In 1900, Alaska was home to Native people in scattered villages and camps and recently arrived miners who scraped the creeks for gold. Many of the 60,000 souls on the rivers and hills of Alaska stumbled through a big shake that fall, especially those living on Kodiak Island. The largest earthquake on the planet that […]
KAKANGAQ – DISC GAME KAKANGAT WAMQUTAQTAAKAI LARRY MATFAY-M. – LARRY MATFAY USED TO PLAY DISC GAMES. In the Alutiiq gambling game kakangaq, players throw disks at a small wooden target placed on a sealskin ten or twelve feet away. The object is to cover the target with a disk. This game can be played by […]
WAA’UT PITURNIRTAARTUT MIKELNGUT. – THE SMALL FLOUNDERS ARE TASTY. The starry flounder (Platichthys stellatus) is an abundant, bottom-dwelling fish found in Kodiak’s shallow ocean waters, brackish estuaries, and even intertidal areas of rivers. Like halibut, flounder have both eyes on one side of their head. The eye side of the flounder is typically brown or […]
Qiteq – Rain Sun’ami qitengtaartuq. – It rains all the time in Kodiak. From September to April, a winter storm crosses the Gulf of Alaska about every five days, bringing intense rain, high winds, and heavy seas. Surrounded by ocean and encircled by Alaska’s high coastal mountains, Kodiak is continually exposed to the full force of […]