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 in the Katmai volcanic cluster (Fierstein and Hildreth 2001). These events are evident in the archaeological sites throughout the region, where volcanic ash or tephras are layered between prehistoric house floors and camp surfaces. Witnessing the explosion of a mountain in very close proximity was not a novel experience for people living on the Alaska Peninsula, when Novarupta volcano unleashed one of the five largest eruptions in recorded history on June 6, 1912. Although an eruption of this scale had not happened in their lifetime, ancestral knowledge of immeasurable antiquity instructed them through oral tradition: