Alaska Native Women

To learn the story of Pelagia (also spelled Palakia) Melgenak is to learn the sanctity of shared traditions, the loving bonds of kinship and the reverence of a spiritual connection to the land around you. Born in the late 1870s in the remote village of Savonoski in Alaska, Pelagia grew up learning about hunting, gathering, navigating and guiding in the area. That all changed in 1912 with the hot ash falling like a blanket covering the region with the eruption of Novarupta.

Katie John exemplified the qualities of determination and perseverance. Katie's family grew up living a subsistence lifestyle, fishing for salmon in the upper Copper River drainage, near Batzulnetas. In 1964 the newly designated state of Alaska closed this traditional fishing site. Through years of litigation, Katie John petitioned the state and the federal government to allow for traditional fishing. As a result her name is synonymous in Alaska with rural subsistence rights.

Ellen Hope Hays was the first woman to be appointed superintendent of a national park in the Pacific Northwest, Sitka National Historical Park. She is also the first Alaskan Native to be appointed superintendent in the National Park Service.

She is remembered not just for beautiful works of art, but also for her passion and dedication to learning, teaching, and passing on the traditional ways of Lingít people. She held a deep connection to her natural world, and her inspiring humility is what her friends and family cherished most deeply.

Ruth Sandvik was born in Kotzebue, Alaska and throughout her life, lived in many places across Alaska and the United States. She always considered Kiana, Alaska on the Kobuk River her home. In Kiana, she took over operation of Blankenship Trading Post in the late 1950s after her father became ill. She ran the Trading Post with her cousin Robinson Blankenship.

As one of the last remaining persons to have completed The Long Walk - a major and permanent move to the final destination of the previously nomadic Nunamiut people - Rachel Riley was a leading advocate for the continuing knowledge and practice of the traditional Nunamiut culture. Rachel's most prominent role was as an Inupiaq language teacher.

Eva Kudrin was born in Kashega in 1928 and lived there until evacuation. Following the war she married John Tcheripanoff and settled in Unalaska. During World War II she was relocated from the Aleutian Islands by the US government. Check out her experience with this interview.

During World War II the remote Aleutian Islands, home to the Unangax̂ (Aleut) people for over 8,000 years, became one of the fiercely contested battlegrounds of the Pacific. This thousand-mile-long archipelago saw the first invasion of American soil since the War of 1812, a mass internment of American civilians, a 15-month air war, and one of the deadliest battles in the Pacific Theatre.

Irene Makarin was raised at Biorka and lived there until evacuation at the start of the war. She later married William Yatchmenoff of Chernofski. During World War II she was among the Alaska Natives relocated out of the Aleutian Islands. Listen to an interview as she describes her experiences.

Born in the late 1800s, Abbie Joseph lived until 1986. Interviews at the end of her life provide a window to the past, putting a personal touch to the traditional subsistence lifestyle Alaska Natives have lived for thousands of years, and which continues today.