Firsthand Accounts of the Largest 

Volcanic Eruption in the Twentieth Century

Katmai 

U.S. Department of the Interior

Katmai National Park and Preserve
Front cover: 

“Tourist Party at the base of Mt. Katmai, 

on the way to the Crater” Photo taken by

geologist Clarence N. Fenner, July 23, 1923

Back Cover:

“Foliage” Katmai National Park and Preserve,

photo courtesy of Gary Freeburg.

Opposite:

“Novarupta” 

Katmai National Park and Preserve, 

photo courtesy of Gary Freeburg.

Image credits: 

Alaska Russian America, National Board of

Antiquities Helsinki, Finland, 2nd edition 1990,

and Glory Remembered: Wooden Headgear 

of Alaska Sea Hunters, Lydia T. Black, Friends

of the Alaska State Museum 1991.

By Jeanne M. Schaaf

Historic photographs: 

Kathryn Myers, Collections Manager

Design and layout: 

Molly Beich, Northwind Prepress

April 2004

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NATIONAL PARK SERVICE

Katmai National Park and Preserve/

Aniakchak National Monument and Preserve

Lake Clark-Katmai Studies Center

4230 University Drive, Suite 311

Anchorage, Alaska 99508

The Lake Clark-Katmai Studies Center, established in February 1999, is a research and

curatorial facility for the museum collections from Katmai National Park and Preserve,

Lake Clark National Park and Preserve, Aniakchak National Monument and Preserve, 

and the Alagnak Wild River. The Center supports the Cultural Resource program for 

these parks with 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.

Mention of trade names of commercial products does not constitute endorsement or

recommendations for use.
“BLA—LOOM! Like hell! It is the mountain. 

The mountain is doing something.”

Harry Kaiakokonok (eyewitness June 6, 1912)1
Katmai village in 1913 by Mel A. Horner. With William A. Hesse, 

U.S. Deputy Land and Mining Surveyor from Cordova, Horner from Seward

was the first to see the Valley of 10,000 Smokes after the eruption.

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there is a long-standing bond between Katmai’s volcanoes and resident

people. In the 10,000 years since the close of the last Ice Age, there have

been at least seven explosive eruptions and many minor eruptions within

the Katmai volcanic cluster.2 These events are evident in the archeological

sites throughout the region, where tephras are layered between prehistoric

house floors and camp surfaces. Witnessing the explosion of a mountain

within very close proximity was not an unknown experience for people

living on the Alaska Peninsula when Novarupta volcano unleashed one 

of the five largest eruptions in recorded history. Although an eruption 

of this scale had not happened in their lifetime, ancestral knowledge of

immeasurable antiquity instructed them through oral tradition:

And then one old man from Katmai...started hollering and telling 

people about their water... “Put away as much water as you can and store

it, reserve it. Wherever ashes come down, there will be no water to drink

anywhere. ...Turn your boats upside down. They will be filled up with ash.”

He knows everything, that old fellow.3
Increasingly severe earthquakes in the days preceding the 

June 6th eruption led to the complete abandonment of the 

native villages in the Katmai region.4 Most families were already

in Kodiak or Naknek by late May, as men were employed as

fishermen and women worked in the canneries during the salmon

runs.5, 6 Remaining residents of Katmai village and the Severnovsk

(Savonoski) settlements fled to Cold Bay (Puale Bay) and to the

Bristol Bay coast a few days prior to the main eruption. Yet this

was the time of year to begin to lay away stores of dried fish 

and meat for the winter, so some families were out on the land

hunting and fishing and were there to experience the eruption

firsthand. Two families from Katmai village, a large coastal settlement with a trading 

post and Russian Orthodox Church, were fishing in Kaflia Bay, a trip of 35 to 40 miles 

by kayak northeast of Katmai village.7 Other families from Kaguyak (Douglas), a village

northeast of Kaflia, were also putting up fish in the bay. Five people employed by a

commercial fishing interest were stationed in Kaflia Bay at the time. It was from the 

fish camp at Kaflia, about 32 miles east of Novarupta and in the direct downwind path 

of the ash fallout, that six-year-old Harry Kaiakokonok witnessed the eruption.

And then afternoon—sometime in the afternoon—it was just like this, bright sunshine, hot, 

no wind, that’s when the volcano started. Started snowing like that fine pumice coming down.

Make a lot of noise, the size of rice, some of it, some of it smaller, and some of it bigger, and

some of it was as big as a kettle or pot. Kaflia Bay started to get white gradually. That water

“Orthodox Chapel at

Katmai, 1915, showing

effects of flood” 

Photo courtesy of National

Geographic Society.

“Near Six Mile” 

Photo courtesy of 

Gary Freeburg.

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Nakne k River

Kvichak River

Alagnak Rive r

Kukaklek Lake

Nonvianuk Lake

Na knek Lak e

North Arm

Ili uk Arm Brooks Lake

S avonoski River

Grosvenor Lake

Becharof Lak e

Ka mt ai River

Ukak R iver

Rainbow River

Big River

Ninagiak River

S H E L I K O F

S T R A I T

Naknek

South Naknek

King

Salmon

New

Savonoski

Kukak

Katmai

Kaguyak

Katmai Bay

Kaflia Bay

Kukak Bay

Hallo Bay

Kedivik 

(Brooks River) 

Iqkhaqmiut (Ukak)

Severnovsk

(Savonoski) 

Settlements

Old Savonoski

KATMAI NATIONAL

PARK & PRESERVE

B

R

I

S

T

O

L

B A Y

0 10 20 Miles

Lake Clark Katmai Studies Center

US National Park Service, January 2004

Projection: Albers Equal Area Conic

true N

Settlement

Multiple Settlements

Native Trail

Novarupta

Mt. Katmai

Naknek

South 

Naknek

King 

Salmon

Aniakchak 

National

Monument 

& Preserve

Katmai

Kukak

Kaguyak

Mitrofania

New Savonoski

Kedivik

K o d i a k I s l a n d

B R I S T O L

B A Y

G U L F O F A L A S K A

Afognak Is

Old Savonoski

A L A S K A P E N I N S U L A

Iv anof Bay

Puale Bay

Kaflia Bay

Perryville

Katmai 

National

Park & 

Preserve
used to be blue, flat

calm, no wind; and

started to get white,

white, white, and pretty

soon all white and dark,

dark came. Dark didn’t

come all of a sudden,

it comes gradually.

Getting darker and

darker and darker and

darker, and pretty soon,

pitch black. So black even if you put your hand two or three inches from your face outside 

you can’t see it ‘cause it was so dark. ... And then the people started to gather up.8

Closer to the volcano still were residents of the interior Severnovsk (Savonoski)

settlements, among them Petr Kayagvak (American Pete) who was in the process of

moving his belongings from Iqkhagmiut (Ukak), where his wife

Pelegia was born, to Old Savonoski when the eruption started. 

The Katmai mountain blew up with lots of fire and fire came 

down trail from Katmai with lots of smoke. We go fast Savonoski.

Everybody get bidarka (skin boat). Helluva job. We come Naknek

one day, dark, no could see. Hot ash fall. Work like hell.9

“Savonoski” from Jasper Sayre

Collection, 1917-1919 National

Geographic Expedition.

Single-hole skin kayak, photo 

by P. Hagelbarger, botanist on 

the 1919 National Geographic

Expedition to Katmai, courtesy

UAA Archives and Manuscripts

Department. Larger two- or threehatched kayaks were used for

hunting young baleen whales in

bays, and for sea otter hunting.

Until the mid 1890s, nearly every

able-bodied man from Katmai,

sometimes joined by men from

Severnovsk villages, participated 

in the sea otter hunt in Cold Bay

in late May or early June.39 

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The initial stages of the eruption inspired excitement, not fear, among the children. They began 

to run up the hillside near their Kaflia camp, to get a better look at the “smoky mountain,” where

they watched vivid lightning, a rare occurrence here, and felt the earth “never stop moving.”

And we start to run as hard as we can. We don’t run home. We run up the side of high 

hill. Everybody try to get to top of hill first. All hollering, “Let’s go see the mountain.” One

of the childrens was blind. He blind all the time. He can’t see anything. But he running

right by me, and he hollering louder than anybody, “Let’s go see the mountain.” Then he

fall down, and I help him up and put both his hands on my shoulders.... He run behind me,

holding onto my shoulders, hollering loud....We get to top of hill and see sky get black all

over, way we looking. All full of lightnings. We don’t know what those lightnings are. 

We don’t see no lightnings before. Then our parents start hollering for us to come to our

barabaras, and we run back down the hill,

that blind boy still holding onto my back.10

The adults rushed to fill available containers

with water, and because they had been salting

and smoking fish to sell to a trader from Kodiak

as well as drying it for their own use, they were

somewhat prepared to gather together and

outlast the eruption in their recently built

homes. Harry Kaiakokonok’s parents and uncle

had built cabins at Kaflia some two years earlier

and now spent winters and summers there.11

“Baked Mountain” 

Photo courtesy of 

Gary Freeburg.

Old Savonoski waterfront, 

Jasper Sayre Collection,

1917-1919 National

Geographic expedition.

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Man from the Naknek River

area drawn by Pavel

Mikhailov around 1828,

State Historical Museum

of Estonia (from Glory

Remembered).

“A Typical

Barabara Sod

House...”

Photograph by

W.L. Henning,

National

Geographic

Expedition,

courtesy of

UAA Archives

and Manuscripts

Department. When the

Katmai refugees were

resettled at the new village

of Perryville, the government

built frame houses for them.

They missed the warmth

and stability in the wind of

their traditional sod houses.

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This was early 20th century America, yet for Katmai people life was 

a blend of strong traditional ways and modern influences. Rifles were

owned—purchased with wages or from the sale of pelts, yet the bow and

bone- or iron-tipped arrow were still used for hunting. Traditional nets and

spears were preferred for fishing. Harry remembers hunting porpoise in the bay

with his father, Vasilii, who could “make a noise...call them, right up to

the side of the kayak.” He would shoot the porpoise with a rifle, then

quickly, before it could sink, he speared it with a traditional wooden

spear to keep it afloat.12

The ash darkened the sky for three days. This was before “flashlight

time,” and had it not been for a big whale that had drifted ashore

providing oil for lamps and torches, there would have been no light for

the people at Kaflia who no doubt wondered whether they might see

sunlight again.13 The ash heated the air and it was difficult to breathe. 

It get hot in those barabaras. We pull off all our clothes. We soak them in water and put

them over our face. Those peoples who have mosses in their barabara pour water over

those mosses and put them over their nose and mouth so they can breathe.

After a while we open the door and try to see out. All

black, everywhere. A little bird fly into barabara.

He can’t see where he go. We childrens wash his

eyes with water and he stay in barabara with us.14


Eighteen year-old George Kosbruk, who was also at the Kaflia fishing camp, remembered 

his first glimpse of the post-eruption world; as the ash settled and light returned, people

escaped the cramped and dark confines of their shelters:

...light is coming. Oh boy, just like snow. Can’t see nothing. No kind of tree. 

All white to mountain. No kind of beach. No bluff. Nothing. All white, the big 

river. Filled up. No running, the water. Just like cement. That time get hard, boy. 

Lots of animals that time killed. Lots killed—the bear...ducks and everything.15

Porpoises, birds and fish were floating on ash and pumice several feet deep, 

choking the bay. There was no drinking water and little to eat. In that first light,

the elders got together and chose nine young men, George Kosbruk among them, 

to paddle three kayaks across Shelikof Strait to Kodiak for help.16 On Wednesday 

June 12, the tug Redondo loaned to the Coast Guard by Superintendent Blodgett 

of the St. Paul Kodiak cannery and under the command of Second Lieutenant 

W. K. Thompson, anchored in Kaflia Bay at 2:30 in the morning.

Landed and found natives destitute, but apparently in normal health, and very badly

frightened. Volcanic ashes had buried village to a depth of three feet on the level, closing 

all streams and shutting off the local water supply. Salmon were dead in the lake, and as 

it was apparent that the fish would not return for some time, I gathered all natives, with

cooking utensils, bedding, and boats, and placed them on the Redondo. The village was

comprised of natives from Cape Douglas to Katmai, seismic

disturbances having caused them to abandon their usual

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Hunting hat from Katmai,

collected by Il’ia Voznesenskii

around 1842, Museum 

of Anthropology and 

Ethnography Leningrad 

(from Glory Remembered).

“Baked Mt. Broken Mt. Drainage”

Photo courtesy of Gary Freeburg.

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camps and seek mutual protection at

Kaflia Bay. In addition to the refugees,

found five natives employed by salmon

fishery located at this point. From all

information gathered from the head

men, I judged that all natives along 

the coast had been accounted for, 

and therefore stood out of Kaflia Bay 

at 10:30 p.m. ... At present there are 

no natives on the mainland between

Cape Douglas and Katmai, the region

most affected by the eruption, they

having been transported to Afognak 

by the Redondo.

17

One month after the eruption, some of the

Katmai refugees, 78 in number, boarded the

U.S. Revenue Cutter Manning to return to the

Alaska Peninsula and establish a new village.18

Senior Captain W. E. Reynolds, commander of

the Bering Sea Fleet Revenue-Cutter Service,

decided not to attempt to resettle the villages

on the Katmai coast and to “centralize” the

former residents in a new place, at the head
of Ivanof Bay.19 The Katmai people were not happy with this selection, citing the rainy weather

and concerns about reported winter snow and ice conditions. So, three weeks later and after

visiting several potential sites, one was selected that had a beach suitable for landing skin boats, 

a plentiful supply of driftwood, abundant animal sign, fresh water nearby and well-drained high

ground for homes. Located 200 miles southwest of Katmai village and neighboring the former

village of Mitrofania, this new settlement was named Perry (now Perryville) after K. W. Perry,

Captain of the Manning. Though now far from home, this village was in the familiar shadow of 

an active volcano, this time it was Mt. Veniaminof which had last erupted just 20 years earlier.

Perryville is a successful community of 143 today and remains a seat of Alutiiq culture and

language for people of the middle Peninsula.20

According to Pelegia Melgenak (American Pete’s widow), there were two families that lived at 

Old Savonoski for a year after the eruption before joining others who had resettled on the lower

Naknek River at New Savonoski.21 She remembered especially how warm the ground and water

remained for a year after the eruption; clothes were not needed for warmth, “just like they 

never have winter.” A new chapel was built in New Savonoski, dedicated to Our Lady of Kazan 

as was its predecessor in Old Savonoski and probably in

Iqkhagmiut before that. New Savonoski has since been

abandoned for a nearby village, South Naknek, five miles

downriver at the mouth of the Naknek River. 

The native villages Katmai, Kaflia, and Kaguyak on the

Pacific coast, and the Severnovsk settlements

Iqkhagmiut, Nunamiut and Kangmiut were

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▲“Katmai people with 

Rev. A. (Alexander) Petelin”

(bearded man in center),

1912. Photo courtesy of the

Kodiak Historical Society.

“Caribou carved by 

Katmai Eskimos” 

Etholen Collection, 

National Museum 

of Finland.
abandoned during the eruption and were never re-established.22 These villages had 

been closely knit culturally by language (Alutiiq, related to Kodiak Islanders), kinship,

shared hunting territories, and trade for untold generations. Recent archeological survey

along the Savonoski River documented a long-standing pattern of periodic village relocation within

drainage systems beginning at least 1,700 years ago.23 This is in keeping with ethnohistoric records

of changing village locations and names throughout the 19th century and until the eruption.24, 25, 26

Harry Kaiakokonok’s genealogy illustrates the close ties among these villages, with his parents,

paternal and maternal grand and greatgrandparents born, married and buried variously in Katmai,

Kaguyak (Douglas), Iqkhagmiut (Ukak) and the Severnovsk settlements.27

A network of trails, along waterways and over mountain passes, further articulated the

relationships among these villages as well as use of this broad region as a home territory. As 

a young man, George Kosbruk remembers kayaking routinely from Katmai village, to Kukak and

Kaflia Bays, north to Kaguyak, from there to Kodiak, or he would

go south to the Chignik area.28 He would also take his single-hole

kayak up the Katmai River, over Katmai Pass and down into the

Naknek Lake system and Brooks River (Kedivik), and from there

he could access the Bristol Bay coast. Katmai Pass was used at

the turn of the century by the rare adventurer, by traders, and for

a short period as a short-cut across the peninsula by prospectors

on their way to Nome. Another important native trail connected

the inhabitants of the Severnovsk villages to Pacific coast

settlements via the Savonoski and Ninagiak River watersheds. 

Kaguyak (Douglas)

Russian Orthodox Church

and cemetery. Photo by

NPS biologist Lowell

Sumner, June 1952.

“Upper Lethe” 

Katmai National 

Park and Preserve.

Photograph courtesy 

of Gary Freeburg.

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By some accounts, 

the eruption did not 

have a significant impact

on vegetation or on large

terrestrial and marine

mammals outside the

immediate scene of the

eruption, but seriously

affected other

subsistence resources

such as small land

mammals, birds and fish.

Few fish were able to spawn in the ash-filled streams, and the recorded salmon catch on Kodiak

showed a significant decline between 1915 and 1920. There was a return to normal numbers 

after that, and it is estimated that all areas occupied prior to the eruption may have been

habitable 10 to 20 years after the eruption.29 By that time, however, President Wilson had signed

a proclamation establishing Katmai National Monument on September 24, 1918, inclusive of

all the above-mentioned village sites. Annual, month-long bear hunts along the Savonoski by

American Pete and other former residents were re-established by this time, and continued at

least until 1939.30 Salmon harvesting within the Naknek Lake system, particularly along

Brooks River remained active through the 1960s and is an important interest today. But

the likelihood of returning permanently to live was summarized by American Pete in

1918, “Never can go back to Savonoski to live again. Everything ash.”31

“Lower Lethe” 

Katmai National Park 

and Preserve, photograph

courtesy of Gary Freeburg.

Hunting hat collected on

the Alaska Peninsula in the

1800s, Peabody Museum

of Natural History, Yale

University, New Haven,

Connecticut (from Glory

Remembered).

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Harry Kaiakokonok became 

chief of Perryville in 1930 and 

was a church leader for many

years before becoming a priest.

His early accounts of the eruption,

written down some 30 years after

the event, were described as

“wonderfully articulate” with

Harry “bounding from his

chair...to illustrate salient points

with superb histrionics and

graphic pantomime.”32 Interviewed

by National Park Service ranger

Michael Tollefson and archeologist

Harvey Shields another 30 years

later, his stories had become 

more reflective and detailed. The

birthplaces, former homes, camp

sites and burial places of Harry’s

family and kinsmen all lie within

the boundaries of what is now Katmai National Park and Preserve. When questioned about the

establishment of the park, Harry asked first whether hunting would be allowed there. When told

it would not be allowed, he said, “That’s a good way to preserve lots of animals for the future.”33

Fish drying racks at the mouth 

of Brooks River. Photo by Victor

Cahalane, September 1940.

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Although permanent native villages in Katmai were

eliminated by the eruption, strong, enduring ties to their

homeland are retained by today’s Katmai descendants. 

A regrettable consequence of village abandonment was the

loss of carved wooden ceremonial masks from Old Savonoski.

On our trips back to our ancestral homeland near 

Brooks Camp...in what is now Katmai National Park, 

as far back as I can remember, our father Trefon

Angasan, would look toward Old Savonoski where 

he was born, proclaiming, “There are masks in the

caves.” Anyone within hearing range would smile with

contentment that the masks our ancestors carved and

used in ceremonies were safely tucked away. In 1993 

(we learned) that Harry Featherstone removed the masks

in 1921. The news violated our sacred trust. President Wilson had declared the area 

a National Monument in 1918. How could this happen?34

Harry Featherstone was a trapper who had built a cabin at the head of Naknek Lake. Documents

indicate that Featherstone decorated the walls of his cabin with 35 masks that he had removed

from an overhang near Old Savonoski.35 Fortunately, he gave seven of the masks to a Naknek

schoolteacher, who in turn placed them in the Alaska Territorial Museum, now the Alaska State

Museum in Juneau. The whereabouts of the others is unknown and remains one of the deepest

concerns of the Katmai descendants.

Father Harry Kaiakokonok,

his wife Jennie and foster

son Tommy. Photo taken 

in King Salmon, Alaska,

April 29, 1975.

“Erosion Near Lethe”

Photo courtesy of 

Gary Freeburg. 

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Microblades, microblade

cores and other tools from

the Alaska Peninsula, dating 

from 9,000 years ago.

The thick layer of white 

ash from the 1912 eruption

caps the sediments above 

a 500 year old house

excavated by archeologists 

at Brooks River, Katmai

National Park 

and Preserve, 

summer 2003.

Today Brooks River is the heart of a nationally significant cultural

area designated a National Historic Landmark Archeological

District in 1993.36 Clustered on former river and lake terraces are

dimples in the ground surface representing over 800 prehistoric

house depressions, infilled by post-habitation ashfall and

sedimentation. These villages and camps are as old as 4,500 years

and as recent as 300 years old; some settlements were as large as

Katmai village, Kaguyak and the Savonoski villages in their prime.

Archeological investigations began along Brooks River in 195237

and continue today, with National Park Service excavations at the 

“Cut Bank Site,” a 500-year-old village rapidly eroding along the

bank of the river below the popular bear-viewing falls. While the

unique and fascinating culture history is renowned among

archeologists, few visitors to Brooks Camp are aware of it.

The great eruption of 1912 deposited over 600 feet of ash in a once verdant,

resource-rich valley, effectively sealing its prehistoric record for as many more

lifetimes as those already spent there. We know from coastal sites and those scattered

throughout the present Park, that this valley had been home to people as early as 9,000

years ago. On a windswept ridge near the outer edge of the Valley of 10,000

Smokes, the small, sharp stone blades, called microblades, remaining from 

a small hunting camp occupied millennia ago, attest to the story buried

beneath the ash in the Valley.


The flu epidemic of 1918

took a heavy toll among the

Katmai people, prompting

one historian to predict

that “if present population

trends continue, the name

Savonoski may...be kept 

alive in the future only in

literature and as a historic

site in Katmai National

Monument.”38 To make

sure that never happens,

The Council of Katmai

Descendants formed as a

group in 1994 dedicated to

the purpose of preserving their members’ cultural heritage primarily through youth education.

The group represents the descendants of the Katmai people scattered by the 1912 eruption and

who today are represented by over 30 separate geographically-based native organizations. 

“Katmai Village after the Eruption, Looking North toward Katmai Volcano, August 13, 1912,” 

taken by G. C. Martin, courtesy of National Geographic Society.

▲Katmai Village cemetary, Jasper Sayre Collection, 1917-1919 National Geographic expedition. 

▲
1 Letter from Tom Jessee to Dr. Luther Cressman, June 12, 1961, on file at the Lake Clark Katmai Studies

Center, Anchorage, Alaska. Khariton [Hariton] Kaiakhvagnak (Harry Kaiakokonok) was identified in the

Orthodox Church records by Katherine Arndt, October 2000.

2 Fierstein J. and W. Hildreth, Preliminary Volcano-Hazard Assessment for the Katmai Volcanic Cluster,

Alaska, U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 00-489, 2001:28.

3 Khariton [Hariton] Kaiakhvagnak (Harry Kaiakokonok) interview with Michael Tollefson, April 29, 1975, on

file at the Lake Clark Katmai Studies Center, Anchorage, Alaska.

4 Griggs, R. F. The Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes. National Geographic Society, Washington, D.C., 1922:17.

5 Davis 1961 Mount Katmai, Alaska Eruption. Transcript of a tape recording with Pelegia Melgenak made in

July-August 1961 for the National Park Service. Eugene, Department of Anthropology, University of

Oregon, on file at the Lake Clark Katmai Studies Center, Anchorage, Alaska.

6 Hussey, J. A. 1971 Embattled Katmai; Katmai National Monument Historic Resource Study, National Park

Service, San Francisco, p.329.

7 Khariton [Hariton] Kaiakhvagnak (Harry Kaiakokonok) and George Kosbruk interview with Michael Tollefson

and Harvey Shields, October 22, 1975, on file at the Lake Clark Katmai Studies Center, Anchorage, Alaska.

8 Khariton [Hariton] Kaiakhvagnak (Harry Kaiakokonok) interview with Michael Tollefson, April 29, 1975, on

file at the Lake Clark Katmai Studies Center, Anchorage, Alaska.

9 Griggs, R. F. The Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes. National Geographic Society, Washington, D.C., 1922:17.

10 Letter from Tom Jessee to Dr. Luther Cressman, June 12, 1961, on file at the Lake Clark Katmai Studies

Center, Anchorage, Alaska. 

Endnotes:
11 Khariton [Hariton] Kaiakhvagnak (Harry Kaiakokonok) interview with Michael Tollefson, April 29, 1975, on

file at the Lake Clark Katmai Studies Center, Anchorage.

12 Ibid.

13 Khariton [Hariton] Kaiakhvagnak (Harry Kaiakokonok) interview with Michael Tollefson, April 29, 1975, on

file at the Lake Clark Katmai Studies Center, Anchorage.

14 Letter from Tom Jessee to Dr. Luther Cressman, June 12, 1961, on file at the Lake Clark Katmai Studies

Center, Anchorage, Alaska. 

15 George Kosbruk and Fred Shangin interview with Michael Tollefson and Harvey Shields, October 21, 1975,

on file at the Lake Clark Katmai Studies Center, Anchorage, Alaska.

16 Khariton [Hariton] Kaiakhvagnak (Harry Kaiakokonok) interview with Michael Tollefson, April 29, 1975, on

file at the Lake Clark Katmai Studies Center, Anchorage.

17 Annual Report of the United States Revenue Cutter Service for the Fiscal Year ending June 30, 1912,

Washington Government Printing Office, 1913:125.

18 Annual Report of the United States Revenue Cutter Service for the Fiscal Year ending June 30, 1913,

Washington Government Printing Office, 1913:93-94.

19 Hussey, J. A. 1971 Embattled Katmai; Katmai National Monument Historic Resource Study, National Park

Service, San Francisco, p.362.

20 Morseth, M., 1998 Puyulek Pu’irtuq! The People of the Volcanoes, Aniakchak National Monument and

Preserve Ethnographic Overview and Assessment, National Park Service, Lake Clark Katmai Studies

Center, Anchorage, Alaska, reprinted 2003.

21 Davis 1961 Mount Katmai, Alaska Eruption. Transcript of a tape recording with Pelegia Melgenak

made in July-August 1961 for the National Park Service. Eugene, Department of Anthropology,

University of Oregon, on file at the Lake Clark Katmai Studies Center, Anchorage, Alaska.
22 Iqkhagmiut, also known as Ikak and Ukak on American maps, is last mentioned in historic records in 1909,

indicating that the population had shifted to the Severnovsk settlements (Nunamiut and Kanigmiut). Black,

Lydia T. 1984 Letter Report to J. W. Tanner, Alaska Regional Office, National Park Service, on review of

records of the Alaska Russian Church Collection, dated July 31, on file at the Lake Clark Katmai Studies

Center, Anchorage, Alaska.

23 Hilton, M. R. November, 2002, Results of the 2001 Interior Rivers Survey: Peconnaissance-Level Pedestrian

Survey of Alagnak and Savonoski River Corridors, Katmai National Park and Preserve, Alaska. On file at the

Lake Clark Katmai Studies Center, Anchorage, Alaska.

24 D. E. Dumond January 8, 1988 Final Report to NPS on Field and Library Work Conducted in or related to

Katmai National Park and Preserve. On file, Lake Clark Katmai Studies Center, Anchorage, Alaska.

25 Black, Lydia T. 1984 Letter Report to J. W. Tanner, Alaska Regional Office, National Park Service, on review

of records of the Alaska Russian Church Collection, dated July 31, on file at the Lake Clark Katmai Studies

Center, Anchorage, Alaska.

26 Davis, W. S. 1954 Archaeological Investigations of Inland and Coastal Sites of the Katmai National

Monument, Alaska. Report to the National Park Service. Department of Anthropology, University of Oregon,

Eugene.

27 Arndt, K. Letter to Jeanne Schaaf on the Genealogy of Harry Kaiakokonok (Khariton Kaiakhvagnak) dated

October 17, 2000, on file at the Lake Clark Katmai Studies Center, Anchorage, Alaska.

28 George Kosbruk and Fred Shangin interview with Michael Tollefson and Harvey Shields, October 21, 1975,

on file at the Lake Clark Katmai Studies Center, Anchorage, Alaska.

29 Dumond, D.E. 1979 People and Pumice on the Alaska Peninsula. In Volcanic Activity and Human

Ecology, edited by P.D. Sheets and D. K. Grayson, pp. 373-392. Academic Press, New York.

30 Hussey, J. A. 1971 Embattled Katmai; Katmai National Monument Historic

Resource Study, National Park Service, San Francisco, p.369.

“Snowfield Near 

Knife Creek”

Photo courtesy of 

Gary Freeburg. 

▲


31 Griggs, R. F. The Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes. National Geographic Society, Washington, D.C., 1922:17.

The original quote in Griggs is printed “...never go back to libe there again...”

32 Letter from Tom Jessee to Dr. Luther Cressman, June 12, 1961, on file at the Lake Clark Katmai Studies

Center, Anchorage, Alaska. 

33 Khariton [Hariton] Kaiakhvagnak (Harry Kaiakokonok) interview with

Michael Tollefson, October 22, 1975, on file at the Lake Clark Katmai

Studies Center, Anchorage, Alaska.

34 Nielsen, M.J. “The Missing Masks of Savonoski, Katmai Country,”

May 11, 2001, on file at the Lake Clark Katmai Studies Center,

Anchorage. 

35 Clemens, J. and F. Norris 1999 Building in an Ashen Land: Historic Resource Study of Katmai National Park

and Preserve, National Park Service, Alaska Support Office, Anchorage, p.125.

36 McClenahan, Patricia, Brooks River Archeological District National Historic Landmark Nomination, March 24,

1989.

37 Dumond, D.E. 1981 Archaeology on the Alaska Peninsula: The Naknek Region 1960-1975, University of

Oregon Anthropological Papers No. 21, Eugene Oregon.

38 Hussey, J. A. 1971 Embattled Katmai; Katmai National Monument Historic Resource Study, National Park

Service, San Francisco, p.369.

39 Arndt, Katherine, “ Katmai Station, 1883-1889: The Journals of Nikolai Fomin,” April 1999 paper presented

at Alaska Anthropological Association 26th Annual Meeting, Fairbanks, Alaska.

Old Savonoski Village 

Site, 2001, NPS photo. 

▲
“Valley of 10,000 Smokes” Photo courtesy of Mike Hilton.

“An Eskimo bidarka from Pavik,” by Emery C. Kolb, 1919 National Geographic

Expedition, Jasper Sayre Collection.

▲

▲

The Eskimos and Aleuts by Don E. Dumond, Thames and Hudson, London,

revised edition 1987.

Looking Both Ways: Heritage and Identity of the Alutiiq People. Aron L.

Crowell, Amy F. Steffian and Gordon L. Pullar editors, University of Alaska

Press, Fairbanks 2001.

Making History: Alutiiq/Sugpiaq Life on the Alaska Peninsula by Patricia H.

Partnow, University of Alaska Press, Fairbanks 2001.

Puyulek Pu’irtuq! The People of the Volcanoes: Aniakchak National Monument

and Preserve Ethnographic Overview and Assessment by Michele Morseth, 

U. S. National Park Service, 2nd printing 2003.

For additional copies:

Katmai National Park and Preserve

P.O. Box 7, King Salmon, AK 99613 

907/ 246-3305 

or

Lake Clark Katmai Studies Center

4230 University Drive Suite 311, Anchorage, AK 99508

907/ 271-1384

Further Reading: