Winter in Unalaska by Sam Zmolek
Your voice in the Aleutians.
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WWII UNANGAX EVACUATION

  • A collection of 50-year-old audio recordings from the Aleutians have been digitized and are now accessible online.The recordings were part of an Unalaska school project from the ‘70s. A group of students and their teacher recorded various Elders in hopes of documenting the language, culture and history of the Unangax̂ community and the Aleutian region.There’s about 60 reel-to-reel audio tapes that make up the collection. They include topics from day-to-day activities to historic events, fishing stories and recipes, to accounts from Makushin and the other lost villages that were forcibly evacuated during World War II.
  • For nearly 80 years, a small American flag placed by an old friend was the only thing that stood above the tundra, marking the plot of Army Pvt. George Fox in Unalaska’s cemetery.But on Monday, that all changed when the decorated fallen veteran’s resting place was finally recognized.Fox is the only known Unangax̂ soldier killed fighting in World War II and any war since, and for decades he was buried in an unmarked grave. This Memorial Day, he was finally honored with a gravestone in a long-awaited burial ceremony, which drew crowds from across the state and Lower 48 to the remote Aleutian community.
  • A collection of audio reels made in the Aleutian region in the 1970s was digitized and will soon be available online through the University of Alaska Fairbanks.The recordings were part of a school project that started in 1977 when a group of Unalaska students and their teacher Ray Hudson started collecting texts about the culture, language and history of the Aleutians. They called themselves the “Cuttlefish Class” – a name they picked out together – and they called their project the “Cuttlefish Series.”The students put together six hefty volumes meant to bring the island community and Unangax̂ culture into the classroom. They contain things like fishing stories, letters, recipes for alodics (an Unangax̂ form of fry bread), as well as memories from Makushin and the other lost villages that were forcibly evacuated during World War II.
  • Indigenous women in the United States are murdered 10 times more often than the national average, and nearly half of all Alaska Native and Native American…
  • In late June, Thomas Drennan McLenigan, education outreach manager at the Museum of the Aleutians, began publishing a series of Instagram posts about…