another rout. For several months these 

Russians lived a precarious existence above the hills of Captains Bay, assisted by 

an Unanga{. Eventually launching a crude baidar, Druzhinin’s men skirted the 

15 Nick Galaktionoff, personal conversation with Ray Hudson, August 27, 1991.
20 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

northern shore of the island and took refuge in a cave near Makushin Bay until 

the end of March 1764, when they were united with their countrymen aboard 

Korovin’s vessel.

“Scene of the 

Conflict between 

Promyshlenik & 

Natives on the 

Island of Umnak 

& Unalaska from 

1763-1765” History 

of Alaska, 1730-1885

by Hubert Howe 

Bancroft. Repository: 

Loussac Library, 

Anchorage.

From December 1763 to the end of April, Korovin and his men rebuffed 

occasional attacks that confined them to the Makushin Bay area where their 

vessel had been beached. In late April, with the vessel now in the water, they 

fled under strong winds that turned on them and two days later drove the 

Troitsa ashore on the northeast side of Umnak. Torn by harsh winds and facing 

incessant attacks, they made their slow way south, hoping to join Medvedev’s 

party. They arrived in late July and found all of their compatriots dead.

The Unanga{ attacks had been successful. People might have expected to 

return to lives centered on the sea. Summer had arrived with incoming salmon. 

There would be sea lions, seals, and sea otters to hunt. A shaman might discern 

through dreams the location of a beached whale. The women would harvest the 

long luxuriant stalks of beach grass for mats and baskets. Salmonberries and 

blueberries and that true berry, the moss berry, would ripen again.16 The year 

would provide time for women to repair or replace the intricately sewn and 

embroidered clothing of the village. Driftwood could again be bent into bowls 

and shaped into the hats that were lavishly painted. Stone, bone and ivory could 

16 Referring to the mossberry (Empetrum nigrum), Veniaminov noted, “The Aleuts pick and preserve 

only these berries for the winter.” Notes, 25. Because the berry does not tear on picking, it can be 

preserved by immersion in water or oil. See also Tikhmenev, A History of the Russian-American 

Company, 499, note 21.
 CHAPTER 2: DARKNESS 21

be carved into lamps, spear points, needles, bushings for the wooden frames of 

the skin boats, amulets, images of the deity. Enemies would certainly come once 

more: Koniags from the east, marauding bands of disaffected Unanga{.

Yet who should arrive again but Stepan Glotov. In July 1764 he returned to the 

Fox Islands on the Sv. Andreian i Natal’ia after having spent a difficult time at 

Kodiak Island. At Umnak he rescued Korovin and other surviving Russians. Then 

in September Ivan Solov’ev appeared at Unalaska on his own vessel, the Sv. Petr 

i Pavel. The two skippers learned first hand of the effective assaults. Previous 

friendships proved transient when Chief Siida{ from Umsalux was apprehended 

by Solov’ev in late September 1764 after a brief skirmish in which four Unanga{ 

were killed. This chief had been among those whom Glotov had counted as 

submissive to Russia in 1762. A few days later, upon the arrival of Korovin and 

fearing his revenge, the chief’s men unsuccessfully attempted to free him and six 

of them were killed. In October Solov’ev released him on the condition that he 

leave his son as hostage.

Near the beginning of November 1764, Solov’ev reconnoitered the shores 

of Makushin Bay in the vicinity where It{aada{, also identified as a chief of 

Chernofski, and Qagumaga, the chief of Makushin, along with one hundred 

eighty villagers were hunting migrating fur seals.17 Winter was approaching and 

seal migrations were practically over. Having left their breeding grounds on 

northern islands (the Pribilof Islands) known to Unanga{ but so far hidden by 

fog and distance from the foreign hunters, the seals would supply villagers with 

food, oil, and material for clothing and tools. In late spring or early summer the 

fur seals would once again seek out Aleutian passes as they swam north from 

warmer waters. In decades to come, government officials would attempt to curb 

or halt the hunting of fur seals by men from Chernofski, Kashega, Makushin, and 

Biorka.

At the approach of winter, green had gone from all but the most protected valleys 

and snow had started its uneven descent down the mountains surrounding 

Makushin Bay. The landscape was acquiring the starkness of rock and crushed 

grass as It{aada{ and Qagumaga escorted the Russians to Makushin Village 

(Magusi{) which had a “hot spring below the sea mark, which is only to be seen 

at ebb tide.”18 Later Qagumaga led Solov’ev to another village at Reese Bay, most 

of whose people fled at their approach. The Russians summarily appropriated 

this settlement, set up camp, destroyed three hundred hunting spears and 

ten rare bows and arrows used in war, and seemed surprised when that brave 

man Inghluuguza{ leading over two hundred villagers returned and attacked. 

Nineteen Unanga{ were killed, including Inghluuguza{ himself—“one of their 

17	 Whenever possible the spelling of Unanga{ names has been coordinated with the spelling in

Bergsland’s Ancient Aleut Personal Names.

18 Coxe, Account of the Russian Discoveries, 137. Also, J. L. S., Neue Nachrichten, 37. Information 

on the 1763-1766 conflicts was also provided by Lydia T. Black in a series of lectures at Unalaska

in 1985.
22 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

leaders, and the most inveterate fomenter of hostilities against the Russians.”19

In this skirmish the secondary chief Agaladok was captured and his release 

made conditional on surrendering his son as a hostage. And then Solov’ev had 

urged Agaladok to be cooperative. To be cooperative and submissive were not 

attributes It{aada{ cherished, but by the end of January he had agreed with 

Qagumaga to increase the tribute in furs paid to Solov’ev. Shortly after that 

Qagumaga and other Unalaska chiefs “with a great number of their relatives” 

made further overtures of cooperation and friendship. 

Russians called these early chiefs toions, extending a Kamchatkan term 

to cover a position known as tukux by the people themselves. The best 

description of their positions dates from the 1830s—almost sixty years later. 

Veniaminov characterized early Unanga{ villages as generally small collections 

of related individuals led by paternal figures whose main duty was to keep the 

boundaries of the villages inviolate. As Nick Galaktionoff suggested, these small 

villages were like families. The chiefs were expected to work like other men, 

were not given dictatorial powers nor extended overt honors. Nevertheless, 

to insult or injure them was to invite retribution from villagers. The chief was 

assisted by a secondary chief and backed by elders of the village; indeed, early 

observers noted that whereas little deference was paid to chiefs the elders were 

always held in high esteem. A loose confederacy of villages sharing familial 

ties was headed by a paramount chief with powers analogous to village chiefs 

but whose leadership was essential for wars and major hunting expeditions. 

He received tribute from his subordinate villages and was the only leader who 

accumulated riches from his position. From the scant historical records it is 

impossible to accurately categorize leaders like It{aada{ within this hierarchy 

of chiefs. 

We do not know the name of the chief from Kashega. He may have been among 

those who made peace with the Russians. One argument for this is the fact 

that Solov’ev soon established his headquarters at this location. It{aada{, 

unlike other chiefs, refused to reconcile with the intruders and all winter 

eschewed contact with the Russians. The confederacy that had eliminated one 

hundred sixty Russians and destroyed their vessels was coming apart. Siida{ 

and Inghluuguza{ had attacked, but Inghluuguza{ was dead and Siida{, with 

his son as hostage, was wavering. Qagumaga and others were attempting 

reconciliation with the Russians.

Winter in the Chain intensifies after January. During the months when nothing 

grew, the months called Earlier and Later Famine,20 scurvy decimated the 

Russians camped at Kashega Bay. Between the middle of March and the end of 

May twenty men died and so many others were debilitated that only a dozen 

could defend themselves. From off shore, It{aada{ surveyed the camp from his 

19	 Coxe, Account of the Russian Discoveries, 139. J. L. S., Neue Nachrichten, 139. Solov’ev said

Inghluuaguza (was responsible for the attacks on Druzhinin and Korovin (Black lecture).

20 Bergsland, Aleut Dictionary, 574. Several variations exist for the names of months.
 CHAPTER 2: DARKNESS 23

iqya{ [kayak], always staying far enough away to avoid a direct confrontation 

until May 27, 1765, when he was intercepted by armed Russians and escorted 

to Solov’ev’s presence. Although Solov’ev deduced that the chief had planned to 

surprise his guards and burn his vessel, he nevertheless set him free in a week 

with the exhortation “to desist from hostilities.”21 To assure that the people did 

not attack, Solov’ev again destroyed all spears, bows and arrows, and skin boats 

he could find. Solov’ev saved one bow to send to St. Petersburg in 1766 as part 

of an ethnographic collection. This may be the only Unanga{ bow in Russian 

collections and one of very few in existence.22

That summer It{aada{ watched the Russians regain their strength. By mid-July 

enough were back on their feet to enable the skipper to pilot two open boats 

around the northern end of the island. He entered the large complex body of 

water later known as Unalaska Bay. On his way, he continued his preemptive 

destruction of weapons and boats. Among groups of people fishing for salmon 

in the various streams flowing into Unalaska Bay he found the villagers 

from Uknadax (Hog Island) and from a village belonging to Chief Imaginak 

(Umĝasingan, later Imagnee, at Morris Cove). Solov’ev continued along the 

shore in a northeasterly direction, passing two wide bays, until he reached the 

deep north-facing Kalekta Bay. Here where a stream flows across abundant 

clam beds on one of the few sandy beaches on Unalaska Island he was greeted 

by sixty men and one hundred seventy women and children.23 Encouraged by 

this favorable reception, reassured by his extensive destruction of weapons, 

Solov’ev returned to his headquarters at Kashega and outfitted a hunting party 

under his foreman Gregorii Korenev. Leaving for Kalekta Bay on September 19, 

1765, the Russians distributed fox traps to It{aada{ and Qagumaga in Makushin 

Bay. It{aada{ accepted them, perhaps knowing that those who had appeared so 

friendly a short time ago would now meet the Russians with hostilities. Indeed, 

on November 1, twenty-six Unanga{ were killed in an attack against the Russians 

at Kalekta.24

On January 19, 1766, Chief It{aada{ summoned a band of warriors and launched 

a raid against Solov’ev. The chief and fourteen of his men were killed.25 Solov’ev’s 

response was systematic and brutal. He continued to destroy weapons and boats 

in villages on Unalaska and thus extinguished the people’s abilities to defend 

or feed themselves.26 It is alleged that following the burning of one fortified 

village he had two hundred bodies tossed into the sea and that he sank two 

large open boats of people traveling to visit relatives. One of the most notorious 

attacks conducted under Solov’ev involved people living in Beaver Inlet, very 

probably residents of Biorka Village. Several villages had escaped to Egg Island, 

21 Coxe, Account of the Russian Discoveries, 142.

22 Black, Aleut Art, 132.

23 Coxe, Account of the Russian Discoveries, 143.

24 Coxe, Account of the Russian Discoveries, 144. J. L. S., Neue Nachrichten, 145.

25 Coxe. Account of the Russian Discoveries, 145. J. L. S., Neue Nachrichten, 145, refers to “the 

perfidious Itchadak.”

26 Black, “Early History,” 94-95.
24 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

off Sedanka Island. Twice the Russians attacked and on their second assault 

they broke through. The slaughter that followed was general: men, women and 

children. This accusation, however, is suspect because Solov’ev left no record of 

traveling that far east. He sent his foreman Gregorii Korenev to Beaver Inlet and 

the deeds of this man may have devolved upon his skipper. Veniaminov wrote 

that oral tradition maintained that “Solov’ev himself did not cause as many 

Aleuts to perish as his companions who were on neighboring islands.”27 It was 

in the Krenitzen Islands that a promyshelennik, displeased that a girl had eaten 

his piece of whale meat, cut open her stomach. Another Russian, according to 

Veniaminov, “threw from cliffs, slashed with a knife (which he always carried 

with him) and used an axe handle on some unfortunate Aleuts for no other 

reason than for having dared to look at his mistress (who died only in 1838).”28

Berkh, who attempted to clear Solov’ev’s name of the horror associated with it, 

wrote in 1823:

Most of those guilty of murdering the Russians paid with their lives. 

The avengers hearing later on that the islanders, afraid of a surprise 

attack, had gathered three hundred strong in a fortified dwelling went 

there at once. The islanders began to shoot arrows from apertures, but 

receiving bullets in return, they decided to barricade all the openings 

and wait quietly for their fate. Solov’ev, seeing that this building could 

not be breached easily, put intestines filled with powder under it and 

blew these unlucky children of nature into the air. Many escaped after 

the explosion, but were cut down with guns and sabers.29

As rival merchants sought to discredit competitors, it was advantageous to 

portray others as cruel and exploitative of the local population, a stance at odds 

with the government’s policy. Thus the most notorious example of Solov’ev’s 

cruelty—the summary and capricious execution at Kashega of nine Unanga{ 

whom, with three others, he is accused of binding one behind the other to 

determine the force of a single musket shot—is probably apocryphal. Black wrote 

that this charge was a favorite one employed by 18th century writers.30 Martin 

Sauer, writing in 1802, supported this accusation against Gregori Shelikhov at 

Kodiak.31 The charge against Solov’ev predates Sauer’s and appears in a complaint 

made by Unanga{ of the Unalaska District on June 7, 1789, but this is still a 

quarter of a century after the event was said to have happened.32

By the time the Russian-American Company received its monopoly in 1799, the 

malfeasance of promyshlenniks was fixed in mythology if not in fact. Perhaps 

these stories of unmitigated cruelty were of some comfort to people suffering 

the repression of a domineering commercial firm. Veniaminov, writing over a 

27	 Veniaminov, Notes, 252. See also Black’s footnote in Notes, 96-97, note *.

28 Veniaminov, Notes, 255.

29 Berkh, A Chronological History, 41.

30 Black, note *, in Veniaminov, Notes, 252.

31 Sauer, An Account of a Geographical and Astronomical Expedition, appendix VII, footnote.

32 Dmytryshyn, Crownhart-Vaughn, and Vaughn, Russian Penetration, 369.
 CHAPTER 2: DARKNESS 25

half-century after the events of the 1760’s, referred to “those dreadful times” 

and to the “cruel acts against the Aleuts.”33 Glotov is accused of destroying the 

inhabitants of Samalga Island and the Islands of Four Mountains where, on 

Chuginadak, he reportedly killed the men and left the women to starve or to 

move to Umnak. He also destroyed the villages on the southern side of Umnak. 

The people of Carlisle, again according to Veniaminov, were destroyed by Glotov 

at the request of the people of Umnak. These were undoubtedly years of intense 

turmoil not only between Russians and Unanga{ but among groups of Unanga{ 

as well. Not all the people of the Islands of Four Mountains were killed, however. 

Enough remained to offer resistance to Afanasii Ocheredin in 1766 and to other 

skippers a bit later.34

“View of Shelekoff’s 

Establishment on the 

Island of Kadiak” 

by Martin Sauer. 

From Expedition to 

the Northern Parts 

of Russia, 1802. 

Repository: Loussac 

Library, Anchorage.

During his last voyage to the Aleutians, which began in 1771, Solov’ev set up 

headquarters, not at Kashega, but at the deep and protected harbor on the north 

side of Unalaska Island where Druzhinin had camped. Here he established a 

base for fur hunting operations. Although hostilities continued and Unanga{ 

boasted, “We will kill all of you too, as we have already killed many Russians in 

the past,”35 the outpost attracted more Russians and became consolidated. In the 

autumn of 1774 a vessel commanded by Dmitri Bragin arrived and a period of 

calm began. In early summer, 1775, Solov’ev readied his vessel for sailing home. 

He distributed gifts to people who had collected at the harbor and urged them 

to keep peace with Russian ships.36 In succeeding decades, this first permanent 

Russian outpost in Alaska became the settlement of Iliuliuk, the village of 

Unalaska.

The years of overt hostility were over. Starvation and diseases exacerbated 

the violent conflicts between Russians and Unanga{. We do not know 

with any certainty how many Unanga{ perished during the two decades 

that began with Solov’ev and Glotov’s arrival and ended with Solov’ev’s 

departure. When Glotov first hunted near Kashega and Makushin, he 

found it difficult to estimate of the number of people because “the island 

was very large and its residents moved from one location to another.”37

33 Veniaminov, Notes, 251.

34 Black, Atka, 44.

35	 Masterson and Brower, Bering’s Successors, 83.

36	 Masterson and Brower, Bering’s Successors, 84.

37 Smith, J. L., ed., The Russian Discovery of the Aleutian and Kodiak Islands, 62.
26 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

Oral traditions had placed twenty-two villages on the island when the 

Russians arrived.38Given the number of village sites that even incomplete 

archaeological surveys have suggested, that number is small unless it 

refers to self-identifying communities and not to the proliferation of 

seasonal and shifting locations where they lived. Whatever the magnitude 

of loss, Biorka, Kashega, and Makushin had survived the conflagration 

that had consumed so many of their neighbors. For them, for the time 

being, the shamans who had predicted the absorption of Unanga{ into 

another way of life were wrong.

38 Veniaminov, Notes, 90. 
 CHAPTER 2: DARKNESS 27
28 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

“A Woman of Unalaska wearing a tubular cloak and standing on the top of a house.” Watercolor by John Webber, 

July 1778. Courtesy British Library. Reference no: Add.Ms.15514 f.15. Record no.: C3119-0.
Chapter 3

Respite

Portrait of James Cook with false, painted 

frame by John Webber, n.d., National Portrait 

Gallery, London.

 CHAPTER 3: RESPITE 29

T

he best accounts of conditions in the Chain for the years immediately after 

Solov’ev’s departure center in the vicinity of Biorka. 

They are found in journals kept during the two 

occasions James Cook anchored his ships off Beaver Inlet 

in 1778. The deaths of stalwart chiefs like It{aada{ and 

Inghluuguza{ led Unanga{ leaders to abandon hostilities, 

to accept the inexorable arrival of Russians, and to 

recognize the inevitability of coexistence with foreigners. 

On their part, organizers of fur gathering expeditions 

realized that the more Unanga{ leaders they could recruit 

or groom the better were their chances when it came to 

securing hunters. Skilled Native hunters had become 

essential with the decrease in animal populations that 

accompanied the multiplication of hunting expeditions. 

The first economic boom had begun. Cook’s visits suggest 

that Unanga{ life had entered a brief period of stability in 

which competition among companies allowed a degree 

of political and economic independence during a time 

of comparative calm and prosperity. This brief respite 

preceded the gradual emergence of the Russian-American 

Company. A century later, conditions were paralleled 

during the years between the sale of Alaska in 1867 and the 

growing dominance of the Alaska Commercial Company in the 1870s.

By late June 1778 Cook had brought the Resolution and the Discovery up the 

northwest coast of North America, down the Alaska Peninsula, and along the 

southern side of the Krenitzin Islands. On the morning of June 27, he approached 
30 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

Unalga Pass in thick fog. The moment shallow water was detected, the anchors 

were dropped. As the fog gradually lifted, the men’s astonishment rose. They had 

sailed between two high pinnacles, narrowly missing disaster. Several men 

recorded astonishment in their journals. Cook wrote, “The Island we were now at 

I called Providence from the providential escape we had in first making it.”1 Once 

he learned the local name, however, he began using that.

Detail from “Chart of the 

N.W. Coast of America 

and the N.E. Coast of 

Asia, Explored in the 

Years 1778 and 1799,” 

showing Cook’s route 

west along the Alaska 

Peninsula, to Unalaska, 

and reurning east. 

London, Wm. Faden, 

Geographer to the 

King, Charing Cross. 2nd 

edition, January 1, 1794. 

Image courtesy Ray 

Hudson.

In the Aleutian Islands, the beginning of summer resembles the beginning of 

spring elsewhere. Yellow thick-necked cowslips crane out of swamps. Deep blue 

violets and white stalked hyacinths crouch in thick-bladed grass as it inches its 

way above the crushed and bleached remnants of previous years. Within weeks 

the arrogant wild rye, beach grass, overpowers everything along the shores and 

lower hills. This was the time whales migrated north, and, as Cook brought his 

ships around the northern tip of Sedanka Island into the mouth of Beaver Inlet, 

1 Beaglehole, Journals, Vol. III, Part One, 390, n.2.
 CHAPTER 3: RESPITE 31

men in baidarkas were towing two whales toward a village.2 The wind slackened 

and the ships dropped anchor. A few men in iqya{ and ulu{ta{ (one- and twohatch kayaks) approached to make hesitant exchanges with the sailors. “They 

rather seemed shy,” Cook wrote, “and yet seemed to be no strangers to Vessels 

in some degree like ours, and had acquired a degree of politeness uncommon to 

Indians.”3 Had he known their recent history, he would have been astounded that 

they approached at all.

Enlarged view 

of highlighted 

selection on chart, 

preceeding page, 

showing the islands 

from Kodiak to Atka. 

Image courtesy Ray 

Hudson.

After spending the night at anchor, the ships entered Unalga Pass the next 

morning. Sighting a harbor off the south side of the channel and needing 

fresh water, they attempted to enter but wind and tide drove them beyond its 

entrance. While Cook and Charles Clerke, second in command, struggled to keep 

their ships from being swept back through the pass, Unanga{ deftly maneuvered 

around the vessels in their kayaks. The ships dropped anchor just outside the 

harbor until the rush of tide was over. Before noon the rowboats began towing 

the vessels into the long narrow bay Unanga{ called Samgan udaa.

4 After Cook's 

departure, Russians referred to the bay as Anglinskaia Bukhta or English Bay. 

There was no village in the bay. Nevertheless, curious Unanga{ arrived. Four of 

the Englishmen hired a guide for a few leaves of tobacco to take them to a 

settlement. The men included the assistant surgeon David Samwell, Lieutenant 

2 See Elliott’s description and drawing of whaling in this vicinity a century later in Our Arctic

Province, 152-153.

3 Beaglehole, Journals, Vol. III, Part One, 390.

4 Bergsland, Aleut Dictionary, 602-603. Possibly “bay of snouts.” Udaa means “bay” in Aleut.
32 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

John Gore, and John Webber, the official expedition artist. The fourth participant 

may have been William Ellis, the surgeon’s mate aboard the Discovery, who left 

drawings that probably date from this excursion. Lieutenant King, although not 

part of this group, wrote that the village was “over the hills on the East side of the 

harbour.” Leaving English Bay on July 4, the men climbed a steep but frequently 

used trail for about a mile and a half. A map prepared at this time shows a break 

in the mountainous terrain on the east side of the bay that may have been their 

route as it corresponds to a ravine that reaches the crest of the ridge before 

descending into Deep Bay in Beaver Inlet.5

Sketch of the Harbour 

of Samganooda on 

the Island Oonalaska 

“English Bay.” Image 

courtesy Ray Hudson.

The village they visited and the small bay where it was located were both called 

Uuchuyuux, a name that may have been related to the sucking currents in nearby 

waters.6 Russians called the village Bobrovskoye, using the same word they applied 

to the entire inlet. The English, not knowing what to look for, saw no sign of a 

village other than a few people milling about and large numbers of split fish 

drying on racks. 

5	 Joppien and Smith, The Art of Captain Cook’s Voyages, 195.

6	 Bergsland, Aleut Dictionary, 603. Clerke said Unanga{ called the village “Se’zar’nuck”

(Beaglehole, Journals, Vol. III, Part One, 1334).
 CHAPTER 3: RESPITE 33

“Natives of Oonalashka 

and their Habitations.” 

This 1790 engraving 

was made for Bankes’ 

New System of 

Geography, published 

by royal authority. 

While based on John 

Webber’s original work, 

this engraving was 

reversed for the original 

publication. It has 

been corrected here. 

Image courtesy Francis 

Broderick.

In Webber’s drawings the slopes bordering the bay are crusted with rocky 

outcroppings. The foreground has low grass and tall flowering plants that are 

probably lupine although the leaves more resemble those of monkshood. In 

one of Ellis’s drawings, the ground cover is even lower than what is shown in 

Webber’s sketch. Samwell’s only comment apart from noting “a few low Bushes 

of underwood here & there” was that “the Hills present nothing but barreness 

being covered with wild Heath only & that not every where.” Samwell and the 

others saw men busy near the shore. An upright kayak rested on the ground 

while another leaned on its side against a post. A third was raised upside down 

between two sets of curved driftwood supports, the bow and stern resting 

where the curved pieces touched. These were all single hatched, as was a 

kayak being carried ashore by two men on either side of the hatch. The iqya{ 

was light and could be easily carried by a single person, and so this one was 

probably weighted with fish. Although Samwell referred specifically to halibut, 

the fish drying may also have included cod and perhaps even early salmon. 

When dried they were stuffed into sea lion stomachs. Nick Galaktionoff said 

that after being prepared, the sea lion stomachs were thoroughly dried, rolled 

and put away until needed when they were softened by soaking for two or three 

days. These containers were strong and could be jumped on in order to pack in 

around two hundred fish.7

7 Nick Galaktionoff, interview with Ray Hudson, April 1, 1976.
34 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

In his sketches, Webber detailed a circular fish net on a pole, the netting probably 

made from fine sinew with which Unanga{ made exceptional cordage. A gut 

raincoat was draped over a fish rack to dry, and a net covered rectangular frame 

rested near the ground. As the English approached the beach, the path 

terminated at the top of a knoll where people were resting. The women stood 

back, but the men came forward, greeted them with polite bows, and gestured 

toward a pole that rose from a square hole. Samwell was “much surprized” at 

finding himself on top of a dwelling. There were seven or eight of these 

communal homes at Deep Bay. “We descended down a Ladder made of a thick 

piece of wood with steps cut in it,” Samwell wrote in his journal, “into a dark & 

dirty Cave seemingly under ground....” He provided a detailed description of the 

dwelling while Webber made preliminary sketches from which he later prepared 

a drawing that became the famous engraving “The Inside of a House, in 

Oonalashka.” From these we get a fairly detailed description of what dwellings at 

Biorka would have been like.

Briefly, the Unanga{ home, ula{ or ulaagamax (or barabara as it came to be 

called by the Russians and subsequent visitors to the islands), was a large, multifamily dwelling. A frame of whale ribs and driftwood was erected in a rectangular 

pit, dug about three feet into the ground. Dried fresh grass was laid over the 

frame and this was covered with sod. Two overhead openings provided the only 

light in the structures. One opening held the notched log used as a ladder while 

the other was opened for ventilation. A central passage way was surrounded 

by living quarters. Individual family areas were separated with grass matting. 

Above each apartment were frame and mat covered lofts for storage. Only 

archaeological research will reveal the extent to which the dwellings at Deep 

“The Inside of 

a House, in 

Oonalashka,” by 

John Webber. Tinted 

engraving courtesy

Francis Broderick.
 CHAPTER 3: RESPITE 35

Bay and Biorka shared characteristics with those complex structures recently 

unearthed at other sites.

Webber’s interior drawings included bentwood containers with sinew and 

wooden handles, extended and rolled-up mats, bundles of grass, and what may 

be sea lion or seal stomachs used for storage of oil or dried fish. There were 

a number of grass baskets (including one partially folded fish basket) and a 

raincoat draped over a pole. With one curious exception, no fishing or hunting 

weapons were included in any drawing, nor did Webber sketch any bentwood 

visors or full crowned hats although both were observed and collected. A 

drawing of the inside of a barabara by William Ellis may show two open 

crowned visors stored over the end of a post. The exception in the depiction of 

implements or weapons is mystifying. What appears to be a strung bow hangs on 

a post on the left in one drawing. The English were emphatic about the absence 

of any offensive weapons (not realizing, of course, the effectiveness of the sea 

otter and whale spears if an offensive weapon were needed). Bows and arrows 

were primarily restricted to warfare. This small bow, however, does not resemble 

the weapon drawn by Levashov in 1768 or that in the collection of the Museum 

of Anthropology and Ethnography in Leningrad.8 It may represent the type of 

bow that formed part of a fox trap (chalkana{).9 It may be the handle of a bentwood bowl being slowly dried into shape. It may, however unlikely, have been a 

child’s toy.

“Man of Unalaska” 

by Captain Mikhail 

Levashov, 1768. From 

an atlas of drawings 

by M.S. Levashov in 

the Hydrographic 

Section, Ministry of 

Marine, Petrograd. 

Image courtesy Francis 

Broderick.

Webber’s drawings inside the barabara are remarkable, especially since they were 

done with little light. “They are rather dark,” Samwell wrote about the dwellings, 

8 Liapunova, Essays, 28, 102.

9 Bill Tcheripanoff and Sergie Sovoroff in Hudson, ed., Unugulu{ Tunusangin, Oldtime Stories, 151-

152.
36 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

“A Woman of Unalaska,” by John Webber (original sketch). Museum of the Aleutians.
 CHAPTER 3: RESPITE 37

“having no light but what comes by the Door or Hatchway.” Unanga{ had lamps, of 

course, and eventually the English would write about them, but for this visit they 

chose to keep their visitors in the dark.

More than anyone else, Cook is responsible for portrayals 

of Unanga{ as a conquered people, a population of slaves. 

He referred to “the great subjection the Natives are under” 

and called them “the most peaceable inoffensive people 

I ever met with.”10 Webber’s Unalaska drawings, at once 

perceptive and Arcadian, contribute to this view twenty 

years after the first Russians arrived. A closer examination 

of the expedition’s journals and drawings suggests 

something else. As the four men returned from Deep Bay 

and reached the crest of a hill overlooking English Bay, 

they met a man and a woman. While he may have been 

the subject of one of Webber’s drawings, she definitely 

was. Several drawings of her exist, one of which was later 

engraved and is known as “A Woman of Oonalashka.” 

In the drawings and engraving, although positioned 

for a three-quarters portrait, she has turned her eyes to 

confront the viewer with assurance, curiosity and humor. 

The impression this “very beautiful young Woman” made 

on the hikers is reflected in her portrait and in Samwell’s 

journal. “We were all charmed with the good nature & 

affability with which she complyed with our Wishes in 

staying to have her picture drawn,” he wrote,

& with what readiness she stood up or sat down according as she 

was desired, seeming very much pleased in having an opportunity to 

oblige us. She was withal very communicative & intelligent & it was 

from her I learnt that the Name of the Harbour where the Ships lie is 

Samgoonoodha. We gave her Husband all the Tobacco we had about 

us, and made her a present of Beads & other Trinkets with which she 

was well pleased, & so we took our leave of them, highly delighted 

with our short Excursion, more particularly with the affable & obliging 

behaviour of this beautiful & truly good natured young Woman.11

There are variations among the drawings, but in each the woman is tattooed 

across the cheeks and from the lower lip to the chin. She wears an assortment of 

jewelry: earrings, a necklace, a circle of beads from the septum of the nose, and 

an elaborate “winged” labret. Her hair is cut in bangs above the eyebrows, hangs 

to just below the ears, and is gathered at the back of her head in a type of figureeight. In 2001 the original sketch, “A Woman of Unalaska,” returned permanently 

to Unalaska. Purchased from an auction house in Sydney, Australia, the drawing 

10 Beaglehole, Journals, Vol. III, Part One, 458, 459.

11 Beaglehole, Journals, Vol. III, Part Two, 1124-1125.

An engraving based 

on John Webber’s 

original sketch “A 

Woman of Unalaska.” 

Image courtesy Francis 

Broderick.
38 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

was acquired by the Museum of the Aleutians through the generosity of business 

firms, the Ounalashka Corporation, and individuals.

Although Cook himself left no account of meeting this woman, he was impressed 

by the bearing of an older woman whom he saw during a walk on the beach at 

English Bay. “There was a middle aged woman among them,” he wrote after 

seeing a group of people enjoying a meal of fresh halibut, “of such a mien as 

would at all times and in all places command respect.” While everyone else 

was dressed in gut raincoats and bird skin parkas, she wore a “seal skin” parka 

trimmed with fur fringes to which puffin beaks were attached (like small bells). 

A middle-aged woman in 1778 would have been at least a teenager twenty 

years earlier when Russians first came to the Fox Islands. This woman had 

witnessed the conflicts that had descended on the island and had survived with 

a composure and dignity that awed the great navigator. To say that Unanga{ had 

become slaves, had become nothing more than hapless victims, is to ignore the 

testimony of this woman’s presence and to deny the vitality and intelligence of 

the younger woman Webber sketched.

“Portrait of an 

Unangax male, 

perhaps ‘Yermusk,’ 

who was taken 

aboard Captain 

James Cook’s vessel, 

the Resolution, after 

his kayak capsized, 

28 June 1778.” 

Watercolor by John 

Webber, 1778. British 

Library, Reference 

no: Add.Ms.15514 

f.22, Record no.: 

C3119-03.
 CHAPTER 3: RESPITE 39

While the ships were still anchored outside Samgan Udaa, Unanga{ brought 

their kayaks up and began trading fishing implements for tobacco. Once a trade 

was completed, a man would take off his hat in acknowledgement and repeat the 

word “Russ.” One young man upset his kayak while trading. Now Unanga{ were 

among the paramount kayakers of the north and it is unlikely that the plunge the 

man took into the cold water was anything except deliberate. The sailors quickly 

lifted him out while his companions took his kayak to shore. On board the 

Resolution he was invited into Cook’s cabin. Somewhat to the captain’s surprise, 

he went without hesitation. He was offered dry clothes that he put on with all the 

ease of a European. 

His dress was an upper Garment like a Shirt, made of the large gut 

of some sea animal, probably the Whale, and an under garment of 

the same shape, made of birds skins dressed with the feathers on 

and neatly sewed together; the feathered side he wore next his skin: 

It was mended or patched with pieces of silk stuff and his Cap was 

ornamented with two or three sorts of glass Beads.12

Cook did not give the man’s name. Samwell recorded it as Yermusk. Lydia Black 

discovered in the consistory records of Yakutsk that his Unanga{ name was 

Kagulu{.13 Having changed into dry clothing, he spent the afternoon aboard the 

ship. One of the first things he did was to ask for a piece of tobacco followed by 

a pinch of snuff. The English decided to follow up with the next “luxury” that 

gentlemen were accustomed to sharing and offered him a small drink of alcohol. 

However, with a show of good humor, he refused it and amused the seamen by 

staggering around the ship as though drunk. He was able to point to Kamchatka 

on a map. Lieutenant King understood him to say that people from Kamchatka 

were among them, that there were people with a light complexion like the 

English and people with a darker skin tone like himself living there. All of these, 

that is the Russians and the people from various Native groups of Kamchatka, 

“wore crosses, to which they paid a peculiar reverence.”14 Kagulu{, it would seem, 

was not baptized although, if Edgar is to be believed, he had “been with the 

Russians from a Child.”15 King later decided that he had, in fact, been baptized.

Although the surgeon, William Anderson, was the finest linguist aboard, he was 

too ill with tuberculosis to give his attention to Kagulu{. The first Aleut/English 

vocabulary lists were made by Samwell and King who wrote that Kagulu{ “spoke 

sentences to us in that Language.” At the end of his stay the young man “went 

ashore enriched with Presents of Tobacco & other things which Capt Cook gave 

him.”16

12 Beaglehole, Journals, Vol, III, Part One, 391-392.

13 Bergsland, Ancient Aleut Personal Names, 20.

14 Beaglehole, Journals, Vol. III, Part Two, 1426.

15 Beaglehole, Journals, Vol. III, Part Two, 1359.

16 Beaglehole, Journals, Vol. III, Part Two, 1121.
40 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

The “innate good Disposition” of the Unanga{ had impressed Samwell. He 

conceded this behavior was due in part to the “frequent Visits of the Russians 

from Kamtschatka.” Cook and his men could do little more than speculate 

about conditions among the people on the island since they shared no common 

language with either Unanga{ or Russians. Cook wrote, “...as to honisty they 

might serve as a pattern to the most civilized nation upon earth.... They are 

remarkably cheerful and friendly amongst each other, and always behaved 

with great civility to our people.”17 He attributed this behavior to both the 

length of time the Russians had been at Unalaska, “to judge from the great 

subjection the Natives are under,”18 and to “some severe examples” the Russians 

had made “before they could bring them to any order.” For Cook, the ends 

justified the means, however ignorant he was of both, because “the most happy 

consequences have attended, and one sees now nothing but the greatest 

harmony subsisting between the two Nations.”19

By July 3, the fog had cleared and the English sailed out of the harbor and to 

the north. Three months later they returned to Unalaska Bay where Cook kept 

to the western side of Amaknak Island until, after taking an Unanga{ aboard 

the Discovery as a pilot, he again entered the familiar waters of Samgan Udaa

on October 3. He remained twenty-three days. This October visit is most 

notable for meetings with Russians, about whom the English were invariably 

confused and often wrong. This was, of course, largely due to having to rely 

on pantomime and gestures for information. The Russians, in turn, were not 

averse to dissimulation as was evident from the contradictory information they 

supplied to simple questions. 

Peter Natrubin was the first Russian seen by Cook’s crew although they mistook 

him for a Native. Shortly after Natrubin’s visit, an Unanga{ arrived whose 

“dress & Cap were conspicuous from their superior beauty & ornaments.”20

King recognized him as Unanga{ and not Kamchatkan because of the labret 

hole in his lower lip. He met Captain Cook and requested a letter that could 

be sent to Kamchatka (and no doubt shared with the Russians back at the 

settlement). Cook prepared a note containing the names of the ships and their 

commanders. King gave the visitor a few metal crosses which “he receivd... 

with great Awe & respect.” The visitor explained how the Russians and 

Kamchatkans hung such crosses about their necks and crossed themselves. 

King deduced that their visitor was probably a Christian himself. The same 

man returned on the 7th with letters and fish pies for both Cook and Clerke. 

On receiving the fish pie, Cook remarked upon this “very singular present 

considering the place.” He described it as “a rye loaf or rather a pie made in the 

form of a loaf” with some salmon highly seasoned with pepper inside. Clerke 

was more effusive and said the salmon was very good, was “nicely season’d with 

Pepper & Salt, and the Crust, which was made of Rye Flour, was well raised and 

17 Beaglehole, Journals, Vol. III, Part One, 459, 468.

18 Beaglehole, Journals, Vol. III, Part One, 458.

19 Beaglehole, Journals, Vol. III, Part One, 459.

20 Beaglehole, Journals, Vol. III, Part Two, 1444.
 CHAPTER 3: RESPITE 41

light.”21 Neither Cook nor King identified this visitor with the young man who 

had come aboard the Resolution in June. Only Samwell made this connection.22

In July Kagalu{ had been described as wearing a feather parka that was patched 

and a cap ornamented with two or three beads. Perhaps following his daring 

first meeting with the English, his leadership abilities had been recognized. 

Now his “dress & Cap” were superior to most, more fitting for an envoy from the 

Russian settlement. Knut Bergsland confirms Kagalu{’s identification and adds 

his baptismal name, Yelisey Pupyshev. 

John Ledyard described him as “a comely young chief” and he volunteered to 

accompany Kagalu{ to the Russian settlement at Iliuliuk. They took a somewhat 

circuitous route, spending one night at a village on the way. For the last segment 

of the trip, Ledyard had to travel inside a kayak, “which I did not very readily 

agree to,” he wrote.

however, as there was no other place for me but to be thrust into the 

space between the holes extended at length upon my back and wholly 

excluded from seeing the way I went or the power of extricating myself 

upon any emergency. But as there was no alternative I submitted thus 

to be stowed away in bulk, and went head foremost very swift through 

the water about an hour, when I felt the canoe strike a beach, and 

afterwards lifted up and carried some distance, and then set down 

again, after which I was drawn out by the shoulders by three or four 

men, for it was now so dark I could not tell who they were, though I 

was conscious I heard a language that was new.23

Thus, something like a sack of potatoes, the first Englishman arrived at Iliuliuk. 

He was taken to a barabara and when the door opened he saw to his joy and 

surprise that he had been led by two Europeans. The dwelling was 

particularly long, he thought. On each side was a rough plank 

platform on which a number of people sat. Ledyard invariably 

called them Indians. He made little distinction between Unanga{ 

and the various people from Kamchatka. They bowed to him as 

he continued down to the far end where the Russians were 

gathered and where he was given a seat on a bench covered with 

furs. A change of clothes was brought to him: a blue silk shirt, a 

pair of pants, a fur cap, some boots and a gown. “All of which,” he 

wrote, “I put on with the same chearfulness they were presented 

with. Hospitality is a virtue peculiar to man, and the obligation is 

as great to receive as to confer.” A table was set up in front of him 

and Kagalu{ set out the bottles of spirits, the tobacco and snuff and 

other items Ledyard had brought and these were presented on 

behalf of Captain Cook. The Russians explained that they were all 

21 Beaglehole, Journals, Vol. III, Part Two, 1333.

22 Beaglehole, Journals, Vol. III, Part Two, 1121.

23	 Munford, John Ledyard’s Journal, 93-94.

Catherine II of Russia 

by Johann Baptist von 

Lampi the Elder, circa. 

1780. Kunsthistorisches 

Museum, (Vienna) Inv.

Nr. GG_7131. 

wikipedia.org
42 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

subjects of the Empress Catherine of Russia. Those formalities over, Ledyard was 

given boiled whale, halibut fried in oil, broiled salmon, and rye bread. The 

Russians did not join him in the meal but set about enjoying the rum he had 

brought, which they drank straight. Ledyard’s bed was very comfortable with furs 

above and below him. Before he dropped off to a sound sleep, he saw the Russians 

and Natives silently assemble for their evening devotions. 

The next day, after a steam bath, a dose of brandy, and a breakfast of smoked 

salmon and ship’s biscuit, he visited the Russian vessel. Snow had fallen during 

the night and this provided an excuse for him to remain an additional day when 

he was taken across the bay in a baidar, the large open skin boat, rowed by a 

dozen oarsmen. He was accompanied by “three of the principle Russians and 

some attendants.” 

The arrival of the three Russians with Ledyard created a sensation. The entire 

crew “from the Captain downwards” was moved by meeting Europeans so far 

from home. “To see people in so strange a part of the World,” wrote King, “who 

had other ties then that of common humanity to recommend them, was such 

a novelty, & pleasure, & gave such a turn to our Ideas & feelings as may be very 

easily imagined.”24 The English accounts provide sketches of two Russian leaders 

with whom Unanga{ from the three villages had dealings along with a general 

description of the peaceful if somewhat distant relationships between Unanga{ 

and Russians.

The first of these was Gerasim Grigor’evich Izmailov, the commander of the 

outpost at Iliuliuk. He had left the settlement on September 2 to compile census 

information at Umnak, the Islands of Four Mountains, and other locations, and 

consequently had not met Ledyard.25 As soon as he had returned from his trip to 

the west and had learned of Cook’s arrival, he had set off to meet him. Ismailov 

had been at Unalaska with the Krenitsyn and Levashov expedition from 1768 to 

1770. In 1776 he became Ivan Solov’ev’s successor in the Fox Islands when he was 

hired to captain Solov’ev’s former vessel, the Sv. Pavel. His crew included men 

from Solov’ev’s voyage, and on arriving in the Fox Islands he occupied Solov’ev’s 

old outpost on the north side of Unalaska Island.

Izmailov arrived at Samgan Udaa on the afternoon of October 14and was given 

“bundles of fish and other things” by Unanga{.26 In the meantime, Cook had 

gone to visit the village in Deep Bay. On learning this, Izmailov set off around 

Fisherman Point and Brundage Head into Beaver Inlet. He arrived seated in 

the center hole of a three-person kayak, accompanied by twenty or thirty men 

in single hatch vessels. On landing his men immediately constructed a tent. 

According to Cook they used “materials which they brought with them, and then 

they made others for themselves of their Canoes paddles etca which they covered 

24 Beaglehole, Journals, Vol. III, Part Two, 1445.

25 Beaglehold, Cook and the Russians, 3.

26 Beaglehole, Journals, Vol. III, Part Two, 1140.
 CHAPTER 3: RESPITE 43

with grass, so that the people of the Village were at no trouble to find them 

lodging.” Once the tent was ready, Izmailov invited Cook inside and served him 

berries and dried salmon, the best he had to offer under the circumstances. “He 

was a sencible intelligent man,” wrote Cook, “and I felt no small Mortification 

in not being able to converse with him any other way then by signs assisted by 

figures and other Characters which however was a very great help.”27 Cook and 

Izmailov met aboard the Resolution the next day, Thursday, the 15th, and on 

Friday, the Russian visited Clerke on the Discovery before departing. He returned 

on Monday with his charts and stayed aboard the Resolution until Wednesday. 

Izmailov’s intelligence and energy, thought Cook, would have served him well in a 

more prestigious position. “He had a quick & lively manner,” wrote King who gave 

him instruction in the use of Hadly’s octant, a gift from Cook himself. Samwell noted 

his Russian dress and the brace of pistols that he carried. Most Russians wore clothes 

similar to that used by Unanga{ and which Izmailov perhaps also wore on normal 

occasions. His dress during this visit, however, brought attention to his position. “He 

did not forget to let us know he was one of the chief Russians in Nowan: Alatchka 

(Unalaska Island), wrote Edgar before declaring, “which he is I believe beyond a 

doubt.” Izmailov, of course, had as high an opinion of his country as the English had 

of theirs. On the two evenings he spent aboard the Resolution he drank enough to 

become intoxicated, and then “you would suppose he could not be less than the 

prime minister to the Emperess,” declared Edgar, “& she of course the best sovereign 

& russia the best part of the world, & the russian sailors & soldiers preferable to all 

others.” 

 “A little more modesty on the side of this chief,” concluded Edgar, “would have 

made him much more agreeable.” Two days later a more reserved Russian 

arrived. Iakov Ivanov Sapozhnikov traveled from Umnak where he was foreman 

of a hunting party. He was captain of the Sv. Evpl [St. Euplus], owned by several 

merchants who were in competition with those who had outfitted Izmailov. 

Sapozhnikov was from Suzdal, an ancient city southeast of Moscow. His 

modesty did not prevent him from making clear that his origins were superior 

to Izmailov’s. King caught this point immediately: “This Gentleman was a native 

of Moskow, & valued himself upon being an old Russian.” And then he added, 

“Ismyloff was born at Jakouts [Yakutsk].”

Sapozhnikov had left Kamchatka in late September 1773. He and his men had 

gathered furs for several years in the Fox Islands and near Isanotskii Strait, 

at the tip of the Alaska Peninsula. For three years beginning in July 1775 he 

had worked cooperatively with Potap Zaikov, who hunted to the east while 

Sapozhnikov remained at Umnak. In May 1778 Zaikov returned and the two 

firms divided the furs they had secured. Shortly after this, word of Cook’s 

arrival reached Umnak and Sapozhnikov went to Unalaska where Natrubin 

accompanied him to English Bay.

27 Beaglehole, Journals, Vol. III, Part One, 450.
44 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

“This man seemed to be the very reverse of all the other Russians,” wrote Cook. 

“He had a great share of Modesty and would drink no strong liquor, which all 

the other were immoderatly fond of.” He was able to inform Cook about 

conditions at Petropavlovsk, including the prices of various articles the English 

would need, with more accuracy than had Izmailov. He requested to be allowed 

to take a gift to the commander of the outpost at Kamchatka. Cook sent a small 

hand telescope. The following year Sapozhnikov left the Fox Islands and 

reached Kamchatka with 52,520 rubles worth of furs, 1,590 rubles in tribute 

from the Aleuts, the telescope, a report about the English explorers, and Cook’s 

packet containing his chart of the North Pacific and his letters to the admiralty 

and his wife.28

After five years in the Aleutians, Izmailov returned to Russia in 

1781 with an above average take of furs.29 From 1783 to 1786 he 

was skipper on the Three Saints (Tri Sviatitelia—The Three Church 

Teachers), next to Bering’s two ships the most famous Russian 

vessel of the 18th century. With Gregorii Shelikhov aboard in 1783, 

Izmailov anchored the Three Saints at Unalaska for repairs and 

to take on water and four Unanga{. He subsequently helped 

Shelikhov in his ruthless subjugation of the people on Kodiak 

and Afognak Islands.30 In 1794 he again brought a new vessel, also 

named Three Saints, into Unalaska, this time with Archimandrite 

Ioasaf and nine other clerics or religious personnel aboard as part 

of the first religious mission to Alaska. He died in 1796 or 1797. 

The Russians conveyed to Cook the idea that subduing the 

Aleutian Islands had been relatively easy. Establishing control 

over the mainland, however, still met opposition from people they described as 

“treacherous” and “perfidious.” Several men, including Ismailov, showed scars 

from battle wounds. Clerke did not doubt the truth of these encounters but 

he thought the Russians (whom he admired as honest fellows) may have been 

disingenuous in decrying their misfortunes. After all, he declared, they were in 

effect seizing another people’s country, forcing them to become “Tributaries to 

they don’t know who,” and when they attempted “by stealth or any other Means” 

to keep what belonged to them they were destroyed “without Mercy.”31 Obviously 

the Unanga{ and the Russians (along with the English) had conflicting views 

about what was going on.

The following year, King met an elderly Kamchatkan in Petropavlovsk who 

maintained fighting in the Aleutians had erupted over nothing more than a 

misunderstanding. From the description of the encounter, this man may have 

been one of the few survivors of the 1763-64 Unanga{ attack on four Russian 

vessels.

28 Pierce, Russian America, 442.

29 Berkh, A Chronological History, 104-105.

30 Pierce, Russian America, 206.

31 Beaglehole, Journals, Vol. III, Part Two, 1336.

Chinese Emperor Hongli 

(1711-1799) in court dress. 

The Mandarins were 

the original catalyst for 

the Aleutian sea otter 

harvest, prizing its pelt for 

trimming hats and robes. 

Payment for a single skin 

was 80 to 100 rubles—

roughly the annual wage 

of a Russian fur laborer in 

the North Pacific. Original: 

hanging scroll, color 

on silk, Palace Musem, 

Bejing.
 CHAPTER 3: RESPITE 45

They [the Russians] met with better success in the Islands to the West 

of Alashka having reduced them, tho not without losing a number of 

men & killing still a much greater number of the natives. An old man 

a Corporal of the Kamskadales at this village was among the first that 

went & is all over scars. He told me that only 5 out of a hundred in the 

party he was with returned alive to Kamchatka after having been eight 

years away. He said with a great deal of simplicity that they fought with 

the natives because they could not make them understand paying 

tribute, but that after some years when they could talk with them & 

explain what this tribute meant, all went on very peaceably. Indeed by 

his own account there were not many left to be fractious, however he 

gave them an excellent character.32

The English were puzzled by the relationships between Russians and Unanga{. 

“We could not help observing the great distance with which these common 

Sailors treat’d the Natives,” wrote King. “Whether they are belov’d or fear’d by 

them, we cannot as yet pretend to say, but they are evidently much respect’d 

by them.”33 They were also unable to learn the year in which the Russians “had 

taken a severe revenge, and had laid the country under contribution, and obliged 

the inhabitants to pay a certain annual tribute in skins,” or “to what extent they 

had subdued the country.” Clerke wrote that “The first settlers on these Islands, 

took from the natives their bows, Arrows, spears, & all other kind of warlike 

instruments and destroy’d them, by which means they keep them greatly under 

subjection making them pay tribute.”34 Not all Unanga{, however, had consented 

to pay tribute as Ismailov noted when he wrote, “I ordered the fur-tribute payers 

among the Aleuts, to provide them [the English] during their stay with fish and to 

furnish them with supplies.”35 That the Russians kept an armed guard at the door 

to their dwelling and posted guards around their storehouse at Iliuliuk suggests 

that as late as 1778 they slept uneasily.

32	 King, “Journal of the Proceedings of his Majesty’s Sloop Discovery from Kamchatka to Cape of

Good Hope” in Joppien and Smith, 285.

33 Beaglehole, Journals, Vol. III, Part Two, 1446.

34 Beaglehole, Journals, Vol. III, Part Two, 1355.

35 Beaglehole, Cook and the Russians, 3.
46 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

St. Innocent 

Metropolitan of Moscow

wikipedia.org
Chapter 4

Three Villages Under the Russian-American Company

Grigorii I. Shelikhov

wikipedia.org

 CHAPTER 4: THREE VILLAGES UNDER THE RUSSIAN-AMERICAN COMPANY 47

I

n the years following Cook’s voyage, people living in Makushin, Kashega, and 

Biorka found their options reduced as trade in Russian America was soon 

dominated by the activities of Grigorii I. Shelikhov, a man with voracious 

interest in the wealth of the territory and a vision of permanent settlements.1

In 1781 he and two other merchants had formed a company that gradually 

absorbed and drove out smaller competitors while creating powerful allies 

in Russia. In 1790 he hired the legendary Alexander Baranov, who, forced 

to the wall by a series of business failures, reluctantly agreed to Shelikhov’s 

persistent overtures. Baranov sailed from Okhotsk on the Three Saints for 

the settlement Shelikhov had founded on Kodiak in 1784. Approaching 

Unalaska Island, the vessel anchored in Kashega Bay to replenish its water 

supply. An early October storm blew in, however, and cornered the 

vessel, placing it in imminent danger. The crew managed to unload a 

portion of the cargo during low tide before the vessel capsized during the 

night of October 6, stranding everyone for the winter. Baranov’s account of 

Unalaska in general and Kashega in particular portrayed a demoralized and 

innervated population. Along with other negative pronouncements, Baranov 

wrote: 

—“in general they are all lazy and untidy”

—“their yurts are poor and cold”

—“they have no fires...except in their oil lamps”

—they seldom cook anything

—they rarely wear shoes

—“they observe no religious laws”

—“they know nothing of their origin”

—they rarely share food with each other

—“where there are no Russians...they make no effort at all”2

1	 See discussions of fur hunting periods in Makarova and Liapunova. See also Black’s division of

periods in “The Nature of Evil,”117-122.

2 Khlebnikov, Notes on Russian America, 121-125.
48 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

His account was strikingly different from those made by Cook’s expedition. 

Perhaps the people at Solov’ev’s old haunt were indeed so ground down, so 

thoroughly subjugated. Perhaps Baranov darkened his report hoping 

to discredit firms that had preceded him into this area. Perhaps, 

and this may be the actual source of his disaffected attitude, 

the Aleutian winter got to him. He had, after all, arrived 

during an October storm and left in April. Kashega must 

have been deathly cold for the stranded men. Winds 

channeled through the draw, shuffling sheets of ice on 

the long lake, white-capping the water when thawed, 

and bringing an unrelieved dampness. He never 

witnessed the exuberant flurry of activity that 

accompanied summer and fall. The river would have 

welcomed returning red salmon while the flats leading 

to Kuliliak Bay echoed the same color with wild 

strawberries. Migrating fur seals would pass north not 

far from the village. Unanga{ had found this area a 

wonderful homeland and would continue living here for 

another century and a half. By spring Baranov had 

supervised the construction of three large baidaras and 

using one of these he navigated a course to Kodiak Island 

and Three Saints Bay to begin a quarter century of struggles, 

triumphs, and defeats. 

Fortunately, we have a more detailed description of Kashega, Makushin, and 

Biorka written about the same time by Captain Gavriil Sarychev. His summary 

of Unanga{ portrayed them as having “a good natural understanding, very 

considerable talents, and a quick comprehension.” While emotionally reserved 

and modest, they were “quiet and peaceable among each other” and exceptionally 

polite and helpful to visitors.3 Sarychev was part of a government expedition 

headed by Captain Joseph Billings. A month after leaving Petropavlovsk, 

Kamchatka, in May 1790, Billing’s Glory of Russia stood off Biorka Village in Beaver 

Inlet. Here the expedition’s priest, Vasiliy Sivtsov, baptized 63 males and 29 females 

from various villages. Forty-eight were from Biorka itself. Martin Sauer—the 

somewhat renegade member of the expedition who published his account without 

permission—attempted to get “the best information” he could about the people. 

He......... made the interesting comment that Biorka people called themselves 

“Cowghalingen,” suggesting either that Qawalangin was an inclusive term that 

included Qigiiĝun or else that the Qigiiĝun had not yet appropriated this area.

4 He 

observed that men wore birdskin parkas while the sea otter parkas of women had 

been replaced by ones made from seal fur. In general, he wrote, the people “wear 

3 Sarychev, Account of a Voyage of Discovery, 78. See a modern translation of these phrases in 

Khlebnikov, Notes on Russian America, 130.

4 Sauer, An Account of a Geographical and Astronomical Expedition, 154. Merck noted that the 

people of Akun and Tigalda called themselves Kignon (perhaps a version of Qigiiĝun). Merck,

Siberia and Northwestern America, 168. Billings reported that the Unalaska and Umnak people 

called themselves Kaughalingn. Merck, Siberia and Northwestern America, 199.

Alexandr Andreyevich Baranov 

by Mikhail T. Tikhanov, 1818. State 

History Museum, 

Moscow. 
 CHAPTER 4: THREE VILLAGES UNDER THE RUSSIAN-AMERICAN COMPANY 49

what they can get.”5 He found the men were exceptional kayakers, “sporting about 

more like amphibious animals than human beings.”6 While at Biorka, Carl Merck 

saw five men arrive from the village on Unalga Island. They came in five baidarkas 

(with their wives riding inside). After they were welcomed, they used these kayaks 

to create temporary shelters.

Now the hosts cooked tender seaweed for the guests...with chunks of 

whale blubber. This was served in wooden bowls, with large shells used 

instead of spoons. Each of them also got a piece of whale fin, which 

they eat raw. It is a delicacy to them. Then after sundown the guests 

were invited to join their customary evening enjoyments.7

Merck, along with Sarychev and Billings, visited Uuchuyuux, or Bobrovskyoe, on 

the Unalaska side of Beaver Inlet. During Cook’s visit, the village had possessed 

seven or eight barabaras; now it had only two dwellings along with a “cabin” for 

the promyshlenniks—probably a private barabara with a door—along with a 

small steam bath.8

The Slava Rossjii [Glory 

of Russia] in Beaver Inlet, 

by Luka Voronin. From 

Early Maritime Artists of 

the Pacific Northwest

by John Frazier Henry. 

Repository: Loussac 

Library, Anchorage. 

Original image from 

F.A. Golder’s portfolio 

“Alaska Scenes,” 

Hydrographic Section, 

Ministry of Marine, 

Petrograd.

By June 18, the Glory of Russia was sailing east toward the Alaska Peninsula and 

Kodiak, and then it was back to Kamchatka for the winter. By late June 1791 

both ships of the expedition, the Glory of Russia and the Black Eagle, returned 

to Unalaska where they established headquarters at Iliuliuk. The men spent 

several months compiling a detailed census of the region, listing males who paid 

tribute (iasak), those who did not because of age or infirmity, and those who 

were minors. In February 1792 Sarachev left to explore the west side of Unalaska 

in a three-hatch baidarka, accompanied by Kagulu{, the man who had played 

a prominent role during Captain Cook’s visit. Now known under his baptismal 

name, Yelisey Pupyshev, he was the acting chief of Imagna Village in Unalaska 

5 Sauer, An Account of a Geographical and Astronomical Expedition, 155.

6 Sauer, An Account of a Geographical and Astronomical Expedition, 158.

7 Merck, Siberia and Northwestern America, 70.

8 Merck, Siberia and Northwestern America, 89.
50 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

Bay. Their three-day stay at Makushin provided an opportunity to witness one of 

the seasonal “games...which continue through the winter until the beginning of 

spring, or until the appearance of the whales.”9

Their origin is ascribed to the Shamans, who assure them that the 

spirits are pleased with such performances, and will, in return, send 

them plenty of whales on shore. The performers wear masks, 

resembling the faces of the spirits which have appeared to the 

Shamans; and, although these men no longer possess the implicit 

confidence of the people, the Aleutians always celebrate the arrival 

of a fish [i.e., a whale] with these games. The person first making 

the discovery announces it by wearing a narrow fillet on his 

head, and has a right to half the entrails, skin, tongue, and 

sinews. The rest is divided by the trojars [chiefs] of the 

village among the other Aleutians.

He described an elaborate horizontal arrangement 

of poles placed at three varying distances below the 

entrance hole of the large barabara. (There were only 

two dwellings for the forty-five residents of Makushin 

at this time.) His measurements suggest a vaulted 

residence with a high roof. After the guests from 

different villages had gathered inside, men began to 

swing themselves up through the three sets of poles like 

gymnasts—“during which a perpetual clamour is kept 

up by the shouts of the people at whose jurt it takes place, 

while those who miss their aim and fall to the ground are 

saluted by the spectators with loud peals of laughter.”

Once the guests were seated, the dances began with the 

entrance of two boys who were followed by male drummers dressed with 

“fanciful” hats, “girdles round their loins, and bands on their arms and 

feet.” Next came pairs of women “having their heads encircled with binders 

embroidered with goat’s hair, flourishing bladders of birds’ skins, and dancing 

to the drums.” A second “string of females carrying arrows” was followed by “a 

train of men in motley masks, with wide streaked mouths, and on their heads 

a sea-dog’s face.” The term “sea-dog” referred to any seal. A rousing period of 

drumming was accompanied by singing, which Sarychev admitted he “by no 

means understood,” and then three masked men sang additional verses.

These men were followed by female masks, who seated themselves 

by the man with the sea-dog’s face, before whom a few other women 

danced with disheveled hair, carrying beards of sea-lions in their 

hands, occasionally pointing to the mask seated in the middle. They 

sung the following verse:

9 Sarychev, Account of a Voyage of Discovery, 61.

Gavriil Andreyevich Sarychev

wikipedia.org
 CHAPTER 4: THREE VILLAGES UNDER THE RUSSIAN-AMERICAN COMPANY 51

The hellish island Sakehadok

Contains the arrows we must not forget;

Yet why should we remember

That which brings no good?10

“Masks used by the 

Oonalashkans in their 

Dances....” by Martin 

Sauer, From Expedition 

to the Northern Parts 

of Russia. Repository: 

Loussac Library, 

Anchorage

This was a performance put on by Unalaska Unanga{ and it “differed 

much” from the next dance presented by visitors from the Andreanof 

Islands. A few days later, while at Kashega, Sarychev observed a 

shaman conduct a healing ritual.11 “The Shamans never demand any 

compensation from the people,” he wrote, “contentedly receiving 

what is given them, and never requiring offerings for the spirits.” After 

visiting as far south as Chernofski, Sarychev and Pupyshev returned 

only to be storm-bound in Kashega for another week.

10 Sarychev, Account of a Voyage of Discovery, 62. See Black’s translation of a portion of this

account and her discussion of the Makushin celebration in Aleut Art, 2003, 76.

11	 See Black’s translation in Aleut Art, 2003, 37.
52 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

The Aleutians becoming at length quite tired of bad weather, they 

one day collected themselves together men, women, and children, 

and repaired to an open field, where having lighted a fire and turned 

themselves to the wind, they clapped their hands and screamed with 

all their might, quietly returning in the full expectation of a favorable 

change.12

Stormbound in 

Kashega based 

on Sarychev’s stay 

at Kashega when 

he witnessed a 

ritualistic healing 

and on Innokentii 

Shaiashnikov’s stay 

when he worked on an 

Aleut translation.

This was not the last time people screamed at the weather. That evening 

Pupyshev informed Sarychev that the chiefs and shamans were “conjuring a spirit 

for favourable weather.” After a quarter of an hour, the shaman cried out and fell 

into a trance that terrorized the residents. They gathered around him and sang “a 

12 Sarychev, Account of a Voyage of Discovery, 66.
 CHAPTER 4: THREE VILLAGES UNDER THE RUSSIAN-AMERICAN COMPANY 53

solemn lamentation,” supplicating the spirit to spare his life. Once the shaman 

revived, he explained that he had summoned the spirit into his presence and 

demanded fine weather. When the spirit had refused, the shaman had reproved 

him and threatened to expose him as powerless. At this, the furious spirit had 

attacked him and sent him into a deep trance. While in this state, the shaman 

learned that the weather would not improve until three days after the death of 

a certain woman (whom he named, probably much to her discomfort) during 

the upcoming summer. Then he told Sarychev three interesting things. First, 

he could travel as far as Makushin but no farther as bad weather would again 

overtake him. Second, he should not attempt to proceed further, even if the 

Makushin people encouraged him to do so. Third, that when he reached his ship 

he would find the condition of his companions had deteriorated.

Nick Lekanoff (right), Al 

Dalrymple and Steven 

Hapoff (left) at the 

Pass above Makushin 

Bay, October 1969. 

Photograph by Ray 

Hudson.

And so Sarychev and Chief Pupyshev left Kashega. They reached Makushin just 

as “violent winds” prevented travel around the island. Despite the shaman’s 

warning, Sarychev was determined to leave. With three guides he went by 

baidarka to the end of Makushin Bay and began the trek across the mountains 

to Captains Bay. “The farther I advanced, the steeper it became,” he wrote. 

Eventually, “I saw to my dismay that I stood on the brink of an immense 

precipice, whose sides were covered with rocks, at the bottom of which flowed 

a brook....I was seized with such an irresistible dread, that I could proceed no 
54 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

farther....” After a night of violent tempests and a day when the sea was agitated, 

he returned to Makushin Village where the chief took pity on him and suggested 

another route. This time he and his companions portaged into Beaver Inlet from 

where he eventually made it back to the ships in Captains Bay. On arriving, he 

found the third prediction all too true: fourteen men had died of scurvy during 

his absence.

The census compiled by the Billings Expedition, although several Unanga{ chiefs 

assisted, was incomplete for a variety of reasons, including the requirement 

that people go to the ship to be registered.13 Nevertheless, it described our three 

villages within the context of their respective communities. Makushin and 

Kashega were part of a complex of six villages strung out along the southwestern 

coast of Unalaska, their populations totaling 164 males. Makushin was the 

largest with 45, while Kashega had 32. Two of the six villages were very small 

(with less than ten males in each) while two were of comparable size with 

Makushin and Kashega. 

Biorka was the largest of the three villages in Beaver Inlet, with 21 of the 49 

males registered in the census. If Biorka were in fact a Qawalangin village 

in 1792 as Sauer noted, its relationship with Unalga village and the sixteen 

other settlements in the Krenitzin Islands—all clearly Qigiiĝun villages—is 

more difficult to explain. Traditional rivalries may have receded in the face 

of a common foe. Only one village on Akun and one on Tigalda were larger 

than Biorka. However, as an illustration of the uncertainty of these numbers, 

consider that in 1790 there were 29 males from Biorka who were baptized (and 

19 females). Bergsland suggests that the disparity (between 29 in 1790 and 21 in 

1792) may indicate that a number of able-bodied men were taken away to hunt 

sea otters and seals by ships belonging to Shelikhov.14 The census has names 

of men from the other two Beaver Inlet villages who had been taken to work 

aboard such a vessel. All in all, Biorka appears to have been a major village in this 

eastern complex in the 1790s. 

What do these numbers mean in terms of the catastrophic population decline 

that marked the end of the 18th and the start of the 19th centuries? Based on a 

careful reading of the earliest reports, Roza Liapunova postulated there were 

“7,500 to 9,500 people, or, in round numbers, 8,000 to 10,000 people, but no 

more” at the time the Russians arrived in the Aleutians in mid-18th century.15 By 

1792, less than 50 years later, the population had plummeted to about 3,000. The 

worst, however, was still to come when the population in the eastern Aleutians, 

for which region we have the most complete records, reached its lowest point 

in 1822. That year, according to Veniaminov, there were 1,474 residents.16 By 

1834 he recorded a slight increase of twenty, although the number of males had 

13 Bergsland, Ancient Aleut Personal Names, 22-23. 

14 Bergsland, Ancient Aleut Personal Names, 23.

15 Liapunova, “The Aleuts before Contact with the Russians,” 8-10.

16 He recorded 695 males and 779 females. Veniaminov, Notes, 246.
 CHAPTER 4: THREE VILLAGES UNDER THE RUSSIAN-AMERICAN COMPANY 55

diminished.17 In 1829 Iakov Netsvetov, the priest stationed at Atka, estimated 

the population of the Central and Western Aleutians plus the Commander 

Islands at 800.18 Adding this estimate to Veniaminov’s 1834 figure [1,494] the total 

Aleut population around 1830 was approximately 2,300. In summary, the Aleut 

population from the arrival of the Russians until 1792 declined between 60 and 

68 percent. The decrease between 1792 (3,000) and 1830 (2,300) was 23 percent. 

However, the total population loss up to 1830 was a reduction from somewhere 

between 7,500 and 9,500 to a low of 2,300, or between 69 and 76 percent. Current 

archaeological work in the Chain suggests the pre-contact population was 

even greater than Liapunova’s estimate and the consequent loss even more 

catastrophic.19

Catherine II had declined Shelikhov’s 1788 petition for recognition as the sole 

legitimate company in the territory. Following Shelikhov’s death in 1795 and 

her own death a year later, her son Paul began to favor a more centralized 

organization of the fur trade, and in 1799 the company secured its longsought monopoly. Over the next 68 years, a series of imperial charters to the 

Russian-American Company extended its governance under a succession of 

chief managers or governors. The territory was partitioned into manageable 

districts. Biorka, Makushin, and Kashega fell within the Unalaska District that 

encompassed the Alaska Peninsula, Unimak, the Krenitzin Islands, Unalaska, 

Umnak, and the Pribilof Islands. A district manager was stationed at Unalaska 

(Iliuliuk). In larger villages there were company employees, called baidarshchiks, 

who represented the firm. These men were sometimes Russian, but often 

Unanga{. The Makarin, Yatchmenoff, Petikoff, Krukoff, Kudrin, and Golodoff 

families had such men among their modern founders. 

There is little or no information specific to our three villages during the 68 

years of the RA Company, but it is logical to conclude that residents in these 

villages shared experiences common to the bulk of Unanga{ and that their 

fortunes and misfortunes were frequently precipitated by local management. 

Men who worked as hunters aboard Russian vessels or under Russian 

supervision were often kept at a bare subsistence level. In 1818 Vasilii M. 

Golovnin found that Unanga{ from the Fox Islands had been “taken against 

their will into service aboard Company vessels.” The prices charged for goods 

were so high that salaries were entirely used up when purchasing meager 

clothing to supplement the insufficient clothes issued to them.20 Their daily 

food allowance was “only one dried or pickled fish” and this was augmented 

on holidays with bread and coarse grain.21

17 The number of males was down to 682 while the number of females had risen to 812. Veniaminov, 

Notes, 245.

18	 This was close to Khlebnikov’s 1827 figure of 351 males, 363 females, a total of 714 (plus

30 or 40 people absent on hunting trips from Attu and Amchitka). Black, The Journals of 

Iakov Netsvetov: the Atkha Years, 12. Khlebnikov, Notes on Russian America, 220-221. Both 

Netsvetov’s and Khlebnikov’s figures are considerably higher than Litke’s 1825 figure of 569.

19 Corbett and Lefevre, “Prehistoric Village Organization in the Western Aleutians,” 251-266.

20 Luehrmann, Alutiiq Villages under Russian and U.S. Rule, 67.

21 Golovnin, “Memorandum of Captain 2nd Rank Golovnin,” 69.
56 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

Starvation threatened communities in the depth of winter—even during 

periods when there was competent management. During the administration 

of Fedor Burenin at Unalaska (1806 to 1813) all the people living in a village 

on the east side of Akutan died of hunger except for one old woman. Ivan 

Kriukov was the next manager and he was followed in 1821 by Rodion 

Petrovskii (1821-1829). The following year seven people starved to death at 

Kashega.22 There was a marked absence of fish that year. At Iliuliuk itself, 

Petrovskii used company supplies to avoid starvation among the local 

people.23 As Luehrmann has pointed out with specific reference to Kodiak, 

“the material amenities islanders could hope to gain from working for 

the Russians were small at least through the first third of the nineteenth 

century.”24

The Second Charter, good for another twenty years, was issued in 1821. By 

this time all Unanga{ fell within the regulatory umbrella of the company. 

Although Iakov Netsvetov, the Unanga{ priest stationed at Atka from 1828 to 

1843, mentioned independent Aleuts, this was independence within defined 

limits. The people who today would call themselves Unanga{ were classified 

both as Aleuts and Creoles. Creoles were members of a special category of 

Russian citizens. This was a civil status and was “assigned to persons of Alaskan 

birth who claimed at least one Russian ancestor or who occupied positions of 

responsibility in management.”25 In 1821 the number of creoles registered in the 

territory was small (about 300), but they had become significant members of an 

evolving community the company hoped to foster as a “‘middle class’ stratum 

in the Russian territory...with roots deep in the native Alaskan tradition, in the 

Alaskan soil and, at the same time, culturally and socially tied to Russia.”26

Unanga{ who did not achieve the status of creoles remained Aleuts or “islanders” 

under the Second Charter and as such they were Russian subjects but their 

status was as yet undefined. Their primary obligation to the RA Company was 

to hunt sea mammals. Consequently, the company could draft half of all these 

males between the ages of 18 and 50 for service. The selection of hunters was 

to be made by the chiefs (toions) who were to try to keep enough males in a 

family so that village subsistence was not endangered. Those selected were to 

be relieved after three years unless they wished to continue working for the 

company. The rights of islanders to hunt and fish on their own were preserved 

with the provision that they stayed near their home villages. Permission from 

the company was required to go to neighboring areas. Of course, as the sole 

legitimate fur dealer in the territory, the RA Company was the only company 

to whom islanders were allowed to sell their catch. The distinction between 

creoles and Aleuts was significant. “All Creoles live far better than the Aleuts,” 

22 Veniaminov, Notes, 257.

23	 Sarafian, Winston Lee, Russian-American Company Records as a Source of Aleut Ethnohistory.

Transcript. 18 November 1822, Vol. 3, No. 296, folio 120-121.

24 Luehrmann, Alutiiq Villages under Russian and U.S. Rule, 69.

25 Pierce, Russian America, 10.

26 Black, introduction, The Journals of Iakov Netsvetov: The Atkha Years, xxvi.
 CHAPTER 4: THREE VILLAGES UNDER THE RUSSIAN-AMERICAN COMPANY 57

wrote Veniaminov, “at least they have warm yurtas [semi-underground homes, 

barabaras] and more clothing and linen than the Aleuts, who, with all their 

efforts are not in a position to have them.”27

Chrismation of Iakov 

Netsvetov.

In several ways the Second Charter preserved the rights of the company while 

attempting to safeguard Unanga{ from the exploitation they had experienced in 

the past. Nevertheless, travel and settlement restrictions continued. Thus, 

“islanders not in Company service are permitted to fish along shores where they 

live for their personal and family sustenance, but they are not allowed to go to 

neighboring areas without special permission from the Company.”28 It also 

specified the political parameters of Unanga{ communities by placing the 

company clearly in charge. “Islanders are administered by tribal toions under the 

supervision of starshinas [elders],” read the charter, “appointed by the Company 

from among its best Russian servitors.” (Note that these “Russian servitors” may 

have been Unanga{.) The responsibilities of both groups, elders and chiefs, 

included “caring for and supervising the islanders entrusted to them. They are to 

resolve conflicts, arguments and dissatisfactions, and assist the islanders in their 

needs.” Whether or not the toions or the elders (or both) were appointed by the 

27 Veniaminov, Notes, 248, note*.

28 Dmytryshyn, Crownhart-Vaughan, Vaughan, The Russian American Colonies, 362, 363.
58 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

Company, in actual fact the role of the company was more one of confirmation 

than of selection. In most cases, communities elected their leaders and this 

election was then subject to confirmation by the company.29 In some cases, such 

as at Tigalda, the toion—in this case, the translator Ivan Pan’kov—was also the 

company manager.30

Ioann Veniaminov’s ten years at Unalaska fell during 

the period of the second charter. The priest made 

nineteen visits to villages within a parish that extended 

from Umnak to the Pribilof Islands and onto the Alaska 

mainland. While his official journals are brief and 

focus on ecclesiastical duties, they provide sketches 

of Makushin, Kashega and Biorka when added to his 

remarks in the first great Alaskan ethnography, Notes on 

the Islands of the Unalashka District. On April 16, 1825, 

eight months after arriving at Unalaska (following almost 

a year at Sitka), Veniaminov set off on his first visit to 

villages west of Unalaska. He traveled in a new open skin 

boat—a baidar—rowed by ten men and equipped with 

a sail. Stepanan Kriukov, manager of the RA Company 

station on Umnak, went along as a translator. Kriukov 

was a son of an Aleut woman and Ivan Kriukov, the 

former Unalaska manager whose praise of Aleuts had 

brought the priest to the Aleutians. One of Stepan’s 

sons, Gregory Kriukov, would play a prominent role at 

Biorka in coming decades. What had promised to be a 

quick voyage ground to a halt as headwinds forced the 

party ashore at the western tip of the island. From here 

the priest and twenty companions hiked to Makushin 

Village, a trek through gusting snow that confirmed 

the effectiveness of the gut raincoat. “Neither wind nor 

rain,” he wrote, “can penetrate this very thin garment.”31 He visited Makushin for 

nine days, beginning April 19, during which time he held services, gave religious 

instruction, and blessed marriages. Altogether, he stopped at Makushin eight 

times during four westward trips. 

The priest’s description of Makushin Village is not as detailed as one might 

wish. What is clear is that the village was located on the long beach at Volcano 

Bay, at the north approach to Makushin Bay. The RA Company stationed a 

baidarshchik in the village and owned “a yurta, a barabora, a shed, and a steambath.”32 There were five baidarkas in use in 1834 and the fifteen men and twenty 

women lived in six yurts and six barabaras. Russians used the terms yurta and 

29 For the evolving roles of toion and starshina, see Luehrmann, Alutiiq Villages under Russian and 

U.S. Rule, 88-91.

30 Veniaminov, Journals, 76, 83.

31 Veniaminov, Journals, 35, note 9.

32 Veniaminov. Notes, 93.

Ioann Veniaminov, 

Metropolitan of 

Moscow. Image 

courtesy Francis 

Broderick.
 CHAPTER 4: THREE VILLAGES UNDER THE RUSSIAN-AMERICAN COMPANY 59

barabara when referring to the ula{ or ulaagamax. Veniaminov distinguished 

“yurts” from “barabaras,” in which “barabaras” probably referred to more 

traditionally constructed dwellings. Unalaska, for example, was said to have 27 

yurts, while Kashega had eight Unanga{ yurts, and the village on Unalga had 

three yurts and three barabaras. Although the indigenous dwelling survived 

throughout the Russian period, it underwent significant alterations. Floors and 

interior walls were eventually lined with wood. As indicated by the number 

of barabaras at Makushin, the large communal dwelling had been replaced 

by smaller structures, generally used by single families. The introduction of 

doors and windows were structural modifications that dramatically changed 

the appearance of villages. Russians are credited with introducing doors, but at 

least one early visitor noted that dwellings—probably the large multi-roomed 

structures—had “hidden loopholes... in the sides, by which the residents can 

escape or get out to defend themselves if the main [overhead] entrance is in 

hostile hands.”33

The decline in Makushin’s population, from forty-five males in 1792 to thirtyfive males and females in 1825, is partially attributable to the decline in salmon. 

The salmon stream inside Makushin Bay was once considered the finest on the 

island, but whereas once they were taken by the “hundreds of thousands,” now, 

Veniaminov wrote, “they scarcely catch twenty thousands.”34

On his first visit, Veniaminov and his companions traveled from Makushin to 

Kashega, arriving April 28. Over the next few days he chrismated twenty-three 

people, heard confession, “instructed the local inhabitants on all that which is 

necessary for our salvation,” and heard confession. “I taught all of the Aleuts 

using a set sequence, and even identical wording. I have written instructions 

for this practice [one word illegible]. I omit nothing that is essential for the 

preservation of faith and the redemption of each man.”35 He held a service for 

the dead in the cemetery and blessed six marriages before leaving on April 30 to 

continue westward to Nikolski near the southern tip of Umnak Island. 

Veniaminov counted forty-one residents at Kashega, eighteen male and twentythree female. There were eight Aleut “yurts” along with a “yurta” for the resident 

baidarshchik. This man was in charge of the entire western half of Unalaska 

indicating that by this time Kashega, Chernofski and a few other smaller villages 

in the area operated as a single economic unit. At Kashega the company had 

“a shed, a barabora, a steambath and a cattle yard.”36 Cattle were introduced in 

1833 and the Kashega herd consisted of four cows and a bull. The small herd 

was “incomparably better” than the forty-five cattle at Iliiuliuk (Unalaska) and 

33	 Palas, quoted in Masterson and Brower. Bering’s Successors, 44-45. There were also hidden

underground locations where families could be concealed during invasions (Veniaminov, Notes, 

264).

34 Veniaminov, Notes, 84, 94, 39.

35 Veniaminov, Journals, 35, note 11.

36 Veniaminov, Notes, 94-95.
60 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

Veniaminov credited this to a milder climate and to an abundance of forage.37

Pigs were also raised here (as well as at Unalaska and Makushin). Somehow, 

unlike residents of other villages, Kashega and Makushin people were able 

to keep the pigs from rooting up their barabaras.38 Despite these agricultural 

beginnings, Kashega’s resources were “not very enviable,

though red salmon enter the mouth of the stream almost from 

January to July and Dolly Vardens, humpbacked and silver salmon 

from June to October, the quantity is very small, so that, even on 

the best of days, the catch hardly exceeds 300 fish. Sea fish are taken 

outside the bay at a considerable distance. Occasionally it is possible 

to take sea lions on the south side. A small number of seals are taken 

on the [offshore] rocks. Roots—sarana and chagitka—which grow in 

large quantities, constitute one of the main items of subsistence.39

Red salmon, 

breeding male, "The 

Fishes of Alaska." 

Bulletin of the Bureau 

of Fisheries, Vol. XXVI, 

1906. P. 360, Plate 

XXXIV. NOAA. 

Veniaminov returned to Makushin and Kashega in August 1828 and again in 

April 1830 and April/May 1832. He continued to use Stepan Kriukov as his 

translator although by 1830 his command of the language had made this 

almost unnecessary. During the 1832 trip, while at Kashega, he and Semen 

Pan’kov finished correcting their translation of one of the Gospels.40 On this 

occasion, after visiting Makushin, he returned to Unalaska by hiking overland 

from Portage Bay. His last visit to these two villages was in April 1834, just 

a few months before he left the Aleutians for good. The populations had 

increased slightly. There were now thirty-eight people at Makushin and fortythree at Kashega.41

37 Veniaminov, Notes, 40-42, 95.

38 Veniaminov, Notes, 42.

39 Veniaminov, Notes, 95.

40 Veniaminov, Journals, 159.

41 Veniaminov, Journals, 191.
 CHAPTER 4: THREE VILLAGES UNDER THE RUSSIAN-AMERICAN COMPANY 61

The priest made fewer trips to Biorka, then neither the largest nor the most 

important village in the area. Between Beaver Inlet and Unimak Island to the 

east, there were ten villages with a total population of 352. In Beaver Inlet itself 

were Bobrovskoe (in Deep Bay) with forty-one residents, Biorka (Sedankosvkoe) 

with forty-four, and Sechkinskoe (in the bay between Ugadaga and Agamgik 

bays) with a very small but unrecorded number of residents. Unalga Island, 

near the mouth of Beaver Inlet, had twenty-three inhabitants. In the Krenitzin 

Islands there were villages on Avatanak with forty-nine residents, on Akutan with 

thirteen, and on Tigalda with ninety-seven. On Akun Island there were three 

villages: Artelnovskoe with thirty-two residents, Rechesnoe with thirty-seven, 

and Seredninskoe with sixteen. (In addition, on the north end of Unalaska Island, 

in Kalekhta Bay, was a village with fourteen residents.)42

Veniaminov’s first visit to Biorka was in September 1828. He gathered the 

residents into the tent he had brought, provided religious instruction, chrismated 

individuals and blessed marriages. He heard confession and gave four ill or aged 

individuals Holy Communion. On his trip back, he crossed Beaver Inlet to Ugadaga 

Bay and hiked overland to Iliuliuk along a much-used trail.43 Although he stopped 

at Akun, Tigalda, and other nearby villages several times, he did not return to 

Biorka until 1831 when he visited for two days in September. His brief description 

said the village included “6 yurtas” for the forty-four residents, seventeen males 

and twenty-seven females. They were cultivating gardens, but their staple food was 

“deep sea fish and shell-fish.”44

We owe a description of Unalaska villages a few years later to a smallpox epidemic 

that first appeared in New Archangel (Sitka) in 1836 and then spread to Kodiak and 

the Alaska Peninsula. By 1839 it was threatening the Unalaska district. The company 

physician at Sitka, Dr. Eduard Blashke, traveled to the Fox Islands and vaccinated 

people at Iliuliuk and in outlying villages. His description is particularly valuable since 

it clearly distinguished smaller communities, like Biorka, Kashega, and Makushin, 

from Iliuliuk that continued in the throes of cultural change.

“The Aleuts go about in jackets and frock coats,” Lavrentii Zagoskin would write 

following a visit to the principal settlement three years later in 1842, “their wives 

and daughters in calico dresses and kamleya [parka covers], which are long shirts 

made of ticking or nankeen [unbleached cotton] with red cloth trimming around 

the collar and hem. The married women, guarding against sin, keep their heads 

always covered while the girls wear their hair long, tied at the back of the neck 

with a ribbon.”45 A drawing he made shows a dozen men outside a building on 

a Sunday. Eleven of them are dressed in gut kamleikas. Based on the elaborate 

collars, these were probably ceremonial kamleikas similar to those collected 

in the 1840s by Governor Etholén and others. The hats were adaptations of 

42 Veniaminov, Notes, 259-260, corrected from the text.

43 Veniaminov, Journals, 90-91.

44 Veniaminov, Notes, 96.

45	 Michael, ed., Lieutenant Zagoskin’s Travels, 87.
62 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

a European seaman’s cap, topped with a circle of fine embroidery and fancy 

stitching.

In contrast, Blashke found that in smaller villages “the usual Aleut dress is a 

birdskin parka which the poor wear over their bare body. Most Aleuts, however, 

wear a canvas shirt underneath.”46 The parkas were washed frequently and Aleuts 

used steam baths on a regular basis. Blashke found that steps had been taken to 

insure that starvation did not occur. “Special so-called ‘company’ baraboras have 

been built in every village,” he explained—these would have been the company 

yurts mentioned by Veniaminov—“in order to avoid a shortage of winter supplies 

of dried fish and fat, the chief and essential objects of the Aleut diet.” Half of each 

season’s supply of dried fish was placed in this storehouse, under the control of 

the baidarshchik who distributed it as needed. Food supplies were exchanged 

among villages if that became necessary. “In this way,” he concluded, “the almost 

annual spring famine of previous years is averted.”

He found subtle differences among residences. 

Chiefs and “well-to-do Aleuts” had barabaras 

divided into two or three rooms, while the 

baidarshchiks even had glass windows. Ordinary 

homes were “of timber or plank construction, rarely 

more than twenty-one feet in length or fourteen feet 

in width. The height rarely exceeds that of a man.” 

There was an entrance hall, where any wet or damp 

clothing was left, and where the cooking fire was 

kept along with “supplies of dried fish, fat, etc.” The 

inner compartment was the living space and this 

was “always kept neat, the floor...strewn with straw 

and covered with straw mats, as are sometimes 

the plank beds and the walls.” He acknowledged 

that villages differed in cleanliness, methods of 

subsistence, the success of their hunters, and overall 

prosperity. “Nevertheless,” he concluded, “the 

number of well-run villages considerably exceeds 

the number of poorly run ones, of which there are 

only two.” It is significant that he never mentioned 

village chapels. 

Although over a thousand individuals were vaccinated, 134 people died of 

smallpox, including seventeen at Iliuliuk and a significant number in the 

Krenitzin Islands.47 The death toll for our three villages is unknown, but if the 

46 Tikhmenev, A History of the Russian-American Company, 471, note 22.

47 Black, et al. The History and Ethnohistory of the Aleutians East Borough, 42. Records of the 

Russian-American Company, correspondence of the Governor’s General, Communications Sent,

vol. 16, no. 481, folios 191v-195, November 4, 1838. Sarafian, Russian-American Company

Records as a Source of Aleut Ethnohistory.

“A Man and a Woman 

of Oonalashka” by 

Martin Sauer. From 

Expedition to the 

Northern Parts of 

Russia,1802. Repository: 

Loussac Library, 

Anchorage.
 CHAPTER 4: THREE VILLAGES UNDER THE RUSSIAN-AMERICAN COMPANY 63

Krenitzin Islands were struck it is likely that the number of dead at Biorka was 

also great.

With stabilization of community life under the RA Company, the population 

began a gradual recovery. An 1852 publication listed 2,300 Aleuts from Unimak 

to Attu, but omitted the Pribilof Islands and settlements on and near the Alaska 

Peninsula.48 A decade later, the Unalaska district was credited with having 1,862 

residents while the western islands’ population was 530, making a total for the 

Aleutian region of 2,392.49 An 1867 census from Innokentii Shaiashnikov, the 

priest at Unalaska, gave a total of 2,493 (adding RA Company figures for Attu and 

Atka).50 In other words, the region experienced a slight population growth in final 

decades of the Russian period.

Although the number of residents was gradually increasing, there was a 

significant and enduring loss in the number of villages. By 1840 the profusion 

of small subsistence villages united by kinship ties were consolidating into 

centers for trade and commerce as the requirements for sustainability changed. 

As an example, consider the villages on Unalaska Island.51 There were said 

to have been twenty-four when the Russians first arrived.52 Baranov listed 

sixteen in 1790; Billings recorded fifteen two years later. Veniaminov listed ten 

in his table in the Notes (plus two additional small villages mentioned in his 

journals). More serious than the numerical decline was the loss of villages with 

populations large enough to assure continuation. In all three lists there were 

two to four villages with male populations of ten or lower. These were villages 

soon to disappear. Of villages with between eleven and twenty-one males there 

were nine in 1790, four in 1792, and six in 1840. The greatest change occurred 

in the number of larger villages, those with over twenty-two male inhabitants. 

There were five in 1790, ranging from thirty-five to fifty; the largest of these were 

Makushin and Chernofski. In 1792 there were seven villages where the number 

of males ranged from twenty-six to forty-five, with Makushin and Chernofski 

again the largest. However, by 1840 there was only one village with more than 

twenty-two male residents: Iliuliuk (Unalaska) with ninety. In other words, 

by 1840 moderately sized villages had disappeared leaving only one steadily 

expanding settlement. Would Biorka, Makushin, and Kashega soon go the way 

of so many other villages?

48	 Teben’kov, Atlas, 77, 82, 84, 85.

49 Tikhmenev, A History of the Russian-American Company, 402-409. Numerous villages are omitted 

from this account and his inflated figure for the small village of Imagnia (“about 368”) must lump

several villages into one.

50 Davidson, Report, 221-222.

51 Sedanka Island is not included because the 1790 population for Biorka is difficult to ascertain.

If Baranov called it Usetinskoe, it had 15 adult males; if he called it Boreshke, it had 10. There 

were 16 adult males in the Billings’ census, plus 5 minor males. Veniaminov listed 17 men and 27

women in the table in his Notes.

52 Veniaminov, Notes, 90.
64 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

The Gospel of St. Matthew translated from Russian into Unangam tunuu by Ioann 

Veniaminov, 1840. Repository: National Library of Russia.

Digitized by World Digital Library.
Chapter 5

Ends and Beginnings

Kashega, Makushin, and Biorka waited more than a decade after 

Veniaminov left the Aleutians in 1834 before building their first chapels. 

The early priest was effusive in praising his parishioners’ devotion to 

orthodoxy. Chapels had been constructed at Atka, Nikolski, and Unalaska 

during the first decade of the 19th century, and churches had followed in the 

1820s at Unalaska, St. Paul, and Atka. So why had it taken so long for chapels 

to appear in the three villages? Unlike larger population centers, these smaller 

villages had neither the resources nor the leadership for such projects. Early 

in the century, Atka and Nikolski had Unanga{ who were literate and in 

positions of relative authority where they could initiate projects and recruit 

workers. Unalaska’s chapel had been constructed through the efforts of the 

local manager of the Russian-American Company. The subsequent churches 

at Unalaska and Atka were constructed during tenures of priests while that 

on St. Paul was initiated by Kas’ian Shaiashnikov, an influential Unanga{ 

manager for the Russian-American Company. Veniaminov’s installment as 

bishop of Alaska in December 1840 and his return to the territory the following 

summer focused attention on the smaller communities that he knew so 

well.1Another factor may have been encouragement for such construction by 

officers and managers of the Russian-American Company as it came under 

increased scrutiny during its third and last charter, received in 1844.2 The most 

significant factor, however, was that by the mid-1840s the generation educated 

during Veniaminov’s ministry in the islands had reached adulthood. A cadre of 

young men was available to initiate construction of local chapels as a natural 

extension of Orthodoxy into villages. Just as important, literacy had become 

comparatively widespread and there were now Unanga{ who could serve as 

readers and starostas, or church wardens, and who could conduct services 

1	 Black points out that previous to his installation as bishop, church officials had discouraged the

building of village chapels as “unnecessary proliferation” at a time when they could not be staffed 

by clergy. Black, Ivan Pan’kov, 21, note 18.

2	 For the alliance between the church and the Russian-American Company during Veniaminov’s

years as bishop, see Vinkovetsky, Russian America, 154-163, 168-180.

 CHAPTER 5: ENDS AND BEGINNINGS 65
66 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

throughout most of the liturgical year when a priest was absent. Among 

Unanga{ employed by the Russian-American Company—whether classified as 

Aleut, creole, or islanders—were Abraham, Maxim, and Andrew Yatchmenev, 

Ivan and Stephan Kriukov, Iakov Kudrin, Joseph Petelin, Gregory Petukhov, 

and Alexei Makarin. Once again, however, detailed information is lacking. We 

do not know, for example, why Joseph Petelin was stationed at Makushin and 

Alexei Makarin at Biorka. Perhaps their wives were from those villages; perhaps 

they themselves had ancestral ties to those locations. Nor do we know the 

familial ties, if any, between men with the same surnames. Some of these men 

lived out their lives in the villages; others retired to Iliuliuk (Unalaska). Several 

of them married more than once and their complex families in succeeding 

generations were found in multiple villages. 

The first village chapel in the eastern Aleutians was the Chapel of the Dormition 

of the Mother of God on Akun, built in 1843 by Chief Ivan Pan’kov “with 

comrades.”3 Gregory Golovin, Veniaminov’s successor at Unalaska, consecrated 

it the following year, shortly before his position was filled by Andrei P. Sizoi, a 

native of Irkutsk.4 Pan’kov was also instrumental in the construction in 1844 

of the chapel on Tigalda consecrated in the name of St. Ioann Listvinnik. 

Construction of both the Chapel of the Epiphany of Our Lord at Chernofski and 

the Chapel of the Transfiguration at Kashega was initiated in 1848.5 Abraham 

Yatchmenev, who had worked for the RA Company since the 1830s, served as 

the baidarshchik at Kashega and when the chapel was completed in 1850 he 

became the starosta. He had married Lukerya Tcheripanoff in 1830, and at least 

eight of their ten children lived to maturity.6 Iakov Kudrin was another Unanga{ 

at Kashega who worked for the RA Company. In 1850 he married Marianne 

Semyonova Petelin and they had two children, Nicholas (born in 1855) and 

Elena (born in 1859).7 Two younger Kudrin men, Ioann and Joseph, also had 

families at Kashega. 

The Chapel of St. Nicholas at Biorka was dedicated in 1855. This chapel was 

under the direction of Alexei Makarin, yet another Unanga{ employee of the RA 

Company in the 1830s.8 Among his children was Terentii Makarin, born in 1854, 

who became a sea otter hunter and, in 1889, the father of Andrew Makarin.

A record of icons suggests Makushin may have had a chapel as early as 1846, 

although the first known inventory for the Chapel of St. Gregory was made 

May 14, 1853, by Father Innokentii Shaiashnikov and witnessed by Gregory 

Petukhof and Joseph Petelin. Both the Petukhof and Petelin families had longestablished ties to the Russian-American Company. Gregory had served the 

3	 Black, Ivan Pan’kov, 31.

4 Kedrovsky, “Historical and Statistical Description,” Russian-Orthodox American Messenger. Vol. 1, 

No. 22, 1896:465.

5 Smith, A Sure Foundation, 25.

6 Grinev, Kto Est Kto, 635.

7 Grinev, Kto Est Kto, 273.

8 Grinev, Kto Est Kto, 320.
CHAPTER 5: ENDS AND BEGINNINGS 67

company aboard ships in California and at New Archangel before marrying a 

woman from Unalaska. He died in 1865. Although he had a son, also named 

Gregory, who became a noted iconographer in Sitka, it was probably the elder 

Petukhof who resided at Makushin. The extended Petelin family had roots on 

Kodiak Island. Joseph Petelin was born on Unalaska in 1825 and worked for the 

Russian-American Company. He and his wife, Liubov [Lubova] Borenin, had a 

large family (at least five sons and five daughters). Petelins resided at Makushin 

throughout the 19th century.9 In an important 1878 census, Joseph Petelin’s family 

is listed first, followed by that of Gregory Petukhof—suggesting the two men held 

leadership positions, perhaps first and second chiefs.10

Chapel of the Dormition 

of the Mother of God at 

Attu. ASL-P277-008-027, 

Wickersham State 

Historic Sites Photograph 

Collection.

These chapels, sometimes described as “wooden,” were probably modified 

barabaras. Rough plank boards provided the sides of the building while the roof 

was a modification of beams and sod found in the barabaras Unanga{ were 

so adept at constructing. They were perhaps much like buildings at Unalaska 

9	 For material on Petelin families, see Maria Jarlsdotter Enckell’s “Commonly Known Finnish and 

Baltic Names Found in the Index to Baptisms, Marriages, and Deaths in the Archives of the 

Russian Orthodox Greek Catholic Church in Alaska 1816-1866.” Recovered March 23, 2012.

10 Household census prepared by Alfred Greenbaum, general agent of the Alaska Commercial 

Company at Unalaska, from church records supplied by Innokentii Shaiashnikov, March 20, 1878. 

Alaska Commercial Company Records 1868-1911, box 152, folder 1578. Archives of the Arctic 

and Polar Regions Collections of the Elmer E. Rasmuson Library at the University of Alaska 

Fairbanks. [Hereafter, 1878 household census UAF.]
68 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

described in 1868 as “plank sided...with thatched roof.”11 The frequently 

photographed Chapel of the Dormition of the Mother of God at Attu was of such 

construction.

As the century neared its midpoint, the RA Company once again shuffled its 

administrative centers. Decentralization in the eastern Aleutians occurred 

as the manager of the Unalaska district became subordinate to the NovoArkhangel’sk office.12 Between 1846 and 1847 the western district of the 

Russian-American Company was disbanded and individual settlements that 

comprised that district—Atka, Attu, Amchitka, Bering, and Mednoi—fell under 

the direct jurisdiction of New Archangel (Sitka).13 A similar reorganization 

occurred at Unalaska. What this meant was that “instead of offices and their 

staff in Unalashka and Atkha there now were managers of Unalashka, Unga and 

Atkha subordinate to the Novo-Arkhangel’sk office.”14 The Unalaska manager, 

responsible for villages including Biorka, Makushin, and Kashega, from 1848 to 

1865 was Emel’ian Vlasov.15

Governor M.D. Teben’kov had the territory surveyed between 1848 and 1850. The 

Teben’kov atlas and its accompanying Hydrographic Notes owe much to Alaska 

Native sailors and craftsmen.16 While none of our three villages appear on these 

charts, two of them are mentioned in the Hydrographic Notes. Makushin was said 

to be at latitude 53 ̊ 48’ 5” and longitude 166 ̊ 51’ 0”. Biorka was given a less precise 

location, “on the NW side of the island.” Interestingly, the Hydrographic Notes state 

that “Secha” was still in existence “on the opposite shore” while Bobrovskoe in 

Deep Bay is not mentioned.17 Sechkinskoe, between Ugadaga and Agamgik bays, 

had never been large but had the advantage of being located at a fine red salmon 

stream and in the late 1840s it may have been primarily a summer fish camp. 

Before long, however, only Biorka was left from among the former complex of 

villages in the Beaver Inlet region. Apart from Biorka, none of these small villages 

is known to have constructed a chapel. For various reasons, the RA Company 

encouraged village consolidations, at times enforcing it and always welcoming 

such consolidation when done voluntarily.

In 1848 Innokentii Shaiashnikov became the priest for the eastern Aleutians and 

the Pribilof Islands. He oversaw chapels at Biorka, Makushin, and Kashega (along 

11 An inventory made by the Russian commissioner Alexei Pestchouroff on June 2, 1868. The 

church property contained the church itself, two “plank sided” houses for assistants to the priest, 

a third house, a vegetable garden and the cemetery at the corner of the bay. Alaska Commercial 

Company Records 1868-1911, box 152, folder 1574a. Archives of the Arctic and Polar Regions 

Collections of the Elmer E. Rasmuson Library at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

12 Alekseev, The Destiny of Russian America, 274.

13 Black, Atka, 103-104.

14 Alekseev, The Destiny of Russian America, 274.

15 Pierce, Russian America, 529.

16 Pierce, Russian America, 209, 439, 505. Vasilii Salamatov and Illarion Arkhimandritov, both of 

Unanga{ descent and noted seamen, conducted surveys while Mikhail Kadin, of Atkan descent,

drew charts for the atlas, and Grigorii Terent’ev engraved them on copper. Teben’kov, Atlas, xii.

17	 Teben’kov, Atlas, 72, 74.
CHAPTER 5: ENDS AND BEGINNINGS 69

with other villages) until his death in 1883 at the age of 59. Born in 1824 and raised 

on St. Paul Island, he was directed into church service by his father, Kas’ian 

Shaiashnikov, the manager of sealing operations on St. Paul. After an 

apprenticeship with Iakov Netsvetov both at Atka and the Kvikhpakh mission at 

Ikogmiut (Russian Mission), he was ordained following a trip to Sitka where he 

married Mariia Alekseev, the daughter of Nicholai Alekseev, the RA Company 

manager at Unalaska from 1832 to 1847. One of several Unanga{ girls sent to the 

capital of Russian America to be educated, she lived with a high-ranking officer of 

the company, Johann vonBartram, and his wife, Margaretha.18 The young priest 

became an ardent and effective pastor. He trained sub-clergy and conducted 

schools. He translated scriptures into Unangam tunuu. His earliest extant 

translation, the Gospel of Mark, is dated Jan. 12, 1860.19 Around 1870 he made 

extensive retranslations of all four Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles. These were 

not, however, published until the turn of the century and even then only in part. 

He translated a lengthy article, “Short Rules for the Conduct of a Godly Life,” which 

was also published posthumously. He was, as a contemporary wrote, “both a 

temporal and spiritual guide.”20

The new priest must have thrown himself into his duties with 

the vigor and enthusiasm that had recommended him to 

Netsvetov and Veniaminov. Only four years after ordination, 

he was awarded a silver medal of the order of St. Anne for the 

“zeal” with which he undertook his duties21.In addition to 

rendering assistance to the construction of village chapels, 

he oversaw a school, initiated by Veniaminov, in which he 

both taught and supervised sub-clergy as teachers. Mariia 

Shaiashnikov was the language arts instructor for about fifteen 

years beginning in 1848.22 While literacy was concentrated at 

Iliuliuk, it had also spread to smaller villages. “Every Aleut on 

the island of Unalaska is literate,” wrote a visitor in 1860.23

In May 1851 Nikolai Rozenberg, chief manager, reported that 

all the company buildings at Unalaska were dilapidated and 

Unanga{ dwellings were “very dilapidated.”

The board walls inside the yurts and the roofs under the 

grass covering are rotten. Rain and dampness penetrate 

into the yurts from everywhere. For lack of firewood, it is 

impossible to dry out the yurts by heating them.... The 

18 For more on the vonBartrams, Maria Alekseev, and Finns in Alaska, see the work of Maria 

Jarlsdotter Enckell, including Transfigurations.

19 Bergsland, Aleut Dictionary, xl.

20 Alaska Herald, February 12, 1874.

21 This medal is in the Alaska State Museums collection, accession number 2005-21-1.

22 September 4, 1863. Journal 1861-1863, I. Shaishnokov, priest, Unalaska. Bancroft Library, MSS 

P-K 209.

23 Golovin, The End of Russian America, 61.

A page from Innokentii 

Shaiashnikov’s “Short 

Rules for the Conduct 

of a Godly Life” written 

by Andrew Makarin in 

long-hand Unangam 

tunuu. Image courtesy 

Ray Hudson.
70 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

consequences of this condition of the company and Aleut buildings 

and dwellings is very apparent: spoilage of goods, provisions, and furs, 

and what is still worse, ruining of the health of the inhabitants of 

Unalaska, both Russian and Aleut.24

We do not know what conditions were like at the three 

villages, but at Atka and on the Pribilof Islands things 

were said to be even worse. 

“...all the buildings on Atka without exception are in 

incomparably worse condition than on Unalaska,” 

the report said. The company asked former Governor 

Teben’kov to respond. “On the islands the native 

inhabitants lived and live without demanding the least 

care for themselves in respect to lodging,” he wrote. 

“Lumber and conveniences are needed for Russians and 

the russified, which is fulfilled as possible.”25 In 1850 he 

had sent 112 logs to Unalaska to be used in construction. 

Carpenters, he wrote, were not needed because local 

men could do the building when not hunting sea otters. 

Buildings should be constructed from local materials, 

“unfired bricks (with grass), banking the building with 

earth, clay, and sod” because it will never be possible to 

deliver the quantity of lumber required. 

The church built by Veniaminov was also in need of 

major repairs. Shaiashnikov received permission to 

replace the structure and construction commenced 

in 1853. The new church was not completed and 

consecrated, however, until 1858.26 Just as they would 

do forty years later when the church was again rebuilt, 

the smaller villages within the parish supported construction through whatever 

donations they were able to make.

Village chapels also fell victim to Aleutian weather. A particularly dramatic 

example occurred in 1861 when Shaiashnikov visited Chernofski. In October he 

and his companions took two three-hatch baidarkas and trekked overland to 

Makushin Bay. Bypassing Makushin Village, they arrived at Kashega on October 

5 where stormy weather confined them for eleven days. During this time, in 

addition to regular church services, he worked on his translation of “Short Rules 

for the Conduct of a Godly Life.” For eleven days bad weather kept them in the 

village, until, finally, they reached Chernofski. Their attempt to cross to Umnak, 

however, was thwarted by storms and they returned to Chernofski where the 

24 Arndt and Pierce, A Construction History of Sitka, 213-214.

25 Arndt and Pierce, A Construction History of Sitka, 219.

26 Isaac Anderson to Nicolai Resef, June 7, 1886, Russian Church Collection, box D-49. The year 

building began was found in records kept by Rev. Resef.

First Page of the Gospel 

of St. Matthew by 

Innokentii Shaiashnikov. 

Russian (right); 

translation in Unangam 

tunuu (left). Image 

courtesy Ray Hudson.
CHAPTER 5: ENDS AND BEGINNINGS 71

wind tore the roof off the Chapel of the Epiphany of Our Lord. Unanga{ rushed 

to cover the structure with canvas and whatever material they could find. 

A later view of 

the church at 

Unalaska built under 

Father Innokentii 

Shaiashnikov. U.S. 

Custom’s house 

on right. Alaska 

and Polar Regions 

Collections, Elmer E. 

Rasmuson Library, 

University of Alaska 

Fairbanks UAF-1958-

1026-481 Charles E. 

Bunnell Collection.

The priest reached Kashega at the end of the month, where weather prevented 

people from even securing food. On the 8th he set off for Makushin. The wind 

rose; snow flurries obscured their route and they camped on the beach, forced to 

gather kelp for nourishment. At last they reached what was called “Old Harbor,” 

the area inside Makushin Bay where a village had once existed. Setting off on foot, 

they arrived at the village at Volcano Bay hoping the RA Company employee who 

lived there would have food he could share. Neither the agent, probably either 

Gregory Petukhof or Joseph Petelin, nor the local people could supply anything 

more than a small quantity of dried fish. On the 13th he began the long trip down 

Makushin Bay by baidarka and then overland to Unalaska.

Population statistics collected from Shaiashnikov by George Davidson in the 

summer of 1867, the year of the Alaska purchase, show a sizeable population 

still existed east of Iliuliuk, even though the villages in the Krenitzin Islands and 

on the eastern side of Unalaska Island continued to wither away.27 Biorka and 

Akutan—once Akutan was established in 1876 or 1877—gradually became the 

primary villages in the area. 

Populations in 1867

Male Female Total

Biorka 43 42 85

Akun 50 49 99

Avatanak 22 23 45

Tigalda 21 22 43

Total 136 136 272

27 Davidson, Coast Pilot of Alaska, 52-53.
72 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

Makushin and Kashega remained part of a complex that included Chernofski. 

Populations in 1867

Male Female Total

Makushin 23 26 49

Kashega 36 33 69

Chernofski 33 29 62

Totals 92 88 180

Iliuliuk, with small settlements in nearby Morris Cove and on Hog Island, 

dominated the region with over 360 residents. 

By the time the RA Company left Alaska, many Unanga{ viewed themselves 

as integral parts of the tapestry of Russian America. They had been educated 

by the company and had found roles within it as navigators, company agents, 

clerks and priests.28 Although all Unanga{ were grouped together as “dependent” 

or “civilized tribes,” there was a vast difference between villagers in Biorka, 

Makushin, and Kashega and those residents of Sitka or Unalaska who had 

economic, educational, administrative, and cultural ties to Russia and the RA 

Company. Villagers may have been literate and had strong attachments to the 

Orthodox church, but their lives centered on subsistence and sea mammal 

hunting. Their economy and culture were tied to the Bering Sea and the North 

Pacific Ocean. They were more dependent on the sea and land than on any 

European government or economy and they could survive well if they never 

again saw a trader or an official. A good example was found at Biorka where in 

1869 traditional whaling was still practiced. When Captain John A. Henriques, 

commanding the Revenue Cutter Lincoln, visited in 1869, the village had just 

landed a whale. “At the village of Biurka...I saw forty-three persons cutting and 

carrying a whale—young and old, male and female, while a boy of maybe ten 

years of age was sitting in the whale’s mouth eating fatty portions of the tongue, 

his one garment completely saturated with oil, hatless, shoeless, but seemingly 

one of the happy ones of this world.” He referred to Unanga{ as “this truly 

wonderful people” and considered their character “astounding.”29

Although the Alaska treaty was signed on March 30, 1867, the implementation 

of the transfer occurred over a period of several months and was not completed 

28 Grinev, “Social Mobility,” 21-38.

29 Henriques, John A. “Alaska: Facts about the New Northwest. Statement to the Kirtland Society 

of Natural Sciences.” NARA, MF 720, Alaska File of the Office of the Secretary of the Treasury,

1868-1903. Roll 25: Misc. Records.
CHAPTER 5: ENDS AND BEGINNINGS 73

until after the 1867 summer sea otter hunt. The sale initiated an economic boom 

for Aleutian villages because it lifted restrictions the RA Company had set on sea 

otter hunting. Hunters were now free to take as many animals as they wished. 

The 1868 summer hunt also went as scheduled. During the twenty years from 

1842 to 1861, the company had taken a total of 18,536, or a little over 900 each 

year.30 In marked contrast, the years 1868-1870 saw a staggering 12,208 sea otters 

taken in the territory. They sold for $1,220,800 in London.31 The breaks were 

soon applied, however, and on July 27, 1868, the Fortieth Congress extended the 

laws of customs, commerce and navigation to Alaska and placed enforcement 

under the Treasury Department. It specifically outlawed the killing of “any otter, 

mink, marten, sable, or fur seal, or other fur-bearing animal.” This was primarily 

intended to protect the Pribilof Island fur seals from decimation by voraciously 

competing firms. Ten days later, Treasury Secretary Hugh McCulloch issued his 

own order prohibiting the killing of all fur-bearing animals, including sea otters. 

As the 1869 sea otter hunt was about to begin, Captain Charles Bryant and Dr. 

Hugh Henry McIntyre, both special agents of the Treasury Department, were in 

the Aleutians. They understood the impact McCulloch’s order would have on 

communities and therefore allowed Unanga{ to hunt sea otters as to prohibit 

this “would create much suffering among the natives.” The pelts, however, had 

to be retained by the fur traders pending a decision by the Treasury Department 

or Congress. Hunting continued at full speed. According to Frank M. Brown, 

deputy Collector of Customs at Unalaska, during December 1869 alone Unalaska 

hunters delivered to different traders 18 sea otters, 66 fur seals, 47 red fox, 1 black 

fox, and 16 cross fox skins.32

What this meant for Biorka, Kashega, and Makushin must be inferred from 

reports that center on Unalaska (Iliuliuk), Attu and Atka. “I first visited these 

people in 1868, the year after the purchase [as a 1st lieutenant aboard the 

Wayanda under Captain J. W. White],” wrote George W. Bailey in 1879 during his 

last visit to Unalaska. He was captain of the U.S. Revenue Cutter Rush. “Then 

many of the old rules and customs governing them were still adhered to,” he 

continued, referring to the limits the RA Company had placed on sea otter 

hunting,

but, as soon as the different trading companies came among them, there 

was of course a competition for the trade. The price of furs went up to a 

ruinous figure for the traders, only the wealthiest ones being now left to 

continue the trade. The people consequently reaped the harvest. Money 

was plenty with them, and everything for sale in the way of life’s luxuries 

was indulged in by them. This naturally introduced an entire change 

in their mode of living, the good times continuing sufficiently long to 

create certain wants never before known. They adopted the European 

30 Elliott, A Report Upon the Conditions, 52.

31 Cobb, The Commercial Fisheries of Alaska in 1905, 31.

32 Brown, Frank M., Deputy Collector of Customs, letter December 31, 1869, to Frank N. Wicker, 

Special Agent Treasury Department, Sitka. NARA, RG 36, box 423.
74 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

style of dress, began to furnish their houses with articles never before 

considered necessary, thinking no doubt...that the improvement in their 

condition would be permanent.33

As a result of their 1869 visits, Bryant and McIntyre submitted reports that 

were at odds with each other. Confusion was indeed rampant. William Healey 

Dall found Unanga{ were “in a state of bewilderment.”34 General George H. 

Thomas wrote that people “did not know who or what to believe, nor what their 

rights and privileges were.”35 This was repeated in a statement given to Illarion 

Arkhimandritov, a former captain for the RA Company and a man of Unanga{ 

descent; Mariia Shaiashnikov was his niece. He was an experienced navigator 

who had been born in 1820 on St. George Island. He had attended Veniaminov’s 

school at Unalaska and had a distinguished career aboard RA Company vessels. 

After the sale he became a supporter of the Alaska Commercial Company. In 

October 1868 he collected petitions from Unalaska and the Pribilof Islands. 

The islands mentioned in the Unalaska document encompassed the traditional 

hunting grounds of the eastern Aleut and included Kashega, Makushin, and 

Biorka. 

Captain I. I. Archimandritoff—

We hereby request you to protect the interests of all the people living 

on and around the island of Unalashka and the neighboring islands 

as far west as the island “Umnak” and North East as far as the islands 

“Akoon, Tigalda, Avootanak, Unimak, and Unga”.

Everything is wrong in our parts and there is no order at all on the 

island of Unalashka since the Americans arrived. Our interests 

are in danger and we request the Government to put a stop to the 

molestations of different Companies of Americans who arrive here. 

We also beg you to put before the government a petition that it should 

reserve to us our trade and fisheries.

Your obedient servant,

Toien Kondroity Kutchutine

October 19, 186836

The 1868 regulations were amended on July 1, 1870, under a new and frequently 

recycled title: “An Act to prevent the Extermination of Fur-bearing Animals in 

Alaska.” Later that summer, this revision led to the lease of the Pribilof Islands 

to the AC Company for twenty years. The law was further refined to address 

the prohibition against distilled liquor (wine and beer were permitted) and the 

33 Bailey, Condition of Affairs, 16.

34 Dall to B.W. Evermann, U.S. Bureau of Fisheries, December 7, 1910. NARA, RG 22, U.S. Fish 

and Wildlife Service, file 290.

35 Report of Major General George H. Thomas. House Executive Document, 1 September 1869. 

Serial 1412:117

36	 NARA, MF 720, Alaska File of the Office of the Secretary of the Treasury, 1868-1903. Roll 2. The

statement from St. Paul was dated October 12, 1868, and the one from St. George was dated 

April 18, 1869. Kondroity Kutchutine was listed on an 1878 census at Unalaska, age 54.
CHAPTER 5: ENDS AND BEGINNINGS 75

importation of firearms. The AC Company, however, was allowed to bring guns 

and ammunition to the Pribilofs. Their use was forbidden when harvesting 

fur seals or hunting sea otters from June through October. From 1873 to 1875 

approximately 2,500 sea otters were secured each year. On July 3, 1875, the acting 

Treasury secretary banned rifles but this did nothing to reduce the number of 

otters taken. In fact, the overall catch increased.37

In 1868 sea otter pelts had brought between $22.50 and $55.00 (prime brown to 

prime dark silver) on the market.38 In 1870 Unalaska hunters received between 

$15 and $35 for each of the 300 to 400 sea otters taken.39 In 1872 “a good hunter” 

secured “from five hundred to a thousand dollars worth of skins.”40 Biorka, in 

particular, seems to have benefited from this economic boom. Unfortunately, 

the best eyewitness report for conditions there, made near the end of this brief 

period of prosperity, came from the worst possible witness: Ivan Petroff. His 

notoriety stems from the documents he fabricated with maniacal regularity 

during and after his 1878 visit to Alaska when he collected information for the 

10th U.S. census and for the history of Alaska that was being assembled by 

Hubert Howe Bancroft. A logbook kept by Unalaska agents at the AC Company 

confirms Petroff’s visit to Biorka on September 9-10, 1878. He described the 

village as “a prosperous little settlement”41 with a “neat church, and store, and 

comfortable dwellings, nestling on a strip of sandy beach, hemmed in on three 

sides by towering cliffs....”42 He attributed the success of the village, not to 

income from sea otter hunting, but to the local trader.

The strange and subtle influence of the method and manner of living 

practiced by an old trader who was and is their leader, one Gregory 

Krukov, is strikingly illustrated there to-day. This man and his wife are 

singularly neat in their manner of living; they keep everything clean 

about them, and in the summer decorate their house tastefully with 

wild flowers. The natives, under the influence of his example, are 

living in their barrabaras, the neatest and cleanest of their people in all 

Alaska. They are living so without an exceptional instance, every house 

being as orderly and as tidy as its neighbor. They put large windows 

into their barrabaras, sand and scrub the floors, and their furniture, 

their beds, and window-panes tidy and bright, while pots and tumblers 

filled with wild flowers stand on the tables and window-sills.43

Gregory Krukoff was a grandson of Ivan Krukoff [Kriukov], the old voyager who 

had recruited Veniaminov in 1822. Ivan’s son, Stefan, had held positions with 

37 Hooper, A Report on the Sea-Otter Banks, 16.

38 Alaska Herald, December 1, 1868.

39 Buynitsky, S.N., Investigation of the Fur-Seal and Other Fisheries of Alaska. 50th Congress, 2nd 

Session. House Report No. 3883. 1889:4.

40 Alaska Herald, June 9, 1872.

41 Hinckley, “Ivan Petroff’s Journal,” 35.

42 Petroff, “An Alaskan Centennial.”

43 Petroff, Population and Resources, 21.
76 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

the RA Company in the Pribilof Islands and been their manager at Nikolski. In 

1849 he was appointed paramount chief for the Unalaska district.44 Stefan’s son, 

Gregory, was born in 1828 and entered company service at a young age and, 

working out of the Unalaska office, eventually became their agent at Biorka. 

After the sale, the AC Company hired as many former employees of the RA 

Company as possible, and Gregory was one of these. His first wife, Evdokiia 

Petikoff, had died in 1870 and a few months later he married Anna Mukhoplev. 

In 1878 his household consisted of himself, his wife, his twenty year-old son 

Lazar, and Lazar’s wife. On October 30, 1879, Krukoff wrote to the general agent 

of the AC Company at Unalaska that he was sending $46.55 (in dollars) to 

Father Innokentii Shaiashnikov on behalf of Biorka village and its chapel. Henry 

W. Elliott was in the Aleutians in the early 1870s. His description of Biorka, 

however, is derivative, owing many of its details to Petroff while inserting his 

own peculiar disdain for Unanga{.45 By the time he published the popular Our 

Arctic Province in 1886, Gregory Krukoff had died.

One of the mysteries surrounding the three villages is the dramatic population 

increase at Biorka in the years immediately after the sale of Alaska. From 85 

residents in 1867, the community mushroomed to 141 by 1878. Fortunately, 

we have the 1878 household census compiled by Alfred Greenbaum, the AC 

Company general agent at Unalaska, to compare with Petroff’s 1880 census, both 

of whom received data from Innokentii Shaiashnikov. As dramatic as the Biorka 

increase might seem, the regional population actually declined by about nine 

percent.

Population change between 1867 and 1878

1867 1878

Greenbaum

1878

Petroff

Loss or Gain

Greenbaum/

Petroff

Biorka 85 141 139 +38/+54

Akutan 86 63 +86/+63

Akun 85 53 54 -33/-31

Avatanak 99 15 19 -84/-80

Tigalda 43 -43

Total 312 295 275 -17/-37

Continual movement between villages is reflected in the 1879 census George 

Bailey received from Shaiashnikov in which there are seven residents identified 

with Tigalda (supposedly completely abandoned by 1878). Whatever the exact 

numbers, Akun, Avatanak, and Tigalda were clearly in decline while Biorka 

and the newly established Akutan were growing. Moves to and from a village 

44 Pierce, Russian America, 269. Grinev, Kto Est Kto, 272.

45 Elliott, Our Arctic Province, 177.
CHAPTER 5: ENDS AND BEGINNINGS 77

were determined by a number of factors including available dwelling sites and 

materials, proximity (Akun is relatively close to Akutan), and the wish to retain 

family ties within a settlement. Lacking year-to-year changes for these villages, 

the impact of the establishment of the modern village of Akutan cannot be 

ascertained. The fact that it was established as a commercial center for the AC 

Company and the Western Fur and Trading Company may suggest that people 

who wished to have less contact with such businesses may have settled at Biorka. 

Makushin and Kashega’s populations, along with Chernofski’s, increased by 25 

percent. One factor may have been the reduction in infant mortality due to the 

relative prosperity of the 1870s.

Population change between 1867 and 1878

1867 1878

Greenbaum

1878

Petroff

1878-Children 

12 and under

Makushin 49 59 61 20

Kashega 69 76 73 18

Chernofski 62 86 98 24

Total 180 221 232 62

While the number of Russians in the territory had never been large, the years 

following the purchase saw a steady influx of white hunters, most frequently 

in communities along the Alaska Peninsula, where they used rifles, ignored 

accepted rules of behavior around sea otter sanctuaries, and temporarily 

married local women in order to be classified as “native hunters.” The sea otter 

population was reduced. In October 1876 Unanga{ hunters from several villages 

met at Unalaska, probably in preparation for leaving on the winter hunting 

party. A petition was drafted in which they stressed that sea otter hunting was 

their “sole means of procuring bread and clothes.” They acknowledged the 

“great injury” hunting with rifles had done to otter populations, noting that 

its prohibition had come too late. Specific charges were made against white 

hunters who had infiltrated the hunting grounds during the previous two years. 

In contrast to Unanga{ who showed “great care and caution,” outsiders cruised 

the area in schooners, made fires on beaches, disrupted the otters’ breeding 

grounds, and hunted with rifles. Written by Father Innokentii Shaiashnikov, the 

petition was sent to the Secretary of the Treasury with signatures of thirty-five 

men from several villages.

Therefore we, zealous to sustain ourselves, turn to Your Excellency, 

that you with your sentinels enforce caution and care upon those 

schooners now hunting around our shores, with especial reference to 

the sea otter grounds of the Shumagin Islands, Saanack and Oomanak, 
78 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

and protect these animals from the use of fire arms when hunting 

them, and also that vessels unless in distress shall not anchor on these 

grounds except such schooners as may carry our hunting parties to 

and from these places with all the requisite care and caution, like for 

instance those of the Alaska Commercial Company.46

Enforcement of any regulations, however, was nonexistent. In 1875 the only 

Revenue Service cutter in Alaska, the Wolcott, had been restricted to southeast 

Alaska. The following year, no cutter was sent to Alaska. In 1877 the Rush was in 

Alaska from April to November. When cutters intercepted sealers who were 

suspected of illegally taking fur seals, a thorough inspection was impossible. 

There was never room on the decks to break out the entire cargo consisting of 

provisions, sealing outfits, spare rigging, sails, blocks, the effects of the crew, etc. 

Rifles were easily concealed in corners of the hold, chain lockers, and 

storerooms. They were even stowed in the furled sails.47

As the second decade of U.S. rule began, residents at Biorka, Kashega, and 

Makushin faced a variety of problems brought on by declining sea otter 

populations. These difficulties, however, were minor compared with the 

catastrophe that overtook Makushin. Throughout 1878 volcanic activity along 

46 NARA, RG 22, box 69, folder: Sea Otters 1891-1902. There is a note attached to this copy signed 

by Henry W. Elliott saying the original was presented to him at Unalaska on October 16, 1876 and 

that he delivered it to Secretary Morrill in November.

47	 An unidentified extract sent to Captain C. L. Hooper, April 27, 1895, by C. S. Hamlin, Acting 

Secretary of the Treasury. NARA, RG 26, file 611, box 1839.

A later eruption of 

Bogoslof (1910). 

ASL-P277-008-066, 

Wickersham State 

Historic Sites Photograph 

Collection. 
CHAPTER 5: ENDS AND BEGINNINGS 79

the chain had noticeably increased. Whalers returning south to Hawaii reported 

seeing “gigantic columns of smoke” as they maneuvered through passes “and 

copious streams of lava” descending island slopes.48 On the last day of August, 

Unalaska Island was struck by a severe earthquake about two in the morning. 

Ivan Petroff was at Iliuliuk and two days later he wrote in his journal, “Some 

natives arrived at the village this morning from Makushin village with news of 

disaster caused by the over-flowing of rivers and lakes from volcanic action.”

49 Petroff’s unreliability has already been mentioned. Although the magazine 

Nature confirmed “an earthquake accompanied by a tidal wave totally destroyed 

the village of Makushin on August 29,” it is likely the information came from 

Petroff.50 The extant AC Company journal (January 1, 1878 – June 30, 1879) 

provides no information. Nevertheless, we can be fairly certain that the village 

was shaken to its core because the people began tearing down their barabaras, 

salvaging whatever lumber they could, and constructing homes at a site just 

inside the bay.51

Villages along the western coast of Unalaska Island had experienced volcanic 

disturbances before. The most dramatic recorded occurrence had been the 

appearance of Bogoslof Island, northwest of Makushin, in the late 18th century. 

Alexander Shaiashnikov, son of Innokentii Shaiashnikov, recalled that his greatgreat-grandmother was about sixteen or seventeen and living at Chernofski at 

the time. “There was a great quaking of the earth,” he told Samuel Applegate, 

“and for three days and nights the atmosphere was very dark. The water in the 

sea was so hot that it killed all the sea eggs and fish and for some time after 

the people were starving.” Then he added the interesting comment, “When 

this disturbance was going on the people at Tchernofski who had embraced 

Christianity were praying to God in fear while those who had not yet done so 

resorted to shamanism.” Shaiashnikov also relayed information from Klement 

Borenin, a resident of Kashega. (The 1878 census indicates he was born in 1842.) 

Borenin’s grandfather “heard from old people” that near where Bogoslov arose 

there used to be a pinnacle rock with a small sandy beach around it, just large 

enough for a few baidarkas to land. Seals hauled out on the rock and when 

hunters from different villages arrived at the same time, the first to land were 

given precedence while the others had to return home. It was a favorite site for 

Chernofski hunters.52

The new Makushin Village faced south, toward a dramatic outcropping called 

Cathedral Rocks. A stream at the eastern end of the beach provided fresh water. 

Nick Galaktionoff recalled that it was “a good place for young kids.” The beach 

at the village was “nothing but sand” and covered with tall wild rye where they 

could play for hours. “Because Makushin face south,” he said, “sunshine hit ‘em 

48 Nature, November 14, 1878.

49	 Hinckley, “Ivan Petroff’s Journal,” 33.

50 Nature, November 14, 1878.

51 Petroff, “The Limit of the Innuit Tribes,” 572-573.

52 Samuel Applegate to George Davidson, July 20, 1907. Alaska State Library, Historical Collections. 

Samuel Applegate Papers, 1892-1925. MS-3, box 1.
80 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

every day.”53 Nick’s grandmother, Marva Petukoff, probably also played with her 

two sisters in the tall grass as they settled into their new village while their father, 

Gregory, and their older brother, Basil, worked to ready their home. The wisdom 

of the 1878 move was confirmed when on October 20, 1883, Bogoslof again 

went into action, and this time Unalaska village itself was carpeted with “vast 

quantities” of ash.54

53 Nick Galaktionoff in The Beginning of Memory, 113.

54 Daily Alta California, 5 August 1884.
CHAPTER 5: ENDS AND BEGINNINGS 81

Nick Lekanoff, Sr. at Makushin beach. Photograph by Josy Shangin. Watercolor tint by Mary C. Broderick.
82 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

Sea Otter. Engraving after John Webber, A Voyage to the Pacific Ocean, 1780. Image courtesy Francis Broderick.
Chapter 6

The Lives of Sea Otter Hunters

T

he men of the “new” Makushin Village, like practically all able-bodied 

Unanga{ men, were active sea otter hunters employed by the AC 

Company. The reports that document the beginning of the long and 

irreversible decline of sea otter hunting tell us little about individuals. Among 

the names that do surface occasionally is that of Lazar Gordieff. He appears six 

times in the 1885-1889 AC Company copybook and in a few other documents. 

These fragmented records provide little more than shadows, but they are far 

more than we have for most Unanga{ of the late 19th century. 

Lazar was twenty-two in 1878 and living with his widowed father, two brothers 

and a sister at Chernofski.1 In a June 1885 letter from Rudolph Neumann, since 

1880 the AC Company general agent at Unalaska, we learn that Lazar was given 

dried seal throats.2 From this it can be deduced that he crafted delicate models 

of kayaks. The throats of fur seals, removed, cleaned, and dried during the 

seal harvests in the Pribilof Islands, were the preferred material for covering 

the intricate wooden frames. This letter went to the agent on Wosnesenski 

Island, in the heart of the eastern sea otter grounds, where Gordieff was part 

of the summer hunting party. He may have spent time between hunts carving 

and assembling models. A few of these trade items, all anonymous, survive in 

museums and testify to intimate knowledge of the kayak and to a high degree of 

craftsmanship.

The hunters were still away in August, but after they had returned to Unalaska 

in October and Neumann had gone over the records, which arrived on a 

subsequent ship, he discovered that Lazar owed the company $166 while another 

man owed $805. By then, both men had returned home to Chernofski.

1 1878 household census, UAF.

2 June 29, 1885, Unalaska, Letters Outgoing, Copy Book, 1885-1889 [Hereafter, ACC Copy Book 

1885-1889.]

 CHAPTER 6: THE LIVES OF SEA OTTER HUNTERS 83
84 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

“Why in h--- did you not collect from them,” an incensed Neumann demanded 

of the Wosnesenski agent, “on the furs which you bought and transfer their 

account to us.... In the future whenever a native leaves your station always send 

his account along by the same vessel.”3

AC Company station’s 

log book. Chernofski, 

March 1887, with entry 

for Lazar Gordieff. 

Courtesy J. Pennelope 

Goforth, editor. Bringing 

Aleutian History Home: 

the Lost Ledgers of the 

Alaska Commercial 

Company 1875-

1897. Unpublished 

transcripts produced 

at Anchorage, Alaska. 

2011-12. ©2011 J. 

Pennelope Goforth. 

Two weeks later Lazar’s debt had doubled and the general agent demanded an 

explanation from Adolph Reinken, his agent at Chernofski, “by return vessel.”4

Reinkin’s reply does not exist, but by January 1886 he had installed Lazar as 

chief, to the disgust of the general agent who refused to accept the 

appointment even though Lazar’s father, Michael Gordieff, had been chief up 

until October 15. “It would seem as if you did not know how to handle your 

men,” he chided Reinken. “You should have reported here before installing 

Lazar Gordeoff and until the party comes over here on their way to Sanak you 

will leave Alec. Belioff [the interim chief] alone. If he does not then [sail] a new 

chief will be appointed here.”5

3 October 2, 1885, ACC Copy Book 1885-1889.

4 October 15, 1885, ACC Copy Book 1885-1889.

5 January 28, 1886, ACC Copy Book 1885-1889.
CHAPTER 6: THE LIVES OF SEA OTTER HUNTERS 85

Adolph Reinken, AC Company agent at Chernofski. Gift 

from Henry Swanson to Ray Hudson. 

In April 1887 the S.S. Dora collected men from 

Chernofski, Kashega, and Makushin for the 

summer sea otter hunting party. Not quite 

a decade old, the 120-foot Dora was one of 

the company’s workhorses, although, at its 

launching a reporter had gushed “her lines are as 

graceful as those of a pleasure yacht.”6 Gordieff 

was probably one of the men who boarded 

the ship and who, with hunters from Biorka 

and Unalaska, were taken east to the sea otter 

grounds where they remained until September. 

That December, after he had returned home, his 

wife gave birth to a daughter.7 The next we hear 

about him he and Alex Beliaef [Belioff] traveled 

to Unalaska on March 24 and returned five days 

later.8 It is interesting that they traveled together, 

the interim chief and the would-be chief. 

Perhaps by this time they were first and second 

chiefs. It is likely that they were delivering winter 

fox pelts to the company headquarters. The 

summer hunting cycle was repeated in 1888 

and Gordieff again hunted around Wosnesenski 

Island. That September, after the men had 

returned to Unalaska and before the Dora

departed with them to their home villages, 

Neumann wrote to Reinken. He had the letter delivered by kayak so it would 

arrive before the steamer. 

“Lazar Gordieff died on Woznesenski,” he informed his agent. “I forward a box with 

his belongings to his wife, his rifle I have retained here.”9 This is all there is, all there 

ever will be. His wife was from Attu, and in August 1889 Neumann wrote to Reinken, 

“Let Lazar Gordieff’s wife stay where she is, if she wants to go to Attou we will see 

about it next spring.”10Consumed by water or fever, whether he drowned or died in 

an epidemic that swept the area, Gordieff’s short life was neither exceptional nor 

unusual.

The Company and Its Sea Otter Hunters

As the 1870s drew to a close, the boom that had accompanied the sale of Alaska 

diminished and residents in the three villages entered a period of economic 

decline. The Alaska Commercial Company achieved its virtual monopoly, buying 

or driving out smaller firms. “In a few years a change came,” wrote George Bailey 

in his succinct 1879 summary, 

6 The Daily Alta, April 8, 1880. William Healey Dall scrapbook. SIA, RU 7073, box 47, folder 3.

7 Goforth, Logbook, Tchernofski Station, May 5, 1887 – April 22, 1888. 

8 Goforth, Logbook, Tchernofski Station, May 5, 1887 – April 22, 1888.

9 September 14, 1888, ACC Copy Book 1885-1889.

10 August 7, 1889, ACC Copy Book 1885-1889.
86 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

the traders of small capital went to the wall; the prices paid for furs 

went down to a living figure for those that remained; the hunter’s 

profits became correspondingly less, and, in order to keep up his 

income, he had to be more constantly employed. This constant 

hunting has reduced the number of animals in some localities, and 

today a large proportion of these people are very poor.11

The AC Company attempted to control sea otter hunting through a complicated 

system of recruitment and rewards. Loyal hunters were extended credit. For 

residents of the three villages, this meant credit at the small stores run by 

local agents whose account books were scrutinized by the general agent. The 

company was alert to any hunter who did not sell his furs to it, in which case the 

man’s credit was cut off.12 “Where did Dionese Kholinof get his sea otter which 

he gave to Tchernofski church?” Neumann asked Reinken in November 1886. 

“Did he bring it with him from Ounalaska?”13 Men were outfitted for hunting 

expeditions at a cost to be repaid from a successful hunt. At the same time that 

the company introduced wood frame housing to the Pribilofs, it built cottages 

at Unalaska and Belkofski for their best hunters. This was not done in any of the 

three villages. Mark Harrington found that the company could control its hunters 

with little effort. “Indeed, the Aleuts are too submissive for their own interest,” 

he wrote. “They allow themselves to be over-ridden and abused without 

complaint.... Yet they are bright and intelligent, and are always trustworthy.”14

As the AC Company strove to stay abreast of any changes in manpower, it 

required village agents to record births and deaths.15 “Enclosed you will find...list 

of natives belonging to your station,” Neumann instructed Reinken, “which you 

will return to us in the Spring marking those natives who are dead and absent 

and where they are, also correct spelling of names in your ledger.”16 This list 

included men living at both Kashega and Chernofski.

11 Bailey, Condition of Affairs in Alaska, 16.

12 October 2, 1885, ACC Copy Book, 1885-1889.

13 November 29, 1886, ACC Copy Book 1885-1889.

14	 M.W.H. [Mark W. Harrington] “Alaska. Twelve Months’ Residence in the Territory.” Chicago

Tribune, January 24, 1873:2.

15 January 22, 1886, ACC Copy Book 1885-1889.

16 January 22, 1886, ACC Copy Book 1885-1889.

Unangaˆx hunters 

travelled as far south 

as Calilfornia to 

procure sea mammal 

pelts for the RusianAmerican Company.

Below: Settlement 

Ross (California)

by Ilya Gavrilovich 

Voznesenskii, 1841, Peter 

the Great Museum 

of Anthropology and 

Ethnography, Russian 

Academy of Science, 

Petersburg.
CHAPTER 6: THE LIVES OF SEA OTTER HUNTERS 87

Whether hunting on their own, with partners (angtaasa{ and angaayu{), or 

as members of company-sponsored hunts, men were away from their villages 

for longer and longer periods. Their extended absences impacted subsistence 

practices, most importantly in harvesting sea lions. This was nothing new. Under 

the Russian-American Company prolonged hunting expeditions had reduced the 

number of men able to procure food and subsistence materials locally, and the 

company had positioned itself as the distribution agent for necessities.17 The AC 

Company learned from that example.

“Springing the Alarm. 

Natives capturing SeaLions, Saint Paul's Island.” 

H. W. Elliott. NOAA. 

With exclusive rights to the Pribilof Islands, the company had crews there that 

harvested large numbers of sea lions, dried the meat, and prepared the throats, 

intestines, and hides. These hides, known as lavtaki (pl.) were shipped to 

Unalaska and disbursed by the company to villages where they were prepared as 

coverings for kayaks. The throats were used for the upper part of boots and the 

intestines were sewed into kamleikas or gut raingear. During the fur seal harvest, 

meat was salted, barreled, and sent to Unalaska for distribution by the company. 

The general agents were responsible for securing these raw materials. “I have 

none on hand,” Neumann wrote about sea lion hides in July 1886 to the agent at 

St. Paul, “and it is unnecessary for me to state, how important they are to the 

business down here, please ship also the intestines and throats and seal meat.”18

The following summer he wrote to St. George, “We are very short of luftak[,] 

intestines etc. and you will greatly oblige us by sending the above at first 

opportunity.”19 Uninterrupted control over the harvesting and distribution of sea 

lion skins gave the AC Company unchallengeable power. Dall wrote that during 

his first stay at Unalaska, 1871-1872, the company “had a monopoly on the 

sealion skins which the natives used on their skin boats.”20

17 Luehrmann, Alutiiq Villages, 69-70.

18 July 1, 1886, September 14, 1886, ACC Copy Book 1885-1889.

19 June 7, 1887, ACC Copy Book 1885-1889.

20 Dall to Mrs. R. L. Nichols, November 2, 1921. SIA, RU 7073, box 5.
88 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

From the fragmentary extant records, it is possible to get a sense of the quantity of 

hides secured on St. Paul by the company. In 1870, 527 were sent to Unalaska for 

use throughout the Aleutians. Along with the hides went 34 barrels of blubber and 

seal oil used to soften them.21 “A quantity” was sent in 1872. On September 16, 

1873, approximately 160 sea lions were killed on St. Paul. Again on November 26, 

130 were killed. In 1875, 295 skins were delivered; in 1876, 79 were taken to 

Unalaska by Alfred Greenbaum; and in 1878 the Unalaska station purchased 150.22

Occasionally the Unalaska agent supplied skins to Kodiak.23 To supplement sea 

lion intestines, the company requisitioned bear gut from other parts of Alaska 

where it had stations, such as Kodiak and St. Michael.24

“Bateaix des Iles 

Aleoutiennes,” (Boats 

from the Aleutian 

Islands). Illustration of 

single-hatch skin boat 

and double-hatch frame 

executed by Ludovik 

(Louis) Choris between 

1815-1818. From 

Voyages pittoresque 

autour du monde... UAF, 

B0083-83.

Of course, whenever possible, Unanga{ men hunted locally. Unfortunately, 

sea lion populations rose and fell and there were times when the animals were 

scarce. In 1872 Dall noted that sea lions were no longer found at Unalaska and 

14 years later Neumann remarked to the Kodiak agent that they again were 

scarce.25 When new skins were not available, men had to make do with what they 

had. “All your men that have decent bidarkas or can make them so,” Neumann 

wrote to the Nikolski agent, “should be ready on the arrival of the vessel to go on 

21 Barnes, Winslow B. “Report of Winslow B. Barnes, Lieut., St. Paul Island, June 1870.” Seal and 

Salmon Fisheries and General Resources of Alaska, serial 3576:14. 

22	 Transcripts of Notes 1872-1902 made from log by Walter L. Hahn, p. 228. NARA, RG 22, file 291,

box 49.

23 In 1891 Washburn at Kodiak asked Neumann at Unalaska to ship him medium weight skins as his 

order had not been filled by the home office. August 5, 1891, Kodiak Station, Letters, outgoing:

Letter Book A, box 124, folder 1146, UAF.

24 June 23, 1886, ACC Copy Book 1885-1889.

25 “Prehistoric Remains ... Report of Dr. W.H. Dall, U.S. Coast Survey.” Daily Evening Bulletin. (San 

Francisco) Nov. 6, 1872. August 17, 1886, ACC Copy Book 1885-1889.
CHAPTER 6: THE LIVES OF SEA OTTER HUNTERS 89

a hunting party for the summer.”26 Skin boat construction required specialized 

skills, specialized tools, and weeks of work, and the general agent tried to deliver 

hides to villages in the fall so the winter could be spent preparing them and 

getting kayaks ready by late spring for departure on the summer hunt. 

Sinew for making thread was another vital commodity. Whale tendon was the 

preferred raw material and various grades were made for sewing skins to kayak 

frames and in the production of clothing. Sophie Pletnikoff of Kashega once 

showed me how two fine strands, torn from a hard piece of tendon, one held 

in each hand, were twisted together into a single cord. In 1888 the agent at 

Makushin was told to send to Iliuliuk all the sinew he could spare, “just keeping 

enough for your own Bydarkas.”27 After the Makushin people found a whale in 

the fall of 1889, they were ordered to sell sinew to Nikolski for a dollar a pound. 

“Should you not be able to get the sinew,” the general agent wrote, “let Adolph 

Reinken know so that he may supply them.”28 In February 1889 the Akutan 

Station sent twelve pounds of whale sinew to Unalaska.

In addition to sea lion hides—and occasionally kayaks themselves—the 

company supplied vital waterproof kamleikas to their hunters. In 1886 Neumann 

sent four kamleikas by kayak to Biorka for hunters preparing to leave on the 

spring hunt.29 If men were successful taking local sea lions, women were 

expected to convert the intestines into kamleikas, either for use by local hunters 

or to be sold to the company.30 There was a qualitative difference between boats 

and raingear contracted and distributed by the company and those that were 

made within the context of a village or extended family. Kamleikas produced 

for export were sometimes so poorly made that they had to be resewed.31 But if 

a woman sewed a garment for her husband or son, she would have taken great 

care in its manufacture. 

As the 19th century ended, although Unanga{ retained extensive knowledge 

about skin boat construction and gut sewing, the cyclical patterns of life were 

falling into disarray. Sea lions and skin boats had formed a circle of subsistence: 

sea lions were used to cover skin boats and these kayaks were used to hunt sea 

lions and other game. When men no longer took sea lions for their own use, the 

intimate relationship between a man and his kayak diminished. It was inevitable 

that a hunter would feel less attachment to a purchased or loaned iqya{ than to 

one he had crafted himself, one on which his wife or sisters had sewed the sea 

lion hides after piercing them with bird-bone awls, one in which he had secreted 

his amulets. The “mass production” of skin boats may also have contributed 

to the gradual coarsening of the vessel. Certainly durability became a primary 

concern of the commercial company who relied on a fully equipped hunting 

26 March 5, 1886, ACC Copy Book 1885-1889.

27 February 1889, ACC Copy Book 1885-1889.

28 February 16, 1889, ACC Copy Book 1885-1889.

29 April 7, 1886, ACC Copy Book 1885-1889.

30 September 29, 1885, ACC Copy Book 1885-1889.

31 November 25, 1885, ACC Copy Book 1885-1889.
90 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

force. The kayak had once been an integral part of the family, even taken inside 

the barabara. Now its production and use was an instrument of commerce 

controlled by the AC Company. The people of Biorka, Makushin, and Kashega 

had taken another step away from their ancestral way of life. 

Pribilof Island Connections

The dried fur seal throats given to Lazar Gordieff undoubtedly originated in the 

Pribilof Islands. They were a very minor export when compared with sea lion 

skins, salted fur seal meat, and, of course, the lucrative fur seal pelts themselves. 

Despite stringent control by the U.S. government and domination by the 

AC Company, the residents of the Pribilof Islands comprised, as one visitor 

remarked, a western aristocracy.32 The fur seal harvest guaranteed an annual 

income far greater than any achieved by residents of the Aleutian chain. A 

comparison of income between the two Pribilof communities and Akutan shows 

the difference.33 For 1886 and 1887 the average Pribilof income was about seven 

times that earned by an Akutan man, $487 compared to $74.34

“Seal Drove Crossing,” 

Saint Paul Island 

October 20, 1872. H. W. 

Elliott, UA482-2. 

32 Investigation of the Fur-Seal and Other Fisheries of Alaska, 1889:xxxi.

33 Among Pribilof workers, income varied widely. In 1889 at St. Paul a first class sealer received

$627.85 while a sixth class worker got only $251.17. The priest that year received $1,000. The 

St. George chiefs were paid between $80 and $100 a year while the chiefs on St. Paul were 

paid $300 in 1885 and $200 for subsequent years. An 1886-1888 ledger indicates that the 

Unalaska harbor or port chief received an annual salary of $1000 which was paid by hunters 

from Makushin, Chernofski, Kashega, Biorka and Unalaska villages. Unalaska Ledger in Russian 

covering the years 1886 to 1888, page 6. Possession of Larry Shaishnikoff, Unalaska, Alaska. A 

translation into English was made by Lydia T. Black. Copy in Ray Hudson’s collection. [Hereafter,

Shaishnikoff 1886-1888 ledger.]

34 Income for the Pribilofs is from Proceedings of the Tribunal of Arbitration, Vol. V, 719, 731, 733. 

Akutan income is from the ACC Akutan Station Account Ledger and the Akutan Station Daily Cash 

Record.
CHAPTER 6: THE LIVES OF SEA OTTER HUNTERS 91

By 1879 a few men from the Aleutians were allowed onto the Pribilofs to do 

work that fell outside the seal harvest. They earned $1 a day or 10 cents an 

hour for various jobs including loading and unloading vessels and bundling 

furs after they had been salted. Pribilof men who could earn between $25 and 

$35 a day sealing had little incentive to work for $1 a day. In the spring of 1882 

a large number of deaths at St. Paul compelled the agent to use laborers from 

Unalaska.35 While most of these men came from Iliuliuk, men from the three 

villages also found seasonal employment. In 1887 about forty men were brought 

to St. Paul Island to assist with the sealing. According to the special treasury 

agent, “The average pay of the St. Paul native sealer this year is a little over $500, 

whilst the Unalaskans receive on an average $80 each.”36 By 1888 between thirtyfive and forty-five Unalaska men were seasonally employed. “They are taken 

from the poorer class at Oonalaska,” said Thomas F. Morgan, “men not successful 

in hunting. They are usually composed of old men, too old to hunt the sea 

otter.”37 Boys found employment there also, although they were paid as little as 

$15 a month. 

 Without a doubt, St. Paul and St. George were incomparably wealthier than 

villages in the chain and this condition continued for decades. In 1873 St. Paul 

embarked on construction of a new church, completed in 1877 at a cost to the 

community of $14,000. The nine bells alone cost about $3,000 plus another 

thousand for freight from Philadelphia.38 The AC Company was an active 

participant in the building’s design and construction. In contrast, a decade later 

when the Kashega people wanted a new chapel they recycled an abandoned 

building. “In regard to the Kashega people,” Neumann wrote to Reinken at 

Chernofski (in the same letter in which he notified him of Lazar Gordieff’s 

death), “you can let them have the building they wanted to buy at their place for 

a church.” A letter in July 1889 shows that by “have” he meant “purchase.” After 

the village submitted a request for items in February 1889, Neumann wrote that 

he would attend to it but he pointed out that the church now owed the company 

$106.40. That summer he asked Reinken to itemize the church account that had 

grown to $631.80.39

As of August 1, 1887, the people of St. Paul and St. George had over $94,000 in U. 

S. bonds in San Francisco. In 1895 the company’s books held $52,757.96 in savings 

for the people of St. Paul and $3,133.51 for those of St. George.40 (This included 

$1,876.56 in a special account called the “Natives’ fund for translation of Bible.”) 

As an admittedly biased commentator remarked that same year about the Pribilof 

35 Glidden, Henry A. “Preliminary report for 1882,” in Seal and Salmon Fisheries, serial 3576, 155-

156. 

36 Tingle, George. “Annual Report for 1887,” in Seal and Salmon Fisheries, serial 3576, 199.

37 Investigation of the Fur-Seal and Other Fisheries of Alaska, serial 2674, 80.

38 St. Paul Island Log, June 29, 1876, May 20, 1877.

39 September 14, 1888, February 16, 1889, July 18, 1889, ACC Copy Book 1885-1889.

40 Investigation of the Fur-Seal and Other Fisheries of Alaska, serial 2674, 391-392.
92 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

Island men, “It is safe to say that no laboring men within the boundaries of the 

United States are better paid or better cared for.”41

Everything done on the Pribilofs, however, was accompanied by controversy. 

In 1874-75 the company conducted a massive replacement of barabaras with 

wood-frame dwellings and this was seen, depending on your point of view, either 

as company beneficence or a ploy to gain ownership of land.42 In either case, 

the local people found the new dwellings cold and difficult to heat.43 Subject 

to the whims of government and company agents, men who were both benign 

and venal, the residents endured what amounted to decades of congressionally 

sanctioned forced labor. As the titles of two books on the Pribilof Islands suggest, 

the people were “slaves of the harvest” who endured “a century of servitude.” The 

islands were an unusual prison, however, for it was one where people fought to 

remain and that others struggled to enter.

Detail from “The SeaLion Hunt on Pribylov 

Islands.” Images 

from left to right: “...

bidarrah covered 

with sea-lion skins; 

sealers’ houses.” 

H. W. Elliott. NOAA. Although harvesting fur seals was the exclusive right of the AC Company in the 

Pribilof Islands, during the 1880s fur seals appeared in lists of furs sold by hunters 

from Biorka, Makushin, and Kashega. These were primarily pups taken for food as 

they migrated south through Aleutian passes from the end of October to the end 

of November. Petroff wrote that men at Makushin had “an opportunity better 

than that enjoyed by any other settlement in their country to capture the young 

fur-seals in their passage through the straits of Oomnak in the fall, securing 

between 1,000 and 1,300 of these animals every year.”44 He stated that Biorka 

hunters took as many as 1,400 seals in one season in Unalga Pass. “The northerly 

winds bring them in the direction of this harbor, and the natives go out in their 

bidarkas and spear and shoot them for food,” testified two Unalaska Aleuts in 

1892. “Sometimes we find old male seals with them, but we dare not attack them 

in the bidarka.”45 Ruff Burdukofski, for many years the chief salaried by the AC 

Company at Unalaska, noted that the best time to get pups was “immediately 

after northerly gales, and before the water has grown so quiet that the young pups 

41 C. A. Williams, Proceedings of the Tribunal of Arbitration, Vol. III, 543-544.

42	 See Jones’ discussion of this in A Century of Servitude, 20.

43 Hugh H. McIntyre to Emma L. McIntyre, Ounalaska, May 12, 1876. Robert Collins Collection.

44 Petrof, Population and Resources, 19.

45 Deposition of S. Melavidoff and D. Salamatoff, Proceedings of the Tribunal of Arbitration,

Vol. III, 209. 
CHAPTER 6: THE LIVES OF SEA OTTER HUNTERS 93

can again continue their journey.”46 He stated that Unalaska village caught from 

150 to 200 pups a year, depending on the weather. Meat from fur seal pups was 

comparable to chicken.47 Arthur Newman recalled its use while he was the 

company agent at Chernofski and Nikolski.

The native hunters living at the settlements of Chernofsky and Umnak 

[Nikolski] used to hunt the fur-seals in the fall of each year for food, 

laying the flesh away for winter use. While at Chernofsky, I collected 

annually from the natives about 750 skins of fur-seals killed in the 

water adjacent, and at Umnak, I collected 

on an average about 150 skins. These were 

mostly the skins of gray pups taken during 

the month of October, they being most 

highly prized by the natives as an article of 

food.48

These pelts fell outside the number the AC 

Company was authorized to take in the 

Pribilofs, and they could be shipped only 

with permission from the deputy Collector of 

Customs. In 1885 the company shipped 1,392 

skins and 2,821 in 1886. In 1887 they received 

permission to ship 4,686.49 As the numbers 

of sea otters declined and villagers returned 

to subsistence practices, fur seals became 

an increasingly important source of food. In 

1887, however, word was received that “there 

seems to be a law prohibiting such killing” and 

Neumann asked his agents to collect “as few 

as possible” fur seal skins.50 “I know they have 

to kill some to live,” he wrote to Reinken, “but 

I want you to buy as few skins as possible, and 

have therefore shipped you also less salt.”51In 

1889, perhaps to make up for a decrease in 

locally taken seals, the Unalaska agent asked 

his counterpart on St. Paul to “kindly send...

abut 250 or 300 Seal carcasses for the natives of 

these Islands.”52

46 Deposition of Ruth [sic] Burdukofski, Proceedings of the Tribunal of Arbitration, Vol. III, 206.

47 Deposition of Kerrick Artomanoff, Proceedings of the Tribunal of Arbitration, Vol. III, 211.

48 Deposition of Arthur Newman, Proceedings of the Tribunal of Arbitration, Vol. III, 101.

49 June 12, 1885; June 26, 1886; July 7, 1887, ACC Copy Book 1885-1889. See also a table 

prepared by Max Heilbronner, secretary of the A. C. Company, Proceedings of the Tribunal of 

Arbitration, Vol. Ix, 570.

50 September 13, 1887, ACC Copy Book 1885-1889.

51 September 13, 1887, ACC Copy Book 1885-1889.

52 July 31, 1889, ACC Copy Book 1885-1889.

St. Paul Isand

showing village and

“Killing Grounds.”

H. W. Elliott. NOAA.
94 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

Native barabara and 

boy, St. Paul Island, 

Alaska. (Alaska Investigations-1914). Department of the Interior. U.S. 

Fish and Wildlife Service. 

Alaska Regional Office, 

National Archives and 

Records Administration.

When Richard Emmons, deputy U.S. collector of customs at Unalaska, sought 

permission in June 1890 for Unanga{ to kill fur seal pups for food and clothing, 

the Secretary of the Treasury had no choice, under the regulations, but to deny 

his request.53

The Sea Otter Hunt

Like other men from Biorka, Makushin, and Kashega, Lazar Gordieff’s 

life was inexorably bound to the success of seasonal sea otter hunts 

among the Shumagin Islands and other enclaves off the Alaska 

Peninsula. Expeditions were organized by the AC Company so as to 

never leave the otter banks without hunters. A summer party generally 

left in April and returned in September. A winter party, frequently 

transported on the vessel that picked up the summer hunters, 

remained until the spring. Gordieff appears to have usually joined the 

summer party. 

Hunters from Makushin, Kashega, and Chernofski first traveled 

to Unalaska aboard a company vessel where they joined a larger 

contingent that included men from Biorka and Unalaska itself. 

Kashega men frequently traveled by kayak to Chernofski where they 

met the company ship. Their kayaks were, of course, taken on board 

as these were used during the hunt. Biorka hunters arrived at Unalaska on their 

own after the local agent had been notified that a vessel was preparing to take 

the hunting party east. Notification was occasionally given by a signal fire lit on 

the Unalaska Island side of Beaver Inlet.54 On June 7, 1878, eleven kayaks arrived 

at Unalaska from Biorka with eighteen men to join the hunting party destined 

for Sanak. In 1887 William Petersen, captain of the Mathew Turner, was told to 

take twenty-one kayaks from Unalaska and seven from Biorka “all laying in this 

port now” and proceed to Sanak.55 The schooner transporting men to Sanak 

sometimes stopped at Biorka, saving the men the trip to Unalaska. This was 

done on May 12, 1879, when the Schooner Bella arrived to “take on board . . . 

19 Baidarkas 32 men.” On that occasion, however, there was room for only ten 

kayaks. Nine had to travel to Unalaska on their own and wait for the Bella to 

make a second trip.56

Hunters from the three villages did not always travel or hunt together. In April 

1888 Biorka hunters sailed on the Schooner Pearl in April while men from 

Kashega and Makushin came a little later on the Dora.

57 In May 1889 hunters 

from Makushin, Kashega, and Chernofski went on the Dora to hunt at Seal 

Cape, while men from Unalaska and Nikolski hunted at Sanak.58 While each 

village had its own chief, these men were not necessarily in charge on the otter 

53 San Francisco Call, Vol. 68, No. 56, 26 July 1890.

54 April 17, 1888, ACC Copy Book 1885-1889.

55 April 23, 1887, ACC Copy Book 1885-1889.

56 May 13, 1879, ACC Log Book 1878-1879.

57 April 15, 1888, ACC Copy Book 1885-1889.

58 May 4, 1889, ACC Copy Book 1885-1889.
CHAPTER 6: THE LIVES OF SEA OTTER HUNTERS 95

grounds. As he aged, Chief Ruff Bourdokovsky accompanied hunters less often. 

The operation of the hunt appears to have been a cooperative venture between 

the AC Company agent on location or the captain of the vessel from which men 

hunted and a chief recognized by the company who could communicate with 

the hunters. Thus in 1888 Neumann admonished William Peterson, captain 

of the Turner, whose men had left him “in disgust,” to consult with Vasilii 

Shaiashnikov, chief of Unalaska, in order to “do something to retrieve yourself.”59

Shaiashnikov’s position at the time was salaried by the AC Company. In a journal 

that I ascribe to him, covering the years 1886-1888, there is an entry that suggests 

his “assistants”—that is, sub-chiefs—from Makushin, Chernofski, Kashega, and 

Biorka, were also paid for their services.60 Unfortunately, the journal provides no 

names.

Wives and daughters occasionally accompanied their husbands and fathers to 

the sea otter grounds. This was how Hugh McGlashan of Akutan met his future 

wife, Feckla Prokopeuff of Attu, who was assisting her father at the hunting camp 

on Sanak.61 It is possible, of course, that this was how Lazar Gordieff met his wife, 

also from Attu. In 1888, however, Neumann wrote to Reinken, “If any winter-party 

comes for Sanak do not send their wives.” He went into more detail in a letter 

to Henry Dirks at Atka, “Keep the women belonging to the men that go on the 

winter-party at home, from all I hear it is preferable to let a man remain at home 

rather than carry him with his wife to Sanak, where she only proves a hindrance to 

hunting.”62

“Aleuts sea-otter hunting 

south of Saanak Island; 

the bidarkies waiting for 

the otter to rise again.” 

H. W. Elliott, NOAA.

59 July 20, 1888, ACC Copy Book 1885-1889.

60 Shaishnikoff 1886-1888 Ledger, p. 6.

61	 Undated article, “Alaska ‘King’ here longs to be back with his queen” by Fred L. Boalt, n.d., 1912,

from a Seattle newspaper. Copy from Kris McGlashan of Sand Point. This was a syndicated 

article that appeared under different titles in the fall of 1912.

62 September 14, 1888, ACC Copy Book 1885-1889.
96 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

Once on the otter grounds, hunters used a variety of techniques. Hunting from 

kayaks most frequently employed a strategy called the surround. Once sighted, 

an otter was encircled by a ring of hunters who kept up a barrage of spears, 

driving the otter to stay under water until, forced to the surface for a long gulp of 

air, it was struck.

On April 21, 1879, the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury restricted the killing of furbearing animals to Alaska Natives. Firearms were forbidden from May through 

September. No vessels, except those transporting otter hunters, could anchor in 

the “well-known otter killing grounds.” Then he added a final sentence that had 

wide repercussions: “White men lawfully married to natives, and residing within 

the territory, are considered natives within the meaning of this Order.”63 This 

sentence according to Captain Michael A. Healy, following a cruise in 1884 on 

the U. S. Revenue Steamer Corwin, was “but offering a premium for bigamy and 

desertion.” 

Unprincipled white hunters, tempted by the great value of otter skins, 

come here and marry the simple girls, force them to accompany them 

on their hunting trips and do their cooking and work for them, bring 

two or three children into the world, and then leave their families to 

get their living as best they can, while they themselves return to enjoy 

their earnings with other wives in civilization.64

In 1881 John Muir noted that fifteen white men at Unga had married Native 

women in order to hunt sea otter.65 These men brought breech loading rifles 

under a permit which allowed their importation for self-defense against hostile 

Indians. Of course, there were no hostile Indians in the region. Occasionally in 

southeastern Alaska outbreaks of violence between whites and Natives occurred, 

and in the western parts of the continental United States the Indian campaigns 

were still being pursued, a fact noted in an article from a newspaper glued for 

insulation to an interior wall of an Unanga{ home at Unalaska and discovered 

about a century later when the house was razed.66

“No where in the Aleutian Islands,” wrote Healy in 1881, “is a breech loader 

necessary as an arm of defense. The natives are mild and peaceful in disposition, 

and if a permit be granted under any such plea, it should be to the native, not the 

white man.”67 As everyone realized, rifles were not imported for defense but for 

hunting. They were brought in on permits and then given or sold to residents. 

Healy wrote, “Those to whom permits for breech loaders have been granted are 

given a big advantage in hunting over the natives—moreover from four to six of 

these guns are at times collected together by one person, and given out to natives 

63 Quoted in Proceedings of the Tribunal of Arbitration, Vol. VI, 127.

64 Healy, Report of the Cruise of the Revenue Marine Steamer Corwin, 19-20.

65 Muir, The Cruise of the Corwin, 23.

66 Unalaska City School Collection.

67 Healy, Report of M. A. Healy, 1st Lieut. Commanding Revenue Steamer Rush. Sept. 12, 1881. 

NARA, Alaska File of the Revenue Cutter Service, RG 26, M641.
CHAPTER 6: THE LIVES OF SEA OTTER HUNTERS 97

to hunt with.” On March 30, 1882, rifles and ammunition were prohibited except 

for persons about to leave the territory and then only to certified residents of 

the mainland United States. Like any prohibition, this law jacked up the prices 

throughout the territory. Rifles continued to be used by both whites and Natives, 

as was seen when Lazar Gordieff died and Neumann claimed his rifle.

Captain Healy on the 

quarterdeck of the 

Revenue Cutter Bear, 

circa 1895. Healy is 

the first man of AfricanAmerican descent to 

captain a vessel of the 

United States Navy. 

United States Coast 

Guard, U.S. Department 

of Homeland Security.

On April 19, 1886, the Reverend Nicholas Rysev drafted a petition on behalf of 

the Natives of Unalaska and surrounding areas. It was signed by 140 sea otter 

hunters. A comparison of the names with census lists from 1878 and 1897 shows 

that they came from five villages in addition to Biorka, Kashega, and Makushin: 

Akun, Akutan, Unalaska, Chernofski, and Nikolski. The date of the petition 

suggests it was drafted at a time when men gathered at Unalaska, returning 

from the 1885-1886 winter hunt and preparing to leave for the summer 1886 

hunt. Addressed to President Cleveland, it was forwarded by A. C. Barry, Deputy 

Collector of Customs at Unalaska, who wrote “that the petitioners are not Indians 

but Christians and are peaceable and good citizens, and that in my opinion their 

prayer deserves a favorable consideration.” 

Of the 140 hunters who signed the petition, 99 appear in the 1886-1887 winter 

hunting party ledger.68 They included sixteen from Biorka, seven from Makushin, 

and fifteen from a combined Chernofski and Kashega. Among them were Lazar 

Gordieff of Chernofski, Arsim Galaktionoff of Makushin, and Terentii Makarin of 

Biorka.

68 Rev. Nikolai S. Risef also signed. I am including among the hunters three names of men who may 

not have participated in the hunt: Andrei Lodosknikoff, the assistant priest, Innokentii Sheshkin, 

another church official, and Alexander Shaiashnikov, who frequently worked as an agent for the 

A.C. Company. None of these three were listed in the winter hunting party.
98 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

This petition reviewed contemporary practices that may or may not have been in 

compliance with the statutes. As the petitioners understood the law, “the importation 

of fire-arms and ammunition is...granted to white hunters who marry native 

women also to immigrants, actual settlers, and residents,” but denied to Unanga{. 

The competition from these white hunters forced them to abandon the spear and 

to begin using “muzzle-loading fire-arms.” The foreign hunters erected dwellings 

on the islands within “the hauling grounds and resting places” of the otter, gradually 

driving them away. Unanga{ emphasized the importance of the otter to their lives: 

“We gain our daily bread by the chase. Our principal occupation is sea-otter hunting.” 

Otters were being driven to even more “unapproachable places” making the hunt 

increasingly difficult and dangerous.

We beg respectfully that the permission granted to other hunters to 

import breech-loading rifles, but with-held from us, be also extended 

to us, and thus enable us to gain our subsistence by our own exertion.

Also that nobody should be permitted to build and inhabit any 

dwellings on the hauling and resting places of the sea otter, and 

section 1956 Revised Statues prohibiting the killing of fur-bearing 

animals without the consent of the Secretary of the Treasury be strictly 

enforced, as well as the penalties against violating this law, by vessels.69

In his reply addressed to Governor Swineford of Alaska, the Secretary of the 

Treasury wrote that “no good reason is perceived for granting the petition until 

all reasonable means for the suppression of illegal hunting shall have been 

exhausted.”70 Although Swineford was no friend of the AC Company, he also 

opposed the petition. He went to lengths to explain his reasons, even suggesting 

that white men married to Native women could hunt only with spears.

...it is wholly illegal for white men not married to native women to 

kill the sea-otter in any manner, and that white men who are married 

to native women have the same rights as the natives, no more, no 

less.... As I understand it, were it in my power to grant the permission 

asked for, I would only be making a bad matter worse by hastening the 

complete extinction of the sea-otter, should I comply with the request 

of the petitioners.... The spear is the only mode of killing the sea-otter 

recognized by law....71

But words had little effect. Rudolph Neumann is said to have dismissed and 

ridiculed Swineford’s letter. The Unalaska deputy U.S. commissioner promptly 

gave or sold a rifle to Ivan Dyakanoff while Neumann traded a Winchester rifle to 

Ivan Locomekoff for the first two sea otters he would kill with it. 

69 1886 petition of natives to President Cleveland. ACC Records, Archives of the Arctic and Polar 

Regions Collections of the Elmer E. Rasmuson Library.

70 Charles S. Fairchild, Acting Secretary of the Treasury Department to Collector of Customs at 

Sitka, July 19, 1886. On this copy of the letter is the handwritten note, “Rec’d from Bureau of

Customs, Feb. 11, 1928.” NARA, RG 22.

71 1886 petition of natives to President Cleveland.
CHAPTER 6: THE LIVES OF SEA OTTER HUNTERS 99

Another petition was sent to the President of the United States the following year 

from hunters at Sanak, Unga, Belkovski, Unalaska, Akutan, Atka, and Attu. This 

requested a government vessel be stationed near the sea otter grounds to warn 

off pelagic hunting crews from American and British schooners. “It is stated that 

twenty schooners are now within a short distance of the Sanach and Choumagan 

hunting grounds,” reported the San Francisco Chronicle, “and the natives in their 

canoes have no chance to catch any otters. Being deprived of their 

legitimate pursuit, they are unable to obtain provisions in exchange for 

their furs.”72 By this time schooners were specifically outfitted with 

steam launches that were able to scour “every nook and cranny on the 

coast and otter-hunting grounds”73 Chase Littlejohn had used a steam 

launch as early as 1886, and that year the AC Company offered to make 

them available for between two and three thousand dollars.74 On the 

other hand, the use of nets proved ineffectual.75 In 1887 three vessels 

(the Otter, Alexander, and Rose Sparks) took 1800 seals and 228 sea 

otters. The 1890 census decried the use of “well-fitted schooners... 

provided with steam launches and all the latest inventions for the 

destruction of marine animal life. The puffing and churning of the 

miniature steam craft can now be heard on the waters of all the most 

valuable hunting grounds, sounding the death knell of the highly prized 

mammals....”76 In addition to schooners, whalers carried men who were crack 

shots, and these ships did a supplementary business taking otters and fur seals. 

The establishment of cod fishing stations around Sanak further disrupted the 

otter grounds.

As they had for almost two decades, hunters from Biorka, Makushin and Kashega 

continued to be transported to the islands off the Alaska Peninsula with their 

companions from other villages. The winter 1886-1887 hunt included eighteen 

men from Biorka, ten from Makushin, and seventeen from Chernofski and 

Kashega. Among them was Nikifor Aleksiev Denisoff of Kashega. He was twentythree and he alone of all the active sea otter hunters of the 19th century would live 

long enough to become part of the World War II evacuation. 

In 1888 there were 135 two-man baidarkas sent to the otter grounds including 

five from Makushin, six from Kashega, and fourteen from Chernofski. Biorka, for 

some unknown reason, does not appear on this list.77 Approximately 2,496 otter 

were taken that year across the region.

72 San Francisco Chronicle, July 19, 1887:8

73 Report of Joseph Murray, Special Treasury Agent, for the Year 1895, in Seal and Salmon 

Fisheries, serial 3577, 442-443.

74 June 10, 1886, ACC Copy Book 1885-1889.

75 April 17, 1889, ACC Copy Book 1885-1889.

76	 Government Printing Office (GPO), Report on Population and Resources of Alaska at the

Eleventh Census, 204.

77 Ensign Willett to Lt. Commander Stockton, “Report on the Aleutian islands.” National 

Anthropological Archives, MS 3547. Undated, but it appears to have been written after September 

1, 1888. The other villages were Unalaska, 25 kayaks; Chernofski, 14; Nikolski (Umnak), 15; Atka, 

16; Attu, 12; Nikolaievsky, 8; Belkofski, 16; Unga, 16; and Vosnessenski, 4.

Alfred Peter Swineford, 

Governor of the District 

of Alaska, 1885-1889.

wikimedia.org
100 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

Back Home

When men returned home from the otter grounds, the first thing the local agent 

did (or should have done had he followed standing instructions) was to review 

each man’s catch against his indebtedness to the company. When the Makushin, 

Kashega and Chernofski men returned in August 1889, Reinken was given 

detailed instructions.

Enclosed you receive the transfers of the hunters that have returned 

from Seal Cape, you will have to be careful about increasing their 

debts as a rule do not let them draw more than their cash amounts to, 

if possible see that their accounts are reduced, and only in extreme 

cases, where there is actual poverty or want let them overdraw.78

This was the letter that told Lazar Gordieff’s wife to stay where she was. 

Neumann also reduced the cost of wood that now sold at two pieces for 25 cents. 

The local agent was in periodic communication with Neumann or his substitute 

at Unalaska regarding individual debts and requests. “I enclose bill for pants 

delivered to Ivan Burenin 1st, and also watch for Ilia Kudrin sent per Makoushin 

natives in October,” wrote Arthur Best to Reinken. “Afanasia Denisof wished for 

a pair of cheap pants,” he continued, “I have not given them to him not knowing 

what he has drawn, should his account warrant it you can let him have them. 

Feodor Kolishulin goes to Kashega to live, he has no account.”79

The fall and winter months were spent hunting the occasional stray sea otter 

or migrating fur seals, and trapping red, cross, and other fox. Occasionally the 

general agent at Unalaska sent someone to collect furs, as on December 4, 1878: 

“Sent to Makooshine 2 3-hold Bardakas with 5 men—for fur Seals—with some 

provision and 300 pounds Salt.” This party returned on December 9 with the fur 

seal skins.

All three villages supported both their local chapels and the Church of the Holy 

Ascension at Unalaska. A May 23, 1878, entry in the AC Company log noted 

that 31⁄2 sea otters had been received from Biorka for the Unalaska church and 

half an otter for the Biorka chapel. The three and a half pelts were valued at $69 

while the half sea otter brought $15. In October a small sea otter valued at $8 was 

donated to the Biorka church account. A $6 sea otter went to the Kashega church 

account on August 3 while a $10 pelt was credited to the Chernofski church on 

the same day. Iliuliuk was the recipient of the largest donations, receiving $55 in 

pelt credit in July and $54 in November.80 In 1887 Nikolai Kichikov and Terrentii 

Makarin each donated a sea otter to the fund for construction of a new church at 

Unalaska.81 Residents of the three villages came to Unalaska for special church 

services when the priest was unable to visit them. This was particularly true for 

78 August 7, 1889, ACC Copy Book 1885-1889.

79 December 6, 1887, ACC Copy Book 1885-1889.

80 Library of Congress, Russian Church Collection, receipts dated May 23, July 22, August 3, 

October 12, and November 6, 1878.

81 Shaiashnikoff Unalaska Ledger 1886 to 1888.
CHAPTER 6: THE LIVES OF SEA OTTER HUNTERS 101

marriages. The 1886-1888 Shaiashnikov ledger records a marriage at Unalaska on 

September 25, 1888 between Artemin Yatchmenev and Feodosia Khramov who 

traveled from Kashega for the ceremony. A marriage was recorded on September 

26, 1888, between the widower Terentii Makarin of Biorka and the widow Marfa 

Lukanin from Makushin. 

Village agents lived in their villages, unlike the general agent who lived in 

company housing at Unalaska but often owned a home in San Francisco or 

elsewhere. The village agents often had marital or familial ties to the local 

population. Any hardships they created stemmed more from neglect than 

from overt acts against residents. However, the commercial ruthlessness 

that characterized the AC Company in its dealings with competitors not 

infrequently devolved onto its general agents. Dall was told that “Hennig the 

A.C. Co.’s agent went out by night and poured acid in the skin boats belonging 

to natives suspected of free trading and then refused to sell them any new 

skins, so they could not go out after otter.”82 Whether this accusation was true 

or not, it suggests an absence of accountability on the part of general agents. 

Greenbaum, the general agent before Neumann, was noted for his temper and 

men who stepped in as acting general agents followed his example. When the 

chief of Makushin arrived at Iliuliuk on March 15, 1879, with seven red and one 

cross fox pelts, he found that the Western Fur and Trading Company offered 

him more than the AC Company. As a result, he “had his arm (ulnar bone) 

broken, and otherwise inhumanly beaten, on the 17th of March 1879,” wrote 

Lucien M. Turner. Only one of the skins belonged to the chief, he explained, 

“the other skins he sold belonged to other natives who commissioned him to 

sell them for them.... The beating was done by the man left in charge as agent 

while Greenbaum went to San Francisco.”83

Illness was a constant worry and epidemics were frequent. In the spring of 

1881 Biorka was struck by an outbreak of “typhoid pneumonia” that attacked 

“all classes, but is more fatal with the aged. They are taken with fever, and pains 

in the chest and lungs, and die in from two to three days in great agony.”84

When Captain Hooper visited in May four had died and 18 remained in serious 

condition. The appearance of such a devastating illness was particularly severe 

in a village like Biorka, small, isolated, without a physician. (At Unalaska 13 had 

died and 35 were still sick. The AC Company physician was ill and unable to 

assist, but Surgeon Rosse of the Revenue Cutter Service had stepped in.85) 

82 Dall to Mrs. R. L. Nichols, November 2, 1921. SIA. RU 7073, box 5.

83 Turner, Lucien M. An Aleutian Ethnography. University of Alaska Press, Fairbanks. 2008:16.

84 Hooper. Letter dated Ounalaska, May 20, 1881. Alaska File of the Revenue Cutter Service, 1867-

1914. RG 36 M641.

85 Hooper identified the A.C. Co. physician as a Dr. Holman. However, William S. Hereford was the

company’s doctor during this period. He was stationed at St. George from 1880 to 1881, and then 

at Unalaska from 1881 to 1882 (during which time he traveled to Attu, Atka, Belkovski, Unga, etc.) 

From 1882 to 1891 he was back in the Pribilof Islands. Proceedings of the Tribunal of Arbitration, 

Vol. III, 32
102 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

Six years later, in 1887, another epidemic struck villages in the Alaska Peninsula 

area. On July 12, Neumann wrote to his agent, William Brown, at Morshovoi, “I 

hear a great many natives have died at your place, please send the names and 

what they owed.”

On the same day he wrote to O.W. Carlson at Belkofski that he was sorry to have 

heard about the deaths, including that of Revd. Salamatoff. “Send list of names 

and transfer their debts except Salamatoff,” Neumann instructed Carlson. He 

asked the Wosnesenski agent (Otto Berlin) to inform him of any deaths.86 In a 

letter to Dirks at Atka, however, Neumann suggested that the deaths created 

the possibility that hunters from the Chain itself might have a more successful 

season.87

Whether it was the same illness or a different one, the Unalaska parish was 

devastated by the deaths of 73 individuals during the first five months of 1888. 

On October 13 Nikolas Rysev wrote to his superiors that during a visit to all the 

villages under his jurisdiction between late April and late September either by 

kayak or on a ship of the AC Company, he learned that 43 males and 28 females 

had died. From his description of “coughing with piercing pain and other 

illnesses” the illness may have been pertussis or whooping cough leading to 

pneumonia and other serious conditions.88

Drowning inevitably stalked men who made their livelihood on the sea. 

Returning home from Unalaska in September 1877, two Kashega men drowned 

when a storm capsized their two-hatch kayak. They escaped from the kayak, but 

were unable to hang on to the one-man kayak that had accompanied them.89

The 1886-1888 ledger noted that five men “perished” on Sanak in 1888. Two 

men from Biorka (Kornilii Izmailov and Petr Sapozhnikov) are recorded to have 

drowned, in either 1887 or 1888. They may have been among four men from this 

village who perished in a storm while returning from Sanak in their baidarkas. 

Alexei Yatchemenev’s account of this does not provide names, but it states that 

two baidarkas, four men, from Biorka were lost.90

Violent death was rare. At the time of the Alaska purchase, murder had reportedly 

been absent for over fifty years.91 Two murders in the last quarter of the 19th century 

reflect a change in society. In March 1889 the brutal killing of Philip Dvernikov 

was investigated during an inquest held by the AC Company doctor and the jury 

86 July 12, 1887, ACC Copy Book 1885-1889.

87 September 9, 1887, ACC Copy Book 1885-1889.

88	 Library of Congress, Russian Church Collection. Nikolai Rysev to the Alaska Spiritual Office,

1/13 October 1888. Translation courtesy of Zoya Johnson who made the connection to whooping 

cough.

89 September 5, 1877. Logbook Tshernoffsky Station 1877-1878. In J. Pennelope Goforth, 

“Description of Logbooks.” Bringing Aleutian History Home: the Lost Ledgers of the Alaska 

Commecial Company, 1875-1895.

90 Bergsland and Dirks, Aleut Tales and Narratives, 313. An account from Andrew Makarin, 

conveyed by Nick Galaktionoff (Hudson, ed., Cuttlefish Two, 58) states that Andrew’s father was

among those who drowned but this is not correct as Terentii Makarin lived much longer.

91 Comment credited to Innokentii Shaiashnikov. Anonymous, “Scientific Expedition to Alaska,” 475.
CHAPTER 6: THE LIVES OF SEA OTTER HUNTERS 103

found a verdict against unnamed whalers. Dvernikov was a retired sea otter hunter 

who had signed the 1886 petition and whom Neumann described as “a poor old 

inoffensive native.”92 A second example directly involved a resident of Makushin and 

is illustrative of how Unalaska (Iliuliuk) dominated life in the eastern Aleutians. 

Ioann Ladigan was a volatile individual, who may have moved to Unalaska 

from Atka. After his wife died in mysterious circumstances, he was “exiled” to 

Makushin where he arrived with his teenage son and daughter. In March 1878 

he and his son accompanied Alexander Sherebernikov, an older man from 

Unalaska, on a trek across the portage from Makushin Bay to Captains Bay. 

Sherebernikov’s strangled body was found along the trail. Suspicion fell on 

Ladigan, and in the absence of any law enforcement personnel, a public meeting 

was held, presided over by the AC Company agent, Alfred Greenbaum. At the 

end of the meeting, Greebaum wrote, “nothing definite could be ascertained.”93

Ten days later, on April 12, the agent received a petition asking for Ladigan’s 

banishment “to some island which you may select, we only ask that he may 

be taken to the North.” The petition had a cautionary tone. “We do not wish 

him to be punished in any way,” it concluded, “but only ask that he shall leave 

Ounalashka and stay away.” Ladigan consented and signed the document.94

He and his children may have been sent to Sanak. An Anton Ladigan was listed 

among hunters registered at Sanak for the 1886-1887 winter hunting party.95 In 

1888 Rudolph Neumann wrote to Captain Wm. Peterson, of the Schr. Turner, 

not to allow Anton Ladigan on board (July 20, 1888). In 1897 he was listed as a 

resident of Belkofski.96

Whatever the cause of death, when a man died the AC Company transferred his 

debt to his children. Implementation of this policy was not uniform. When a 

Denisoff died in 1885, his debt of $212.25 was divided equally between his two 

sons, Constantine and Nekifor—with an extra 25 cents going to the company. 

When Bonifati Yatchmenoff died, Reinken was told to keep his debt in his 

own name and to not transfer it to his sons. Jacob Chercasin died owing the 

company for a shotgun, and the company wanted to know to whom it had been 

given in order to charge it to that individual’s account. When Nikolai Kozlof 

died at Biorka, the local agent was instructed to “take both gun & bydarka as the 

former has not been yet paid for.”97 And, as noted earlier, when Lazar Gordieff 

died at Sanak, his rifle was kept by the general agent.

92 April 17, 1889, ACC Copy Book 1885-1889. This death was also recorded in the 1886-1888 

Shaiashnikov ledger, page 13.

93 April 2, 1878. ACC Unalaska Station Log Book 1878-1879.

94 “Translation of Petition of Inhabitants of Ounalaska for the Removal of Ivan Ladingin, an 

Objectional Character,” The Bancroft Library. This may have been among the materials collected 

by Ivan Petrof and is therefore in need of verification from other sources.

95 Information supplied by J. Pennelope Goforth from a transcription of Book II, Accounts, 

Individuals: Winter Hunting Party 1886-1887. Bringing Aleutian History Home: the Lost Ledgers of 

the Alaska Commercial Company, 1875-1895.

96 Hooper, Sea-Otter Banks of Alaska, 18. He is listed as being born at Atka.

97 June 16, 1885, January 28, 1886, June 23, 1887, January 1888, ACC Copy Book 1885-1889.
104 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

We do not have the name of the Makushin chief who was beaten in 1879. Gregory 

Petukoff’s descendents continued living at Makushin, including his son Gregory, 

his grandson and numerous granddaughters. Joseph Petelin still lived in the 

village with his wife, son and daughters. Beginning around 1880, Thomas Petelin 

became the Makushin agent. The widespread Krukoff family had a presence here 

as did the Kostromitin family. Peter Kostromitin had the distinction of being the 

eldest resident of all three villages. He had been born in 1798, a year before the 

Russian-American Company received its first charter. When Ivan Petroff visited 

the village he interviewed Kostromitin but found it “next to impossible to arouse 

his slumbering faculties of recollection.”98 Nevertheless, when Petroff set about 

writing the various reports related to the 1880 census, he used the elder’s 

accounts to document the growth of Bogoslof Island. The elderly Unanga{ was 

jettisoned from the final report even though Petroff had produced a set of 

recollections of astonishing detail.99 All fake, of course. The 1886-1889 

Shaiashnikov ledger records the death of a Petr Kostromitin in 1888. Another 

man with the same name is listed as dying in 1881 in the Russian Church 

Records.

Front, seated: Ivan 

Olgin. Back row, left to 

right: Serapion Petelin, 

unidentified man, and 

Aleksandr Shaiashnikov. 

ASL-P243-1-114, 

Michael Z. Vinokouroff 

Photograph Collection.

98 The Alaska Appeal, April 22, 1879.

99 Petroff, Early Times on the Aleutian Islands; Life of Peter Kostromitin, 1798-1878. 1878. Bancroft 

Library, Hubert Howe Bancroft Collection, BANC MSS P-K 14.
CHAPTER 6: THE LIVES OF SEA OTTER HUNTERS 105

In 1878 Abraham Yatchmenev, who had resided at Kashega and been 

instrumental in the establishment of the local chapel, was now seventy-two 

years old and living at Iliuliuk with his wife and twenty-four year-old daughter 

(perhaps Christina). His son Miron was also there with his wife, two daughters 

and three sons, including the future chief Alexei. Abraham’s daughter Matrona 

married into a Kashega family, that of John S. Borenin, and her descendents 

would play a significant role in the last years of Kashega. In 1878 Bonifati 

Yatchemenev, about thirty years younger, was also living at Kashega with his 

large family, including his three-year old son Ioanne who would eventually serve 

as village chief. Iakov Kudrin, another former RA Company employee, remained 

in Kashega with his wife Marianne, his nineteen year-old daughter Elena, and 

his son, Nicholas, twenty-three. There were two other adult Kudrin men with 

families in the village. Ioanne Kudrin’s descendents would include Cornelius 

Kudrin, one of the last two residents of Kashega, and Michael Kudrin, the father 

of a large family with ties to an important family at Makushin and Unalaska, that 

of Nicholai and Pauline Lekanoff. The wife of one of Ioanne’s grandsons, Efemia 

Krukoff, would be the oldest World War II evacuee from Kashega. Kashega was 

the only village without a permanent AC Company agent because of its proximity 

to Chernofski where the German immigrant Adolph Reinken was stationed 

for many years. Following the death in 1878 of his first wife, Reinken married 

Alexandra Kudrin of Kashega in 1881.

Terentii Makarin continued to reside at Biorka in 1878. The leader of the 

community, however, was Gregory Krukoff. Although Krukoff’s son Lazar was 

20, the Krukoff family would disappear from the community by the end of the 

century. John Olgin became the agent after Gregory Krukoff died. He appears to 

have been a good manager, never raising the blood pressure of the general agent. 

His father, Alexander, had been a creole who since 1828 had worked for the RA 

Company aboard ships and as a clerk at Sitka and Kodiak.100 Although he had 

closest ties to the Kodiak region, John Olgin spent years in the Aleutians.101 He 

eventually retired to Unalaska where he had a home.

When village sea otter hunters left for extended periods, the local agent 

sometimes went to Iliuliuk. In April 1887 Olgin was told that after putting his 

hunters aboard the Schr. Pearl he should close up shop and return to Iliuliuk, 

leaving someone at Biorka “to look out for the women and children which 

remain there.”102 That same spring, Petelin at Makushin was told that he would 

have to remain in the village to “get your goods ready for taking stock” but 

that his wife and belongings could travel to Iliuliuk with the hunters. He later 

joined the agent at Sanak to assist him.103 In 1889 Neumann gave more detailed 

instructions to A.M. Larsen, his agent at Akutan. “You can issue some provisions, 

say for 3 months to each family,” he wrote, “then take out of your store anything 

100 Grinev, Kto Est Kto, 393.

101 The 1900 U.S. census has him living at Unalaska, age 46 (born May 1854), with his wife Natalia 

and daughter Acolina.

102 April 19, 1887, ACC Copy Book 1885-1889.

103 April 19, May 20, 1887, ACC Copy Book 1885-1889.
106 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

you deem the people might want and leave it with some trustworthy native. You 

will ship all furs on hand, bringing your inventory with you, you will come to this 

station.”104

Encroaching Poverty

By the end of the 1870s the economic tide was clearly receding. Hunters still took 

enough sea otters and fur seals to maintain a relative if precarious prosperity, 

and Unanga{ in the eastern Aleutians were doing better than hunters in the 

Kodiak region. The store in Kodiak sent goods to Unalaska that could not be 

sold there even though Kodiak hunters were generally paid more for otter skins 

that Unanga{.105 In 1877 the Kodiak AC Company station paid an average of $35 

for a sea otter skin.106 In 1879 the Unalaska station paid an average of only $22 

per skin.107 Growing poverty was reflected in an 1878 notice the Unalaska store 

posted in Russian requesting that debts be settled at least once every twelve 

months. “Persons whose debt has increased larger than the Agent deems them 

responsible for,” read the announcement, “can only receive additional advance 

for hunting outfit.”108 The church distributed both funds and food, as did the 

agent of the AC Company on occasion.109

Again, specific information is lacking regarding conditions at Biorka, Makushin, 

and Kashega. Petroff, following his 1878 visit, referred to the Makushin people 

as “mere auxiliaries of the inhabitants of Oonalashka village... [who] furnish 

a contingent every year for the regular sea-otter hunting party that leaves 

Iliuliuk for Sannakh.” Whereas once, he wrote, they had produced warriors of 

renown, they were now notorious for indolence.110 He was more impressed with 

appearances at Biorka. With uncharacteristic honesty, he left Kashega out of his 

report because he had not personally visited the community.

As the 1880s drew to a close, men from the three villages accumulated increasing 

debts. Neumann cautioned his village agents about overextending credit. “Say 

for instance, Artemon Yatchmenef owes $684.65,” he wrote in 1887 to Reinken 

about one of the Kashega men. “His furs amount to $242.00 [and] he took at 

Ounalaska $30.00 so you can let him have $100.00 to 120 more, you will of 

course act the same to all the natives that are in debt.”111 Neumann periodically 

reiterated his instructions, but debt continued to mount. In 1884 Kashega owed 

104 May 4, 1889, ACC Copy Book 1885-1889.

105 McIntyre to Greenbaum, April 27, 1878. Letters from Alaska Commercial Company Records, 

Kodiak. MF #135.

106 Letters from Alaska Commercial Company Records, Kodiak, MF #135, April 15, 1877.

107 $429 for 22 otters on May 17; $2340 for 104 otters on June 17. ACC Unalaska Station Log Book 

1878-1879.

108 April 13, 1878. ACC Unalaska Station Log Book 1878-1879.

109 ACC Unalaska Station Log Book 1878-1879. April 11, 1879. Eliza Otis wrote about Shaiashnikov 

during her visit in 1880, “He is a good man, and spends all the money that he does not need for 

his own family to make his poor people comfortable.” E.A.O. [Eliza A. Otis]. “Our Boys and Girls, A 

Gossippy Sketch from the Far and Frozen North.” Los Angeles Times. November 30, 1884.

110 Petrof, Population and Resources, 19-20.

111 September 13, 1887, ACC Copy Book 1885-1889.
CHAPTER 6: THE LIVES OF SEA OTTER HUNTERS 107

the company $4,738.08. By August 1889 this had increased to $6,363.49.112

Figures for Makushin and Biorka are missing, but Chernovski’s debt rose from 

$2,927.70 to $5,971.50.113 Given the steady and rapid decline in sea otters, this 

was a staggering amount, a bondage of extraordinary proportions from which 

escape proved impossible.

112 August 19, 1889, ACC Copy Book 1885-1889.

113 August 19, 1889, ACC Copy Book 1885-1889.
108 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

Sea otter skull. Photograph by Francis Broderick. 
Chapter 7

Loss of the Sea Otter

Economic considerations were paramount in contracting marriages. Marfa 

Lukanin was a widow when she married Terentii Makarin at Unalaska 

in September 1888 and moved to Biorka from Makushin. His wife, Olga 

Petrov, had died in May. Marfa needed support for herself and her daughter, 

Seraphenie, while Terentii needed a mother for his two young children, Matfie 

and Parasovia. Biorka was a more prosperous village than Makushin and Marfa 

soon settled into her new routine. Her and Terentii’s son Andrew was born in 

August 1889, followed in 1891 by Ilia. In June 1892, as summer began to burst 

into activity, three-year-old Andrew was probably busy with the job given 

to all Unanga{ children: playing. Training would follow eventually, but early 

childhood was a time for exploration and delight. Andrew, ignoring the spring 

rain and escaping the watchful eye of his twelve-year-old stepsister, may have 

slipped outside their home as a strange vessel slowing glided to anchor near 

the village.

Harrison H. Thornton, his wife Neda, and their traveling companion Ellen 

Louise Kittredge, were aboard the whaler Newport on their way to Cape Prince 

of Wales where he was to teach school (and be shot to death a year later). Fog 

had surrounded the small vessel for several days. “The next afternoon the fog 

suddenly lifted a little,” he wrote, “and we found ourselves in an unknown 

bay with an unknown hamlet, at the foot of unknown cliffs; none of the ship’s 

officers, all of whom were more or less veteran Arctic whalemen, seemed to know 

where we were.” They had stumbled into Beaver Inlet and had anchored off 

Biorka Village. 

As we drew near, sounding all the way, not a human being could be 

seen.... [M]oving still nearer, we could see Greek crosses standing 

at the head of each lonely grave on the cliff side, and a building 

surmounted by a Greek cross, probably a church, showing that the 

natives had belonged, at least nominally, to the Russian church; the 

almost mountainous cliffs covered with bright green grass, in spite of 

 CHAPTER 7: LOSS OF THE SEA OTTER 109
110 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

the patches of persistent snow lingering here and there, were a grateful 

sight to our eyes, wearied of the continual sullen gray of that northern 

sea. At last a single dog was seen, prowling along the beach in search 

of stray dead fish, cast up by the sea; but no smoke issued from any of 

the chimneys to show that his master still lived; finally, after creeping 

along cautiously for ten or fifteen minutes more, we saw a woman 

come out of one of the houses.

Andrew may have alerted his sister or someone else who came outside to 

investigate. His own mother probably remained indoors. She was unwell and had 

only a few months to live. The strangers’ brief intrusive exploration of the village 

was highlighted by a visit to the church.

In spite of the rain which was falling, the ladies were anxious to go 

ashore, and as we had not set foot on land for three weeks we ran 

all over the village, peeping in at doors and windows of unoccupied 

cabins, collecting strange flowers and shells, and trying to establish 

some sort of understanding with the few women and children we 

found; for all the men had gone away to hunt sea otter for the Alaska 

Commercial Company — the usual rough trading house with the sign 

“A.C. Co.” standing there deserted for the time being. We found the old 

church very interesting, too, with its gorgeous altar cloths, it massive 

silver candlesticks, its bells manufactured in Russia and ornamented 

with fine bas relief work.

The name of this little settlement, as well as we could understand the 

natives, was Berka. After leaving it, a few hours’ steaming brought us to 

Onalaska, the most beautiful little harbor I ever saw....1

“The village contains 57 native Aleuts and a Russian Creole trader,” wrote Samuel 

Applegate about Biorka for the 1890 census, “who live in neat and comfortable 

dwellings, though many of them are but sod huts.” Applegate had lived in the 

Aleutians since 1881 and had hunted sea otters on the schooner Everett Hays 

since 1888. The trader was Ivan Olgin who eventually retired to Unalaska.2

Borka was...once a quite prosperous hunting community, which 

the gradual disappearance of sea otters has reduced to comparative 

poverty. The hunters still join the parties sent to the reefs of Sannak 

every season, but they bring but few skins back with them. Fortunately 

the natural food supply of these natives, derived chiefly from the 

ocean, is as abundant as ever.3

1 Thornton, “The Trip to Alaska,” 392,394.

2 His house, with a few trees, was where the Town Park is now located. Swanson, The Unknown 

Islands, 28. Swanson recalled Olgin commenting on the large population that once distinguished 

Biorka. Hudson, ed., Cuttlefish Two, 64.

3 Applegate, “The Third District,” 88.
 CHAPTER 7: LOSS OF THE SEA OTTER 111

In Applegate’s description, Makushin and Kashega shared many conditions with 

Chernofski. 

On the northeastern shore of Unalaska island a small native settlement 

exists at the mouth of the bay of Makushin, containing 51 Aleut 

natives, who maintain themselves by joining the sea-otter parties and 

by trapping during the winter. Their dwellings are sod huts, and they 

have a small log chapel, sadly in need of repairs. Mount Makushin, 

an extinct volcano, looms up to the northward of the little village, and 

to the eastward extends the vast bay for over 20 miles, its dark, rocky 

shore colored here and there with the green mounds of long deserted 

settlements.

A few miles to the southward of Makushin there is another small 

settlement of natives known as Kashigin, or Kashiga, and containing 

between 40 and 50 people, who depend entirely upon hunting and 

fishing for their subsistence. Fish are very abundant, and the hunters 

reap quite a harvest of fur-seal skins by hunting the animals at the time 

of their migration to and from the islands through the pass between 

Unalaska and Umnak islands.4

“The same may be said of the village of Chernovsky,” Applegate continued, 

“but the people of this settlement have the additional advantage of a resort 

for sea otters in their immediate vicinity among the reefs and kelp beds which 

fringe this desolate coast. At Chernovsky a trading store was maintained for 

many years, but it has now been abandoned. The dwellings are chiefly sod huts, 

but comfortably kept, and a neat little chapel was erected during the more 

prosperous times of the past.”

All three villages had replaced their barabara-style chapels with log or woodframe buildings, although exact dates for the new constructions have not been 

discovered. It was probably when the new Makushin chapel was dedicated 

that its name was changed from the Chapel of St. Gregory to the Chapel of the 

Nativity of Christ. Men aboard the U.S. Fish Commission steamer Albatross who 

visited Makushin in 1889 noticed a dozen barabaras for the local residents and a 

“small frame church painted white.”5 In 1870 Veniaminov, then the Metropolitan 

of Moscow, sent an icon of the Transfiguration to Unalaska. Because the chapel 

at Kashega bore the name Transfiguration, it has been assumed the icon was for 

that chapel.6 A new generation of Unanga{ men had risen to leadership roles in 

4 Applegate, “The Third District,” 89.

5 Tanner, Report...Steamer Albatross, 244-245.

6 The icon appears in an 1896 inventory of the Church of the Holy Ascension. On the back in 

Russian is “On the Island of Unalaska to the Church of the Transfiguration of our Lord, 1870 July

27 Moscow” [translation by Barbara Sweetland Smith] along with a stamp with the signature of 

Metropolitan Innokentii. Smith and Petrivelli, Making It Right, 1058-1059.
112 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

Chapel of the Epiphany of Our Lord at Chernofski. Photograph courtesy Ray Kranich.
 CHAPTER 7: LOSS OF THE SEA OTTER 113

their respective chapels and in the 1890s services were conducted and children 

baptized by Ivan I. Kudrin at Kashega and Ivan G. Kriukov at Makushin.7

The Chapel of the Epiphany of Our Lord at Chernofski, judging only from an 

exterior photograph taken in its decline, was the most remarkable of all the 

village chapels and testifies to the wealth sea otter hunting had brought to that 

community. The double doors leading into the narthex were bordered by plain, 

almost bas relief, columns, each topped with a graceful three-tiered capital. Above 

these, a high arch rose to its apex, enclosing an eight-part fan that stretched from 

side to side like a sunrise. The decorative elements continued near the peak with a 

small fleur-de-lis. Two brass bells hung from a support just outside the doors. 

The Church of the Holy Ascension at Unalaska was in need of repairs and plans 

were made under Father Nicholas Rysev to completely rebuild the structure. 

Villages began to contribute furs, usually sea otter pelts, to a special construction 

fund. In 1891 residents of the three villages joined with people from Nikolski, 

Chernofski, Akutan, and Unalaska to ask the AC Company to hold this credit 

until “we agree and authorize the disposition” of the funds.8 A new cathedral 

would be consecrated in 1896.

Postcard view of the 

Church of the Holy 

Ascension, Unalaska 

by F.H. Nowell for the 

1909 Alaska-Yukon-Pacific 

Exposition, Seattle. Image 

courtesy Ray Hudson.

The virtual monopoly this company had enjoyed in the Chain for almost twenty 

years was ending. Perhaps sensing the upcoming controversies over a decline 

in seal populations and a rise in pelagic sealing by British and Japanese vessels, 

the company surrendered its once lucrative contract to the North American 

7 Marti Murray, citing a translation of an 1896 Unalaska church book by Lydia T. Black. “Lost 

Villages: Mini-biographies of the last inhabitants of Attu, Biorka, Chernofski, Kashega, and 

Makushin.” Draft, 2 August 2005.

8 Letter to the Alaska Commercial Company, August 21, 1891. Library of Congress, Russian 

Church Collection, D-49.
114 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

Commercial Company in 1890 without much of a fight. To implement their new 

twenty-year contract, the NAC Company established headquarters in the deepwater port of Dutch Harbor, within Unalaska Bay. They constructed a dock and a 

complex of buildings that included warehouses, residences, a hotel and a store. 

Even though the AC Company now had neither the income from the Pribilof 

Islands to buttress sea otter hunting losses nor the supply of sea lion skins and 

fur seal carcasses necessary for distribution to its hunters, it continued to station 

traders in the villages, at least for a few more years.

Sea otters had virtually disappeared from the vicinity of most Aleutian villages 

by the time hunting regulations began to favor Native hunters. Indeed, the catch 

ascribed to hunters from villages throughout the Chain was primarily taken from 

islands around Kodiak. Even the once rich otter grounds near Sanak, Belkofski, 

and Morzhovoi were becoming depleted.9 The increased employment available 

to white men in mining and fishing along the Alaska Peninsula prodded the 

Treasury Department to gradually restrict otter hunting to Natives. After April 

14, 1893, white men married to Native women were no longer able to hunt sea 

otters. The ban on the use of rifles, however, remained in effect. In the spring 

of 1892, the Yorktown, a steel-hulled navy gunboat, joined a trio of revenue 

cutters and two other navy vessels patrolling off the Alaska Peninsula and into 

the Bering Sea. Near the end of July, while at False Pass, it seized furs and rifles 

from ten Morzhovoi and six Belkofski hunters. “The loss of outfits and catch,” 

wrote C.H. Townsend, “left the people of Belkofski and Morzhovoi completely 

destitute.” He was a naturalist aboard the U.S. Fisheries steamer Albatross and 

he urged the government to make restitution for these losses. “The hunters 

of Makushin, Kashega and Chernofski whom I interviewed,” he wrote, “were 

so frightened over the fate of the Belkofski and Morzhovoi hunters that they 

returned home without having taken any otters.” Unable to repay the company 

for their outfits and advances, “they had little hope of assistance from that source 

for the coming winter.” Townsend’s memorandum urged that Native hunters 

be allowed to use rifles. “I am greatly interested in the preservation of the sea 

otter,” he wrote, “but still more interested in the welfare of the native Aleuts 

who are dependent on its capture for a livelihood.” He mentioned that for “the 

young men who have grown up accustomed to guns[,] the spear is merely an 

accessory.” Rifles had become irreplaceable tools for subsistence. 

The price of a single sea otter will enable a native to purchase clothing 

and other necessaries, while food, with the exception of fish, is 

procured to a considerable extent by means of the gun, with which he 

shoots seals, sea lions, porpoise, and all kinds of sea birds. Without his 

gun he cannot obtain skins of the sea lion from which his boat is always 

made. The boat (bidarkie) is absolutely essential to all movement in 

this Archipelago whether for hunting or fishing. From the sea lion is 

derived also the material for the waterproof garments always used by 

the Aleutian people. Six sea lion skins are required to properly construct 

a two hatch boat, and these must be renewed nearly every year.

9 Hooper, Sea-Otter Banks of Alaska, 7.
 CHAPTER 7: LOSS OF THE SEA OTTER 115

The shot gun is constantly used in taking sea birds, for with these 

people sea birds are not only used for food, but their skins are largely 

sewed into clothing. In brief, the Aleut is dependent for food and 

clothing on his boat, gun and fishing line. He lives by the sea; what he 

derives from the land is an unimportant feature in his subsistence.10

He feared a crisis if Aleuts were forced to return to hunting for essentially 

“vanished” game with “almost forgotten methods.”

The ban on Natives owning rifles was lifted on December 2, 1896. That year 

had been exceptionally lucky for the seventeen Makushin hunters. A visitor 

to Unalaska was shown “a box of sea-otter skins” which the AC Company had 

purchased from them for “some 12,000 dollars.”11 Even so, sea otters were so 

depleted that the AC Company began removing its agents from small villages 

and closing its stores. “The low prices prevailing in the London market and the 

constant and rapid decrease of the sea-otters,” lamented Rudolph Neumann on 

September 20, 1897, 

has made that branch of the trade unprofitable, and has forced us 

to abandon, in this district, the following stations: Woznesensky, 

Belkofsky, Morzhovoi, Sanak, Akutan, Biorka, Makushin, Kashega, 

Tschernofsky, and Umnak. 

The natives of these ten settlements supported themselves entirely 

by hunting sea-otters, but, in consequence of the disappearance of 

these animals in the localities above mentioned, had to be transported 

in schooners during the last few years to the remaining sea-otter 

grounds in the vicinity of Kadiak Island, which now have, also, ceased 

to be profitable, and the people will eventually be forced to rely on 

Government aid for their subsistence.12

The agents at Atka and Akutan purchased the company stores, and Henry Dirks 

and Hugh McGlashan continued to make goods available to residents. The stores 

at Biorka, Makushin, and Kashega were simply closed.

In September 1897 C. L. Hooper, commanding officer of the Bering Sea Patrol, 

detailed a devastating decline in sea otters with predictably profound results for 

communities. In several particulars, he repeated Townsend’s recommendations. 

He included a household census for fourteen villages. Compiled with the help of 

Father Alexander Kedrovsky at Unalaska, the report enumerated 1,165 residents 

in the Chain. In only a few villages were men identified specifically as hunters, 

but if all the men from sixteen to sixty were counted there were 331 who were 

10 Townsend, C.H., memorandum, April 13, 1896. Submitted to the Secretary of the Treasury by the 

U. S. Commission of Fish and Fisheries. NARA, RG 22.

11 Gray, Maria Freeman. The Alaskan and Herald Combined. September 12, 1896.

12	 Report of the Governor of Alaska to the Secretary of the Interior. Government Printing Office.

Washington, D.C. 1897:38.
116 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

probably sea otter hunters. Townsend had counted 347 hunters in sixteen 

villages from Unga to Attu. 

The 1898 hunt was thwarted by an embargo on hunting otters from vessels. 

In his official report for that year, Governor John G. Brady recommended that 

otter hunting be entirely prohibited and ludicrously suggested Aleuts should 

work in fish canneries or cut wood “along the Yukon River.” In 1899 he wrote 

that no more than ten or fifteen dollars was received by each hunter for his 

season’s catch. In 1900 he reiterated that Aleuts should be “constrained to seek 

work in the canneries and in the mines and to cultivate gardens.” That year he 

emphasized how otter hunting kept those “who engage in it miserably poor and 

always in debt to the store which outfits them and conveys them to the hunting 

grounds.” This allegation was passionately disputed by Samuel Applegate whose 

sea otter hunting career had begun in 1892 when he had the Everett Hays built in 

California.13

The influenza and measles epidemic of 1900 followed the northern coast of 

Alaska and arrived at Unalaska in August where, according to Dr. Albert Newhall, 

“it was introduced by a boy from St. Michael.” This was true for the influenza, 

but the measles arrived later and probably came off a vessel from the south. In 

any event, the “Great Sickness,” as it came to be called, “struck with lightning 

force and within days whole villages were sick or dying.”14 As many as 2,000 

people died in the Territory, with some villages losing between 25 and 50 percent 

of their residents. Newhall wrote that about one third of the Native population 

in the territory died. In late July 1900 Dutch Harbor, along with Nome, was 

quarantined under an order from the Marine Hospital Corps.15 The epidemic 

was compounded by tuberculosis and pneumonia and later outbreaks of 

whooping cough and small pox. The commanding officer of the Rush reported 

that measles “had assumed fatal form” at Unalaska and many Natives had 

died.16 According to a Sitka newspaper, by October there had been 17 deaths at 

Unalaska.17 The illness spread to Belkofski, Unga and other locations and by 10 

November the newspaper reported 39 deaths at Unalaska and between 12 and 

15 at Belkofski. A report from the Unalaska public school, written by Frances 

Mann, mentioned a fall and winter epidemic of measles “and its sequel” that 

“caused the death of about one third of the population.” A 1901 report made by 

F. J. Thornburg, assistant surgeon attached to a briefly manned hospital at Dutch 

Harbor, included information received from P.B. Kashevaroff. According to this 

priest, from a population that had stood at 353 the previous year, 116 had died 

13 Gross, Nancy. “Samuel Applegate: Practical Dilettante” A paper presented to the Alaska Historical 

Society symposium, Commerce in Alaska’s Past, October 21, 1988:5. Applegate’s extensive

correspondence documents the final years of sea otter hunting. In 1893 he initiated a long-term

commitment to Nikolski Village that continued until hunting was banned in 1911.

14 Fortuine, Chills and Fever, 215-226

15 San Francisco Call, 29 July 1900.

16 W.H. Cushing to Secretary of the Treasury, September 8, 1900. NARA, MF 720 (Alaska File of the 

Office of the Secretary of the Treasury, 1868-1903), Roll 8.

17 The Alaskan and Hearld Combine, October 27, 1900.
 CHAPTER 7: LOSS OF THE SEA OTTER 117

during the past year. Among these there were 30 deaths ascribed to “cold,” 24 to 

tuberculosis, 33 to measles, 7 to old age, and 5 to drowning.18

The surgeon aboard the U.S. Steamer Manning reported that measles had been 

responsible for the deaths of 47 people at Atka during the winter of 1900-1901.19

If that is accurate, it meant approximately 37 percent of the village had died. 

The situation at Attu was unknown; however the following year he visited that 

village and found the health of the community of 60 had been and was very good. 

Nevertheless, Attu’s population only five years earlier had been 98. Mortality 

figures for the three villages are not known. At Biorka, Terentii Makarin’s third 

wife, Irina Kochutin, whom he had married in April 1896, died September 2, 1900, 

perhaps a victim of this epidemic. Their son Petr was three years old. 

After the AC Company ended its direct involvement in sea otter hunting, men 

had to make their own way to the otter grounds if they were unable to work for 

one of the few private vessels still pursuing the otter. Travel was by skin boat. 

In 1900 storms forced men from Akutan to camp on Ugamak Island, the most 

eastern of the Krenitzin Islands, for three weeks before crossing the pass to 

Unimak and on to the otter grounds some 100 miles away. For men from more 

distant villages travel was always problematical, if not impossible.

In May 1901 Applegate collected four petitions signed by 105 hunters from 

Unalaska, Kashega, Chernofski, Makushin, Nikolski, and Akutan asking that 

they be allowed to hunt either from vessels or from shore. There were 36 signers 

from Unalaska, 16 from Makushin, 9 from Kashega, 11 from Chernofski, 21 from 

Nikolski, and 12 from Akutan. To his long cover letter to the Secretary of the 

Treasury, Applegate appended support from two other schooner owners: Hugh 

McGlashan of the J.P. Ward and W.B. Handy of the Selma. Another individual 

engaged in the hunt was Brown [Bjorn] Benson of Morzhovoi. On April 21, 1906, 

the agent at the North American Commercial Company reported that Benson 

planned to take Biorka men sea otter hunting. However, two months later the 

agent noted that because Benson had not fed them properly they had deserted 

his vessel and returned home. A few of the men came to Dutch Harbor where they 

reported having taken one sea otter by the time they left.20

The Biorka men were able to hunt migrating fur seals during the fall and winter of 

1905-1906. Deputy U.S. marshal Harmon said that he would not prosecute the 

killing of fur seals when taken for food “but he would like to get at the fellows that 

are buying the skins from the natives.”21 In 1908 Harmon wrote, “In the three 

years that I have been here there has been no persecution against the natives, for 

18 “Rapid Decline of the Aleuts.” San Francisco Call, October 7, 1901.

19	 A. Lanson Weeks, report of June 28, 1901. NARA, MF 720 (Alaska File of the Office of the

Secretary of the Treasury, 1868-1903), Roll 9.

20 April 21 and June 21, 1906, North American Commercial Company, Log Copy Book, August 11, 

1905 – October 23, 1906.

21 January 8, 1906, North American Commercial Company, Log Copy Book, August 11, 1905 – 

October 23, 1906. 
118 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

killing seal, and there is no record in this office of any ever having been made. All 

the seal that come in here are pups, the skins have no value, but the meat is highly 

prized by the natives.”22 The Biorka men sold salted skins at Unalaska, frequently 

to Nadir C. Kafoury, who had a small store in opposition to the AC Company. If 

illegal, the sales were not exactly a secret. 

The NAC Company agent asked a group 

of men from Biorka how much they got 

for seal skins and they told him $2.50 for 

each one.23 In January 1906, the deputy 

U.S. commissioner, Nicholas Bolshanin, 

reported that Kafoury had forty skins on 

hand for which Biorka men had been 

paid $2.50 a skin.24

With less income from sea otter hunting, 

villagers became even more dependent 

on subsistence fishing and hunting. 

Anything that threatened these pursuits 

caused alarm. In February 1890 Bogoslof 

Island burst into another round of 

violent activity and ash was carried to 

Unalaska for several days. “The Aleuts 

have been terrified at all their villages on 

Unalaska,” George Davidson wrote, “and 

they recall the traditions which relate much suffering to have occurred to them 

after great convulsions and earthquakes among the Islands.”25 Bogoslof had 

been last active in 1883 and 1884, after decades of relative quiet. In 1906 another 

series of eruptions began. The following summer the Chain was swept by storms 

that prevented regular hunting. From May 12 to August 25, the men aboard the 

Everett Hays were able to be out on the water a mere 119 hours, taking six otters. 

Benson’s Emma hunted only in July and took two pelts. Both vessels focused on 

the area around the Sannak Reefs. Foul weather also plagued the 1908 season. 

Nevertheless, the Emma was out 45 days and took six otters. The Everett Hays

secured 19 otters between May 17 and August 18. During one 38-day period, the 

Everett Hays was able to hunt only 11 hours, but Applegate’s men were lucky and 

landed among otters every time they went out.

Father Alexander Kedrovsky left Unalaska in July 1908 after 14 years of furious 

activity that had seen the rebuilding of the Church of the Holy Ascension into a 

magnificent cathedral, the defense of Orthodoxy against a concerted Protestant 

22 C.C. Harman to [name blurred], November 1908. Correspondence Copy Book, 1903-1910. Pat 

Locke Archival Collection, Museum of the Aleutians.

23 January 13, 1906, North American Commercial Company, Log Copy Book, August 11, 1905 – 

October 23, 1906.

24 January 12, 1906, North American Commercial Company, Log Copy Book, August 11, 1905 – 

October 23, 1906.

25 Davidson, “Volcanic Eruption in the Bering Sea,” 271.

Nadir C. Kafoury. 

Photograph courtesy 

Stephen Kafoury.
 CHAPTER 7: LOSS OF THE SEA OTTER 119

Father Alexander Kedrovsky, his wife and children. ASL-P243-1-086, Michael Z. Vinokouroff Photograph Collection.
120 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

attack led by missionaries and government officials, and what would be the last 

round of publications in Unangam tunuu for over half a century. Kedrovsky had 

kept a close eye on village chapels and his detailed financial accounts exist in the 

Library of Congress. In 1896 he published a summary of conditions throughout 

his parish, but it contained little specific information other than that the chapels 

at Biorka, Makushin, and Kashega were comfortable and adequately maintained. 

The Makushin, Kashega and Chernofski complex had a total of 177 residents in 

1896, fairly evenly distributed. Makushin had 60 residents while Kashega and 

Chernofski had 53 and 64 respectively. Biorka had 51 residents while nearby 

Akutan had 74. Kedrovsky continued the distinction between creoles and 

Aleuts, although his reasons for doing so are unclear. For example, he divided 

Makushin’s residents into 37 creoles and 23 Aleuts, while Biorka and Kashega 

were said to have all Aleut populations. (Iliuliuk was recorded as having 152 

Aleuts and 137 creoles along with 21 individuals connected to clergy with the 

Orthodox church.) 

On April 21, 1910, Congress passed the Fur Seal Act, Public Law 146. This ended 

the practice of leasing the Pribilof Islands’ fur seal harvest to private companies 

and put management under the Department of Commerce and Labor. It also 

ended sea otter hunting within territorial waters. “I presume you noticed the new 

Game Regulations and perhaps are under the impression that it seriously affects 

my business,” Applegate wrote to J.A. Sterling in Fairbanks. “I assure you it does 

not in the slightest. I had a long talk with Mr. Nagel, Secretary of Commerce and 

Labor, in whose office the regulations originated. As I do not hunt sea-otters 

within the Territory, but on the open ocean, outside of the limits of Alaska, the 

law does not apply in my case. My skins are always entered through the Custom 

House.” Nevertheless, the regulations had an impact on the actual hunt that 

year as he explained. “The sea-otter hunting the past summer was a failure. 

My natives heard about the new regulations, and some busy bodys and trouble 

makers made it their special business to say things to them so that they became 

frightened and would not hunt longer, and I thereby lost the whole of August.”26

They hunted only twice while out and secured four otters. 

In 1910 the Everett Hays was joined by a new vessel, the Elvira. On July 22, 1908, the 

Japanese vessels, Kensai Maru and Saki Maru, were seized by the Revenue Cutter 

Bear within territorial waters off St. Paul Island. They were taken to Unalaska and 

eventually sold at an auction where Fred Schroeder, agent for the North American 

Commercial Company at Dutch Harbor, purchased them for a little under $5,000.27

He renamed the Kensai Maru the Elvira and hired Christian Theodore Pedersen, who 

was on his way to becoming one of the best-known captains in northern waters. In 

April 1908, Pedersen married Sophia Reinken, daughter of the former AC Company 

agent at Chernofski. In 1910, her son Henry, aged 15, accompanied his stepfather on 

the otter hunt after an acrimonious dispute between his parents and the director of 

26 Copybook. Letter to J. A. Sterling. September 17, 1910. p. 457 Papers of Samuel Applegate, 

1875-1925. 0003 MS Alaska State Historical Library.

27 Seward Gateway, April 30, 1910.
 CHAPTER 7: LOSS OF THE SEA OTTER 121

the Jesse Lee Home where Henry had been living. Henry Swanson later provided a 

detailed and important account of that season.28

According to Swanson, Emilian Berikoff of Unalaska was hired as chief of the 24 

hunters who came from Unalaska, Biorka, Kashega, Chernofski, and Makushin 

(whose chief Elia Shapsnikoff was among them.) They hunted from two-man 

kayaks. By 1910 the Unalaska men were using dories and skiffs and most of 

the skin boats for this hunt came from the smaller villages. Berikoff’s kayak 

was covered with cowhide, from animals butchered by the A.C. Company. “It 

worked fine,” Swanson said, “except the first time they launched the baidarkies, 

there at Sanak. They [Berikoff and his hunting partner] were the first ones to go 

overboard and they started to sink! The cow skins leaked, or the seams. They 

had to launch a couple of baidarkies quick and go out and rescue them. But they 

fixed that. I guess they soaked their baidarky and oiled it.”

They hunted from Unalaska to Kodiak, from March into late August. “The 

hunters would be out all day,” Swanson said. “When they wanted to rest and walk 

around they’d get the baidarkies all in one bunch and it would be like a large raft. 

They’d take turns walking around on top.” When fog closed in around the ship, 

a horn was used to signal the hunters. If the fog was unusually thick, a small 

cannon was fired. Swanson described how rifles had replaced spears.

The hunters had rifles and shotguns and spears. The only one knew 

how to use the spear was old man [Emelian] Berikoff. [He was about 

45 years old in 1910.] Aleut spear thing was a rough thing to handle, 

I mean to be accurate with. They had that stick [throwing board] and 

held it in their hand and the spears laid flat. I know. I tried it. It takes a 

lot of practice to throw them straight because you have to let them go 

out at the right time. If you went a little further and stopped, the spear 

would go down. And if you held that thing a little sideways it would go 

up this way. They used to target practice off the schooner. The only one 

that really could hit anything with them was old man Berikoff and he 

was really good with them. He would throw one of those spears out far 

as he could. Of course, they were built so they floated point downward. 

They’d stick out of the water about a foot. They worked this wood until 

it did that, you know. And then he’d use that first spear as a target and 

throw all the others in a circle round it. He must have had 25 spears. I 

don’t know why he had that many ‘cause he never used them. They used 

guns, but then they had them. He’d go out there and pick up his spears. 

The rest of the hunters would be throwing spears in every direction! 

Well, but they had never used them, but he had before.29

28 Swanson, The Unknown Islands, 29-33

29 Swanson, The Unknown Islands, 30-31.
122 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

The Elvira caught 

in the ice, 

ASL-P390-040, 

Richard G. and 

Mary S. Culbertson 

Photograph 

Collection.

It is significant that by1910 even the men from smaller villages had lost expertise 

with the spear. Swanson recalled that hunters on the Elvira took 14 otters that 

summer while Applegate’s crew took nine. (Officers aboard the U.S. revenue 

cutter Rush said the Elvira men took 12 otters.) Hunters were paid $300 for each 

skin, worth over $2,000 on the commercial market. When the Elvira arrived back 

at Unalaska on September 2, it was boarded by officers from the Revenue Cutter 

Rush who found the ship had hunted under a permit from the deputy collector of 

customs. Captain Foley of the Bering Sea Patrol wrote that this approval was not 

sufficient. “She should not be permitted again to engage in sealing or in trade,” 

he wrote, “without proper documents.”30

In 1909 a new priest arrived at Unalaska with his wife and daughter. Although 

Alexander Panteleev’s stay was briefer than Kedrovsky’s, he established such 

deep ties with the local people that after 1934, when he became the Bishop of 

Alaska, he returned for extended visits. During the summer of 1910 he visited 

Biorka, Makushin, and Kashega along with other villages as far west as Attu. 

His descriptions are detailed and sympathetic. Panteleev took advantage of the 

Elvira returning sea otter hunters to their villages for his visit to Kashega and 

Makushin. He boarded the vessel on September 4 just as a storm descended 

on Unalaska Bay and kept the vessel at anchor for five days. When he arrived 

at Kashega, the priest found nine small barabaras. The village was permeated 

by the scent of salmon drying on racks. He noticed a rock weir or dam that had 

been constructed in the river for ensuring a good catch. Dried fish could be 

stored longer than smoked fish and was the staple of diet during the winter.31

It was eaten with seal or sea lion oil without bread or salt. Bread was a luxury. 

The priest was given a room in the chief’s home where the walls and floor were 

30	 Foley to the Secretary of the Treasury. September 8, 1910. RG 26, file 611, box 1834.

31 Recorded conversation with Platonida Gromoff, Sophia Pletnikoff, and Nick Galaktionoff [with Ray 

Hudson]. January/February 1974.
 CHAPTER 7: LOSS OF THE SEA OTTER 123

wooden while a net hung over the ceiling area to prevent soil and grass from 

filtering onto the floor. Sobriety was not universal in the village, he noted, and 

numerous people suffered with eye infections. He learned that the population 

had increased by only a single individual over the past three years. The Chapel 

of the Transfiguration of the Lord was bright and clean. Following liturgy and 

communion, the villagers came to the chief’s home for tea. On entering, they 

greeted their leader much as they would a priest. The chief sat in a corner and, as 

each individual approached, he extended a hand that was then taken and kissed 

three times.

Alexander Panteleev 

on Akutan Island, 

Davenport Collection. 

Photograph given by 

the Unalaska City School 

to the Museum of the 

Aleutians.

Panteleev’s trip from Kashega to Makushin was by skin boat and began with near 

disaster. He was dressed in a kamleika and wore Unanga{ boots. His three-holed 

kayak, one owned by the church, developed a serious leak a short way from shore. 

His oarsmen sped back to land, but the two men with him were soaked. The boat 

was repaired and the next day they arrived at Makushin after a five-hour trip. He 

went immediately to the Chapel of the Nativity and found it in beautiful shape 

with its iconostasis rising in two tiers from the carpeted floor. Makushin had three 

wooden houses and five barabaras. The population had increased by two males 

during the past three years. Residents were suffering from a scalp malady that 

produced baldness in a number of people.
124 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

Alexander Panteleev 

dressed in a kamleika 

and standing beside 

his kayak, Davenport 

Collection. Photograph 

given by the Unalaska 

City School to the 

Museum of the 

Aleutians.

Earlier that summer, in late June, he had accompanied Biorka people on the trail 

that led into the mountains east of Unalaska, down the pass to Ugadaga Bay, and 

across the inlet to Sedanka Island. They walked through a profusion of white 

anemones while ravens cavorted in the air and spring birds chirped. The trip 

across the inlet took three hours because of headwinds, but when they arrived 

the entire village was on the beach and the chapel bells were ringing. Biorka had 

no wooden dwellings. There were ten barabaras, larger than those at Akutan and, 

in many respects, he found them much like regular Western homes buried in the 

ground. The priest was treated to tea at the chief’s home while a tent was erected 

for him near the chapel. He gathered some sheaves of dried grass for use as a 

mattress. On entering the Chapel of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker, he saw walls 

covered with decorative wallpaper and the floor carpeted with rugs. The overall 

impression was one of cleanliness and light. He congratulated the local people 

on the care they gave to it. Significantly, when listing occupations for the men 

at Biorka, Panteleev omitted sea otter hunting. Men fished, hunted fox and sea 

lions, and occasionally found summer employment on the wharves at Unalaska 

and Dutch Harbor. The population had remained steady over the past two years 

and he credited the people with living temperate and sober lives. He thought 

Biorka’s relative proximity to Unalaska contributed to making the people more 

sophisticated than residents of more remote villages.

Although the priest perceived a resiliency in the people as a whole, his summary 

of conditions was not optimistic and he found their potential far from realized. 

He thought that with more opportunities they could yet develop into a strong 

nation. He was told that the population had declined due to disease and 

epidemics, and as proof he was shown numerous abandoned village sites. 

He concluded that people needed education, better housing, diversified 
 CHAPTER 7: LOSS OF THE SEA OTTER 125

employment, and improved means of transportation. Barabaras, which he 

characterized as damp caves, remained necessary because of the prohibitive 

cost of lumber. Between nine and ten individuals lived in each home. There was 

no regular transportation between villages and Unalaska apart from skin boats 

and these were usable primarily during summer months when people arrived to 

trade fox skins for a pittance and to purchase goods at exorbitant prices. People 

occupied themselves with subsistence hunting and fishing. The preparation of 

dried fish for winter was of paramount importance since it formed the core of 

the local diet. The priest suggested that, with government assistance, Unanga{ 

could take advantage of the plentiful grass on the islands and develop cattle 

ranching.

At Biorka the priest brought up the idea of consolidating smaller villages, 

including Biorka, into a single location. The people replied that they would 

not leave while they could still trap fox and secure enough fish from the waters 

around the village. This conversation suggests Panteleev had had discussions 

with D.P. Foley of the U.S. Revenue Cutter service. While stationed with the 

Bering Sea Patrol at Unalaska for several years, Foley had recommended 

consolidating villages into a single location. This would, in effect, accelerate 

what was occurring naturally as people moved into Unalaska where there was 

at least the chance of employment along with access to limited services. “If the 

people could be gathered together in two or three villages fairly convenient to 

Unalaska,” he wrote in 1910, “the problem of caring for them would be much 

simplified.” He initially suggested Chernofski as the primary settlement. A 

year later, he recommended the consolidation take place at Unalaska where 

he thought there was suitable land that could be taken from excess claimed 

by both the AC Company and the Methodist mission, the Jesse Lee Home. He 

urged that Unanga{ men be hired to build houses and install a water system. 

Like Panteleev, Foley found people resistant to this suggestion. Significantly, he 

attributed this reluctance to cultural divisions. “To this, however, they are much 

opposed,” he wrote. “Like other people they have a love for their native places 

and are moreover remnants of tribes that once waged bitter warfare against 

one another and some of the old animosities still live though the war spirit is 

dead.”32

Two years later, in 1912, H.O. Schaleben, superintendent of the southwest 

educational district, recommended that all Unanga{ west of Unalaska be 

relocated to Unalaska. He wrote that the infrequent travel between villages 

was only by kayak and was very hazardous. He found Chernofski in the most 

desperate straits. However, when asked why they didn’t move to Unalaska “they 

answered that...they could not very well move since they had no houses at any 

other place.”33

32	 Foley to Secretary of the Treasury, October 20, 1910. NARA, RG 26, file 611, box 1834.

33 H.O. Schaleben to W. T. Lopp, July 12, 1912. NARA RG-75, Bureau of Indian Affairs, Letters 

Received, Entry 804.
126 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

Foley made an impassioned plea on behalf of Aleuts:

This is but little to ask of the Government in the name of humanity, 

and these people are most deserving. They have never cost the 

Government anything except for the establishment and maintenance 

of two schools, one here and the other at Atka.... They have never 

cost a dollar for soldiers to keep them in order as have the Indians 

of the plains; perhaps if they had, they would not have been so long 

neglected. They have never had any continued medical care or 

treatment, no treatment at all in fact except what could be given by 

the surgeons of the Revenue Cutters in their occasional flying visits, 

and yet it is known that they are suffering, not as individuals but as a 

people, from some of the most dreadful known diseases....34

Pervasive sickness and general ill health, the result of prolonged poverty, were 

reported by the service’s medical officers. “The village of Akutan...is probably 

the most wretched in all the Aleutian Islands, with Kashega and Makushin 

close seconds,” declared Foley in 1910.35 The people at Makushin had become 

enervated and were “illy clad in ragged garments.” The village reflected a 

people suffering from “favus [a disease usually affecting the scalp], trachoma, 

pediculosis, pulmonary tuberculosis and kindred complaints.”36 People lived 

in barabaras but were unable to make satisfactory repairs for lack of materials. 

Whereas once lumber had been purchased for flooring and walls, now the 

floors were packed dirt. Beds were platforms with dried wild rye grass. People 

covered themselves with “old rags and blankets.”37 Occasionally a few men 

could find employment at Unalaska, but to reach there involved a long boat 

trip down Makushin Bay and a six to eight hour hike across the mountains. 

When they brought furs to Unalaska, they received “a ruinous rate of trade with 

the Alaska Commercial Company, the most inimical factor in this country to 

the natives.”

At Biorka, the homes were found to be unclean and unsanitary. Even the best 

contained very little furniture, and that was almost worthless. Flour, tea, and 

other basic foods could be purchased only at Unalaska after crossing Beaver 

Inlet, leaving their boats in Ugadaga Bay, and hiking “a hard trail over the 

hills about seven miles.” He repeated Panteleev’s assertion about the pittance 

received for fox pelts relative to the cost of goods. “The amount of money 

realized by the community,” Foley wrote, “must be very small in comparison to 

their needs for food and clothing.”38

34	 Foley to Secretary of the Treasury, October 9, 1911. NARA, RG 26, file 611, box 1835.

35	 Foley to Secretary of the Treasury, June 28, 1910. NARA, RG 26, file 611, box 1834.

36	 Foley to Secretary of the Treasury, August 10, 1911. NARA, RG 26, file 611, box 1835.

37 P.A. Carter, surgeon on the Unalga to his commanding officer, May 30, 1913. NARA, RG 26, file

611, box 1838.

38 Foley to Secretary of the Treasury, September 16, 1911. NARA, RG 26, file 611, box 1835.
 CHAPTER 7: LOSS OF THE SEA OTTER 127

At Chernofski, once the most profitable of sea otter hunting villages, conditions 

were even worse. In 1910 the people were said to be destitute.39 The people 

were “extremely poor” and “during the winter they are in dire straits for want of 

food.”40 Salmon had disappeared from the vicinity and the hunting of fur seals 

was forbidden. 

And yet, according to other reports, people showed the resiliency that Panteleev 

had noted. At Makushin there was an abundance of fish and ducks and some 

ptarmigan. People at Kashega kept their village neat and they were better 

clothed. The sea around Biorka had an ample supply of fish. The barabaras built 

at Makushin were higher and better ventilated than those at Volcano Bay, now 

used as a summer camp. The Chernofski barabaras were fairly large and had 

good ventilation, wooden floors, glass windows, and were fairly well furnished. 

The people were well clothed and their homes were clean.

Disease accompanied poverty until conditions became so bad that a captain of 

the Unalga recommended to his superior that cutters not transport villagers for 

fear of infecting the crew. “Even the healthy appearing natives,” he wrote, “no 

doubt have all these diseases [,] consumption, syphilis and favus of the scalp, in a 

greater or less degree.”41 In contrast to this attitude, Reynolds wrote, “The people 

are very hospitable, and take in strangers as well as friends.”42

Signed on March 8, 1911, a further regulation prohibited any hunting or killing 

of sea otters until November 1, 1920. A month after returning from his hunt 

on the Elvira, Fred Schroeder wrote the Bureau of Fisheries for clarification, 

asking if both hunting from shore and by schooners outside territorial waters 

were prohibited.43 The Elvira’s hunters had taken their twelve otters at least 

30 miles offshore. Shortly afterwards he wrote that the prohibition against sea 

otter hunting would be a great hardship on Native people. “The work around 

Unalaska is getting scarcer every year, the wages paid for this work are the 

same as they were ten years ago, while the price of provisions has advanced 

as much as fifty percent.” He also noted that another otter hunter, Samuel 

Applegate, was under the impression he could take a crew out hunting in the 

spring of 1911.44

He was correct. On May 25, 1911, the Commissioner of the Bureau of Fisheries 

wrote to the AC Company that hunting sea otters outside the three-mile limit 

was permitted under current regulations. Both the Everett Hays and the Elvira

took part in what would be the last sea otter hunt. The Everett Hays returned to 

39 Foley to Secretary of the Treasury, October 20, 1910. NARA, RG 26, file 611, box 1834.

40 B. J. Duffy, assistant surgeon on the Tahoma, to the commanding officer, June 15, 1912. NARA,

RG 26, file 611, box 1837.

41	 Crisp to M.E. Reynolds, July 12, 1913. NARA, RG 26, file 611, box 1838.

42	 Reynolds to Secretary of the Treasury, November 19, 1913. NARA, RG 26, file 611, box 1838.

43 Schroeder to the Bureau of Fisheries, October 4, 1910. RG 22, box 46, folder 259: Sea Otter 1910-

1923.

44 Schroeder to Secretary of Commerce and Labor, November 12, 1910. RG 22, box 46, folder 259: 

Sea Otters 1910-1923.
128 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

Unalaska on August 26, 1911, with a catch of eight sea otters. The Elvira, with 

hunters from Unalaska, Makushin and Chernofski, came into port the next 

day with eleven pelts. Applegate feared regulations were about to be tightened 

even further. On September 10 he asked the deputy Collector of Customs at 

Unalaska, N.E. Bolshanin, to certify that the 23 otter skins in his possession 

had been legally taken “in the open ocean and outside the Territorial Limits of 

Alaska” between 1909 and 1911.45

While the otter hunt had been in progress, representatives from the United 

States, Great Britain, Japan, and Russia had been meeting. On July 7, 1911, a 

Treaty for the Preservation and Protection of Fur Seals was signed in Washington, 

D.C. These nations agreed to preserve and protect sea otters and fur seals. One 

clause specifically made it illegal to “kill, capture, or pursue” sea otters outside 

of territorial waters. On October 21, the Commissioner of Commerce cabled the 

Collector of Customs in San Francisco that under the new treaty all sea otter 

hunting in the North Pacific Ocean and “tributary waters” will be prohibited 

from December 15 for the next fifteen years. When Applegate heard this treaty 

was being considered, he told D.P. Foley that if it were enacted he would kill off 

his fox on Samalga, sell his schooner, and close his store at Nikolski.46 On April 

28, 1912, he wrote to his brother that the treaty stopping all otter hunting had 

been signed. “So now no more will be killed by those respective citizens for the 

next fifteen years. Thus ends my otter hunting.”47 The Nikolski people owed him 

$830.17 for supplies he had advanced for recent hunts.48 He would have to find 

other ways to collect.

In 1908 Applegate had written, “It would have been much better for me had 

I never started in hunting otter.” This was an exaggeration. That year he had 

$3,036 worth of sea otter pelts on hand. On September 30, 1908, he shipped 20 

sea otters to Alfred Fraser in New York City for transport to London. In 1909 he 

had $10,885 in unsold otter skins. A photograph taken October 14, 1911, by Noah 

Davenport, shows a string of around 20 otters. On the reverse, Davenport wrote, 

“If you owned this line of skins you would be well off. They are sea otter and 

worth $12,000. I took the picture for the owner.”49 Applegate’s net profits from 

otter hunting, fox trapping, and his store operations for the years 1906 through 

1909 amounted to over $26,812.00.50

45 Bolshanin, N.E. September 10, 1911. Papers of Samuel Applegate, 1875-1925. 0003 MS Alaska 

State Historical Library. Box 2, folder 10. (Copy received from Jeff Dickrell.)

46	 Foley to Secretary of the Treasury, October 9, 1911. NARA, RG 26, file 611, box 1834.

47 Copybook, letter to Brother John, September 10, 1905. Papers of Samuel Applegate, 1875-1925. 

0003 MS Alaska State Historical Library.

48 “Debts owed to me when ceased hunting,” Papers of Samuel Applegate, 1875-1925. 0003 MS 

Alaska State Historical Library.

49 Swanson, The Unknown Islands, 33. Photograph from Davenport Collection, Unalaska City 

School. Gift of Margaret Boaz.

50 Statement of business for the past 5 years. Papers of Samuel Applegate, 1875-1925. 0003 MS 

Alaska State Historical Library.
 CHAPTER 7: LOSS OF THE SEA OTTER 129

The summer that sea otter hunting ended, the Revenue Cutter Service was 

asked to distribute about 600 barrels of seal meat and 100 kegs of seal oil from 

the Pribilof Islands to villages in the Chain.51 In January 1910 Joseph L. Brown, 

the Bureau of Indian Affairs teacher at Unalaska, distributed food to Chernofski, 

Kashega, Makushin, Biorka, and Akutan as he had the previous year.52 A people 

who had fashioned a world of plenty from the sea were destitute. Not only were 

sea otters gone, but that vital subsistence mammal the sea lion was disappearing 

from locations near villages. The sea itself had become impoverished.

51	 May 29, 1911. NARA, RG 26, file 611-62, box 1835.

52 Brown to Harlan Updegraff, January 11, 1910. Supply Agent of the Department of the Interior to 

Updegraff, December 6, 1909. NARA RG-75, Letters Received. Entry 804.
130 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

Right: Alexei Meronovich Yatchmeneff; left: his son John. Photograph courtesy University of Alaska, Fairbanks.
PART TWO: THE FINAL DECADES

Chapter 8

The Last Families

Much is rightly made of population losses suffered in the eastern 

Aleutians during the late 18th and early 19th centuries, for which 

Russian promyshlenniks and administrators of the RussianAmerican Company are excoriated for their respective roles. What is less 

recognized, however, is that at the end of the 19th and the beginning of 

the 20th centuries, under U.S. administration, Unanga{ communities 

experienced a population decline of almost comparable severity. The 

numbers were necessarily smaller—given the base population—but the 

result was nearly as devastating. After having reached its lowest point in 

the early 1820s, the population in the region had started a slow recovery. In 

1830 Veniaminov recorded 514 residents on Unalaska and Sedanka islands, 

including the four villages of Chernofski, Kashega, Makushin, and Biorka 

with 164 residents. There were, at that time, a number of additional small 

villages on Unalaska Island. By 1880 these other villages had disappeared, 

and the overall population of Unalaska and Sedanka islands had increased 

to 763 while the four villages stood at 371. Thirty years later, in 1910, the 

collective population of the two islands had dropped to 434, significantly 

lower than in either 1830 or 1880. The overall population from Attu to Akutan 

had decreased nearly fifty percent, from 1,364 to 729. Biorka, Makushin, 

Kashega, and Chernofski had plummeted to a combined population of 171, 

a decline of over fifty percent.1 This loss paralleled the disappearance of the 

sea otter and was propelled by poverty, poor nutrition, inadequate housing, 

scarcity of affordable fuel, and the lack of sea mammals for food and raw 

1 At Unalaska where conditions were better than in any other village, there were 125 births and 

171 deaths between 1900 and 1910. R.H. Creel, “Surgeon’s report for work done 10 August to

30 September, 1910” in D.P. Foley, October 20, 1910. (NARA, RG 26, file 611, box 1834) This

loss accurately reflects the difference between the U.S. Census for 1900 (358) and the population

figure Creel received from church records in 1910. Using the U.S. Census for 1910 [263], an even

greater loss is seen.

 CHAPTER 8: THE LAST FAMILIES 131
132 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

materials, as well as deaths from epidemic diseases. It was exacerbated by 

the ineffective enforcement of regulations enacted to prevent the sea otter’s 

extermination. It was accompanied by a steady immigration of desperate and 

opportunistic newcomers, propelled by greed, ignorance, self-righteousness, 

and governmental paternalism. The number of Unanga{ who left the region 

to settle in Washington, California, and elsewhere was small. A few students 

were sent to Indian boarding schools; a few women married white men and 

left; and a few members of wealthier families (such as the Simeon Melovidov 

family from St. Paul) chose and had the means to leave the islands. These 

instances, however, were peripheral contributors to the overall population 

loss. The decline would grind on into the next decade, threatening the 

viability of these villages and bringing the very survival of Unanga{ as a 

people to a critical point.

For generations, sea otter hunting had structured life. Its termination, 

although gradual and predictable, produced fissures or, to give them a more 

accurate description, chasms within villages. These had to be filled or bridged 

if communities were to survive. The foundations of village economies altered, 

requiring a host of new talents if leaders were to be effective. Although much 

of the subsistence calendar remained fixed, who participated in subsistence 

activities was influenced by absences occasioned by periodic employment 

away from the village (usually at Unalaska or the Pribilof Islands), by the 

presence of more men in the villages during what had been traditional otter 

hunting periods, and by the introduction of new technologies, principally the 

replacement of skin boats with wooden skiffs. Patterns of child rearing altered 

as parental and community expectations changed.

The census agent in 1900 had declared that with the loss of the sea otter, 

Unanga{ hunting skills had become useless. Coupled with isolation and 

generations of dependency on the AC and NAC companies— “governmentfostered monopolies” in the words of the agent—village residents had lost their 

“individuality” along with economic resources. “Numerically he is decreasing,” 

the agent declared, distancing himself with late 19th century jargon. “Physically 

and morally degenerating, and his extinction as an Ethnographical unity is at 

hand.” 2 The question of what it meant to be Unanga{, of course, was nothing 

new; identity had been in flux for 150 years. 

As the story of the three villages approaches its final decades, it is possible 

to trace the outlines of a few families although, as with the 19th century, it 

is difficult to understand in detail how specific persons met—or did not 

meet—the challenges facing individuals, families, and communities. In one 

sense, there are far too many individuals to trace all family histories here. 

In another sense, the numbers are very small. In 1910 Kashega had only 

four men between the ages of eighteen and thirty-nine, while Makushin 

2 James G. Blaine to William A. Kelly, Unalaska, July 21, 1900. Following “Unalaska” in the 12th 

census records.
 CHAPTER 8: THE LAST FAMILIES 133

and Biorka each had ten. There were seven women at Kashega, eight at 

Makushin, and ten at Biorka in the same age range. There were a handful of 

older residents. Biorka and Kashega each had seven adults between forty and 

fifty-nine while Makushin had only three. 

Makushin

In 1910 Makushin’s forty-seven residents were divided among ten families. 

The eldest resident in all three villages lived here. This was Matrona Krukoff, 

a sixty-year-old widow, living with her twenty-one-year-old son Elia [Il’ia] and 

his younger brother, Matfey, fifteen. The boys were listed as Krukoffs, but ten 

years earlier when she had lived at Kashega and been married to John Borenin 

(the first)3, Matrona’s two sons along with their older brother, Stepan, had been 

Borenins. They could trace their ancestry (through their father’s mother) to 

Abraham Yatchmenev, the starosta of the chapel at Kashega in the 1850s, and 

in this way they were distant relatives of Alexei Yatchmeneff who had become 

chief of Unalaska in 1902. The 1910 census was taken by Vasilii Shaiashnikov, 

Yatchmeneff’s predecessor as chief, and it is probable that he recorded the 

names the boys were actually using. Before long, however, both Elia and Matfey 

returned to using their father’s surname. Paradoxically, in 1942, it was the family 

of Elia Borenin, a man from Kashega, that became the last Unanga{ family living 

at Makushin.

As the 20th century began, the families with the deepest ties to Makushin were 

the Kastromitins, Telanoffs, Krukoffs, Petelins, and Petukoffs. The Kastromitins, 

represented by a single family in the 1900 census, disappeared from Makushin 

during the next decade; however, this family name resurfaces at Kashega. There 

were four Telanoff families in 1900, but only one in 1910. In 1900 there were two 

Krukoff families, including that of Ivan Grigorovich Kriukov, the man who was 

the primary official at the church. By 1910, however, this family was represented 

only by the widow Matrona, the mother of Elia and Matfey Borenin. Family 

names that disappeared from census records continued to have a presence 

through the female line. Thus, Nick Galaktionoff’s grandmother, Marva Petukoff, 

had a Kastromitin grandmother. The disappearance of these names, however, 

was symbolic of losses suffered by villages.

Two families had been primarily responsible for establishing the chapel at 

Makushin, that of Joseph Petelin and that of Gregory Petukhov [Petukoff]. By 

1900, the Petelins were no longer present. Thomas Petelin, the last agent for the 

AC Company, had moved into Iliuliuk when the company closed its Makushin 

station in the 1890s. There were three Petukoff families in 1900, if the widow 

Marva Petukoff and her son Peter are counted as they should be since by 1910 he 

had married and started his own family. There were two other Petukoff families; 

that of Innokentii and Elena Petukoff and their daughter, and that of Vasilii and 

Elizaveta with their children Anna, Yakim and Matfey. 

3	 When two persons had identical names, they were designated “first” and “second” according to

age.
134 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

The Lekanoff, Galaktionoff, and Shapsnikoff families of Makushin trace their 

families to men who moved into Makushin in the second half of the 19th century. 

According to Nicholai Lekanoff, his father, Simeon Nikolaiovich Lekanoff, was 

born at Unalaska where he attended the school operated by the Orthodox 

church. The 1878 census for Iliuliuk includes Nikolai Lekanoff (written as 

Lezanove) with his wife, three sons, and a daughter. According to Nick, Simeon 

Lekanoff moved to Makushin while his brother settled on St. George Island. 

Stepan “Lehanof” was fourteen when he arrived on St. George in 1884 as a 

“servant” in the family of Rev. Innokentii Lestnikoff. Several early St. George 

census reports place his birth at St. Michaels. According to family tradition, 

he entered the Lestnikoff family following the death of his mother when her 

clothes caught fire at the stove.4 Father Lestnikoff, born on Attu and educated in 

Sitka, served the church at Unalaska from 1873 until he moved to St. George as 

a priest in 1882. It is certainly possible that both Stepan and Simeon Lekanoff 

had been students at the school founded by Veniaminov and consolidated by 

Bishop Nestor in the early 1880s. Permanent residence on the Pribilof Islands 

was restricted to those present around the time of the Alaska purchase, but 

in 1889 Stepan was “adopted” by Father Lestenkoff and the following year he 

had married and established his family as an integral part of the St. George 

community.5 The date of Simeon’s arrival at Makushin has not been established 

but it may have been around the same time that Stepan went to St. George. 

Simeon may have followed his older brother, Andrei, who had married Evdokia, 

a woman from Makushin. Andrei signed the 1886 sea otter petition. In any event, 

by 1897 there were three Lekanoff men with families at Makushin, all reportedly 

born at Unalaska. Andrei was 38, Nikolai was 26, and Simeon was 24. Simeon 

was married to Julita (Oleta) Pankoff. By 1900 Andrei had died, leaving his widow 

and three children. Nicholai, with his wife and daughter, was still at Makushin 

but he eventually moved to Unalaska where he perished in the 1919 pandemic. 

Simeon survived longest and became the head of a large extended family. He was 

known as a fine singer, served as starosta for the chapel, and by 1900 he and his 

wife Julita had two daughters, aged one and two. These children appear to have 

died young because they are not listed in the 1910 census where two sons and a 

one-year-old daughter are found. The eldest son was Constantine who himself 

became the patriarch of an extended family at Unalaska. The daughter was 

Parascovia, destined to become Nick Galaktionoff’s mother. 

Arseni and Tikhon Galaktionoff were from Atka. They were descendents of 

Ivan Konstantinovich Galaktionov who was born in 1803, educated at Kodiak 

and New Archangel, and served as a physician and school teacher at Atka, 

beginning in the 1830s. He retired in 1847 after 26 years service with the 

Russian-American Company. At Atka, he and his wife Natalia had a large family. 

By 1878 Arseni and his mother were living at Unalaska with his younger sister 

Marina, and three younger brothers: Antipater, Lazar, and Aleksander. There 

4 Anne S. McGlashan, interview with the author, April 30, 1986. She described him as “a big, tall 

man with bright red hair and beard and blue eyes.”

5 The fear of deportation from the Pribilof Islands was so great that even in 1986, concerned about 

his descendents, Anne McGlashan cautioned me about revealing his origins.
 CHAPTER 8: THE LAST FAMILIES 135

was also an Anna Galaktionoff, 18, and her younger brother Basil living there. 

Arseni Galaktionoff was an active sea otter hunter in 1886. He signed the 1886 

petition and is included among hunters from Makushin for the 1886-1887 

winter season. In 1897 he and his wife, Lubova (from Morshovoi), had three 

children. 

Tikhon Avramovich Galaktionoff was also living at Makushin. He was married to 

Marva Grigorievna Petukoff whose paternal grandfather was Gregory Petukoff, 

the Russian-American Company employee stationed at Makushin, while her 

grandmother was Marva Kostromitin. Tikhon and Marva had several children 

including Evdokia, Gabriel, Akenfa, and Agafia, before Tikhon died in June 1902. 

Akenfa would become the father of Nick Galaktionoff, among others, and it is 

significant that Nick credited his grandmother, a woman with deep generational 

ties to Makushin, for the oral traditions he shepherded into the 21st century. After 

her husband died, Marva married Ioann S. Borenin and in 1905 they had a son 

whom, with little originality, they named John.6

The short tragic life of Gabriel Galaktionoff, Tikhon and Marva’s eldest son, 

suggests the unraveling that was happening within Unanga{ communities 

as one era transitioned to another. There were insoluble problems. In 1898, 

when he was about ten years old and a year after he had been recorded living 

at Makushin, he was discovered living in an abandoned dory on the beach at 

Unalaska.7 The U.S. deputy marshal took him to the Jesse Lee Home where 

he was admitted on August 6. Details are lacking, but in late November 1906 

Dr. A.W. Newhall, then the director of the Home and a man of expansive good 

will, filed a complaint against Gabriel for unknown reasons. He was taken to 

Seward where he appeared before U.S. commissioner L.S. Howlett on January 7, 

Orthodox Christmas. He was declared insane and transported to the Mt. Ivy [Mt. 

Tabor] Insane Asylum in Oregon where he died. 

In 1910 the chief of Makushin was Elia Michael Shapsnikoff, yet another person 

with deep ties to Iliuliuk where in 1878 there were at least nine Shapsnikoff 

households. The 1886 petition contains numerous men with variants of the 

Shapsnikoff surname. By 1897 Elia and his wife, Subove, were at Makushin, her 

home village, where they had a son and two daughters. Three years later, he was 

married to eighteen year-old Fedosia and the only child in the home was eightyear old Daniel. By 1910 their family had grown to include two daughters and a 

son. 

Kashega

By the time Matrona Borenin had been widowed, married a Krukoff and moved 

to Makushin with her sons Elia and Matfey, her oldest child, Katrina, was herself 

married and starting a family in Kashega. She and Ivan A. Denisoff had married 

in 1899. Ten years later, however, on January 21, 1909, her body was found in the 

6	 Ioann S. Borenin’s name is found in Murray and Corey, “Aleut Weavers,” 4.

7 Hooper’s 1897 census lists him as 9. The Jesse Lee Home records give his age as 6 in 1898.
136 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

creek. Residents suspected she had fallen victim to outsiders, perhaps murdered 

by Japanese fishermen who were known to occasionally land on the Pacific side 

of the island. The death was reported to Unalaska in early March, but it was late 

May before the marshal reached the village. Through an interpreter (George 

King) he conducted interviews, and then he and two men hiked to the Pacific 

side. Four months of winter had erased any trace of a Japanese camp and the 

case was left unsolved.8 Katrina died leaving Ivan with two young children.

The Denisoffs, male and female, were inextricably bound to Kashega. Ivan had 

an older brother, Nikifor, who had been born in 1863. He would eventually 

outlive his siblings, three wives, and most of his nine children, and be evacuated 

after the Japanese attack on Unalaska in 1942. Ivan and Nikifor’s sister, Vasilisa, 

married Moses Borenin and was the mother of George Borenin, the last chief 

of the village. Moses himself died in 1900 leaving 

Vasilisa with three daughters and two sons whom 

she raised, no doubt with traditional assistance 

from their maternal uncles, Ivan and Nikifor 

Denisoff. A member of the Denisoff family was 

chief of Kashega during the second decade of 

the century, but who exactly remains unknown.9

A likely candidate was Afanasii Denisoff—likely 

because he was listed first in Hooper’s 1897 census 

and in the 1910 and 1920 federal census reports. 

His name also heads a 1916 petition from the 

villages of Kashega and Chernofski.10 He had been 

born in 1860.

The Borenin, Kudrin, and Yatchmenoff families had been established at Kashega 

for generations, and, like the Denisoffs, they continued living in the village 

through the final decades. Ivan Ivanovich Kudrin [John J. Kudrin], who had been 

the reader in the church in the 1890s, married Efimia Krukoff a few years after the 

death of his first wife in 1901. Ivan and Efimia had four sons and three daughters. 

Five of these children along with their widowed mother lived at Kashega until the 

outbreak of World War II. Another Kudrin family was that of Ivan’s brother Eliah. 

As with so many families, Eliah’s first wife, Paraskovia Petukoff, died early, leaving 

a son Alexei. Eliah then married Pelagia Sivtsov and their son Cornelius Kudrin 

would be one of the last two residents of Kashega. Alexei Kudrin, like his mother, 

would die as a young adult but not before he had married Sophia Borenin [later 

Sophie Pletnikoff]—one of the key figures in the preservation of Unanga{ culture 

and the oral history of Kashega. 

8 Ledger Book. U.S. Marshal. Criminal Docket, Unalaska, July 8, 1901-June 76, 1909. Pat Locke 

Archival Collection, Museum of the Aleutians.

9	 On Aug. 18, 1918, “Chief Denasoff at Kashega” was treated for a migraine. RG 26, file 611, Box

1845.

10 Petition, November 19, 1916, to H.C. Kavanaugh and Paul Buckley. Attachment to letter from Paul 

Buckley to Secretary of the Treasury, January 12, 1917. RG 22, #91.

A stone weir in the 

river at Kashega. Alice 

Moller Collection, 

courtesy of AB Rankin.
 CHAPTER 8: THE LAST FAMILIES 137

There were two John Yatchmenoffs at Kashega. John B. Yatchmenoff (the first) 

served as chief of the village for many years until his death in 1932. He was 

married to Laressa Talanov and, although they had no children of their own, they 

raised Paraskovia Kalimoff, a girl from Chernofski who died young. He was about 

ten years older than John Yatchmenoff (number two) who married Helen Golley 

of Atka. They rarely lived at Kashega, but spent most of their time at Unalaska, 

where six of their seven children were born. 

Biorka

Of the three villages, Biorka suffered the gravest population loss, declining 70 

percent between 1878 and 1910, down from 141 to 42. This involved not only 

the disappearance of complete families but also the reduction in the number 

of family units among those names that survived. Five families managed to 

maintain a continuous presence between 1900 and 1920: Makarin, Yatchmenoff, 

Siftsoff, Kozloff, and the doomed Popoff. 

In 1910 Terentii Makarin’s household consisted of himself and his two adult sons, 

Andrew and Elia, now 22 and 20. Terentii himself was 57. For him to have been 

married three times was not unusual. His first wife, Olga Petroff, had died in May 

1888, leaving him with Matfey, age six, and Pariscovia, age three. His second wife, 

Marva Lukanin, died in 1892, leaving Andrew and Elia, born in 1889 and 1891. He 

next married Irena Kochutun, with whom he had Peter, born in 1897. After Irena 

died in September 1900, perhaps from the “great sickness” that swept coastal 

Alaska, he did not remarry.

In 1910, Vasilii Yatchmenoff, in his late forties, and Jacob Kozloff, in his mid 

thirties, both had families while Gabriel Siftsoff, in his early twenties, was 

not yet married. Kerik Popoff, in his late thirties, was married and his 

eldest son, Ignatii, was almost 20 and about to start his own family. Ten 

years earlier there had been another Yatchmenoff family, that of 

Gregorii and Maria. On November 21, 1900, she was found “stabbed 

through the skull” on the beach. Charges against her husband were 

filed by Leontii Siftsoff, the Unanga{ deacon at Unalaska. Five 

witnesses came from Biorka to testify. Each witness was paid $6.50 

for their travel and day in court. Siftsoff received $3.10 for travel 

costs and $2.00 for his translation services.11 Sufficient evidence was 

presented for a trial, and Yatchmenoff was to have been sent to Sitka. 

Judge James Wickersham, however, was in Nome on his traveling 

circuit and, learning that there were two murder cases at Unalaska, 

decided to take the court there. In the second case, Fred Hardy was 

accused of killing three people on Unimak Island. Told it would be 

impossible to find enough jurors at Unalaska, Wickersham had 16 grand 

jurors and 18 trial jurors travel aboard the St. Paul. The grand jury indicted 

both Hardy and Yatchmenoff. Witnesses were again brought from Biorka, but on 

August 26 Wickersham noted in his diary that they were “about to fail as 

11 Ledger Book, May 18, 1901-July 2, 1901. Pat Locke Archival Collection, Museum of the Aleutians.

James Wickersham, 

district judge for Alaska 

1900-1908.

www.rootsweb.

ancestry.
138 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

witnesses for fear that if he is found guilty he will be hung. They would be willing 

to tell the truth if he was only to go to the penitentiary but if he is to hang they 

will be dumb.”12

Just as with the 1878 incident involving Makushin and Unalaska people, the 

residents of Biorka appear to have preferred banishment, rather than death, for 

the crime of murder. The trial began on September 9, a few hours after Hardy’s 

jury had found him guilty. The next day, the jury brought in a guilty verdict 

against Gregorii Yatchmenoff. That afternoon both men were sentenced. Hardy 

was to be taken to Nome and hanged. Yatchmenoff was given twenty years at 

McNeils Island Penitentiary in Washington. The fate of his widowed mother and 

the three children in the family is unrecorded. By the time newspapers picked 

up the story, the murder at Biorka had ballooned so that readers learned how a 

“Unimak Indian” had pushed his three wives off a cliff.13

This event became part of oral history. Nick Galaktionoff recalled Alex Ermeloff 

telling how a woman had been attacked and killed by one of the spectral outlaws or 

“bogeymen” known as Outside Men at Sedanka. Her husband had been innocent, 

but had been convicted and sentenced to twenty years hard labor. He returned to the 

Aleutians after serving time. “He stayed around here for about five years,” Nick said, 

“then passed away.”14

Like Makushin, two families that played pivotal roles at Biorka began when two 

men immigrated. There had long been Lukanins in the village, but in 1900 no 

Lukanin family was present. The most prominent Lukanin had been from Atka. 

Ivan Lukanin had a distinguished career with the Russian-American Company 

during the second quarter of the 19th century. He married Elizabeth Bogdanova 

from Unalaska.15 Kerik Lukanin had been born at Biorka around 1869, but he 

lived at Iliuliuk until he married Terentii Makarin’s daughter Pariscovia. They 

settled at Biorka. Alex Ermeloff, the man who would become chief of Biorka, 

was probably from Nikolski where the Ermeloffs were a long-established family. 

He married Anesia Siftsoff of Biorka and moved to the village. By 1910 they had 

a two-year-old son, Ruff, and three daughters: Anesia, Sophia, and Ephrosenia.

Challenges

Residents in the three villages faced a variety of challenges, none deeper than 

subsistence during a period of declining natural resources. People needed to eat 

and clothe themselves. Cash was also required to purchase household goods, 

hunting equipment, clothing, and a few of the “luxuries” the sea otter years had 

made commonplace. Unanga{ communities on and near the Alaska Peninsula 

had both codfish and salmon industries to fall back on when sea otter hunting 

declined. These were only peripherally available to residents of the three villages. 

12 Diary of James Wickersham, January 1 through September 29, 1901. Alaska State Library—

Historical Collections. MS 107, Diary 2.

13 San Francisco Call, September 3, 1901.

14 Galaktionoff, Nick, recorded in Aleut, March 26, 1976, translated by Ishmael Gromoff.

15 Grinev, Kto Est Kto, 314.
 CHAPTER 8: THE LAST FAMILIES 139

The young needed education—both in English and western skills and in those 

traditional practices that could be put to practical use. Elders were equipped to 

teach traditional skills and consequently boys like Andrew Makarin and George 

Borenin learned the craft of hunting from baidarkas although they would never 

be sea otter hunters. Literacy was also taught, but it was in Unangam tunuu or 

Russian, the languages the people themselves spoke and read. In a 1916 petition 

signed by men from Kashega and Chernofski all the signatures are in Russian 

script, except for that of Cornelius Kudrin.16 Cornelius had attended both the 

public school and the Orthodox boarding school at Unalaska. A critical challenge 

to village survival had its roots in what had helped preserve much Unanga{ 

culture throughout the past century: the willingness and ability to assimilate 

whatever might benefit their lives. 

Although Biorka had been on its own for a decade or more by 1910, the 

interdependency that had united Chernofski, Kashega and Makushin was 

unraveling and each of these three villages began to stand or fall on its own. If 

they had ties to any other village, it was to Iliuliuk or Unalaska whose economy, 

in the words of Dorothy Jones, was “uncertain, unstable, and volatile” for 

the first forty years of the century.17 In addition, Unanga{ residents were 

cut off from effective participation in affairs by language, religion and race. 

Despite the efforts of Vasilii Shaiashnikov, chief from 1887 to 1902, and his 

successor, the renowned Alexei Yatchmeneff, Unalaska continued to be a 

community controlled by outsiders. Every position of power, from deputy U.S. 

commissioners and marshals to school teachers and postmasters, was filled by 

non-Natives. The only exceptions were the brief tenures of Kathyrn Dyakanoff 

Sellers as a teacher and Olga Reinken Bolshanin as postmaster. (Both had been 

educated at the Protestant Jesse Lee Home and the Carlisle Indian School.) Those 

Unalaska Unanga{ who were able to participate in community or territorial 

elections did so by virtue of being recognized as something other than Unanga{. 

Critical differences developed between “urbanized” Unanga{ at Unalaska and 

those living in outlying villages. These differences increased the difficulties 

experienced when the more rural residents chose or were forced to move into the 

larger community. 

Despite a deeply rooted resiliency, the generation born around the turn of the 

century faced challenges as critical as any encountered since the rise of the 

Russian-American Company a century earlier. The transformations required for 

survival were complicated by the fact that they had to be tackled not from within 

relatively self-contained villages, but within in a larger society where Unanga{ 

were increasingly marginalized. How the generation born at the end of the sea 

otter hunting era met these diverse challenges determined the strength each 

community possessed as World War II descended across the Aleutians.

16 Petition, November 19, 1916, to H.C. Kavanaugh and Paul Buckley. Attachment to letter from Paul 

Buckley to Secretary of the Treasury, January 12, 1917. RG 22, #91.

17 Jones, Aleuts in Transition, 28.
140 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

Looking across the lakes toward Volcano Bay. Photograph by Ray Hudson.
Chapter 9

An Uncertain Future

With the end of sea otter hunting on the horizon, men from the three 

villages depended more and more on fox trapping during winter 

months to supplement their meager sea otter income. Trappers 

traveled to Unalaska to sell red and cross fox pelts. For a few years—while 

the two Unalaska stores, the AC Company and Nadir Kafoury’s store, were in 

competition with the North American Commercial Company store at Dutch 

Harbor—there was the possibility of securing slightly higher prices. The NAC 

Company agent noted some of this activity in his log:

January 13, 1905: “Makushin and Cashega natives in today with a few 

baskets but no skins. They sold all their skins in Unalaska.”

March 18, 1905: “Makushin natives in but sold all skins in Unalaska.”

November 7, 1905: “The Makushin natives were over today, and we 

purchased quite a number of fox skins from them.”

November 14, 1905: “There were two Biorka natives over today buying 

some things. They had some fox skins but they sold them to Kafourey; 

he paid them $3.00 for red fox.”

December 6, 1905: “The Makushin natives were in today. They brought 

in quite a number of fox skins. We got a fine silver gray fox from them. 

It is almost black. We paid them $75.00 for it.”

March 13, 1906: “The Biorka natives were here today; they evidently 

sold quite a lot of furs in Unalaska as they had plenty of money.”

 CHAPTER 9: AN UNCERTAIN FUTURE 141
142 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

North American 

Commercial Company 

buildings at Dutch 

Harbor, UAA-hmc-1011-

35a, McKeown Family 

photographs, Archives 

& Special Collections, 

Consortium Library, 

University of Alaska 

Anchorage.

Unfortunately, extant records are insufficient to even estimate the total amount 

villages received from trapping. What is clear is that men from the three villages 

had little involvement in blue fox farming or trapping, a business that was 

developing during this period. It was most successful when an entire island was 

leased from the government and stocked with blue fox becoming, in effect, a 

self-sustaining fox farm thanks to previously unmolested bird colonies. Samuel 

Applegate of Unalaska had been attracted to the business in the early 1890s 

and by 1897 he had stocked Samalga Island, off the southern tip of Umnak, 

followed by Ogliuga and Skagul—two of the Delarof Islands east of Amchitka.1

He employed Nikolski men to trap for him. A.B. Somerville was another early fox 

farmer, and he concentrated on Attu. 

“Kashega, Biorka, and Makushin didn’t have an island for the blue-fox trapping,” 

said Henry Swanson when asked why these villages had disappeared while 

Nikolski on Umnak Island had endured.2 The reasons were complex, as Henry 

acknowledged, but the lack of a fox island was certainly a major contributor. 

Despite their involvement in fox trapping, neither Nikolski nor Attu saw an 

improvement in living conditions, especially during the first two decades of the 

century. Securing an island required an application process that was difficult for 

1 Bailey, Introduction of Foxes, 14-15. Swanson, The Unknown Islands, 65.

2 Cuttlefish Two, 53.
 CHAPTER 9: AN UNCERTAIN FUTURE 143

non-English speakers unaccustomed to government bureaucracy. At Unalaska, 

men turned for assistance to Nicholas Bolshanin, the deputy U.S. commissioner. 

He had arrived at Unalaska from Sitka in 1905. In 1910 he married Olga C. 

Reinken, the daughter of Adolph and Alexandra Reinken, and a 1909 graduate 

of Carlisle Industrial School in Pennsylvania.3 Bolshanin was a controversial 

character with an inimical relationship with men connected to the AC Company. 

As he said to Donald Stevenson, a game warden at Unalaska, “The town is small; 

the factions here are many.” If anyone did anything illegal “the whole town of 

Unalaska would know all of the facts and more, too, within one hour.” Officials 

would be “about the last to hear about it, but it would be sure to get around.”4

As though to give credence to Bolshanin’s statement, Albert C. Goss asserted 

that Bolshanin only agreed to submit fox island applications if he were taken 

on as a “silent partner” and received, according to rumors, one-fourth of the 

profits. Goss, a friend of Samuel Applegate and of the AC Company, reported that 

Emelian Berikoff had turned down Bolshanin’s offer because the commissioner 

had “wanted too much.”5

There are no records of men from Kashega or Makushin leasing islands prior 

to 1920. Their trapping continued in traditional ways on Unalaska Island itself. 

“They have hard work to make a living out of the few foxes they catch,” Paul 

Buckley wrote about Kashega and Chernofski in 1917.”6 Kerik Popoff of Biorka 

secured a lease to Old Man Rocks and the Signals in 1916 although, according 

to Stevenson, they were “nothing but rocks and have no value as fox islands.” 

Popoff stocked nearby Egg Island—either purchasing blue fox from Bolshanin for 

this purpose or taking them from Unalga Island (an island leased by Bolshanin 

and L.A. Lavigne). “They are reported to be a bunch of thieves,” the warden wrote 

about Popoff and his unnamed companions.7 Alexei Ermeloff of Biorka leased 

part of the Baby Islands in 1916 as did Alexei Yatchmeneff the same year. For 

practical purposes, fox trapping by men from all three villages remained a parttime occupation and provided minimal income. 

When winter trapping ended, men from the three villages occasionally found 

employment at Unalaska, coaling ships, sacking coal for shipment to the Pribilof 

Islands, working at construction, and helping with pile-driving timbers for new 

docks. Again, when both large companies were in operation, there was a bit 

of competition. Before Father Kashevaroff set off on a trip by baidarka to the 

villages on Unalaska on June 22, 1903, he asked the NAC Company agent if he 

wanted any laborers. “I told him to send us ten of the best he could find,” the 

3 They were married “in the village of Dutch Harbor,” June 12, 1910 by J.L. Brown, deputy U.S. 

Commissioner. Misc. Records #2, Peninsula Precinct, Third Division, Alaska, page 11.

4	 Stevenson, Donald H. “Reindeer at Unalaska Islands.” March 23, 1921. SIA, RU 7176, box 20,file 1.

5 A.C. Goss to Samuel Applegate, Unalaska, November 9, 1916, inclosing a letter from Goss to 

Harry J. Christoffers. Papers of Samuel Applegate, 1875-1925. 0003 MS Alaska State Historical 

Library.

6 Paul Buckley to William G. McAdoo, Jan. 12, 1917. NARA, RG 22, Bureau of Fisheries, #91.

7 Donald H. Stevenson, Aleutian Islands. Report of Fox Propagation, Character of The Island Etc—. SIA, 

RU 7176, Field Reports, Report on Islands within the Aleutian Islands Reservation, 1921-1924, box 20, 

folder 2.
144 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

agent wrote, “and to tell them we would give them a place to live here while they 

were working.” Thirteen men from Makushin arrived seven days later and were 

put to work. When they learned that a white man was getting 25¢ an hour, they 

went on a temporary strike demanding the same. He was, in fact, getting $2.00 a 

day, but he boarded himself. 

Their Chief in Unalaska told them not to work here unless we paid 

them the same. We told the Natives what we had paid the white man; 

and also told them we would not pay them anymore than they had 

been getting. I guess what the Chief told them did not cut much figure, 

for we had all the Natives we wanted today.8

Or else, the agent’s explanation made sense. At times the NAC Company was 

unable to get enough workers as they were employed by the AC Company or 

working at the mine that was being developed at Huntsville, a few miles out 

of the village in Captains Bay. “Have seven natives sacking coal for St. George 

Island,” wrote the NAC Company agent on April 23, 1906.

I didn’t want to have it sacked yet, but I was afraid if I waited until next 

month we might not be able to get men, as the A.C. Co. will have a 

coal ship some time during May and I think it is quite likely work will 

commence in the mine above Unalaska next month, and if it does, it is 

quite likely most of the Unalaska natives will be employed there.9

On May 8, 1906, news of the great San Francisco earthquake arrived. The AC 

Company headquarters building was consumed in the subsequent fire. On June 

6 word arrived that because of the disaster the company was unable to continue 

support for the Huntsville mine. A week later the owners decided to press on 

even without the company’s backing. By June 20 with 15 Unanga{ employed 

at the mine and others out subsistence fishing, the NAC Company agent had 

“considerable trouble in getting natives to coal” a ship for them. Most of the 

Unalaska Natives were working for the AC Company unloading freight or coaling 

a revenue cutter. He was able to hire men from Makushin. To make matters worse, 

six prospectors arrived in July to investigate sulfur deposits on the volcano. 

Whether they received money for furs or earned it by working for one of the 

companies at Unalaska, the allure of goods in the store often meant the money 

went as quickly as it was received. In August 1903, however, after they had been 

paid for work done at the NAC Company, the Makushin men “put their money 

back in the safe for us to keep for them.” They kept it there until they returned 

home a few days later.10

8 June 22 and June 29, 1903, North American Commercial Company, Log Copy Book, May 31, 

1903—September 16, 1903.

9 April 23, 1906, North American Commercial Company, Log Copy Book, August 11, 1905 – 

October 23, 1906.

10 August 15 and 17, 1903, North American Commercial Company, Log Copy Book, May 31, 1903—

September 16, 1903.
 CHAPTER 9: AN UNCERTAIN FUTURE 145

Commercial fishing, although initiated by outsiders, held the promise of 

economic improvement for Makushin and Kashega. As early as 1904 sites were 

claimed at Volcano Bay for “Canning, Trading and Manufacturing Purposes.” 

In 1909 Nicholas Bolshanin had recommended that the government send two 

schooners to train Native men in catching, salting, and marketing cod and other 

fish. He said that at the present time, one white man with the apparatus at his 

command could do as much as six Native fishermen.11 In January 1912 a cannery 

or salting site, along with water rights to the creek, was claimed at Makushin 

Village by W. B. Hastings, the deputy U.S. marshal at Unalaska. He did the same 

for a location at “old Makusin village” at Volcano Bay. James J. Osmund of Astoria, 

Oregon, appointed Hastings his attorney for a similar claim at Volcano Bay, 

next to Hastings’ own claim.12 A year later Thomas Snow filed for a trade and 

manufacturing site at Kashega, with Cornelius Kudrin as his witness.13

Nothing actually developed, however, until Pacific American Fisheries entered the 

picture. PAF had operated salmon canneries in Puget Sound and Alaska since 1899. 

In 1914 Robert Forbes became the general manager for Alaska, and in December 

1915 he submitted a petition to the Department of Commerce seeking permission 

to establish a salmon cannery “within the Aleutian Islands Reservation.” The 

petition was signed by 109 men from several villages including Kashega, Makushin, 

and Biorka. It appears to have been drafted by Alexei Yatchmeneff, “Chief Aleutian 

Islands,” and Leonti Siftsoff, reader at the Holy Ascension church. “Our means of 

earning a livelihood is limited to such an extent that at times we barely have enough 

to live on,” the petition began before acknowledging support for the planned 

cannery.14 It was dated September 29, 1915, but, of course, it took several weeks if 

not months to secure all the signatures. 

Forbes had been in communication with Nicholas Bolshanin who 

enthusiastically supported the idea of a salmon cannery in the Makushin area 

and arranged for the petition. In his further attempt to discredit Bolshanin, A.C. 

Goss described how the commissioner quietly went “about among the natives 

asking them to sign same. Whenever he saw a native in town from any of the 

outside villages he would call him into his office and have him sign the paper 

and then caution him to say nothing about it. None of the white people in 

Unalaska knew of this petition being circulated at the time. It is said that for the 

signatures and for obtaining the consent of the Department he was promised 

to be put in charge of the cannery as manager if enough fish were to be had to 

make it a success.”15

11 Mrs. R.H. Young to E.E. Brown, Bureau of Education, February 8, 1909. NARA, RG-75, Letters 

Received.

12 Misc. Records, 3rd Judicial District at Unalaska, pp. 23-25.

13 Misc. Records, 3rd Judicial District at Unalaska, p. 35.

14	 Petition addressed to William C. Redfield, Secretary of Commerce, September 29, 1915. NARA,

RG 22, 10439.

15 A.C. Goss to Applegate, Unalaska, November 9, 1916, inclosing a letter to Harry J. Christoffers, 

assistant agent, Bureau of Fisheries, “A few notes concerning Bolshanin, Deputy Collector of 

Customs, stationed at Unalaska 1916.” Alaska State Library, Samuel Applegate Papers, MS-3, 

box 2, folder 2.
146 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

Bolshanin traveled to the Makushin area to locate the best site and chose 

Makushin Village itself, with its wide stream. It was a central location between 

Kashega to the south and Wislow, located on the north side of the island at a 

fine salmon stream. A secondary location was found inside Makushin Bay at 

a site that was “almost land locked and with all the good qualities desired.” He 

attempted to estimate the amount of available fish by calculating from what 

Makushin villagers dried for their own use. He was told the fish were “as thick 

as kelp.” People at Makushin fished in the local stream using a small seine and 

took about 13,500 fish per year, or about 1,500 for each of the nine families. 

“At Kashega,” he wrote, “where it is claimed are more salmon and more of a 

population 20,000 fish is generally put up.” He figured that with good equipment 

over twenty-five times that amount could be secured. Bolshanin thought that 

utilizing local labor would be sufficient. Villagers were knowledgeable about 

salting and using a drag seine; however, he thought they would need supervision 

in the use of purse seines.16

On October 4, 1915, Bolshanin claimed a saltery site at “New Makushin Village” 

along with a claim for water from Makushin creek. The claim was witnessed 

by the same Emelian Berikoff who had supposedly objected to Bolshanin’s 

dealing relative to fox permits. Bolshanin also claimed a second site at the head 

of Makushin Bay in an unnamed cove that he called Bolshanin Cove; this was 

witnessed by Alex Tutiakoff. The following year, on April 5, Bolshanin sold the 

two sites and water rights to the Pacific American Fisheries for $75.00.17 (In 1916 

Bolshanin, on behalf of the Lucky Strike Mining Claim, filed a mining claim in 

Anderson Bay, “in a westerly direction from the right arm of Anderson Bay, in 

Makushin Bay, near a creek, about 1 mile from the beach.” He enlisted Vasilii 

Petikoff and Peter Petikoff, along with Paul Buckley, as locators.18)

In the summer of 1916 the Pacific American Fisheries had three vessels fishing 

at Kashega for a cannery that they had established deep inside Makushin Bay 

at a location known as Cannery Point. “The people [at Kashega] appeared 

prosperous,” wrote Captain B.L. Reed of the McCulloch that summer, “and 

there was on hand a large supply of salmon. It is reported that nine men from 

the village were employed at the Makushin Bay cannery.”19 At the same time, 

Chernofski was described as “a poverty-stricken place” where people had neither 

flour nor tea nor ammunition. A sack of flour was given to each of the seven 

households and the sailors contributed old clothing. A year later, Chernofski 

residents reported that white fishermen from PAF were catching salmon in the 

stream at Kashega with nets and traps. F. G. Dodge, captain of the cutter Unalga, 

investigated and found a vessel from the cannery anchored off the village. As 

far as Dodge could discover, however, the only illegal fishing was being done by 

residents of the village who had constructed 30 box traps across the two streams 

entering the bay where they caught salmon, primarily red. This was a widespread 

16 N.E. Bulshanin to Robert Forbes, Unalaska, Alaska. October 29, 1915. NARA, RG 22.

17 Record Book 1, District Court of Alaska, 3rd Division, Book #79574:8, 11, 17.

18 Record 1, Dist. Court of Alaska, 3rd division, Book #79574:25, 27.

19	 Report of B.L. Reed, June 27, 1916. NARA, RG 26, file 611, box 1843.
 CHAPTER 9: AN UNCERTAIN FUTURE 147

technique that was used also at Nikolski and at Attu. At both Kashega and Attu 

Dodge told villagers to secure fish only by drift and gill nets in the bay, away from 

the mouth of any streams. If they fished in the rivers or lakes, it had to be with 

spears only.20

By 1917 the cannery in Makushin Bay was closing down. Applegate employed 14 

Nikolski men that year while other men from the village went to Makushin, expecting 

to work in the cannery established there. Instead, they were taken to a cannery on 

the Alaska Peninsula. “At Makushin they were employing as few men as possible,” 

Applegate reported, “as it was the intention to dismantle the plant if the season 

again proved a failure, which it did, and they have already taken apart much of the 

machinery with a view of moving the plant up somewhere in Bristol Bay next year.”21

While the cannery at Makushin provided minimal employment for Makushin and 

Kashega men, even that was not available to men from Biorka. The Union Fish 

Company of Seattle briefly operated a saltery on Tigalda in 1916, but their labor was 

all imported. The business was located at the site of an old village, about 200 feet 

from an old cemetery. Men at the cod station shot young fox during the summer 

months, seriously jeopardizing the trapping that Akutan men did on the island 

during the winter months.22 This saltery was operating without a permit, however, 

and before long it was moved to Nagai Island in the Shumagin Islands where the 

company’s station had recently burned down.23 Six Biorka men fished for the Alaska 

Fishing Company in the summer of 1918 at Wislow, northwest of Unalaska. However, 

“after they caught 200 barrels they quit because they thought they had enough.”24

The “Atka Mackerel” 

or yellow fish, 

Pleurogrammus 

monopterygius 

(Pallas), Gill. (specimen 

collected at “Illiuliuk, 

Unalashka,” 1880 by Dr. 

T. H. Bean). NOAA.

In November 1916 when Paul Buckley sought permission to establish a cod 

station on Unalaska Island and a salmon cannery in Pumicestone Bay, he 

provided a petition from residents of Kashega and Chernofski. “We have had 

20 F.G. Dodge, report July 3, 1917. NARA, RG 22, box 24. folder 99: Aleutian Islands Reservation—

Misc. Fishing Permits, 1917-1921.

21 Applegate to Commissioner of Fisheries, Oct.26, 1917. NARA, RG 22, box 24, folder 99.

22 F.G. Dodge, Cruise Report, Unalga. May 26, 1916. NARA, RG 22, box 1843.

23 Harry J. Christoffers to Commissioner of Fisheries. July 5, 1916. NARA, RG 22, box 18. Division 

of Alaska Fisheries, correspondence, reports, and other records. Folder 89.

24 Gust Munson to Commissioner Smith, Nov. 26, 1918. NARA, RG 22, box 24, folder 99.
148 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

a hard struggle for years to get the necessities of life,” the petition stated, “and 

will gladly give permission to anyone to fish in the waters around our villages, if 

they will give us employment and an opportunity to sell the fish that we catch.”25

Again, the petition was headed by the signature of Alexei Yatchmeneff, “Chief of 

Unalaska Island Natives.” Buckley was initially denied the salmon cannery but 

after further lobbying, the salmon cannery was also allowed. H. F. Moore, acting 

commissioner, wrote that “it is with some misgiving that this permit is granted” 

as it “may result in drawing too heavily upon the supply of salmon.” However, 

it is granted “to further the interests of the natives in every way possible” 

even though the number of permits that have been granted may well mean 

that “native labor will be inadequate to meet the demand already created.”26

As of February 1917 there were ten active permits for the “Aleutian Islands 

Reservation” assigned to Buckley, Somerville, Applegate, Goss, Pacific American 

Fisheries, and the Sockeye Salmon Company. 

In August 1918 Buckley wrote that his codfish operation at Akutan had been 

successful and that he had encouraged others to get into the business of salting cod 

and salmon. “This year every able bodied native in this section has had all the work 

they wanted,” he wrote, “—in fact, there has been a scarcity of labor here”.27 In 1918 

his company, the Unalaska Atkafish Company, received a permit to establish a saltery 

at English Bay. He had filed a trade and manufacturing site on the north shore of 

the bay in September 1916 (with Carl O. Angell).28 Vasilii Shaiasnikov was to be his 

manager and ten men from Biorka were to do the the cod and salmon fishing for 

“Atkafish.”

Ownership and operation of cod and salmon plants shifted. The Bering Sea 

Fisheries Company, out of Seattle, had salteries at Station Bay, Boulder Bay, and 

Dory Bay, all at the south end of Unalaska Island. Lars Mikkelsen had established 

these after consultation with Captain Dodge of the Unalga and following 

encouragement from Father Hotovitsky at Unalaska.29 The priest’s interest in 

economic improvement for his parish would continue for decades after he had 

moved to King Cove around 1920. The company anticipated opening another plant 

at Kuliliak Bay, on the Pacific Ocean side of the pass from Kashega, in the spring 

of 1921.30 Applegate, in a final volley as he sold his Nikolski holdings to A.C. Goss, 

objected to Mikkelsen’s ventures. The company’s use of local men as fishermen did 

not succeed and most of its fishermen were Scandinavians. In 1919 it employed 

25 Petition, November 19, 1916, to H.C. Kavanaugh and Paul Buckley. Attachment to letter from Paul 

Buckley to Secretary of the Treasury, January 12, 1917. RG 22, #91.

26 H.F. Moore to E. Lester Jones, April 2, 1917. NARA, RG 22, Entry #91.

27 RG 22, Box 24, Folder 100. Paul Buckley to E.F. Sweet. August 27, 1918. The permit for English 

Bay was issued June 5, 1918.

28 Record Book 1, District Court of Alaska, 3rd Division, Book #79574:35.

29 Smith to Applegate, September 5, 1919. NARA, RG 22, box 24. folder 99: Aleutian Islands 

Reservation—Misc. Fishing Permits, 1917-1921.

30 Lars Mikkelsen, report to Department of Commerce, January 27, 1921. NARA, RG 22, box 24. 

folder 99: Aleutian Islands Reservation—Misc. Fishing Permits, 1917-1921.
 CHAPTER 9: AN UNCERTAIN FUTURE 149

sixteen Unanga{ men, but the following year only about five Chernofski men were 

hired and assigned jobs of unloading freight at Station Bay.31

“Oonalashkan 

Natives CodFishing. An Aleutian 

Fisherman and 

Bidarka hooking 

'Treesca' in Oolachta 

Harbor, Oonalashka 

Island.” E. H. Elliott, 

1897. NOAA.

With little income from either fox trapping or fishing, men continued to rely 

on traditional sealing to secure food. Young migrating fur seals continued to be 

preferred, but hunting them was illegal. Following hearings and inspections at 

Akutan related to illegal seal hunting, Lieut. Comdr. J. F. Hottel, the commanding 

officer of the Haida wrote, “The natives are a poor lot and the whaling station, 

from employment at which they derive their main revenue[,] not having been in 

operation last year, they had a hard time getting through the past winter and it 

seems safe to presume that their hunting which, according to all accounts, was 

very limited, was prosecuted mainly for purpose of obtaining food, the skins 

being used for boat top covering (these natives use skin boats almost exclusively) 

and was a matter of self preservation.”32

While sea lion skins were the preferred covering for baidarkas, any sea mammal 

skin could be utilized and consequently, as Hottel noted, hunting seals was a 

continuing necessity for any village that depended on skin boats. The reliance 

on skin boats varied from place to place as Stevenson reported in 1923. People 

at both Attu and Atka employed the vessel while at Nikolski its use continued 

although people “are not so proficient” in its use and stayed near the island. 

The kayak was not used at Unalaska, Morzhovoi, or Belkovski.33 Consequently, 

31 Stevenson, Donald H. “Fish” SIA, RU 7176, box 19, folder 8. Fish of Alaska Waters near the 

Aleutians. 1920.

32	 Commanding Officer, Haida, to Commander, Bering Sea Patrol Force. Unalaska, Alaska, August 

21-22, 1922. RG 26, 611 Box 1851.

33 Stevenson, Donald H. “Extract from Report of Donald H. Stevenson, Reservation and Fur Warden 

Aleutian Islands Reservation, Unalaska, Alaska. September 10, 1923.” RG 22.
150 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

its dominance at Akutan in 1922 is noteworthy and suggests its continuation at 

Biorka, Makushin, and Kashega.

Harry J. Christoffers, an agent for the Fish and Wildlife Service stationed at 

Unalaska, tried to ascertain the amount of illegal fur seal hunting. The skins 

were sold to men aboard various vessels and occasionally smuggled to British 

Columbia in barrels aboard codfish schooners. He implicated N.E. Bolshanin, 

O.K. Quean, and Hugh McGlashan, the trader at Akutan, with Bolshanin as the 

ringleader. Even Father Hotovitsky was said to have purchased seal skins from 

local men. Bolshanin used his vessel, the schooner Lettie, that he had purchased 

in the winter of 1915-16 and hired E.L. Larson to operate. Taking the vessel as far 

as Attu, Larson would stop at various villages to trade. “The amount of trading 

which can be done, however, is very small as there is a government store and a 

trader at Atka and two traders at Attu,” wrote Christoffers who heard that Larson 

had returned to Unalaska that winter with “two bales of seal skins on the Lettie

from Atka, Makushin and other places” that he later disposed of at Akutan.34

He heard that O.K. Quean had purchased about 60 fur seal skins from men at 

Unalaska and villages to the west during the winters of 1913-1914 and 1914-

1915.35 Christoffers was frustrated and recommended various undercover ploys 

to secure proof needed for prosecution. Seal hunting continued but with little 

impact on what families earned. 

“There is no question but that there is or has been a sort of dry rot or decay of 

all industries within the Aleutian Islands since the advent of the Americans,” 

wrote Donald H. Stevenson, Reservation and Fur Warden for the region, in 

1924. “It is my sincere wish that some permanent industry will be developed in 

the near future which will give the native residents as well as others...a steady 

solid means of livelihood as compared to a hand to mouth existence as is now 

the case.”36 Sheep ranching promised to be that “permanent industry.”37 Its 

history is as tangled as the venture was tangential to the economic well being of 

Chernofski and Kashega.38 In 1915 Paul Buckley, deputy U.S. marshal, made a 

trip around Unalaska Island on behalf of the Department of Justice. He noticed 

the excellent grazing land on the south end of the island and in 1917 he applied 

for a long-term lease for all of Unalaska Island, from Kashega to the end of 

the island for cattle raising. “There are two villages in this tract of land, one at 

Kashega and the other at Chernofsky and they have hard work to make a living 

34 Harry J. Christoffers to Commissioner of Fisheries. July 15, 1916. NARA, RG 22, box 36, folder 

175.

35 Harry J. Christoffers to Commissioner of Fisheries, August 28, 1915. NARA, RG 22, box 36, folder 

175, pelagic sealing.

36 Donald H. Stevenson to E.W. Nelson, Chief, Bureau of Biological Survey. Unalaska, January 13, 

1924. Smithsonian Institution Archives. Record Unit 7176, US Fish and Wildlife, Field Reports, 

Report on Islands within the Aleutian Islands Reservation, 1921-1924, box 20, folder 2.

37 A thorough history of sheep ranching in the Aleutians, Alaska’s Wild West, has been written by 

Cora Holmes.

38 The community overview of Nikoski prepared for the Aleutians West Coastal Resource Service 

Area, Vol. II, Resource Inventory and Analysis, August 2006, for example, dates the beginning of 

organized sheep ranching to 1926 when the Aleutian Livestock Company was said to have built a 

ranch at Nikoslki.
 CHAPTER 9: AN UNCERTAIN FUTURE 151

out of the few foxes they catch.” He had the endorsement of Alexei Yatchmeneff 

and Father Hotovitsky. He was hoping for nominal rental “as it would take some 

time before we would have an income producing industry.”39

Serious work began with A.L. Macintosh, a Scotsman living in Bend, Oregon, who 

had been in the sheep business in the Falkland Islands for five years. Suspecting 

agricultural parallels with the Aleutians, he made a visit to the Chain that 

confirmed his optimism. He returned and organized a company.40 His principal 

investor and partner was Dr. Andrew C. Smith, president of the Hibernian 

Savings Bank of Portland, Oregon. Smith and Macintosh formed the Umnak 

Livestock Company with the intent to do more than harvest wool: they would 

salt cod and deliver mail. On Sept. 20, 1917, the company received a permit to 

“engage in preserving cod and salmon at Nikolski.”41 In 1918 the company was 

awarded the mail contract from Kodiak to Unalaska and up to the Nushagak 

region.42 Henry Swanson remarked that the first boat they used to deliver mail 

was the schooner Eloise. It was one of “all kinds of funny boats” that salesmen in 

Seattle had sold “the shepherds.” Swanson noted that “they were good boats but 

none of them were fit to be a mail boat.” He described the Eloise as a “real old 

sea-going yacht with a big keel.” Men who knew ships called it the E-louse.

43

Early in the spring of 1918 the Umnak Livestock Company shipped several 

hundred ewes to Amaknak Island.44 These were probably destined for Umnak 

Island.45 However, transportation problems altered the plan. It’s not clear 

exactly what happened next. Two-hundred twenty were left on Amaknak Island. 

The remaining 440 were to be divided equally between Umnak Island and 

Chernofski. The sheep intended for Chernofski did arrive because an inspector 

visited in November and met the herder in charge (Sam Vaughn). It is not known 

if those intended for Umnak made it there or not. They may have remained on 

Amaknak because records suggest there were 500 sheep at the beginning of the 

1918-1919 winter. The following months were severe with snow drifting until 

some of the houses were completely covered. About half the stock died.46 Despite 

this loss, the number of ewes, with lambs, was back at 500 by summer. Half were 

placed at Chernofski and half at Nikolski.47 Although Macintosh was recognized 

39 Paul Buckley to William G. McAdoo, January 12, 1917. RG 22, #91.

40 W.R. Sproat to Milton Holmes, February 22, 1952. Copy courtesy of Milton Holmes.

41	 H.M. Smith, commissioner of fisheries, to Samuel Applegate, September 5, 1919. NARA, RG 22 # 91.

42	 R.C. Knox, Post Office Department, Seattle, to Louis Greene, A.C. Co., San Francisco. Sept. 15,

1918. J.Hugh Jackson Library JL-6.

43 Swanson, The Unknown Islands, 60.

44 Guy Allingham was in charge of the sheep. On April 19, 1919, he took out a trade and 

manufacturing claim a half mile from Chernofski Village. Third Judicial District records, Record 

Book 79574, page 91.

45 “Report by W.B. Rider to Moore Peterson Co. on Trip to Alaska”, October 1918. SIA, RU 7176, 

box 4, folder 2.

46 Harris, Arthur J. “Sheep on the Chain,” Matanuska Valley Record. September 1952, Vol. II, No. 6:1. 

The annual report for the teachers at Unalaska, dated June 30, 1919, noted “The winter was the 

most severe known in the past thirty years. Snow drifted till some of the houses were completely 

covered.” Agnes Danford, “Annual Report. Unalaska.” NARA, RG 75, Entry #802. File: Unalaska 

Box 103, 1918-1919.

47 Harris, Arthur J. “Sheep on the Chain.” Matanuska Valley Record. September 1952, Vol. II, No. 6:1.
152 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

as being “neither an efficient or economical manager,” it was felt that to “displace 

him entirely from the management would be doing him a decided injustice.”48

Soon Smith and Macintosh had a falling out and the Umnak Livestock Company 

broke into two separate operations. Smith established the Western Pacific 

Livestock Company headquartered in Portland, Oregon. Macintosh initiated 

the Aleutian Livestock Company based in Los Angeles. In 1925 the Aleutian 

Livestock Company decided to establish herds on Umnak Island that would 

be managed from Chernofski. Three thousand three hundred rambouillet and 

delaine sheep from Montana left Seattle on the Oduna on May 29 and arrived at 

Nikolski on June 6, 1926.

The Western Pacific Livestock Company had not been as active as the Aleutian 

Livestock Company. Both firms still had land at Chernofski and this remained a 

“subject of considerable controversy” as both firms sought to fulfill the terms of 

their permits.49 When the Aleutian Livestock Company was granted temporary 

use of six square miles at Chernofski, including four square miles regularly used 

by the Western Pacific Livestock Company, Western Pacific felt this “would cut 

the heart out of their range.” Aleutian Livestock insisted this land was needed as 

headquarters for their Umnak operations. Western Pacific eventually transferred 

its headquarters north to Kashega Village.

Sheep at Kashega, 

Alice Moller Collection, 

courtesy AB Rankin.

The worldwide influenza rampage struck the Aleutian Islands in May 1919. 

Between May 23 and June 13, 44 deaths were recorded at Unalaska. Among 

those who died were former Makushin residents Oustinia Petikoff and Nicolai 

Lekanoff, Elisha Basaroff from Biorka, and Nicolai Kudrin from Kashega. 

48 “Report by W.B. Rider to Moore Peterson Co. on Trip to Alaska”, October 1918. SIA, RU 7176, 

box 4, folder 2.

49 “Memorandum for Mr. Hedington.” Feb. 24, 1928. NARA, RG 22, Fish and Wildlife Service, 

Division of Wildlife Refuges, Entry #146, box 1, folder: Aleutian Islands, 1922-29 permits.
 CHAPTER 9: AN UNCERTAIN FUTURE 153

The number of deaths at Biorka, Makushin, and Kashega is unknown and 

anecdotal information conflicts with the scant records. In 2004 Nikolai Lekanoff 

commented on the disastrous result of an epidemic at Makushin that decimated 

his family. His father’s first wife and 10 of their 14 children died. Exactly the same 

story has been transmitted through the family of Constantine Lekanoff, Nick’s 

older half-brother who helped transport bodies for burial.50 Although Andrew 

Makarin remarked on the high mortality Biorka experienced, no inspection 

was made of the village until November 1920 when only one death during the 

previous 12 months was reported.51 Biorka, lying between Unalaska and Akutan, 

may very well have seen a number of deaths. 

The whaling station at Akutan reported being “considerably hampered by the 

epidemic of influenza, which was very severe among the Aleutian Island natives, 

and thus prevented the catch from being even larger.”52 An inspection of Akutan in 

late June 1920 reported that during the previous 12 months three men and eleven 

women had died from influenza (all but three over 50, and most in their 60s or 70s).53

As the epidemic was winding down at Unalaska, the Lettie arrived from a trip 

to Atka and Attu. A.C. Goss reported that “there had been a very severe winter, 

but no sickness of any of the islands or at any other villages to the westward of 

Unalaska.”54 In early July 1919, the Unalga made a trip west as no word had come 

from the villages. On July 6 Kashega and Chernofski reported no sickness during 

the winter and that all residents were well.55 The day before Makushin Village had 

been found deserted, suggesting people were at their fish camp at the old village 

site. An inspection of Makushin in early October 1920 reported five deaths from 

influenza during the preceding 12 months, but this would not have included 

the period when the epidemic was active at Unalaska and Akutan.56 Nick 

Galaktionoff had specific stories about an epidemic that struck Makushin. People 

had just started constructing wood frame homes when the illness struck. It was 

preceded by an unusually large number of dead birds being washed ashore and 

people were cautioned not to eat them. His account suggests people were at the 

old Volcano Bay village, probably in preparation for summer fishing. He heard 

how somebody would be chopping wood on the beach and suddenly fall down 

ill. Elia Borenin and his mother, Matrona Krukoff, and one other person were the 

only people not ill. Philip Galaktionoff, Nick was told, hiked from Volcano Bay to 

Makushin Village and removed wood from the new homes in order to construct 

coffins. The dead were placed on large grass mats and pulled up to the cemetery. 

So many died that they were left in their homes for 10 to 15 days before burial. 

After that, people started to recover. After all the illness at Volcano Bay, people 

50 Information from Mike Lekanoff, provided by Frederick Lekanoff, October 12, 2012.

51 Andrew Makarin in Hudson, ed., Cuttlefish Two, 57.

52 The Pacific Fisherman Vol. 17, No. 11, November 1919:62

53 Medical Journal, U.S. C.G. cutter Algonquin. RG 26, file 611, box 1847 and box 1849.

54	 Commanding Officer, U.S.S. Unalga. Report of operations of this vessel during Influenza

epidemic. NARA RG 75 General Correspondence. 1919-1920, box 97. Folder: U.S. Coast Guard.

55	 “Ship’s Log, U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Unalga, F. G. Dodge, Sr. Captain.”

56	 RG 26, file 611, box 1847. June 26, 1920 Medical Journal U.S.C.G.C. Algonquin.
154 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

were afraid to return there and so they caught fish in the river by Makushin 

Village for the winter. 57

Nick Lekanoff credited the 1919 epidemic with hastening the end of Chernofski.58

Chernofski Village had been a community with 60 residents in 1897. It had 

dropped to 44, divided among twelve families, in 1910. There were 25 residents 

in six families in March 1920 and by November the village was down to 20.59

Sophie Kudrin was at Chernofski visiting her sister, Lucy, the wife of Alex Gordieff 

at the time the 1920 census was taken. In 1923 Aman Moore, the treasurer and 

financial backer for Macintosh’s Aleutian Livestock Company, had shipped about 

$25,000 worth of general merchandise to the village on the Oduna.

60 He planned 

on opening a store where everything from children’s toys to medicines and fancy 

goods were to be displayed in eight glass show cases. Donald Stevenson was 

dumbfounded. “They had everything,” he wrote, “except customers.” 

“The Chernofski people didn’t benefit from the codfish salteries near 

Chernofski,” Henry Swanson said.61 “The sheep ranch that had been established 

there wasn’t doing them any good so far as making a living went,” Swanson 

continued. “There were just so few of them left they figured they might as well 

move.”62 Stevenson had commented in 1925 that “one or two of the Chernofski 

boys have got so they are pretty good men about the sheep....”

“Rex” Sproat, who worked at the Chernofski ranch for three years beginning in 

1924, wrote that “there was a native village across the bay, but all had moved 

to Kashega or Unalaska except two families and they, too, moved while I was 

there.”63 “Chernofski was completely abandoned in 1928,” Henry Swanson said.

I happened to come through there with my boat the Alasco-4, and the 

Chernofski people jumped aboard. They were waiting for any boat to 

come along. They had the church torn down already. It was a real small 

church, but anything they had there they took to add on to the Kashega 

church....Alex Gordaoff was chief there at that time. There were only 

about a dozen people left counting the children. There was one blind 

man. Some came here to Unalaska. Alex Gordaoff was one of those....

Some stayed in Kashega, and George Yatchmenoff went to Biorka.64

The population of Chernofski had been in flux for years as families, and 

especially men, shifted residences for employment. Yatchmenoff and his wife 

57 Nick Galaktionoff, recording April 2, 1976.

58 Nick Lekanoff in The Beginning of Memory, 107.

59	 Report of F.L. Washburn, medical officer, Unalga. Nov. 21, 1920. NARA. RG 26, 611, box 1847.

60 Moore had been an incorporating partner of the Oregon Portland Cement Company. McCaslin, 

F.E. “A Brief History of the Oregon Portand Cement Co.”The Ore Bin. Vol. 27, No. 2, February 

1964:27. Moore served as president of the company from 1910 to 1916.

61 Swanson, The Unknown Islands, 129.

62 Hudson, ed., Cuttlefish Two, 21.

63 W.R. Sproat to Milton Holmes, February 22, 1952.

64 Henry Swanson in Hudson, ed., Cuttlefish Two, 21.
 CHAPTER 9: AN UNCERTAIN FUTURE 155

and daughter had been living in Kashega at the time of the 1920 census and 

so it was natural that he should return there. Eventually, however, he and 

his family moved to Biorka. Alex Gordieff with his wife had been at Unalaska 

in 1920, but after Chernofski dissolved he seems to have divided his time 

between Unalaska and Kashega. Dorofey Kastromitin appears to have settled 

permanently in Kashega.

Dorofey Kastromitin 

and his wife. 

Photograph courtesy 

Ray Kranich.

Although economic ties among villages on the west end of Unalska Island 

had effectively been severed with the termination of sea otter hunting, the 

abandonment of Chernofski signaled the final dissolution of the mutual 

dependency that had lasted for generations. From now on, Makushin and 

Kashega—like Biorka—would survive as separate entities. Their stories, in effect, 

became separate stories.
156 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

Moss berries. Photograph by Ray Hudson. Watercolor tint by Mary C. Broderick.
Chapter 10

Kashega

While economic ties among villages dissipated, deep family 

relationships endured. Sophie Pletnikoff’s family was not unusual 

in the complexity of relationships extending across several villages. 

Her mother, Olga Shapsnikoff, had been born at Unalaska around 1873 and 

had moved to Chernofski following her marriage to Joseph Borenin, a sea otter 

hunter from that village. By 1900 they had two daughters, Feckla and Okalena, 

and a son, Michael. Joseph was absent from his family for months while hunting 

sea otters around Sanak.1 A decade later, Feckla was seventeen or eighteen and 

married to Timothy Talanoff. Michael had apparently died (he had been only 

two in 1900) and his place had been taken by three-year old Vasilii, who would 

live to adulthood. In addition to Okalena, there were now three other girls: 

Oleta, Lucy, and Sophia, who had been born September 14, 1907. While she was 

still an infant, the family moved to Kashega. Sophie speculated that they left 

Chernofski because her mother did not get along with her brothers-in-law but 

the reasons were probably as much economic as social. 

In the spring of 1914, Joseph and his son Vasilii were gathering wood on the other 

side of the village creek when a man saw the boy standing by himself. It had 

rained and the stream was swollen with water. 

“Where’s your daddy?” the man asked.

“My daddy’s chopping wood,” Vasilii replied. “He’s sleeping down there, down the 

beach.”

“Aye-ya-ya!” Sophie said, remembering that day.2 Olga, George Borenin, John and 

Nikefor Denisoff ran to where Joseph had collapsed on the beach and died.3 Not 

long afterwards, in April, Olga gave birth to her last child, a girl whom she named 

Dora. She and her children were taken by baidarka to Makushin where her 

1 Hudson, ed., Unuguluˆx Tunusangin, 237.

2 Hudson, ed., Unuguluˆx Tunusangin, 226-227.

3 Dora Kudrin, interview with Ray Hudson, December 8, 1975.

 CHAPTER 10: KASHEGA 157
158 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

brother Elia Shapsnnikoff was chief. Sophie remembered seeing water through 

the skin covering.4

The U.S. Revenue 

cutter Manning at 

Dutch Harbor, 1905, 

ASL-P79-019, U.S. 

Revenue Cutter Service 

Photograph Collection.

On August 15, 1915, the U.S. Revenue Cutter Manning visited Makushin and 

found three frame houses and six barabaras for the 44 people (27 adults and 

17 children). It is likely Elia Shapsnikoff lived in one of the frame houses, since 

he was chief and had moved to the village from Unalaska. The only death the 

previous year had been an infant. “The houses and barabaras are very dirty, 

damp and foul smelling,” wrote the ship’s assistant surgeon. “The water supply is 

obtained from a large rapid running mountain stream near the village. As in the 

other villages there are no privies and there is much evidence of soil pollution by 

feces.”5

Olga and her children were divided among different homes. They spent time 

at the old village at Volcano Bay where Sophie recalled the barabaras were 

windowless and depended on openings in the roof for light. These were closed 

from the outside at night.6 Sophie again speculated that her mother and her 

4 Pletnikoff, Sophie, “A Life in Kashega,” Hudson, ed., Cuttlefish Two, 37.

5 Wm. C. Witte, Ass’t Surgeon, to F.G. Dodge. Report of medical work done on Alaskan cruise, July,

August and September, 1915. NARA, RG 26, file 611, box 1841.

6 Hudson, ed., Unuguluˆx Tunusangin, 238.
 CHAPTER 10: KASHEGA 159

aunt were not compatible and after a few months, perhaps one winter, they 

returned to Kashega. They were there by the summer of 1916 because in June the 

medical officers of the Coast Guard Cutter McCulloch treated Sophie for favus, 

that persistent disease of the scalp.

7

 By this time, Sophie’s older sister Feckla had 

been widowed and she had married the widower Ivan A. Denisoff. Their daughter 

Xenia was born in 1914. Alice, as Xenia was known, and her two aunts, Sophie 

and Dora, grew up like sisters.8

The chief of Kashega, as noted earlier, was probably Afanasii Denisoff. Sophie 

indicated that at one time John Kudrin had been both chief and a reader in the 

church.9 This may have been Ivan Ivanovich Kudrin (John J. Kudrin) although 

she identified this chief as Cornelius Kudrin’s father—an entirely different man, 

Eliah Ivanovich Kudrin.

Olga Borenin did not remarry but supported her children as best she could. 

They lived in one of the poorer barabaras. The floor was dirt, covered with 

grass that was renewed on special occasions, such as church holidays. 

Clothes were sewed from recycled 

flour sacks; and shoes, when worn, 

were made from traditional sea 

lion throats and flippers. When 

Sophie was old enough, her mother 

“loaned” her to elderly residents 

who had no extended family 

members and who needed help 

with meals and daily chores. Such 

an arrangement was neither 

unusual nor unkind even though a 

school teacher at Unalaska decried 

the practice as slavery. During 

periods when people, especially 

the elderly, had limited resources, 

this arrangement provided needed 

assistance while reducing the economic burden on large families. For 

Sophie, living with elders gave her opportunities to observe and learn a 

variety of traditional skills, from gut sewing to basket weaving, as she 

attempted to duplicate what she saw being done. Trial and error was 

common as when she and a friend first decided to weave baskets and they 

naively pulled fresh stalks of grass from the ground and set to work. 

Kashega women were excellent weavers. Basket collectors often used the term 

Attu when describing any Aleut weaving because Attu baskets were considered 

the rarest and finest. Kashega weaving earned similar praise as when, in 1900, 

7 Report of B.L. Reed, Capt. McCulloch, June 27, 1916. NARA, RG 26, file 611, box 1843.

8 Mary Diakanoff, e-mail to Ray Hudson, July 9, 2012.

9 Hudson, ed., Unuguluˆx Tunusangin, 233.

A barabara at 

Kashega, circa 

1930, Alice Moller 

Collection, courtesy 

AB Rankin.s
160 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

a newspaper advertised the “largest collection in [the] Northwest [of] Aleutian 

and Kashega Island” baskets.10 The NAC Company agent recorded receiving 

baskets from the village in 1904 and 1906. (He noted baskets from Makushin in 

1904, but never any from Biorka.) Alexandra Reinken, wife of Adolph Reinken 

and a member of the Kudrin family, was noted for her work.11 Agrafina Borenin 

Sovoroff, also from Kashega, is shown in a photograph taken in 1909 by Dina 

Brodskaya Iokhel’son wearing an exquisitely woven grass cape.12 Sophie’s 

mother, Olga Borenin, was a master weaver and there is a superb fish basket by 

her in the Oakland Museum of California.13 She preferred the long white grass 

from a location at Chernofski.14 She also served as a midwife for the village.

Men fished the stream at Kashega on a regular basis even when regulations 

prohibited it. If the Coast Guard were sighted entering the bay, any illegal gear 

was hidden in the high grass. Sophie remarked that even if officials suspected 

illegal fishing, they rarely took steps to stop it.15 She implied that care of the 

stream was a matter of both religious and secular concern. It was kept productive 

both by continuous efforts to keep it physically clean and by the church reader 

occasionally sprinkling it with holy water and incense.16 This blending of secular 

and religious matters was reflected throughout village life. The key positions of 

village chief and church reader were frequently held by the same person. The 

institution of godparents was as important to the daily functioning of the village 

as that parents, aunts and uncles. During menstruation women refrained from 

entering the church and stayed away from streams and the sea. 

Pink, red, and silver salmon were processed into smoked and dried fish. Prior 

to being smoked, salmon were soaked in brine overnight. The salinity was 

gauged by adding salt until a potato floated. In the absence of a potato, at times 

a real delicacy, a fish head was used. If weather permitted, the fish were hung 

outside for two or three days before being placed in the smoke house where only 

cottonwood was burned. For salted fish, the salmon were cleaned and covered 

with dry salt. Once preserved, they could be stored and prior to being used they 

were soaked in fresh water overnight. Dry fish were prepared in much the same 

way: cleaned, hung skin-side out overnight, and then turned over exposing the 

meaty side. Dried fish kept longer than salted fish and could be used throughout 

the winter.17 Vigilance was needed to keep flies from laying eggs on the fish. 

People were not lazy in Kashega, Sophie remarked, and they would sit by their 

sheds or warehouses where the fish were drying in order to keep them as clean as 

10 The November 25, 1900, The Sunday Oregonian (Portland) carried an advertisement for Mrs. 

Frohman’s Indian Basket Rooms.

11 Examples may be seen in the collection of the Hood Museum, Dartmouth College.

12 Peter the Great Museum, Treasures of the Kunstkamera, 86.

13 Catalog number H16.831.

14 Hudson, ed., Unuguluˆx Tunusangin, 239.

15 Pletnikoff in The Beginning of Memory, 71.

16 Pletnikoff in The Beginning of Memory, 69.

17 Tape recording of Sophia Pletnikoff and Nick Galaktionoff with Platonida Gromoff, January/

February 1978. Ray Hudson’s collection.
 CHAPTER 10: KASHEGA 161

possible. Women wove grass mats to protect the fish when it rained. Once ready, 

fish were stored in barrels and in prepared sea lion stomachs.

On one occasion, Sophie and her brother decided to make home brew. Her 

mother wasn’t at home and so they concocted a barrel and, while the alcohol was 

still hot, they poured it into a glass bottle. It burst sending home brew all over the 

ceiling.18

With no father and only one brother, Sophie and 

her sisters helped with subsistence 

chores. They gathered wood 

and grass. Her sister Lucy 

was an excellent shot with a 

rifle.19 Sophie fished barefooted 

in the river. Because of inadequate 

clothing, she was frequently cold and 

suffered for rest of her life from the 

results. When she was 16 she began to 

cough blood, a symptom of tuberculosis. 

She was first treated with finely chopped 

sea lion liver mixed with seal or cod liver 

oil.20 Fortunately, she was then sent to 

Anchorage where she underwent surgery. 

She returned to Kashega, and in late April 

or early May 1926 she and Tecusa Kudrin, 

the daughter of John and Ephemia, traveled 

to Unalaska on the Umnak Native. Both girls 

were seventeen and on May 5 both were married, Tecusa 

to Theofan Petukoff of Unalaska and Sophie to Alexei Kudrin of Kashega. He was 

thirty-two, and because of Sophie’s age, permission for the marriage was given 

by her sister Lucy, now married to Alex Gordieff and living at Unalaska. Alex and 

Sophie Kudrin returned to Kashega. In March, however, as Sophie neared the 

birth of her first child, Alex died of tuberculosis.21 He had gone to get wood and 

had taken Vasilii Borenin, Sophie’s brother, to man the oars in the dory. What 

Vasilii had experienced with his own father in 1914 was now repeated with his 

brother-in-law.

“And my dad was chopping wood,” Eva Tcheripanoff said. “It was nice day, 

sunshine. All of a sudden, blood coming out. And he couldn’t stand up no 

more so he was down on the rocks and my uncle come up to him, sort of 

18 John Tcheripanoff, student paper, “What Human Life was Like in Kashega,” 1971, author’s 

collection.

19 George Gordaoff, interview with Rachel Mason, November 5, 2008.

20 Hudson, ed., Unugulu{ Tunusangin, 227.

21 There is confusion about this event. Both Sophie and Eva repeated the story of Eva’s birth after 

the death of her father; genealogical information places Alexei’s death in 1928.

Basket woven by 

Alexandra Kudrin 

Reinken, Hood Museum, 

Dartmouth. 46.17.9384.
162 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

walk him down to the dory and took him home. And everybody comes to the 

bank and brought him home. He died that night.”22

Before dying, he asked Sophie to name their child after him if it were a boy. The 

child, however, was a girl and was named Eva.

Death altered living conditions as much as life in communities where women 

were dependent on men for shelter and food. Sophie and her daughter settled 

into her brother Vasilii’s home, where their youngest sister Dora was also living. 

Sophie’s eldest sister, Feckla, had died some years earlier, leaving Ivan Denisoff 

a widower once again with Alice, his young daughter. Olga, Sophie’s mother, 

had moved into her son-in-law’s home to help. By the time of the 1930 census, 

the home had only Ivan, now 59, and Olga, slightly younger at 55. On January 

18, 1930, at seventeen, Alice Denisoff followed her Aunt Sophie into an early 

marriage. She had met Charles Moller, a Norwegian fisherman who was working 

for Harry Jacobson at his codfish saltery either at Raven or Kuliliak Bay on the 

south side of Unalaska Island.23 John (Ivan) Denisoff gave permission for the 

marriage.

Jacobson had been drawn to Kashega as the village economy improved. He was 

born in Tromsø, Norway, in 1870. After working in the mines at Spitsbergen 

(where he lost his teeth to scurvy), he immigrated to the United States in 1905, 

gradually making his way to Alaska. (For as long as she lived, his mother sent 

him a piece of silver each year for Christmas.24) By 1919 he was working at the 

whaling plant at Akutan. Although he was not at Kashega when the 1920 census 

count was made, he may have arrived soon after. Sophie indicated that Jacobson 

opened his store when she was about seventeen. Recalling the village before his 

arrival, she said, “They got hard times...no tea, no flour. No store...no nothing. 

It’s after that, about I’m seventeen years old, that old man Mr. Jacobson make a 

store and help Kashega’s people.”25

Kashega was in the news in 1928 when the Stoll-McCracken Siberian Arctic 

Expedition of the American Museum of Natural History arrived to look for 

prehistoric burials. While visiting villages on the Alaska Peninsula in 1916-1917, 

Harold McCracken had heard tales of mummies buried in the vicinity of Kashega. 

His unnamed source, “an old Aleut,” pointed him towards an islet off Kashega. The 

expedition arrived at the village on the Effie M. Morrissey in June 1928, and saw 

“the earthy dome-shaped tops of their barrabaras.” Two men rowed a dory out 

and went aboard. McCracken found them “uninteresting people.” He was a writer 

whose nonfiction works are uncomfortably similar in style and tone to his novels. 

His depiction of Kashega is straight out of the 19th century with Unanga{ described 

as little more than paupers dressed in “wrinkled, faded and frayed” “white man’s 

22 Tcheripanoff, in The Beginning of Memory, 50-51.

23 Mary Diakanoff, e-mail to Ray Hudson July 11, 2012.

24 Swanson in Hudson, ed., Cuttlefish Two, 50-51.

25 Hudson, ed., Unuguluˆx Tunusangin, 223-224.
 CHAPTER 10: KASHEGA 163

clothing” while McCracken strode about the landscape as one of its heroes. He 

apparently met Harry Jacobson. “His hair was gray,” he wrote. “That is, it would have 

been gray or possibly even white if it had been clean. He appeared even dirtier and 

less healthy than the natives around him.”26McCracken secured the assistance of 

the chief and “his son” to take them to Fortress Rock, not far down the coast. These 

two men, according to McCracken, “were just going along for a ride and being paid 

probably more money than they had earned in several months.”27 The chief, although 

unnamed, was no doubt John Yatchmenoff (the first) and “his son” was probably a 

nephew or other young man from the village because Yatchmenoff had no children of 

his own and McCracken was never too worried about facts. A young graduate student 

from Yale, Edward Moffat Weyer, Jr., was on the expedition and wrote an accurate 

account of what they found.28 In addition to detailing the wooden sarcophagus 

containing four mummy bundles, he referred to “local traditions” among which 

was that the larger side of Fortress Rock had been inhabited at one time and that the 

twenty-five foot cleft separating it from the smaller side of the islet had been spanned 

“by a drawbridge.” The presence of house pits along with extensive grave deposits 

under an overhanging cliff confirmed the habitation of the island. Subsequent 

dispatches and articles by McCracken compared their finds to those surrounding 

King Tut “in antiquity if not in splendor” and members of the expedition were 

photographed displaying a box with a head from one of the burials.29

26 McCracken, God’s Frozen Children, 244.

27 McCracken, Roughnecks and Gentlemen, 363-364.

28 Weyer, “An Aleutian Burial,” 225-238.

29 The Carp Review, Montreal, November 1, 1928:4.

The chapel at Kashega 

(post World War II), 

Banks photo: uaa-hmc0068-series16-f7-10 Bank.
164 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

Henry Swanson visited Fortress Rock not long after McCracken had left and he 

found “a big mess there where they had dug the mummies out and left a lot of 

trash laying around.” Henry had learned about the burials from Kashega people 

and had even tried beating the Siberian Expedition to the island, but, finding the 

weather such that he couldn’t land he left his men at Kashega and went about 

other business. “Anyway,” Henry said, continuing his story

McCracken wrote a book and mentioned me, but not by name. He 

called me this “well-equipped” outfit that was up here ahead of him 

who were ignorant or dumb and who didn’t get the mummies. In his 

book McCracken called O.K. Quean a “man who missed too many 

boats.” That was an expression used about a person who went crazy 

from being in Alaska too long. “He missed too many boats” going back 

out. That’s the way he described old man Quean. Oh, Quean was mad 

about that!30

Henry was told that the cliff head on Fortress Rock had sloughed off, covering the 

mouth of a cave that held even more burials. “So those mummies are still there,” he 

said, “that is, if there are any mummies in that cave.”

A gradually improving economy meant people had money for purchases at 

Jacobson’s store. A new church was erected in the summer of 1930.31 Two years 

later, it was “remodeled” and Christmas was celebrated with a visit from Father 

Kochergin.32 Frame houses gradually replaced the barabaras that had been 

exclusively used in 1920. By 1930 barabaras were employed only for storage or 

converted into smoke houses for fish. Alice Moller’s daughter, Mary Diakanoff, 

recalled that her grandfather, John Denisoff, had a barabara in front of his home 

where he smoked his fish. It had five steps leading down into it. He also had a 

wood-frame warehouse that he kept fastidiously clean. Her grandfather was, 

according to Mary, the fussiest person she ever knew when it came to neatness. 

Children were not allowed inside his warehouse for fear that they would mess 

things up. Once she and Polly Kudrin were playing outside and saw him inside. 

“We walked in,” she said, “and he just stared hard at us until we left.”33

Perhaps the clearest indication of a strong economy was the Bureau of 

Indian Affairs’ decision to establish a school in the village. A building was 

completed by August 1927. The largest structure in the village, it had ten foot 

ceilings and held a large classroom (23 x 30 feet), along with a teacherage 

30 Swanson, The Unknown Islands, 132-133.

31 Southwestern District News Bulletin, Vol. I, No. 10, October 1930:3. NARA, RG 75. Bureau of 

Indian Affairs. Alaska Division. General Correspondence, 1931-1932. Box 215. Folder: Juneau 

Office, monthly news bulletins. In 1930 Henderson had students draw pictures “of the new 

church.”

32 Southwestern District News Bulletin, Vol. III, No. 2, February 1932:7. NARA, RG 75. Bureau of 

Indian Affairs. Alaska Division. General Correspondence, 1931-1932. Box 215. Folder: Juneau 

Office, monthly news bulletins. Gregory Kochergin served Nikolski from 1936-39. Prior to that, he 

may have served Unalaska.

33 Mary Diakanoff, conversation with Ray Hudson, June 22, 2012.
 CHAPTER 10: KASHEGA 165

consisting of a living room, kitchen, and store room. In addition there were 

two outhouses and a fuel shed. According to one account, the school was 

founded by Dr. Andrew Smith, a principal investor in the sheep ranching 

business. Smith maintained an interest in the school and would occasionally 

send gifts to the children at Christmas.34 James and Carrye Henderson 

arrived as teachers in 1929. Their immediate supervisor was George Gardner, 

superintendent for the Southwestern District, with his office at Unalaska. 

The new teachers undertook various improvements to the school. They 

added shelves, book cases, kitchen and library tables. The outhouses were 

relocated and braced to withstand the winds. A water pump was installed in 

the kitchen. A flag pole was erected, and all the buildings were painted. The 

school garden produced radishes, turnips, carrots and lettuce. In 1931 the 

Hendersons added a kitchen sink and constructed a 10 x 16 shop onto the 

building. In June 1932 they built a “canoe” for the lake.

James and Carrye 

Henderson and students 

in front of the school. 

Photograph courtesy 

Ray Kranich.

James Henderson’s reports for 1931 and 1932 describe an industrious 

community. “The natives fish in summer for the canneries and trap for red fox in 

winter on this and neighboring islands,” he wrote in 1931.

 A few go to the Pribilofs in the summer to work as laborers. There 

are no reindeer. Some of the native men have worked for short times 

as shearers of sheep for the sheep company here. The women weave 

and sell a few baskets. There are no other industries but the economic 

condition has been fairly good to date. There is no wood here and 

wood has to be boated in from several miles distance. There is one 

local store and a livestock company doing business here.

34 Arletta Carter. Narrative Report for FY ending June 30, 1933. NARA, RG 75. Records of the 

Alaska Division. Reports and Statistical Records. Annual School Reports, 1933-37.
166 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

In the summer of 1931, the school along with its fence and gate received 

another fresh coat of green paint. The red roof was repainted and a school bell 

was installed. “The men who were fishing here for red salmon have finished 

with that fish,” Henderson wrote on July 31. “They’ll attend to the humpys next 

and the silvers after that.” On November 16 he wrote, “The health of the 

community is very good. The native men are preparing to trap, of course, most 

of them on this island.” In January 1932, the 

district bulletin reported Kashega had enjoyed a 

Christmas play. “There is no sickness in the 

village of an acute nature,” wrote Henderson, 

“and the weather for the past few days has been 

extremely beautiful with the thermometer below 

freezing but the days are calm and sunny and the 

night skys full of stars and a waning moon. The 

hills are covered with snow; the lakes with ice.... 

The men have been very lucky with their 

trapping for the most part and are now coming 

home for their church festivities.”

Beginning in 1930, Unalaska superintendent George Gardner and his wife, 

Victoria, published the Southwestern District News Bulletin. Issues included 

news from villages, including Kashega, and letters written by students.35 These 

letters are typical of beginning writers and flit from subject to subject without 

rhyme or reason as this sample from Martha Denisoff shows.

We have rainy weather at Kashega. We are all right at Kashega. We are 

always well at Kashega. Yesterday we have nice weather but today we 

have windy and rainy weather. We are healthy at Kashega. What kind of 

weather do you have at Unalaska. In the morning after reading we have 

spelling and arithmetic. After recess we have talking English we have 

forests. It is good thing to learn about forests more and more.... We 

have no trees at Kashega.... George Washington was born in 1732.36

These student letters reveal few details about the community. There were twelve 

students in the school and eleven houses in the village. Children looked forward 

to their fathers working in the Pribilof Islands during the summer. Martha 

Denisoff wrote that her grandmother was going on a picnic and that there were a 

lot of blackberries (i.e., moss berries, Empetrum nigrum). She also commented 

that her grandfather, Nikifor Denisoff, was “like Mr. Henderson and Mrs. 

Henderson.” Exactly what that meant is, of course, a mystery. Another student, 

Sophie’s youngest sister Dora, commented in October 1931 that “Kashega is a 

cleanest village in Alaska. We keep Kashega clean all the time....All the Kashega 

children have gardens. Our gardens are round like a circle.... Perhaps, June 15th

35 NARA, RG 75. Bureau of Indian Affairs. Alaska Division. General Correspondence, 1931-1932. 

Box 215. Folder: Juneau Office, monthly news bulletins.

36 Southwestern District News Bulletin. February 1932.

Kashega Lake with 

the school. National 

Archives and Record 

Administration, Pacific 

Alaska Region.
 CHAPTER 10: KASHEGA 167

will be soon enough to plant turnips, lettuce, carrots and radishes....”37 The 

absence of trees didn’t prevent Mike Kudrin from winning the state’s forestry 

essay in 1931.

In his final report, for the 1931-1932 school year, Henderson wrote that four 

men had worked on St. Paul Island in 1931 but that, because the cannery ship 

in Makushin Bay did not operate in 1932, seven men went to 

the Pribilof Islands while “the others are staying at home and 

putting up salmon and drying them.” He commented that 

red fox trapping had been good that winter, but the price 

had been low, bringing only between $8 and $8.50 per skin 

at Jacobson’s store and the one in Unalaska. “The women 

weave and sell a few baskets but not many and are doing less 

and less of that sort of thing,” he wrote, “apparently as there 

is no profit now in baskets.” He concluded his report on a 

positive note: “There is [not] and hasn’t been any destitution 

in this village; all families are self supporting and their 

economic condition has been comparatively good.”

John Yatchmenoff, the village chief, died October 3, 1932, 

of pulmonary tuberculosis. Funeral services were held in the Chapel of the 

Transfiguration the following day and he was buried in the cemetery at the east 

end of the village.38 He was 57. He and his wife, Laressa, had been married 36 

years. They had no children of their own, but they had raised Parasovia Kalimof 

from Chernofski. Parasovia had married in 1915 and, apparently childless, had 

died before 1920. The chief’s wife was Dora Borenin’s godmother. “Boy! [she 

was] mean to me!” Dora said, remembering how strict Laressa Yatchmenoff had 

been when teaching her to read Russian. “Holy! If I didn’t know that one word, 

she used to let me kneel down until I said that word. Ai-yai-yai! Boy! So I used 

to read Russian.... I used to read in the Good Friday on the floor. You know, 

Easter time, ... in the middle of the floor.”39 That is, she would stand at the front 

of the church and read from the Bible. When Dora’s sister Sophie played cards 

with Laressa, an argument invariably ensued with the loser accusing the other 

of cheating. It would take some time before they would start a new game.40

In 1932, with her husband dead and no income of her own, Laressa moved to 

Unalaska where she became, for all practical purposes, homeless. She lived 

with whatever family would take her in and carried her worldly possessions in 

the two large pockets of a navy blue sweater.41 She returned to Kashega, where 

in 1942 she would be swept up into World War II. She would die less than a year 

into the evacuation.

The ruins of Kashega 

village, September 2, 

2010. Photograph by 

Roberta Gordaoff. 

37 Southwestern District News Bulletin. December 1931.

38 Murray, Marti. Mini-biographies. “Kashega Notes” from Seward Gateway, November 12, 1932. 

39 Dora Kudrin, interview with Ray Hudson, December 8, 1975.

40 John Tcheripanoff, student paper, “What Human Life was Like in Kashega,” 1971.

41 Mary Diakanoff, conversation with Ray Hudson, June 22, 2012.
168 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

A group at Kashega in the 1930s. 

1. Cornelius Kudrin

2. Carl Moller

3. Harry Jacobson. 

4. Cornelius Kudrin’s nieces Polly 

and Vassa Kudrin (left to right) 

5. Carl Moller’s daughter Mary 

Photo courtesy Mary Diakanoff.

Kashega Households in 1930 (U.S. Bureau of the Census 1930)

Arthur Gillingham, age 59 (head of household, sheep rancher) 

Charles Dillon, age 34 (employee of Arthur Gillingham)

Willie Borenin, age 24 (head of household) 

Doria Borenin, age 15 (sister of Willie Borenin) 

Sophie Kudrin, age 22 (sister of Willie Borenin) 

Eva Kudrin, age 2 (niece of Willie Borenin) 

Willy Yitchmenoff [Yatchmenoff], age 6 (godson of Willie Borenin)

George Borenin, age 33 (head of household) 

Ulita [Oleta] Borenin, age 27 (wife of George Borenin) 

Sergie Borenin, age 12 (nephew of George Borenin) 

Peter Yitchmenoff [Yatchmenoff], age 25 (boarder of George Borenin)

John Denisoff, age 59 (head of household) 

Olga Borenin, age 55 (servant of John Denisoff)

Cornelius Kudrin, age 33 (head of Household) 

Mike I Kudrin, age 25 (brother of Cornelius Kudrin) 

George Yitchmenoff [Yatchmenoff], age 35 (Boarder of Cornelius Kudrin)

John Yitchmenoff [Yatchmenoff], age 58 (head of household) 

Larisa Yitchmenoff [Yatchmenoff], age 49 (wife of John I. Yatchmenoff) 

Eva Yitchmenoff [Yatchmenoff], age 14 (niece of John I. Yatchmenoff)

Nikifor Denisoff, age 68 (head of household) 

Fickla [Feckla] Denisoff, age 45 (wife of Nikifor Densioff) 

Jacob Denisoff, age 34 (son of Nikifor Densioff) 

Martha Denisoff, age 12 (granddaughter of Nikifor Densioff) 

Gabriel Denisoff, age 22 (grandson of Nikifor Densioff)
 CHAPTER 10: KASHEGA 169

Kashega Households in 1930, continued (U.S. Bureau of the Census 1930)

Ephemia Kudrin, age 44 (head of household) 

Peter Kudrin, age 19 (son of Ephemia Kudrin) 

Mike Kudrin II, age 16 (son of Ephemia Kudrin) 

Olga Kudrin, age 13 (daughter of Ephemia Kudrin) 

Sergie Kudrin, age 10 (son of Ephemia Kudrin) 

George Kudrin, age 5 (son of Ephemia Kudrin)

Dorofey Kastrometan [Kastromitin], age 32 (head of household) 

Malina Kastrometan [Kastromitin], age 30 (wife of Dorofey Kastromitin) 

Demitri Kastrometan [Kastromitin], age 7 months (son of Dorofey and Malina Kastromitin)

Charles Miller [Moller] age 40 (head of household) 

Oxenia Miller, age 17 (wife of Charles Moller)

Harry Jacobsen, age 59 (Head of household, store manager from Norway)

Boyse J. [James] Henderson, age 37 (Head of household, teacher) 

Carrie Henderson, age 30 (wife of James Henderson, teacher)
170 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

The sandy beach at Makushin Village. Photograph by Frederick Lekanoff.
Chapter 11

Makushin

As chief of Makushin, Elia Shapsnikoff was, as far as is known, an 

effective community leader for the decade beginning around 1910. The 

economy was based on “hunting, fishing, and basket making,” as he 

told Captain Joyhnes of the U.S. Revenue cutter Tahoma in August 1911. “There 

being,” Joyhnes wrote, “I am informed by their chief, an abundance of fish 

and ducks in the bay, and some ptarmigan and a few foxes in the surrounding 

mountains. The men occasionally obtain a few days’ employment in Unalaska, 

with which place they have communication by trail, and there dispose of 

their skins at a ruinous rate of trade with the Alaska Commercial Company, 

the most inimical factor in this country to the natives.”1 The captain found 

people suffered from “favus, trachoma pediculosis, pulmonary tuberculosis 

and kindred complaints” which the ship’s physician attributed to “the poor 

ventilation of their dwellings” along with poor personal hygiene.

When the U.S. Revenue Cutter Manning visited in August 1915, William C. Witte 

described the barabaras. 

These Barabaras consist of two rooms about six feet square and about 

six feet high. One room is used as sleeping, eating and living room and 

usually has wooden floors and one window which cannot be opened. 

In this room they have a bed, a table and several boxes or chairs. The 

air is foul, damp and has a musty odor. The other room has dirt floor, 

dirt walls and in one end is dug an open fire place in which the family 

cooking is done. This room is also used as storehouse for dried fish. 

The entrance to the Barabara is through the latter room.2

1 Captain Foley to the Secretary of the Treasury, August 10, 1911 and September 16, 1911. NARA. 

RG 26, file 611, box 1835.

2 Wm. C. Witte, Ass’t Surgeon, to F.G. Dodge. Report of medical work done on Alaskan cruise, July,

August and September, 1915. NARA, RG 26, file 611, box 1841.

 CHAPTER 11: MAKUSHIN 171
172 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

The short-lived Pacific American Fisheries salmon cannery in Makushin Bay had 

no lasting impact on the village. After operating about a year, the company shut 

down, removed its machinery, and left the buildings in care of a watchman. In 

1919, when Henry Swanson visited the plant, Jack North held that position. “He 

was a funny old guy,” Henry said. “We used to go in there and visit him, and he 

was happy when somebody came to visit him. But one day only. Next day—if you 

stayed to visit two days—he was crabby and trying to get rid of you.”3

The run of red salmon in 1920 was unusually heavy and the watchman felt the 

company could have made a profit had it remained open. Villagers at Makushin, 

in addition to what they prepared for their own use, salted about 100 barrels for 

sale that year.4 PAF kept a watchman at Cannery Point until the last watchman, 

Charlie Rose, was shot to death in September 1926 and his body taken to 

Makushin Village for burial. The murder was never solved.5 International Packing 

Company leased or bought the property and used it to store their gear and boats. 

They stationed their own watchmen at the site. John Peters, a German immigrant 

to the Aleutians, held the position for many years. He died in 1937, “one of 

Unalaska’s oldest most respected citizens,” the same year that another watchman 

A.A. Mattox, after eight years in Unalaska and Makushin, harvested the last of his 

garden at Cannery Point, packed up his belongings and his chickens and took 

the S.S. Starr to Seward.6

Nick Galaktionoff’s account of his childhood provides a clue as to when 

wooden houses were introduced. Not long after his birth in 1925, his father, 

Akenfa (sometimes called Akim) built a house. The lumber may have come 

from the cannery site and been hauled to the village by baidarka and dory. The 

family had been living with Akenfa’s mother, Marva Borenin. (After Akenfa’s 

father had died, Marva had married John Borenin.) “So then my mom and dad 

was ready to go,” Nick recalled in an interview with Moses Dirks. “I had an older 

sister named Malaanyaa [Molly]. They went out and pack things over. And me, 

I was left with my grandmother. So my grandmother grew me up all the way.” 

Although she told Nick who his mother and father were, he grew up thinking of 

her as his mother. “But I never called him my dad,” Nick said. “I always call him 

Ludang, ‘my oldest.’” Because Akenfa referred to his wife as Ayagang, Nick grew 

up using the same word, “my wife,” when he spoke about his mother.7

Elia Shapsnikoff moved to Unalaska in the early or mid-1920s—his name 

appears in minutes of the St. Pantelaimon Brotherhood from that time onward. 

Nick Lekanoff remarked that Elia went to Unalaska to find work and also so his 

3 Swanson, The Unknown Islands, 129.

4 Stevenson, Donald H. “Fish” SIA, RU 7176, box 19, folder 8. Fish of Alaska Waters near the 

Aleutians. 1920.

5 Swanson, The Unknown Islands, 105.

6 Seward Gateway, June 1 and October 16, 1937.

7 Nick Galaktionoff, interview with Moses Dirks, November 23, 1999. Alaska Native Knowledge 

Network. Sharing Our Pathways: A Newsletter of the Alaska Rural Systemic Initiative, Volume 5, 

Issue 1, January/February 2000.
CHAPTER 11: MAKUSHIN 173

children could attend school.8 When Shapsnikoff died October 28, 1935, Chief 

Alexei Yatchmeneff provided information for the death certificate, and noted, 

“He served as chief at Makushin about ten years.”9 Among his survivors was his 

son Sergie, who had been born and raised at Makushin. 

Close ties continued between Makushin and Kashega. Makushin folks traded 

at Jacobson’s small store, and Kashega people used Makushin as a resting 

stop when traveling by baidarka into Makushin Bay to make the trek across to 

Unalaska.10 When together, people played kakana, a gambling game. The villages 

may also have traded berries because, while there were blueberries at Makushin, 

there were none at Kashega.11

The Norwegian John Peter Halberg Olsen arrived at Unalaska sometime prior 

to April 1920. That month the U.S. census enumerator recorded that he had 

immigrated to the U.S. in 1898. He may have first gone to Adelaide, Australia 

and then to Astoria, Oregon, after which he settled in Nome from 1901 to 

1906.12 By 1920 he was definitely at Unalaska. He was thirty-nine and single. 

Nine months later, on New Year’s Day 1921, he married Tatiana Golodoff 

from Chernofski. They had no children of their own, but in 1922 they 

adopted Annie Sokolnikoff whose parents had died in the 1919 flu pandemic. 

Although records show that three years later they adopted Annie’s brother 

Willie, he was in fact raised by Afenogin Ermeloff of Nikolski. By 1930, 

Olsen had bought or had built a home at Unalaska. By this time, he had also 

established relations with Makushin Village and had probably started his 

blue fox business on an islet in Anderson Bay. He and Tatiana adopted John 

Borenin who was born at Unalaska around 1926 but whose parents, Matfey 

and Natalia Borenin, lived at Makushin with several of their other children. 

Frank Galaktionoff, also with Makushin roots, was a boarder in the Olsen’s 

Unalaska home. According to Henry Swanson, when Olsen began raising 

blue fox on what became known as Peter Island, he built a small house. “He 

built quite a nice house there, too,” Swanson said. “He had dug a well there 

even. ’Course he had a lot of slaves there to dig it—the Makushin people.”13

Swanson’s comment reflects the notoriety that eventually enveloped Olsen. After 

the islet had been stocked with fox, the story was that one winter Anderson Bay 

froze over and all his fox walked away. He tore down his cabin and reassembled 

it in the village. Initially, the residents were pleased that he was there.14 Olsen 

is generally credited with transforming the appearance of the village. Wooden 

cottages were built along a straight wide pathway that ran from the creek to 

the Olsen’s larger home that locals dubbed the “Olsen Hotel.” He had a small 

8 Nick Lekanoff in The Beginning of Memory, 106.

9 Third Judicial District, Record of Deaths, Book 3, February 1, 1935-August 29, 1944.s

10 Nick Galaktionoff, recorded March 31, 1976.

11 Nick Galaktionoff, recorded April 2, 1976.

12 Information from Pat Roppel and Rachel Mason, e-mail September 1, 2012.

13 Swanson, The Unknown Islands, 76.

14 Nick Lekanoff in The Beginning of Memory, 99.
174 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

store attached to the dwelling. He constructed a barn for use with his sheep 

raising efforts. He purchased a boat from the International Packing Company at 

Cannery Point and named it the Katie-O, after his wife.15 It was a 35-foot doubleender, small, but large enough to carry a few people to Unalaska.16 The water in 

front of Makushin Village was swept by strong westerly seas and so Olsen kept 

his boat anchored in Anderson Bay. He used a skiff to travel back and forth from 

the village.17 Tatiana was accomplished as a traditional healer. She served as a 

midwife for many years, and, unlike almost all the other residents, she could 

speak English.

Pete Olsen. 

Photograph courtesy 

Lael Morgan. 

“One gains the impression that he is a man of action,” wrote a visiting officer 

of the Coast Guard cutter Tahoe. “The orderly appearance of the village would 

indicate that he is undoubtedly the driving force behind the natives.”18 Olsen 

ran his small store, trapped, bought and sold fox pelts, and raised sheep. (In 

1933 his herd numbered 112.19) He rented his house at Unalaska. He was not, 

however, a good manager and his debt to the AC Company steadily grew. At the 

end of October 1932 he owed a little over $2,280. He viewed his debt as belonging 

as much to the village as to himself and when men returned from summer 

work in the Pribilof Islands he would send their checks to Unalaska as payment 

15 Swanson, The Unknown Islands, 130.

16 Nick Galaktionoff in The Beginning of Memory, 114.

17 Nick Galaktionoff in The Beginning of Memory, 114.

18 NARA, RG 26, 611. Tahoe: Report of Bering Sea Cruise, August 1, 1933.

19 U.S. Coast Guard, Cruise Reports, 1933 Season. Bering Sea Patrol Force. Tahoe, Alaskan Cruise 

Report – Season 1933. NARA, RG 26
CHAPTER 11: MAKUSHIN 175

towards it.20 The company expected to receive his exclusive business in return 

for the credit they extended, but A.H. Proctor, the company agent at Unalaska, 

suspected Olsen purchased goods from their competitors, such as Captain 

Larsen on the Dorothy and Captain Anderson on the Polar Bear. Nevertheless, 

Proctor tried to keep on good terms with him as he gradually paid more on the 

debt. After an amicable dinner with Captain Anderson and Olsen, who was 

making his first visit to Unalaska in a year, Proctor described the situation in a 

letter to company headquarters.

Mr. Olsen had the STARR bring up his seasons supplies on this trip 

and says he now has on hand more merchandise than he ever had 

at one time before and at a price very much lower than he could 

[have] obtained from or through us. He talked strongly about what 

he considered the outrageously high prices we charged him in 

comparison with what he now knows as the Seattle wholesale prices 

and at first was inclined to the idea that there seemed no basis on 

which he and the company could get together for future trading 

however before he left he came around to the belief that a conference 

with the Company while he is below this time might and possibly 

would be the means of bringing around a resumption of the relations 

which had been so pleasant for so many years. While he is below he 

will also take up with Home office the matter of settling his account.... 

Under the circumstances the writer did not press for an additional 

payment at this time....21

In March 1932 Olsen and what was termed the “Makushin Native Community” 

jointly purchased and installed an electric light plant. Four of the 14 shares were 

owned by Olsen and ten by the community. Community shares had to remain 

in the households of present families while Olsen’s four shares would belong to 

whoever owned his house and store. Each share entitled the owner to five lights 

of 24 watts each. Olsen had enough power to operate a small electric range. The 

signatures on the agreement provide a census of the families or adult males at 

Makushin in 1932:

* Akenfa Galaktionoff 

* John Borenin 

‡ Philip Galaktionoff 

* Peter Petekoff

Simeon Petikoff

* Mat Petikoff

‡ Aken Petikoff

* Mat Borenin

* Elia Borenin

20 See letters Dec. 16, 1932, and Jan. 15, 1933, from A.H. Proctor to the A.C. Company. Alaska 

Commercial Company Letters, Unalaska, Alaska 1932-1934. Unalaska City School.

21 A.H. Proctor to the A.C. Company. [Jan.] 30, 1933. Alaska Commercial Company Letters, 

Unalaska, Alaska 1932-1934. Unalaska City School.
176 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

* Simeon Lekanoff 

 Nick Lekanoff 

 Arthur Lekanoff 

‡ Frank Galaktionoff.22

*Head of household 1930 U.S. Census

‡Not at Makushin for the 1930 U.S. Census

Frank Galaktionoff, whose name appears on this list, held “dual citizenship.” He 

had been born at Unalaska but he was related to the Galaktionoffs at Makushin. 

Later in 1932, after being part of the purchase of the electric light plant, Frank 

found himself pitted against Olsen when John Yatchmeneff, son of the Unalaska 

chief, filed an assault and battery charge against Olsen with the commanding 

officer of the Coast Guard Cutter Itasca on December 3 while at Makushin.23 In 

February Frank Galaktionoff joined John and his father, Alexei, in making sworn 

affidavits against Olsen. However, when Lt. Commander J.S. Rosenthal of the 

Tahoe, acting as a deputy marshal, tried to investigate the accusations on July 29, 

1933, he found that any witnesses were then working at St. Paul in the Pribilof 

Islands.”24

Frank Galaktionoff, 1946. 

Photograph courtesy 

Ray Hudson. 

22 March 31, 1932, Misc. Records, Third Judicial District, Miscellaneous Records, March 31, 1932, 

2887.

23 Commander, Bering Sea Patrol, to Commandant. December 3, 1932. NARA, RG 26, 611 Bering 

Sea 1931-32. File 611 General. Box 1864.

24 NARA, RG 26, 611. Tahoe: Report of Bering Sea Cruise, August 1, 1933.
CHAPTER 11: MAKUSHIN 177

Nick Lekanoff was seven months older than Nick Galaktionoff.25 Both were born 

in 1925. Nick Galaktionoff’s mother was Parascovia Lekanoff, Nick Lekanoff’s 

half-sister. Although they were technically uncle and nephew, they were more 

like cousins. They were two of seven or eight children of about the same age who 

played, often barefoot, along the shore and in the high growth of grass and wild 

celery in front of the village and climbed the hills that rose around the village. 

Both boys had sisters. Molly was five years older than Nick Galaktionoff while 

Stepinida was a year younger than Nick Lekanoff. A favorite pastime was hideand-seek, kuukala{ or kuukaadali{, in the high wild rye in front of the village. 

Yakeem Petikoff, tall and thin and 24 or 25 years older than the two boys, 

occasionally donned a disguise, complete with horns, and frightened them 

home. He didn’t want them down near the water too late. “We’d run like hell from 

the beach to home,” Nick Galaktionoff recalled. The boys played with the boat 

Pete Olsen had built for his adopted son, John, big enough to get into but never 

used on the water. They would sometimes go to Olsen’s pigeon coop and admire 

the birds. Olsen occasionally lined up the children and marched them down the 

short road that ran through the village and had them pull out weeds along it. 

Then he would turn them around, walk them back, and reward them with candy.

Saturday evenings and Sunday mornings 

all Unanga{ attended church where 

Simeon Lekanoff, with assistance from 

Akenfa Galaktionoff and Matfey Petikoff, 

read the service. All three men could 

read Unangam tunuu. The Chapel of 

the Nativity of Christ was rebuilt by the 

mid or late 1920s, if not earlier. It was 

20 feet by 30 feet, a modest wood-frame 

structure, with a single bell hanging over 

the entrance. It was not unlike the chapel at Kashega.26

25	 Official records give Nick Galaktionoff’s birthdate as December 19, 1925, and that was the date

he frequently used. However, he said that his mother told him he was actually born November 30 

and that the December date referred to his baptism.

26 Nick Lekanoff, interview protocol: Church Restitution Project. January 25, 1992. Smith and 

Petrivelli, 1993:1041.

Two views of the 

chapel ruins at 

Makushin, 1970. 

Photographs by Ray 

Hudson.
178 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

This page and right: 

Interior views of the 

Makushin chapel, 

1970. Photographs 

by Ray Hudson.

Makushin men worked summers in the Pribilof Islands. While they were away, 

Pete Olsen would take women in a skiff to gather driftwood and stockpile it for 

the winter. The gardens in the village were fertilized with kelp. They grew turnips, 

rutabagas, cabbage, carrots and potatoes.27 The village had a community steam 

bath. Wood was scarce but people donated pieces for the fire. There were two 

platform levels and the bath could get very hot. Men bathed first, followed by 

27 Nick Galaktionoff, recorded April 2, 1976.
CHAPTER 11: MAKUSHIN 179

the women. But when the women bathed, a man kept guard, for fear that an 

outsider, most likely somebody connected with prospecting around Makushin 

Volcano, would enter the village. Some years before either of the Nicks had been 

born, a woman had gone to her storage shed after Sunday services. She was 

found the next day, lying in the creek, bludgeoned to death.28

Both boys recalled their fathers taking time to be with them. Simeon Lekanoff 

took his son to his camp in Portage Bay, “way inside, facing the north,” where 

he had a cabin built like a barabara. It was furnished with a stove, but the beds 

were little more than a bench or a corner on the floor covered with grass.29 Once 

Akenfa Galaktionoff took his son out in a kayak. “Barely had my head sticking 

out [of the hatch opening],” Nick recalled. His father rowed down to the creek 

and then back to the opposite end of the village, toward what was called West 

End, before returning to the village where Nick’s grandmother waited. She had 

shouted from the shore, “Don’t take him so far out!” and when they arrived back 

she plucked him out of the hatch and took him home.30

Makushin Village had five kayaks (baidarkas) in the 1930s. These were two-hatch 

craft and belonged to brothers Matfey and Yakeem Petikoff, brothers Matfey and 

Elia Borenin, Peter Petikoff and his son Simeon, Simeon Lekanoff and his eldest 

son Constantine, and to Akenfa Galaktionoff.31 When not in use, the skins were 

removed and the frames were stored in Olsen’s barn. When it was time to recover 

the frames, the sea lion skins were soaked for several days in the creek to soften 

them. They were then rubbed with old seal oil and the men positioned them 

28 Nick Galaktionoff in The Beginning of Memory, 140.

29 Nick Lekanoff in The Beginning of Memory, 99, 101.

30 Nick Galaktionoff in The Beginning of Memory, 118.

31 Nick Lekanoff and Nick Galaktionoff in The Beginning of Memory, 96, 118-119.
180 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

around the frame. The women would then “go out there and they’d sew them 

together. And they’d use lots of seal oil.”32

There were also about five dories in the village. Nick Galaktionoff recalled that 

once his father had money to purchase a new one. His grandfather, Simeon 

Lekanoff, had two, one with an inboard engine and one with no engine.33

Twice in the fall of 1933 Olsens traveled to Unalaska for medical attention. In 

August they brought Annie and John aboard the Kanaga Native. “The daughter 

was brought in for treatment at the Hospital, presumably for T.B.” reported 

A.H. Proctor. “It should be stated that Miss Olsen does not look like a T.B. case. 

In fact she is a very healthy looking young person.”34 The family was given 

accommodations at the Company House. On another occasion, Tatiana was 

admitted to the hospital and underwent surgery for an abdominal tumor. Dr. 

Leslie White allowed her to return home only after getting her to promise that 

she would return for observation. While at Unalaska, they again stayed at the 

AC Company House, in a large upstairs room. This kindness on the part of the 

company was explained by Proctor: “Such a mark of consideration would find 

appreciation and under conditions existing would rebound to the benefit of 

the Company. Mr. Olsen and his wife were grateful and their attitude enabled 

the writer to get closer to Mr. Olsen than would have otherwise been possible.” 

One immediate result was that Olsen suggested that Andrew Kashavaroff, who 

worked for the AC Company, go to Makushin to purchase furs.35

In addition to Tatiana Olsen, midwife services were provided by other 

women. Traditional herbal remedies continued to be used including Sixsiqa{ 

(wormwood; Artemisia unalaskensis) in the steam bath and Saaqudiigama{ 

(strong putchki; Angelica lucida) for painful or strained muscles.36 Ali{siisi{ 

(leather-leaved saxifrage; Leptarrhena pyrolifolia) was boiled and the liquid was 

drunk for illnesses such as influenza.37 Teas were made from fireweed leaves and 

natural hot springs were used for restorative purposes.38

Two more complicated procedures practiced by his grandmother were described 

by Nick Galaktionoff. The first was the reduction of an infection by the use of 

wood that had been around “for years and years” and decayed almost to the 

point of dust. This was collected and, after being thoroughly dried on the stove, 

it was crushed into a powder, “just like brown chocolate.” The infected wound 

was washed and somehow treated with a medicinal plant and then the powdered 

wood was applied. “As soon as they did that,” Nick said, “the wound dried up. All 

32 Nick Lekanoff in The Beginning of Memory, 98.

33 Nick Galaktionoff in The Beginning of Memory, 145.

34 Undated fragment [prior to August 8, 1933]. A.H. Proctor to the A.C. Company. Alaska Commercial 

Company Letters, Unalaska, Alaska 1932-1934. Unalaska City School.

35 Undated fragment [Fall 1933]. A.H. Proctor to the A.C. Company. Alaska Commercial Company 

Letters, Unalaska, Alaska 1932-1934. Unalaska City School.

36 Nick Lekanoff in The Beginning of Memory, 104-105.

37 Golodoff, Wildflowers of Unalaska Island, 96.

38 Nick Galaktionoff in The Beginning of Memory, 134-135.
CHAPTER 11: MAKUSHIN 181

the greasy oily parts dried out.” This procedure was repeated three or four times. 

An infected head wound Nick developed (after running into the sharp end of his 

father’s spade) was treated this way.39

The other procedure was one Nick saw twice. Although imperfectly remembered, 

it suggests some of the complexity of Unanga{ medical practices. It involved 

“a special root on this island” that was applied to the body to relieve pain. This 

sounds as though it were the root of the strong putchki, Angelica lucida, that was 

heated and placed on the affected body part, always over a protective covering 

such as a fine layer of grass. It could not, however, be applied to legs without 

precautionary steps or the “pain” from the wound would travel upwards and 

attack the heart or the brain, causing death. Nick saw his grandmother take the 

necessary safeguards prior to treating Philip Galaktionoff for a serious injury that 

had swollen his ankle. A cloth was soaked in a red solution that Nick suspected 

had been rendered from some part of a seal or octopus. After the cloth had dried, 

Marva tied it just below Philip’s knee. Only after that did she apply the root to his 

ankle. After two or three daily treatments over the course of two or three days, 

the pain was gone and the red tourniquet was removed.

I asked my grandmother why they used that red band in that way. She 

said the red band was used to prevent the pain from traveling to the 

heart. The pain in the leg couldn’t go under the red bandage. It just 

disappeared right at that point. If the red band wasn’t used, the pain 

could travel and locate anywhere else—in the heart or in the brain.40

A parallel might be drawn between this procedure and the practice, described 

by Andrew Makarin, of the grass rope strung across Beaver Inlet to prevent the 

escape of whales. 

One summer Philip Galaktionoff fished for Pete Olsen, preparing smoked and 

salted salmon. Nick once described Philip as a bald-headed and comical guy, 

“for every little word you said, he had something to make you laugh.”41 He would 

bring a skiff filled with fish to the village where women helped him split and 

prepare them. One day, while collecting driftwood for the smoke house, Philip 

found a nest of eaglets. Before he knew what had happened, an adult bird dove 

at him, swept off his hat, and dropped it in the bay. Philip needed his hat and he 

charged after it. A little later, Nick saw him coming into the village from across 

the river. “I noticed his hand was bandaged and his face was bloody,” Nick said. 

He didn’t think much about it until he saw Tatiana Olsen dressing his uncle’s 

head wounds “and everyone was laughing away.”42

39 Nick Galaktionoff in Hudson, ed., Cuttlefish Two, 29.

40 Nick Galaktionoff in Hudson, ed., Cuttlefish Two, 29.

41 Nick Galaktionoff in The Beginning of Memory, 103.

42 When I edited this story for Cuttlefish Two: Four Villages, I mistakenly thought the story was about 

Pete Olsen.
182 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

Other illnesses or medical complications often meant death. Eva Lekanoff, wife 

of Constantine Lekanoff, gave birth on the first of February 1935 and died of 

post partum hemorrhage a few hours later. Their son survived only a month 

and a half.43

Arletta Carter, the teacher at Kashega, visited Makushin for a few hours on May 

26, 1933. She was so impressed that she lobbied to have the Kashega school 

transferred there, a suggestion the Office of Indian Affairs agreed to in 1934. She 

listed seventeen possible students between the ages of 5 and 21. Her description 

of Pete Olsen and his “charming, cultured Native wife, and two worthy adopted 

children” is effusive. Despite what she had heard about him while at Unalaska, 

Carter found Olsen “thrifty” and “progressive.” She described his home as 

having electric lights, electric stove, bathtub and toilet, a radio, a piano, ukuleles, 

and a friendly dog. His store was stocked with food, clothing, and household 

articles. His sheep provided fresh meat for the village; his chickens, fresh eggs. 

The community gardens he oversaw provided fresh vegetables. He did not 

allow alcohol in the village. He had trained and disciplined the Natives “to work 

efficiently.” If all that were not enough, he had built “a swing at the beach where 

the children may swing at leisure and enjoy the music of the waves.” Makushin 

was a village with “innumerable future possibilities” and, if given a choice, she 

would prefer teaching in Pete Olsen’s barn to returning to Kashega where her 

time was wasted in fruitless effort.44 It is difficult to imagine how Carter could 

have been more mistaken.

Annie Olsen was in the hospital again, perhaps from July 1935 through January 

1936.45 Her health may have been one of the reasons Dr. Leslie A. White decided 

to walk to Makushin in December 1935. Winter hiking in the Aleutians can be 

either extremely difficult or remarkably easy, depending on whether or not the 

snow is frozen hard enough to provide a smooth firm surface. He traveled with 

four men and a boy from Unalaska. They took the frequently used trail that began 

at the head of Captains Bay and ended in Makushin’s Portage Bay. The trip was 

reported in an article in the Seward Gateway in which the trail was described 

as the one “for which the road commission has been asked to provide shelter 

cabins.” This request had been spurred because it was “the same trail upon which 

Harry Olsen [no relation to Peter Olsen] was found frozen to death two winters 

go.” “Handsome” Harry had put down the mirror he was fond of gazing into and 

ventured out into the weather one time too many. The doctor’s hike, according 

to the article, was “15 miles of rugged mountainous traveling which ends with a 

pleasant little muscle developing row in an open boat of 10 miles or more.”

43 Murray, Mini-biographies.

44 Carter, Arletta to Paul W. Gordon, Office of Indian Affairs. September 5 and 8, 1933. NARA, RG

75.

45 The length of her stay is unclear because the letter indicating her presence was about how the 

hospital’s accounting was off. Binder May 1-15, 1936. NARA RG 75 Bureau of Indian Affairs.

Alaska Division, Correspondence of the Division. Chronological File. Copies of letters and 

telegrams sent by Chief of Alaska Section of the BIA, 1935-1937.
CHAPTER 11: MAKUSHIN 183

With the exception of two cases of tuberculosis, the 42 residents of Makushin 

were in excellent health. There were 12 school-aged children. The houses 

and surroundings were “clean and neat.” This “must have been an every day 

cleanliness,” the paper concluded, because the doctor’s arrival had been 

unexpected. The village had only a “meager supply of staple articles of food.” The 

author was almost flippant about the poverty.

The natives of Makushin are a very uncomplaining type of people and 

the fact that they were short of food and obliged to travel all the way to 

Unalaska to purchase the small amounts their funds warranted, and 

then pack their supplies on their backs over a 15-miles mountain trail, 

did not seem a matter to raise much fuss about.

“Things have to go very radically wrong in Makushin,” the article concluded, 

“before any complaints are heard.”46 Things would go radically wrong, and soon.

46 Seward Gateway, January 18, 1936.
184 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

Arctic Foxes, Alopex lagopus, From Mostly Mammals: Zoological Essays by 

Richard Lydekker, 1930. The lower figure shows the white phase in winter coat; 

the upper and central figures are likely the same phase in summer dress (with 

center in blue phase). wikipedia.org
Chapter 12

Biorka

Henry Swanson recalled that, “Biorka had been a strong village clean up 

to the war. Makushin and Kashega people kept leaving for Unalaska, 

but Biorka was living good. They were closer to Unalaska, too, and 

could come in when they wanted to.”1 Several factors contributed to Biorka’s 

vitality. They had a number of strong leaders, including Jacob Kozloff, Alec 

Ermeloff, and Andrew Makarin. They had an abundance of deep-sea fish. They 

were, indeed, relatively close to Unalaska. The preferred route was to travel 

past Unalga Island and around the northeast end of Unalaska Island, but such 

journeys were usually deferred until after the last of May, when the weather 

moderated. The trip could be made in eight to ten hours. When men were 

ready to return home, Unalaska kayakers would accompany them as far as 

Priest Rock.2 Traveling around the northeast end of Unalaska Island presented 

challenges. “The passage past Fisherman’s Point, even in good weather and 

taking advantage of tide flows, is very rough for a short distance,” declared a 

1937 mining report, 

due to the near presence of a reef that extends from the North Pacific 

Ocean to within a short distance of the Fisherman’s rocks and a rip 

tide caused by the meeting of waters from the North Pacific Ocean and 

Bering Sea, and should be attempted only in calm weather and with a 

sea-worthy boat.3

When the weather was more problematical, people traveled by kayak or skiff 

further inside Beaver Inlet, along the Sedanka side, until reaching the northeast 

tip of Tanaskan Bay where Andrew Makarin had a fish camp, at a place called 

Aasxiyuux. From here the traveler would cut across the inlet to Ugadaga, on the 

Unalaska side. If need be, a stop could be made at Dushkot Island where Ruff 

1 Swanson, The Unknown Islands, 191.

2 Nick Galaktionoff in Cuttlefish Two, 60.

3 Lerchen, Biorka Mine, 1.

 CHAPTER 12: BIORKA 185
186 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

Ermeloff (Alec Ermeloff’s son) had a camp.4 The boats were pulled above high 

water and the travelers then hiked the long-established trail to Unalaska Village.

There was an unusual pond near Andrew’s camp. Fresh water was collected from 

it; but when the tide went out, the water level fell. When hard east or north winds 

blew, the water became salty and undrinkable. When that happened, they would 

go to the creek to get fresh water.5

Biorka shared the poverty systemic to the region during 

the closing years of sea otter hunting. The residents 

turned to a variety of occupations: fishing, trapping 

red and cross fox, and working both at Unalaska and in 

the Pribilof Islands. Biorka received fewer visits from 

Revenue Service and Coast Guard cutters than either 

Makushin or Kashega, situated along the route to the 

more populated villages of Nikolski, Atka, and Attu. 

Consequently, there are fewer reports about Biorka 

and this paucity leads to unanswerable questions. 

For example, when the U.S. Revenue Cutter Manning

visited in August 1915, the year the Revenue Service 

became the U.S. Coast Guard, the assistant surgeon 

learned that during the previous year there had been 

nine deaths in the village (two men, two women and 

five boys).6 No reason was given for this unusually high 

mortality.

In 1912 the Navy’s Alaskan Radio Expedition erected a 

station on Unalga Island as part of a four-year effort to 

provide better communications linking coastal Alaska 

with Seattle.7 Construction was plagued by violent 

weather. The 180-foot wharf washed away shortly 

after completion and had to be rebuilt. The buildings 

included a dwelling with the radio equipment 

installation. This was surrounded by a glass porch that 

could buffer the cold and muffle the noise from high 

winds that interfered with operations. There were also 

a powerhouse (attached to the dwelling by a covered 

passage), a cottage for the electrician, and buildings 

for oil, coal, and a gasoline engine. The station was 

well supplied, including a library of 400 books and a 

44-foot motorboat. The station was commissioned on 

September 1 and less than two weeks later another 

4 Nick Galaktionoff in The Beginning of Memory, 167.

5 Nick Galaktionoff, recorded in Unangam tunuu, March 26, 1976, translated by Ishmael Gromoff.

6	 Wm. C. Witte, Ass’t Surgeon, to F.G. Dodge, Report of medical work done on Alaskan cruise, July,

August and September, 1915. NARA, RG 26, file 611, box 1841.

7 Dodd, “Alaskan Naval Radio Expedition, 1912.”

Two fox traps introduced to the Aleutians in the 

1740s by the promyshlenniks: the “bow trap” 

or chalkanaˆx (above/and see page 33) and 

the “skull crusher” (below). Illustrations by Mark 

Luttrell in Chasing the Dark. Courtesy Bureau of 

Indian Affairs.
CHAPTER 12: BIORKA 187

storm wiped out the wharf and carried away the station’s motorboat. The entire 

operation was short-lived—poor reception and the difficulty of supplying it 

were reasons for its closure in 1915. Nevertheless, the construction project 

provided employment for Biorka men including Andrew Makarin, Alec Ermeloff, 

and others. Alec was paid $9 and five pounds of pilot bread for each of the two 

months he worked.

The wharf on Unalga, 

with the USS Nero, 1912. 

This wharf replaced the 

first that was destroyed 

in a storm. U.S. Naval 

Historical Center. Photo 

#: NH 105434.

Nick Galaktionoff understood that Biorka residents began building wood-frame 

houses following construction of the radio station. However, a 1915 report 

described Biorka as having ten barabaras and no wood-frame structures for the 

30 residents, 17 adults and 13 children. The construction of wood-frame houses 

probably began shortly after the closure of the station. In addition to receiving 

unused lumber, it is probable that Biorka people salvaged materials from the 

abandoned station. This included hefty timbers—10-by-12s and 12-by-12s left over 

from the wharf. These were towed to the village using kayaks and then sawed into 

usable lumber. Driftwood was scarce in Beaver Inlet and men had to travel long 

distances to find it.8 Additional wooden houses were built later using wood from 

the whaling plant at Akutan and from Unalaska. 

Around the time wooden houses were introduced, Andrew Makarin and 

Eustina “Esther” Sovoroff of Akutan were married. He was in his late 

twenties. In contrast, Alex Ermeloff, only eight years Andrew’s senior, 

had been married to Anesia Siftsof for over a decade and was probably 

widowed by this time. The Ermeloffs had nine children between 1901 and 

1912.9

 Although the 1920 census shows Andrew and Esther with a daughter, 

Anestasia, born in 1916, she seems to have died young since her name is 

8 Nick Galaktionoff, recording April 2, 1976. See also Hudson, ed., Cuttlefish Two, 59.

9 Murray, Mini-biographies.
188 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

missing from records after the 1920 census. Their granddaughter, Anna 

Jean Bereskin, recalled Esther saying that she had a son whom they named 

Terentii, after Andrew’s father. This child also died young and afterwards 

they were unable to have further children. In the early 1930s they adopted 

Irene Borenin, Anna Jean’s mother. In 1917 Esther was brought to Unalaska 

with a broken leg. Nicholas Bolshanin was the commissioner and, as he 

had done for another woman a few months earlier, he placed her in jail so 

that she could be cared for by Dr. A. W. Newhall of the Jesse Lee Home. The 

next day, May 31, he conveniently found Andrew guilty of vagrancy and 

sentenced him to two months in the same jail.10 In 1919, presumably after 

the pandemic had passed the region, Andrew returned to Unalaska when 

Father Hotovitsky had repairs made to the Church of the Holy Ascension. 

Because a large number of Unalaska men had gone to the Pribilof Islands 

for the summer seal harvest, men from the outer villages were able to find 

employment. Andrew stayed for three years, working at whatever was 

available including aboard coaling ships for the AC Company.

Although Biorka was comparatively rich in terms of subsistence, especially fish 

and birds, the residents visited Unalaska to purchase goods at the stores and 

to receive used clothing from the Jesse Lee Home. The clothes came in annual 

shipments of “mission boxes” from parishes in the States. Occasionally staff 

members at the Home could only shake their heads in bewilderment when they 

unpacked what had been sent.

Once a barrel of straw hats arrived—to a place where, as [Mary] 

Winchell put it, the wind blows the hair off a dog. They received a 

shipment of fans and a dozen black swallow-tailed coats. Men from 

Biorka village eventually took the coats, leaving Winchell to reflect how 

coats that had once attended concerts in Boston now hunted ducks 

along the Biorka shore.11

When the Home closed in 1926, the staff cleaned out the accumulation of 35 years of 

operation and sent clothes to Nikolski and Biorka.

People came from Biorka to attend services at the Church of the Holy Ascension. 

In 1911 Epiphany fell on January 19. This commemorated the baptism of Christ 

and was observed by the blessing of the water. People from Biorka were present 

and had the priest bless a keg of water that they then placed on a sled and 

pulled over the long pass to Beaver Inlet. The school teachers, Noah and Clara 

Davenport, happened to be out hiking and used the hard packed trail as a path 

back to the village.12

10 Record of Proceedings in Criminal Cases, Third Division, Unalaska Precinct, N. Gray 

Commissioner, 198-201.

11 Hudson, Family After All, 311-312.

12 Davenport, Clara Ellen and Noah Cleveland Davenport, Unalaska Days: A Diary (August 7, 

1910-August 7, 1912). Xerox copy, Unalaska City School Library.
CHAPTER 12: BIORKA 189

Jacob Kozloff was a generation older than Makarin and Ermeloff, having been 

born around 1863. During the late 1880s, he had been an active sea otter hunter. 

We do not know when he became chief of Biorka, but he served after 1910, 

during a period when legal claims for land proliferated as individuals filed for 

homesteads, trade and manufacturing sites related to mining and to salting and 

canning fish. Sedanka Island became part of the Aleutian Islands Reservation for 

the preservation of native birds, animals, and fish, established by President Taft 

in 1913. On March 30, 1918, Kozloff filed for a trade and manufacturing site at 

the location of the old Biorka village. The claim was made “for the whole village” 

and the reasons were a combination of subsistence and commercial salting of 

salmon and cod. 

That the specific and particular use for which said land is claimed is 

for our own fishing business and for using same for salting salmon 

and codfish, that same is our own old village and for that reason we 

claim the whole of said village for living and carrying on the fishing 

business.13

Biorka was the only one of the three villages to take such action. Wooden dories 

were used alongside kayaks in the 1920s. Andrew and Eustina Makarin would 

row from Biorka to Unalga, locate a driftwood log, and then take all day towing 

it back to the village. In the late 1920s when outboard engines became more 

common, Andrew purchased a boat from the whaling station at Akutan and 

installed an engine.

It was a double-ender, about a thirty-footer. It had a pretty good-sized 

old Clift engine in it. He used it to come to Unalaska to get groceries 

and supplies and take them to Biorka. He used it only in the summer 

time when the weather was good. The winter was too rough for the 

boat because it had a small sail in it and there was too much weather 

in the winter. It was a heavy boat and when he wasn’t using it he would 

have to pull it up out of the water. In the summer, however, he kept it 

anchored all the time. If the weather changed he would move the boat to 

a different location.14

Eventually he had two skiffs: the larger one for hauling wood and hunting sea 

lions, and a smaller double-ender with an inboard engine that he used when 

traveling shorter distances such as to his camp or to Ugadaga Bay. He also 

continued using a kayak into the 1930s. 

Whatever potential for violence existed in small Unanga{ communities was 

heightened during times of excessive alcohol use. This was true for Unalaska 

and all the smaller villages. Irene Makarin told how Eustina was seriously 

injured when an intoxicated man threw her against a woodpile. A splinter 

pierced her eye and, despite efforts by medical personnel at Unalaska, she 

13 Record Book 1, District Court of Alaska, 3rd Division, Book #79574:80.

14 Nick Galaktionoff in Hudson, ed., Cuttlefish Two, 60.
190 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

eventually lost all sight in it.15 An even more traumatic incident occurred 

in the village when seventeen-year-old Matthew Popoff shot his stepfather 

to death in 1926. According to Anfesia Shapsnikoff, Ignaty Popoff was 

a particularly cruel individual who harassed and misused his wife and 

constantly forced his stepson to work.16 On November 25, 1926, during a 

village-wide celebration when both Ignaty and Matthew had been drinking, 

Matthew sought out his stepfather. “He was sleeping,” Anfesia said. “His 

mouth open.” The boy took a rifle and shot him. Word of the murder reached 

Unalaska almost immediately and the deputy marshal arrived the following 

day aboard the Department of Fisheries boat Eider and Matthew was 

arrested.17 Barbara Popoff was left with a five-year-old daughter. A year later, 

Barbara succumbed to tuberculosis of the throat and her daughter, Agafia, 

was left an orphan.18

Biorka Households in 1930 (U.S. Bureau of the Census 1930)

Alec Ermeloff, age 47 (head of household)

Marie Ermeloff, age 28 (wife of Alec Ermeloff)

Sophia Ermeloff, age 26 (daughter of Alec Ermeloff)

Rufus Ermeloff, age 22 (son of Alec Ermeloff)

Daria Ermeloff, age 17 (daughter of Alec Ermeloff)

August Ermeloff, age 9 (daughter of Alec Ermeloff)

Andrew Makarin, age 40 (head of household)

Eustina “Esther” Sovoroff ( Makarin), age 39 (wife of Andrew Makarin)

Eakinf [Akinfa] Gerasimoff, age 17 (lodger of Andrew Makarin)

Elia Makarin, age 39 (head of household)

Agrafina Makarin, age 38 (wife of Elia Makarin)

Marie Makarin, age 17 (daughter of Elia Makarin)

Martha Makarin, age 8 (daughter of Elia Makarin)

Kessick [Kerik] Popoff, age 60 (head of household)

Anastasia Popoff, age 60 (wife of Kerik)

Ephrosenia “Elsie” Ermeloff, age 20 (adoptive daughter of Kerik)

Agafia Popoff, age 9 (granddaughter of Kerik)

Jacob Lukanin, age 28 (head of household)

Mary Lukanin, age 20 (wife of Jacob Lukanin)

Irene Lukanin, age 6 months (daughter of Jacob Lukanin)

Gladfiena Lukanin, age 16 (lodger of Jacob Lukanin) 

Peter Lukanin, age 13 (lodger of Jacob Lukanin)

Irene Makarin was born in 1930, the daughter of Anna and Mike Borenin. 

After Anna died in 1933, Mike was left with two older sons and three-year-old 

Irene. Andrew and Eustina approached him and he gave permission for them 

to adopt Irene. Their home became her home; she became their daughter. 

Irene’s descriptions of Biorka prior to World War II portrayed a village that was 

well-suited to subsistence activities.19 The island was rich with blueberries, 

15 Irene Makarin in The Beginning of Memory, 199.

16 Anfesia Shapsnikoff, conversation with Ray Hudson, November 25, 1969.

17 Seward Gateway, November 27, 1926.

18 Murray, Mini-biographies.

19 Irene Makarin in The Beginning of Memory, 186-205.
CHAPTER 12: BIORKA 191

salmonberries, and mossberries. A local leaf was used for tea. It was picked in 

September and October, brought indoors and dried. It was then mixed with 

regular tea to extend that more expensive product. Water was drawn from the 

lake and when the water level fell it was collected from a stream or spring on the 

side of the hill and carried to the homes. This was a job given to children who 

used small buckets. 

Except for serious emergencies, traditional medicines were used. For example, 

Andrew skimmed oil off the surface of still ponds and stored it in a jar. 

Eustina would apply a drop to her eyes after rinsing them. He also combined 

applications of the strong putschke with prolonged steambaths to treat his wife’s 

back problems. Although gradually going blind, Esther was one of the village 

midwives. She was a skilled healer who was frequently called upon. Moses 

Gordieff recalled that he once had an intestinal malady and Esther massaged 

him, “rubbing all over me for a long time” until he had recovered.20

Both Andrew Makarin and Ruff Ermeloff read services in the well-maintained 

Chapel of St. Nicholas. Families kept dogs and cats and a few raised chickens. 

Kerosene lanterns lit the homes, and there was a record player shared by the 

community. “My daddy used to tell me that if there’s somebody hungry,” explained 

Irene, “if there’s somebody got no place to stay, you just help them.” Several of the 

men, including Andrew Makarin, George Yatchmenoff, and Alec Ermeloff, kept 

journals in Aleut, recording what they trapped or hunted. They had been taught 

to read and write by their fathers. Theirs was the last generation to be literate in 

Unangam tunuu.

Esther and Andrew 

Makarin (left); Agrafina 

and Elia Makarin (right).

Photograph courtesy 

Ray Hudson.

20 Moses Gordieff in The Beginning of Memory, 210.
192 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

As a Native community, Unalaska men worked through the St. Ponteleiman 

Brotherhood to secure a productive blue fox island. They eventually leased 

Carlisle, among the Islands of Four Mountains. Sedanka was proposed as 

another possibility, but the majority of the brotherhood felt it would prove 

unsatisfactory because it was rocky and mountainous and the pass separating it 

from Unalaska was too narrow. Its size and terrain would make it difficult to 

eliminate the indigenous red fox that, being larger, would drive off any blue fox. 

Nevertheless, the Unalaska community leased Sedanka on July 24, 1930, for 

$50.21 In August 1933 the Coast Guard cutter Tahoe anchored along the north 

side of Unimak Island where ten Unalaska trappers came aboard along with a 

dozen crated live fox. The ship returned to Unalaska for the night. The next day 

five of the men proceeded aboard the Tahoe to Sedanka where the fox were 

released east of the village. George Yatchmenoff, who had once lived at Kashega, 

was among the trappers and he hiked to the village where he remained while the 

other four men returned to Unalaska.22 In 1932 he had married Alec Ermeloff’s 

daughter, Ephrosenia or “Elsie.” His first wife had died in 1927 and now his son 

William joined his father and stepmother and before long they had become 

integral members of the Biorka community.

As early as 1935 Biorka residents 

partnered with Unanga{ at Unalaska to 

get reindeer transplanted to Sedanka 

Island through a petition prepared 

by John Yatchmeneff on behalf of the 

Aleutian Islands Precinct Democratic 

Club. In 1936 G.R. Gardner—who had 

helped the Unalaska brotherhood with 

their fox island permit—followed up 

with another request and, in reply, the 

superintendent of the reindeer service 

wrote that 60 breeding female reindeer 

and five bulls were to be delivered 

in the spring of 1937 (with the same 

number for Akutan). The herd, he explained, would grow slowly, with only 94 

adult animals ready for butchering at the end of eleven years.23 The animals, 

however, never arrived.

In 1936 Biorka was said to have 44 residents: 12 adult men, nine women, and 23 

children.24 A somewhat detailed description of Biorka came in late September 

1937 when the Coast Guard Cutter Northland visited. The ship’s doctor examined 

each individual. “Here as at other Aleutian villages there appeared a great deal 

21 State of Alaska, Third Judicial District. Miscellaneous Records, 239.

22 NARA, RG 26, Records of the Bering Sea Patrol 1926-1940 (1932-1933). 531-621, NC-31, Entry 

#29, file 611-601 Cruise Reports, 1933 Season, Bering Sea Patrol Force.

23 NARA RG 75, Alaska Reindeer Service, box 54, Sedanka (Unalaska).

24 NARA, RG 26, box 43. Daphne Reports 13 SPF 1936. September 4, 1936, R.J. Mitchel, Asst. 

Surgeon, USPHS, medical officer to Commander, BSPF.

Biorka prior to World War 

II. Courtesy University of 

Alaska Fairbanks, 1985-

0012 -00050. 
CHAPTER 12: BIORKA 193

of eye trouble,” he wrote. “The children were just recovering from an attack of 

measles.” His report described an indolent population, a conclusion dramatically 

at odds with the active village described by others. He wrote, “The natives had 

a run down, hollow chested, weak eyed appearance of the average Aleut of the 

present time.” Captain F.A. Zeusler described four houses and a church. The 

homes “were frame structures and were clean and comfortable. All were fitted 

with wood burning stoves. Driftwood is secured on the beach. At the time of the 

visit there were only two men in the village, two women and six children. None of 

the natives could speak English.” Zeusler found that “the principal food consists 

of fish, flour, tea, sugar and other store bought food obtained in Unalaska. There 

were several small boats in the village and one motor boat.” He concluded that 

the general condition of the village was good although “there is no store in the 

village and no radio. A tin and zinc mine is located in the vicinity.”25

This mine, like the reindeer project, never materialized. In the summer of 1937, 

F.H. Lerchen had exploratory work done, employing six Biorka men including “the 

Chief of Sedanka Island.” From June 12 to July 19, they were “constantly working 

with picks, shovels and occasional use of dynamite, stripping moss, dirt and 

broken slide rock to extend the surface exposures made by Nature to determine, 

as near as possible, the extent and nature of the ore.”26 Lerchen wrote that only 

“about 5 natives” lived in the village—the majority of the men were probably 

working in the Pribilof Islands that summer. He described the village as having “a 

few dwellings and a beautiful little church.” In 1942 Fred Schroeder (previously 

the trader at Attu) sent this report and other material to the commissioner of 

mines in Juneau who replied that the grade of zinc would require a large mining 

operation and was, at that time, of doubtful profitability. 

On February 1, 1938, the Biorka Native Community filed for a townsite of 1500 

meandering feet along the beach at Samgathik Bay. It extended 800 feet back 

from the water. This was located on the northeast side of Beaver Inlet, about 

two miles south of the village. Alex Ermeloff, as chief of the community, filed the 

claim that was witnessed by Andrew Makarin and John A. Yatchmeneff.27 As the 

1930s ended, Biorka seems to have achieved an equilibrium in which subsistence 

was balanced with occasional wage employment. In 1939, Akinfa Ermeloff, 

Ruff Ermeloff, George Yatchmenoff, and Andrew Makarin worked at St. Paul. 

Andrew arrived in late May while the others came the first of July. In 1940, they 

were joined by the younger men Peter Lukanin and Willie Yatchmenoff. Henry 

Swanson’s description of Biorka as “a strong village” is borne out by subsequent 

events and by the degree to which residents survived the evacuation that was 

soon to sever them from the island.

25 NARA, RG 26, box 48. Records of the U.S. Coast Guard, Records of the Bering Sea Patrol 1926-

1940. 1937. 601, 64, 6641. File: Northland-General BSPF 1937 Folder 1 of 2.

26 Lerchen, Biorka Mine.

27 Third Judicial District, Miscellaneous Records, 502.
194 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

Kashega Village. Photograph courtesy Mary Diakanoff. 
Chapter 13

Kashega: A Green and Pleasant Place

F our days after John Yatchmenoff died on October 3, 1932, Kashega men 

traveled to Unalaska aboard the Umnak Native, a vessel owned by the 

Nikolski community. The purchases they made “stimulated our cash 

sales,” wrote A.H. Proctor. “These men will return to their homes on the 

‘UMNAK NATIVE.’”1 Fall trapping necessitated travel aboard one of several 

vessels operating in the area and the Umnak Native frequently made trips the 

entire length of the Chain. It had been built in Seattle and was a 49-ton vessel, 

59.2 feet long and 16.5 feet across. That fall, the Umnak Native carried trappers 

to various islands and in late January 1933 it left Unalaska to collect the men 

and return them to their villages. For this trip, Bishop Antonin and Michael 

Tutiakoff, a deacon with the Unalaska church, were given passage to visit 

communities to the west of Unalaska. On January 24, while sheltering from a 

storm in Inanudak Bay on the west side of Umnak Island, the vessel wrecked 

and eleven perished. Among the men from Nikolski who died was Stephan 

Krukoff whose sister was Efemia Kudrin of Kashega. Her husband, John J. 

Kudrin, had died a few years earlier. 

Bishop Antonin survived the wreck and in July 1933 he visited Kashega aboard 

the Tahoe. Apparently, the village had not yet formally elected a new chief 

following Yatchmenoff’s death. “There is no permanent chief,” according to the 

vessel’s seasonal report. “John Descisoff [Denisoff] is acting as chief at present.” 

He was soon accepted as the community’s leader. The bishop, a somewhat 

heavy-handed individual, was never reluctant to step into a fray. A year later he 

arrogantly informed the office of education that he planned to move the entire 

population of Kashega to Umnak.2

1 W.H. Proctor to Alaska Commercial Company, San Francisco. October 7, 1932. Alaska 

Commercial Company Letters, Unalaska, Alaska, 1932-1934. Unalaska School/Community 

Library Alaska History Collection. 1977.

2 NARA, RG 75, Letters received. Telegram, February 19, 1934, Hawkesworth to Paul W. Gordon.

 CHAPTER 13: A GREEN AND PLEASANT PLACE 195
196 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

If Arletta Carter, the school teacher then at Kashega, heard about this, she 

probably rejoiced. Following her brief visit to Makushin, she had reluctantly 

returned to Kashega where she declared its future to be “one of drinking, 

debauchery, disease and death.”3 Carter had arrived in 1932, replacing Halfton 

Burgh who taught briefly after James B. and Carrye Henderson. She was from 

Berkley, California, and her initial reports glowed with praise. “There is a 

splendid community spirit,” she wrote in the spring of 1933. She told how the 

men had built a new village steam bath the previous fall. Families contributed 

money for a well and a pump, replacing the waterline that had run from the lake. 

All of this was possible because the village had income.

Sophie Kudrin managed to slip Eva in among Carter’s primary students, but after 

thirty-eight days of giving her “busy work only” Carter insisted the four-year-old 

stay at home. As a teacher, she was neither as enthusiastic nor as effective as the 

Hendersons had been. The first year, she failed two students and promoted five 

(including George Gordaoff whom she sent to Unalaska to live with his father, 

Alex Gordieff; George’s mother Lucy had died in 1930). Two students withdrew, 

including Martha Denisoff who had written enthusiastic letters under the former 

teachers, and Mike Kudrin who had won the forestry essay.

Starring in Kashega 

with Harry Jacobsen 

(center). Alice Moller 

photograph from 

Cuttlefish Two: Four 

Villages. 

Mike had been somewhat old for grade school. On March 5, 1932, he and Dora 

Borenin traveled to Unalaska where they were married at the Church of the Holy 

Ascension. She was seventeen and he was twenty-five. “My brother and Mike 

Kudrin were friends,” Dora said. “I told my brother that I wasn’t going to get 

married. I used to write letters to the store when he wanted to order things from 

Unalaska, but when he told me I had to get married I wouldn’t write letters for 

him.” Vasilii had informed Dora of her impending marriage shortly after Russian 

Christmas, January 7, which was followed by days of starring, when a decorative 

twirling star was carried from home to home and blessings were sung for the 

residents. After starring and before Epiphany, there were days of masquerading 

3 Arletta Carter to Paul W. Gordon, September 5 and 8, 1933. NARA, RG 75.
 CHAPTER 13: A GREEN AND PLEASANT PLACE 197

during which individuals dressed in costumes and went from house to house 

commemorating the search that Herod’s men had made for the infant Jesus. 

Waiting at the Unalaska 

dock for the mailboat to 

return to Kashega. 

1. Feckla Denisoff 

(wife of Nikefer 

Denisoff)

2. Sisters Oleta Borenin 

and Sophia Kudrin 

(left to right)

3. Alice Moller. 

4. Anna and Carl 

(Carol) Moller (left 

to right)

5. Sophia Kudrin’s 

daughter Eva. 

6. Mary Moller

Photograph courtesy 

Mary Diakanoff.

I was in the living room behind the door, on top of a half a sack of flour, 

sitting there crying. I told him I wasn’t gong to marry. That night we 

had a masquerading. Mike came to my house. I knew Mike because 

he wasn’t dressed up. We were all dancing, you know, and a pitcher of 

cold water I spilled on him! I did that so I wouldn’t have to have him 

for my husband! But I was married with him for thirty-five years. I was 

married in 1932 and we had five girls.4

At the conclusion of masquerading, there was a ritual cleansing that symbolized 

washing away the demons. At Kashega this was done by going to the river and 

pouring fresh water over oneself. “I used to like to get more than Mrs. Moller 

[Alice Denisoff],” Dora recalled, “so I put two buckets of water on me! Boy! Tried 

to be tough, I guess!”5

In the early 1970s, one of Dora’s daughters, Polly Lekanoff, drew a map of 

Kashega Village as she remembered it. It showed a church near the bay, nine 

houses, a school with an outhouse and shed near the lake, one additional 

out-house, and a cemetery at the opposite end of the bay from the church. A 

footbridge over the creek led to the store with its shed and a barn with a fenced 

4 Dora Kudrin in Hudson, ed., Cuttlefish Two, 43.

5 Dora Kudrin, recording with Ray Hudson, December 8, 1975.
198 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

in area for horses. She identified the buildings and this identification was 

expanded in 2010 by Mary Diakanoff.

Map drawn by Polly 

Lekanoff. Image 

courtesy O. Patricia 

Gregory

Polly Lekanoff map 

with revisions by Mary 

Diakanoff, 2010.
 CHAPTER 13: A GREEN AND PLEASANT PLACE 199

In the early 1930s, the Western Pacific Livestock Company moved its ranch 

headquarters from Chernofski to Kashega. This provided seasonal employment 

for a few local men. It was also good news for Harry Jacobsen who owned the 

store and had started a soft-drink bottling company. At first he put out just a few 

bottles, but by 1933 he had hired an 

assistant. “Numerous trading vessels come 

into the harbor bringing raw products in 

the form of salt, barrels, sugar, malt, and so 

forth,” wrote the Seward Gateway, “and take 

on exports such as fur, wool, salt, codfish, 

mutton, bottled soft-beverages, and fine 

baskets woven by the native women.”6

Although her memories were those of a 

child, Eva recalled that Jacobsen’s store 

always seemed to be well-stocked with 

shoes and raingear. 

For Carter, Jacobsen was the embodiment 

of all that was evil. She called him a 

“lazy drunkard” and “unprincipled.” She 

castigated him for operating a store out 

of his house that was more like “an old 

time saloon, gambling den and red-light 

house—a rendezvous for ‘Hoodlums.’” She 

suspected him of trading alcohol for fox 

pelts and turning everyone, men and 

women, into “habitual drunkards.” Not 

particularly healthy herself, Carter left 

Kashega several times, taking a boat to 

Unalaska, Seward and eventually Seattle. 

While staying at Unalaska she was 

dined and interrogated by A.H. Proctor 

of the A.C. Company about Jacobsen’s 

doings. She led Proctor to believe 

Jacobson sent regular deposits to a bank 

in Bremerton, Washington, where “he 

has quite a nest-egg laid aside....”7

 The 

company suspected he made purchases 

from competitors and was deliberately 

planning to evade payment on his debt. 

They considered seeking out the bank 

account and placing an attachment on it. Proctor later shared all this with 

Jack Martin, to whom Jacobson also owed money. An equal-opportunity 

6 “Kashega Notes” in Seward Gateway, April 26, 1933.

7 A.H. Proctor to the A.C. Company. Jan. 16, 1933. Alaska Commercial Company Letters, 

Unalaska, Alaska 1932-1934. Unalaska City School.

Mary Moller with her 

aunt Oleta (Aleta) 

Borenin. Photograph 

courtesy Mary 

Diakanoff.
200 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

accuser, Carter claimed the AC Company sent “bums” to Kashega specifically 

“to raise ‘H---” with the objective of exploiting the Natives.”8

Jacobsen was hired as caretaker for the sheep ranch during its off seasons. (The 

commanding officer of the Tahoe wrote August 1, 1933, that there was a small 

herd of thirty-six sheep near the village belonging to the Aleutian Livestock 

Company of Chernofski.) Jacobsen allowed the village men to use the company’s 

barn as a shop where they built a new motorboat from the wreck of another. He 

continued operating a codfish saltery at Raven Bay on the “Pacific side,” where he 

employed local people. He also had a fox farm in that bay (perhaps on Ogangen 

Island which fills a good part of Raven Bay). When absent from the village, people 

still had access to supplies as he turned his store over to a local man, often Jacob 

Denisoff, son of Nikifor Denisoff. Jacobsen also had his hand in prospecting. 

In 1933 the Seward Gateway reported that he and a partner, John Reinken, had 

filed a gold claim where they planned to strike it rich.9 Henry Swanson said it 

wasn’t gold; it was copper. “Maybe they thought they had gold, too,” he remarked. 

Buttressed by this anticipated fortune, Jacobsen announced that he was leaving 

Kashega and moving to Seattle or back to Norway. Three months later, however, 

the Seward Gateway quietly reported that he had “returned from Raven Bay to 

make his home in Kashega.”10 John Reinken arrived to spend the winter with him.

Kashega Village as seen 

from across the creek. 

Photograph courtesy 

Mary Diakanoff.

Reinken was an articulate scallywag. Son of Adolph and Alexandra Reinken, 

he was raised at Kashega and Unalaska. In 1894 he was sent to Carlisle Indian 

School in Pennsylvania through the intervention of Sheldon Jackson, the 

commissioner of education for the territory. Returning to Unalaska, he did little 

except annoy his ill father who finally sent him away again.11 Probably one of 

those individuals who was never completely accepted by either the Unanga{ 

8 Carter to Paul W. Gardner. September 8, 1933. NARA, RG 75. Letters Received.

9 The paper reported the claim was for Kallalach Bay, but this was probably a misprint for Kuliliak 

Bay. 

10 Seward Gateway, September 15, 1933.

11 Leontiy Sivtsov to Jochelson, January 14/27, 1910, in Bergsland and Dirks, Aleut Tales and 

Narratives, 300-301.
 CHAPTER 13: A GREEN AND PLEASANT PLACE 201

or the white communities, Reinken drifted between jobs and schemes. He 

periodically found himself in trouble with the law, spent time in jail, escaped, 

and was known for a time as the only person to have hiked across the Shaler 

Mountains to Kashega. He was undoubtedly one of the “hoodlums” who plagued 

Arletta Carter.

In July 1933 a visiting officer aboard the Tahoe went into the store and found 

it “meagerly stocked.” He was unable to discover whether or not “additional 

supplies were expected before winter.”12 This hardly mattered, as a matter of fact, 

because the winter’s supplies were generally ordered in bulk from Unalaska or 

Seattle.

Kashega’s population declined from 49 in 1920 to 33 in 1930 when there were five 

non-Natives, including Jacobson, the teachers (Hendersons) and two men 

connected to the sheep ranch. Population figures for the mid-1930s are 

somewhat difficult to trace, but in 1936 the population stood at 43.13 However, 

the decline in the number of school-aged children led to the closure of the 

school in 1935, and this, in turn, became another reason for two families to move 

to Unalaska. 

Charles and Alice Moller took their daughter Mary to 

Unalaska about 1935 when Mary was five. They settled in 

the town and bought a home. He fished salmon in Bristol 

Bay each summer. “He has been one of the few fishermen 

who has always come in and paid up his account on his 

arrival from Bristol Bay each fall,” A.H. Proctor wrote to 

company headquarters. The company was experiencing 

competition from George and Victoria Gardner who ran 

a herring saltery for Alaska Salmon Company. If Moller 

chose to work in the herring industry, he would be unable 

to fish in Bristol Bay. “So far as we know now Charlie 

Miller [Moller] is the only one we are carrying [with a 

credit account] and who plans to fish for Gardner,” wrote 

Proctor.

There doubtless will be others and we will keep a 

sharp look-out and try to learn who they are but 

we feel that from this on until fishing actually 

opens such information will be hard to get.... If 

some means could be devised to drive a wedge 

into the production end here some good might 

come. Should we stop the credit of Miller [sic] we 

might create a feeling favorable to the Gardners 

12 15 September 1933 report of the Tahoe. NARA RG 26, Cruise Reports, 1933 Season, Bering Sea 

Patrol Force.

13 H. D. Gray, “Population and Economics in the Aleutians.” SIA, RU 7176, box 13, folder 9.

Alice Moller and her 

daughter Mary.

Photograph courtesy 

Mary Diakanoff.
202 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

and to that extent aid their plans. On the other hand should their 

plans fall through after the first shipment of fish the earnings of the 

people here would be adversely affected and we would have to take 

some losses in our credit outstandings among those who happened 

to be working for the Gardners.”14

The herring business at Unalaska was short-lived. It began in 1928, declined by 

1932, and was virtually over by 1936. 

When they moved to Unalaska, people from the three villages gravitated toward 

each other. Mary Diakanoff recalled that she never felt part of the larger Unalaska 

community. The Unalaska people spoke English more than Unangam tunuu, 

whereas the villagers were almost entirely Native speakers. Mary’s favorite 

babysitter was Yakim (Jack) Petikoff. He and his brother Matfey had moved to 

Unalaska from Makushin in 1940. Jack and Matfey were known respectively as 

Big Uncle and Little Uncle. Big Uncle would read Russian stories about Ivan 

Durak (“Ivan the Fool”) to Mary while babysitting her.15 When Jack and Matfey 

had visited Unalaska, before moving there permanently, they stayed with their 

sister Annie who was married to German Stepetin. Alfred, her son, welcomed 

their arrival as an opportunity to hear Jack’s stories. He recalled that the stories 

were not long, but the story-telling itself lasted late into the night.16

In June 1935, Alex Gordieff drowned when his skiff overturned in a large patch 

of kelp. His only relative was his ten-year old son, George.17 Alex’s wife Lucy had 

died a few years earlier. George eventually moved back to Kashega where he lived 

with the elderly John Denisoff. John, who visited his daughter Alice at Unalaska 

fairly regularly, may have encouraged George to return to the village. In any 

case, George divided his time between the village and the sheep ranch. Charles 

and Alice Moller returned to Kashega every so often to put up red salmon for 

the winter. John Denisoff would accompany them if he happened to be visiting 

Unalaska. On one trip that Mary Diakanoff remembered, they took the mailboat 

and the voyage lasted eighteen hours. At Kashega, Mary played with Polly 

Kudrin, daughter of Mike and Dora. When they were tired of being outside, they 

sometimes visited Mary’s great-uncle, Nikifor Denisoff because he had cocoa 

in his kitchen. “He was very old,” Mary recalled, and very relaxed. He’d sit in his 

chair and visit with the girls; and then Polly, who knew where the cocoa was kept, 

would go into the kitchen and make them each a cup.18

14 A.H. Proctor to Alaska Commercial Company, San Francisco. January 193[3]. Alaska Commercial 

Company Letters, Unalaska, Alaska, 1932-1934.

15 Mary Diakanoff, conversation with Ray Hudson, Unalaska, June 13, 2012. See Kasakam 

Unikangis, Russian Stories Told in Atka Village, (John Nevzoroff and Knut Bergsland), National 

Bilingual Materials Development Center, Rural Education Affairs, University of Alaska, Anchorage. 

1978.

16 Stepetin, Alfred. January 21, 1988. Elders in Residence Program Collection. Oral History 

Collection of the Alaska and Polar Regions Department. Elmer E. Rasmuson Library, University of 

Alaska, Fairbanks. 

17 Seward Gateway, July 2, 1935.

18 Mary Diakanoff, conversation with Ray Hudson, June 22, 2012.
 CHAPTER 13: A GREEN AND PLEASANT PLACE 203

One morning Nikifor’s wife walked into the kitchen and found him stirring a 

pot on the stove. He said he was cooking mush for breakfast and nodded at the 

counter. She saw a bright orange box with the black silhouette of the Fairbank’s 

Gold Dust Twins. Her husband was boiling a pot of the latest innovation: 

powdered soap.19

Alan G. May wrote a detailed description of his trip to Kashega in August 1938.20

He was a member of Aleš Hrdlička’s Aleutian expedition. The men intended 

to hike overland to Kuliuliak Bay where they hoped to discover the location of 

an old and very large village site. However, they met Art Harris at Kashega. He 

worked for the sheep ranch and had been to Kuliliak Bay. He told them there 

“was very little there and it was not worth walking over to find out....”

He did, however, take them to see “an old Aleut.” This may have been Nikifor 

Denisoff, certainly the oldest resident of the village. 

Thru an interpreter we found out that there was a large cave on Grass 

Island nearby.... We went to Grass Island after leaving the village to 

look for the cave reported by the old Aleut. This was easily found for it 

was a large one and formed by the action of the sea—consequently of 

no use to us.

Hrdlička described the cave as “a large storm cavern with nothing in it.” However, 

“high up in rocky cliffs to the left, about 30 feet from top,...[there was] a large 

black hole going deep in, promising, but unreachable without a long rope...”21

May counted 26 residents at Kashega. “The two houses I was in were quite 

clean,” he wrote, “but not scrubbed to the point of shining like so many of the 

Russian Aleut houses. There is a nice little church of course. All the women had 

donned their best clothes for the occasion and some of them had put rouge on 

their cheeks.”

Harris was an efficient manager. The next summer, the sheep ranch was 

reported to be employing many local people, although several men had gone 

to the Pribilof Islands to help with the seal harvest.22 The Kashega men arrived 

at St. Paul July 1, 1939. They included Keril Borenin, John Denisoff, Cornelius 

Kudrin, Mike E. Kudrin, Peter Kudrin, and Sergie Kudrin. These five, except for 

John Denisoff, returned the following year along with Mike J. Kudrin and Peter 

Yatchmenoff.

19 George Gordaoff, conversation with Ray Hudson, July 2, 2012.

20 Alan G. May papers (1902-1990) box 17, folder 16, 1938, page 115. Consortium Library, 

University of Alaska Anchorage, Archives and Special Collections, Consortium Library. 

21 Hrdlička, The Aleutian and Commander Islands, 400-401.

22	 Haas, R.B. “Sociological Report” August 21, 1939. NARA, RG 26, entry #292, file 611-601, box 60.
204 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

Eva Tcheripanoff’s memories of Kashega are filled with the good times that 

children often remember.23 She played and got into mischief. She carried around 

a doll made from a light-weight rock. Her uncle, Sophie’s brother Vasilii, 

eventually tired of watching his niece dress and undress a rock and so he carved 

a wooden doll for her. He attached arms with rubber bands so they moved and 

Eva’s mother glued yarn on for hair. Sophie also sewed clothes for the doll.

Sophie was skilled in traditional gut sewing and she made 

a small kamleika, the Unanga{ raincoat, for Eva, along 

with a pair of skin shoes. Eva, however, got the shoes wet 

and, although she had been warned not to put them by 

the stove, she placed them under it where they hardened 

like stone. The next day she hid them from her mother 

who eventually discovered what had happened. “Maybe 

she was mad at me,” Eva said, “but she didn’t say nothing 

to me.”

Eva wanted to be a hunter like her uncle and she would 

put on his Unanga{ boots. They came up to her knees; 

and when she went to the beach, she could feel the rocks 

through the soles even though the shoes were lined with grass. She recalled that 

her grandmother (Olga Borenin) lived with “Old Man John,” Mrs. Moller’s father. 

When Eva stayed with her grandmother, they would take trips away from the 

village to collect firewood. It had to be brought back either in a skiff or by hand. 

Eva recalled carrying it on her back. Wood was a precious commodity, and there 

were times, even when it was rainy and cold, that people went without heat. “It 

was hard to get wood, you know,” Eva said. “It was awful.”

Once Eva went down to the lake where 

kayaks (baidarkas) were stored upside down 

on the grass. She turned one over, pushed 

it into the water, and crawled inside. Before 

she knew it she was away from the shore. 

“And I was just hollering, hollering, you 

know,” she said. “Finally somebody must 

have heard me. Must have been the Kudrin 

family heard me.” Someone launched 

another kayak and brought her back to land. 

She remembered that when she misbehaved 

her grandmother would spank her using a 

hard thong of whale muscle. “As soon as I spotted it,” she laughed, “boy, I used to 

hide away!”24 She added, “Even big people, grown up people, they used to spank. 

23 Eva Tcheripanoff in The Beginning of Memory, 50-89.

24 Eva Tcheripanoff, Sophie Pletnikoff, and Ray Hudson, conversation recorded May 23, 1982.

Eva and her Uncle Vasilii. 

Photoraph courtesy 

Mary Diakanoff.

Olga Borenin and John 

Denisoff. Photograph 

courtesy Mary 

Diakanoff.
 CHAPTER 13: A GREEN AND PLEASANT PLACE 205

They’d paddle them!” During this interview, her mother added, “Those old-time 

people were mean.”

Eva had a pet cat that she carried 

around and treated like a puppy. 

“And he died!” she said. “And I 

buried him by the creek. Every 

morning I’d go down there and 

pray by it!” She laughed as she 

recalled those visits. “I’d pray by 

it. I think that helps me for my 

health,” she said and laughed 

again.

Eva’s uncle, Vasilii, had one of 

the better homes at Kashega. Eva 

remembered it as a large house with an upstairs. He had crafted a tin sink for the 

kitchen and hooked up running water that was also used to operate a flush toilet. 

Vasilii, however, fell ill and died before the evacuation. Like her mother, Eva worked 

for older residents of the village. She washed clothes for John Denisoff’s wife and 

helped around the house. Once she tried making bread, but she forgot to add the 

sourdough starter and it never rose. John’s wife used fresh seal oil and made friedbread from the dough.

There were few children in the village. Eva’s closest friend was Tatiana Nevzoroff 

who was from Atka. She eventually married Peter Kudrin. George Borenin 

made a pair of walkie-talkies for 

the girls, stringing two cans 

together. One evening Eva was 

playing with them by herself. 

“What are you doing?” George asked.

“I’m playing radio,” she answered.

“Poor thing,” George said to Sophie 

in Unangam tunuu, adding that 

he wished he could buy Eva a real 

radio, “but he’s got no place to buy a 

radio from.” Years later, after the war 

and the evacuation, when he was 

the last resident of Kashega, George 

would have his own large radio to 

communicate with the outside world. 

But in the late 1930s, that world was far 

away.

Left to right: George 

Gordaoff, Tatiana 

Nevzoroff, and Eva 

Kudrin on horse. 

Photograph courtesy 

Roberta Gordaoff. 

Verso of photograph 

reads: “George l. A. 

Gordaiff [Gordaoff] 

12 yrs Bad Boy, Miss 

Tatitona E. D. Nezoroff 

[Tatiana Nevzoroff], 

Miss Eva S. A. Kudrin. 

Kashega,Alaska.”

Four Kashega women (left to right): Sophie 

Kudrin, Oleta Borenin, Eva Kudrin (in front), 

Tatiana Kudrin. Alice Moller Collection, 

photograph courtesy AB Rankin.
206 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

Old and new cross at the site of the former chapel at Makushin, August 31, 2009. Photograph by 

Josy Shangin.
Chapter 14

The Agony of Makushin

After she arrived at Unalaska for medical treatment in the fall of 1935, 

Annie Olsen informed authorities that Pete Olsen had been molesting 

her for five years. She was seventeen. Tatiana Olsen corroborated her 

adopted daughter’s affidavit and on September 6, 1935, Olsen was brought to 

Unalaska by the U.S. deputy marshal on a charge of rape. When the women 

appeared in court, however, they reversed their testimony, and the case 

against him was dismissed for insufficient evidence. Court officials considered 

conducting an investigation to determine if the women had perjured 

themselves. Annie returned to Makushin with her mother and, less than a year 

later, on June 19, 1936, she died at the age of eighteen. She was buried near the 

church. “What there was done to me in Sept. 1935,” Olsen wrote bitterly five 

years later, referring to those who had instigated and pursued the case, “is not 

forgotten and never will be.”1

By the mid-1930s, Elia Borenin had been selected as village chief. Akenfa 

Galaktionoff was second chief.2 Men continued traveling to the Pribilof Islands 

each June to work in the seal harvest. This meant that Olsen had to shear his 

sheep earlier than he might have wished. He confessed to the manager of the 

sheep ranch at Chernofski that he wasn’t much of sheep man. Nevertheless, he 

steadily increased the size of his herd, ran more fencing and experimented with 

local and imported grass for feed. He traded rams and ewes with the much larger 

ranch at Chernofski. 

One June day in 1932, while the men were away to the Pribilofs, a group of 

women took a dory out to an islet to collect sea gull eggs.3 Among the women 

1 P. J. Olsen to Verne Robinson, October 23, 1940, courtesy of Marti Murray.

2 Nick Galaktionoff in The Beginning of Memory, 138.

3 Commander, Bering Sea Patrol, to Commandant. December 3, 1932. NARA, 611 Bering Sea 

1931-32. RG 26, file 611, box 1864.

 CHAPTER 14: THE AGONY OF MAKUSHIN 207
208 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

was one of Peter Petikoff’s daughters, Oleanna. In Nick Galaktionoff’s description 

of subsequent events, the women anchored on one side of the islet and set about 

gathering eggs. When they were ready to return, Oleanna was missing. After 

searching the island, they took the dory to the opposite side where they found 

her floating below the surface. They recovered the body and returned home.

“Why did they bury her?” young Nick asked his grandmother. The girl had often 

played with him. “That was the first time I saw a dead person,” Nick said. “I 

didn’t cry, however, but when they started to bury her I began crying and couldn’t 

stop.... My mom said that she had passed away. She spoke in Aleut, but I didn’t 

understand even then. To me it looked like she was sleeping.”4

“I have heard that ‘Pete Olsen would just as soon shoot you as look at you,’” 

wrote Arletta Carter, the teacher at Kashega and one of his rare admirers. “There 

are other stories circulating that Pete Olsen is cruel to his Natives; that he beats 

them and abuses them.” She wrote that he was suspected in the death of a girl 

who “fell” off a bluff near the village in 1932, but when the Coast Guard arrived to 

investigate he proved he had been “two miles away reading a book.”5

In August 1936 John Corston, a postal clerk aboard the S.S. Starr, arrived to 

resolve a dispute over the handling of mail that had arisen between residents of 

the village and Olsen whom the captain of the Starr said was “known widely as 

the King of Makushin.” Corston’s solution was to tie the mail sacks with knots 

so secure they could not be opened surreptitiously. His description of Olsen is 

ominous and dark, depicting a man isolated by language, grief, and culture. He 

described him as a “very large fully bearded specimen of a Russian promishlenik, 

or maybe a baidarschik (a captain of a baidara fleet)” who first drank “all the 

liquor in sight in the captain’s cabin” and then three bottles of Corston’s own 

beer, “talking steadily for two hours in the deep silence of the sleeping ship about 

the old, good days at Makushin village....” Eventually, he sought out the skiff tied 

alongside the ship “with two patient retainers waiting for him to get his fill. They 

knew their king.”6

In 1936 Makushin had forty-four residents (12 men, nine women, and 23 

children).7 Within a year that number would be cut in half. In the spring of 1937, 

Simeon Lekanoff had the audacity to sell a gas generator to John Yatchmeneff of 

Unalaska. There was already bad blood between Yatchmeneff and Olsen and the 

storekeeper was furious with Simeon and refused to sell him groceries, telling him 

he could get them from Yatchmeneff. Lekanoff, a well-built individual—“pretty 

4 Nick Galaktionoff, recording 1977. See also Hudson, ed., Cuttlefish Two, 32.

5 Arletta Carter to Paul Gordon, Office of Indian Affairs, September 5, 1933. NARA, RG 75.

6 Corson, Alaska to the Rhine, 96, courtesy of Chris Wooley.

7 Mitcherl, R.J., Ass’t Surgeon U.S.C.G. Cutter Daphne, to Commander Bering Sea Patrol Force. 4 

Sept. 1936. NARA, Pacific Alaska Region. RG 26 U.S. Coast Guard. Records of the Bering Sea

Patrol 1926-1940 (1936). Box 43
 CHAPTER 14: THE AGONY OF MAKUSHIN 209

husky man, that guy” was how Nick Galaktionoff remembered his grandfather—

was not easily intimidated.8 “Okay,” he told Olsen, “I will.” Moses Galanin 

happened to be visiting from St. George, and Simeon used him as an interpreter 

to arrange passage for himself and his family aboard the mailboat to Unalaska.9

This family of eight was the largest at Makushin and their exodus was a serious 

blow.10 Arriving at Unalaska, they stayed with their uncle, Andrew Galaktionoff, 

until Simeon’s son Nick located a small house that his father purchased from 

George and Victoria Gardner. The Gardners made a business of buying abandoned 

buildings, fixing them up, and selling them. Andrew served the Church of the 

Holy Ascension in various capacities, and Nick began assisting him and Father 

Theodosius. When the priest was transferred to St. George about a year later, 

Nick had learned enough to become an alter boy for Bishop Alexei, the former 

Alexander Panteleev, who spent months working out of his old parish.

The gradual arrival of Makushin residents at Unalaska was reflected by purchases 

made on credit at the AC Company where the agent frequently noted purchasers’ 

home villages. In 1936 Arthur Lekanoff, an older son of Simeon Lekanoff, was 

shown as a Makushin resident for the last time. Beginning in April 1937 there 

were steady purchases made by Philip and Frank Galaktionoff and by Simeon 

and Nick Lekanoff. Another of Simeon’s adult sons, Constantine, also arrived. 

They were joined in 1940 by Jack (Yakim) and Matfey Petikoff. Whoever kept 

company records in 1940 was especially careful to record the home villages 

of people with lines of credit. He noted three men from Biorka and one from 

Kashega in addition to men from Akutan, Belkovski, Umnak (Nikolski), St. 

George, Atka, King Cove, and St. Paul. None of the seven Makushin men who 

made purchases were listed as residing in their home village. It is significant that 

no purchases were recorded for Elia Borenin who remained at Makushin.11

Akenfa Galaktionoff took his twelve-year-old son Nick fishing on Makushin Bay in 

April 1937. They were startled when a walrus surfaced near the dory. As his father 

pulled for the beach, Nick noticed that one of the tusks was broken near its point. 

Akenfa shot at the creature and before long the sea was colored red. A day or two 

later the walrus appeared outside the village and was shot at again. Walrus are 

rare in the Aleutians, but not unknown. In September 1938 Olsen told Victor B. 

Scheffer that in the late fall of 1926 or 1927 he was in Anderson Bay in his power 

dory and towed a walrus onto the beach that had been killed by local men.12

8 Nick Galaktionoff, recording 1977. An edited version of this recording is found in Hudson, ed., 

Cuttlefish Two, 25-33.

9 Nick Lekanoff in The Beginning of Memory, 101. This was also confirmed by Nick Galaktionoff, ibid. 140.

10 The family consisted of Simeon, his wife Okalena, and children Nicholai, Arthur, Timothy, Steven, 

Vassa, and Stepinida.

11 Credit Sales Journal, 1936, 1937, 1939, 1940, Alaska Commercial Company Records, JL006. J. 

Hugh Jackson Library, Stanford.

12 Scheffer, Victor B. Report on Observations in the Aleutian Islands, August – September 1938. SIA 

RU7176, box 18, folder 13.
210 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

Holy Thursday, commemorating the Last Supper, the agony in the Garden 

of Gethsemane, and the betrayal of Christ by Judas, fell on April 22 in 1937.13

The day broke calm and clear. Matfey Borenin, Akenfa Galaktionoff and his 

half-brother John Borenin left the village about eight in the morning in a 14-1⁄2 

foot dory borrowed from Pete Olsen. It was equipped with three pairs of oars. 

Planning to collect driftwood and to fish for cod, they took enough food for 

the day, including three loaves of bread. Each man had a rifle and Akenfa also 

brought his shotgun. They headed in the direction of West End and north along 

the coast toward Volcano Bay.14

Elia Borenin spent the day repairing the fence that kept Olsen’s herd of sheep 

from straying. Marva Borenin took Nick and a few others for a walk into the 

hills. Back in the village early in the afternoon, Nick fished for pogies from shore. 

When he returned to his grandmother’s house, he told her he had heard gunfire 

in the distance, adding, “Maybe my dad is coming back.”

But no one returned. The evening was calm. The sky grew dark. The women were 

nervous because the only men left in the village were Elia and Pete Olsen. “And 

Pete Olsen never help anybody anyway,” Nick said. 

“Everything is all right,” Marva Borenin told her grandson. “Go to bed.”

The next morning, the men were still not back. Nick played outside, but every 

time he went home he asked about his dad and the answer was always the same. 

He could tell from his grandmother’s voice that she had grown concerned. “And 

dark comes again,” Nick said. “It came fast.”

The third day, the wives of the three men went out with Elia Borenin. According 

to his own testimony, Pete Olsen went with them. A gale had come up out of 

the northwest and a big sea was running. They returned in the evening having 

found pieces of the dory and three oars along the beach. They carried a four-foot 

section of the boat back to the village where it was examined. A bullet hole was 

found, apparently made by a 30/30 and entering from the outside at a 45-degree 

angle.

“Still,” Nick said, “we have hope that they’re going to come home.” But every time 

he saw his dad’s clothes or belongings, he would start crying and Marva would tell 

him not to cry. The next day Elia Borenin scoured the beach alone almost as far 

as Volcano Bay. That afternoon Nick kept his eyes on the trail from the old village, 

and for a moment he thought he saw three people approaching. He and other 

kids ran out but it was only Elia. 

13 Nick Lekanoff in The Beginning of Memory, 91. The date the men left Makushin has been given 

as April 23 (report of William Brown) or April 24 (U.S. Coast Guard investigations), a Friday or 

Saturday. Nick dated the event by relating it to the church calendar. April 23 is unlikely because of 

Good Friday church services.

14 Unless otherwise noted, this account is based on interviews with Nick Lekanoff and Nick Galaktionoff.
 CHAPTER 14: THE AGONY OF MAKUSHIN 211

“He didn’t tell us nothing,” Nick said, “’cause we’re kids.”

The search continued for a week. Elia recovered about three-fourths of the 

wrecked dory, a cod fishing line, and about ten 30/30 cartridges in a bag tied 

to part of the frame. Pete Olsen sent word to Unalaska on the mailboat and 

William C. Brown, the deputy U.S. marshal, arrived on a Coast Guard vessel to 

investigate. Brown’s mother was Unanga{ and he spoke the language. Elia told 

the marshal “that he firmly believes that the three men had met their end by 

being attacked by the same wounded Walrus” that had been seen off the village.15

Despite Elia’s conclusion, two other theories about the disappearance persisted. 

The first was that they had fallen victims to intruding Japanese fishermen. Nick 

Galaktionoff expressed this belief a number of times. The second explanation 

centered on Pete Olsen himself when it was learned that two of the men were 

scheduled to testify against him at an upcoming court appearance. Lieutenant 

C. F. Edge of the Coast Guard Cutter Spencer suggested that Olsen be kept under 

observation “with a view of ending his reputedly illegal activities, or of bringing 

him to justice.”

He is supposed to have illegal interests in fox raising rights on Ogliuga 

and Skagul Islands. It is stated that natives are leaving the vicinity of 

Makushin because they are being driven off by Olsen. He was recently 

convicted of illegal possession of firearms, the Collector of Customs 

at Dutch Harbor, Mr. Durrell Finch, acting as attorney in his defense. 

His fine is believed to have been paid by the agent of the Alaska 

Commercial Company at Dutch Harbor. Prior to his trial, three natives, 

two of whom were to have appeared against him at his trial, were 

reported missing in a small boat. Olsen is said to have gone out to look 

for them, and on his return reported that he had found the remains of 

their boat, showing evidence of having been attacked and crushed by a 

walrus. Other persons reported subsequently that they had discovered 

the boat, stove in, and with a rifle bullet hole through the side.16

Henry Swanson’s comments are relevant. “The man did good for the village,” he 

said, “but he also did a lot of bad. He was known to have a bad character and to 

be awful mean.”17 Swanson said the three men had “just got around a pinnacle 

point—a kind of Priest Rock—going towards Volcano Bay. 

Olsen was up on the hill above them. In those days they had lights up 

15 Brown, W.C., “Report concerning triple drowning and conditions as observed...., May 26, 1937.” 

NARA, Pacific Alaska Region. RG 26, file 611, box 48. Records of the Bering Sea Patrol 1926-

1940. File: 611, 64, 6641. Cooperation with other departments, passengers & guests. BSPF 1937, 

1 of 2.

16 C.F. Edge, to Commandant. 26 August 1937 NARA RG 26, box 611. Bering Sea Patrol General 

Correspondence, 1936.

17 Swanson, “More on Makushin,” Hudson, ed., Cuttlefish Two, 34.
212 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

on the hills for markers. There was one at Makushin for the mailboats 

and one at Chernofski and Umnak. These were coal-oil or kerosene 

lamps, and once every couple of weeks someone from the village 

would have to go and refill them. The wick might need trimming or the 

chimney need cleaning. Well, Pete Olsen was up on the hill where this 

light was and he said he saw what happened. All those fellows 

disappeared. They never did find their bodies. Pete Olsen said they 

were attacked by a bunch of walruses!18

The mystery of the disappearance will never be solved. Three women were 

widowed and 13 children were left without fathers. Akenfa’s wife, Parascovia, 

had seven children. Natalia Borenin, Matfey’s wife, was pregnant and had five 

children. Tina (Valentine) Borenin, John Borenin’s young wife, had an infant and 

she also was pregnant.19 According to information supplied by Pete Olsen, she 

was from St. Paul Island where her father and two brothers lived.20 In addition, 

Marva Borenin, the mother-in-law of Parascovia and Tina, had been dependent 

on her sons. In the weeks following his father’s disappearance, Nick would go 

down to the beach and sit. If he had a candy bar he would eat half of it and 

throw the other half into the water for his dad. “Pretty hard to get over it,” he 

said almost seventy years later. “He used to teach me. Goddamn, he used to read 

Aleut books.”21

The deaths had happened at the end of winter, at a time when any money earned 

from work in the Pribilof Islands the previous summer would have been long 

18 Swanson, “More on Makushin,” Hudson, ed., Cuttlefish Two, 34.

19 The Galaktionoff children were Melania “Molly,” Nicholai, Peter, Evadokia “Eva,” Marina Irene, 

Oleta Julia, and Paul Akenfer. Natalia Borenin’s children were Nicholai, Eva, Sammy, Akinfa

Matfey, and Matrona. Her son John Matfey had been adopted by the Olsens. The name of Tina 

Borenin’s infant is unknown, but in January 1940 she had a two year old son Ignaty Borenin.

20 Brown, W.C., “Report concerning triple drowning and conditions as observed...., May 26, 1937.”

21 Nick Galaktionoff in The Beginning of Memory, 137.

Illustration of walrus 

and walrus skeleton. 

From Natural History for 

all Social Ranks. Artist: 

Lorenz Oken, Stuttgart, 

Germany circa mid1800s. Image courtesy 

Francis Broderick.
 CHAPTER 14: THE AGONY OF MAKUSHIN 213

spent. Men needed to fish and hunt to put food on the tables. Pete and Tatiana 

Olsen provided the three families with canned food from their store for about a 

month, but by May 27 they had cut off credit.22 In early June Father Theodosius 

Kulchitsky arrived aboard the Coast Guard cutter Ingham to “investigate 

condition of those reported destitute due to man-killing walrus.” The Coast 

Guard issued emergency provisions to the three women: 90 pounds of potatoes, 

75 of biscuits, 150 of flour, 60 of rice, sugar, and dried lima beans, 15 pounds of 

tea, and 2 cases of canned milk, a total value of $33.74.23 By July 20, Olsen had 

departed for a trip to the Lower 48, leaving Tatiana in charge of his store and 

sheep ranch. A brief sentence written July 21, 1937, by Noble G. Ricketts, 

commanding the Coast Guard Cutter Tallapoosa, dates the departure of two of 

the widows and Marva Borenin: “Left Makushin, having received aboard 12 

destitute native women and children with their belongings for transportation to 

Unalaska.”24 Nick brought one toy: a small inflatable dory that he had received 

for Christmas. He had that boat, patched and patched again, for a long time. 

Natalia Borenin chose to remain at Makushin with her five children under the 

care of her brother-in-law, Elia Borenin.

22	 A.J. Carpenter, Commanding Officer Morris, to Commander Bering Sea Patrol Force. May 17, 

1937. NARA, Box 611, Bering Sea Patrol General Correspondence 1937 , 611-601.

23 NARA. RG 26. U.S. Revenue Cutter logs. Ingham 1937. M.J. Ryan, Cmdr. 2-3 June 1937.

24 N. G. Rickets, Diary, July 20, 1937. Copy in possession of Ray Hudson.

Henry Swanson, July 

26, 1966. Photograph 

courtesy Francis 

Broderick.
214 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

Ricketts moored the Tallapoosa at Dutch Harbor at 1:30 on the afternoon of 

July 21 and the Makushin people were taken ashore in a launch with Makarii 

Zaochney of Atka who had been working as a guide for the anthropologist Aleš 

Hrdlička.25 The buildings looked very tall to young Nick. Pariscovia Galaktionoff 

and her children stayed first in an extra house that Sergie Shaishnikoff owned. 

Later they lived with Mike Borenin and then with Bill Dyakanoff and his family. 

Eventually, she was able to get a small house of her own. 

The deaths of the three men ended Makushin as a viable village. Art Harris, 

the sheep rancher at Kashega, wrote in March 1938 that only one Native family 

was left.26 Even so, a coast guard report in May 1939 suggested the village was 

flourishing under Olsen’s guidance.

The natives earn their livelihood by working at St. Paul Island, about 

2 1⁄2 to 3 months of the year during which they earn approximately 

$175 each. This is supplemented by local trapping on a small scale.... 

Olsen maintains a small store in which he stocks supplies and a limited 

amount of food stuff which he sells to the natives. 

The natives of this village apparently live more after the form of the 

traditional way of the natives before the coming of the whites, that is, 

they eat very little canned foods, in fact there is none stocked in the 

local store, but subsist on mutton grown on the island, sea lions, seals, 

fish, clams, etc., which they take for their own use. It is believed that 

Olsen is responsible for these habits of the natives, and he boasts that 

they are better off than any other natives in the islands.27

A more realistic summary came from a doctor aboard the Itasca in August who 

found only two elderly women and three children subsisting on canned goods 

and fish they caught using a small dory. Any men were away working elsewhere. 

“The white man who had been looking after the village was expected to return 

when the canning season had ended.”28

“The village, once thriving, is about to die out,” wrote E.S. Endom, the executive 

officer on the Coast Guard cutter Shoshone in July 1940. He described a village 

where houses far outnumbered families. The report suggests that whomever 

he spoke with expected the return of some of the people who had left. Endom 

was confused, to say the least, and erroneously concluded that Makushin was 

inhabited only during the summer months.

There are only 9 people (native) living regularly in the village—4 males 

and 5 females. At the time of our visit 3 males were away from the 

25 N.G. Ricketts to Commander Bering Sea Patrol, 3 August 1937. NARA. RG 26. Box 611, Bering 

Seat Patrol 1936, General 1215.

26 Art Harris to Bob Kranich, March 26, 1938, courtesy of Ray Kranich and Cora Holmes.

27 Hermes. Allen Winbeck. NARA, RG 26 611, Box 611-601 Hamilton to 611-601 Shoshone.

28 R.B. Haas, Itasca August 29, 1939. RG 26 611, Box 611-601 Hamilton to 611-601 Shoshone.
 CHAPTER 14: THE AGONY OF MAKUSHIN 215

village working at St. Paul Island. A white man, Mr. Olsen, lives at this 

village with his native wife and son, and appears to look after the wellbeing of the natives to a certain extent. A Russian Catholic Church is 

located in the village, but there is no Priest. Water is piped to several 

houses in the village and the rest of them carry their water from a 

stream, which is only a short distance away. Mr. Olsen has installed 

a hydro-electric power plant at a nearby waterfall and provides the 

village with electricity.

All dwellings are frame houses of the usual type occupied by the 

natives in the Aleutian chain. However, Mr. Olsen’s house is modern. 

No radio facilities are available for communication with the outside at 

this time, but Mr. Olsen appeared very interested in radio. No school 

facilities are provided.

The village is supported by the usual hunting and fishing, and the men 

go to St. Paul Island to work during the summer months. Mr. Olsen 

has a few hundred head of sheep, which provide some employment to 

the natives. Many old bones and relics are found near the village. The 

FERN calls about once a month, bringing mail and supplies, and picks 

up any freight which they may have for market.

The village is inhabited only during the summer, which accounts for 

the fact that no provisions are made for a school.29

The government logbook for St. Paul identified Elia Borenin and his sixteen-yearold nephew Nick as the only temporary workers from Makushin in 1939 and 

1940.30 At the end of October 1941, Pete Olsen wrote a long letter to Don Green at 

Chernofski related to his sheep business. He had built a new winter pasture and 

planned moving sheep into it the middle of November. The pasture was situated 

so that he could corral the animals when severe weather arose and bring them 

closer to the village where he kept hay in the barn. He confessed that he was 

inexperienced with sheep but he thought the venture was looking up.

Regards the sheeps they is better this year and i ever have seing them, 

the lams is just as big as there mothers. The increase is not so big as it 

should be, i have to kil of quit a bunch every year to get what i need, if 

it was not for that i would a fine little bunch right now And this year I 

got 43 cents a pound for the wool best i ever got, only truble i did not 

have any more to sale

29	 Endom, E.S. “Sociological Report, Makushin, Alaska” 16 July 1940. NARA, Pacific Alaska

Region. RG 26 U.S. Coast Guard. Records of the Bering Sea Patrol 1926-1940 (1940). 495-800 

(messages) File: Sociological-Census.

30	 Official Logs, St. Paul Island, Alaska, 1939 and 1940. Department of the Interior. Bureau of

Commercial Fisheries. June 26, 1940.
216 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

He mentioned his adopted son, John, and “the few natives” still at Makushin.

i dont know if you saw my boy on the Fern he is man now hi do most of 

the work for me and the few natives there is left here helps mi, i cant do 

much my back is on the bum. I pay the natives back in meat and they 

sure can eat mutton....There is no news31

Makushin’s misfortunes were inexorably tied to Pete Olsen. His house at 

Unalaska, frequently uninhabited, was a popular target for vandalism. He 

suspected village children were responsible, but marshal Bill Brown refused to 

take action unless Olsen swore out a warrant. In 1939 Verne Robinson arrived 

as the new deputy U.S. marshal. Olsen wrote to him. Robinson investigated and 

suggested he rent the property to keep it safe. Robinson’s attention to this longrunning problem produced a remarkable letter from Olsen in October 1940.32

Fragmented, inarticulate, and rambling—not unlike the description of Olsen’s 

two-hour monologue aboard the Starr in 1936—the letter accused people of 

theft, rape, threatening murder, and murder itself. He had been lied to by the U.S. 

commissioner and by Natives, denied the right to call witnesses when accused, 

and jailed when he attempted to protect the little that was his. Maligned, isolated 

from people in power and excluded from the close-knit Native community, he 

had been “blamed for everything from murder” on down although not one of the 

accusations would hold water. Those people who had left Makushin had been “a 

bunch of dam dyvles [devils]” but they were gone and he was still there and would 

remain until he was ready to move out. But not now. He remained defiant. 

“And I could tell you Mr. Robinson a whole lot more if I wanted to,” he wrote. 

What people had done to him, they had done to others. “They can have that fun 

for a little while longer,” he wrote. “Their times are getting shorter.”

Time was closing in on everyone.

31 Pete Olsen to Don Green, October 30, 1941, courtesy of Cora Holmes and Ray Kranich.

32 P. J. Olsen to Verne Robinson, October 23, 1940, courtesy of Marti Murray.
 CHAPTER 14: THE AGONY OF MAKUSHIN 217
218 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

Ugadaga Bay. Photograph by Ray Hudson. 
Chapter 15

The Approach of War

As the story of Biorka, Makushin, and Kashega enters the war years, 

there were so few residents that it is possible to describe the 

communities in detail without overwhelming confusion. The events at 

Makushin had decimated the village. When the federal census was taken May 

14, 1940, only two households were left. Pete and Tatiana Olsen lived with their 

thirteen-year-old adopted son John. Elia and Eva Borenin’s home included 

Natalia Borenin and her four children: Nick, Eva, Akenfa, and Matrona—

although Nick, then sixteen, was listed as the adopted son of Elia and Eva. 

Nick’s sister Eva was thirteen while Akenfa and Matrona were six and two.1 On 

October 20, 1941, Natalia Borenin died from tuberculosis.

Makushin Households in 1940 (U.S. Bureau of the Census 1940)

J.P.H [John Peter Halberg “Pete”] Olsen, age 58 (head of household)

Katie [Tatiana] Olsen, age 43 (wife of Pete Olsen)

John Olsen, age 13 (adoptive son of Peter and Katie Olsen)

Elia Borenin, age 46 (head of household)

Eva Borenin, age 51 (wife of Elia Borenin)

Nick Borenin, age 16 (adoptive son of Elia and Eva Borenin)

Natalia Borenin, age 35 (sister-in-law of Elia Borenin)

Eva Borenin, age 13 (niece of Elia Borenin)

Akenfa Borenin, age 9 (nephew of Elia Borenin)

Matrona Borenin, age 2 (niece of Elia Borenin)

The seven families in Kashega, on the other hand, were doing well. The twentysix residents included Sophie Kudrin and her eleven-year-old daughter Eva who 

were living with her brother-in-law George Borenin. Mike and Dora Kudrin lived 

with their three daughters: Polly, Vassa, and Alice Esther. Mike’s brother 

Cornelius had a twenty-year-old lodger at his home, Sergie Borenin. The chief of 

1 Natalia’s son Sammy had eaten poison and died at the age of five the previous year.

 CHAPTER 15: THE APPROACH OF WAR 219
220 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

the village, John Denisoff, was getting up in years. He was 69. Staying with him 

was fourteen-year-old George Gordaoff.2 John was in failing health and spent 

time with his daughter Alice who had moved to Unalaska with her husband and 

daughter. Carl and Eva Borenin had a three-year-old daughter. The widow Efemia 

Kudrin had the largest family that included four adults and two teenaged 

children. The patriarch of the village was the old sea otter hunter Nikefor 

Denisoff, whose age was given as 77 in 1940 but who might have been even older. 

Peter and Nellie Yatchmenoff and their young daughter were living with him.

Biorka had four families in 1940. The chief was Alex 

Ermeloff, and his household reflected the diverse 

nature of this village. In addition to himself, it 

included his son Ruff and Ruff’s wife Agafia, an adult 

daughter (Sophia, 35), an adult adopted son (Akenfa, 

27), and a ten-year old adopted daughter (Irene 

Lukanin). Two years younger than Alex Ermeloff, 

Andrew Makarin was now 52. He and Eustina were 

raising their adopted daughter, Irene. Fourteenyear-old Nick Galaktionoff, having temporarily 

escaped Unalaska, was living with them. George 

and Elsie Yatchmenoff’s family included three 

children: William, 17; Feodor, 5; and Marianna, 4. 

Peter and Molly Lukanin with their infant son Moses 

comprised the youngest family in the village. Molly 

had been a Galaktionoff from Makushin, and her 

younger siblings, Peter and Marina Galaktionoff, 

were living with them along with her mother and 

stepfather, Parascovia and Innokentii Borenin. 

Parascovia (Polly) had married Innokentii Borenin in 

April 1938.

Nothing has been said so far about Andrew 

Makarin’s younger brother Elia. Born in 1892, 

he grew up at Biorka and became a hunter, 

trapper, and fisherman. Around 1914 or 1915 he married Agrafina Petikoff 

from Akutan. They eventually had six children, and, sometime after 1930, 

established a home at Unalaska that served as a base for visiting Biorka 

people. As more and more people from the three villages were drawn to 

Unalaska, housing for visitors and new residents became critical. Unanga{ 

who had lived at Unalaska for generations were physically unable to 

absorb the new arrivals as most houses were small. In addition, as Mary 

Diakanoff has pointed out, many Unalaska Unanga{ saw themselves as 

culturally distinct from villagers, better educated, better able to deal with the 

increasingly bureaucratic nature of business and politics. The importance 

2 The census report calls him George Denisoff, John’s adopted son.

Three Borenin sisters: 

Left to right: Oleta, 

Dora, and Sophia. 

Photograph courtesy 

Mary Diakanoff.
 CHAPTER 15: THE APPROACH OF WAR 221

of homes like the one established by Elia and Agrafina Makarin cannot be 

overestimated.

Kashega Households in 1940 (U.S. Bureau of the Census 1940)

George Borenin, age 40 (head of household)

Sophia Kudrin, age 31 (sister-in-law of George Borenin)

Eva Kudrin [Tcheripanoff], age 11 (niece of George Borenin)

Mike Kudrin, age 35 (head of household)

Dora Kudrin, age 24 (wife of Mike Kudrin)

Polly Kudrin, age 7 (daughter of Mike and Dora Kudrin)

Vasa [Vassa] Kudrin, age 3 (daughter of Mike and Dora Kudrin)

Alice Esther, age 2 months (daughter of Mike and Dora Kudrin)

John Denisoff, age 69 (head of household and acting chief after death of John Yatchmenoff)

George Denisoff [Gordaoff], age 15 (adopted son of John Denisoff)

Carl Borenin, age 39 (head of household)

Eva Borenin, age 24 (wife of Carl Borenin)

Mary Borenin, age 3 (daughter of Carl and Eva Borenin) 

Nikifor Densioff, age 77 (head of household)

Peter Yatchmenoff, age 34 (lodger of Nikifor Densioff)

Nellie Yatchmenoff, age 24 (wife of lodger, Peter Yatchmenoff)

Laura Yatchmenoff, age 2 (daughter of lodgers, Peter and Nellie Yatchmenoff)

Efemia Kudrin, age 53 (head of household since husband, John Kudrin died)

Peter Kudrin, age 28 (son of Efemia Kudrin)

Mike Kudrin, age 25 (son of Efemia Kudrin)

Olga Kudrin, age 22 (daughter of Efemia Kudrin)

Sergi [Sergie] Kudrin, age 20 (son of Efemia Kudrin)

George Kudrin, age 15 (son of Efemia Kudrin) 

Tatiana Kudrin, age 18 (daughter-in-law of Efemia Kudrin and wife of Peter Kudrin)

Cornelius E. Kudrin, age 41 (head of household)

Serge[Sergie] Borenian [Borenin], age 20 (lodger of Cornelius Kudrin)

Biorka Households in 1940 (U.S. Bureau of the Census 1940)

Alex Yermenof [Ermeloff], age 54 (head of household)

Reus [Ruff] Yermenoff [Ermeloff], age 31 (son of Alex Ermeloff) 

Akenfa Yermenoff [Ermeloff], age 27 (adoptive son of Alex Ermeloff)

Agafia Yermenoff [Ermeloff], age 19 (daughter-in-law of Alex Ermeloff and wife of Ruff)

Sophia Yermenoff [Ermeloff], age 35 (daughter of Alex Ermeloff)

Irene Lokanin [Ermeloff], age 10 (adoptive daughter of Alex Ermeloff)

George Yatchmenoff, age 46 (head of household)

Aprensia [Elsie] Yatchmenoff, age 29 (wife of George Yatchmenoff)

William [Willie] Yatchmenoff, age 17 (son of George Yatchmenoff)

Fedor Yatchmenoff, age 5 (son of George Yatchmenoff)

Marianna Yatchmenoff, age 4 (daughter of George Yatchmenoff) 

Peter Lokanin [Lukanin], age 24 (head of household)

Molly Galaktionoff (Lukanin), age 19 (wife of Peter Lukanin; originally from Makushin)

Moses Lukanin, age 1 month (son of Peter and Molly Lukanin) 

Peter Galaktionoff, age 10 (lodger of Peter Lukanin; sibling of Molly Galaktionoff)

Irene Galaktionoff, age 6 (lodger of Peter Lukanin; sibling of Molly Galaktionoff)

Inokenti Borenin, age 36 (lodger of Peter Lukanin; father of Molly Galaktionoff)

Andrew Makarin, age 52 (head of household)

Estenia [Eustina or Esther] Makarin, age 48 (wife of Andrew Makarin)

Nick Galaktionoff, age 14 (lodger of Andrew Makarin; moved from Unalaska)

Erenin Borenin [Irene Makarin], age 8 (listed as lodger of Andrew Makarin; adopted daughter)
222 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

Because Unalaska was the magnet for people living in the outer villages, it is 

important to understand the type of community it had become. “This was a fairly 

quiet and respectable camp till the Alaska Dry Law was repealed a year ago,” wrote 

U.S. commissioner Durell Finch in 1935. “Now it is one of the toughest towns in all of 

Alaska...[where] every business place [is] just like a water-front saloon.”3 After 

Alaskan voters had approved banning alcohol in 1916, the measure had gone to the 

U.S. Congress for ratification. The so-called “Bone 

Dry Law” went into effect in 1918, two years 

before prohibition became national policy, and 

ended only with the repeal of the 18th amendment 

in 1933.

When Nick Galaktionoff arrived at Unalaska 

in 1937 he discovered dogs and drunks. “I 

didn’t like dogs, and there were too many 

people,” he said. There had been only two 

well-trained sheep dogs at Makushin. “I saw 

people staggering sideways,” he said. “I had 

never seen them do that before.... In Makushin 

my dad never drank.”4 Alcoholism began to 

infiltrate the lives of new arrivals just as it 

had enveloped several local residents. Both 

Parascovia (Polly) and Innokentii Borenin 

were in jail on alcohol related charges when 

the 1940 census was taken—with Innokentii 

having been sentenced to five additional days 

for talking with one of the women prisoners, 

probably his wife. Nick himself spoke openly 

about his long struggle with alcohol that lasted 

into his fifties. 

At Unalaska outsiders were installed in every 

position of authority except village chief. 

Traditional Unanga{ found themselves 

relegated to manual laborers. For decades even 

“traditional” jobs such as sea otter hunting 

and fox trapping had been controlled by white 

men who either owned vessels or had access to 

markets. They alone held jobs in government, 

commerce, education, and regulatory 

enforcement. Deputy U.S. commissioners 

were always outsiders as were game wardens, 

medical staff, store owners, and (except for 

3 Durrell Finch to Dear Nephew Gerald, Unalaska, April 4, 1935. Marine Works Collection, Museum 

of the Aleutians, 1998.001.432.

4 Nick Galaktionoff in Hudson, ed., Cuttlefish Two, 33.

Peter Galaktionoff. 

Photo courtesy Jennie 

Lekanoff.
 CHAPTER 15: THE APPROACH OF WAR 223

Bill Brown) deputy U.S. marshals. With brief exceptions, this was also true of 

teachers and postmasters.5If Unanga{ worked in these areas, they were janitors 

at the school, nurse assistants at the hospital, clerks at the stores. The better 

paying positions not only provided a guaranteed income, but in several instances 

they were part-time jobs that allowed the non-Native office holders to spend 

considerable energy in private economic ventures and in warring with each 

other. During a visit in 1936, Olaus Murie, working for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife 

Service, noted in his diary, “Am learning much about the intrigues and shady side 

of life here. Not pleasant to think about. All over commercial greed.”6

Few Unanga{ were able to move up the economic ladder. Women who married 

white men may have seen an improvement in their standard of living. However, 

if their children excelled, this was credited to the father’s “white” blood, not to 

anything the mother brought to the family. Bill Brown’s wife, though Bill was 

Unanga{ on his mother’s side, would not allow their children to associate with 

village children.7 Unanga{ who integrated into the general white community 

were those with enough Scandinavian, Germanic, or Russian ancestry so as to 

literally pass for white. Victoria Gardner, for e{ample, thought Henry Swanson 

was a Scandinavian fisherman. Economic barriers mirrored other discriminatory 

practices. Seating at the movie theater was by race, with better seats reserved for 

whites. If a non-Native woman welcomed an Unanga{ visitor into her home—

even the chief—she faced disapproval from other whites.8

Unanga{ at Unalaska, whether long-time residents or new arrivals, found 

themselves in situations similar to people who emigrated from villages into cities 

such as Anchorage or Fairbanks. Dorothy Jones, examining the catastrophic 

consequences of ineffective social service agencies in the 1970s, wrote how 

urban immigrants faced “several stressful transitions simultaneously.”

...from rural to urban, from one culture to another, and from one set 

of class and racial definitions to another as they learn that poverty and 

minority racial status are stigmatized in the white-dominated urban 

setting far more than in the villages. The urban transition of Natives is 

accompanied by serious social problems—poverty, unemployment, 

underemployment, family disorganization, alcoholism, and other 

emotional disorders.9

5 The exceptions were Kathryn (Dyakanoff) Seller who taught school briefly in the 1920s and Olga

(Rankin) Bolshanin who served as postmaster around 1910. Both were married to outsiders. 

William Brown, a deputy U.S. marshal in the 1930s, also had Unangaˆx ancestry.

6 Archives, University of Alaska Fairbanks. Olaus Murie Papers, MS-230, Box 8, FF#29. Diary. 

page 58, June 2, 1936.

7 Philip G. Armstrong to Commissioner Kernes. Alaska State Archives. RG 05, RS 1 box AS4477. 

The child was eventually enrolled in the public school.

8 Violet V.N. Assenmacher, letter to Ray Hudson, October 8, 1979.

9 Jones, The Urban Native, 1.
224 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

Her findings paralleled what was happening at Unalaska in the 1920s and 1930s 

as the village of Iliuliuk made its circuitous and white-dominated way towards 

incorporation as a first class city in 1942. Among the changes and challenges 

facing Natives and to which she attributed far-reaching social consequences 

were

• the loss of social controls to which people had been accustomed 

(the family, peer groups, respected elders, and formal authority)

• a loss of role function for some men and women

• the stigmatization of poverty

• the loss of shared economic responsibility balanced between 

husband and wife

• the loss of social supports

• the presence of new technologies

• unemployment and underemployment

The federal policy of assimilation had, in significant ways, been accepted by 

Unalaska Unanga{. Linguistic differences were critical because the presence 

of non-English speaking children threatened the local school. Nowhere was 

assimilation more institutionalized than in education. The school system was a 

paragon of uniformity. Beginning in 1887, a school that was open to all students 

had operated at Unalaska under the federal Bureau of Education. In 1905, 

however, Congress passed the Nelson Act establishing two sets of schools, one for 

Native children and one for white children along with “children of mixed blood 

who lead a civilized life.” In Alaska the “white” schools became the responsibility 

of the territorial government. Because the Unalaska school served both Native 

and non-Native students, it was closed in 1905 for non-compliance with the new 

law. White residents attempted to elect a local school board, a prerequisite for 

establishing a territorial school, but the minimum twenty registered voters could 

not be found. In 1906 the Bureau of Indian Affairs’ school reopened, with the few 

non-Native students attending as they had before. By 1923 the number of nonNative children had increased, reflecting a proportionate growth of immigrant 

residents. The white community was finally able to get everything in order to 

transfer the school to the territory’s department of education. Enrollment stood 

at 87 in the spring of 1923. An increase to about 100 was expected to accompany 

the opening of the territorial school that fall. Clara Goss, a community activist 

and former teacher, wrote to the territorial commissioner of education. “It 

is understood locally,” she said, “that all the children of the community will 

attend.... it is a certainty that no children would attend the Gov. school if they 

could by attending the Territorial school be classed as ‘Whites.’”10

“The public or Territorial schools are for Whites and half-breeds,” wrote a 1931 

report from the Department of the Interior, “the Federal schools for the natives 

alone. Native children of unusual promise are sometimes transferred to the 

Territorial schools, where a higher standard can be maintained than in the 

10 Clara Goss to L.D. Henderson, Commissioner of Education, Juneau. April 21, 1923. 
 CHAPTER 15: THE APPROACH OF WAR 225

Federal schools. Thus the way of possible development is pointed out; but the 

road will undoubtedly be a long one for these simple and extremely primitive 

people.”11 In the face of such strident government sanctioned racism, it is no 

wonder that Unanga{ parents welcomed the closing of the federally operated 

school and the opening of a territorial one. 

In 1917, on the fifteenth anniversary of his role as chief of Unalaska (and, it 

could be argued, paramount chief of the eastern Aleutians), Alexei Yatchmeneff 

had urged his people to remember their Unanga{ heritage and to not attempt to 

pass as whites. This was directly at odds with federal Indian policy. Yatchmeneff’s 

counsel, delivered long before this policy was formally replaced in 1934, was clearly 

at odds with the political, economic, and social requirements for advancement in 

the dominant society. If taken to mean that Unanga{ culture, values, and language 

were to be practiced to the exclusion of “western” skills, it was clearly a handicap 

to “upward mobility” for his people. This, however, was not the case. Yatchmeneff 

had successfully integrated much of western culture into his own life. He was fluent 

in Unangam tunuu and Russian, and he had a workable command of English. In 

addition to having been a successful sea otter hunter in his youth, he was proficient 

in several “western” vocations. He was a skilled carpenter and wooden boat 

builder. (The 1910 and 1920 census reports listed him as a carpenter.) In addition, 

he repaired shoes and glasses to supplement his family’s income. Exactly what 

he meant remains a mystery but his life suggests a center founded on Unanga{ 

values. He could incorporate western skills while practicing traditional subsistence 

activities, retaining cultural components unique to Unanga{ life, language, and the 

Orthodox religion.

Non-Unanga{ residents and government employees, on the other hand, were 

emphatically monocultural. They made no attempt either to learn Unangam 

tunuu or to understand the culture. They saw the practice of any Unanga{ 

cultural component or the use of the language as evidence of inferiority. By the 

time Yatchmeneff died in 1937, Unalaska had been transformed. 

Five days after his death, Jessica Jorgensen, beginning her third year as the 

primary teacher, wrote to the commissioner of education. She was overwhelmed 

by the arrival of eight new students who had come from Makushin and who 

spoke no English. Although four of the Lekanoff and Galaktionoff children 

were over ten years of age, with the eldest soon to turn sixteen, all of them were 

crowded into her primary classroom with twenty other students. The four older 

ones sat at a table while the younger ones used chairs without writing desks. 

“I was in the first grade,” Mary Diakanoff recalled, “when the Makushin people 

came.” She remembered Eva and Marina Galaktionoff and that the Makushin 

children were kept at the back of the room.12 Fortunately, the new arrivals were 

11 U.S. Dept. of the Interior, Annual Report of the Board of Indian Commissioners to the Secretary of 

the Interior for the fiscal year ended June 30, 1931. GPO, Washington, 1931: 45.

12 Mary Diakanoff, conversation with the Ray Hudson, June 22, 2012.
226 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

Chief Alexei Yatchmeneff and his daughter Pauline. (Identification by Katherine 

Grimness.) Alice Moller Collection, courtesy AB Rankin.
 CHAPTER 15: THE APPROACH OF WAR 227

good-natured and, according to Jorgensen, enjoyed what they perceived as “an 

entertainment specially put on for them.” The other children delighted in the 

pantomimes and chaos that enveloped the classroom. Jorgensen did what she 

could. She drafted an older student as an interpreter during the first weeks. In 

her letter, she wrote, “Out of the entire enrollment in school, there are only two 

or three children who can actually speak Aleute. They understand it but never 

speak it on the play ground or at home.”13

In addition to the Makushin children, there were 52 other students including 18 

in the intermediate grades (3, 4, 5) and 14 in the upper grades (6, 7, 8). Only six 

were non-Native children. Jorgensen was not a teacher who held herself aloof 

from Unanga{ culture. The year previously she had invited two local women 

to teach basketry in the school and the classes continued in the fall of 1937. 

At least one of these women, Anfesia Shapsnikoff, was a strong proponent of 

her language and may very well have used it in part while teaching. The other, 

Annie Stepetin, was originally from Makushin. An examination of the names of 

students confirms that while many of them, as adults, understood the language, 

their actual fluency in the spoken language was restricted.14 This lends credence 

to Jorgensen’s estimate that “only two or three” students were able to speak 

Unangam tunuu.

“I was scared the first time I came to school,” remembered Nick Lekanoff. “I 

didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t speak English.... The only thing I used to say 

was, ‘Yeah.’”15 Nick and his brother Steve stuck it out, however, and the records 

show that these fifteen and sixteen year old boys spent 173 days in first grade. 

Eventually, the teacher had had enough. “Your dad needs your help out there,” 

Nick was told.16 Simeon Lekanoff was ill. He had returned to Unalaska, the village 

of his birth, and been elected to the church committee. In 1941 both he and his 

brother Stephan, who had become a much-respected elder on St. George, died. 

For all the difficulties and challenges Unalaska presented to newcomers, there 

were elements of Unanga{ culture that remained integral to community life. 

There were gatherings at which Sergie Tutiakoff would perform Aleut dances 

while his mother, Jennie Galaktionoff, sang.17 During the Christmas season, 

there were five or six stars, each with its own group of carolers that would visit 

homes late into the night. If the stars met on the street, they would sing to each 

other. Sergie Tutiakoff often took children around staring during the day. Games 

were played after the conclusion of Great Lent and Easter services. In summer, 

men and boys competed in angaayu{ [partners], a type of baseball played with 

13 Jessica Jorgensen to A.E. Karnes. October 27, 1937. Alaska State Archives. RG 05, RS 01, box 

AS4477. Folder: Unalaska 1937-39. 4586-60.

14 Record of Grades, 1937-1938. Unalaska City School records, in the collection of Ray Hudson.

15 Nick Lekanoff in The Beginning of Memory, 107.

16 Alaska’s Village Voices, a supplement to Alaska newspapers, Bill Hess, editor. November 

2002:28.

17 German Stepetin, an accomplished Unanga{ dancer, died in 1935.
228 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

a bat and a ball made by wrapping grass around a stone and covering it with seal 

skin. There were two teams. One person was the batter and a good many of the 

others were runners who had to dash between two bases without being hit with a 

thrown ball. Visiting teams would come from Akutan to play. 

Marva Borenin, Nick Galaktionoff’s grandmother, died in August1939 after a short 

illness. On the day of her death, she asked to bathe, and Nick went outside the house. 

Later, Marva called him to her side, hugged him, and told him that if God called her, 

she would go. “So, I asked her, if she got there to call me also,” he said. Then Marva 

gave him a dollar and he went to the store to buy candy. “When I got to the store, 

I went to Ted Sherebernikoff because he spoke Aleut,” Nick said. By the time he 

had eaten the candy and explored the beach, it was evening. His mother met him, 

took him to her house for dinner where she told him his grandmother had died. He 

rushed back to the house and found her body had been prepared and laid out in the 

living room. “I ran to her and cried,” he said, “but someone took me away.”18 Years 

later, he named one of his daughters after her.

Nick Galaktionoff’s stay at school was even shorter than Nick Lekanoff’s. 

His sister Molly had married Peter Lukanin of Biorka in January 1938. Their son 

Moses was born at the Unalaska hospital a year later, in September 1939. Nick 

persuaded his sister and brother-in-law to take him to the village. “I was looking 

forward to seeing Biorka,” he said. They hiked the trail from Unalaska to Ugadaga 

Bay. After a rest and something to eat on the beach, they took a small doubleender with an inboard engine across the inlet. At the village he found “five 

wooden houses, the church, and one barabara.” Andrew and Eustina Makarin 

had room in their home and so Nick moved in with them. He spent that summer 

in the village, often playing with seven-year-old Feddie Yatchmenoff. Before the 

men went to the Pribilof Islands that summer, Andrew showed him a number of 

former house sites across the river

One morning in Biorka, while the men were still in the Pribilofs, Nick saw three 

or four strangers talking with Sophie Ermeloff, Alex Ermeloff’s adult daughter. 

Later villagers saw smoke, possibly from a campfire, at a point further up the bay. 

When Andrew Makarin returned home from the Pribilofs, the villagers told him 

what they had seen. “But seems like, he didn’t believe us,” Nick said. That winter 

when Andrew went to his camp, he found it disturbed. He still used a baidarka 

and he went to Ruff Ermeloff’s camp on Dushkot Island. From that islet they saw 

a trail of smoke rising from a bay on the Unalaska side of the inlet. They took a 

skiff and, leaving one man in it, two of them walked toward the campfire. “When 

they got there,” Nick said, “they saw a bird was being cooked, but no one was 

there, but they knew they were being watched.” Their conclusion was the same 

as that made by men at Atka and Attu. “It was the Japanese,” Nick said. “They 

were on this island because they knew the island had a military build-up.”19

18 Nick Galaktionoff, recorded in 1980 and translated by Ishmael Gromoff. Collection of Ray Hudson.

19 Nick Galaktionoff, recorded in 1980 and translated by Ishmael Gromoff. Collection of Ray Hudson.
 CHAPTER 15: THE APPROACH OF WAR 229

Stories about sightings of Japanese men, about Japanese scientific explorations 

that were actually sent to map the islands, about the Japanese landing on St. Paul 

in 1906 when a number of them were killed by Unanga{, and about the 

disappearance of men on Attu in 1910, all these continued to be shared topics of 

conversation. In June 1911, Biorka men found four Japanese sailors who 

managed to convey that they had come from a wrecked vessel. The Biorka men 

brought them to Unalaska where they were cared for by the deputy marshal 

while the Revenue Cutter Manning went in search of other survivors. A few days 

later, however, their undamaged ship sailed into Unalaska bay, revealing that the 

four men were deserters and not survivors from a wreck.20 The presence of 

Japanese fishing boats and surveying parties throughout the Chain gave rise to 

speculations. John Denisoff told these stories to his granddaughter and warned 

her that she could be captured and used as a slave.21 This made young Mary so 

nervous that she and other children would hide even when Japanese teams off 

visiting ships played baseball against local teams at Unalaska.

Left to right: Eva Kudrin, 

Alice Moller, and Tatiana 

[Nevzoroff] Kudrin. 

Photo courtesy Mary 

Diakanoff.

Innokentii Borenin, Nick’s stepfather, was visiting Biorka with Nick when they 

joined several Biorka men to go hunting seals and sea lions just past Old Man 

Rocks at the north end of Sedanka Island shortly before the war. It was during 

Lent and the men planned on being gone from home only a few hours. The 

20 Davenport, Clara Ellen and Noah Cleveland Davenport, Unalaska Days: A Diary (August 7, 

1910-August 7, 1912). Xerox copy, Unalaska City School Library.

21 Arnold, The Legacy of Unjust and Illegal Treatment of Unangan, 34.
230 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

eight men had two dories belonging to Andrew Makarin and Ruff Ermeloff. No 

sooner had they landed in a small bay, about 100 feet wide, than the wind began 

blowing. They rigged up a block and tackle and hoisted the dories high onto the 

beach. A camp house, suitable for two men, had been built there some years 

previously. The men crowded into it, living on tea and a little seaweed. Over the 

next couple of days, Andrew crafted a stove from oil drums that had washed 

ashore. He was a skilled tinsmith and even managed to make a chimney. The 

beach on this island was poor. Blue fox that had been planted here had starved 

to death. One of the men managed to shoot a sea lion, but it sank before it could 

be recovered. There was small lake nearby where they collected fresh water. After 

almost two weeks, the weather improved, and even though the swells coming 

in were huge, they decided to leave. Nick hopped into Andrew’s boat with other 

men, and, once beyond the swells, they waited for the second dory. Andrew 

shouted at them to be sure to jump in as soon as the dory hit the water. But as 

the skiff headed into the waves, Innokentii Borenin slipped. The boat took off, 

leaving him stranded. The other two boats hovered just outside the reach of 

the swells for an hour before they were able to rescue him. They arrived back at 

Biorka a week before Easter.

Two significant changes occurred at Kashega in the early 1940s. The first 

was the death of John Denisoff, who had served as chief for almost a decade. 

He died at Unalaska. The second was Mike and Dora Kudrin’s move to 

Unalaska. After their daughter Alice died in infancy, they brought Polly to 

Unalaska where she could receive medical attention for a persistent eye 

ailment. Mike had made several trips to Unalaska by skiff and then on foot to 

secure needed medicine. They also wanted Polly to be able to attend school. 

However, her eye problem reduced her attendance.22 Although living at 

Unalaska, they retained a home at Kashega.

On April 8, 1940, a few months after he had arrived as the new deputy U.S. 

marshal, Verne Robinson was listening to the radio and heard that Germany 

had landed troops in Denmark and Norway.23 While Japanese aggression in 

Asia had worried many in Alaska, it was not until the invasion of Scandinavia 

was followed by the occupation of Holland and Belgium a month later that 

Congress began the fortification of Alaska. Surveys of Amaknak Island and 

Chernofski were made that summer, after which strong disagreements arose 

over the suitability of Dutch Harbor as a military outpost, primarily because of 

the mountains surrounding it. The value of a deep anchorage won out, however, 

and authorization to construct Fort Mears on Amaknak Island (within Unalaska 

Bay) was issued on October 10, 1940, a month after construction of a runway at 

Cold Bay had begun.24 Fort Mears would provide an Army garrison along with 

22 Eva Tcheripanoff in The Beginning of Memory, 53.

23 Diary of Verne Robinson, 1940. Unbound forms. Pat Locke Archival Collection, Museum of the 

Aleutians.

24 NARA, RG 338 (U.S. Army Commands), Alaskan Dept. Drafts of the Official History. Fort Mears. 

Endnote 1.
 CHAPTER 15: THE APPROACH OF WAR 231

fixed harbor defenses for the protection of the Navy base. In August 1940, 59 

civilian Siems-Drake workers began construction of barracks at Dutch Harbor 

for a unit of Marines scheduled to arrive to defend the nascent Navy base. Word 

that construction jobs were available quickly spread and men arrived from 

several Aleutian communities. By October 5 the barracks was completed and a 

detachment of slightly more than 120 men arrived only to discover “there was 

little to defend.”25

Construction continued and the work force grew. As Fort Mears rose from the flats 

surrounding Margaret Bay on Amaknak, the military began hunting for a suitable site 

for an airbase west of Cold Bay. The surreptitious construction of Fort Glenn at Otter 

Point on the eastern end of Umnak Island began in January 1942. Chernofski Bay was 

used as a staging point from which everything had to be barged eleven miles across to 

Umnak.

In the meantime, Unalaska boomed with civilian and military personnel. 

Housing was at a premium. The little used Russian school building was 

subdivided into apartments and rented primarily to men who had brought along 

their wives and children. Bars flourished. A house of prostitution was opened on 

Expedition Island, in the inner harbor between Unalaska and Amaknak. Most of 

the military construction was restricted to Amaknak Island, but attention began 

to be given to sites surrounding the village itself. Hoping for more leverage when 

negotiating with the military, businessmen drafted a petition to incorporate the 

village as a first class city. Dated August 18, 1941, it was circulated during the late 

summer and early fall during a time when many Unanga{ men were still working 

in the Pribilof Islands.26 This may account for the absence of several signatures 

that might have been expected. Two days before Christmas, voters approved the 

motion and on March 3, 1942, the City of Unalaska was declared incorporated by 

Judge Simon Hellenthal.

Unanga{ men were skilled mariners and several, including Nick McGlashan of 

Akutan and Henry Swanson of Unalaska, were employed on vessels. Nick, in 

addition to doing electrical work, was a deckhand, mate, and later a captain 

for the Army transport service.27 Henry was a pilot on several vessels. Andrew 

Gronholdt was among workers who came from Sand Point on Popof Island, 

just off the Alaska Peninsula. He worked on the Marine barracks and afterwards 

found employment on a vessel ferrying supplies from Chernofski to Umnak. In 

February 1942 they stopped at Makushin and he went ashore. He didn’t know 

Pete Olsen, but, in addition to a man from the army, the only people he saw were 

a man who was “German or something” and his wife. Andrew recalled that they 

were restricted to staying right in the village.28

25 Denfeld, The Defense of Dutch Harbor, 35.

26 The first group did not leave St. Paul for Unalaska until August 9. Others left on August 20,

September 21, December 11. St. Paul Log.

27 Bereskin, Peri, “The Akutan Whaling Station,” in Ruberg, ed., Taniisi{, Vol. IV. 1984:5.

28 Andrew Gronholdt, conversation with Ray Hudson, April 18, 1996.
232 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

Kashega, Biorka, and Makushin were included in a set of Native Family Record 

Cards, dated August 5, 1942. The assessed value of the seven homes at Kashega 

was $2,125. When personal property, valued at $2,041.50, was added to this, 

the total value of the village came to $4,166.50. The four houses at Biorka were 

valued at $1,475; personal property at $2,512.50, for a total of $3,987.50. Only 

the Borenin house at Makushin was included in this survey, valued at $400.50, 

with personal property at $367.80, for a total of $768.30. The Borenins’ home was 

valued slightly higher than those at Biorka (averaging $368.75) and slightly lower 

than those at Kashega (valued at $425). Specific personal property included saws, 

axes, carpenter tools, shotguns, fishing lines, and sheds. The total assessed value 

of the three villages was $8,922.30. This did not include property owned by Olsen, 

Jacobsen, and the sheep ranch at Kashega.

A July 1940 report described Kashega in detail. The comment that the chief also 

read services in the church suggests George Borenin had replaced the ailing 

John Denisoff. The twenty-six residents were divided equally between male and 

female. “Most of them speak English and quite a few of them are able to read and 

write,” wrote Lieutenant E.S. Endom of the Coast Guard cutter Shoshone.

The village has a Chief for government purposes. There is a Russian 

Catholic Church located here, but no Priest. However, the Chief 

remarked that he “read at the Church” on Sundays. Water is available 

from a stream in the rear of the village. Light is provided by kerosene 

lamps and the houses are heated mostly by coal provided by the local 

store. The dwellings are frame houses and appeared to be kept fairly 

clean. Out-houses are provided for toilet purposes.... No radio facilities 

for communication with the outside are available at this village.29

Endom wrote that while men worked at St. Paul Island each summer, women 

caught and smoked fish for the winter. Back in the village, men hunted and 

trapped fox during the winter. A succinct summary of these villages was given 

by Captain F.A. Zeusler. After declaring that he had been “in practically every 

barabara and in every native house from Unalaska to Attu” he said people at 

Biorka, Makushin, and Kashega (along with those at Akutan and Nikolski) “had 

clean homes, electric lights, running water. Their villages even had their own 

light plant. Their villages were clean and progressive.”30 Even as the military 

buildup at Unalaska and Chernofski increased, the residents of Kashega and 

Biorka had achieved a balance between subsistence and outside employment 

that had proved sustainable. 

Men from Biorka had the most direct encounter with military personnel during 

their regular trips for supplies when they crossed Beaver Inlet and left their 

skiffs at Ugadaga Bay before hiking the trail to Unalaska. A temporary outpost 

29 NARA RG 26. Records of the U.S. Coast Guard, Records of the Bering Sea Patrol 1926-1940. 

Census and Sociological Reports, Alaska Villages. U.S.C.G.C. Shoshone. 1 August 1940. 

30 The Alaska Fishing News. Ketchikan, Alaska. May 24, 1943.
 CHAPTER 15: THE APPROACH OF WAR 233

for antiaircraft guns had been built outside Ugadaga by 1942 and the Biorka 

men were intercepted on the suspicion that they were Japanese. Irene Makarin 

recalled that the first time this happened, it took almost two weeks before 

Andrew Makarin, George Yatchmenoff, Ruff Ermeloff and his brother Akenfa or 

“Candy” were able to return home. Only Candy Ermeloff was fluent in English. 

By June 1942 every flat piece of ground on Amaknak Island had been used.31 Fort 

Mears carpeted Margaret Bay with twenty-eight barracks, “mess halls, recreation 

buildings, a theatre, PX, library, chapel, warehouses, a Station Hospital and 

adjacent to the garrison a camp of 30 Quonset huts.” The hospital had a 270-bed 

capacity spread over 28 buildings. A naval station was built at Dutch Harbor, 

supplemented with the S.S. Northwestern, anchored and then beached just off 

shore, where many of the Siems-Drake workers lived. A bomb-proof power plant 

was constructed. A 500-man mess hall was completed in March 1942. Roads 

veined the small island, climbing up the two highest elevations (Bunker Hill 

and Ballyhoo) where defensive outposts were built. Cement ramps and hangers 

for seaplanes neared completion. At its peak in 1942 Siems-Drake workers 

numbered 5,157. 

“This place is nothing but armies,” Irene Makarin said, remembering the 

Unalaska of 1942.

Looking toward 

Beaver Inlet from 

the top of Ugadaga 

Pass in a photograph 

taken circa 1944. The 

Quonset huts were 

erected after the 

attack on Unalaska. 

Photograph courtesy 

Ray Hudson.

31 Denfeld, The Defense of Dutch Harbor, 30-59.
234 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

Storm. Biorka. Photograph by Carlene Arnold.
Chapter 16

The Attack and the Evacuation

Nick Galaktionoff was asleep when gunfire awakened him about 5:30 

on the morning of June 3, 1942. He had seen and heard military target 

practice before, most dramatically when a boat pulled a target out in 

the bay and the heavy guns from Amaknak Island fired at it. As he struggled 

awake, he made out the words, “Japanese come!” He ran to the window, 

expecting the streets to be flooded with invading troops. He joined Cecil 

Diakanoff on the street, and they watched the havoc as Japanese planes bore 

down on the village. People ran to bomb shelters and vehicles sped past. Nick 

noticed Blackie Floyd, owner of one of the bars, and about eight civilians in the 

back of a truck. A plane flew overhead, not much higher than the electric poles, 

and the ground was chipped away by gunfire. Nick dashed for a pile of cement 

sacks stored near the U.S. marshal’s house.

The planes in this attack—a combination of Kate bombers and Zeros—flew a 

path over Sedanka Island, delivered their bombs, and returned in much the 

same direction to carriers stationed in the North Pacific. 

The next day, about six in the evening, Nick was walking up from the dock with 

John Bereskin of Akutan when the sirens went off and ten Japanese fighters and 

eleven dive-bombers struck again. Before he was able to reach his foxhole, the 

oil tanks on Dutch Harbor were hit and dark clouds billowed into the air.1 The oil 

burned for days, filling the air with smoke and sending a dark rainbow into the 

water. These planes had approached Dutch Harbor by skirting the northern end 

of Unalaska Island; they returned by flying south, past Makushin and Kashega, 

between Unalaska and Umnak Islands. 

1 Nick Galaktionoff, recorded April 10, 1976.

 CHAPTER 16: THE ATTACK AND THE EVACUATION 235
236 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

Those killed in the first attack included twenty-five newly-arrived soldiers at 

Fort Mears. Casualties the next day raised the final death toll to 43. No local 

residents were killed or wounded. The details of the attack on Dutch Harbor and 

its defense have been chronicled in several books by scholars and participants 

and do not need to be restated here except as recalled by former residents of the 

three villages. Mary Diakanoff remembered how, at night, she looked out of the 

bomb shelter her family used and saw Mt. Newhall—still dappled with winter 

snow—glowing red from the burning tanks across the water. Her father, Carl 

Moller, was the civilian fire marshal but the only equipment he had been given 

was a bucket of sand.2

Constantine and Helen Lekanoff were awaiting the birth of a child when the 

attack came. Constantine was a son of Simeon Lekanoff and a half-brother to 

Nick Lekanoff. His first wife had died in childbirth and now Helen was expecting 

their fourth child. Her mother had come from St. George to help. They lived in 

a small house near the church. On the second day of the attack, while residents 

took shelter in bomb shelters, Helen remained at home and went into premature 

labor. Her husband found her there after she had given birth to a baby girl, Alita. 

He brought her and the baby to the bomb shelter. The infant was “so small, they 

thought she was a doll. The noise was terrible,” Helen said. “Someone almost sat 

on her, she was so small. It was terrible in there.”3

Recollections from childhood are often reshaped in light of subsequent 

knowledge, and memories of the attack on Unalaska and Dutch Harbor became 

interwoven with subsequent events. Irene Makarin remembered standing 

outside at Biorka and waving at the Japanese planes. This would have been on 

the first day of the bombing when the planes flew over Beaver Inlet. “All the 

kids that are playing outside, they’re standing there, waving at them,” Irene 

said. “They don’t bother us, just past the Biorka. They go around that lake over 

there. They go around and they come back and they’re really low. All the kids 

are standing up, waving at them. They were waving at us, too.” She recalled that 

Peter Lukanin and Candy Ermeloff arrived from Unalaska and reported news of 

the bombing to Alex Ermeloff, the chief. They also brought word of an impeding 

evacuation of the village. Eva Tcheripanoff’s memories also blur the bombing 

of Unalaska with the evacuation of Kashega Village. She, too, recalled being 

outside as Japanese planes flew overhead just as a vessel arrived to remove the 

villagers. Several vivid memories merged—airplanes passing overhead, the fear 

of invasion, and the eventual evacuation. 

In fact, a month passed between the attack on Unalaska and the evacuation 

of Kashega, Makushin, and Biorka. The confused memories of childhood do, 

however, reflect the official bumbling that surrounded the removal of Unanga{ 

from the Aleutian and Pribilof islands. After the Aleutian Pribilof Islands 

Association successfully fought for federal recognition and redress, between 1977 

2 Mary Diakanoff, conversation with Ray Hudson, June 13, 2002.

3 “Alita,” The Aleutian Eagle, June 3, 1982:7.
CHAPTER 16: THE ATTACK AND THE EVACUATION 237

and 1988, Unanga{ experiences during World War II became subjects for college 

theses, dissertations, newspaper articles, books, and films. Hours and volumes 

of testimony confirm the ill-conceived removal of villagers, the burning of Atka, 

the pervasive vandalism of homes, the deaths and privations in the relocation 

camps, and the overarching bureaucratic indifference that surrounded the 

return. The material collected during the reparations process focused on the 

largest communities: St. Paul, St. George, Atka, Akutan, Nikolski, and Unalaska. 

The story of what happened in the three villages was already slipping from 

memory. 

Japanese forces took Kiska and captured its small contingent of U.S. naval 

weathermen on June 6. Attu was occupied the next day as the villagers prepared 

for church and the teacher and her husband looked forward to a quiet morning. 

Unlike the school teacher, Etta Jones, who within days of her husband’s 

execution, was sent to Japan, the villagers were confined to the immediate 

vicinity of the village until September when they were shipped to Japan.

After being forced to find refuge at summer camps, the residents of Atka 

were swept from their village on June 12 as U.S. Navy personnel set fire 

to their homes and church. The vessel carrying the Atkans arrived at 

Nikolski, startling the military men stationed nearby. “They spent two or 

three days,” recalled Dorofey Chercasen, “and told us what had happened 

to their village.”4 By the time the Atkans reached Unalaska on June 16, the 

477 people from St. Paul and St. George had arrived on the USAT Delarof

after a hasty departure from the Pribilof Islands. A few Atkans had been left 

behind on their island and they were flown to Dutch Harbor. All 83 Atkans 

went aboard the Delarof and a few days later the overcrowded ship departed 

Dutch Harbor for Southeastern Alaska. The Pribilof people were set ashore 

at Funter Bay on Admiralty Island on June 24 to make their way among the 

ruins of an abandoned cannery and an abandoned gold mining camp. The 

next day, the Atkans were barged fifty miles away to Killisnoo, a deserted and 

burned-out fish plant at the site of a former Tlingit village. Conditions at 

both places were not so much substandard as non-existent. 

Five days later, June 29, orders were issued to evacuate the remaining villages in 

the Chain.5

Nick Borenin was nineteen when he left Makushin aboard a small Navy vessel. 

Elia and Eva Borenin, along with Nick’s two sisters and brother, had packed a few 

belongings, mainly clothes. In addition to the six members of the Borenin family, 

the evacuees included Pete Olsen, his wife and son. The village was simply left to 

itself. Although Nick Lekanoff was at Unalaska, he heard from Makushin people 

that, unlike Unalaska, Makushin was evacuated with no warning. “You guys are 

leaving” is all that they knew. There was no information about where they were 

4 Chercasen, Dorofey, WW II Hearings Testimony.

5	 Kirtland and Coffin, The Relocation and Internment of the Aleuts, 33.
238 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

going or if they would return.6 Elia Borenin was the starosta [church warden] and 

it seems likely that if he had anticipated a lengthy absence he would have taken 

steps to protect the chapel. “Everything in the church was left as it was,” Nick 

Borenin recalled. “All we brought was just a suitcase.”7 They disembarked at 

Chernofski.

The evacuation of Kashega was complicated by the fact that one or two residents 

were at Chernofski. Sophie Kudrin, a woman of legendary drive, was cooking 

at the sheep ranch while Eva, her fourteen-year-old daughter, was staying with 

Efemia Kudrin. Efemia’s daughter, Olga, was in her early 

twenties, and she and Eva provided help to the older 

woman who suffered from severe arthritis. After dinner 

one day, Eva and Olga took garbage to throw over the 

bank and into the sea. They saw a boat of some kind out 

on the water. On their way back home, they passed Olga’s 

brother, Mike J., and told him, “We think we saw a boat 

out there, but we’re not sure.”

“All of a sudden those five planes was coming,” Eva 

recalled. “Good thing they didn’t bomb us!” She and 

Olga just stood and watched as planes flew southwest 

toward the end of the island. Before long, the boat they 

had seen earlier had anchored near the village. Olga later 

identified it as a PBY support boat.8

 Men came ashore in 

a skiff and Mike J. told them about the planes that had 

just flown over. This news appears to have accelerated the 

evacuation of the village. 

“We couldn’t take anything,” Eva recalled. She once 

remarked that people were in such a rush that they just 

grabbed any clothes at hand.9 Efemia Kudrin’s arthritis 

made climbing into the skiff and onto the tug a slow 

laborious process. “And it took a long time to get that Olga’s mother on aboard, 

you know,” Eva recalled. “So I didn’t take anything, no clothes or nothing. Just the 

way I’m wearing, I got on the boat.”10

On another occasion she recalled that after seeing the boats she went back 

to Olga’s house where Mike J. was helping his mother—“She couldn’t walk or 

anything”—and Eva did the dishes. “Mike said he was going to go down by the 

beach again. He said that boat must be coming for something.” Eva, Olga, and 

Mike J. returned to the beach. “The boat was coming; it anchored out and a dory 

came ashore and they told us to go right away. They didn’t even give us a chance 

6 Nick Lekanoff in Smith and Petrivelli, Making It Right, 1040.

7 Nick Borenin in Smith and Petrivelli, Making It Right, 173.

8 Olga Mensoff in Smith and Petrivelli, Making It Right, 180.

9 Eva Tcheripanoff in Smith and Petrivelli, Making It Right, 1049.

10 Eva Tcheripanoff in The Beginning of Memory, 52.

The Kudrins at Kashega. 

Back row, left to right: 

Sergie (21), Peter (30), 

Mike (27). Front row, left 

to right: George (17), 

Efemia (57), Olga (24)

Photograph courtesy 

Jane Mensoff and Eva 

Kudrin.
CHAPTER 16: THE ATTACK AND THE EVACUATION 239

to take our clothes or anything, you know, because those planes were flying 

around Kashega. It was just terrible....It was in the evening, about 9:30.”11

George Gordaoff was older than Eva and his memories, while differing in some 

details, contain important additions.12 He identified the boat that anchored off 

the village as a California herring boat, a “nice boat,” a “big boat.” The ensign was 

in charge and he gave the order for people to pack just a single suitcase. Villagers 

had time to board up the chapel, but there was not enough lumber to thoroughly 

protect all the windows in the homes. After the village pets were put down, the 

people took a dory out to the larger boat. When they arrived at Chernofski, they 

were housed in a tent. This soon proved unsatisfactory because water seeped 

through the canvas floor, actually forming puddles. After George reported the 

problem, the people were moved onto the Columbia, an Alaska Steamship 

Company vessel. Gordaoff recalled that the Kashega people were there for “about 

ten days” before the Nikolski residents arrived. This would date the evacuation of 

Kashega to approximately June 28, the day the general orders were issued.

The women, children, and a few men traveled from Nikolski on an FS or YP boat 

while the younger men traveled on a tug.13 They reached Chernofski on the 

evening of July 5 and immediately went aboard the Columbia. This vessel could 

easily accommodate all the passengers, unlike the overcrowded Delarof. “It was a 

nice big boat,” George Gordaoff recalled, “and it had nice staterooms, dining room, 

a real passenger boat.”14

Twenty individuals are listed as having been evacuated from Kashega, but this 

included Sophie Kudrin and George Gordaoff who were picked up at Chernofski. 

The list identified George Borenin as chief of the village. He was living with the 

elderly Nikifer Denisoff, while Sergie Borenin was staying with Cornelius Kudrin. 

There was Carl Borenin and his young daughter, Mary. Carl’s wife, Eva, had left 

the village. Peter Yatchmenoff appears to have been away from the village, but 

his wife Nellie was there with their two young children, Laura and Paul. Laressa 

Yatchmenoff, the widow of the late chief John Yatchmenoff, had returned to 

Kashega from Unalaska in time to be evacuated. Efemia Kudrin’s household 

included her daughter Olga along with visiting Eva, and also her sons Sergie, 

Mike J., and Peter. Peter’s wife Tatiana had gone to Atka to visit her ailing father 

and been evacuated from there.15 Six-year old Vassa Kudrin, daughter of Mike 

and Dora Kudrin was also at Kashega, but it is not known with whom she was 

living. Kashega not only had the largest population of the three villages, but three 

of its residents—Laresa Yatchmenoff, Efemia Kudrin, and Nikifer Denesoff—

were older than any individuals at Biorka or Makushin. None would survive the 

evacuation. 

11 Eva Tcheripanoff, Sophie Pletnikoff, Ray Hudson, conversation recorded May 23, 1982.

12 Quoted in Arnold, The Legacy of Unjust and Illegal Treatment of Unangan, 109-110.

13 Sovoroff, Leonty, WWII Hearings Testimony.

14 Quoted in Arnold, The Legacy of Unjust and Illegal Treatment of Unangan, 38.

15 Ray Hudson conversation with Alex Kudrin, October 11, 2012.
240 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

The evacuation of Biorka occurred on a day when the men had caught a large 

number of salmon and the women had started preparing them for drying.16

That evening, as it was growing dark, three men arrived in a small boat. Andrew 

Makarin and Candy Ermeloff went to meet them. The order for evacuation had 

arrived. Irene Makarin was inside when her father returned, spoke to his wife in 

Unangam tunuu, and told Irene to collect her clothes. She had no suitcase and 

so she used a flour sack. While the Biorka people gathered their belongings, the 

military men waited at the shore. By the time everyone arrived, it had grown 

dark. Irene recalled that they took a skiff out to a small vessel—“too small”—

leaving their homes behind. “Holy Smoke,” Irene said, “they left—all the Biorka 

people—they left a lot of stuff. My mom and dad used to have chickens, dogs and 

cats, everything. They left a lot of good stuff in their houses.” The fish were left 

drying on racks. It was late and the children had fallen asleep when they arrived 

at a dock. Irene was awakened and led off the ship. “Me, I’m just crying,” she 

recalled. “I want my daddy, you know. Couldn’t see my daddy.” They walked past 

soldiers who stood in a line watching them as they boarded the Columbia.

The route taken by the Columbia from Chernofski has not been determined. 

Kohlhoff suggests it first went to Akutan and then backtracked to Dutch 

Harbor to collect the Biorka people. If those from Biorka were taken to Dutch 

Harbor, it would have been more likely that they boarded the vessel first and 

that the Columbia then proceeded to Akutan. George Gordaoff recalled that 

the Columbia, after leaving Chernofski, stopped at Unalaska and Akutan. If 

the ship stopped at Dutch Harbor, did Andrew Dyakinoff—who is listed on 

the manifest—get off? The strongest evidence that the Columbia went from 

Chernofski to Unalaska is Eva Tcheripanoff’s recollection.

We went from Kashega to Chernofski to pick my mom up. We stayed 

in Chernofski overnight.... We stopped over [at] Dutch [Harbor]. John 

[Tcheripanoff] was working over there that time. I wasn’t married to 

John. I was single. He used to work for Seims Drake or something over 

there. I saw him on the dock. I remember that. From there we went to 

Kodiak. From Kodiak to Ketchikan.... John left with them. John was 

traveling with those Unalaska people.

Nick Galaktionoff recalled both his sister, Molly Lukanin, and Andrew Makarin 

saying that “after the other villages had been picked up, a small boat came from 

Akutan and took the Biorka people to join the Akutan people on a larger ship.”17

In any event, eighteen people from Biorka and forty-one from Akutan soon 

found themselves at sea with the Nikolski, Kashega, and Makushin residents. The 

Biorka women and children were given one room and the men and boys another. 

During the trip to southeastern Alaska, sailors stood guard at the door to keep 

the children from having the run of the ship. On one occasion, Irene slipped out 

and went looking for her father. She was caught by a husky sailor who carried her 

16 This account is based on recollections from Irene Makarin in The Beginning of Memory, 188-191.

17 Nick Galaktionoff, “Memories of Biorka,” in Hudson, ed., Cuttlefish Two, 62.
CHAPTER 16: THE ATTACK AND THE EVACUATION 241

back to the quarters while she struggled and cried, “I want my dad. I want my 

daddy!” The man handed her to Eustina Makarin who delivered a good scolding. 

Among the shipboard traumas that Irene laughed about years later was 

breakfast. The first morning she was seated between her parents at a table with 

the other Biorka people. Breakfast was served and her father said, “You better 

eat something.” But Irene just stared at the odd food in front of her. “I never see 

cereal before, you know,” she said. “I turned around and told my dad, ‘I want my 

fish, boiled fish!’” All the Biorka kids, she said, had a hard time adjusting to the 

food. 

“We were traveling with those Nikolski people,” Eva recalled. “And Peter 

Dushkin’s mother, Augusta— I used to be chubby. I had long brown hair—and 

every time I saw her it seemed she didn’t want to look at me. Every time she saw 

me, she just hide away from me.... She thought I was white people! Oh, she made 

me laugh after we knew each other and she told me, you know!” Augusta told her 

that sometimes when she was tired of being inside the cabin, she wanted to go 

out onto the deck but she was afraid. “She’d look around first, because she didn’t 

want to meet me!”18

As the ship traveled past Unimak Island and along the Alaska Peninsula, there 

were frequent boat drills. Olga Mensoff recalled that they stopped at False Pass 

for water.19 Nikifer Denisoff had hunted sea otters near here a half-century 

earlier, but now he was too old, his eyesight too poor, to join the younger men 

who took turns standing watch. The most he could do was to go to the railing, 

feel the familiar wind and smell the salt air as the ship made its slow way across a 

dark and heavy sea.

18 Eva Tcheripanoff, Sophie Pletnikoff, Ray Hudson, May 23, 1982.

19 Olga Mensoff in Smith and Petrivelli, Making It Right, 180.
242 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

Ward Lake map dating to 1935 showing the Wacker homestead, the CCC shop and garage, 

and the residential area of the camp. The “Play Ground” is a recreational beach. Ketchikan 

Museum.
Chapter 17

A Lake in the Woods

Beginning in 1977 a rising chorus of voices broke the decades of silence 

that had surrounded the evacuation. Unanga{ from the Pribilof Islands, 

Unalaska, and Atka led the effort to document what had happened. 

Evidence accumulated based on village size and the extent to which 

government agencies and non-Native personnel were represented. Testimony 

from St. Paul and Unalaska dominated the record. St. Paul was the largest 

Unanga{ community and had an entrenched government presence. Unalaska 

had a diverse Unanga{ population, economic and military importance, and a 

sizeable non-Native presence. Another factor that influenced documentation 

was the degree to which participants spoke fluent English. All of these factors 

worked against preservation of experiences from Biorka, Kashega, and 

Makushin. While no one denied that testimony from these village residents was 

valuable, their testimony was harder to gather and eventually irrelevant as the 

quantity collected from larger communities grew to the critical mass needed to 

pursue effective action.

The result was that specifics from these villages are often missing. Nowhere is 

this truer than in documenting what happened in southeast Alaska. Imbedded 

among the far greater numbers from Akutan and Nikolski, the handful of 

residents from the three villages all too easily slipped past unnoticed and in 

subsequent publications were either omitted or generalized. Personal Justice 

Denied, the report of The Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of 

Civilians, included neither testimony from nor incidents involving people from 

the three villages. It even mistakenly identified Chernofski as an Aleut village in 

1942. Kohlhoff’s When the Wind Was a River, created primarily by a masterful 

synthesis of documented evidence, suffered from the same lack of specificity. 

The evacuations of Makushin and Kashega were treated in a single sentence 

while that of Biorka was hypothesized.1 His treatment of the years in Southeast 

1 Kohlhoff, When the Wind Was a River, 81.

 CHAPTER 17: A LAKE IN THE WOODS 243
244 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

rarely distinguished the five villages that arrived on the Columbia. Something 

like that will happen in this chapter where testimony from Akutan and Nikolski 

dominates descriptions of what occurred between July 1942 and April 1945 and 

hints at the experiences of people from the three villages.

Sophie Kudrin 

[Pletnikoff] and 

her daughter Eva 

Kudrin [Tcheripanoff] 

at Ward Lake.

Photograph courtesy 

Mary Diakanoff.

Unlike the Pribilof and Atka evacuees, who were taken directly to their 

camps, the residents of Biorka, Kashega, and Makushin aboard the Columbia

first arrived at Wrangell. On July 13, the 160 passengers were trucked to 

the Bureau of Indian Affairs’ boarding school, Wrangell Institute. Built in 

1932, backed by a steep mountain and surrounded by a dense forest of Sitka 

spruce, the three interconnected buildings brooded over the landscape 

about five miles south of the city. Families were assigned to used military 

tents pitched on the front lawn. Showers and medical check-ups followed. 

“Taking a shower was a shock for most of us,” recalled Lavera Dushkin. 

“At Nikolski we had bathed ourselves from a small tub, but mostly we 

took steam baths in our banyas, so showers were new to us.”2

 She served 

as an interpreter for members of a medical team that discovered “virus, 

pneumonia and shock,” as she put it. Overall, the health of the evacuees 

was good, apart from tuberculosis.3 Any child or adult who was found with 

head lice had their hair cut short and kerosene rubbed into their scalps. This 

2 Dushkin, Lavera, WW II Hearings Testimony, 1981.

3 Statement of Captain F.A. Zeusler before the Ketchikan City Council, as reported in The Alaska 

Fishing News, May 24, 1943.
 CHAPTER 17: A LAKE IN THE WOODS 245

was left on for twelve hours after which the scalp was washed. Dr. John H. 

Clements of Wrangell inoculated for typhoid, gave initial immunizations, 

and vaccinated for small pox “all 159 of the refugees.” (Pete Olsen had 

already left the group and was seeking housing in Wrangell.)

“From that day we started eating dog salmon,” said Leonty Sovoroff about arrival 

at the Wrangell Institute, “tea and bread, day in and day out. We were fed three 

meals a day, but the food was not fit to eat, but we ate it because there was 

nothing else to eat. There was no meat, only cheap fish. It was always boiled, not 

cooked any other way.”4 Remembering the fish, Lavera Dushkin remarked, “It 

had an awful smell to it, not like the good salmon at Nikolski.”

For the younger crowd, the older teenagers and young adults who would later 

reflect on the implications of the evacuation, excitement and discovery filled 

the air. “Aleuts take it smilingly,” declared an article the week of their arrival. The 

weather was too hot but people got “a thrill out of the automobiles.”

One chap hailed a taxi out near the Institute with ‘how much to town?’ 

Driver quoted his rates. ‘Too much,’ said the Aleut. ‘I’ll walk.’ He did. Later 

in town, after joining one of his friends, he approached the cab driver with 

‘take us out to the Institute’ and hauled out the necessary fare. Curiosity 

had gotten the better of him. Driver learned it was the first time he had ever 

ridden in an automobile.5

The people off the Columbia occupied all the tents so when 137 Unalaska people 

arrived the first of August aboard the S.S. Alaska they had to camp out in a 

bunkroom of the school. Eventually, women and children were given tents while 

men stayed in the bunkrooms. A few days after the Unalaska people arrived, the 

clerk of the local draft board drove out from Wrangell, registration cards in hand. 

“Many of the men wanted to know when they would get their rifles,” an article in 

The Wrangell Sentinel reported. The men remarked, “We know how to shoot and 

we want to get as many Japs as we can.”6 The list included the following—from 

Makushin: Nick Borenin; from Biorka: Alex Ermeloff, Peter Galaktionoff, Andrew 

Makarin, George Yatchmenoff, Ruff Ermeloff, and Willie Yatchmenoff; and, from 

Kashega: Carl Borenin, Sergie Borenin, George Borenin, Mike Kudrin, Cornelius 

Kudrin, and Sergie Kudrin. Feddie Yatchmenoff would sign up as soon as he was 

old enough. Alex Ermeloff, Andrew Makarin, and George Yatchmenoff had to 

register as “old men” born before 1897. We get a slight indication of their build 

from the cards. Andrew was 5’ 6” and weighted 140 pounds. Alex was two inches 

shorter and weighted five pounds less. George was only 5’2” but weighed 160 

pounds. 

4 Sovoroff, Leonty, WW II Hearings Testimony, 1981.

5 The Wrangell Sentinel, July 17, 1942.

6 The Wrangell Sentinel, August 7, 1942.
246 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

Within two weeks of arrival, the Unalaska people were transported to Burnett 

Inlet on the western side of Etolin Island. Here, in the ruins of a burned-out 

cannery, they dispersed among eleven cabins and one large bunkhouse until 

they were able to construct additional small dwellings. Heavy rains swept 

Southeast all that week.

Biorka, Kashega, and Makushin people, along with those from Nikolski and 

Akutan, were the last to be settled although a site had been selected by late July.7

Scrambling to find a location, officials chose a Civilian Conservation Corps 

camp that had been constructed inland from Ward Lake, a small recreational 

lake eight miles out of Ketchikan. Abandoned at the outbreak of the war, the 

site was being used by a unit of the Air Corps Marine Rescue Service that was 

then transferred to the Annette Island Army Air Field. It was immediately clear 

that the camp did not contain sufficient housing. The Unanga{ men set to 

work constructing a barge to carry lumber along with their few possessions the 

ninety miles from Wrangell to Ketchikan. An Army transport took the majority 

of the evacuees to Ward Cove and then they traveled to the camp on August 

23. They arrived about two in the morning. The remainder, including Dorofey 

“Rusty” Chercasen, arrived a few days later on the Penguin, towing the barge 

full of building supplies. The barge was then hauled overland to the camp. “My 

first impression,” said Rusty on seeing the camp with its two bunk-houses, two 

cabins, a latrine, and a mess-hall, “was that of being put in prison.”8 Fortunately, 

they had brought tents from Wrangell Institute. People set to work despite their 

oppressive surroundings. Pauline Whitfield, the teacher from Nikolski, said “the 

CCC boys left the cabins in a filthy condition.... Aleuts right away made repairs 

and worked hard to make them habitable.”9

“All were glum,” reported Fred Geeslin, with the Alaska Indian Service, noting 

that it was the only time he had seen the people distressed.10

Ward Lake sits a little inland from Ward Cove. The cove opens to the northern 

end of a long channel, one of the innumerable waterways weaving through the 

Inside Passage. But despite all that water, the camp itself was land-locked and 

shadowed by forest. “My first impression,” said William Ermeloff, “was that it 

seemed dark, because of the trees surrounding it.” Dark and damp. As much 

as anything, the dampness troubled Luke Shelikoff of Akutan. He referred to 

the camp as “a damp old thing” where the “ground was wet all the time.” It was 

oppressive and unhealthy. “But talk about damp, we stayed under the woods, up 

here [at Akutan] we see the sun every day, nothing blocks the [sun] because there 

are no trees up here.”11

7 The Alaska Fishing News, Ketchikan, July 31, 1942:2.

8 Chercasen, Dorofey, WW II Hearings Testimony, 1981.

9 “Aleut Camp at Ward Cove Causes Much Discussion at Meeting of City Council,” The Alaska 

Fishing News, May 21, 1943.

10 Quoted in Kohlhoff, When the Wind Was a River, 105.

11 Luke Shelikoff in Smith and Petrivelli, Making It Right, 182-188.
 CHAPTER 17: A LAKE IN THE WOODS 247

“The only things they gave us,” recalled Bill Ermeloff, “were a small camp wood 

burning stove, a few pieces of cookware, pot skillet, some pieces of heavy china 

dishware and some eating utensils. No furniture of any sort was provided.”12

People remembered the better cooking ware, dishes and tableware they had left 

behind.13 Ten houses, 16 by 16 feet, were constructed for the smaller families. A 

skilled electrician from Akutan wired the buildings. The men “had accomplished 

a surprisingly great deal in a short time,” Fred Geesling told the local Rotary 

Club on September 11.14 By October 2, according to the local newspaper, sixteen 

houses and quarters for the teacher had been built. Nothing could relieve the 

overcrowding, however. Feddie Yatchmenoff recalled that there were five in his 

small cabin, and Irene Makarin remarked that she and her parents had lived 

in a single room.15 The laundry building, with its long tin basin with four cold 

water faucets, was the only building with running water. There were two shower 

stalls at one end. Water for homes was drawn from a hydrant located in Heritina 

Sovoroff’s house. Sanitation was inherently poor with a single large “outhouse” 

that Lavera Dushhin called “our village toilet.” 

In it there was a long trough, with no seats whatsoever. It was open 

all the way across. There was always water running into it, to keep it 

somewhat fresh, I guess. We had to use commodes at home, and dump 

them in the toilet. All that stuff exposed was not sanitary nor healthy. It 

made bugs a problem.16

“There was not much to do at the camp after the cabins were built and we settled 

down,” recalled William Ermeloff, “if you could call it that. Some of our younger 

people organized games and dances.”17 One Sunday, shortly after arriving, a 

group of young people walked the eight miles into town and back to see a movie. 

Elementary school was taught by Pauline Whitfield, while a few older students 

returned to the Wrangell Institute. George Gordaoff, having stayed in Wrangell on 

a building project, was ready to go to Ward Cove when he was sent to school in 

Juneau, where he found part-time employment. He remarked that the children 

who attended high school boarded away from the camp and this both lessened 

the crowded conditions and insured health care for those students.18

Men needed to find jobs because they were expected to support their own 

families. To get jobs they needed to find a way into Ketchikan and to use a 

telephone. The telephone installed in the school building at Ward Lake was offlimits, and there was no public transportation that covered the nine miles into 

town. Enter Eugene Wacker, a kind-hearted entrepreneur, who started a taxi run 

and charged 35 cents a ride. “He was a great help to us in finding jobs around 

12 Ermeloff, William, WW II Hearings Testimony, 1981.

13 Dushkin, Lavera, WW II Hearings Testimony, 1981.

14 The Alaska Fishing News, Ketchikan, September 11, 1942:6.

15 Feddie G. Yatchmenoff and Irene Makarin, Vol. VI, Depositions at Unalaska and Nikolski.

16 Lavera Dushkin, WW II Hearings Testimony, 1981.

17 Ermeloff, William. WW II Hearings Testimony, 1981.

18 Quoted in Arnold, The Legacy of Unjust and Illegal Treatment of Unangan, 112.
248 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

Ketchikan,” recalled Leonty Sovoroff. Dorofey Chercasen added, “As soon as he 

knew of a job opening, he came to our camp to tell us about [it] and drove those 

who wanted the job into town. He then would also drive us back to the camp 

after work.” Shortly after starting his taxi service, Wacker and a passenger were 

on their way to town when, entering a sharp curve, they met an on-coming car 

with its lights on bright. Wacker swerved, his car rolled over, and his passenger 

exclaimed, “What the hell, Bill!” Fortunately, there were no injuries.19 Wacker 

eventually bought a small bus, but even that was sometimes so crowded that 

teenagers would have to hold on to the fenders for the ride back to the camp. 

“We owe a lot to the kindness of this dear man,” recalled Dorofey Chercasen. 

“The BIA nor other government agency provided us with transportation into 

town nor helped us with finding employment. Eugene Wacker did this for the 

three years we were at Ward Lake.... He would help bail our people from the city 

jail and then drove them home to the camp, or to their job.” 

Men found employment at a variety of jobs. Leonty Sovoroff worked at the 

Ketchikan Cold Storage during the summer and for most of the winter. 

Occasionally, “a halibut head or two” could be brought home from the plant for 

food. Jobs were found at the Coast Guard station at Point Hagens. “The Creek 

Street Bridge was mostly constructed by Aleuts,” Leonty said. Twenty-six men 

traveled to Juneau to work for the Guy Atkinson Construction Company in the 

spring of 1943.20 Sophie Kudrin, not to be outdone by men, found work as a 

housekeeper for several homes in Ketchikan. She lived in the town itself for three 

years.21

Eugene Wacker and 

his bus. University of 

Alaska Fairbanks, 

Rasmuson Library 

Archives, T#7.

19 The Alaska Fishing News, Ketchikan, October 5, 1942:3.

20 The Alaska Sportsman, April 1943:17.

21 Hudson, ed., Unugulu{ Tunusangin, 223.
 CHAPTER 17: A LAKE IN THE WOODS 249

A chapel was soon constructed. According to John Tcheripanoff, it was 

attached to the messhall, while Lavera Dushkin recalled it being in one of three 

larger buildings; the other two being the school and a laundry. It was furnished 

with icons taken from chapels at Akutan and Nikolski because, unlike the three 

villages, both of these villages had time to crate church belongings prior to the 

evacuation.22 Services were conducted by readers, of which there was at least 

one from each village. Father M.A. Baranof, the priest from St. Paul, who took 

up residence in Juneau, visited periodically. In February 1943 he spoke before 

the Wrangell Rotary Club and said that the Aleuts found Southeastern weather 

severe compared with what they had been accustomed to in the Aleutians.23

The church calendar with its cycle of 

services gave shape to the years. Easter 

and Christmas, of course, were the most 

important and elaborate occasions. There 

is a photograph showing a group of adults 

and children from Ward Lake with two 

Christmas stars. The caption says they 

were at the schoolhouse entertaining 

guests from the Ketchikan USO.

Part of the festivities of these innately 

musical people is the a capella singing, 

in Old Church Slavonic, Aleut, and 

English, of old Russian hymns. During 

the singing, the huge eight-pointed 

stars, with lighted candles in the 

center, are twirled constantly. The stars, 

hand-made and carefully decorated, 

are handed down from generation to 

generation, and are highly valued.24

One of the oddest newspaper articles that 

appeared after people arrival at Wrangell told 

how two women, Mrs. Frank S. Barnes and 

her daughter Doris Ann, went to the Institute 

to sell insurance. They were astonished by 

two things. First, that Unanga{ had money. 

Second, that the first things they wanted 

insured were their home chapels and the 

items left in them. “It seemed rather foolish 

to me,” wrote Doris Ann, “for them to insure 

for money something that was priceless, like 

22 Smith with Petrivelli, A Sure Foundation, 45.

23 The Alaska Fishing News, Ketchikan, February 17, 1943:3.

24 The Alaska Sportsman.

Left to right: Vassa 

Kudrin, Eva Kudrin, 

John Tcheripanoff, and 

Sophie Kudrin [Pletnikoff] 

at Ward Lake. 

Photograph courtesy 

Mary Diakanoff.
250 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

the art work—but who am I to stand in the way of a policy sale?” She went on, 

“They say the Aleuts have very beautiful services out here on Saturday nights, so 

mother and I think we may go some evening and hear the music.”25

Close proximity to Ketchikan provided employment possibilities not readily 

available to those in the other camps. It also made it easy for individuals to 

escape the camp by frequenting local bars and for bootleggers to sell alcohol in 

the camp itself. People who went into town and had a beer or two risked arrest. 

“Our people were put in jail and fined right and left,” recalled Dorofey 

Chercasen. “The Ketchikan City Police many times picked up us Aleuts for no 

reason. These were times when we would not even have had a single drink of 

liquor or beer. Other times were when we had some, but were not staggering nor 

drunk.” He concluded by remarking, “It was hard enough earning money to feed 

ourselves and our families without having it squeezed out of us by the law.”

There were cases of men arrested for domestic assault 

and battery after drinking sprees. The newspaper 

reported “drinking rampages” and “difficulties with 

soldiers.” As winter set in, alcohol abuse led to cases of 

exposure. Pauline Whitfield “was more or less the camp 

health aid,” according to Leonty Sovoroff. With minimal 

health care available, any illness—whether or not related 

to alcohol—became a serious threat. “We were not used 

to that weather down there,” said Luke Shelikoff. He 

blamed the high mortality rate on the dampness. “If they 

keep us on the dry camps probably we might be alright,” 

he said, “but where we stayed was swampy.”26

Ward Lake became, in Kohlhoff’s words, “the second 

deadliest camp in Southeast, behind Killisnoo” where 

the Atkans were housed.27 In July or August, the two Eva 

Borenins from Makushin were photographed in front of 

a tent at Wrangell Institute. The photographer wanted 

youth and age. Both women were dead within nine 

months. Elia’s wife died in her early sixties; his niece was 

about sixteen. They were not the first from Ward Lake to 

die. That had been thirteen-year-old Timothy Bezezekoff 

of Nikolski on September 14, 1942. He had been ill with 

tuberculosis for almost a year. By the end of the year, 

three other Nikolski people had died. Three children and 

three adults followed in 1943. Eight died in 1944. The 

total deaths from Nikolski numbered at least eighteen.

Eva Borenin and her 

aunt Evdokia (Eva) 

Borenin at Wrangell 

Institute. Both died at 

Ward Lake and are 

buried at Ketchikan. 

National Archives.

25 The Wrangell Sentinel, September 11, 1942:6.

26 Luke Shelikoff in Smith and Petrivelli, Making It Right, 184.

27 Kohlhoff, When the Wind Was a River, 128.
 CHAPTER 17: A LAKE IN THE WOODS 251

Akutan fared better, but Mark Petikoff’s wife, Sophie, died in November 1942. 

Astonishingly, the Biorka people survived with no deaths, even though both 

Peter and Molly Lukanin were hospitalized for tuberculosis and each lost a lung.

The three elders of Kashega died within a year. Laressa “Susie” Yatchmenoff, 

the widow of the former chief, was first, dying in early April 1943. At the height 

of summer, in mid-August, Nikifer Denisoff passed away, the oldest of the 

Ward Cove evacuees. Efemia Kudrin, crippled with arthritis, survived until the 

beginning of May 1944.

Carl Borenin died in October 1944, not long after marrying Anna Mensoff of 

Akutan. Stricken with tuberculosis, Peter and Nellie Yatchmenoff were sent to the 

sanitarium in Sitka. They survived the evacuation, but Peter died in June 1947 

and Nellie followed two years later. Each was interred in a bunker mausoleum 

reserved for TB victims, and their children were adopted by non-Native families.

Although Pete and Tatiana Olsen had secured permission to live in Wrangell 

almost as soon as they arrived, their son John was unable to escape the scourge 

of tuberculosis. He was sent to the Laurel Beach Sanitarium in Seattle where he 

died March 18, 1944. Pete Olsen traveled to Seattle and brought his body back for 

burial.

Irene Ermeloff of Biorka was a year younger than Irene Sovoroff of Nikolski, 

and they became friends at the camp. In May 1944 Irene Sovoroff sent for Nick 

Galaktionoff who was with the Unalaska people at Burnett Inlett. They had been 

romantically involved and she was pregnant with their child. Nick, now nineteen, 

had difficulty finding transportation, but he hitched a ride on the mailboat to 

Ketchikan. He arrived on May 29 and made his way to the camp where Irene 

Ermeloff met him. “I know you’re looking for something,” she said. After a while 

she added, “She’s gone.” Irene Sovoroff had died in childbirth and been buried 

with her infant four days earlier. Four years later, Nick would marry the other 

Irene. “Maybe that’s what I was after,” he said, “why I went there.28

By May 1943 the mortality rate at the “Aleut colony” was noticeably high and 

was used as one of the arguments employed by some in Ketchikan to have 

the camp closed and the residents removed as a threat to public health. Or, 

if that were not possible, then to have the government construct a Native 

hospital in a nearby community. On May 19 Harry G. McCain, “Chairman on 

Police, Health, and Sanitation,” wrote a virulent letter to Governor Ernest 

Gruening. He castigated the people as rotten with gonorrhea and syphilis, 

honeycombed with tuberculosis, unsanitary, diseased, and obnoxious. “Even 

the wild animals, such as deer, fall under their scourge.” He recommended 

isolating them or moving them to “a dead town” where they would no longer 

menace “established communities of white people.”29 Three days later he 

28 Nick Galaktionoff in The Beginning of Memory, 184-185.

29 Harry G. McCain to Governor Ernest Gruening, May 19, 1943. The Relocation and Internment of 

the Aleuts During World War II, Vol. III—Conditions at the Camps. 1981:73-75.
252 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

wrote again, moderating his tone, but the damage had been done. At a city 

council meeting the next day, McCain made a motion to ask the governor 

“to either provide proper medical attention for the Aleuts at Ward Cove or 

endeavor to have them moved to another location.” Only one councilman 

voted against it. A letter was sent to Gruening. 

The local paper briefly summarized comments by those present at the meeting, 

most of whom supported the refugees. Eugene Wacker was characteristically 

blunt and accused the council of using “high-handed proceedings” to kick the 

Aleuts out of their homes. Pauline Whitfield, Rev. George Beck, and Captain F.A. 

Zeusler all spoke of the deplorable conditions the refugees had faced and how 

dramatically living conditions in the camp differed from their homes in the 

Aleutians. Among those who expressed support was Hugh McGlashan of Akutan. 

This was Hugh Julian McGlashan, eldest son of the original McGlashan. On his 

way to Seattle for his first visit since 1909, he was traveling with his son Nick and 

his granddaughter Helen. He deplored the haste with which the people had been 

evacuated and said he was hurt when he read in the local paper that they were 

“a menace.” A longer article a few days later quoted him as saying “there were no 

finer citizens any place than the Aleuts; that honest and thriftiness was ingrained 

in them and that no Aleut ever went back on his word.”30

The paper also carried a letter from Mark Petikoff, the chief of Akutan and 

recognized leader of the Ward Lake residents. “Many of our men are already in 

the armed forces,” he wrote.

Others are employed in and around Ketchikan and buying their share 

of war bonds. We did not come to Ward Cove of our own will, but fell in 

readily with war plans of those over us, and we now demand the same 

treatment as any other group of citizens, and are not asking any special 

favors.31

Despite the impending invasion of Attu in 1943, the fur seal harvest in the 

Pribilofs became a priority for the Fish and Wildlife Service. A crew of 151 

men assembled at Funter Bay on May 6, 1943, including men from Ward Cove. 

Once on the Pribilof Islands, the crew was expanded by nine St. Paul men 

who had been serving in the army. The seal harvest was the largest on record. 

George Gordaoff of Kashega had joined the army by this time and he was 

sent to Attu, arriving after the May 1943 battle was over but in time to be sent 

out with a team to find and bury the decomposing bodies of dead Japanese 

soldiers.32George Kudrin also served in the Aleutians.

The workers sent to the Pribilof Islands returned to southeast Alaska, and by the 

spring of 1944 arrangements had been made for the St. Paul and St. George 

30 The Alaska Fishing News, Ketchikan, June 7, 1943:3.

31 The Alaska Fishing News, Ketchikan, May 21, 1943:5.

32 Quoted in Arnold, The Legacy of Unjust and Illegal Treatment of Unangan, 112-113.
 CHAPTER 17: A LAKE IN THE WOODS 253

people to return home. They left Funter Bay on May 4 aboard the army transport 

ship William L. Thompson along with men from the other camps again hired as 

temporary workers. From the three villages the men included Carl Borenin, 

Sergie Borenin, Cornelius Kudrin, Sergie Kudrin, George Borenin, Nick Borenin, 

Akenfa Ermeloff, Mike Kudrin, Peter Lukanin, and Willie Yatchmenoff.33 Akenfa 

or “Candy” Ermeloff, a son of Alex Ermeloff, was not originally listed among the 

evacuees, but he had joined his family by this time.

That same spring, pollution was discovered seeping 

into Ward Lake, halting recreational swimming for 

Ketchikan residents. The pollution was blamed on 

overcrowding at the camp where 142 residents used 

sanitation facilities designed for not more than 65. 

To help correct this situation, according to Kohlhoff, 

46 people from Biorka, Kashega, and Makushin were 

sent to Burnett Inlet in late May. Kohlhoff does not say 

whether they volunteered to leave or were selected 

for removal. Nor does he comment on the impact so 

many arrivals had on an already crowded Burnett 

Inlet. This was, he wrote, “the only action of its kind in 

the whole [evacuation] episode.”34 The source for this 

transfer, a report submitted to Governor Gruening, is 

rife with errors and ambiguity.35 A non-existent Peter 

Dirks is said to be the former chief of Atka. Charles 

and Alice Hope of Unalaska are said to be “one of the 

most influential couples in the Nikolski community” 

while William Zaharoff, chief of Unalaska, and Anfesia 

Shapsnikoff, also of Unalaska, are identified as Nikolski 

leaders. The letter gives no date for the transfer from 

Ward Lake to Burnett; in fact, it implies that in the case 

of Kashega this may have been done at the time of the 

evacuation. 

The collected testimony from Burnett Inlet evacuees 

never mentioned this arrival of people from the three 

villages. Recent direct inquiries produced no memories 

of the event. In fact, when Mary Diakanoff was asked 

if Andrew Makarin had moved into Burnett, she 

emphatically answered, “No.” Andrew was well-known 

and an important leader in the church. His arrival would have made an impression. I 

suspect that the letter sent to Gruening was either a case of a proposed plan that was 

never carried out, or, more simply, a case of an overworked official confusing facts 

and allowing his ignorance to masquerade as fact. 

33 NARA, Pribilof Islands Logbooks, 1870-1961, St. Paul, Funter, Alaska. April 28, 1944.

34 Kohlhoff, When the Wind Was a River, 130.

35 George A. Dale to Governor Ernest Gruening. May 13, 1944. Alaska State Archives. RG 101, box 571.

George Gordaoff. 

Photograph courtesy 

Mary Diakanoff.
254 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

Alice Moller’s permit to return to Unalaska. Alice Moller Collection, courtesy AB Rankin.
 CHAPTER 17: A LAKE IN THE WOODS 255

Back in the Aleutians, the war had entered a holding pattern. The Aleutian 

Campaign officially lasted from June 10, 1942, to August 15, 1943, during which 

approximately one thousand men had died or were missing in action. The 

combined American and Canadian force had numbered 144,000 at its peak.36

Attu had been retaken at the cost of practically all its Japanese defenders; the 

Japanese force on Kiska had escaped what their government called “an 

honorable death” by slipping away while the island was shrouded in fog. For the 

thousands of U.S. troops stationed across the Chain, the months dragged on. “All 

we did on Umnak was wait,” one soldier remembered. “Nothing ever happened. 

Our only enemy was the weather.”37

At Unalaska, the non-Native city council continued 

wrangling over liquor licenses and electrical power, 

while making and warding off personal attacks. Harry 

Jacobsen, who voted in the city election on April 4, 

died on September 2, 1944, of cerebral thrombosis and 

pneumonia. He was 74 and was survived by a niece in 

Seattle. No minutes exist for council meetings between 

1944 and 1947. A school board, however, was organized 

in June 1944, with the expectation that families would be 

returning soon. 

Slowly and gradually, the evacuation that had been done 

with such haste was undone. Repatriating the Chain was 

more complex than the relatively easy return of people to 

St. Paul and St. George. There were bureaucratic delays, 

but by the end of February 1945 plans were ready. In 

March the residents of Ward Lake, Burnett Inlet, and 

Killisnoo were photographed, fingerprinted and issued 

travel permits that allowed entry into Zone B of the Territory of Alaska. Alice 

Moller’s permit named her father, John Denisoff of Kashega, and her mother, 

Feckla Burenin of Chernofski. She would accompany four children under 16 

years of age and enter Zone B at Unalaska. She was married, a housewife, a 

resident, a female, an Aleut. After pressing her inked right thumb to the form, she 

signed the paper on March 23, 1945.38

Before long, the buildings at Ward Lake were torn down and the lumber given to 

Saxman village near Ketchikan. On Sunday, April 15, the army transport David 

S. Branch began boarding passengers at the Ketchikan dock. Mark Petikoff, the 

Akutan chief, had been hospitalized in Ketchikan with pneumonia. He was 

brought to the ship by a doctor and a nurse and immediately taken to the ship’s 

infirmary where he was made comfortable just before the ship pulled anchor and 

departed. The residents of Biorka, Kashega, and Makushin were heading home.

36 Cloe, The Aleutian Warriors, 321.

37 Hudson, ed., Cuttlefish Five, 136.

38 Copy provided by AB Rankin, July 2009.

Blueberry Rain (Alice 

Moller’s House, 

Unalaska).
256 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

George Borenin at Kashega holding a kamleika. University of Alaska Anchorage, Ted Bank 

Collection, circa 1954.
Chapter 18

The Return

T

he most dramatic account of the voyage back to the islands appears in a 

letter Marion V. Benedict wrote.1 She was a “special assistant” assigned to 

Akutan; that is, she was the village school-teacher. Just as the Branch was 

about to sail on April 15, George Dushkin approached her and her husband 

and requested a telegram be sent to the administrator of the church in Sitka, 

Archimandrite John Zlobin, to pray for them while they traveled.2 Benedict was 

impressed by this request. “Did I ever tell you,” she wrote, “these are the nicest 

people we have ever worked with? They had burned their altar from the church at 

Ward Lake and were taking the ashes with them to be buried under the church in 

their own village.”

As a matter of fact, Zlobin had written to Anfesia Shapsnikoff at Burnett Inlet 

on April 9. “Also I calling on you and your children,” he wrote in halting English, 

“Bless of God befor you move from Burnett Inlet and during you move from 

Burnett all way till you come to Unalaska, let God and Mother of God help you 

and save you....”3 In a postscript he sent a blessing to the church committee and 

to the entire congregation.

Despite the illness of Chief Mark Petikoff, joy pervaded the ship as it pulled 

away from Ketchikan. Children flooded the decks and explored every cabin and 

corner, to the alarm of the captain who soon arranged to have certain areas 

made off limits. Unanga{ assisted preparing and serving meals and helping with 

other chores. When the Branch arrived at Burnett Inlet about 7 a.m. Monday 

morning, the Coast Guard began transporting people out to the vessel. A coffin 

1 Copy from Jeff Dickrell. NARA, RG 75. Marion V. Benedict to Don Foster, June 15, 1945.

2 Kohloff wrote that April 15, 1945, was Easter Sunday. However, Orthodox Easter 1945 fell on May 

5 (or April 23 in the Julian calendar). Western Easter fell on April 1.

3 Archimandrite John Zlobin to Anfesia Shapsnikoff, April 9, 1945. Anfesia Shapsnikoff collection.

 CHAPTER 18: THE RETURN 257
258 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

with the body of Martha Newell was lifted aboard for its journey home. Benedict 

noted that a few people carried small trees, their roots carefully wrapped. That 

evening was filled with songs, from The Old Rugged Cross to Don’t Fence Me In. 

Tuesday at Killisnoo, the Atkans joined the passengers. In the evening the movie 

Little Old New York was shown, and by noon the next day the Branch was on the 

open sea. Blackouts were enforced at night; smoking was not allowed on deck. 

That night “we heard that Ernie Pyle had been killed,” Benedict wrote. “Then we 

remembered for a little while that we were at war.” The rough waters sent a few to 

bed with seasickness. For Philemon Tutiakoff and others, the death of President 

Roosevelt on April 12 still weighed heavily.4

On Saturday they entered the Bering Sea. People “hung over the rail looking 

for the first glimpse of Akutan, which was the first village we would come 

to,” she wrote. “We felt their excitement as they sighted Akutan Island.” 

The church came into view as they entered the bay. A crew of men went 

ashore first, followed soon afterwards by the Akutan people along with 

those from Makushin, Biorka, and Kashega. It had been decided that people 

from the three villages would not return to their home villages—at least not 

immediately. Crates and boxes of belongings were “piled helter-skelter all 

over the beach.” The weather all day Saturday was “lovely and sunny” and 

the homecoming should have been joyous. As people entered their homes, 

however, they saw the ravages delivered by three years without care or 

maintenance. Compounding this was the theft of personal property. After 

church services on Sunday, the Branch left the harbor about 1:15 in the 

afternoon. Mark Petikoff was still aboard as it had been decided he should go 

to Unalaska for medical attention. The people at Unalaska would find even 

greater looting and destruction. The Atkans would find ashes. 

Over the next few days and weeks, the Akutan people scrambled to repair 

their homes. The supplies that had been brought were quickly used up as 

was anything serviceable found on the beach. On May 23 word arrived from 

the military hospital at Dutch Harbor that Mark Petikoff had died from heart 

disease and pneumonia. His body was brought home for burial. 

Official reports are silent about the families from the three villages. Where did 

they live? How did those who remained at Akutan integrate into the community? 

Elia Borenin, the chief and starosta of Makushin, survived the war and in 1945 

he was nearing fifty-five. Having served in the choir at Ward Cove, he chose to 

remain where he could participate in services at the Chapel of St. Alexander 

Nevsky.5 Its modest size reminded him of the Chapel of the Nativity waiting with 

its icons and furnishings at Makushin. He preferred Akutan to Unalaska, still 

swollen with a military presence. Two new homes were constructed and one of 

4 Tutiakoff in Hudson, ed., Cuttlefish One, 55.

5 Lydia Borenin Vincler, conversation with Ray Hudson, August 29, 2012.
 CHAPTER 18: THE RETURN 259

these was for Elia and his two adopted sons, Nick and Akenfa (Matfey).6 Akenfa 

would not live long and he died at sixteen. Nick Borenin and Marie Petikoff 

traveled to Unalaska to be married. Their family became an integral part of 

Akutan. The boys’ younger sister, Matrona, had returned with them from Ward 

Lake but, ill with tuberculosis, she was soon sent to the sanitarium in Sitka. 

Once cured, she stayed in Southeast to attend school. She eventually married 

Vincent Abloogalook of Nome and settled in that region. 

Makushin after the war. 

Alice Moller Collection, 

courtesy AB Rankin.

Of the residents of Makushin who had left the village before the war, some—the 

Lekanoffs and Galaktionoffs—returned to Unalaska while a few remained in 

Southeast. The lives of the three widows of 1937 varied greatly. Natalia Borenin 

had succumbed to tuberculosis in 1941. Parascovia “Polly” Galaktionoff had 

married Innokentii Borenin in 1938 and become part of the Unalaska evacuation. 

She died in Juneau shortly after people returned from Southeast. After Valentina 

“Tina” Borenin was widowed, her son Ignaty had been adopted by her brother 

and his wife, John and Angelina Hapoff, in St. Paul. Valentina married Simeon 

Petikoff (originally from Makushin) at Unalaska in 1938. This marriage did not 

last and when the war began and the Delarof arrived at Dutch Harbor with her 

relatives from St. Paul, she went aboard. She remained with them at Funter Bay 

for only a short time before moving to Burnett Inlet with the Unalaska people. 

After the war she settled at St. Paul where she died in 1989 at the age of 74. 

Tatiana and Pete Olsen remained in Wrangell where she died from burns in a 

house fire in November 1948. He became “a familiar Wrangell personage” and 

6 Luke Shelikoff in Smith and Petrivelli, Making It Right, 184.
260 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

died from coronary thrombosis in February 1954.7 Neither ever returned to the 

Aleutians nor was Olsen able to secure compensation for his lost sheep ranch.

The residents of Kashega were scattered. Peter and Nellie Yatchmenoff were 

terminally ill with tuberculosis and died in 1947 and 1949 while still at the 

sanitarium in Sitka. Not long after arriving at Akutan, George Borenin and 

Cornelius Kudrin made their way to Unalaska. It was closer to Kashega and they 

had dreams of reestablishing the village. But younger families would be needed 

if resettlement were to succeed and the younger generation saw possibilities 

elsewhere. George Gordaoff was serving in the military. This would lead to 

a maritime career after he married and settled in Cordova. The children of 

Efemia Kudrin remained in Akutan and were soon woven into the fiber of that 

community. According to Olga Kudrin, who married John Mensoff, Sr., her family 

intended to go to Nikolski when they learned they couldn’t return to Kashega, 

but her “brother Mike signed us up for Akutan”8 George Kudrin arrived in Akutan 

two years after the resettlement because he served in the army until May 1947. 

In 1952, while fishing on the west side of Unalaska, he visited Kashega. The 

church with all its icons and furnishings was still in good condition.9 He married 

Anesia Mensoff but his two brothers—Sergie and Michael—remained single. 

Michael spent several years in Southeast Alaska before returning to Akutan for 

his final years. Peter Kudrin, now divorced, never remarried. Carl Borenin had 

also married during the evacuation—to Anna Mensoff of Akutan—but he had 

died in October 1944 and she returned to Akutan alone. Sophie Kudrin stayed 

at Akutan only a month or two before she went to Unalaska to find work. That 

same summer her daughter Eva married John Tcheripanoff of Akutan but they 

began spending more and more time near Sophie, settling for good at Unalaska 

in 1957. Sergie Borenin, the somewhat elusive resident of Kashega, had married 

Kleopatra (Clara) Kochutin of St. Paul Island and, if he returned to the islands, it 

was not for long.

George Borenin and Cornelius Kudrin eventually returned to Kashega. At first, 

they merely visited, inspected buildings, and made certain that the church was 

secure.10 Based on the December 13, 1948, entry in the diary of Milt Holmes, 

supplied by Cora Holmes, the two men had established permanent residence by 

1948. In 1954 Ted P. Bank II from the University of Michigan made an 

archaeological reconnaissance of western Unalaska Island. In mid-August he and 

his crew visited Makushin. “The tattered, rain-soaked wooden buildings,” he 

wrote, “including the old Russian church, stood in the gathering fog like specters 

out of the past, the wind whistling through them—an eerie Aleutian ghost town.” 

As they approached Kashega the next evening, they expected to find the same 

desolation. Out from among “the ramshackle buildings of Kashega village,” 

however, came George Borenin to meet them. “To our surprise, as we pulled in to 

the cobble beach,” he wrote, “an Aleut stepped from the shadows and directed us 

7 Information from Pat Roppel and Rachel Mason, e-mail September 1, 2012.

8 Olga Mensoff in Smith and Petrivelli, Making It Right, 181.

9 George Kudrin in Smith and Petrivelli, Making It Right, 175.

10 Walter Dyakanoff, conversation with Ray Hudson, June 9, 2004.
 CHAPTER 18: THE RETURN 261

to a good anchorage.” Borenin helped the anthropologist in other ways, 

describing Split Rock where mummies had been found in 1928 and showing him 

the locations of ten village sites, including three of good size.

George Borenin visiting 

Carl Moller at Unalaska, 

1946. Photograph 

courtesy Ray Hudson.

George Borenin...was waiting hopefully, with almost child-like faith, 

for the day when people would return and live in the empty, ghostly 

houses he watched over. As we got to know George better in the days 

that followed, we discovered that he was a remarkably brave and 

deeply religious person. Even if people didn’t return to Kashega, he had 

decided to remain so that the small community church would be cared 

for. Once a week, on Saturdays, he held services with only the wind to 

join him in chanting the liturgy and only the shadows as congregation. 

He confided to us that one fear plagued his mind, that of dying alone 

where no one would find him and no one would bury him.11

Bank photographed the last chief in the church and before a large radio that he 

used to communicate with Dutch Harbor. By 1956, after living alone for some 

time, he was joined by Cornelius Kudrin.12 According to Alfred Stepetin, the two 

men used earnings from the Pribilofs to buy needed supplies and materials.13

Popular rumor had it that a feud developed between them and that each would 

row his own dory out to the mailboat when it arrived. Cornelius returned to 

11 Bank, “The Past Ages of Unalaska,” 36.

12 The Mailboat Monitor, September 1956.

13 Stepetin, Alfred. January 21, 1988. Elders in Residence Program Collection. Oral History 

Collection of the Alaska and Polar Regions Department. Elmer E. Rasmuson Library, University of 

Alaska, Fairbanks.
262 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

Unalaska first, settling in a small house the Kudrins provided. He died in April 

1964. During one of his trips to Unalaska, George fell ill and was sent to the 

Alaska Native Hospital in Anchorage.14 He returned, but failing health gradually 

forced him to move to Unalaska permanently. Jenabe and Elaine Caldwell 

gave him the use of a small cabin across the street from where his niece Eva 

Tcheripanoff lived. The church was now clearly in danger of being plundered by 

fishermen. Father Basil Nagoski had arrived at Unalaska in October 1960 as the 

first permanent priest since the war. He was energetic, systematic, and deeply 

devoted to the people. He arranged to visit Kashega where he collected the 

chapel’s icons and placed them in the Church of the Holy Ascension. In February 

1965 George Borenin again entered the Anchorage hospital. He died there on 

June 8 and was buried at Unalaska.

George Borenin inside 

the Kashega chapel.

photograph by Ted P. 

Bank II, uaa-hmc-0068-

series16-f7-12 Bank.

14 The Mailboat Monitor, November 1956.
 CHAPTER 18: THE RETURN 263

In the early 1980s John Moller, a grandson of Alice Moller, stopped at Kashega 

while fishing on the Shellfish. The church had collapsed and the cupola was lying 

in the high grass. “I rolled it down the beach, towed it to the fishing boat,” he 

wrote. He and his crew “lifted it aboard with the crane. You should of seen the 

Shellfish coming into Unalaska Bay with this big cross standing with authority on 

the bow.”15

It is possible to date the resettlement of Biorka to the summer or fall of 1945. 

Marion and Harry Benedict opened school at Akutan on 

September 4. They had nine boys and nine girls identified 

as Aleut along with three who were listed as white (Nick 

McGlashan, Helen McGlashan Gilbert, and Axel Svenson). By 

the end of May when the term ended, three of the students had 

withdrawn. Margaret Yatchmenoff, age 12, Fedey Yatchmenoff, 

age 13, and Irene Makarin, age 14, had “moved to Biorka.”16

Having seen the condition of homes at Akutan, the Biorka 

people must have worried about their own village. They had 

cause to expect the worst. In late summer 1944, Simeon Oliver 

had joined two geologists on Sedanka. His book Son of the 

Smoky Sea, about being raised at Unalaska in the Jesse Lee 

Home, had been published the year before. “The little village 

was a sorrowful sight to me,” he wrote in a sequel, Back to 

the Smoky Sea, “for the natives had been evacuated and the 

houses stood broken and empty with indications of having 

been ransacked. The church was intact and had been boarded 

up.” 

The little native village there was a picture of desolation. 

When the natives were suddenly evacuated they left many of their 

goods behind. Their looted houses were almost lost in two seasons’ 

growth of petrusky and the long, coarse grasses that were reclaiming 

the village to the wilderness. The island was swarming with foxes that 

had been planted there in peace-time and had not been trapped since 

the war began. They had eaten everything imaginable, even the hide 

coverings of the bidarkis, which lay like skeletons on the beach. The 

foxes had made themselves at home in the deserted houses, tearing up 

furniture and beds in their voracious search, breaking open the pillows 

and scattering feathers everywhere. Biorka won’t be a nice place for my 

Aleut friends to come home to.17

Icon from the Kashega 

Chapel iconostasis. 

This icon can be seen 

in situ in photograph 

on preceeding page 

between the holy doors. 

National Park Service.

15 John Moller, e-mail to Ray Hudson, December 22, 2011. The cupola was placed inside the 

churchyard. Plans to enclose it in a small memorial were never finalized and it eventually made its

way to the city landfill.

16 NARA RG 75. School Census of Indian Children, Akutan, Alaska, May 23, 1942.

17 Nutchuk, Back to the Smoky Sea, 216-217.
264 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

George Borenin at 

his table in Kashega. 

Photograph by Ted P. 

Bank II, courtesy Ray 

Hudson. 

Nevertheless, it was home, and the Biorka people were determined to reestablish it. As with so much of the story about these three villages, Nick 

Galaktionoff is our primary source. He told how Andrew Makarin and Alex 

Ermeloff took a dory from Akutan to Biorka. After making an inspection of the 

village, they crossed to Ugadaga, hiked into Unalaska, and stayed with Andrew’s 

brother, Elia. They approached Verne Robinson, the U.S. deputy marshal. Verne, 

in turn, went to see a military official who promised a power barge. Andrew and 

Alex returned to Akutan—only after stopping at the Unalga Island outpost to 

explain who they were. The barge eventually arrived and took the people with 

their few possessions to Sedanka Island. Once set ashore, Nick said, they were 

pretty much forgotten. 

“There was no help, nothing, no lumber, no groceries,” Nick said.18

And, he might have added, no real knowledge of conditions on the part of 

government employees. An example of this is found in a letter George A. Dale, the 

director of education for the Alaska Native Service, wrote to Ted Bank II in 1948. “It 

happened that I participated in the planning and carrying out of the rehabilitation 

of these people in the Islands,” he began, “and I can now advise that there are now 

communities of Aleuts at Atka, Nikolski, Unalaska, and Akutan.” So far, so good; 

but then he added a sentence with no basis in fact: “There are smaller groups and 

scattered families at such locations as Makushin, Kashega, Biorka, Chernofski and 

other points west of Unalaska.”19

18 Nick Galaktionoff, conversation with Ray Hudson, June 3, 1993.

19 George A. Dale to Ted Bank II, May 28, 1948. Archives and Special Collections Department, 

University of Alaska Anchorage, Theodore Paul Bank, II, Papers. HMC-0068, Series 2, Folder 3.
 CHAPTER 18: THE RETURN 265

Andrew traveled to Unalaska again, probably after the decommissioning of the 

Unalga outpost, and received permission to salvage lumber from the island. He 

tried to persuade Paul and Alice Tutiakoff to move to the smaller village, but they 

remained at Unalaska. Using the material from Unalga, 

people further strengthened and repaired their homes. A 

new house was constructed for Peter and Molly Lukanin. 

The next summer, when the men traveled to St. Paul to work 

in the seal harvest, the women and children came to 

Unalaska. After sealing was over, the families returned to 

Biorka. That winter, with one of the heaviest snowfalls in 

memory, the men trapped cross and silver fox for which they 

received between $30 and $40 each. 

On April 1, 1946, Nick was at Ugadaga Bay with Ruff 

Ermeloff, Andrew Makarin, William “Coco” Yatchmenoff, 

and Akenfa “Candy” Ermeloff.20 They were collecting coal 

that had been left behind by the military. The tide came in 

and went out several times. When their dory was left high 

and dry, the men rushed to load the coal before the tide 

returned. Nick was puzzled, but Ruff knew what was going 

on and just kept laughing. An earthquake, now measured at a magnitude of 8.6, 

had struck south of Unimak Island, generating a tsunami that wiped away the 

Scotch Cap Lighthouse, killing the five attendants. It then traveled south to do 

extensive damage in the Hawaiian Islands and along the Pacific Coast. When the 

men returned to Biorka, “it was like something had been pounding the houses,” 

Nick said. Later he hiked over to the Pacific side of Sedanka Island and found logs 

100 to 150 feet up in the hills. At least two sand spits had vanished.21

In 1947 Irene Makarin married William Yatchmenoff. It was an arranged marriage 

that took the concerted efforts of the entire village to complete; and, despite 

Irene’s objections and delays, it lasted many years.22 By the time Biorka was 

resettled, Peter and Molly Lukanin’s son Moses had been adopted into the 

extended Makarin family. With both Peter and Molly undergoing treatment 

for tuberculosis while in Southeast Alaska, it became impossible for them to 

care for their son. Elia and Agrafina Makarin were prepared to adopt him, but 

when it came time to formally sign the papers, Agrafina could not write her 

name. Her daughter, Myria, stepped in, signed the papers, and became Moses’ 

adoptive mother. His first memory of meeting his birth parents was when he was 

thirteen.23

Cornelius Kudrin (left) 

and George Borenin 

at Chernofski ranch. 

ASL H. D. Catron 

Collection, Cap160-

08.

20 “Candy” Ermeloff died June 3, 1951, at Unalaska, at the age of 39. He had been married to 

Kathryn Yatchmenoff [Tutiakoff], daughter of Helen Golley and John Yatchmenoff II of Kashega. 

Murray, Mini-biographies.

21 Nick Galaktionoff, conversation with Ray Hudson, June 3, 1993.

22 Irene Makarin in The Beginning of Memory, 197-198.

23 Moses Gordieff in The Beginning of Memory, 206-207.
266 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

Nick Galaktionoff spent three years at Biorka after the war. In 1948 he married 

Irene Ermeloff. Although this marriage was not arranged, he had to ask Alex 

Ermeloff’s permission.24 Their first child, a son, did not live long and was 

buried at Biorka.25 Nick preferred life in the village over life 

at Unalaska. The people at Biorka, he said, didn’t make 

much money, but they got by all right.26 One summer he 

chose to forego sealing at St. Paul and instead helped catch, 

dry, salt, and smoke fish that was then brought to Unalaska 

for sale to troops who were still at the base. Anna Jean 

Bereskin, Irene and William Yatchmenoff’s eldest daughter, 

remembered playing on the beach at Biorka with her 

younger sister Kathy, whom she pestered. She recalled 

looking up and seeing the gray houses standing nearby. She 

also remembered the hike from Ugadaga Bay into Unalaska. 

She recalled the steep climb and how she, her sister Kathy, 

and Johnny Ermeloff would play along the way. “I guess 

because we knew how long the trail was,” she wrote.27

Undoubtedly this hike was one of the deciding factors 

when people weighed the pros and cons of living at Biorka. 

The military had used the trail during the war as a route to 

the outpost just outside Ugadaga Bay. They had run a communications line 

along it. After the war, the route from the bay to the summit still followed 

a narrow winding trail, but the hike down into town was now on one of the 

roads that veined Unalaska Valley.

Nick Galaktionoff recalled that George Yatchmenoff, William’s father, was the 

first Biorka resident to move permanently to Unalaska. “He came here and found 

a house right away,” Nick said. “He didn’t even tell Andrew he was moving, but 

went back to Biorka and got his wife and children and came here.”28 George was 

followed by Alex Ermeloff. “Alex said that if he were younger he could do this,” 

Nick said, referring to the arduous difficulty of supplying food to the village. “But 

as he was now older, it was too hard.... Then, too, if you had children and they 

became sick, there was no one who could treat them.” About a year later, Alex’s 

son, Ruff Ermeloff, moved to Unalaska and finally Peter and Molly Lukanin came. 

There was never a school at Biorka. Even at Unalaska, where the population was 

much larger, staffing the school after the war was difficult.

Not long after people began moving away, Biorka was hit by a storm that 

destroyed some of the houses and weakened the church. This was likely the 

storm that struck on March 10, 1952. John Fletcher of Unalaska wrote that it 

was the most violent one he had seen in over twenty-five years. People watched 

24 Nick Galaktionoff in The Beginning of Memory, 125. Irene Galaktionoff died in 1967.

25 Murray, Mini-biographies.

26 Nick Galaktionoff, recorded April 7, 1976.

27 Anna Jean Bereskin, e-mail to Ray Hudson, March 3, 2012.

28 Galaktionoff, Nick, “Memories of Biorka,” in Hudson, ed., Cuttlefish Two, 63.

Moses Gordieff 

at a bentwood 

hat workshop at 

Camp Qungaayuˆx. 

Photograph by David 

Gregory. 
 CHAPTER 18: THE RETURN 267

cabanas “turning over and over, then falling apart and blowing completely off 

the island and into the sea.” Fletcher wrote that, “the wind tower at the Dutch 

Harbor air weather station across the bay was torn off when the blow reached 

140 m.p.h., so the top speed remains a mystery.” The upper end of Unalaska 

Valley—that is, the area where the pass leads down to Ugadaga Bay, “was minus 

21 buildings by actual count after the storm. In some instances the ground was 

completely cleared down to bare earth.”29 Another observer noted, “Hundreds of 

buildings were blown off their foundations or collapsed.”30

When Biorka people made a trip back to Sedanka, they found that wind had 

damaged the church and blown gravel up to the level of the windows.31 The 

Lukanins’ new home had been lifted off the ground, hurled across the bank and 

into the sea. Half of George Yatchmenoff’s home—actually more of a duplex—

was in the bay while a good part of the Makarin home was destroyed. Only Alex 

and Ruff Ermeloff’s homes were intact. There would be no resettlement.

Although the former residents of the three villages continued to identify with 

their home villages, they began a slow integration into the 

broader Unalaska community. This was reflected in their 

participation in the life of the Church of the Holy 

Ascension. Alex Ermeloff and Andrew Makarin joined a 

series of local people who read services in the absence of a 

priest. Nick Lekanoff, after an apprenticeship following his 

move to Unalaska before the war, became third starosta in 

1948 and second starosta in 1952.32 When repairs were 

made on the church immediately after the war, Andrew 

Makarin played a significant role. According to Tracy 

Tutiakoff, when the roof and bell tower were repaired 

Andrew Makarin and William Dyakanoff gave directions 

from the ground below while younger men did the actual 

carpentry. When the cupola over the altar was replaced, 

Andrew Makarin cut the intricate pieces prior to their 

assembly.33

Icons from the three village chapels eventually graced the 

walls of the Unalaska church. In the summer of 1945, Nick 

Lekanoff and other men had fished at Makushin; and, 

when the season was over, they brought icons from the 

chapel to Unalaska. An icon of the Resurrection above the 

Royal Doors in the main nave at Unalaska may have come from Biorka although 

most of the Biorka icons went to Dillingham after the church there burned. 

29 Fletcher, John, “The Big Blow,” The N.C. Company Flag, Northern Commercial Company, June 

1952.

30 Totem Telegraph, August 1952:2.

31 Nick Galaktionoff in The Beginning of Memory, 131-132.

32 Nick Lekanoff in Smith and Petrivelli, Making It Right, 1039.

33 Tracy Tutiakoff in Smith and Petrivelli, Making It Right, 1053.

At Unalaska (left to 

right): William Dyakanoff, 

Andrew Makarin, Father 

Baranoff, Philemon 

Tutiakoff, John Golodoff. 

Alice Moller Collection, 

courtesy AB Rankin.
268 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

Six small icons from Kashega now reside on the iconostas in the St. Innokentii 

Chapel, one of two side chapels in the Church of the Holy Ascension. More 

Kashega icons adorn the walls of this church.34

A real and personal property list prepared in January 1954 by E.E. Hortman, the 

Unalaska city assessor, listed several former residents of the three villages. A 

subsequent list two years later reflected how thoroughly these villagers had 

settled into Unalaska. From Biorka, the people included Feddie Yatchmenoff, 

William and Irene Yatchmenoff, Nick and Irene Galaktionoff, and Molly Lukanin. 

Although neither Andrew and Eustina Makarin nor Alex Ermeloff were included 

in the 1956 list, they were also now at Unalaska. The Makarins lived with Coco 

and Irene Yatchmenoff and their growing family. Andrew’s grandchildren called 

him Kia.35

A calendar painting of 

the Church of the Holy 

Ascension given by 

George Borenin to Ray 

Hudson, 1965. Image 

courtesy Ray Hudson. In addition to the Biorka families, the 1956 accessor’s list included Sergie 

Borenin, Peter and Augusta Galaktionoff, Mike and Dora Kudrin, Arthur 

Lekanoff, Constantine and Helen Lekanoff, Maria Lekanoff, Nick Lekanoff, 

Timonty Lekanoff, Molly Lukanin, and Sophie Pletnikoff. (Sophie Kudrin had 

married Simeon Pletnikoff on December 28, 1949. She was forty; he was ten years 

her junior. It was one of the shortest marriages on record, and all she kept from 

the marriage was his name.) Several of these families were provided housing by 

subdividing a large parcel on the eastern end of the village into eleven 

“undeeded” lots. Cabanas were hauled down from abandoned military enclaves 

34 Nick Lekanoff in Smith and Petrivelli, Making It Right, 1058.

35 Anna Jean Bereskin, e-mail to Ray Hudson, March 1, 2012.
 CHAPTER 18: THE RETURN 269

and set up in two rows. Referred to as “New Town” these small dwellings became 

homes for people from Biorka, Kashega, and Makushin. Eventually, after the land 

was transferred to the city by the Bureau of Land Management and the Townsite 

Trustee, residents were able to purchase deeds for $40.00. Molly Lukanin was the 

first to send in her money order. On November 6, 1964, the first set of deeds went 

out to her, Mike Kudrin, and Elsie Yatchmenoff.

Men in their National 

Guard uniforms. Left 

to right: John Borenin, 

Kusta Lekanoff, William 

“Coco” Yatchmenoff, 

Simeon Lekanoff, 

and Moses Gordieff. 

Photograph courtesy 

Jennie Lekanoff. 

The last chief of Biorka, Alex Ermeloff, died in early November 1957 and was 

buried in the Unalaska churchyard. The Mailboat Monitor, a small somewhat 

gossipy monthly newspaper published by its captain, Nels Thompson, noted: 

Mrs. Agatha Ermeloff returned from the hospital in Anchorage just 

in time to attend the funeral of her father-in-law Chief Alexa [sic] 

Ermaloff, one of three lay readers in the Russian Orthodox church 

here. He is survived by his son Ruff and family, and daughters Elsie and 

Dora. His funeral was held Nov. 5.36

The weather was unusually warm the winter of 1958-1959. Ducks and geese 

wintered in Unalaska Bay. Sea lions came in and whales were seen surfacing 

in the mouth of the bay. “Andrew Makarin, honored lay reader at the Russian 

36 The Mailboat Monitor. December 1957:3.
270 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

Cathedral in Unalaska, is an inveterate duck hunter, and seldom misses a shot 

on the wing,” wrote John Valentine in a newsletter for the Northern Commercial 

Company, the successor of the Alaska Commercial Company at Unalaska.

On this occasion, Andrew fired from his rocking boat, and nailed a 

duck. But while the duck was still flapping in mid-air, a huge American 

eagle swooped out of nowhere, snatched the duck, and calmly lit on 

the beach. Andrew had already turned his boat into shore, and 

beaching it, leaped after the duck-snatcher with boots flapping and 

gun waving. By effortless short flight the canny eagle kept just ahead of 

Andrew’s flailing arms, tantalizing him down the whole length of 

beach. Andrew hollered to spectator John [Valentine] for aid, but just 

as John protested bare hands were no match for the big bird, the eagle 

decided he’d played enough and headed off for the mountain with his 

purloined dinner.37

Andrew’s role at the church took on added importance 

after Father Nagoski was transferred to Japan 

where he served as bishop in Tokyo. Andrew shared 

church duties with Anfesia Shapsnikoff, and when 

he became ill in June 1963 and was transported by 

air to Anchorage, Anfesia had Nick Lekanoff send a 

wire alerting Father Simeon Oskolkoff.38 Andrew was 

diagnosed with asthma and returned to resume his 

duties, sometimes alone, sometimes with Anfesia or 

her son Philemon. He baptized numerous children 

and conducted funeral services. He assisted Ishmael 

Gromoff when the new priest held his first service on 

May 3, 1966. 

Until Eustina’s health declined, Andrew and his wife 

would occasionally return to Biorka for a week or two. 

Michael Swetzof recalls going with them to the top of 

the pass and then leaving them as they hiked down 

the trail to Ugadaga Bay and to the skiff they used to 

cross to the village.39 Andrew returned to Biorka one 

last time in 1965 to dismantle the church and build a 

small square protective structure over the site of the altar. The remaining wood 

was burned. Among the artifacts recovered from Biorka in later years was a handwritten copy Andrew Makarin had made of A Brief Guide to a Pious Life [Kratkoe 

praviol dlya blagochestivoi zhizni], one of the more obscure religious works 

published in Unangam tunuu in the early 20th century. Written in Andrew’s fine 

cursive hand, the manuscript fills twenty-eight pages and testifies to his devotion 

37 Valentine, John (J.V.), The N.C. Company Flag, Northern Commercial Company, March 1959.

38 Shapsnikoff, Anfesia, Diary, June 3, 1963.

39 Michael Swetzof, conversation with Ray Hudson, September 11, 2012.

Alfred Stepetin 

and Carl Moller at 

Unalaska, 1953. Alice 

Moller Collection, 

courtesy AB Rankin. 
 CHAPTER 18: THE RETURN 271

and acumen. When I visited him at Anfesia Shapsnioff’s suggestion near the end 

of his life, I asked if he would write something for me in Aleut. He took a scrap of 

paper and a pencil, smiled at me, and wrote two words: Unangam tunuu.

Eustina Makarin died in November 1968. Andrew survived only seven months 

longer, dying June 25, 1969. He was buried beside the Church of the Holy 

Ascension.
272 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

Andrew Makarin’s skiff on the Ugadaga beach, circa 1970. Photograph by Ray Hudson.
 CHAPTER 18: THE RETURN 273

Andrew Makarin. Photograph by Richard S. Heyza, for The Seattle Times, 

December 1966. Courtesy Ray Hudson.
274 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN Wire fence and gate remains, Makushin Village, August 31, 

2009. Photograph by Lauren Adams.
CHAPTER 19: THE LEGACY 275

Chapter 19

The Legacy

Although diverging in significant ways during their final decades, each 

of the three villages was a culturally unified community, however 

stressed at times, however different in the 1930s from what they had 

been in the 19th century. Each had an evolving but continuous ethnography; 

that is, change occurred within the context of village history and was to a 

degree controlled by the people themselves. The swift changes precipitated 

by the World War II evacuation disrupted this pattern of gradual and adaptive 

introductions and hurled the villages toward oblivion. 

By the time war enveloped Biorka and Kashega, these two villages were 

exhibiting differences that were at least as significant as their similarities. 

Although both relied on wages earned each summer in the Pribilof Islands seal 

harvest, their local economies differed significantly. Biorka remained essentially 

isolated while Kashega (like Makushin) had attracted outsiders whose presence 

accelerated change. For example, however much Unangam tunuu was used in 

Kashega homes, English was becoming an advantage for employment at the 

sheep ranches and in commercial fishing. Biorka residents had little reason to 

acquire English. Although Kashega had older residents, Biorka’s ties with the 

past had a practicality—an economic component—that was stronger than any 

at Kashega. What would have become of these villages without the interruption 

of the war? While that question cannot be answered, the question whether or not 

the evacuation prevented either Kashega or Biorka—or a resettled Makushin, 

for that matter—from developing into a sustainable community during the 

crab boom of the 1960s and the emergence of village corporations in the 1970s 

can be answered in the negative by an examination of the resources available 

in those locations. They lacked sufficient water and land for development; their 

harbors were neither deep enough nor large enough for the number and type of 

ships that would be involved. Would the population have survived the flood of 
276 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

outsiders? It seems unlikely. Would these villages have found economic solutions 

to ward off emigration apart from commercial fish processing? Who can say?

By 1960 the lost villages were lost forever. Survivors from the three villages had 

been incorporated into other communities, principally Akutan and Unalaska. 

The extent of assimilation varied from person to person. For almost a century, 

Unalaska had been anything except receptive to promulgating Unanga{ identity. 

In a series of lectures in 1988, Alfred Stepetin described conditions at Unalaska 

in the 1930s. By 1933, he said, “already the Aleut traditions were forgotten. Very 

few people knew how to sing, dance, or even basket weave.”1 This explains 

why Anfesia Shapsnikoff, when she contemplated forming a club to promote 

Unanga{ culture in 1967, named Andrew Makarin from Biorka and Sophie 

Pletnikoff from Kashega among those who would be key contributors. She also 

included people from Nikolski—such as Sergie Sovoroff—and from Akutan—

such as Bill Tcheripanoff—but no one from Unalaska.2 This club never became 

a reality, but Tcheripanoff, Shapsnikoff, and others—notably Sophie Pletnikoff , 

Nick Galaktionoff, and Sergie Sovoroff—taught traditional skills in nontraditional 

ways whenever opportunities arose. They participated in school classes paid 

with federal Indian education and other grant funds; they gave demonstrations 

at Native craft festivals; and each taught private lessons when requested. 

With the formation of corporations under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement 

Act in the early 1970s, it was clear that Unanga{ communities would change once 

again. For the eastern Aleutians, Unalaska in particular, this federal legislation 

arrived not a moment too soon. Commercial success had always brought 

domination by outsiders. The first king crab boom had arrived in the early 1960s; 

and as that decade progressed, the relatively small Unanga{ community—

including former residents of the three villages and their descendents—began to 

be overtaken by outside economic forces massed behind commercial fisheries 

just as it had been overwhelmed by the military a generation earlier. By 1970 the 

General Services Administration had already sold a few key parcels of land on 

Amaknak Island to private developers and further sales were only halted when 

three elderly Unanga{ filed suit. Local Unanga{ organizers were assisted by a 

growing regional body as they made difficult, complex, and at times fractious 

decisions. 

With the formation of the Akutan and Ounalashka Corporations, identity 

acquired a corporate component that some viewed with disdain as being nontraditional, non-Native. But Unanga{ identity had always had an economic 

component. “For a long time already the Aleuts...accept and are ready to 

accept every innovation which tends to their advantage,” wrote Veniaminov in 

the 1830s, “not because they did not dare to go against the innovators, but 

1 Alfred Stepetin, January 19, 1988. H90-06-180, Elders in Residence Program Collection, Oral 

History Collection of the Alaska and Polar Regions Department, Elmer E. Rasmuson Library, 

University of Alaska, Fairbanks.

2 Anfesia Shapsnikoff to Ray Hudson, Sept. 13, 1967.
CHAPTER 19: THE LEGACY 277

Playing a game at the 

A.C. Company House, 

Unalaska. 

1. Polly Lekanoff

2. Jenny Galaktionoff

3. William “Coco” 

Yatchmenoff 

(Kashega and Biorka)

4. Alex Ermeloff (Biorka)

5. Dora Kudrin 

(Kashega)

6. Anfesia Shapsnikoff

7. Molly Lukaninf 

(Makushin and 

Biorka)

8. Larry Mensoff 

(Akutan)

9. Sophie Pletnikoff 

(Chernofski and 

Kashega)

10.Agrifina Makarin

Photograph by 

Theodore P. Bank II, 

circa 1953.

because they were convinced of the real benefit of the innovations.”3 Within the 

corporations, seemingly “non-corporate” attitudes occasionally influenced 

decisions. The Ounalashka Corporation’s refusal to act hastily, as outside 

developers frequently urged, contributed to its gradual emergence as a key 

player in the future of the region. At Akutan, leaders took pains to insure the 

relevance of their traditional chief, Luke Shelikoff. “They told me that I am still 

chief of the village,” he said, “that I am still taking care of the people.”4

At the same time that nascent regional and local corporations pursued a 

secure and profitable base for their operations, a parallel movement developed 

to address social and cultural issues. This was focused in local non-profit 

corporations and in the regional Aleutian Pribilof Islands Association, also 

a development of ANCSA. Broad social issues took precedence over cultural 

matters. Government and private funding was available for critical areas such 

as housing, health, and education. Less easily funded—and consequently 

less emphasized—were needs related to language and a range of cultural 

3 Veniaminov, Notes, 320-321.

4 Luke Shelikoff in Smith and Petrivelli, Making It Right, 173.
278 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

components that traditionally distinguished Unanga{ from other Alaska Native 

groups. These had been preserved most strongly by residents of the lost villages. 

Before the first decade of corporations under ANCSA had passed, the Aleutian/

Pribilof Islands Association focused part of its attention and money on the 

evacuation and relocation of Unanga{ villages during World War II. Initiated 

by Patrick Pletnikoff, championed by Philemon Tutiakoff, and aggressively 

pursued by Greg Brelsford and Dimitri Philemonof, the reparations effort 

took more than a decade and was coupled with Japanese-American efforts to 

address the internment of civilians. It involved extensive research, interviews, 

and Congressional testimony, and culminated in passage and signing of the 

reparations bill (Public Law 100-383) on August 10, 1988. 

The Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians held a 

hearing at Unalaska in September 1981. At its conclusion, Judge William M. 

Marutani, the only Japanese American to sit on the commission, went off the 

record and spoke directly to students I had brought to the last session. “I don’t 

get out to Unalaska very often,” he said, with a slight smile. “I’m afraid this will 

be my first and last time and this will be my only opportunity.” In the course of 

listening to Unanga{ testify, he had found many similarities between the Aleut 

experience and that of Japanese Americans. “The experience has been strikingly 

similar,” he said. “The suffering has been similar.”

He recalled a young Unanga{ who had expressed feeling shame at being an Aleut 

at one point of her life. “And the Nisei, too, felt shame,” Marutani said, using the 

term for second generation Japanese Americans. But when you find out, he said, 

especially when young people “find out—and you owe it to yourself because it 

is part of your heritage—about what your parents and your grandparents went 

through—I think you will be mighty, mighty proud of them. You will be mighty, 

mighty proud to be an Aleut. And you should be.” The story of the evacuation, 

he insisted, should be widely available. “It should be made available to all, 

but particularly to you because it has very special meaning to you and it will 

strengthen you as you grow.” 5

Did the evacuation contribute to extinguishing Unanga{ identity in the way 

the report from The Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of 

Civilians declared? “The Aleuts had their culture snatched from them,” the 

report concluded. “The loss of a generation of village elders has had a cultural 

impact far beyond the grief and pain to their own families....Evacuation 

meant irreversible cultural erosion.... ”6 Certainly, a significant number of 

important voices had been silenced: Nikefer Denisoff, Efemia Kudrin, and 

Larissa Yatchmenoff from the three villages and many more from other Aleutian 

and Pribilof communities. And yet, the economic depression that struck the 

5 Transcribed by Ray Hudson and used with permission of William M. Marutani, September 17, 

1981.

6 Personal Justice Denied, 358-359.
CHAPTER 19: THE LEGACY 279

Chain after the war heightened the possibility of cultural revival. It necessitated 

increased subsistence activities. Those older Unanga{ who had survived the 

evacuation and were healthy enough were once again able to practice traditional 

skills. More significantly, the absence of a strong economy meant a diminished 

non-Native presence. Even so, a number of factors worked against a return to 

traditional ways for passing on traditional knowledge. It can be argued that 

a sufficient number of elders had survived the evacuation to ensure cultural 

succession, but that it was the evacuation’s impact on younger generations that 

doomed cultural continuity and led to “irreversible cultural erosion.” There were 

teachers, but no one to teach—or at least there were few individuals willing to 

invest the time and effort into learning. The Nick Galaktionoffs of the late 1940s 

and early 1950s were rare.

Several factors contributed to this. Economic conditions that encouraged a 

return to traditional ways also prompted younger individuals and families to 

leave the islands. They were lured away by opportunities they hoped to find 

in larger communities. The educational system required students wishing 

education beyond the eighth grade to attend boarding schools at Sitka or near 

Salem, Oregon, for nine months of the year, thus depriving communities of the 

very demographic that had been traditionally taught by elders. For children 

descended from the three villages, life at Unalaska meant English became the 

language of primary experience and this created barriers for communication 

with elders. Another impediment lay in the very complexity and depth of 

Unanga{ culture where specialization was required. To ensure continuation at 

a high level of expertise, a large body of learners was needed to find a sufficient 

number of individuals with both interest in specific areas and the time needed 

for mastery. Another factor was that relocated elders had to acquaint themselves 

with new surroundings before they were able to be effective teachers. Place was 

integral to knowledge and the place had changed. For example, Sophie Pletnikoff 

rarely harvested basket grass at Unalaska because she didn’t know where the 

prime grass grew and she had no wish to infringe on any Unalaska weaver’s 

home turf. And, finally, relocated families were forced to spend disproportionate 

time just making ends meet. Stress increased; social problems multiplied. From 

whatever causes—and they were many and complex— in the years following

the return from southeast Alaska, a host of elders from the three villages took 

extensive traditional knowledge to the grave. 

Today the descendants from the three villages—like descendants of people from 

Attu, Atka and Unalaska, from St. George, St. Paul, Nikolski and Akutan—

remember their relatives who had lived in the villages and who had survived the 

evacuation or died during it. All share a common legacy. Today Unanga{ 

recognize the evacuation as among the most significant episodes in their history. 

Its remembrance has heightened a sense of urgency to preserve Unanga{ culture 

and to master whatever new skills ensure effective action in economic, political, 

and artistic arenas. People understand that pride in being Unanga{ must be 

rooted in enduring specifics if it is to be anything other than hot air or posturing. 
280 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

As local and regional organizations increasingly emphasized traditional 

knowledge and cultural practices, they found resources in the former residents of 

the lost villages.

Gathering at the A.C. Company House, Unalaska.

1. Eustina (Esther) Makarin (Biorka)

2. Andrew Makarin (Biorka)

3. John Gordieff (Chernofski)

4. Larry Mensoff (Akutan)

5. Polly Philemonoff Mensoff (St. George)

6. William Yatchmenoff (Kashega and Biorka)

7. Anfesia Shapsnikoff

8. Sophia Pletnikoff (Chernofski and Kashega)

9. Jenny Galaktionoff

10.Agrafina Makarin

11.Polly Lekanoff (Kashega)

12.Simeon Pletnikoff

13.Alex Ermeloff (Biorka)

14.Molly Lukanin (Makushin and Biorka)

Photograph by Theodore P. Bank II. circa 1953. Bank 

gave the image to the Unalaska City School and it was 

published in Cuttlefish Two: Four Villages.
CHAPTER 19: THE LEGACY 281

Wildflowers, Biorka 

Village, September 2, 

2010. Photograph by 

Greg Jones.

Memory is as important to effective cultural innovation as it is integral to cultural 

continuity. An account of visits made to the three village sites by former residents 

and descendants is told in the epilogue. At each place, individuals collected 

mementos: a stone, a piece of wood, a handful of soil, an edible berry. These 

visits were a reminder of how the stories and skills passed down by elders from 

the villages has helped shape contemporary Unanga{ identity. The history of the 

lost villages has become more than one of loss and disappearance. It is above all 

a story of courage, endurance, and transformation.
282 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

Summer Fog.
EPILOGUE: REMEMBERING AND REVISITING THE LOST VILLAGES 283

Epilogue

Remembering and Revisiting the Lost Villages

By Rachel Mason

The Beginning of the Project 

The Lost Villages of the Aleutians project tells the story of four Alaskan Unanga{ 

villages left behind in the evacuations and relocations of World War II, and 

never permanently resettled. It started in 2003, when historian Linda Cook was 

working to establish the Aleutian World War II National Historic Area, part of the 

Affiliated Areas of the National Park Service, Alaska Region. She heard of funding 

opportunities for oral history projects about the Japanese internment camps 

of World War II, and thought of documenting the evacuation and relocation of 

Unanga{ to Southeast Alaska in the same era. As a result, the NPS investigated 

the Unanga{ evacuation sites to determine their eligibility for National Register 

of Historic Places designation. The initial proposal focused on the “Lost Villages,” 

communities the U.S. government decided were too small and remote to 

repopulate after the war, and whose residents were resettled in other villages 

upon return to the Aleutians.

Linda asked historian and teacher Ray Hudson to conduct oral history interviews 

with people from the Lost Villages who had been evacuated to Southeast 

Alaska, and in early 2004, he began work on the project. Ray interviewed five 

Unanga{ elders living in Unalaska: Nicholai S. Lekanoff, Nicholai Galaktionoff, 

Eva Tcheripanoff, Irene Makarin, and Moses Gordieff. The elders were former 

residents of Makushin, Kashega, and Biorka, three small villages in the Unalaska 

Island area, and in the interviews they talked about their lives in those villages 

and their experiences during World War II, when Unanga{ in the Aleutian Islands 

were taken by boat to relocation camps in Southeast Alaska, ostensibly for 

their own protection. Ten years later, of the original group of elders, only Nick 

Lekanoff, Sr. and Eva Tcheripanoff are still living. 
284 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

The interviews resulted in the 2004 volume The Beginning of Memory, which included 

oral histories recorded with each of the five elders, in addition to a past interview with 

Sophie Pletnikoff, Eva Tcheripanoff’s mother. Ray also wrote a detailed introduction 

to the oral histories, drawing upon many archival government and church records as 

well as past interviews with Unalaska residents that were conducted by Ray Hudson 

and his students for the Unalaska City School District's Cuttlefish volumes.

The Lost Villages project has stimulated enormous interest, both to Unanga{ 

and others. Every time I have made a presentation about the project, whether 

in Unalaska, Anchorage, Southeast Alaska, or even Seattle, someone has 

come forward to identify a photo, correct a mistake, or tell about a relative’s 

experiences. Recording the history of four tiny, remote villages, each originally 

with fewer than 50 people, and with only a handful of surviving residents today, 

has generated a large network of people whose lives were connected to those 

places.

The project evolved over a decade. After The Beginning of Memory was 

completed, NPS historian Annaliese Jacobs Bateman was assigned to prepare 

a publication on the Lost Villages of the Aleutians, using the interviews for the 

Eastern Aleutians and secondary sources about Attu, the fourth village included 

in the project. Anna had an ambitious plan to link the Lost Villages to the 

colonial history of Russian America, and she assembled an enormous amount 

of information from church records, U.S. Coast Guard reports, U.S. Fish and 

Wildlife Service documents, and a wide array of other sources. When Anna 

left Alaska and the NPS to attend graduate school, she took the project with 

her, intending to complete it from afar. Eventually, as her educational pursuits 

intervened and research interests shifted, she transferred the project to me. 

With the huge advantage of being able to use all the information Ray and Anna 

had already collected, I set out to complete the Lost Villages project. My initial 

plan was to make modest changes to The Beginning of Memory, perhaps adding 

more background material from Anna’s research, photographs, or more oral 

history interviews to the work Ray had already done. Instead, as an expanding 

group of Unanga{ connected to the Lost Villages shared ideas and enthusiasm, 

the project took on a life of its own. It became much more public and 

participatory as it became centered upon boat trips to revisit the Lost Villages 

with former residents and their descendants. 

In 2006, I discussed the project with Okalina Patricia (Patty) LekanoffGregory, daughter of Lost Villages elder Nick Lekanoff, Sr. Remembering 

trips her father had made to Kashega and Makushin, and how meaningful 

they had been to the entire family, Patty convinced me that the Lost Villages 

project would be considerably enhanced by former residents’ visits to the 

village. Nick had most recently visited Makushin in 2005 with archaeologist 

Chris Wooley to document damage from the Selandang Ayu shipwreck and 

oil spill. Emphasizing the centrality of the church in each village, Patty said 

the elders would want to plant a large cross at the sites where the churches 

had stood in the villages.
EPILOGUE: REMEMBERING AND REVISITING THE LOST VILLAGES 285

Spreading the Word

Posting a notice for the project on the 

Aleut-L list service led to wider contacts 

with descendants of the Lost Villages. One 

of them was Josephine Borenin-Shangin, 

granddaughter of Nick Borenin from 

Makushin. She helped me meet her greataunt Mattie Abloogalook, who as Matrona 

Borenin at age three was the youngest 

evacuee from Makushin. Although she 

came back to the Aleutians after the 

war to be resettled in Akutan, she was 

soon taken back to Southeast Alaska to a 

tuberculosis hospital in Sitka. She stayed 

in Sitka to attend high school at Mount 

Edgecombe, where she met her husband, 

an Iñupiaq from Nome.

Josephine (Josy) had grown up in Akutan and remembered her grandfather Nick, 

who was resettled in Akutan after the war and married Marie Mensoff from that 

village. Later, in Unalaska, I learned from Nick Galaktionoff that once Makushin 

had three boys named Nick: Nick Borenin, Nick Galaktionoff, and Nick Lekanoff. 

Nick Borenin died in 2000.

Also through Aleut-L, I corresponded by e-mail with Mary Diakanoff, originally 

from Kashega, now living in Juneau. AB Rankin and her daughter Denise Rankin 

led me to contact their relative George Gordaoff, formerly a Kashega resident but 

now living in Anchorage, after they saw him at the 2008 annual meeting of The 

Aleut Corporation. 

Over several visits to his home, George told of his experiences as a young boy 

in Kashega before World War II and in Southeast Alaska during the war. Both 

his parents died while he was young and he had to find his own way in life. 

He stayed with different relatives in Kashega, as a young teenager in the early 

1940s, and found employment at the Chernofski sheep ranch just before the war. 

After the Kashega residents were evacuated and brought by ship to Wrangell, 

he briefly worked as a cook for the large group of relocated Unanga{. Instead of 

going with the other Kashega residents to Ward Lake near Ketchikan, George was 

able to find work in Juneau. As we planned a trip to revisit Kashega, George was 

determined to go, even though he was having trouble with his knees. He would 

have been very happy to revisit Chernofski as well. 

Jane Mensoff, originally from Akutan and descended from Kashega and Biorka, 

responded to my posting on Aleut-L. Jane lives in Seattle and has been active 

in the Pacific Northwest Aleut Council, a group that brings together Unanga{ 

living in Washington and Oregon. She immediately expressed interest in going 

Josephine BoreninShangin (left) 

and her greataunt, Mattie 

Abloogalook, May 

2009. Photograph by 

Rachel Mason.
286 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

to the villages and was frequently in touch. She and her partner Gregory Jones 

even volunteered to pay for their own travel from Seattle to Unalaska in order to 

participate in the boat trip. 

As the circle of those connected to the Lost Villages widened, I also met 

Unanga{ from other villages whose lives were intertwined with Makushin, 

Biorka, or Kashega. Millie McKeown, Cultural Heritage Director at the 

Aleutian Pribilof Islands Association, suggested I talk to Bill Ermeloff, then 

living in an assisted living home in Anchorage. Bill, who passed away in 

2011, lived in Nikolski most of his life. His parents died when he was young 

and his adoptive father was Afenogan Ermeloff from Nikolski. Annie Olsen, 

Pete Olsen’s adopted daughter who died in Makushin before the war, was Bill 

Ermeloff’s biological sister. With the other residents of the smallest Unanga{ 

communities (which included Nikolski and Akutan as well as Makushin, 

Kashega, and Biorka), Bill had been evacuated to Southeast Alaska and spent 

the wartime years at Ward Lake, near Ketchikan. While there, he had been 

able to find work at Metlakatla, clearing trees away from the airstrip for the 

military. 

Genealogist Marti Murray, a longtime Unalaska resident now living in Kodiak, 

contributed an extremely useful component of the project by compiling “minibiographies” of each of the Lost Villages. Marti combed through census data, 

marriage and death records, newspaper articles, and other sources to find 

genealogical information about each of the residents present in Biorka, Kashega, 

Makushin and Attu in 1942. Later, she created genealogical mini-biographies for 

Akutan, Nikolski, and Unalaska. Marti’s work made me appreciate the complex 

kinship and marriage connections among the Eastern Aleutian villages. It also 

showed how common it was in the early 20th century for an Unanga{ to have 

stepparents, adoptive parents, half-siblings, and/or several marriages. Family 

disruptions through death, illness, or divorce led to moves between villages.

Beginning the Village Journeys

The next task for the Lost Villages project was to find a way to bring people to the 

villages. My assistant Shannon Apgar-Kurtz and I called numerous airlines and 

air taxis, and could not find a satisfactory way to charter a plane that would take 

more than three or four people. We also looked into chartering a boat and ran 

into the same problem. We were finally able to charter the Tiĝla{, the U.S. Fish 

and Wildlife Service’s research vessel operating for the Alaska Maritime National 

Wildlife Refuge. The Tiĝla{ had enough bunks for 12 people; already, there was 

so much interest in the trip that we knew there would be a lot of competition for 

those spots. Shannon and I organized an informal Boat Trip Steering Committee 

in Anchorage. One of the committee’s major functions was to arbitrate who was 

“on the list” to go on the village trip. We gave priority to elderly former residents 

of the villages, and their descendants, but we also wanted to ensure that we had 

someone to videotape and photograph the experience. 
EPILOGUE: REMEMBERING AND REVISITING THE LOST VILLAGES 287

Tiˆglaˆx at Unalaska, 

September 2010. 

Photograph by Greg 

Jones.

Patty Gregory had told me that we needed to go early in the summer, before the 

grass got too high. I saw pictures of Biorka in July, with very tall grass there. 

Unfortunately, the only time we were able to charter the Tiĝla{ was at the very 

end of summer, on August 31. That meant the grass would be at least shoulderhigh in Makushin. It wasn’t a problem in Kashega, however, because that village 

site was frequented by feral cows that ate the grass and trampled the remains of 

buildings. The situation had not changed since archaeologist Chris Wooley 

documented the cows’ damage to the site in summer of 2005.

Because of concerns about the 

health and safety of the elderly or 

frail passengers, we brought along a 

medical provider. Irene McGlashan, 

a community health practitioner at 

Unalaska’s Oonalaska Wellness Center, 

agreed to come on the trip in this role. 

I also worried that it might be difficult 

or unsafe for the elderly participants 

to walk around the villages. Patty 

suggested we bring chairs to sit in near 

the church. The elders could drink tea 

and talk about memories of the village 

while the younger people dug the hole 

to plant the cross at the site of the 

church. 

Cow damage in 

Kashega, July, 2005. 

Photograph by Chris 

Wooley.
288 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

The crosses were Patty’s idea. The Ounalashka Corporation, where Patty’s husband 

Dave Gregory was the head of the maintenance department, constructed and 

donated two five-foot wooden Russian Orthodox crosses to set up where the 

churches had been at Makushin and Kashega. The priest in Unalaska would bless 

the crosses before they were loaded on the boat in Unalaska. 

We had to obtain consent from the St. George Tanaq Corporation to go to Kashega 

and from the St. Paul Tanadgusix (TDX) Corporation to go to Makushin. The 

Pribilof Island communities, first established after 1800 when Russian colonists 

brought Unanga{ there to harvest fur seals, have many kinship connections with 

Eastern Aleutian villages. In the first part of the 20th century, residents of Kashega 

and Makushin traveled in the summer to the Pribilofs to participate in the seal 

harvest. The close relationship with these villages influenced the Pribilof Island 

corporations to choose these now-empty sites as land selections under provisions 

of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act. The Pribilof Islands and nearby 

smaller islands did not provide sufficient lands for St. George and St. Paul to select. 

The need to complete a right-of-entry agreement irritated one of the Makushin 

descendants, who complained that they should not have to seek permission to 

visit their own village. 

Because many of the descendants of the Lost Villages lived in Unalaska, it made 

sense to charter the boat to go from Unalaska to each of the villages. Participants 

from Seattle, Juneau, and Anchorage flew into Unalaska to await the beginning of 

the trip. 

The list of participants from Unalaska was not final until the last minute. AB 

Rankin, Alice Moller’s daughter and Mary Diakanoff’s half-sister, was very 

interested in the trip, but regretfully declined to go on the boat, saying she gets 

terribly seasick. AB’s son Brian Rankin, however, was an enthusiastic volunteer. His 

email ID was “kashega,” a clue to his strong attachment to the village. 

Nick Galaktionoff, originally from Makushin, planned to come with us, but on 

the day before the trip he decided against it. He thought the seas would be rough, 

and it turned out he was right. In his stead, Nick sent his younger relative Fred 

Lekanoff, whose grandfather was from Makushin. Eva Tcheripanoff, from Kashega, 

was happy to see her relatives and friends as they assembled in Unalaska before 

the trip, but her health prevented her from going. 

The oldest passenger in the group that boarded the boat was Nick Lekanoff, Sr. 

from Makushin, addressed as “Starosta” because of his position as a lay leader in 

the Russian Orthodox church. Also aboard were Nick’s daughter Patty Gregory, 

Mary Diakanoff and her son Darryl Diakanoff, George Gordaoff, Josy Shangin, 

Fred Lekanoff, Brian Rankin, Jane Mensoff, our medical provider Irene McGlashan, 

videographer Lauren Adams and her assistant Laresa Syverson, Debbie Corbett 

of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and Rachel Mason (myself) of the National Park 

Service.
EPILOGUE: REMEMBERING AND REVISITING THE LOST VILLAGES 289

Nick Lekanoff, Sr. at 

Makushin, August 31, 

2009. Photograph by 

Josy Shangin.

Makushin after a Rough Ocean Voyage

On the night before we left, the community held a send-off ceremony for the 

boat passengers. It was also for the elders who remembered the Lost Villages, but 

whose health prevented them from going on the boat. Laresa Syverson and some 

of the youth performed Unanga{ dances, and I presented a slideshow with old 

pictures of Biorka, Kashega, and Makushin. 

We started out in the early morning. Nick Lekanoff, Sr. had second thoughts at 

the last minute about going, but finally arrived at the boat with encouragement 

from his daughter Patty and her husband Dave. Lauren Adams, from Unalaska’s 

television and radio station KUCB, came on the trip to document it on 

videotape, with assistance from Laresa Syverson. The Tiĝla{ has a man-lift to 

help passengers on board if they have difficulty climbing up and down ladders. 

One way or another, everyone was eventually on board and we were off before 

daylight.

From the moment we left, the seas were rough and almost everyone got seasick. 

George Gordaoff was the only one who seemed to be unaffected, although in the 

first part of the trip I was proud that I was able to stay up and even eat lunch. 
Later, though, I gratefully lay down on my bunk. George, a retired sea captain, 

spent much of the trip up in the wheelhouse with Captain Billy Pepper. After 

fighting the wind and seas throughout the morning, Billy proposed that we not 

try to continue to Kashega, but to return to Unalaska after a visit to Makushin.

As we came into Makushin Bay, suddenly the 

sun appeared, the seas calmed, and a rainbow 

arced across the sky. The boat crew helped the 

passengers from the Tiĝla{ into an Achilles 

inflatable boat to go to the beach. The cross 

was also carefully loaded into the Achilles for 

transport to the village. George, Mary, and 

Mary’s son Darryl decided to stay with the boat 

instead of going to shore. 

The young men and the boat crew brought 

shovels to the village to dig a hole to plant the 

cross, and two of them shouldered the cross to carry up to the church site from 

the beach. Patty had brought a chair for her father to sit on. Lauren and Laresa 

lugged their camera equipment. We had to push our way through shoulder-high 

grass. 

Transporting 

passengers from the 

Tiˆglaˆx to Makushin 

beach, August 31, 

2009. Photograph 

by Josy Shangin.

Rainbow at 

Makushin, August 31, 

2009. Photograph by 

Lauren Adams.
EPILOGUE: REMEMBERING AND REVISITING THE LOST VILLAGES 291

Carrying the cross at 

Makushin, August 31, 

2009. Photograph by 

Lauren Adams.

There wasn’t much left of the old houses, but there was a large roof of what 

looked like a barn. From old pictures of Makushin, I knew that the biggest house 

had been Pete Olsen’s, and I could see its remains at one end of the village. I 

gathered some dirt and a nail from what I thought was Nick Galaktionoff’s old 

house. Later, he was happy to get the dirt and he slipped the nail into his pocket.

Nick Lekanoff showed the others where to place the cross. Brian Rankin, Fred 

Lekanoff, and Billy Pepper shared the digging. Once the cross had been planted 

and participants sang “Memory Eternal,” we all sat on the ground and Nick 

talked to us about the old church and the houses in the village. There was one 

grave still visible near the site of the old church, and he thought it belonged to 

Annie Olsen, Pete Olsen’s adopted daughter, who had died in 1936. 

When we got back to Unalaska a crowd of family members and well-wishers was 

waiting to greet us. Brian Rankin’s seven-year-old daughter Sasha came aboard 

and got a ride in the man-lift. The cross intended for Kashega was also taken off 

the boat in the man-lift and put in storage to wait for the boat ride the next year. 

Brian and the other descendants of Kashega were disappointed that we had to 

forego the trip there this time, but no one would have been eager to continue 

under the sea conditions we had experienced that morning. All understood that 

in the Aleutians the sea and the weather are powerful factors. The trip to Kashega 

was postponed until the next year.
292 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

Brian Rankin and 

his daughter Sasha 

in the Tiˆglaˆx’s 

manlift, August 31, 

2009 Photograph 

courtesy AB Rankin.

Launching the Boat Trips in 2010

The Tiĝla{ charter for 2010, the second year of Lost Villages trips, was 

accomplished thanks to a Challenge Grant from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife 

Service, facilitated by Debbie Corbett. Roberta Gordaoff, an anthropology 

student at University of Alaska Anchorage, offered to come with her grandfather 

George on the second trip. The two of them showed up in Unalaska with George 

in a wheelchair. 
EPILOGUE: REMEMBERING AND REVISITING THE LOST VILLAGES 293

Carlene Arnold, a student from Lawrence, Kansas, contacted Debbie Corbett, 

who had been collaborating with Carlene’s professor Dixie West on an 

archaeological research project and a book about the Aleutian Islands. Carlene, 

who grew up in Sitka, Alaska but now lives in Kansas, had only recently learned 

that her mother was born in Kashega. She was writing an M.A. thesis for the 

University of Kansas’s Global Indigenous Nations Studies program about her 

mother’s experience of evacuation during World War II, about her grandparents’ 

hospitalization and death after the war, and about her discovery of these events. 

Debbie Corbett arranged for Carlene to come to Unalaska as we all assembled 

for the second trip.

Here are some excerpts from Carlene’s thesis, The Legacy of Unjust and Illegal 

Treatment of Unangan During World War II and Its Place in Unangan History 

(2011):

When I was growing up, my parents rarely discussed the family or the 

history of the cultures from which they came. Regrettably, I did not 

realize that my parents were of different tribes. Dad was Tlingit, born 

and raised in Sitka. Mom was Unangan, born in Unalaska before she 

moved to Wrangell. (4)

Because my mom had not disclosed her family background to us, I 

decided to look into Unangan culture. I began by researching the Aleut 

Corporation and other Unangan corporations. I discovered that there 

was a history I did not know, that during World War II there were some 

Unanga{ who had been taken as prisoners by the Japanese while others 

who were on other islands had been evacuated to Southeast Alaska by 

the United States military. (5)

I found my mom’s and her family’s name on the list of evacuees from 

Kashega. Needless to say, I was surprised, not only because they were on 

the list, but I also discovered that my mom had a brother I did not know 

about. ... I needed to know for myself, but also for my siblings, kids, 

grandkids and for those thereafter, what this story was all about. (6)

Trip to Kashega

At the end of August 2010, participants again assembled in Unalaska. We 

visited friends in Unalaska and waited for the boat to arrive. As had occurred 

the year before, there was a send-off ceremony at the Senior Center in 

Unalaska the day before we left. Laresa Syverson and some of the Unalaska 

youth performed Unanga{ dances. Elders who were unable to go on the boat 

trip and other community members assembled to wish the passengers well. 

Carlene was meeting relatives for the first time:

At the Send Off Ceremony, I was excited, but nervous at the same time 

because I knew that I was going to meet new family members whom I 
294 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

did not know before. After the ceremony, Mary caught my attention and 

told me that she knew my parents and grandparents from Kashega, and 

how they kept their house very clean and that it was the biggest house 

there in the village. Later, I discovered that Mary and I were cousins. I 

also was introduced to Eva Tcheripanoff, also a cousin, and she had 

known my grandparents. Eva lives in Unalaska; she was from Kashega 

at the time of the evacuation. (78)

Laresa Syverson 

leads dancers at 

send-off, Unalaska, 

September 1, 2010. 

Photograph by 

Roberta Gordaoff. 

Audience at sendoff, Unalaska, 

September 1, 2010. 

Nick Galaktionoff 

Sr. (left front); Irene 

McGlashan, (right 

front). Photograph 

by Roberta 

Gordaoff. 
EPILOGUE: REMEMBERING AND REVISITING THE LOST VILLAGES 295

Again, the Ounalashka Corporation had donated two crosses to plant at the 

church sites, this time in the villages of Kashega and Biorka. These were two 

new crosses, because over the past year, the corporation had used the one set 

aside for Kashega for a grave marker. This year, when participants asked the 

Russian Orthodox priest in Unalaska, Father Kashevaroff, to bless the crosses, he 

expressed his concern that if the crosses were to be placed on church property, it 

was necessary for a priest, and preferably the priest’s wife as well, to be present. 

He did not insist on that condition, however, and he blessed both crosses. They 

were brought on board the day of the trip, using the manlift. 

Passengers on board for the trip to Kashega included George Gordaoff and his 

granddaughter Roberta Gordaoff; Mary Diakanoff and her daughter Evonne 

Mason; Jane Mensoff; Ruth Kudrin and her daughter Anesia Kudrin; Eva Kudrin; 

Brian Rankin; Fred Lekanoff; medical provider Irene McGlashan; videographer 

Lauren Adams; Debbie Corbett of USFWS; and myself of NPS. We were happy to 

see Billy Pepper, the captain of the Tiĝla{, and some of the same crew members we 

remembered from the year before. 

The Tiĝla{ left port on the evening of September 1, to give the passengers a chance 

to sleep as we traveled. The seas were much calmer than the year before, and the 

passengers crawled into their bunks and slept peacefully until the vessel anchored 

up off Kashega. In the morning, crew 

members ferried the passengers 

ashore in an Achilles, along with a 

cross for the church site. Very little 

remained of the houses and other 

buildings in the village. Wild cows, 

holdovers from the ranching days, had 

trampled the foundations and kept the 

grass short.

On September 3, George Gordaoff 

stood in Kashega again for the first 

time in almost 70 years. George was 

17 in 1942 when a boat arrived to 

evacuate the villagers. After joining 

the Army during World War II and 

after a long career mainly on boats 

in Alaska waters, George is now 

retired and living in Anchorage. 

George’s knees were worse this year 

and he needed a wheelchair to get 

around in Unalaska before getting 

on the boat. At the site of Kashega’s 

former church, though, he looked 

pretty spry. 

George Gordaoff 

aboard the Tiˆglaˆx, 

September 2, 2010. 

Photograph by 

Lauren Adams.
296 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

Mary Diakanoff, who came from Juneau with her daughter Evonne Mason for 

this trip, was born in Kashega. Mary’s father was from Norway, and her mother 

was from Kashega. The family moved to Unalaska when Mary was four, but they 

came to the village often to put up salmon and visit relatives. The last time Mary 

visited Kashega was after Dutch Harbor was bombed in 1942, when she was 11. 

Since then, Mary has always remembered Kashega as one of her favorite places. 

Several members of the intertwined Kudrin and Mensoff families were among 

those who visited Kashega: Jane Mensoff, her cousins Eva and Ruth Kudrin, and 

Ruth’s 13-year-old daughter Anesia, known to all as Pepsi. Ruth and Eva’s father, 

George Kudrin, was 17 and living in Kashega when the evacuations took place. 

Like the other George, he worked on a ranch near Kashega in his youth. After the 

trip, Eva wrote, “I was very excited to walk and see where my Dad was born and 

raised...He talked about riding the horses and working the sheep. No wonder he 

loved mutton so much.” Jane’s mother Olga Kudrin, age 24 in 1942, was George’s 

sister. While in Southeast Alaska during World War II, Olga married John Mensoff, 

Sr. from Akutan. George eventually married John’s sister Anesia Mensoff. The 

Mensoffs also have roots in Biorka, another Lost Village. As Jane put it, “I walked 

Kashega and Biorka hoping that my mother and father could ‘take one more 

walk’ with me.” 

Carlene related her impressions of the boat trip to Kashega:

 We continued to get to know one another while aboard the boat. Mary 

was joined by her daughter Evonne Mason, both of Juneau. George 

Gordaoff was accompanied by his granddaughter Roberta Gordaoff, 

both of Anchorage. Both Mary and George were originally from Kashega. 

While Mary and George were telling stories, Mary had brought with 

her a diagram of Kashega that had been drawn by Polly Lekanoff [Nick 

Lekanoff’s wife and Patty Gregory’s mother]. Both Mary and George 

discussed who had lived where in the houses shown on this map. 

However, this was difficult because it had been seventy years since they 

had been there. Mary was kind enough to give me a picture of Kashega 

before the evacuation. Mary and George’s descriptions and stories gave 

everyone an idea of what the village had looked like at the time of the 

evacuation. Rachel also gave me a copy of the sketch map of Kashega 

before the evacuation. (67)

Carlene told of the visit to the village:

We woke up and had breakfast and got ready to go ashore. (68)

We arrived in the bay of Kashega; it was a little windy, and both George 

and Mary were the first to land on the beach. 

The rest of us joined up with them. The Tiĝla{ crew were great, in that 

they were very patient and worked well with the elders. (79) 
EPILOGUE: REMEMBERING AND REVISITING THE LOST VILLAGES 297

George Gordaoff 

and his granddaughter 

Roberta arrive at 

Kashega, September 

2, 2010. Photograph by 

Lauren Adams.

Heading to Kashega, September 

2, 2010. Photograph by Carlene 

Arnold. 
298 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

Left to right: Anesia 

Kudrin, Ruth Kudrin, 

Jane Mensoff and 

Irene McGlashan 

at Kashega ruins, 

September 2, 2010. 

Photograph by 

Carlene Arnold.

When everyone else had arrived, they began to explore the area of the former 

village. There were very little traces that remained. We found a few boards or 

posts from the original church that people picked up to take back with them. 

Everyone was gathering little souvenirs such as berries, pans, and soil to take 

back with them. They were also taking pictures of each other and the area of 

the former village. I could hear people talking about how beautiful Kashega 

was—and still is—nestled in a nice location for fishing with a good beach for 

gathering seafood and berries when they were ripe for the picking. (68)

Afterwards, everyone gathered at the former site of the church. A Russian 

cross was brought out and, with George’s direction, the cross was placed 

there followed by a small service where the group blessed the cross 

with holy water and sang a song. Having the opportunity to go back to 

Kashega meant a lot to Mary and George. One could see it in their faces 

and the emotions were more than words can express. By the end of the 

ceremony it was early evening and time to head back to the Tiĝla{ for 

the return to Unalaska. (68-69)

After everyone explored the former village site, we gathered and placed a 

Russian cross at the former site of the church and had a small ceremony, 

blessed the cross, said a prayer, and sang a song. Also, when the cross 
EPILOGUE: REMEMBERING AND REVISITING THE LOST VILLAGES 299

was being placed, everyone placed a shovelful of dirt at the cross, as is 

a tradition with the Russian Orthodox Church. While the ceremony 

was taking place, I felt a sense of peacefulness, and I could sense the 

ancestors who were there during the ceremony. It was an experience 

that I have never felt before, and I will always remember that day of the 

ceremony at Kashega and keep it dear to my heart. (81)

George Gordaoff at 

Kashega, September 

2, 2010. Photograph 

by Jane Mensoff.

I had never thought that I would be able to see where my mom was 

from, much less to have walked on the land that she knew, before 

being taken to the Southeast. While I was exploring, I picked some 

salmonberries, gathered some soil from the area of the church, and took 

it back with me to Unalaska so I could take it to my grandparents’ graves 

and give them something from Kashega. (80-81)

Carlene also talked about the boat ride back to Unalaska:

While on the boat, Mary and George told stories of their childhood at 

Kashega, from the time when Mary was only ten or eleven and George 

was a little older. (79)

They enjoyed listening to George’s stories of his childhood in Kashega. 

I was excited to see where my mom and her parents were born and 

being able to walk where they lived. It had a certain beauty to it. I have 

grown up with trees around us all the time, but seeing the landscape 

of Kashega was beautiful and peaceful. I could see how the people 

loved this place and were disappointed that they could not return to it 

after the war. As we explored the site, we mostly found boards from the 

houses. At the site of the church, there were posts. I stayed with Mary, 
300 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

who was trying to remember where everything was. She pointed out 

where my grandparents’ house was and said that it was the biggest 

house there, and that everyone kept their homes clean. For her, it was 

a special place when she was growing up; it was her favorite place to 

go of all places. She did not like Unalaska; it was big and was like a 

metropolitan type place for her. (80)

Mary Diakanoff and 

George Gordaoff 

aboard the Tiˆglaˆx, 

September 2, 2010. 

Photograph by 

Lauren Adams.

300 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN

Trip to Biorka

The second boat trip of September 2010, to Biorka, was a day trip. Kathy Dirks 

was the senior Biorka descendant who made this year’s journey to the village. 

Kathy’s grandfather Andrew Makarin, a church reader in Biorka, led about 20 

people to resettle Biorka after the war, despite the lack of support from the 

government. After several years, it became increasingly difficult to make a living 

there. The call of home was strong, but the need for economic survival was 
EPILOGUE: REMEMBERING AND REVISITING THE LOST VILLAGES 301

stronger. One by one, each family began spending more time in Unalaska each 

time they traveled there. Finally, after a storm blew down some of the houses, 

even Andrew Makarin realized he had to leave. He returned with some of his 

grandchildren, including Kathy Dirks, in 1965 to construct a small house where 

the altar had stood in the former church. 

Many of the others who went to Biorka had gone to Kashega the day before. 

Again, Irene McGlashan served as medical provider. Brian Rankin and Fred 

Lekanoff came partly to provide strong labor for planting the cross. Eva Kudrin, 

Jane Mensoff, Lauren Adams, Carlene Arnold, Rachel Mason and Debbie Corbett 

were back for another trip. Greg Jones, Jane Mensoff’s companion, and Alexandra 

Gutierrez, a reporter for the Unalaska TV station, joined the group. There was 

room for two more, so George Gordaoff and his granddaughter Roberta decided 

they would come back for another trip as well. 

The Tiĝla{ left in the early morning and was anchored off Biorka a couple 

of hours later. Again, the passengers came ashore by Achilles, this time well 

bundled up from the rain. With difficulty, the group climbed up the steep bank 

and broke a path to the site of the church. There were no cows in Biorka to eat 

the grass, so it was shoulder-high. There were still remains of some houses at 

the village site. It appeared that foxes had already been living in the house Kathy 

Dirks identified as Andrew Makarin’s home.

Biorka, Beaver Inlet, 

September 3, 2010,

Photograph by Carlene 

Arnold.
302 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

Here is Carlene’s account of the trip to Biorka:

After the Kashega trip, we returned to Dutch Harbor; the next morning 

we departed for Biorka. Most of the same people that went to Kashega 

also attended the Biorka trip. Jane’s father was from Biorka, and Kathy 

Dirks is a descendant from Biorka. Nick Galaktionoff and his son John 

were unable to attend because of health conditions; maybe the rough 

weather also was a part of the reason they did not go. Anna Merculief, a 

former resident of Biorka, decided not to go because such bad weather was 

predicted. Although this portion of the trip was for the descendants from 

Biorka to actually set foot on the site of where their family originated, 

some people from other villages also participated in the trip. (70-71)

Friday morning, September 2, 2010, we left Dutch Harbor and headed to 

Biorka, a shorter trip than the one to Kashega. The weather was bad, but 

not as bad as it had been on the 2009 trip, according to what everyone 

who had gone was saying. It was mostly the women who had ties to 

Biorka, so they were especially excited to go. (71)

The seas were rough during the entire trip. When we arrived at Biorka, I 

was surprised to see the way the grass was there. It was unlike Kashega, 

which had wild cows that helped keep the grass low. At Biorka, the grass 

was so tall that one could not see the ground. Because ground visibility 

was poor, a couple of people fell into relatively deep holes, but no one 

was hurt. At times, the wind blew sideways, making it hard to look 

around. However, I have to say that even with the bad weather it still 

seemed as if it had been a beautiful place to live. It was mountainous, 

good for hiking, with a nice beach for beachcombing. Fred Lekanoff 

and Brian Rankin dug a hole for the cross to be placed at the site of 

where the church had been. At Biorka, it was easier to locate where the 

church had been because an altar was still standing. Although it had 

deteriorated, it was possible to see what it was. Andrew Makarin, Kathy 

Dirks’ grandfather, had built the altar on an earlier visit in 1965. A storm 

had blown down some of the houses there. Makarin had torn down the 

walls of these and the surviving roof of the church and built the altar on 

the church site. (71)

While the men were digging, we went exploring. There was a lake near 

Biorka and it was very peaceful although the weather was bad. From 

the boat, I had noticed that there was a partial building still standing. I 

learned it had been the house of Andrew Makarin. One could see some 

items in the house, such as a dresser and part of a bed. It was amazing to 

see these items still in place after all these years. Kathy was excited to see 

her grandfather‘s house... Words could not express her feelings of seeing 

the house still standing there with the possessions of her grandparents 

still inside. (72)

302 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN
EPILOGUE: REMEMBERING AND REVISITING THE LOST VILLAGES 303

I have to say though, even with the bad weather there, it was still a 

beautiful place to live. The weather did not let up while we there at 

Biorka. It was rather hard to explore the village site, because of the 

weather and the tall grass, and it was hard to take good pictures 

there. There was a partial house still standing, after all these years; 

it was amazing, with the strong winds that the islands get each year. 

Either Brian Rankin or Fred Lekanoff went inside the house to retrieve 

something from there and gave it to Kathy Dirks, because it was her 

grandfather‘s house. For Kathy, it meant a lot to see her grandfather‘s 

house still there, and to see what was still in there and retrieve 

something from there was a bonus. (82)

Preparing to plant 

a cross at Biorka, 

September 3, 2010. 

Photograph by 

Greg Jones, 
304 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

Kathy Dirks at 

Biorka with beachpolished stones 

in a blue tinware 

plate that may 

have come from 

her grandfather’s 

home. “I told myself 

it was,” she later 

said. Photograph 

by Lauren Adams 

September 3, 2010. 

In 2010, the small house Andrew Makarin had built still stood at the site of 

the church. Boat passengers Brian Rankin and Fred Lekanoff, with help from 

Tiĝla{ captain Billy Pepper, planted a new Russian Orthodox cross nearby. 

With Irene McGlashan, our health provider, Kathy Dirks said a prayer. Tears 

fell down Kathy’s face, and the faces of others, as she and Irene sang Memory 

Eternal beside the now-weatherbeaten little house. I thought of how sad Andrew 

Makarin must have been to close down the church. The brief ceremony was a 

fitting memorial for the village and for its residents who are no longer with us.
EPILOGUE: REMEMBERING AND REVISITING THE LOST VILLAGES 305

After looking at the house, everyone gathered at the cross to begin the 

ceremony. In Russian Orthodox tradition, we blessed the cross with 

Holy water and each of us put dirt in the area where it was located. 

Both Kathy and Irene McGlashan said a prayer and we sang —Memory 

Eternal—a song that had been sung at funerals. The cross and the 

ceremony were a suitable memorial for the village and for the remains 

of those who had been left behind. By the end of the ceremony, it seemed 

as if the weather was getting a little bit better. We headed back to the 

beach and waited for the Zodiac [Achilles] to come and take us back to 

the ship (73).

When the cross was ready to be put in place, there was another 

ceremony as mentioned earlier. While they were singing Memory 

Eternal, I had the same sense that the ancestors were [83] there 

again. During both ceremonies, it seemed like there was a peaceful or 

calmness about it. I believe everyone there felt the same way. (82-83)

Nick Galaktionoff, Sr., originally from Makushin, married a girl from Biorka 

and was one of the people who moved to the resettled village after the war. The 

couple's first child, a son, was born there but died as an infant. Nick wanted to 

go back to visit his son’s grave, but he didn’t want to make the trip at this time 

of year, when rough seas were likely. At least he knew we had planted a cross 

near his son’s resting place and had remembered him and the others who once 

lived there.

Carlene with her 

grandparents' 

graves, Unalaska, 

September 4, 2010. 

Photograph by 

Rachel Mason.
306 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

Back in Unalaska after Kashega and Biorka

Carlene recounted her thoughts about the trip after we returned to Unalaska:

Both trips to Kashega and Biorka were a success. Former residents and 

descendants got to see the villages, gather mementoes, take pictures 

and videos of the area, and participate in the ceremony of blessing the 

cross before it was placed in the former site of the church in each of the 

villages. Stories and memories will always be in the hearts of everyone 

who attended the Lost Villages trips to Kashega and Biorka. (76)

Although my mother and I were not close, I feel that she or her parents 

had a part in my findings or research. I don't know why my mother did 

not disclose this part of her life to me or my siblings. But I am glad to 

have the opportunity to discover this part of her life for myself and for 

the rest of my family. However, there are still some unanswered questions 

that I will continue to look into. (76) 

Carlene also had an opportunity to visit her grandparents’ final resting place 

in Unalaska. Her grandmother Nellie Yatchmenoff was evacuated to Southeast 

Alaska with her two small children, Laura and Paul, ages 4 and 2. Laura was 

Carlene’s mother. When Laura’s parents died in Southeast Alaska before they 

were able to return to Kashega, Laura was adopted by a non-Native family. Nellie 

and Peter Yatchmenoff were anonymously buried at the tuberculosis sanitarium 

in Sitka. Their remains were identified in the 1990s and returned to Unalaska, 

where they were buried in the cemetery. After our boat trip to Kashega, Carlene 

visited her grandparents’ graves, bringing soil and berries she and others 

gathered in the village. She sprinkled both on the graves of Nellie and Peter so 

they would rest with something from their home. 

Carlene’s research had uncovered surprising information about her 

grandparents’ experience in Southeast Alaska.

While conducting research, I discovered some information that I really 

did not know about. I found a newspaper article in Sitka telling that the 

city was expanding its airport, and while they were working they came 

across an underground bunker that had a collection of caskets with no 

names on them, only numbers. Apparently, during the years from 1947 

to 1966, there was a tuberculosis (TB) epidemic, and these patients were 

sent to Mt. Edgecombe Hospital in Sitka. I learned that my grandparents 

were a part of this story. My grandparents were evacuated from Kashega 

to Southeast Alaska, and while they were there, both contracted TB. They 

were sent to Mt. Edgecombe, where they eventually passed away, and 

were buried in the underground bunker. This explains why my mom 

and uncle were adopted. But I still do not know in which town they were 

adopted; this is one matter I will follow up on after my graduation. (77)
EPILOGUE: REMEMBERING AND REVISITING THE LOST VILLAGES 307

It had been twenty years since the mausoleum had been opened 

up. After it was opened, Bob Sam, coordinator of the Native Graves 

Protection and Repatriation program at Sitka Tribes of Alaska at that 

time, researched hospital records and had DNA tests performed on the 

patients. I believe that most of them were identified. They contacted 

my brother with the findings, and the city had a ceremony for those 

families that had family placed to rest in the mausoleum. In addition, 

if they found the family or where they came from, in accordance with 

the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), 

most were repatriated back to where they originated. (77)

My grandparents were repatriated back to Unalaska. I had been 

in contact with Laresa Syverson from Ounalashka Corporation in 

Unalaska on various inquiries about the Unanga{. After informing 

Syverson about my thesis and family history, she discovered that 

my grandparents were buried in the Unalaska cemetery. I was very 

appreciative that Laresa had gone out there to look for me. I understand 

that there was a ceremony for my grandparents when they were returned 

to Unalaska. I wish I could have attended the event myself, but what has 

passed is still heartwarming. (78)

The next day Rachel took me to the cemetery in Unalaska, where 

my grandparents are buried. There I place the berries and dirt that I 

collected at Kashega on their graves, and talked with them for a little 

bit. While I was in Unalaska, Rachel had taken me and a few others 

to visit with Nick Galaktionoff, also an evacuee from Biorka. While 

visiting with him and his son John, we discovered that we are cousins. 

Rachel or I told Nick who my parents were, and Nick told us that his 

mother was my grandmother‘s sister from Makushin. My grandmother 

was Natalia Lekanoff and her sister was Parascovia Lekanoff. Nick was 

unable to go on the Lost Villages trip to Biorka, due to his health and 

worries about the weather. John calls me every once in a while to see 

how I am doing. So, this trip was a discovery of new family for me as 

well. (84-85)

The timing was perfect; I would have never discovered where my mother 

and grandparents came from, had it not been for doing research on 

the Unangan people. Seeing the beauty of Kashega and sensing the 

ancestors that were there during the placement of the Russian Cross was 

more than I could have imagined or hoped to experience just reading 

other peoples’ articles or books. Furthermore, while on the trip, I got to 

meet new friends and family who will always be a part of my life. Also, I 

discovered more about my mom's family, such as that her grandparents 

were interned in Sitka and were repatriated back to the Aleutians, and 

that my mom had a brother that I did not know about. I will continue to 

search or find out what happened to him. (87)
308 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

Peter Yatchmenoff’s 

grave, Unalaska, 

September 4, 2010. 

Photograph by 

Carlene Arnold.

Nellie Yatchmenoff’s 

grave, Unalaska, 

September 4, 2010. 

Photograph by 

Carlene Arnold.

The same morning that Carlene put the dirt and berries on her grandparents’ 

graves, Roberta Gordaoff and I took a hike down to Ugadaga Bay, following the 

trail the people from Biorka used to take. Mary Diakanoff remembered seeing 

them walk up the trail to sell their baskets and furs, returning with food and 

supplies they had received in trade or for cash. We drove to the top of the pass 

over an old military road. The trail down and up seemed long now, and we 

reflected on how much longer it would have been when there was no road to 

town and the Biorka residents had to walk five or more miles in addition to their 

boat ride to Ugadaga Bay.
EPILOGUE: REMEMBERING AND REVISITING THE LOST VILLAGES 309

Rachel Mason at top of 

the pass to Ugadaga, 

September 4, 2010. 

Photograph by Roberta 

Gordaoff. 

2011: Ketchikan and Ward Lake

In May 2011, I had the opportunity to visit Ketchikan and Ward Lake, the 

Civilian Conservation Corps camp where the Unanga{ residents of the 

smallest Aleutian villages, including Makushin, Kashega, and Biorka, were 

relocated during World War II. Charles Mobley, who had already investigated 

the Unanga{ wartime relocation sites in Southeast Alaska to determine 

their eligibility for a National Historic Register designation, also traveled to 

Ketchikan to conduct further research on Ward Lake. 

We learned that Feckla “Faye” McGlashan Schlais, from Akutan, had stayed in 

Ward Cove as a teenager during the war and was now living in Ketchikan. We met 

with Faye for lunch at the at the Rendezvous Senior Center, and she provided 

us with a photograph of her family, Hugh and Mattie McGlashan and some of 

their nine children, in front of the bus that Eugene Wacker used to transport 

Unanga{ between Ward Lake and Ketchikan. While at Ward Lake, she found a job 

in downtown Ketchikan. She married Evard Schlais and stayed in Ketchikan after 

the war.

Chuck Mobley and I went to Ward Lake, where little remains of the CCC 

camp. There is now a picnic shelter at the site, and a sign has been placed to 

recognize the Unanga{ who were relocated there during World War II. Chuck 

took pictures and recorded information about the little evidence remaining, 

such as a broken footbridge and a coiled piece of metal. I also visited the 

Bayview Cemetery and walked over the row of unmarked Unanga{ graves. 

They included the graves of Ephemia Kudrin from Kashega, Jane Mensoff’s 

grandmother, and of the two Eva Borenins from Makushin, one a teenager 
310 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

and the other a woman in her 50s. I knew about the graves from my colleague 

Greg Dixon, who had visited the cemetery the year before and met with the 

caretaker. Greg told me that although the burials are unmarked, the caretaker 

knows the location of each.

Boardwalk at Ward 

Lake, May 4, 2011. 

Photograph by Charles 

Mobley.

Telling the Painful Story

A common experience for descendants of the Lost Villages is that their parents 

never or very rarely talked with them about the evacuations of World War II. 

Former residents of the villages were far more willing to reflect on memories of 

life in the old villages, than they were to reminisce about the painful times of 

evacuation. Noticeably, in the transcribed oral history interviews, there is very 

little description of the actual experience of internment. Perhaps it is a cultural 

trait of Unanga{ to avoid talking about painful memories. After I spoke at the 

senior citizens’ lunch in Unalaska, one woman asked, “Why did you have to 

bring up all these sad memories?” Before I approached another woman to ask 

her about her experiences at Ward Lake, her daughter-in-law warned me that 

it was very hard for her to talk about, and she might not want to say anything. 

Other people handled painful memories as they dealt with the painful events: by 

getting through them and moving on. I asked Bill Ermeloff, from Nikolski, about 

his short stay with his young family at the Wrangell Institute, which I assumed 

must have been a difficult time. He said, “It was something new.” 

The narrative style in the oral histories is related to the traditional Unanga{ 

art of storytelling. According to Laughlin (1980) Unanga{ had several different 

types of stories and styles of storytelling. In one style, described by a man from 

Akutan, the speaker paused frequently, followed by sounds of approval by the 
EPILOGUE: REMEMBERING AND REVISITING THE LOST VILLAGES 311

listeners. Although accuracy of memory was important, it was considered in 

bad form to correct a mistake. In the Lost Villages oral history narratives Ray 

Hudson recorded and other Unanga{ interviews, I have noticed that even when 

memories differ, speakers do not usually correct other storytellers.

Narratives Jochelson collected in Unalaska in 1909 show another convention of 

Unanga{ storytelling: to characterize each story, as storyteller Isidor Solovyov 

did, as the “work of my country.” The question-answer format of the Lost Villages 

interviews makes it less obvious, but there are still hints of this perspective in 

the way Nick Lekanoff, Nick Galaktionoff, Eva Tcheripanoff, Irene Makarin, and 

Moses Gordieff talked about their lives. Of Ray’s interviewees, Nick Galaktionoff 

stands out as a storyteller, but each had a personal style. Even as they recall their 

own experiences, the narrators still convey the work of their country, the foggy 

coasts and mountains of Unalaska Island. They were less inclined to comment 

and report on the unfamiliar country they lived through as a result of wartime 

relocation.

At the Beginning of 

a Story.

Unanga{ have experienced many displacements in their history, voluntary and 

involuntary. Before European contact, settlements were occasionally moved, 

usually for better access to resources, but also because of natural disasters, such 

as volcanoes. Under Russian colonial rule, men were forced to hunt sea otters, 

and hunting parties left their families and communities for months at a time. 

The Russians moved groups of people to work in the Pribilofs, or to consolidate 

the population into larger villages when smaller ones were decimated by disease 

and hardship. When Unanga{ communities were evacuated and their residents 

placed in relocation camps during World War II, their residents underwent a 

new kind of displacement. In a presentation at the Aleutian Pribilof Islands 

Association Senior Potluck in 2009, I referred to the Lost Villages as “abandoned” 

and was corrected by Alice Petrivelli, who told me that the departure was not 

voluntary. 
312 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

Most of the former residents of the villages that Ray Hudson and others interviewed 

were children in 1942, when the evacuations occurred. Perhaps because many of 

them moved after the war to Unalaska, Akutan, Anchorage, Seattle, and elsewhere, 

they had relatively little chance to develop a collective memory of the old villages or 

about the wartime evacuation. They remember childhood events such as a doll left 

behind, or a fight with a cousin or sibling. There were some funny or matter-of-fact 

stories about presumably traumatic times. A collective view of the evacuation began 

to emerge after the reparations hearings in the 1980s. There have been disagreements 

and revisions of the stories of individual or collective migrations. Ironic editorials are 

added or implied in the retelling. Mary Diakanoff, who had stayed at Burnett Inlet in 

Southeast Alaska, said her future husband got work “building that nice camp for the 

Germans.” She was referring to the prisoner of war camp whose inmates were much 

better cared for than the Unanga{ housed in terrible conditions nearby. 

Those who remembered the Lost Villages wanted to revisit the landscape and feel 

the wind, rain, and sea air as they had in the old days. George Gordaoff worried 

that he wouldn’t be able to walk very well around Kashega if he went back, but he 

wanted to see the coastline he remembered from the boat. For those evacuated 

to Southeast Alaska during the war, the alien landscape was one of the worst 

parts of the experience. Several people mentioned how difficult it was to get used 

to living among the trees in Southeast Alaska. The Unanga{ place of comfort was 

on treeless windswept islands. 

Return visits by boat to the ruins of the villages, with the elderly surviving 

residents and some of their younger descendants, were key to the Lost Villages 

project. We planted a cross at the site of the church in each village, filming the 

residents. Almost all the surviving residents of the villages that we have been able 

to contact have said that they would love to go back now to the old villages. In 

fact, it was difficult to choose who was most “qualified” to go. Two of the elders 

who wanted to revisit their villages in 2009 were blind or nearly blind, but still 

wanted to go back to the places they once lived. One of them, Nick Galaktionoff, 

often sat by himself on the beach at Unalaska while he fished. He could tell when 

there was a fish in the net. He could still feel the Aleutian wind and know when a 

plane was unlikely to fly or when a boat would encounter rough seas. He felt the 

landscape, even when he didn’t see it.
EPILOGUE: REMEMBERING AND REVISITING THE LOST VILLAGES 313

The Lost Villages project speaks to those Unanga{ who remember being separated 

from their home villages, years of living in relocation camps in Southeast Alaska, and 

not being able to return home. It also speaks to their children and grandchildren, and 

to the descendants of all those who experienced the loss of their villages but are now 

gone. It is meaningful, though, to all of us. Many can relate to the strain of abrupt, 

unwelcome change from a familiar landscape to a foreign one, and the sadness of 

never being able to return home.

Sometimes people want to return to a painful place. Some Unanga{ have made trips 

back to Southeast Alaska to revisit evacuation camps. One reason they want to do that 

is to visit the graves at Funter Bay and Ketchikan. As they remembered and revisited 

their former villages, participants in the Lost Villages project did not want to return 

only to a place of happy memories. They wanted to honor their parents and relatives, 

and put them to rest.

Nick Galaktionoff 

on the beach at 

Unalaska, July 2, 

2002. Photograph by 

Shelly Hudson.

MEMORY ETERNAL
314 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

Index

A

Abloogalook, Mattie 285

Abloogalook, Vincent 259

Agrafina Petikoff. See Makarin: Agrifina

Akun 48, 54, 61, 66, 71, 76, 77, 97

Akutan 1–11, 4, 9, 17, 56, 61, 71, 76, 77, 89, 90, 95, 97, 

99, 105, 113, 115, 117, 120, 123, 124, 126, 129, 

131, 147, 148, 149, 150, 153, 162, 187, 189, 192, 

209, 220, 228, 231, 232, 235, 237, 240, 243, 244, 

246, 247, 249, 251, 252, 255, 257, 258, 259, 260, 

263, 264, 276, 277, 279, 280, 285, 286, 296, 309, 

310, 312, 317

Alaska Commercial Company VI, VII, 1, 29, 67, 68, 

74, 78, 84, 85, 103, 106, 110, 113, 126, 171, 175, 

180, 195, 199, 202, 209, 211, 270, 316, 317

Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge 286

Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act 276, 288. See 

also ANCSA

alcohol 39, 161, 182, 189, 199, 222, 250

Aleut Corporation 285, 293

Aleutian Islands Reservation 143, 145, 147, 148, 149, 

150, 189

Aleutian Pribilof Islands Association VI, 236, 277, 

286, 311

Aleutian World War II National Historic Area I, V, 

283

Alexei [Bishop] 209

Alice Moller V, VI, 136, 152, 159, 164, 196, 197, 201, 

202, 205, 226, 229, 254, 255, 259, 263, 267, 270, 

288

ANCSA 277, 278. See Alaska Maritime National 

Wildlife Refuge

Anderson Bay 146, 173, 174, 209

Antonin, Bishop 195

Applegate, Samuel 5, 79, 110, 116, 120, 127, 128, 142, 

143, 145, 151, 316

Arkhimandritov, Illarion 68, 74

assimilation 224, 276

Atka 4, 25, 31, 55, 56, 63, 65, 68, 69, 70, 73, 95, 99, 

101, 102, 103, 115, 117, 126, 134, 137, 138, 147, 

149, 150, 153, 186, 202, 205, 209, 214, 228, 237, 

239, 243, 244, 253, 264, 279, 318

Attu 4, 55, 63, 67, 68, 73, 85, 95, 99, 101, 113, 116, 

117, 122, 131, 134, 142, 147, 149, 150, 153, 159, 

186, 193, 228, 229, 232, 237, 252, 255, 279, 284, 

286, 323

B

baidar 19–26, 42, 58

baidarka 49, 53, 71, 143, 157, 172–183, 173, 228

Bailey, George W. 73

Bank, Theodore P. 276, 280

Baranof, M.A. 249

Baranof, Makary A. 249

Baranov 7, 47, 48, 63

Baranov, Alexander 7

Beaver Inlet 1, 4, 8, 14, 15, 19, 23, 24, 29, 30, 32, 42, 

48, 49, 54, 61, 68, 94, 109, 126, 181, 185, 187, 

188, 193, 232, 233, 236, 301

Belkovski 99, 101, 149, 209

Benson 117, 118

Benson, [Bjorn] Brown 117

Bereskin

Anna Jean VI, 188, 266, 268

John 235

Peri 231

Bergsland, Knut 3–4, 6, 10–11, 15–17, 21–22, 31–32, 

39, 41, 54, 69, 102, 200, 202, 318

Berikoff, Emilian 121, 143, 146

Biorka 1–9, 11, 13–14, 17, 21, 23, 26, 29, 34–35, 

47–49, 54–55, 58, 61, 63, 65–66, 68, 71–78, 85, 

89–90, 92, 94–95, 97, 99–103, 105–107, 109–

110, 113, 115, 117–118, 120, 120–122, 124–127, 

129, 131, 133, 137–139, 141–143, 145, 147–148, 

150, 152–155, 160, 185–190, 192–193, 209, 

219–221, 228–230, 232–234, 236, 239–241, 

243–246, 251, 253, 255, 258, 263–270, 275–276, 

280–281, 283, 285–287, 289, 295–296, 300–309

Bishop Alexei. See also Panteleev, Alexander

Black, Lydia 6, 10, 39, 318

Bogoslof Island 79, 104, 118

Bolshanin, Nicholas 118, 143, 145, 188

Borenin

Akenfa 219

Carl 221, 239, 245, 251, 253, 260

Elia 133, 153, 176, 179, 207, 209, 210, 213, 215, 219, 

238, 258

Eva 219–221, 237, 250

George 1, 136, 139, 157, 168, 205, 219, 221, 232, 
EPILOGUE: REMEMBERING AND REVISITING THE LOST VILLAGES 315

239, 245, 253, 256, 260–262, 264–265, 268

Innokentii 220, 222, 229, 230, 259

John [Makushin] 133, 172–173, 175, 210, 212, 269

John S. 105

Marva 172, 210, 212–213, 228

Matfey 133, 210

Matrona 135, 219, 285

Mike 190, 214

Natalia 173, 212–213, 219, 259

Nick 219, 237–238, 245, 253, 259, 285

Oleta 197, 205

Olga [née Shapsnikoff] 159–160, 168, 204

Sergie 168, 219, 239, 245, 253, 260, 268

Sophia 136

Valentine "Tina" 212

Vasilii 161

Brady, John G. 116

Brown, WIlliam C. "Bill" 211, 216, 223

Bryant, Charles 73–74

Buckley, Paul 136, 139, 143, 146–148, 150–151

Burdukofski, Ruff 92–93

C

Caldwell, Jenabe and Elaine 262

Carlisle Indian School 139, 200

Carter, Arletta 165, 182, 196, 201, 208

Catherine II 18, 41, 55

Chercasen, Dorofey “Rusty” 237, 246, 248, 250

Chernofski 4, 7, 17–19, 21, 51, 59, 63, 66, 70, 72, 77, 

79, 83–86, 90, 91, 93–95, 97, 99–100, 105, 111–

114, 117, 120–121, 125, 127–129, 131, 136–137, 

139, 143, 146–147, 149–155, 157, 160, 167, 173, 

199–200, 207, 212, 215, 230–232, 238–240, 239, 

243, 255, 264–265, 276, 280

Christoffers, Harry J. 143, 145, 147, 150

Clerke, Charles 31–32, 40, 43–45

Commander Islands (Bering, Mednoi) 4, 55, 203, 321

Cook, James 29–32, 37–45, 47–49

creole (terminology) 66, 105, 110

D

Dall, William Healy 74, 85, 87–88, 101, 317

Dalrymple, Al 53

Davenport, Noah and Clara 123–124, 124, 128, 188, 

229

Davidson, George 5, 7, 63, 71, 79, 118, 319

Deep Bay (Village) 32, 34, 37, 42, 61, 68

Denisoff, Afanasii 136, 159

Denisoff (family) 103, 136

Denisoff, Ivan [John] 162, 164, 168, 202–205, 

220–221, 229–230, 232, 255

Denisoff, Martha 166, 168, 196

Denisoff, Nikifor 136, 166, 168, 200, 202–203

Diakanoff, Cecil 235

Diakanoff, Mary [né Moller] V, 159, 162, 164, 167, 

168, 194, 197, 198, 199, 200, 201, 202, 204, 220, 

225, 229, 236, 244, 249, 253, 285, 288, 295, 296, 

300, 308, 312

Dirks, Henry 95, 115

Dirks, Kathy 2, 300, 301, 302, 303, 304

Dirks, Moses 172

Dushkin, George 257

Dushkin, Lavera 244, 245, 247, 249

Dushkot Island 185, 228

Dutch Harbor 114, 116, 117, 120, 124, 141, 142, 143, 

158, 211, 214, 230, 231, 233, 235, 236, 237, 240, 

258, 259, 261, 267, 296, 302, 319

Dyakanoff, Ivan 98

Dyakanoff, Kathyrn 139

Dyakanoff, William [Bill] 214, 267

E

Elliott, Henry W. 5, 16, 31, 73, 76, 78, 87, 90, 92, 95, 

149, 320

Emilian Berikoff 121

English Bay [Samgan Udaa] 31, 32, 37, 38, 39, 40, 42, 

43, 148

epidemics

influenza 116, 152, 153, 180

influenza and measles 116

Ermeloff, Afenogan 286

Ermeloff, Akenfa "Candy" 253

Ermeloff, ALex 9, 19, 138, 187, 193, 220, 221, 228, 

236, 245, 253, 264, 266, 267, 268, 269, 276, 280

Ermeloff, Irene [i.e. Irene Lukanin] 251, 266

Ermeloff, Ruff 185, 191, 193, 228, 230, 233, 245, 265, 

266, 267

Ermeloff, Sophia 190

Ermeloff, William 246, 247, 286, 310

F

Finch, Durell 211, 222

Foley, D.P. 122, 125, 126, 127, 128, 131, 171

Fortress Rock 163, 164

fox 18, 23, 35, 73, 85, 100, 101, 124, 125, 126, 128, 

141, 142, 143, 146, 147, 149, 165, 167, 173, 174, 

186, 192, 199, 200, 211, 222, 230, 232, 265

fox trapping 128, 141, 142, 143, 149, 167, 222
316 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

Fox Islands 14, 18, 21, 38, 42, 43, 44, 55, 61

fur seals 21, 48, 73, 75, 78, 83, 92, 93, 99, 100, 106, 

117, 127, 128, 149, 288

pelagic sealing 113, 150

G

Galaktionoff

Akenfa 175, 177, 179, 207, 209, 210

Anna 135

Arseni 135

Frank 173, 176, 209

Gabriel 135

Irene 221, 266, 268

Jenny 276, 280

Marina 220, 225

Marva. See Petukoff, Marva

Molly. See Lukanin: Molly

Nicholai "Nick" V, VI, 6, 9, 13, 14, 15, 19, 22, 33, 79, 

80, 102, 122, 133, 134, 135, 138, 153, 154, 160, 

172, 173, 174, 177, 178, 179, 180, 181, 185, 186, 

187, 189, 207, 208, 209, 210, 211, 212, 220, 221, 

222, 228, 235, 240, 251, 264, 265, 266, 267, 276, 

285, 288, 291, 294, 302, 305, 307, 311, 312, 313

Parascovia. See Lekanoff, Parascovia

Peter 221, 222, 245

Philip 153, 175, 181

Tikhon 134

Galaktionov, Ivan K. 134

Galanin, Moses 209

gardens 61, 116, 166, 178, 182

Gardner

George 165, 166

Victoria 201, 209, 223

Gardner, Paul W. 200

Geeslin, Fred 246

Glotov

Stepan 17, 21

Golodoff, John 267

Gordaoff, George V, 161, 196, 203, 205, 220, 239, 240, 

247, 252, 253, 260, 285, 288, 289, 295, 296, 297, 

299, 300, 301

Goss

Albert C. 143, 145, 148, 153

Clara 224

Greenbaum, Alfred 67, 76, 88, 103

Gromoff, Ishmael 138

Gronholdt, Andrew 231

H

Hapoff, Steven 53

Harrington, Mark 86

Harris, Arthur "Art" 151, 203

Healy, Michael A. 96, 97, 320

Henderson, James and Carrye 164, 165, 166, 167, 169, 

196, 224

Holmes, Milton 154

Hooper, C.L. 7, 75, 78, 101, 103, 114, 115, 135, 136, 

321

Hotovitsky [Dimitri] 148, 150, 151, 188

Hrdlička 203, 214, 321

Hrdlička, Aleš 203, 214, 321

I

Iliuliuk 1, 4, 25, 41, 42, 45, 49, 55, 56, 61, 62, 63, 66, 

69, 71, 72, 73, 79, 89, 91, 100, 101, 103, 105, 

106, 120, 133, 134, 135, 138, 139, 224. See 

also Unalaska (village)

influenza 116, 152, 153, 180

iqya{. See baidarka

Islands of Four Mountains 14, 17, 25, 42, 192

It{aada{ 21, 22, 23, 29

Izmailov, Gerasim 42, 43, 44, 102

J

Jackson, Sheldon 200

Jacobsen, Harry 169, 196, 199, 255

Japanese

Before WWII 113, 120, 136, 211, 228, 229, 230, 233, 

235, 236, 237, 252, 255, 278, 283, 293

invasion of Aleutians 236, 237, 252, 255, 278, 283

Japanese Americans 278

Jones, Dorothy VI, 139, 223

Jorgensen, Jessica 225, 227

Jr. 163

K

Kafoury, Nadir C. 118, 141

Kagulu{ 39, 49

Kashevaroff, B.P. 116, 143, 295

Kastromitin

Dorofey 155, 169

family 133, 169

Kedrovsky, Alexander 66, 115, 118, 119, 120, 122

Killisnoo 237, 250, 255, 258

King, George 136
EPILOGUE: REMEMBERING AND REVISITING THE LOST VILLAGES 317

King, Lt. James 32, 39

Kiska 237, 255

Kittredge, Ellen Louise 109

Kohlhoff, Dean 240, 243, 246, 250, 253, 321

Kozloff

(family) 137, 185, 189

Jacob 137, 185, 189

Kozloff, Jacob 137, 185, 189

Krenitzin Islands 4

Kriukov

Gregory 58

Ivan 56, 58, 113

Stepan 60

Krukoff

Efimia 136

Matrona 133, 153

Kudrin

Alexei 136, 161

Cornelius 105, 136, 139, 145, 159, 168, 203, 221, 

239, 245, 253, 260, 261, 265

Dora [née Borenin] VI, 157, 167, 197, 219, 221, 230, 

239, 268, 276

Eva 2, 168, 205, 221, 229, 238, 244, 249, 295, 301

(family) 136, 160, 204

George 169, 221, 252, 260, 296

Ivan I. [John J.] 113, 136, 159, 195

Mike 167, 169, 196, 221, 245, 253, 269

Olga 169, 221, 260, 296

Peter 169, 203, 205, 221, 260

Polly. See also Lekanoff: Pauline

Sergie 169, 203, 245, 253

Sophia. See Pletnikoff, Sophia

Tatiana (née Nevzoroff) 205, 221

Vassa 168, 239, 249

Kulchitsky, Theodosius 209, 213

Kuliliak Bay 7, 48, 148, 162, 200, 203

L

Larsen, A.M. 105

Larsen, Captain 175

Ledyard, John 41

Lekanoff

Arthur 176, 209, 268

Constantine 153, 182

Frederick VI, 2, 153, 170

Helen 236, 268

Jennie V, 222, 269

Pauline 105

Lekanoff, Parascovia 177, 307

Lukanin

Marfa 101

Molly 220, 221, 240, 251, 265, 266, 268, 269, 280

Peter 190, 193, 221, 228, 236, 253

M

Makarin

Agrafina 190, 221, 265, 280

Alexei 66

Andrew VI, 1, 9, 14, 15, 66, 69, 102, 139, 153, 181, 

185, 187, 190, 191, 193, 220, 221, 228, 230, 233, 

240, 245, 253, 264, 265, 267, 269, 270, 272, 273, 

276, 280, 300, 301, 302, 304

Elia 190, 191

Eustina (née Sovoroff) 189, 228, 241, 268, 271

Irene 5, 189, 190, 221, 233, 236, 240, 247, 263, 265, 

283, 311, 316

Terentii 66, 97, 101, 102, 105, 109, 117, 137, 138

Makushin 1–4, 7–9, 11, 13, 17, 19–21, 23, 25–26, 

47–48, 50–51, 53–55, 58–61, 63, 65–68, 70–74, 

77–81, 83, 85, 89–90, 92, 94–95, 97, 99–101, 

103–109, 111, 113–115, 117, 120–123, 126–

129, 131–135, 138–139, 141–147, 147, 150, 

152–155, 157–159, 160, 167, 170–181, 182–

183, 185–186, 196, 202, 206–216, 219–222, 225, 

227, 231–232, 235–237, 239–240, 243–246, 

250, 253, 255, 258–260, 264, 267, 269, 274–276, 

280, 283–291, 305, 307, 309, 323

Chapel of St. Gregory 66, 111

Chapel of the Nativity of Christ 111, 177

resettlement 260, 263, 267

sea otter hunters 73, 127

volcanic disturbances 79

Volcano 6, 179

Margaret Bay (Unalaska Island) 231, 233

Martin, Jack 199

Marutani 278

May, Alan G. 203

McCracken, Harold 162

McGlashan

Feckla [née Prokopeuff] 95

Hugh 95, 115, 117, 150, 231, 252

Irene 2, 231, 287–288, 294–295, 298, 301, 304–305

Nick 231, 263

McIntyre, Hugh Henry 73

Mensoff

Anna 251, 260

Jane VI, VII, 2, 238, 285, 288, 295, 296, 298, 299, 

301, 309
318 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

John 260, 296

Larry 276, 280

Olga 238, 241, 260

Merck, Carl 49

Moller

Alice 136, 152, 159, 164, 196–197, 201–202, 205–

206, 229, 254–255, 259, 263, 267, 270, 288

Carl 168, 236, 261, 270

Charles 162, 169

John VI, 263

Mary. See Diakanoff, Mary [né Moller]

Morzhovoi 114, 115, 117, 149

Muir, John 96

Murie, Olaus 223

N

Nagoski, Basil 262

National Park Service

Lost Villages Project 1, 263, 283, 288, 316, 323

Natrubin, Peter 40

Nestor, [Bishop] 134

Netsvetov, Iakov 55–57, 69, 318

Neumann, Rudolph 83, 98, 103, 115

Newhall, Albert 116

Newman, Arthur 93

Nick Borenin 219, 237, 238, 245, 253, 259, 285

Nikolski 1, 4, 17, 59, 65, 76, 88, 89, 93, 94, 97, 99, 113, 

116, 117, 128, 138, 142, 147, 148, 149, 151, 152, 

164, 173, 186, 188, 195, 209, 232, 237, 239, 240, 

241, 243, 244, 245, 246, 247, 249, 250, 251, 253, 

260, 264, 276, 279, 286, 310

North American Commercial Company (NAC) 

113–114, 117–118, 120, 132, 141–144, 160

O

Old Man Rocks 14, 143, 229

Olgin, Ivan [John] 104, 105, 110

Oliver, Simeon 263

Olsen

Annie 182, 207, 286, 291

John (i.e. John Borenin) 219

John Peter Halberg. See Olsen: Pete

Pete 174, 177–178, 181–182, 207–208, 210–212, 

215–216, 219, 231, 237, 245, 251, 259, 286, 291

Tatiana "Katie" [née Golodoff] 180–181, 207, 213, 

219, 251

Oskolkoff, Simeon 270

Ounalashka Corporation 38, 277, 288, 295, 307, 316

P

Pacific American Fisheries 145–146, 148, 172

Pacific Northwest Aleut Council 285

Panteleev, Alexander 209

Petelin

Joseph 66, 67, 71, 104, 133

Serapion 104

Peterson, William 95

Petikoff

Aken 175

(family) VII, 55

Mark 251–252, 255, 257–258

Matfey 177, 209

Peter 146, 179, 208

Simeon 175, 259

Yakeem "Jack" 177, 179

Petroff, Ivan 13, 75, 79, 104, 320

Petroff, Olga 137

Petukhof, Gregory 66–67, 71

Petukoff, Marva 9–10, 80, 133

Pletnikoff, Sophia 122, 160, 280

Popoff

Barbara 190

(family) 137

Ignaty 190

Kerik 137, 143

Matthew 190

Pribilof Islands. See also St. George and St. Paul

Q

Qagaan Tayaĝungin 4

Qawalangin 4, 48, 54

Qigiiĝun 4, 48, 54

Quean, O.K. 150, 164

R

Reinken

Adolph 84, 89, 105, 160

Alexandra 143, 160, 200

John 200

Olga 139

Sophia 120

Robinson, Verne 207, 216, 230, 264

Rose, Charlie 172

Russian-American Company 4, 7, 20, 24, 29, 47, 

55–56, 62–63, 65–68, 87, 104

Rysev, Nicholas 97, 113
EPILOGUE: REMEMBERING AND REVISITING THE LOST VILLAGES 319

S

Sanak 84, 94, 95, 99, 102, 103, 105, 114, 115, 121, 157

Sapozhnikov, Iakov Ivanov 43

Sapozhnikov, Petr 102

Sarychev, Graviil 6, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 322, 323

Sauer, Martin 24, 25, 48, 51, 62

Schaleben, H.O. 125

sea lion 14–15, 33, 35, 87–90, 114, 122, 129, 149, 159, 

161, 179, 230

Sea Otter 82–83, 85, 94, 109, 127

Sedanka Island 4, 24, 30, 63, 124, 189, 192–193, 229, 

235, 264, 265, 322

Sedanka Point 5, 18

Seward Gateway 120, 167, 172, 182, 183, 190, 199, 

200, 202

Shaiashnikov

Alexander 79, 97

Innokentii 5, 52, 63, 66–71, 76–77, 79, 102

Kas’ian 65, 69

Mariia [née Alekseev] 69, 74

Vasilii 95, 133, 139

Shapsnikoff

Anfesia 190, 227, 253, 257, 270, 276, 280

Elia 121, 158, 171–172

sheep ranching 150, 154, 200–203, 207, 213, 232, 238, 

260, 285

Shelikhov, Gregori 24

Shelikoff, Luke 246, 250, 259, 277

ships

Albatross 111, 114, 324

Bear 97, 120, 175

Bella 94

Columbia (SS) 150, 239–240, 244–245

David S. Branch 255

Delarof (USAT) 142, 237, 239, 259

Discovery (HMS) 25, 29, 32, 40, 43

Dora (SS) 85, 94

Dorothy (schooner) 175

Effie M. Morrissey (schooner) 162

Eloise (schooner) 151

Elvira (schooner) 120, 122, 127–128

Emma (schooner) 118

Everett Hays (schooner) 110, 116, 118, 120, 127

Gavriil 19

Glory of Russia 48, 49

Haida (USRC) 149

Ingham (USCGC) 213

Itasca (USCGC) 176, 214

J.P. Ward (schooner) 117

Kanaga Native (M/V) 180

Katie-O 174

Kensai Maru (schooner) 120

Lettie (schooner) 150, 153

Manning (USRC) 117, 158, 171, 186, 229

Mathew Turner (Brig) 94

McCulloch (USRC) 73, 146, 159

Nero (USS) 187

Newport (whaler) 109

Northland (USCGC) 192

Northwestern (SS) 233

Oduna (SS) 152, 154

Pearl (schooner) 94, 105

Penguin (MS) 246

Polar Bear 175

Resolution (HMS) 29, 38–39, 41, 43, 318, 321

Rush (Richard Rush) (USRC) 73, 78, 96, 116, 122, 

318

Saki Maru (schooner) 120

Selma (schooner) 117

Shellfish (M/V) 263

Shoshone (USCGC) 214, 232

Starr (SS) 172, 208, 216

St. Paul 137, 231

Sv. Andreian i Natal’ia 21

Sv. Evpl [St. Euplus] 43

Sv. Nikolai 19

Sv. Pavel 42

Sv. Petr i Pavel 21

Sv. Zakharii i Elisaveta 19

Sv. Zhivotvoriashchaia Troitsa 19

Tahoe (USRC) 174, 176, 192, 195, 200, 201

Tallapoosa (USCGC) 213, 214

Three Saints (Tri Sviatitelia) 44, 47

Umnak Native (M/V) 161, 195

Unalga (USRC) 126–127, 143, 146–148, 153–154, 

185–187

(USCGC) 211

William L. Thompson (USAT) 253

Wolcott (USRC) 78

Yorktown (USS) 114

Siems-Drake 231, 233

Siftsoff

Anesia 138

(family) 137

Gabriel 137

Leontii 137

Sitka Tribes of Alaska 307

Smith, Andrew C. 151, 165
320 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

Sovoroff

Agrafina [née Borenin] 160

Irene 251

Leonty 245, 248, 250

Sergie 35, 276

Sproat, W.R. “Rex” 154

Stepetin

Alfred 261, 270, 276

Annie 227

German 202, 227

Stevenson, Donald 143, 154

St. George (village) 4, 74, 87, 90–91, 101, 134, 144, 

209, 227, 236–237, 252, 255, 279–280, 288. See 

also Pribilof Islands

St. Paul (village) 4, 65, 69, 74, 87–88, 90–93, 120, 132, 

167, 176, 193, 203, 209, 212, 214–215, 229, 

231–232, 237, 243, 249, 252–253, 255, 259–260, 

265–266, 279, 288

subsistence practices

fish

cod 33, 99, 145, 147–148, 151, 161, 189, 210–211

halibut 33, 38, 42, 248

roots of 56

salmon 20, 23, 33, 40, 42–43, 48, 59–60, 68, 122, 

138, 145–148, 151, 160, 166–167, 172, 181, 189, 

201–202, 240, 245, 296

Swanson, Henry 84, 121, 142, 151, 154, 164, 172, 173, 

185, 193, 200, 211, 213, 223, 231, 324

Swetzof, Michael VI

Swineford, Alfred Peter 98–99

T

Tanadgusix (TDX) Corporation (St. Paul) 288

Tanaq Corporation (St. George) 288

Tcheripanoff

Eva [née Kudrin] V, 161, 204, 230, 236, 238–241, 

262, 283–284, 288, 294, 311

John 161, 167, 249, 260

William 9

Telanoff (family) 133

Theodosius, [Father]. See Kulchitsky, Theodosius

Thornton, Harrison H. 109, 110

Tiĝla{ VII, 1, 286–290, 292, 295, 301, 304

Townsend, C.H. 114, 115, 116

tsunami (1946) 265

Turner, Lucien M. 101

Tutiakoff

Michael 195

Paul and Alice 265

Philemon 9, 258, 267, 278

Sergie 227

Tracy 267

U

Ugadaga Bay 61, 124, 126, 189, 218, 228, 232, 

265–267, 270, 308

Unalaska City School District 284

Unalaska (village) 80, 93. See also Iliuliuk

and Three Villages 10–11, 54–55, 61–62, 65, 68, 70, 

76, 85–86, 91, 94, 100, 104, 106, 111, 113, 117, 

125, 132–133, 137–139, 141–143, 189, 202, 220, 

232, 236–237, 239, 243–244, 249, 253, 258, 264, 

267–268, 275–276, 278–279

Church of the Holy Ascension 100, 111, 113, 118, 

196, 209, 262, 267–268, 268, 271

founding 25

incorporation 224

“New Town” 269

Unalga 30–31, 49, 54, 59, 61, 92, 126–127, 143, 

146–148, 153–154, 185–187, 189, 264–265

radio station 187

Unalga Pass 30–31, 31, 92

Unangam tunuu (Aleut language) 5, 10–11, 64, 

69–70, 120, 139, 177, 186, 191, 202, 205, 225, 

227, 240, 271, 275

literacy 65, 69, 318

Unga 68, 74, 96, 99, 101, 116

U.S. Congress 73, 75, 120, 222, 224, 230, 278

U.S. Fish and Wildlife 1, 94, 150, 152, 223, 252, 284, 

286, 288, 292, 316–318

V

Veniaminov

Ioann 5–6, 9, 10, 13, 22, 24–25, 54, 58–66, 69–70, 

74–75

W

Wacker, Eugene 247–248, 252, 309

Ward Lake 242, 244, 246–250, 252–253, 255, 257, 259, 

285–286, 309–310

Webber, John 28–29, 32–34, 36–38, 82

Western Fur and Trading Company 77, 101

Western Pacific Livestock Company 152, 199

Weyer, Edward Moffat 163

whale 15–17, 20, 24, 34–35, 42, 49–50, 72, 89, 204

whalers 79, 99, 103, 109

White, Leslie A. 182
EPILOGUE: REMEMBERING AND REVISITING THE LOST VILLAGES 321

Wickersham, James 67, 78, 137–138

Wosnesenski Island 83, 85

Y

Yatchmeneff

Alexei 133, 139, 143, 145, 148, 151, 173, 225–226, 

226

John 176, 192, 208

Yatchmenev, Abraham 66, 105, 133

Yatchmenoff

Elsie 220, 269

Fedey [Feddie] 228, 245, 247, 263, 268

George 154, 191–193, 221, 233, 245, 266–267

Gregorii 138

John B. (first) 137, 163, 167, 195, 221, 239, 265

John (second) 137

Laressa 167, 239

Nellie 220–221, 251, 260, 306, 308

Peter 203, 221, 239, 306, 308

Vasilii 137

Willie 193, 245, 253, 265–266, 280

Z

Zeusler, F.A. 193, 232, 244, 252
322 LOST VILLAGES OF THE EASTERN ALEUTIANS: BIORKA, KASHEGA, MAKUSHIN 

Cupola from the Kashega Chapel in the Unalaska churchyard. Photograph by Ray Hudson, n.d.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Interviews

The primary interviews for this work were made in 2004 with Moses Gordieff, Nicholai Galaktionoff, 

Nicholai S. Lekanoff, Irene Makarin, and Eva Tcheripanoff. Transcripts are found in The Beginning of 

Memory: Oral Histories on the Lost Villages of the Aleutians, a report to the National Park Service, The 

Aleutian Pribilof Islands Restitution Fund, and the Ounalashka Corporation, introduced and edited by 

Raymond Hudson, 2004. Additional interviews and conversations are recorded in the notes. 

Archival Collections

Alaska State Library 

Historical Collections. Samuel Applegate Papers, 1892-1925. MS-3.

Bancroft Library

Collection of manuscripts relating to Russian missionary activities in the Aleutian Islands, [ca. 1840-

1904] BANC MSS P-K 209. 

Hubert Howe Bancroft Collection

Goforth, J. Pennelope (private collection)

Bringing Aleutian History Home: the Lost Ledgers of the Alaska Commercial Company 1875-1897. 

Logbook, Tchernofski Station, May 5, 1887 – April 22, 1888

Library of Congress, Manuscript Division 

Russian Orthodox Greek Catholic Church of America, Diocese of Alaska Records, 1733-1938.

National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution

National Archives and Records Administration

Record Groups 22 (Fish and Wildlife Service), 26 (Coast Guard), 36 (Customs Service), 75 (Bureau of 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 323

Indian Affairs)

MF 720 (Alaska File of the Office of the Secretary of the Treasury, 1868-1903)

MF Z13 Pribilof Islands Logbooks, 1870-1961. (Previous number A3303)

Robert Collins Collection. (Private collection of letters and documents relating to the Alaska Commercial 

Company)

Smithsonian Institution Archives

Record Unit 7073 (William Healey Dall Collection) 

Record Unit 7176 (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Field Reports, 1860-1961)

Record Unit 7364 (Edward William Nelson and Edward Alphonso Goldman Collection). 

University of Alaska Anchorage, , Archives and Special Collections, Consortium Library.

Theodore Paul Bank II Papers. HMC-0068.

Alan G. May Papers. HMC-0690.

University of Alaska Fairbanks, Archives, Alaska and Polar Regions Collections, Rasmuson Library

Alaska Commercial Company Records 1868-1911.

Akutan station account ledger May 1, 1884 – March 31, 1889, box 2, folder 31

[Akutan station] Accounts, Daily Cash Record, 1882 – 1892, box 2, folder 30.

Kodiak station, Letters, outgoing: Letter Book A, 1889-1892, box 124, folder 1146

Unalaska, Letters Outgoing: Copy Book, 1885-1889, box 152, folder 1573

Unalaska station, Log Book Unalaska, January 1, 1878 – June 30, 1879], box 152, folder 1577.

Unalaska station, Census of Unalaska and Aleutian Villages, March 1878, box 152, folder 1578.

San Francisco station, Petition of natives to President Cleveland, box 139, folder 1303.

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Plates courtesy Francis Broderick.


Newly planted cross at Biorka, with the small structure Andrew Makarin built over the site of the chapel, September 2, 

2010. Photograph by Greg Jones.
Ray Hudson, Beaver Inlet, Unalaska, June 2013

Photo by Suzi Golodoff.

Author Ray Hudson lived at Unalaska from 1964 to 1992, 

during which time he taught various subjects in the public 

school and coordinated the Indian Education programs. He 

is the author of several works on the Aleutians including 

Moments Rightly Placed, an Aleutian Memoir (Epicenter 

Press) and Family After All, Alaska’s Jesse Lee Home, Vol. 1, 

Unalaska 1889-1925 (Hardscratch Press). He edited Before 

the Storm: A Year in the Pribilof Islands, 1941-1942 by 

Fredericka Martin and An Aleutian Ethnography by Lucien 

M. Turner (both University of Alaska Press). He lives in 

Middlebury, Vermont, with his wife Shelly.

Co-author Rachel Mason is the Senior Cultural 

Anthropologist for the National Park Service, Alaska Region. 

On behalf of the Aleutian World War II National Historic 

Area in partnership with the Ounalashka Corporation, she 

has directed the Lost Villages of the Aleutians project since 

2006, organizing boat trips to the villages with former 

residents and descendants, conducting interviews and 

historical research, and editing Nick Golodoff’s memoir 

Attu Boy.

When World War II encircled the Aleutian Islands, the lives 

of the Unanga{ inhabitants and the communities they 

lived in were forever changed. Perhaps the most profound 

impacts were on three small traditional villages: Biorka, Kashega, and 

Makushin. Lost Villages of the Eastern Aleutians is the story of how these 

communities endured for centuries, how they survived the challenges 

of Russian and American ownership, and how war hastened their 

disappearance. It is the story of how the last generation to live in these 

villages made lasting contributions to an enduring culture and way of life.

Red Square by Ray Hudson

© Ray Hudson