Kenai Fjords A Stern and Rock-Bound Coast: Historic Resource Study

The Yalik Bay Store

The Alaska Commercial Company opened a store in Yalik Bay off the West Arm of Nuka Bay in late 1872 or early 1873 and continued to visit and stock it into the 1880s. [18] Company records specifically identified stores at two locations in Nuka Bay. These included a store at Yalik and one in Akhmylik. Company records indicated that agents made trips to each location as well as kept separate operating accounts and expenses for the two stores. However, as mentioned in Chapter 3, Townsend suggested that the two villages were probably the same. It is probable that the Yalik store was built near the village of Akhmylik; it may have been across Yalik Bay or closer to the bay entrance. References to Akhmylik dropped from company records after the late 1870s, while Yalik continued to appear on the books until the mid-1880s. The name Yalik may have replaced the longer village name and eventually meant any settlement in the Yalik Bay area. [19] Petroff refers to Yalik as a village name in 1884 as does Porter in 1890. [20] Given the chance, the government readily used a more anglicized name and thought little of changing local place names. This may have occurred in the case of Akhmylik and Yalik.

The Yalik store probably stocked a portion of the merchandise found at the English Bay station. This included a selection of general dry goods, cloth, shoes, cooking utensils, religious objects, toiletries, specialty items, and all types of hunting and fishing equipment. Employees at the English Bay station regularly made trips to both Yalik and Akhmylik. The purpose of their trips was not evident from the notations made in the station log, but there could have been periodic buying expeditions. The station also paid wages to the village chief on a monthly basis. (Records indicate, for example, that English Bay Chief Constantine Kal'iv received checks from the company.) [21]

In October 1877, the English Bay log showed an expense of $28 for the closing of the Yalik store, with a follow-up entry in the next spring to move a "warehouse in the bay." Although there was no specific reference that this was the Yalik Bay warehouse, this entry indicated that the company commonly reclaimed and moved its buildings; this procedure could have occurred at Yalik Bay. Company involvement and trips to Yalik continued despite the apparent store closing. In 1880, the company recorded an expense of paddles for the store; that April, merchandise on hand at the store totaled $147. The existence of these transactions implies that there could have been some confusion in the records. Perhaps the company meant to document the closure of the Akhmylik store and not the one at Yalik.