Shiretoko Memory 43
On June 12, after returning to Dutch Harbor from Nikolski, we paddled back out to sea. We wanted to go pay Susie a visit in Kalekta Bay.
In the 23 years since my first visit to the Aleutians in 2000, I have been there eight times and met many people. It is said that the Aleut culture here has a history of 7,000 years. Hard to believe at first glance, but that's a long time to get one's head around. Great China, with its nostrils flaring, boasts of its 3,000-year history and is not shy of hiding its ambitions to conquer the earth. Great Russia, too, has somehow shed its Marxist-Leninist garb, and is now throwing the world into turmoil with the aim of returning to imperial Russia. Seventy millennia since mankind was born in Africa, has human history been a history of the proliferation of human folly? I stargaze about such things as I paddle. There is plenty of time to do so while at sea. Susie Golodov lives in a little cove in Kalekta, about 30 kilometers from Dutch harbor on Unalaska Island. She and her husband, Benjamin Golodov, built their seaside cabin more than 30 years ago. Ben, the last Aleut, passed away in 2006. His funeral was attended by many people not only from the Aleutian Islands, but also from Alaska and the U.S. mainland. Ben was a descendant of the Atz Aleuts who were forced to settle in Pribilof and Komandorsky during the Czarist Russian era, and he and Susie had continued their traditional hunting lifestyle on the land in Kalekta, which his father acquired in 1945 after the war. A Lamaist prayer flag flutters on a seaside hill. Fifteen years after Ben's death, Susie lives here alone during the summer. She must have needed something to rely on, and perhaps it was Tibetan Buddhism. There is nothing strange about the prayer flags standing in the Aleutians. The flag is filled with the same awe towards Nature and thoughts for the passed-away that the people of the Himalayas have. “Ben is always here with me”, Susie tells us, and she seemed very pleased with our visit.
I first met Ben and Susie in June 2004. At the time, I was kayaking in the Aleutians with no clue what I was getting myself into. 2000, I went around Unalaska Island with Minoru Sasaki, and the following year I rowed with Takao Araiba over Umnak Pass to Nikolski, the western tip of Umnak Island. I was just drawing lines on a map and paddling the ocean out of a yearning for adventure.
On the day I first met them, I was alone, heading east to Akutan Island. I saw a small hut at the end of the bay. As I approached the beach, Ben and Susie greeted me. They were very surprised to hear my story and was also very concerned. Ben told me that even his skiff, an aluminum boat with an engine, would have a hard time crossing Akutan pass. Perhaps he was comparing me to his younger self, and he generously taught me about this sea. I bid them farewell and started paddling off the shore.
American kayakers were lost in Akutan Pass in the past. The tide can be extremely rapid in the strait and sometimes covered with thick fog. There are several currents in the strait. The tide flows stronger closer to Akutan island and the waves were higher than the length of our boat. All I could do was to keep paddling through the waves with all my might.
Halfway around Akutan Island, I met an Aleut sea lion hunter on a skiff. They were obviously surprised to suddenly see a kayak. We exchanged old-fashioned greetings. Akutan has a large sea lion colony. Five or six young males lunged towards my kayak and passed right beneath. I actually made eye contact with one of them. After going around the island, I crossed the strait again, this time in a thick fog. I could only rely only on my compass and my ears. My ears discerned the sounds of the sea. As I entered Kalekta Bay and rounded the headland, I saw the hut and smoke was rising from the chimney. My hands were blistered, swollen and weak. Ben and Susie were happy to see me back and welcomed me warmly. That was how we became friends.
For this 8th visit to the Aleutians, I formed a party with Takao Araiba, Kazuaki Iwamoto and Kenya Sekiguchi. Our goal was to cross the Samarga Pass, from which I had once barely escaped alive. Far to the west of Umnak are the islands of Chuginadak and Kagameir, which are called Four Moutain. On a clear foggy day, the islands in the distance are so divine that they seem out of this world. It was my dream to go there.
Halfway around Akutan Island, I met an Aleut sea lion hunter on a skiff. They were obviously surprised to suddenly see a kayak. We exchanged old-fashioned greetings. Akutan has a large sea lion colony. Five or six young males lunged towards my kayak and passed right beneath. I actually made eye contact with one of them. After going around the island, I crossed the strait again, this time in a thick fog. I could only rely only on my compass and my ears. My ears discerned the sounds of the sea. As I entered Kalekta Bay and rounded the headland, I saw the hut and smoke was rising from the chimney. My hands were blistered, swollen and weak. Ben and Susie were happy to see me back and welcomed me warmly. That was how we became friends.
For this 8th visit to the Aleutians, I formed a party with Takao Araiba, Kazuaki Iwamoto and Kenya Sekiguchi. Our goal was to cross the Samarga Pass, from which I had once barely escaped alive. Far to the west of Umnak are the islands of Chuginadak and Kagameir, which are called Four Moutain. On a clear foggy day, the islands in the distance are so divine that they seem out of this world. It was my dream to go there.
In 2006, I attempted to cross Samarga Pass alone. I turned back in fear of the strong tides flowing into the Pacific Ocean from the Bering Sea. The archipelago continues on to Atka, Amchitka, Kiska, Atz, and on to Kamchatka. I, with too little experience and poor technique, attempted to paddle this path that had taken the ancients thousands of years to make it. The Aleut people took hundreds of generations to accomplish it. A long time ago, people that traveled a long way from Asia, nurtured an excellent ocean-hunting culture in this severe sea. As I was paddling the Aleutian seas, I began to ponder the meaning of this, and I realized my ignorance and was ashamed of it.
Nineteen years later, the four of us crossed to a small island called Adgak, 20 kilometers northwest of Nikolski, and waited for the opportunity. Adgak is an isolated island in the middle of the ocean. There was a colony of Sea lion on the island. There were also the remains of a pit dwelling, which may have been built quite some time ago. The southwesterly wind stayed strong and the sea was extremely rough. We waited for a week, but the weather did not improve. We had no choice but to convince ourselves this was the Aleutians, so we set out to paddle. However, the wind picked up again and we turned back to the island in fear. I no longer had the confidence to paddle for 40 kilometers through these waters, even in good weather. The cold environment was too much for my body. I realized I was a maybe too old for this. I wondered if the elder Aleuts felt the same. It’s said that old men who could no longer paddle went out into a storm to take his own life. It takes courage whether living or dying here, and I didn’t have that courage. I felt sorry for the other three, but I decided to return to Nikolsky. Kagameir was far away again. Araiba, Iwamoto, and Kenya will continue on from here. They knew how I felt.
Nineteen years later, the four of us crossed to a small island called Adgak, 20 kilometers northwest of Nikolski, and waited for the opportunity. Adgak is an isolated island in the middle of the ocean. There was a colony of Sea lion on the island. There were also the remains of a pit dwelling, which may have been built quite some time ago. The southwesterly wind stayed strong and the sea was extremely rough. We waited for a week, but the weather did not improve. We had no choice but to convince ourselves this was the Aleutians, so we set out to paddle. However, the wind picked up again and we turned back to the island in fear. I no longer had the confidence to paddle for 40 kilometers through these waters, even in good weather. The cold environment was too much for my body. I realized I was a maybe too old for this. I wondered if the elder Aleuts felt the same. It’s said that old men who could no longer paddle went out into a storm to take his own life. It takes courage whether living or dying here, and I didn’t have that courage. I felt sorry for the other three, but I decided to return to Nikolsky. Kagameir was far away again. Araiba, Iwamoto, and Kenya will continue on from here. They knew how I felt.
In Nikolski, Scott Carr and Agrafina were glad to see we were safe. Scott's boat house on the beach became our home. Scott is a little eccentric person. You can see that when you enter the boathouse. He is a bit of an eccentric artist. You can see his message: "FUCK PUTIN", written in large letters on his buggy. I have been under his care every time I come here since I came here for the first time with Araiba in 2001. Scott and I are both 76 years old, and our morning greeting begins with a mutual boast about how bad our physical condition is.
Nikolsky is called Chalka in Aleut language. The village is located in an inlet near the western tip of Umnak Island and has a population of less than 30 people. Charka and Chagaf, 50 km north of Charka, were once the center of Aleut culture along with Unalaska. Chagaf was a source of obsidian, which people processed into blades and tools such as arrowheads and stone blades. Obsidian was an important trade product. I remember when Iwamoto and I passed through Chagaf in 2018. The mountain ridge overlooking the sea was lined with countless graves, a reminder of the prosperity of a bygone era. Now there are no people there. Everything has returned to nature.
Eight kilometers northeast of Charka lies Anangra Island, which lies on the sea surface like a resting whale. After returning from Adgak, we decided to visit this legendary island. The island is said to have been inhabited by the first Aleuts during the Ice Age. According to archaeologist William Laughlin, the first humans arrived in the Aleutian Islands about 12,000 years ago. People reached Anangura by hunting sea lions and walruses in the glacier-strewn waters and settled there. We paddled in to a small inlet called Laughlin Cove. There we found the remains of a camp from a investigation team in the 1970s. We climbed to the top of the hill and found a large grave and a small grave at the top. We wondered if it was a couple. The graves, covered with grass, had been assimilated into nature over a long period of time. On the cliff were numerous nests of puffins. It was the first time I heard the call of a puffin. Their voices were loud, not in proportion to their bodies. Laughlin Cove was a mysterious place.
The early Aleuts, who started to live in Anangra and Charka, then gradually expanded their sphere of life to the east and west. However, they were slow to move westward. It is said that it was about 3,000 years ago that they crossed the Samarga Pass and established a permanent village on the western island of Atz. What was the reason for the migration? Is the population growth of Unalaska and Umnak the only reason? People usually won’t migrate as long as they have enough food. Can the lack of food alone explain the migration? I can’t help but think that there was a budding sense of adventure that is inherent in human beings. And it had to have something to do with the maturation of the Aleut society. They were not barbarians. Rather, they were wiser people than today's so called “civilized” people.
The early Aleuts, who started to live in Anangra and Charka, then gradually expanded their sphere of life to the east and west. However, they were slow to move westward. It is said that it was about 3,000 years ago that they crossed the Samarga Pass and established a permanent village on the western island of Atz. What was the reason for the migration? Is the population growth of Unalaska and Umnak the only reason? People usually won’t migrate as long as they have enough food. Can the lack of food alone explain the migration? I can’t help but think that there was a budding sense of adventure that is inherent in human beings. And it had to have something to do with the maturation of the Aleut society. They were not barbarians. Rather, they were wiser people than today's so called “civilized” people.
The migration of the people known as the Kawasucals, who lived in Patagonia in South America during the same period, was for survival. They escaped the persecution of the Incas, Aztecs, and other powerful civilizations by running through the forests, sometimes in hastily constructed canoes made of crude bark. Then they reached Patagonia. Beyond that point, there was no escape. Beyond Cape Horn there was only a raging sea. For 2,000 years, the Kawascals fed on clams and cyttaria in the labyrinthine channels of the Strait of Magellan, living a humble life until the beginning of the 20th century. They lived as best they could. They were called the Yagans, sometimes despised as Alakalfs, and they perished in the middle of the 20th century. They never were able to create their own culture.
I think of the rise and fall of the Aleuts. Were they also wiped off the face of the earth like the Kawaskals? The number of Aleuts in the archipelago reduced from 15,000 to 5,000 during the Russian occupation during the 18th century. The miscegenation, conversion to the Russian Orthodox Church, forced learning of the Russian language, and the creation of Russian names accelerated the demolition of the ethnic group. If this had continued, they would have become an autonomous republic like many of today's Russian remote regions, which are treated as a source of resources, labor, and soldiers. However, in 1867, Russia, exhausted by the Crimean War and strapped for cash, sold Alaska and the Aleutians to the United States. The Aleuts, who had become Russified, were once again faced with a new challenge: incorporation into the United States of America. However, the Aleuts who now became citizens of the U.S., endured prejudice and discrimination, and slowly but gradually gained recognition in the American society. They unwittingly became accustomed to their new sovereign nation.
The Aleuts were treated unfairly by both the U.S. and Japan during World War II. After the war, the Aleuts persistently appealed both nation’s wrongdoings. They won restoration of their rights and compensation for the damage they had suffered during the war from the United States. I believe this was made possible by the wisdom of the Aleut people, nurtured through their long history. They always lived in a harsh environment and learned how to be flexible and adapt to it. They were able to assert their rights without being mean because they were proud of their own culture.
I think of the rise and fall of the Aleuts. Were they also wiped off the face of the earth like the Kawaskals? The number of Aleuts in the archipelago reduced from 15,000 to 5,000 during the Russian occupation during the 18th century. The miscegenation, conversion to the Russian Orthodox Church, forced learning of the Russian language, and the creation of Russian names accelerated the demolition of the ethnic group. If this had continued, they would have become an autonomous republic like many of today's Russian remote regions, which are treated as a source of resources, labor, and soldiers. However, in 1867, Russia, exhausted by the Crimean War and strapped for cash, sold Alaska and the Aleutians to the United States. The Aleuts, who had become Russified, were once again faced with a new challenge: incorporation into the United States of America. However, the Aleuts who now became citizens of the U.S., endured prejudice and discrimination, and slowly but gradually gained recognition in the American society. They unwittingly became accustomed to their new sovereign nation.
The Aleuts were treated unfairly by both the U.S. and Japan during World War II. After the war, the Aleuts persistently appealed both nation’s wrongdoings. They won restoration of their rights and compensation for the damage they had suffered during the war from the United States. I believe this was made possible by the wisdom of the Aleut people, nurtured through their long history. They always lived in a harsh environment and learned how to be flexible and adapt to it. They were able to assert their rights without being mean because they were proud of their own culture.
As the history of the Aleutians shows, culture is passed on by those who take pride in it. The rise and fall of a people cannot be measured by numbers alone. Today, the Aleut culture is revitalizing itself by incorporating a variety of things. There is no point in discussing the continuity of ethnic groups in anthropological terms. The people who live there today are the inheritors of the culture. I feel the robustness of the Aleut culture, which has continued for 7,000 years. In the Aleutians, a volcanic archipelago, villages have disappeared many times due to natural disasters such as volcanic eruptions. However, eventually, people appeared out of nowhere and reestablished a similar way of life. I don't think this has changed today.
In the past, Aleuts played an important role in the trade in the arctic area. They came as far as Matsumae in Hokkaido in the 17th century with feathers of rare birds such as the crested hornbills. In the 13th century, they allied with the Ainu people of Ezo to invade the Amur River and participated in the battle of Kui against the Yuan Dynasty of China. The Aleut culture was probably most prosperous between the 10th and 17th centuries. During this period, the leather boats that supported their culture evolved to the extreme. The boats had joints and could move flexibly through high waves. They also devised ways to use the huge waves as a way of propulsion. They hunted whales in the straits where the tides are big and swift, and traded far and wide. However, their crafts and traditions of the time were quickly destroyed by the plunder of iron-armed Russian Cossacks.
The wind is not a river," is a famous Aleut proverb. The wind always eventually stops. In contrast, a book titled "When the wind was a river" was published in the United States. It is a book about Aleut people who were at the mercy of the Great War. The book also describes the Aleuts who were interned in Otaru and what happened to them.
Today, people who are attached to this land, regardless of their origins, have the heart of an Aleut. They are the bearers of the contemporary Aleut culture. Susie Golodoff, Jeff Hancock, Scott Carr, Burke Meads, Scott Dasney, and people of all colors, who work in the fishery, the processing plant, and the airfield. Everyone helps each other to survive in this land. The people of the Aleutians have the same values of life of that of the people of the Himalayas. The Aleut culture, once thought to have died out, is beginning to be revived again by such people.
In the 18th century, Russia moved into the Aleutians for otter skin and despised the local culture. The United States, which later colonized here, also saw the islands as nothing more than a place of deprivation and forced the Aleuts into slave labor. Before Edison invented the electric light bulb, the Americans had the Aleuts hunt seals from Pribilof Island for urban streetlights. This was because fuel made of seal fat is soot-free. The same goes for whales. Whaling in those days was done for fat. I am angry and saddened by the selfishness of those who call whaling barbaric. The 14th Dalai Lama, in his sermon, preached that ignorance is a sin. Ignorance makes people repeat their mistakes. Isn't that the main reason for the confusion of mankind? We should realize that there are countless things lost because of it.
Our journey in the Aleutian finished. And so did my journey. I would like to thank Takao Araiba and Kazuaki Iwamoto for inviting me to go. I am also grateful to Kenya Sekiguchi for participating in the trip despite the pain in his back. Both Kenya and I suffered from pain during this trip. My hands conditions were getting worse and I had a hard time putting on and off my drysuit. I really am sorry for the trouble I caused not being able to help assembling and disassembling the kayaks. All I could do was to cook for all of us.
I would like to thank my Aleutian friends for their help. I especially wish Scott Carr good health and Susie Golodoff peace of mind. I also hope that Burke's seaplane, the Grumman Goose, will continue to fly in the Aleutian skies. I hope to visit them again someday. I'm sure Jeff will be there, laughing and welcoming me as always.
In the past, Aleuts played an important role in the trade in the arctic area. They came as far as Matsumae in Hokkaido in the 17th century with feathers of rare birds such as the crested hornbills. In the 13th century, they allied with the Ainu people of Ezo to invade the Amur River and participated in the battle of Kui against the Yuan Dynasty of China. The Aleut culture was probably most prosperous between the 10th and 17th centuries. During this period, the leather boats that supported their culture evolved to the extreme. The boats had joints and could move flexibly through high waves. They also devised ways to use the huge waves as a way of propulsion. They hunted whales in the straits where the tides are big and swift, and traded far and wide. However, their crafts and traditions of the time were quickly destroyed by the plunder of iron-armed Russian Cossacks.
The wind is not a river," is a famous Aleut proverb. The wind always eventually stops. In contrast, a book titled "When the wind was a river" was published in the United States. It is a book about Aleut people who were at the mercy of the Great War. The book also describes the Aleuts who were interned in Otaru and what happened to them.
Today, people who are attached to this land, regardless of their origins, have the heart of an Aleut. They are the bearers of the contemporary Aleut culture. Susie Golodoff, Jeff Hancock, Scott Carr, Burke Meads, Scott Dasney, and people of all colors, who work in the fishery, the processing plant, and the airfield. Everyone helps each other to survive in this land. The people of the Aleutians have the same values of life of that of the people of the Himalayas. The Aleut culture, once thought to have died out, is beginning to be revived again by such people.
In the 18th century, Russia moved into the Aleutians for otter skin and despised the local culture. The United States, which later colonized here, also saw the islands as nothing more than a place of deprivation and forced the Aleuts into slave labor. Before Edison invented the electric light bulb, the Americans had the Aleuts hunt seals from Pribilof Island for urban streetlights. This was because fuel made of seal fat is soot-free. The same goes for whales. Whaling in those days was done for fat. I am angry and saddened by the selfishness of those who call whaling barbaric. The 14th Dalai Lama, in his sermon, preached that ignorance is a sin. Ignorance makes people repeat their mistakes. Isn't that the main reason for the confusion of mankind? We should realize that there are countless things lost because of it.
Our journey in the Aleutian finished. And so did my journey. I would like to thank Takao Araiba and Kazuaki Iwamoto for inviting me to go. I am also grateful to Kenya Sekiguchi for participating in the trip despite the pain in his back. Both Kenya and I suffered from pain during this trip. My hands conditions were getting worse and I had a hard time putting on and off my drysuit. I really am sorry for the trouble I caused not being able to help assembling and disassembling the kayaks. All I could do was to cook for all of us.
I would like to thank my Aleutian friends for their help. I especially wish Scott Carr good health and Susie Golodoff peace of mind. I also hope that Burke's seaplane, the Grumman Goose, will continue to fly in the Aleutian skies. I hope to visit them again someday. I'm sure Jeff will be there, laughing and welcoming me as always.
