Winter — Uksuq Tamuuliciqukut uksurpailan. – We will make dry fish before the winter. Winter in the Kodiak Archipelago quickly follows summer. As the days darken and stormy weather sets in, the landscape turns rapidly from green to brown, the temperature drops, and wet, windy days replace the warmer, foggy days of fall. In Prince […]
Eagle Harbor — Irak Amlesqat Nuniarmiut Iragmek taimaut. – There are a lot of Old Harbor people that come from Eagle Harbor. Today the grass-covered depressions of sod houses and the memories shared by Elders are all that remain of Eagle Harbor, a once sizeable Alutiiq village. This community rested on the southern shore of […]
Harpoon — Ayaquq Ayaquq egtaakait cuumi arwanun. – They used to throw a harpoon at a whale before. For thousands of years, Alutiiq people used harpoons to hunt sea mammals in Kodiak’s rich marine waters. Harpoon points were carved from bone and fitted into a wooden shaft equipped with an air-filled float. Alutiiq people […]
Telephone — Niuwasuuteq, Niuwat’staaq Una niuwat’staaq. – This is a telephone. In the days of cell phones and high-speed Internet connections, it’s hard to imagine that just a few decades ago, many of Kodiak’s rural families had no phone service. Elders recall that signal fires were once used to send messages from one village to […]