VILDA Digital Photo Archive

i f you are interested in old photos of Kodiak, or of anywhere in Alaska for that matter, you should check out the VILDA digital archive (http://vilda.alaska.edu/).It's an archive of images from various Alaskan Museums with a search engine. I am hoping to eventually get the Alutiiq Museum's photos onto it (this will not be happenning soon!).

Here is a photo I found there of Frye-Bruhn ranch near where the airport is today. I bet Bruhn and Frye Points at the head of Womens Bay were named after these families! The Photo was taken soon after the 1912 Katmai eruption by the National Geographic team on it's way to the Alaska Peninsula to check out the Volcano that erupted. This was the largest volcanic eruption anywhere in the World in the 20th century and it deposited several feet of ash on the city of Kodiak - almost 100 miles from the volcano itself. While in Kodiak they also studied the effects of the Katmai ash on local vegetation. I have some of those reports and many of these images can also be found in them.

Each image comes with quite a bit of information - here is the accompanying data for this photo.

Collection Name: National Geographic Society. Katmai Expeditions. Photographs, 1913-1919. UAA-HMC-0186
Identifier: UAA-hmc-0186-volume1-3546
Title: Drifts of ash at the Frye-Bruhn ranch south of Kodiak.
Description: Title taken from caption. View of an ash drift against a building and fences on the Frye-Bruhn ranch, Kodiak Island, Alaska. Photo taken during National Geographic Society expedition on the way to Katmai area. 1915.
Creator: Griggs, Robert F. (Robert Fiske), b. 1881
Subject.TGM: Fences
Buildings
Ranches
Expedition photographs
Expeditions & surveys
Subject.LCSH: Volcanic ash, tuff, etc.
Corporate Name: National Geographic Society (U.S.)
Location: Kodiak Island (Alaska)
Region: Western Alaska and Aleutian Islands
Time Period: 1913 to 1939
Date.original: 1915
Type: Image (Photographs)
Related Materials: http://www.lib.uaa.alaska.edu/archives/CollectionsList/CollectionDescriptions/KtoN/NGSKAT.wpd.html
Ordering & Use: http://www.lib.uaa.alaska.edu/vilda
Holding Institution: University of Alaska Anchorage. Consortium Library. Archives & Special Collections. 3211 Providence Dr. Anchorage, AK 99508 mailto:archives@uaa.alaska.edu