Katmai Building in an Ashen Land: Historic Resource Study

Historic Property Summary and Recommendations

NPS personnel visited the Wassillie Andrew cabin, along the Alagnak River, in 1984. NPS-LAKA Studies Center Collection.

Because several of the listings above refer to more than one cabin site, the list gives reference to a total of some forty-nine trapping or subsistence cabins. Of that number, however, only nineteen of those sites have been visited and documented by cultural resources personnel, and the exact location of most if not all of the thirty remaining properties is unknown. Therefore, the first priority related to this theme is to rediscover as many of these sites as possible (either by additional historical research or by field investigation); once discovered, they need to be surveyed and evaluated by cultural resources personnel.

Once the survey and investigation has been completed, it is recommended that a Multiple Property Documentation Form be prepared that would include a trapping and subsistence lifeways context. Such a form provides a streamline method for organizing and registering properties and it facilitates the evaluation of individual properties by comparing them with resources that share similar physical characteristics and historical associations.

It is also recommended that the history of Katmai-area trappers be documented through an oral history project. The NPS's LAKA Studies Center has cassette tapes of interviews with trappers including Mike Shapsnikoff, Paul Chukan, and Jake Amuknuk; these tapes need to be transcribed. Other trappers and their descendents need to be interviewed as well.

Regarding the Alagnak River, which is a relatively recent addition to the National Park Service system, little historical information has been collected. In light of what may well be a long chronicle of protohistoric and historic activity in that area, it is recommended that an ethnographic research study be undertaken.

Endnotes

¹ National Geographic Society, Katmai Expedition Photo Albums, 1919, Box 6, 7, and 8, UAA Archives.

² Melvin Monsen interview by John Branson, July 9, 1998, as noted in Branson, Bristol Bay 104.

³ Norris, Isolated Paradise, 51-52, 55-59.

⁴ Been, Field Notes of Katmai National Monument Inspection 4-5.

⁵ Lewis MacDonald, "Chronological History of Salmon Canneries in Western Alaska," Alaska Fisheries Board and Alaska Department of Fisheries, Annual Report 3 (1950), 61.

⁶ Norris, Isolated Paradise, 59.

⁷ Ibid., 55-59.

⁸ Ibid., 62-64.

⁹ Ibid., 71-78.

¹⁰ Melody Webb Grauman, Yukon Frontiers; Historic Resource Study of the Proposed Yukon-Charley National River , Cooperative Park Studies Unit, Anthropology and Historic Preservation, Occasional Paper Number 8 (Fairbanks, University of Alaska, November 1977), 232.

¹¹ Ibid., 200.

¹² Ibid., 341-43.

¹³ Seward Daily Gateway, July 9, 1929; John B. Branson, Bristol Bay, Alaska; From the Histerlands to Tidewater, A Grassroots Pictorial, 1885-1965 (Anchorage?, National Park Service?, 1998), 107.

¹⁴ NPS, "Systemwide Archeological Inventory Program Survey Field Notes, 1994." In CSI files, AKSO, Anchorage.

¹⁵ George Stroud and Lynn Fuller, Katmai National Park and Preserve, Katmai Coast Field Season Report, 1984, p. 20.

¹⁶ Mike Tollefson to Supt. Katmai, March 21, 1977, in "KNM Cabins" file, KATM AH Collection; LAKA Slide Collection; Carolyn Elder to Frank Norris, email, July 22, 1999.

¹⁷ Tollefson to Supt. Katmai, March 21, 1977; LAKA Slide Collection.

¹⁸ Tollefson to Supt. Katmai, March 21, 1977.

¹⁹ "Kamishak Bay-Katmai Region" map (with notations by Jack Benson), to accompany Benson's January 16, 1941 report on Smith's activities; in RG 79, Series 7, KNM Box 2, NARA DC.

²⁰ Norris, Isolated Paradise, 64; AHRS form XMK-073; "Fur Farming" file, KATM HRS Collection.

²¹ Mike Tollefson to Supt. Katmai, March 29, 1977, in "KNM Cabins" file, KATM AH Collection; National Geographic Society, Katmai Expedition Photo Albums, 1919, Box 2 (photos 831-33) and Box 3 (photos 3092-93), UAA Archives.

²² Been, Field Notes 13; Branson, Bristol Bay 106.

²³ Branson, Bristol Bay 103-04.

²⁴ Anchorage Weekly Times, April 26, 1940, 4.

²⁵ Been, Field Notes of Katmai National Monument Inspection, 1940, 13, 38, 42.

²⁶ Branson, Bristol Bay, 105.

²⁷ Monsen to E. L. Bartlett, June 4, 1950, in Bartlett Collection, UAF; Tollefson to Supt. Katmai, March 21,1977, #3; Eicher mss., Sept. 1, 1989, 5-6.

²⁸ Victor Cahalane, notes from May 30, 1984 telephone call, in Hanable Research Notes, KATM AH Collection.

²⁹Affidavit of Elmer S. Harrop, June 23, 1983, in Melgenak file, AA-7604; Tollefson to KATM Supt., March 21, 1977, #10.

³⁰ Branson, 102-03; Homer Jewell to Harry Liek, May 8, 1936, in KNM Box 1, Entry 7, RG 79, NARA DC.

³¹ National Geographic Society, Katmai Expedition Photo Albums, 1919, Box 6, photos 5658-61, 5664, 7451-53, and 7468-69, UAA Archives.

³² Frank Norris, comp., "Katmai Cabin Data," c. 1993, in "Cabin Info-KATM" folder, KATM AH Coll.

³³ Ibid; Tollefson to KATM Supt., March 21, 1977, #11.

³⁴ George Eicher, interview with William Hanable, September 1989; Eicher mss., Sept. 1, 1989, pp. 5-6.

³⁵ Tollefson to Supt. Katmai, March 21, 1977, #15.

³⁶ National Geographic Society, Katmai Expedition Photo Albums, 1919, Box 7, photos 6363, 7396-97, UAA Archives; Norris, Isolated Paradise, 31, 351.

³⁷ IBLA, "Contest No. AA-7604," September 12, 1985, 7-8; Norris, Isolated Paradise, 215-16.

³⁸ Been, Field Notes of Katmai National Monument Inspection, 1940, 15-16.

³⁹ Eicher mss., September 1, 1989; Tollefson to Supt. Katmai, March 21, 1977, #12-14; Norris, Isolated Paradise, 215-16.

⁴⁰ Affidavit of Trefon Angasan, Sr., June 21, 1983, in Melgenak file, AA-7604; Branson, Bristol Bay, Alaska, 101.

⁴¹ Affidavit of Ray Petersen, Sr., May 31, 1983, in Melgenak file.

⁴² Affidavit of Trefon Angasan, Sr., June 21, 1983, and Elmer S. Harrop, June 23, 1983; both in Melgenak file, AA-7604; Darrell Coe, Monthly Narrative Report, Katmai, for June 1966, in DENA Archives.

⁴³ Tollefson to Supt. Katmai, March 21, 1977, #16; Branson, Bristol Bay, Alaska, 103-04.

⁴⁴ Been, Field Notes of Katmai National Monument Inspection, 1940, 17-18, 44-45.

⁴⁵ Tollefson to Supt. Katmai, March 21, 1977, #17-18.

⁴⁶ Ibid., #3.

⁴⁷ Anchorage Daily Times, January 15, 1981, B6.

⁴⁸ Berggren to E. L. Bartlett, June 4, 1950; Berggren to Bartlett, January 3, 1954, both in E. L. Bartlett Collection, UAF; Berggren to Howard Pollack, January 29, 1969, in National Parks folder (1969), RG 01 (Governor's Correspondence), ASA.

⁴⁹ Anchorage Daily Times, December 27, 1962.

⁵⁰ Frank Norris, comp., "Katmai Cabin Data," c. 1993, in "Cabin Info-KATM" folder, KATM AH Coll.

⁵¹ Fure, in documents he provided to Interior Department and Immigration and Naturalization investigators, stated that he constructed the American Creek cabin. But the cabin that John Hartzell built prior to 1938 is so similar to Fure's cabin, in location and dimension, that Hartzell may well have built the cabin in which Fure lived after being evicted from his Bay of Islands cabin.

⁵² Bonnie Houston, "Written Historical and Descriptive Data, Roy Fure's Trapping Cabin, KATM (HABS No. AK-18)," in "Fure's Cabin N.R. Form" folder, NRHP Collection, AKSO.

⁵³ Craig Breedlove, Preliminary Draft, Basic Data, Advance Master Plan/Wilderness Research, Katmai National Monument, 1969, #17, Cabin #3.

⁵⁴ Tollefson to Supt. Katmai, March 21, 1977, #7-8-9.

⁵⁵ Norris, Isolated Paradise, 341-43.

⁵⁶ National Geographic Society, Katmai Expedition Photo Albums, Box #6 (photos 4734 and 7366-7370) and Box #8 (photos 6712-14).

⁵⁷ Frank Norris, comp., "Katmai Cabin Data," c. 1993, in "Cabin Info-KATM" folder, KATM AH Coll.

⁵⁸ Borough Post (Naknek), November 24, 1989, 13; NPS, "KATM Western Extension Alternatives," ca. 1973, in Box 13, NPS ANILCA Collection, NARA Anchorage.

⁵⁹ F. A. Davidson, Director (Seattle office), Bureau of Fisheries, to National Park Service, D.C., April 16, 1940, in File N1423 ("Fish 1946-1959"), KATM; also found in File 205, KNM Box 311, Entry 7, RG 79, NARA San Bruno.

⁶⁰ Frank Norris, comp., "Katmai Cabin Data," c. 1993, in "Cabin Info-KATM" folder, KATM AH Coll.; Affidavit of Elmer S. Harrop, June 23, 1983, in Melgenak file, AA-7604.

⁶¹ NPS, LCS Field Inventory Report, Johnny Neilsen Trapping Cabin, May 17, 1993, AKSO; NPS, Case Incident Report 830009 (June 1983), KATM.

⁶² Anchorage Daily Times, June 12, 1933 and October 14, 1933.

⁶³ NPS, Case Incident Record No. 830009, June 29, 1983.

⁶⁴ Anchorage Daily Times, October 25, 1933.

⁶⁵ The land records (Case File A 031289) indicate just three structures on the property, but a photo taken ostensibly in 1945 (published in John Branson, Bristol Bay, Alaska, p. 105) shows four frame structures.

⁶⁶ Louis R. Huber, "Flight to Katmai," Alaska Sportsman 17 (April 1951), and Enos Bradner, "Anglers Eldorado," Alaska Sportsman 18 (April 1952).

⁶⁷ Jean Bodeau, Katmai National Park and Preserve, Alaska (Anchorage, Alaska Natural History Association, 1992), 187-88.