Smaller boats used as cannery tugs or tenders included the Robert Barron, the Barron F, and the Anna Barron (named after James’ daughter). This must have proved uneconomical, as the Fairchildwas sold in 1917 and the company returned to using commercial transport. The cannery experimented with handling their own shipments, using the 203’ clipper ship General Fairchild as a barge in 1915. Several times each year, commercial steamers from various companies would divert from their normal routes to pick up packed salmon or deliver supplies and workers. As with other Southeast industries, cargo in and out was handled by flag-stop service with any of the steamship companies serving the area. The plant had a salmon pack every year from 1902 to 1931, and often came first in volume of cases sent South. The cannery grew quickly during the first decade of the 20 thcentury, and was sometimes described as the “Largest in Alaska”. The Tlingits were pushed out of their former fish camp adjacent to the cannery, and the site was used for an expanded saltery operation. Ironically, by 1906 the seasonal labor seemed to be more Chinese than Tlingit, a local paper noted that the steamship Cottage City had brought 73 Chinese laborers to Funter Bay that spring. In addition to canned product for the American market, wooden barrels or “tierces” were packed with salted salmon for export (Dog salmon to Japan and Kings to Germany). The men got 20 cents per hour, and children, including “one little boy eight years old who worked 9 hours every day”, received 10 cents per hour. A 1905 description notes that the cannery employed 73 men, “All Indians except the superintendent and perhaps a half dozen Chinamen”. In the first year (which may have included construction crews), it was reported that there were 65 white workers, 30 native Alaskans, and 38 Chinese workers. It now moves to the Alaska Senate.Įditor’s note: The photo captions in this story have been updated to clarify that the photos were taken at a different cemetery than the cemetery indicated in HB 122.Employment in the early years included many local Tlingit people, perhaps the background for the company’s name. The House passed the bill 29-4 last week. “The descendants of the families who are buried there had some real anxiety about whether they would always have access to be able to visit the graves of their family,” she told CoastAlaska. Sara Hannan said the cemetery is already on state-owned land managed by the Department of Natural Resources.īut the Juneau Democrat said she wanted to ensure it would remain open to the public by adding it and surrounding lands to the nearby Funter Bay park. “The value of protecting the social and historical significance of this land will cement the history for good, and we will never have to repeat this history again,” Stepetin said.īill sponsor Rep. He was testifying in support of House Bill 122 that would expand Funter Bay State Marine Park by about 250 acres to include this historic cemetery. “Even my grandma used to say, late into her late 90s, used to say things like, ‘I hope it never happens again,’” Stepetin said. A different cemetery in Funter Bay could receive more protection through a bill proposed in the Alaska House of Representatives. A Russian Orthodox grave marker of an Atka villager in the Killisnoo cemetery. Martin Stepetin told the House Resources Committee back in April that all four of his grandparents spent the war at Funter Bay in miserable conditions. More than a thousand miles away from the islanders’ ancestral home in the Pribilof Islands in the Bering Sea, the villagers had to make do with few provisions and little heat in a shuttered salmon cannery on Funter Bay. “I think it’s very important in terms of the state of Alaska protecting the Unangax̂ historic cemetery site,” Monteith told the House Resources Committee. George were relocated to Southeast Alaska and interned in a makeshift camp on Admiralty Island.Īround 30 marked graves remain near the shores of Funter Bay, which descendants continue to visit. University of Alaska Southeast anthropology associate professor Daniel Monteith told lawmakers last month that 290 islanders from St. authorities forcibly evacuated more than 800 Unangax̂ people from nine villages in the remote western islands ahead of the Japanese advance. (Photo by Lisa Phu/KTOO)Īlaska lawmakers are considering expanding a state park to include historic graves of Unangax̂ people who were among those who died in World War II internment camps.Īfter the Japanese bombed Dutch Harbor in 1942, U.S. Stepetin has family members who were interned in Funter Bay, 50 miles north of Killisnoo. Martin Stepetin and wife Ann embrace at a 2014 memorial in Killisnoo for Aleut people displaced during World War II.
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