Ukivok on King Island isn't the most northerly abandoned settlement, that would be Pyramiden in Svalbard but the Inupiat stilt village in Alaska must be a contender for runner up.
Hanging on a cliff face in the Bering Sea, 40 miles from mainland Alaska, it also has to be one of the most precarious and isolated dwellings in the world.
In the 19th century, several hundred Inuit families lived there and made their living hunting, fishing and carving souvenirs.
By the early 20th century, the settlement's only school was closed, over concerns about rock slides, meaning the younger population had to move to mainland making island life less viable. World War II and TB sadly also contributed to the dwindling population.
By the time the postcard above was produced in the mid 60s only 25 families remained on the island but even they had left by 1970. The village itself still remains and is in quite good condition probably because its isolated location keeps it safe from vandals.
The former residents still have a proud and distinct culture and some have returned to the island from time to over the past decade.
Update
Thanks to research done by CarolAnn it seems that the part about concerns over rockslides being the reason for the school closures was not true. Many pieces about the island refer to social and economic pressures forcing people off the island. It seems as if government bureaucracy, under the guise of Western modernisation, was the real culprit. The rock side never happened and families were torn apart and forcibly separated for no real reason, children were sent to boarding schools thousands of miles away from their families and were punished for speaking their own language and adults were sent to live somewhere not suited to their lifestyle and skills.
Would island life still be alive and well if the Bureau of Indian Affairs hadn't interfered? It's hard to say but considering there had been a community there with a flourishing language and culture for a long time I imagine it probably would.
Excerpt from an opinion piece written in 2011.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.adn.com/commentary/article/king-island-living-community-and-mystical-place/2011/11/02/
"To understand the resentment of the King Island community, keep in mind the context of the adults of today: In 1959, just before Alaska's statehood, the Bureau of Indian Affairs decided summarily to close the island's school. In so doing, a bureaucratic decision effectively ended their lives there, forcing several hundred families to become new residents of Nome, a foreign place with a gold mining past, not predisposed to embrace an ancient island Iñupiaq culture that had lost its island. And the transition was not administered with care: young children were forcibly separated from parents in the name of school "truancy" laws; older ones were sent to boarding schools thousands of miles away, with no way of communicating with families left behind. In short, the fabric of King Island extended family life was shredded without cause. The stated reason for the move, from the BIA, was that a boulder was about to roll down the hill and crush the school.
More than 50 years later, the boulder still hasn't moved."
Hello CarolAnn,
DeleteThank for commenting on my blog and for the link with the extra information. What a dreadful thing to have happened and sadly probably not unique among First Nation communities.
Excerpt from an opinion piece written in 2011.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.adn.com/commentary/article/king-island-living-community-and-mystical-place/2011/11/02/
"To understand the resentment of the King Island community, keep in mind the context of the adults of today: In 1959, just before Alaska's statehood, the Bureau of Indian Affairs decided summarily to close the island's school. In so doing, a bureaucratic decision effectively ended their lives there, forcing several hundred families to become new residents of Nome, a foreign place with a gold mining past, not predisposed to embrace an ancient island Iñupiaq culture that had lost its island. And the transition was not administered with care: young children were forcibly separated from parents in the name of school "truancy" laws; older ones were sent to boarding schools thousands of miles away, with no way of communicating with families left behind. In short, the fabric of King Island extended family life was shredded without cause. The stated reason for the move, from the BIA, was that a boulder was about to roll down the hill and crush the school.
More than 50 years later, the boulder still hasn't moved."