Sat, March 15, 2014
by Anjuli Grantham Earl and Merrle Carpenter lived in Ouzinkie in 1963 and 1964. (Kodiak Museum/ Kodiak Historical Society, P-914-38) After living through the undulations of March 27, 1964, Kodiak elder Iver Malutin measures earthquakes based on the amount of water that slops from a full glass. For years, a local basket weaver subconsciously made sure there was an escape route from beaches where her family played. Another elder recalls the infernal heat blaring on the inside of the Navy...
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Thu, March 06, 2014
by Rachel MasonI came back to Kodiak two months before the March 1989 Exxon Valdez Oil Spill to do ethnographic fieldwork for my dissertation on the occupational culture of commercial fishing. I had been going to graduate school in Virginia. When my Kodiak friends, who knew me as a cab driver and before that a cannery worker, heard that I had obtained an NSF grant and another grant to study fishing and drinking in Kodiak, they thought I must have...
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Sat, March 01, 2014
Editor's note: This month Alaskans will commemorate the 25th anniversary of the Exxon Valdez oil spill and the 50th anniversary of the Good Friday Earthquake. All month long this blog will feature posts on both events by a number of Alaska writers and historians. Check back often. We begin the series with this post by John Cloe about the military's earthquake response.by John Haile CloeThe Alaska Good Friday Earthquake began at 5:36 p.m., March 27, 1964, with a force that measured...
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Sat, February 22, 2014
by J. Pennelope GoforthLike many Alaskan pioneers of the Bristol Bay area, Charles Herrmann came for the salmon, married for love, and stayed to build boats. Today his work lives on in the ships and the ship models he designed for Alaska Packers Association. Charles Hermann on the dock at Koggiung, ca. 1950.Photo courtesy Adelheid HerrmannHerrmann was born in 1893 in the great port city of Kiel, in the Prussian state of Schleswig-Holstein. [1] Located on the south shore of the...
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Tue, February 11, 2014
By Pennelope GoforthKedge anchor with 5-foot shaft from theill-fated COURTNEY FORD now restingin front of Anchorage City Hall.Photograph by J Pennelope Goforth.The iron kedge anchor of the COURTNEY FORD now lies in state in a large flower pot at the entrance to city hall in downtown Anchorage, Alaska. It is one of several anchors placed around the city that are the subjects of this series. The significance of the tragic story of how the anchor came to rest in this...
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