Kodiak Tales: Stories of Adventure on Alaska's Emerald Isle

By Harry B. Dodge III

Kodiak
Tales: Stories of Adventure on Alaskas
Emerald Isle, investigates the many-faceted experiences of living on Kodiak
Island. Shipwrecks, plane crashes, bears, and Kodiaks often-harsh
and unforgiving environment are among the challenges facing the archipelagos
hearty residents.

The
eight short stories in part one range in time from pre-Russian days to the
present and examine humans role in Kodiaks natural realm. The five
non-fiction pieces in part two are a personal testament to life in Kodiaks
backcountry.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Mar 5, 2010
• ISBN: 9781449056025

Harry B. Dodge III

            Harry Dodge has lived on Kodiak Island since 1975. He has worked as a fishery biologist, commercial fisherman, registered guide, trapper, journalist, wildlife viewing guide, and educator. He and his wife, Brigid, own and operate Kodiak Treks from their lodge on Aleut Island in Kodiak’s Uyak Bay. From June through September, they offer bear viewing and backpacking trips and enjoy welcoming nature enthusiasts from around the world. Harry’s first book, Kodiak Island and its Bears: A History of Bear/Human Interaction on Alaska’s Kodiak Archipelago, was published in 2004 by Great Northwest Publishing and is currently in its second printing.

Book preview

© 2010 Harry B. Dodge III. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

First published by AuthorHouse 3/2/2010

ISBN: 978-1-4490-5602-5 (e)

ISBN: 978-1-4490-5601-8 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4490-5600-1 (hc)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2009913267

Bloomington, Indiana

For Brigid

with love and gratitude

Acknowledgements

I would first like to acknowledge the Kodiak Archipelago itself for what it has provided its human and animal dwellers for millennia—bountiful sustenance.

I am also very grateful for all I have learned from those individuals I’ve been fortunate to meet over the past 35 years of residence on Kodiak—from pioneer guides Bill Pinnell and Morris Talifson, who gave me my start as a guide, to local guides, sportsmen and commercial fishermen with whom I’ve worked and learned in the field. I have also benefitted from knowing and working with local pilots, biologists, and land managers, who do their work daily with dedication and respect for the land.

I would like to thank my wife, Brigid, for her support in writing this book. Her editing skills enriched each story and her support for the project helped bring it to fruition.

Thank you to Roy Madsen and Nick Alokli for reading and commenting on Ignati.

I would also like to thank Gretchen Patterson for creating the front and back cover artwork and layout. Supplied with but a general idea, she rendered a pleasing creation that far exceeded my expectations.

Finally, thanks to the Kodiak Daily Mirror for permission to use previously published stories.

Portions of this book have appeared previously

in the following publications:

Alaska Cotton Karmic Runes, Vol. 1, No. 6, Jul/Aug., 1976.

The Kodiak Archipelago: Galapagos of the North? Kodiak Daily Mirror, Mar. 2007.

South End Winter Ordeal as Cold Storage Otter Alaska Trapper, Oct. 1986.

Uyak to Kodiak For Music Fest as Not Your Average Walk Home: 90 Miles of Wilderness Kodiak Daily Mirror, Apr., 2002.

Two State Employees Walk Home—the Long Way by Chris Blackburn, Kodiak Daily Mirror, Sept. 19, 1977.

Contents

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Part I

Ignati

Bear Country

Primal Communion

The Trapper

Museum Confession

Survivor

The Salmon Bake

Taquka’aq

Part II

Akalura Plane Crash

Across Kodiak

Two State Employees Walk Home —the Long Way

South End Ordeal

Uyak to Kodiak

for Music Fest

Kodiak—

The Galapagos of the North?

Introduction

Nestled in the central Gulf of Alaska, the Kodiak Archipelago extends 150 miles from north to south and encompasses 5,000 square miles. The archipelago has been isolated from mainland Alaska for at least 200,000 years and, consequently, harbors a unique ecosystem. From the old-growth Sitka spruce forest of the north end to the barren tundra of the south, Kodiak is a diverse and dynamic land.

Kodiak’s rich resources have long attracted humans to its shores. The earliest migrants that plied the coastal waters, following the last glacial period, would have found a raw land just reawakening from its millennia-long entombment in ice. The archipelago has been inhabited continuously for at least 7,500 years, and many bays and river-mouths bear the remains of ancient village sites. Alutiiq/Sugpiaq cultural history permeates the land, where countless stories, dramas and traditions lie hidden.

By the mid-sixteenth century, Europeans were drawn to coastal Alaska and its bounty of valuable sea otters. Russian fur companies were the vanguard of colonialism. Kodiak Natives vigorously repulsed Russian encroachment. In 1784, however, Grigorii Shelikhov subdued most local resistance efforts and established a permanent Russian post at Three Saints Bay.

The Russian-American Company (RAC), headquartered at the site of present-day Kodiak city, was granted a monopoly on the fur trade and the power to administer the Alaska colony in 1799. In the ensuing decades, the Alutiiq way of life was disrupted. RAC monopolized the lives of Kodiak Natives, mandating compulsory labor and restricting movement. Natural resources were harvested not for personal use, but for profit. As Kodiak Natives became tied to a cash economy, many of their traditions began to fade from memory.

Russian domination ended in 1867, with the US Alaska Purchase. In Kodiak’s 80 years of Russian colonialism, few Europeans settled throughout the archipelago. This changed abruptly when Alaska fell into American hands. Within ten years, the number of Europeans in Alaska grew from less than 500 to more than 4,000. This human migration further impacted Kodiak Natives and the islands’ natural resources.

Over the last 150 years, trapping, fox farming, salmon fishing, big game hunting, cod and halibut fishing, whaling, gold mining, cattle ranching, crabbing, logging, and most recently, wildlife viewing, have all contributed to a history of human endeavor on the archipelago. Kodiak’s history is the genesis of today’s diverse population. Stories teem within this history, making fertile ground for the human imagination. Kodiak remains a wild place where bears roam and thrive, salmon crowd island streams each summer, and shores echo with the calls of myriad sea birds.

The stories contained in this volume investigate Kodiak’s secrets in fact and fiction. The eight short stories included in part one question how humans fit into Kodiak’s natural realm. The five stories in part two are personal accounts of adventures in Kodiak’s backcountry. They are presented with respect and appreciation for Kodiak’s beauty, abundant natural resources and rich cultural past.

Part I

Alaska Cotton

Cotton candy tufted white.

Shards of electric hair.

Bowing,

eccentric Einsteins

contemplate the wind.

missing image file

Ignati

I was but nineteen when I hired on as a promyshlennik in the north Pacific fur trade. The vast numbers of sea otters that inhabited the islands to the East and the money one could earn in hunting them was all the talk. I was eager to make my fortune and to see these distant and mysterious lands. Being as I had received a formal education, I was promoted to an officer’s rank after five years’ service aboard ship. Through many years of hardship and isolation, I eventually made my fortune. But I returned to Russia without the expected jubilation. I had shipped out with the confidence of youth and the sure knowledge endowed by education, but I returned bereft of that self-assurance, and my certainty was skewed with doubt. I had been changed by my experiences and none more so than through my association with an Aleut slave.

We called him Ignati, his real name being unpronounceable to us. We had landed on Umnak, a bleak island of rock, grass, fog, and wind, and there set about the business of acquiring sea otter pelts. The skills necessary to kill these creatures required us to depend upon native Aleuts to hunt them. This arrangement was the source of constant friction, for it was often necessary to employ force in order to coerce many of them to hunt. Russian ships had been harvesting these waters for more than twenty years by then, and the otters were becoming scarce. Boats from rival companies also hunted, and competition for this dwindling bounty was fierce. There was much talk of more lucrative hunting grounds further to the East and especially of Kad’iak, a lofty island teeming with sea otters and home to colossal-sized bears. Eventually, the village toion learned of our growing interest in the island and its promise of bounty.

Ughek, the village chief, was a wily old master of diplomacy. Too old for the sea otter hunt, he organized the hunting parties and acted as liaison between the Russians and the Aleuts, or Unangan, as they called themselves. Through guile he had retained much of his wealth while most of the villagers had become destitute under Russian control.

After more than twenty years of contact, many of the Aleuts could speak basic Russian, even if in a most rudimentary form. In the shrewd set of his eyes, I suspected Ughek understood more Russian than he revealed. He walked with the aid of a long stick. His movements were slow, deliberate, but sometimes dramatic. Bringing one of his slaves to us, Ughek announced, You say Kad’iak. Him Kad’iak, and he indicated the man standing beside him.

Him? Captain Kalkhov asked. Are you saying this slave comes from Kad’iak?

Yes, Kad’iak, the slave replied, startling all, even Ughek, who assumed a look of annoyance.

Captain Kalkhov greeted this news with enthusiasm. You speak the language?

"Very young when they take me and make me talaq. My people Kad’iak."

Ignati was taller than his master, and I judged him to be but a few years older than I. He stood erect, almost defiant, but this was countered by a self-conscious nervousness the summons had inspired.

Ignati’s appearance contrasted with that of his Aleut captors by the absence of facial tattoos or the adornment of labrets. He clutched a small wooden object to his breast as we questioned him and ran his hand over the surface of the talisman as if reading it for answers.

You want him, yes or no? Ughek demanded, suddenly impatient.

Of course, there was nothing to stop us from simply forcing Ignati to go with us. Yet Ughek calculated we’d pay something—flour, sugar, tea, tobacco, the promise of a winter of simple pleasures—rather than further disturb the uneasy order that existed between our dissimilar cultures.

Thus, we struck a deal with Ughek, and it was soon decided we would set sail for Kad’iak. Being the fall of the year, it was the season for bartering with natives willing to trade for their summer’s catch. In addition to the ship’s crew, there would be twenty Aleut hunters on board, for we intended to take as many otter as possible ourselves in addition to what we could barter.

Once underway, life aboard ship settled into an accustomed routine. Our crew had once boasted a cook, but the products of his labor were found so repugnant to a crew of twenty-four over-zealous appetites that a coup of sorts had occurred. Subsequently, all hands rotated in the preparation of meals. Ignati assisted in the galley, and he seemed to take a liking to his new duties. His developing culinary skills, especially in the preparation of meats, soon drew the crew’s approving notice. Captain Kalkhov eventually proclaimed him our cook, and from that time all hands were permanently relieved of galley duty.

We beat a course eastward, passing the familiar islands of the Aleutian chain and gaining a vast coastline. This was my first view of the Great Land described by Chirikov some thirty years before. Sheathed in glacial ice, imposing volcanoes presided over the raw headlands. The coast, though offering few protective harbors, was rich and vibrant with life, and the waters echoed with the chaotic discourse of sea-birds.

Wind was often our adversary. Chill north winds descended from snow-packed valleys to lash the ship abeam, and southeast blows created mountainous seas that forced us to abandon headway and seek refuge in perilous uncharted bays. Duty was hard on the north Pacific. Months of cold, wet, and restricted quarters offered a life of few comforts. But ours was a hardened, if sometimes savage, crew—Siberian trappers, criminals, debtors—men from the fringes of society motivated by the chance of freedom and riches.

While making a routine inspection of the foredeck one uncharacteristically pleasant day, I discovered Ignati standing alone at the rail, peering out at the horizon.

Can you see Kad’iak? I asked.

My voice startled him and he made a slight jump. He swung his head around and smiled faintly. No. Kad’iak very far.

Is it big—Kad’iak?

Umnak small. Kad’iak very big. Ignati gestured with his arms to illustrate the island’s great size. His communication was abbreviated yet, very clear, and it was obvious he understood both what was said directly to him and around him.

Is it a nice place?

Very green summer. Many, many fish. Fish camp very happy time.

Ignati clutched the rail with one hand, while in the other he held his talisman.

What is it you have there? I asked him.

Ignati held out his hand, revealing a small wooden carving of a bear. My father best carver.

He allowed me to receive the object, and I examined it. Round and graceful, the bear carving inspired tranquility, inconsistent with tales of the creature’s ferocity. Nestled in the bear’s paws was a tiny cub. The talisman was artfully crafted and the surface glowed, smooth and shiny. The wood was heavy and appeared to be mahogany or some similar tropical hardwood, and I wondered at its distant source.

"How old were you when the Unangan took you from Kad’iak? Was it in a time of war?" I asked when I handed the carving back to Ignati.

"Six years old