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

Homesteading

Developers over the years have long considered the Kenai Peninsula as an agricultural area. Russian colonists, as noted in Chapter 3, planted crops in various sites along the eastern side of Cook Inlet; then, during the 1920s and 1930s, homesteaders trickled into the area surrounding Kenai, Homer and other coastal communities. [52] Homesteaders settled in the Seward area as well during the first two decades of the twentieth century, and by 1915 an uneven line of homesteads connected Seward and Bear Lake (seven miles to the north). No homesteads, however, were located more than two miles west of the Alaska Central tracks; thus all were located several miles east of the present park boundary. [53] The rest of the peninsula's southern coast, moreover, was inimical to agricultural settlement because of poor soil development and a paucity of level land.

Despite those drawbacks, various would-be settlers have been attracted to the southern Kenai Peninsula coast during the twentieth century. Few of these people attempted to homestead land in the narrow sense; because the area was not agricultural, it attracted people that were drawn to the area's remoteness and isolation. Those were the same qualities, however, that proved inimical to long-term settlement.

The first area homesteaders were "moonshiners," who settled in the area shortly after Prohibition became law in Alaska. On a national level, the eighteenth amendment to the U.S. constitution, which mandated Prohibition, was submitted to the states for ratification in late 1917, and it became effective in January 1920. But in Alaska, action against the liquor industry proceeded more quickly. An act of the 1915 legislature demanded a vote "as to Whether or Not Intoxicating Liquors Shall Be Manufactured or Sold in the Territory." In the November 1916 general election, Alaskans approved this measure by almost a 2-to-1 vote. Alaska's congressional delegate, James Wickersham, responded to the vote by introducing a bill in the House of Representatives in January 1917 that implemented its provisions. The bill quickly passed Congress, and on February 14, President Woodrow Wilson signed the so-called "Alaska Bone Dry Law." This law, which was considered drastic even by the standards of Prohibition advocates, became effective on January 1, 1918. It remained the law of the land in Alaska until April 13, 1934, more than four months after Prohibition was repealed on the national level. [54] It should be noted that the sentiments of Seward citizens largely paralleled those in the rest of the territory; in April 1915 and again in June 1916, city-wide votes showed the residents were strongly in favor of allowing liquor licenses to be issued, but in the November 1916 election, Seward elected to go "dry" by a lopsided 271 to 160 vote. Seldovia voters also supported Prohibition. [55]

Alaskans, along with other westerners, earnestly hoped that Prohibition would succeed in eliminating a host of social ills tied to liquor consumption. Alaskan officials, most of whom were "dry" advocates, were initially optimistic that the Bone Dry Law would be successfully implemented and enforced. It was not long, however, before Alaskans began to honor the law in the breach. In order to obtain alcoholic beverages, smuggling and the manufacture of "moonshine" became increasingly popular.

Both of these activities took place in the area surrounding the present-day park. As noted in the records of the magistrate as well as in local newspaper articles, smuggling (and occasional arrests) took place through the Port of Seward. The making of moonshine was more widespread. Several incidents of liquor manufacture were reported inside of Seward residences–one part of town was known for years afterward as "homebrew alley"–but others took place outside of town. Charles Emsweiler, a Seward police patrolman, maintained some stills of his own down the bay; Gus Wyman, a local old-timer, set up a distilling factory at Caines Head. [56] Another party set up a still near the mouth of Fourth of July Creek. Renard Island resident Rockwell Kent noted that in early 1919, a gasoline boat just offshore was "doubtless out dragging somewhere for a cache of whiskey. Lots of whiskey has been sunk in the bay." [57]

"Moonshine" whiskey was reportedly manufactured in several places in or near the present park. One such site was on the western side of Nuka Island. Three men–George Hogg, [58] "Smokehouse Mike," and a man known only as Jack–lived at a camp about two miles south of Herring Pete's Cove. As Josephine Sather noted in a 1946 article, [the camp] "was in a hidden nook, and a thirty by thirty-six warehouse stood on a grassy bank. A sixty-foot gas boat, resting on the mud at low tide, was tied to the dock." Elsewhere on the island, at an unknown location, was located "a building about twenty feet square." Inside the building, "standing on benches three feet high all around the walls were fifty-gallon mash barrels.... In one corner stood a thirty-gallon still, going full blast. The ‘mountain dew' was running in a crystal-clear stream the thickness of a good-sized sewing needle." The operation, which may have begun as early as 1918, was shut down in 1921 at the Tuercks' request. The trio had no legal claim to the island; besides, both Edward and Josephine were teetotalers. [59]

Because the shorelines of the present park were both isolated and unpopulated, moonshiners often visited the area on clandestine business. Longtime Sewardites Bart Stanton and Virginia Darling, for example, recall that bootleggers worked out of Nuka Bay during Prohibition days; Stanton worked at a Nuka Bay mine during the 1930s, and Ms. Darling, who has long been associated with the Brown and Hawkins store, remembers selling materials for stills that were being assembled in that area. Another longtime resident, John Paulsteiner, noted that "Nuka Bay was also a favored location" for moonshine stills and that Sam Romack and his brother, Tony Parich, "had stills in a good part of the Peninsula." Concrete evidence of area activity was revealed during the 1960s, when geologist Donald Richter found a 30-gallen whiskey still in a secluded cove in Beauty Bay. [60]

So far as is known, only one man lived in the present-day park prior to World War II who was neither a mineral claimant nor a fur-farm lessee. Bob Evans, a veteran of World War I, built and lived in a cabin near McCarty Lagoon. Josephine Sather recalled that "his poor body was a wreck;" he had cancer of the throat, bad lungs, and impaired hearing. Even so, he worked in the area for years. He first did mining assessment work for others; he later hunted seals and finally did some prospecting on his own. The setting for his cabin was scenic, but because it was located near the face of McCarty Glacier, [61] tides and drift ice often made access impossible. The lack of access may have had tragic consequences; Evans shot himself in May 1941, apparently from depression brought on by complications after a fairly minor injury. [62] The cabin was never occupied again. [63]

After the war, others came to the southern coastline hoping to settle. Most of those who arrived prior to 1960 stuck it out long enough to overcome the obstacles to land ownership. Those who came afterward, however, remained for only a short time and were largely unsuccessful in their pursuit; they were driven out by the weather, by poor economic opportunities, or by prior, conflicting land claims.

The first person during the postwar period to announce an intention to settle within the boundaries of the present park was Alma Dodge, a mixed-blood Aleut. Dodge and her husband Jack lived in Seward during the 1950s; beginning in 1956, they apparently began to visit Harris Peninsula, and showed a particular interest in a stretch of coastline just west of Verdant Island. According to a friend, the couple "sought the use of this land for the abundance of wild berries and game animals, including both seal and otter for food and pelts and for the fish available in adjacent waters." Another friend noted that the Dodges "used bear, goat, seal, clams, fish and berries they brought from [the peninsula]. They also trapped otter and wolverine." [64]

Before long the couple moved to Palmer, and in late August 1968, Ms. Dodge filed for two parcels on the peninsula–one of 80 acres and another, of 40 acres, two miles to the south–in accordance with the Native Allotment Act of 1906. (The parcels contained some land that sloped gently to the shoreline, but the coastline between the two parcels was steep and uninhabitable.) She claimed, at the time, that she had just begun using the parcels (a claim that was later revised) and that she used the parcels "for subsistence purposes in the traditional Native manner." The couple built a 24-foot Quonset hut that summer on the 40-acre parcel; a cache, tent, fire pit, boat rack, fuel cache and other improvements were also constructed at the site.

The couple continued to visit the site on a regular basis until 1969, then again in 1972 and 1973, but did not return after then due to illness. They moved to Bremerton, Washington and later to Silverdale, Washington where, during the early 1980s, they conducted a spirited correspondence with BLM officials about the adequacy of their claim. BLM personnel, upon visiting the site, claimed that there was no evidence that the Dodges were entitled to ownership of the northern parcel. A 1985 survey, however, resulted in the agency reversing its decision, and in May 1988 the BLM issued a Certificate of Allotment awarding the two parcels to the claimant. Ms. Dodge, however, had died of cancer in June 1983, so the property was transferred to her estate. [65]

Another person who showed an interest in land within the present park's boundaries was Seward resident Bernard W. (Bill) Younker. A longtime seal hunter in the fjords, Younker occupied a site in early July 1957 on the east side of Aialik Bay; the site was half a mile north of Coleman Bay, near Aialik Glacier's terminal moraine. By mid-July, he had constructed an 11' x 14' one room cabin, a tent frame, and a gas and oil locker. He decided then to apply for a five-acre headquarters site, hoping to use it as a base camp from which to guide hunting parties and hunt harbor seals, both on a commercial basis. In November 1959, Younker sold his improvements to William F. Hart, Jr. of Anchorage, who intended to hunt and trap in the area. The following summer, several people used the cabin; based on that and other qualifying information, a BLM official noted in February 1963 that "Mr. Hart has earned title to the subject land." A Native protest, made in January 1967, suspended further action on the land claim, but in March 1972, just three months after passage of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, Hart was awarded title to the 4.86-acre parcel. [66]

Hunters found harbor seals to be easy targets; if hit in the wrong place, however, the seals sank from sight. Alaska Sportsman, August 1956, 19.

During the years that followed, the fjords attracted several settlers who, for one reason or another, did not remain in the area for long. In July of 1959, for example, Raymond W. Gregory of Spenard occupied a site at Bulldog Cove, just south of Bear Glacier on the west side of Resurrection Bay. A month later, Gregory applied for an 80-acre trade and manufacturing site and stated his intention of establishing a fishing lodge. But he made no improvements at the site, and his claim eventually expired. In March 1963, Ralph Grosvold, Jr. of Kodiak filed for a 135-acre Native allotment, also in Bulldog Cove. Two years earlier, however, the BLM had withdrawn 900 acres in that area for recreation and public purposes under the Act of June 14, 1926. The agency, therefore, immediately rejected his application and Grosvold made no further attempts to obtain land in the area. [67]

On January 6, 1967, the land ownership pattern of the present-day park was forever changed when the Native villages of English Bay and Port Graham laid claim to most of the southern Kenai Peninsula. Earlier, several Native entities east of the Kenai Peninsula–the Native village of Tatitlek, the Chugach Tribe, the Chugach Native Association and the Eyak Tribe–had filed a claim for millions of acres of land and water between Prince William Sound and Malaspina Glacier, and the January 6 action had the practical effect of extending that claim to the west. The Native leaders responsible for filing the huge claims made it clear that they had no intention of stopping all new developments within their claim area; village leaders in English Bay and Port Graham, in fact, noted that "We are not protesting against coal prospecting permits, small tracts and homesites." The Natives' primary concerns were the continued issuance of oil and gas leases. [68]

Despite the village leaders' conciliatory tone, the practical effect of the January 1967 Native land claim was to freeze action on existing claims until the Native lands question could be resolved. Their action also prevented the consideration of any new non-Native claims. Three people, in fact, stepped forward to claim land between January 1967 and the passage date of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (in December 1971). BLM officials thwarted each attempt. Daniel M. Pollachek of Seward, in July 1967, staked out a five-acre homesite on the south shore of Paradise Cove, at the southeastern end of Aialik Bay. That same month, Lyda A. Scott of Spenard filed for property near Hoof Point, at the east end of Ragged Island (part of the Pye Islands); she hoped to "raise animals [specifically rabbits] for fur and meat," operate a boat fuel stop, and make handicraft items. Finally, Theodore W. Jackson of Anchorage, in March 1968, hoped to establish a fishing and seal-hunting site on Granite Island. So far as is known, an array of survey stakes were the only known improvements on the three claims. [69]