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Aleut Evacuation and Internment

In response to Japanese aggression in the Aleutians, US authorities evacuated 881 Unangax from nine villages. They were herded from their homes onto cramped transport ships, most allowed only a single suitcase. Heartbroken, Atka villagers watched as US servicemen set their homes and church afire so they would not fall into Japanese hands.

The Unangax were transported to Southeast Alaska and there crowded into "duration villages": abandoned canneries, a herring saltery, and gold mine camp-rotting facilities with no plumbing, electricity or toilets. The Unangax lacked warm winter clothes, and camp food was poor, the water tainted. Accustomed to living in a world without trees, one open to the expansive sky, they suddenly found themselves crowded under the dense, shadowed canopy of the Southeast rainforest. For two years they would remain in these dark places, struggling to survive. Illness of one form or another struck all the evacuees, but medical care was often nonexistent, and the authorities were dismissive of the their complaints. Pneumonia and tuberculosis took the very young and the old. Thirty-two died at the Funter Bay camp, seventeen at Killisnoo, twenty at Ward lake, five at Burnett Inlet. With the death of the elders so, too, passed their knowledge of traditional Unangax ways.

Despite the horrors of the internment, the Unangan refused to succumb to despair. Attempts to keep them sequestered from nearby villages and towns failed. Evacuees found jobs. They built new living quarters in their compounds, repaired the old structures, and brought in electricity and running water. The villagers of Unalaska erected a makeshift church and named it after their beloved Church of the Holy Ascension of Christ. The religious articles and holy cards brought from the villages took on immense importance, the Unangan again turning to their faith for strength.

Despite their poor treatment at the hands of the US government, the Unangan remained a fiercely patriotic people. Twenty-five Unangax men joined the Armed Forces. Three took part in the US invasion of Attu Island, and all were awarded the Bronze Star. At their camps, the Unangan surreptitiously voted in Territorial elections. Through exposure to the outside world, they had come to understand the importance of their participation in the democracy by which they were governed, and they desired participation with the full rights of citizens. The next generation of Unangax leaders spent their formative childhood years in these camps, and they would never forget the injustices they saw there. - NPS