Alutiiq Word of the Week

Ukamuk yaqsigtuq gwaken. : Chirikof Island is far from here.

(Click sentence to hear Alutiiq words spoken)
 
Chirikof is an isolated, windy island at the far southern end of the Kodiak Archipelago.  This 11 mile long, pear-shaped piece of land lies about 100 miles southwest of Kodiak Island.  Archaeological data indicate that the island has long been a crossroads, a place where both Alutiiq and Aleut people visited for over four thousand years.  An Alutiiq story indicates that the island was once owned by the chief of Aiaktalik village, who became wealthy trading resources harvested there.

Westerners sighted the island in 1741.  A Russian naval expedition led by Vitus Bering and Alexi Chirikov sailed by the island naming it Tumannoi: Foggy Island.  Nearly 60 years later, Captain Vancouver renamed the island Chirikov, in honor of Alexi Chirkiov.

Ukamuk has a rolling, treeless terrain.  Although the region provides prime habitat for seabirds and marine mammals, the island has two small stream and one terrestrial mammal, the ground squirrel.  Archaeologists believe that people introduced these animals in the prehistoric era. Without predators, other than eagles, the squirrel population thrived.

In the historic era, Alutiiq and Tlingit people worked on Chirikof under Russian supervision. They initially came as seasonal parties, and later lived in the established Ukamuk village. Men hunted sea lions, sea birds, and squirrels. Women fashioned squirrel and bird skins into parkas, which the Russians traded to other Alutiiqs for sea otter pelts. Blue foxes and cattle were introduced later, during the American period.

Map: Topographic map of Chirikok Island.

Produced by the Alutiiq Museum and Kodiak Elders with support from the Alutiiq Heritage Foundation, the Kodiak Area Native Association, Kodiak College, and the Alaska State Council for the Arts.
 

Alutiiq Word of the Week, Season 14, Lesson 34