The ominous true stories behind Alaska’s bloody and brutal place names

Part of a continuing weekly series on local history by local historian David Reamer. Have a question about Anchorage history or an idea for a future article? Go to the form at the bottom of this story.

Many Alaska place names, those not named after individuals, have surprisingly straightforward, even literal origins. Anchorage is so named because it was a safe place to anchor ships, an actual anchorage. The “Chester” in Chester Creek is a mangled version of Chanshtnu, the stream’s Dena’ina name. “Chanshtnu” translates to “grassy creek,” a direct description. Moose Pass on the Kenai Peninsula is named after the incident when a mail carrier struggled to pass an ornery moose.

Some Alaska place names suggest more bloody origins that, again, often prove literal in origin. Deadman’s Slough in Fairbanks is named after the 1904 murder of fisherman Jacob Jaconi along its banks. When prospector Joe McGahy was discovered dead in a stream northwest of Wiseman, the waterway became known as Deadman Creek. When a U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey field party witnessed a fatal “fight between a whale and killer whale” in a cove southeast of Seward, they named the location Killer Bay. The 1954 United States Coast Pilot notes that Deadman Sands on Kvichak Bay is so named because “a number of fisherman have been lost when trapped by the tides.”

However, some of these ominous place names obscure the extent of their horrific inspirations. A short moniker, like the name of a bay or beach, can be both accurate and fail to offer a true understanding of what took place at that location so many years ago. This is particularly true for the many Alaska place names that directly refer to tragedies experienced by Alaska Natives. From Attu to Admiralty Island, there are place names that recall some of the darkest points in Alaska Native histories, moments that should never be forgotten.

As the westernmost Aleutian Island, Attu was directly in the path of 18th century Russian fur hunters as they invaded their way east. In 1745, the Sv. Evdokim, captained by M. V. Nevodchikov, landed there, and ship steward Yakov Chuprov led a party that met with some of the Unangan, or Aleut, residents. The resultant meeting devolved, and Chuprov shot an Unangan man for grabbing the rope tying the boat to shore.

A week or so later, the Evdokim returned to Attu, and Chuprov dispatched a group to survey the island. The survey team leader attempted to kidnap or rape several Unangan women, prompting a violent confrontation. Per the Russians, they killed 15 Unangan residents. Attu is littered with place names that call back to this clash: Massacre Bay, Massacre Beach, Massacre Valley West, Massacre Valley East, and Murder Point. The Russian account, more likely than not, undercounts the number of Unangans killed in the encounter.

At the other end of the Aleutian chain is Unimak Island. Before contact with the Russians, Unimak was perhaps the most populous of the Aleutian Islands. In 1840, Russian Orthodox priest Ivan Veniaminov (1797-1879), who ministered in Russian Alaska for many years, published “Notes on the Islands of the Unalaska District,” which combined Russian and traditional Unangan accounts of the previous decades. He described one Unimak village as so large that a “whole whale did not furnish a share for them all.”

Over the years, the Russians systematically depopulated the island. In one incident during the 1760s, they destroyed four villages. Veniaminov wrote that the Russians spared “only the young girls and a few young men to be their servants.” He added that in 1800, there were still around 12 villages on the island. By the time of his writing, there was only one village with 71 residents.

Today on Unimak Island, there is the Pogromni Volcano and Pogromni River. There once was a village called Pogromni. In Russian, “pogrom” means to destroy, to massacre. In recent centuries, the word has more narrowly been used to describe systematic ethnic cleansings, as with the Holocaust. It is not clear which place on Unimak was first given the name. Veniaminov suggests it was the village, named after a moment when the Unangans briefly turned the tables on the Russians, killing several and forcing the rest to their boats. In Veniaminov’s words, it was “when the inhabitants made a pogrom upon the Russians.”

Though these examples are from just two islands, they represent the broader reality endured by all Unangans during the Russian occupation. Estimates for the number of Unangans killed by the Russians vary wildly, but Veniaminov claimed that 5,000 dead “can be accepted as feasible; and it even may be that this number is very moderate.”

After years of Russian-Unangan conflict, Russian trader Grigory Shelikhov decided to instead establish a base on Kodiak Island. On Aug. 14, 1784, three ships under his command landed at Three Saints Bay. The Alutiiq residents in the area retreated to a small, steep-cliffed rock of an island off the coast of Sitkalidak Island, which in turn is across the Sitkalidak Strait from Old Harbor.

As so often happens, and understandably so in this case, accounts vary on the number of Alutiiq refugees huddled atop the rock. Contemporary estimates varied from 2,000-4,000 though more recent archeological work suggests the lower end of that range.

Primary access to the rock was via a narrow strip of land only exposed at low tide and quickly blocked by Russian forces. Negotiations for surrender and an attempted breakout by Alutiiq warriors failed. Finally, the Russians attacked at dawn, through a barrage of arrows and supported by cannon fire. No Russians were killed, and only a handful were injured. On the other side, hundreds of Alutiiqs died from the attack or drowned in the water below. Hundreds more were taken hostage, and Alutiiq resistance on Kodiak was effectively ended.

The rock is known as Refuge Rock, or Awa’uq in Alutiiq, which translates as “to become numb.” Researchers only verified its location in 1990.

Peril Strait is in Southeast Alaska, between Chichagof and Baranof Islands, north of Sitka. Off the strait are Poison Cove and Deadman Reach. Those names — Peril Strait, Poison Cove, and Deadman Reach — originate from the same 1799 incident. The Russians often pressed Alaska Natives into service as hunters, sometimes under threat to their families. That summer, a Russian-led group of Unangan hunters, possibly Koniag Alutiiq, entered what the Russians then called Khutznov Strait.

After eating some of the mussels common to the area, half of the party became violently ill. Some of the hunters forced themselves to vomit by ingesting a mixture of gunpowder, tobacco, and alcohol. However, around a hundred of the Alaska Native hunters died, killed by paralytic shellfish poison, or PSP, produced by the algae consumed by shellfish. The Russians subsequently renamed the strait.

Near the southern tip of Admiralty Island is an inlet known as Murder Cove. The backstory of that name began with an insult. On Jan. 1, 1869, an American guard at Fort Sitka harassed three Tlingit clan leaders, including Shkeedlikháa from Haines, on their way out. Shkeedlikháa tore the guard’s rifle away from him and left. An attempt by the Army to arrest Shkeedlikháa devolved into a shootout. With tensions rapidly escalating, Shkeedlikháa surrendered to prevent further bloodshed.

The morning after the arrest, soldiers opened fire on a Tlingit canoe that not only had permission to leave Sitka but was also flying a white flag per the Army commander’s instruction. Two unarmed Kéex’ Kwáan Tlingit men were killed. Per Tlingit law, the killers could either compensate the clan or expect equal punishment. After the Army refused to offer compensation, members of that clan killed two trappers at what is now called Murder Cove.

The Army commander, Gen. Jefferson Davis, ordered the USS Saginaw to proceed to Kéex’ Kwáan Tlingit lands, “seize a few of their Chiefs as hostages,” and “burn their villages.” The Saginaw, a sidewheeler gunboat, destroyed two abandoned forts and three villages, including one known today as Kake. The villages were deserted in advance of the Saginaw’s arrival, but the soldiers destroyed canoes and provisions. Per Tlingit oral histories, many subsequently died from starvation and poisoning.

This conflict is known to history as the Kake War. As historian Zachary R. Jones notes, “The title given to these events is a misnomer, as this conflict was not a war but rather a one-sided military attack on Tlingit civilian communities that mounted no resistance to the Army’s aggressive actions.”

Alaska place names always tell a story. Those stories may be well known, lost to history, or just waiting to be rediscovered. They may be short or long. And, as shown here, too many of these stories are tragic, albeit in ways that necessarily provoke memory.

Key sources:

Berkh, Vasili. The Chronological History of the Discovery of the Aleutian Islands or the Exploits of the Russian Merchants. Translated by Dimitri Krenov. Seattle: Works Progress Administration Project No. 5668, 1938.

Grinëv, Andrei Val’terovich. Russian Colonization of Alaska: Preconditions, Discovery, and Initial Development, 1741-1799. Translated by Richard L. Bland. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2018.

A History of the Russian American Company, Volume 2. Translated by Dimitri Krenov. Edited by Richard A. Pierce and Alton S. Donnelly. Kingston, Ontario, Canada: Limestone Press, 1979.

Jones, Zachary R. “‘Search for and Destroy’: US Army Relations with Alaska’s Tlingit Indians and the Kake War of 1869.” Ethnohistory 60, no. 1 (2013): 1-26.

Knecht, Rick, Sven Haakanson, and Shawn Dickson. “Awa’uq: Discovery and Excavation of an 18th Century Alutiiq Refuge Rock in the Kodiak Archipelago.” In To the Aleutians and Beyond, edited by B. Frohlich, and R. Gilberg, 177-191. Copenhagen: Department of Ethnography, National Museum of Denmark, 2002.

Orth, Donald J. Dictionary of Alaska Place Names, Geological Survey, Professional Paper 567. Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1971.

Torrey, Barbara Boyle. Slaves of the Harvest. St. Paul Island: TDX Corp., 1983.

Veniaminov, Ivan. Notes on the Islands of the Unalashka District. Translated by Lydia T. Black and R. H. Geoghegan. Edited by Richard A. Pierce. Kingston, Ontario, Canada: Limestone Press, 1984.