Karluk 1925

The Alutiiq Museum gallery currently has a photo exhibit featuring Karluk village. Karluk is a remote village on the southwest corner of Kodiak. The photos go back only about 120 years, but Karluk has been an important village for at least 7000 years. This photo is from the Alex Brown collection and depicts the entire village in 1925. Recently, I showed this photo to an Alutiiq elder and she pointed herself out - she's a baby in mother's arms. Someone else pointed out that the young Priest looks like Father Gerasim - a well-known Kodiak personality who was later the Priest in Ouzinkie for many years. The photo got me thinking - it may look old but a lot of those people are still alive and really, when you think about it, 1925 was not all that long ago.

Zoya's grandmother was born in 1907 (she is turning 100 in a week), and in this photo she would have been 18!

I remember talking to my grandfather, since passed away, about the advent of cars and electricity, and visiting the Grand Canyon when Arizona was still a territory (he met the man who shot Billy the Kid). Our grandparents lived in a very different world, and things that we now take for granted had not been invented. Imagine a world without cars, highways or strip malls! One wonders what my grandchildren will think when I tell them about my childhood without personal computers, ATMs or cell phones. Those photos from the 1970s are beginning to look dated - anyone remember Dorothy Hamil? I guess I'm getting old. Patrick