Kodiak 1869

These watercolors of Kodiak were painted by Vincent Colyer who visited in 1869 while working for the equivalent of today's BIA (Bureau of Indian Affairs). The United States had just purchased Alaska and was trying to determine just what it had purchased. Vincent Colyer was part of one the early government inventory expeditions exploring Alaska at that time. While working for the government he also visited and painted Apache Indian reservations in Arizona. The originals of the watercolors posted here are at the Beinecke Library at Yale University. Vincent Colyer went on to become a curator of art at the Metropolitan Museum of New York.

Pictured here: top a view of town from Blisky (near) Island; middle a view from near where the high school is today out towards Barometer and Old Womens Mountains - no airport or Coast Guard Base out there back then (also note census numbers giving the population of various native villages on Kodiak scribbled on right); bottom Kodiak's Russian Orthodox church - this building was in the same spot as today's church. Over the years the church at that spot has been rebuilt a number of times. The most recent building dates to around 1944 after the prior building burnt down in 1943. Patrick