Unangax̂ Evacuation

Evacuated from Home

"In 1942, my wife and our four children were whipped away from our home... all our possessions were left... for mother nature to destroy.... I tried to pretend it was really a dream and this could not happen to me and my dear family." - Bill Tcheripanoff, Sr.¹

In response to Japanese aggression in the Aleutians during World War II, U.S. authorities evacuated 881 Unangax̂ from nine villages. They were herded from their homes onto cramped transport ships, many allowed only a single suitcase. Few evacuees had time to prepare and most were hurriedly rushed out of their homes and onto transport ships.

Heartbroken, Atka villagers watched as U.S. servicemen set their homes and church afire so they would not fall into Japanese hands. Once onboard crowded transport ships, Unangax̂ evacuees were shocked to learn that few of the servicemen organizing their evacuation knew where they were going. Although many hoped for a safe, secure location to wait out war in the Aleutians, all were disappointed and shocked when they arrived at their destinations.

“I stopped and I said, ‘What’s going on?’ ‘Well, we have to evacuate you to a safer place.’ I said, ‘Where’s that at?’ [The servicemen] didn’t know.” – George Gordaoff¹

Life in Duration Villages

The Unangax̂ were transported to Southeast Alaska, where they were crowded into duration villages: abandoned canneries, a herring saltery, and gold mine camp -- rotting facilities with no plumbing, electricity, or toilets. The Unangax̂ lacked warm winter clothes, and camp food was poor, the water tainted. Accustomed to living in a world without trees, one open to the expansive sky, they suddenly found themselves crowded under the dense, shadowed canopy of the Southeast rainforest. For two years they would remain in these dark places, struggling to survive.

Illness of one form or another struck all the evacuees, but medical care was often nonexistent, and the authorities were dismissive of the their complaints. Pneumonia and tuberculosis took the very young and the old. Thirty-two died at the Funter Bay camp, seventeen at Killisnoo, twenty at Ward Lake, five at Burnett Inlet. With the death of the elders so, too, passed their knowledge of traditional Unangax̂ ways.

Duration Villages as Described by Evacuees and Witnesses

Unangax̂ Resilience

Despite the horrors of their evacuation, the Unangax̂ refused to succumb to despair. Attempts to keep them sequestered from nearby villages and towns failed. Evacuees found jobs. They built new living quarters in their compounds, repaired the old structures, and brought in electricity and running water. The villagers of Unalaska erected a makeshift church and named it after their beloved Church of the Holy Ascension of Christ. The religious articles and holy cards brought from the villages took on immense importance, the Unangax̂ again turning to their faith for strength.

At their camps, the Unangax̂ surreptitiously voted in Territorial elections. Through exposure to the outside world, they had come to understand the importance of their participation in the democracy by which they were governed, and they desired participation with the full rights of citizens. The next generation of Unangax̂ leaders spent their formative childhood years in these camps, and they would never forget the injustices they saw there.

Returning Home

The Unangax̂ people endured two long years in duration villages before beginning the long journey back to their ancestral lands in the Aleutian Islands. For many families, returning home was both a joyous and bittersweet experience. While they were relieved to be back on their beloved islands, they also had to face the harsh reality of the damage that had been done during the war. Many Unangax̂ homes and churches had been raided and damaged by soldiers during the military occupation. The government provided little to make up for these damages, neglecting to help Unangax̂ rebuild the lives they had been swept away from.

“Ransacked. Doors and windows broken. It was terrible. We had no furniture. The BIA bought a few little pieces of—it wasn’t hardly anything at all—just cheap. And here they were dismantling the base, and they were taking furniture up to the dump. Rugs, beautiful furniture, beautiful—and burning them. Burning them.” - Maria Turnpaugh²

For others, returning to the Aleutian Islands brought a new sense of loss to the World War II era. the government deemed some of the more remote and smaller villages too costly to travel to. As a result, the residents of those villages were directed to relocate to more populous areas in the Aleutians, where they had to rebuild their homes and lives from scratch. Although many of their villagers would never return to their true homelands, some villagers and their descendants would eventually make return trips starting in 2009 as a part of the Lost Villages Project.