Pelagia Melgenak

The story of Pelagia (or Palakia) Melgenak teaches us all the wisdom of traditional knowledge, the bonds of kinship, and the spiritual connection to homelands. Born in 1877 to Vasily and Mariya Ityg’iuK, Pelagia grew up in the remote Sugpiat village of Savonoski learning about hunting, fishing, gathering, navigating, and guiding on the Alaska Peninsula.  

In 1897, she married Petr “American Pete” Kayagvak and together they had several children. Pelagia managed a store in the village. As a faithful member of the Alaska Orthodox community, she could read and write in Russian Slavonic and Cyrillic Sug’stun, recite prayers in Russian Slavonic, and sing hymns in her native Sug’stun language. Records indicate Pelagia and Petr were known in and travelled between many villages in the area, but Savonoski was always home.  

Life changed abruptly on June 6, 1912, when the collapse of Mount Katmai created the Novarupta volcano and blanketed the entire region with deep layers of hot pumice and ash. “Grandma Pelagia said they thought the end of the world was coming when the mountain started erupting,” recalled Teddy Melgenak. Pelagia’s husband Petr was at a hunting camp near the Uyak River when he witnessed firsthand the fiery blast of Mount Katmai. In smoky darkness, he and his hunting party spent the next twenty-four hours paddling skin kayaks across the drainages of the Alaska Peninsula back to (South) Naknek village in Bristol Bay. Despite the severity of the Novarupta event, which was thirty times the intensity of the Mount St. Helens eruption in 1980, no fatalities were reported from Savonoski or any of the other Katmai villages. The residents of Savonoski attempted to return to the village several times, but the blowing volcanic dust and hot river water made that homecoming impossible. Pelagia found her store was now covered in a thick layer of ash and pumice. In 1918, the U.S. government declared the area a new National Monument and closed the lands for residency by the local indigenous people. With few available options, the Savonoski families reorganized several miles east of Paugvik (Naknek) and (South) Naknek along the Naknek River as the village of “New Savonoski.” 

While enduring the trauma of these recent losses, Pelagia and Petr set out to rebuild their community. Petr began construction of the “new” Savonoski Orthodox chapel, again dedicated to St. Mary, Our Lady of Kazan. In 1918, soon after he was interviewed by Griggs volcano research team about the Katmai eruption, Petr died. Pelagia was now a widow. Nikolai Melgenak, a villager with familial ties to the former settlement of Douglas (Kaguyak) on the Katmai Coast, stepped in to help finish the construction Petr had started. Nick was later known as “One Arm Nick” following a hunting accident on King Salmon Creek. He and Pelagia were married in 1919.   

Unfortunately, another disaster loomed ahead—the Influenza pandemic of 1918-1919 brought death and devastation to western Alaska communities. Over a quarter of the New Savonoski villagers perished and were buried in a single grave at St. Mary’s. Pelagia’s unique survival strategy to quarantine her family away from visitors and employ local plant medicines proved to be successful. In later years, her grandchildren remember Pelagia boiling Labrador (“Hudson’s Bay”) tea plant and making steam bath switches from wormwood stalks to stave off illnesses and promote good health. 

Pelagia made annual trips well into her nineties to her fish camp at Qitr’wik (Kittiwick), known today as Brooks Camp, in Katmai National Park. As the boat approached the rapids below Naknek Lake, the driver slowed in speed and carefully approached a large rock. Leaning from the boat, Pelagia spoke in Sug’stun to the Eating Rock, offering it dried fish and tea to ensure her nets would continue to fill with fish. In this way, she taught her family that routinely giving thanks for the generosity of the natural world was essential for living within the values of Sugpiat culture. “Upon arrival at Kittiwick, Grandma would joyfully go ashore, make the sign of the cross on herself and venerate the earth by putting her forehead on the ground,” recalls granddaughter and biographer Mary Jane Nielson. Her family remembers Pelagia as the fastest at filleting redfish for drying and the best at removing the bones.   

Pelagia Melgenak’s story demonstrates her grit and determination to endure multiple hardships while simultaneously serving as one of the very few culture bearers of her generation. In 1974, shortly after applying for a Native allotment at Qitr’wik, Pelagia passed away. In her time, she was venerated as a matriarch of her family and respected as a leader in her church and community. Her lifelong dedication to sharing traditional knowledge, stories, songs, and customs from Katmai Country continues today as her twenty-first century descendants connect to their Sugpiat heritage and advocate for their recognition as a living culture intrinsically linked to the greater Naknek watershed.  

The following references have information about Pelagia Melgenak from family accounts and interviews as well as other source material:

Pelagia’s Story, by Mary Jane Nielsen in 2005. A M.A. thesis.

• Learn more about Pelagia from the memories of her relatives. Mary Jane Nielsen wrote her thesis on the importance of learning from Elders both in person if possible but also from studying their life. This account is for family as well as “for those who wish to understand the bonds of kinships, shared tradition, and spiritual connection.”

Project Jukebox, University of Alaska, Fairbanks – listen to the those who knew Pelagia

• Vera Angasan (raised by Pelagia and One-Arm Nick Melgenak)
• Frederick Theodore (Ted) Angasan, Sr. (son of Vera Angasan, older brother to Mary Jane Nielson)
• Ted Melgenak (adopted and raised by Pelagia and One-Arm Nick Melgenak)
• Mary Jane Nielson (daughter of Vera Angasan, wrote Pelagia’s Story listed above)
• Photos- South Naknek Slideshow | Project Jukebox (uaf.edu)

Isolated Paradise: An Administrative History of the Katmai and Aniakchak National Park Units

• Mentions of Pelagia (spelled Palakia in this source) focus on her eye-witness accounting of the 1912 Novarupta eruption as well as the 120-acre land claim she filed with the Federal Government in 1971.

A Naknek Chronicle: Ten Thousand Years in a Land of Lakes and Mountains of Fires, by Don Dumond and Michael Nowak in 2005.

• Looking at the “WHEN THE CENTRY TURNED – Families” section of the book, Pelagia’s early life is chronicled from church records. Also mentioned in this section is Trefon Angasan II, father of Mary Jane Nielsen who wrote the above mentioned Pelagia’s Story.

Witness: Firsthand Accounts of the Largest Volcanic Eruption in the Twentieth Century, pamphlet by Jeanne Schaaf 

• Read first-hand accounts of the Novarupta eruption from Petr “American Pete” Kayagvak, Pelagia’s first husband, as well as Pelagia herself. American Pete was interviewed by the Griggs expedition and Pelagia’s accounts are taken from her 1961 interview with Wilbur Davis.

Alaska Park Science, volume 11, issue 1 

• In this collection of scientific articles, readers will find the Witness: Firsthand Accounts of the Largest Volcanic Eruption in the Twentieth Century by Jeanne Schaff mentioned just above. Further reading about the impact of this cataclysmic event can be found in Article 2: “The Great Eruption of 1912” by Judy Fierstein (a look at just how large this eruption was) and Article 10: “Out of the Ashes: The Katmai Disaster” by Patricia H. Partnow (a look at others in the immediate area of the eruption, particularly those who were in the villages of Katmai and Douglas). Note: Neither of those articles specifically mention Pelagia, but give more context to the wide scale impact of the 1912 eruption of Novarupta Pelagia herself was a witness to.

At the Heart of Katmai, NPS document by Katherine Ringsmuth 

• Much of the information about Pelagia in this document is taken from other sources cited here, but the collection gives a larger overview of the overlapping relationship between Pelagia’s history and that of Katmai. There are also several pictures of Pelagia and her family in this resource that are not seen in the other works cited here.