Part of a series of articles titled World War II Aleut Relocation Camps in Southeast Alaska.
Article
World War II Aleut Relocation Camps in Southeast Alaska - Chapter 8: National Historic Landmark Evaluation
The purpose of this investigation was to determine whether the six World War II Aleut relocation camps in southeast Alaska qualify as a National Historic Landmark, or NHL. The NHL program is administered by the National Park Service (NPS) to identify and preserve “the nation’s most significant historic places...buildings, sites, districts, structures, and objects [that] possess exceptional value or quality in illustrating or interpreting the heritage of the United States in history, architecture, archeology, engineering, and culture” (U.S. Department of the Interior 1999:9). Unlike eligibility to the National Register of Historic Places, which can be based on local or state significance as well as national significance, a NHL must have significance at the national level. The Secretary of the Interior has recognized less than 2500 NHLs in the United States since the program was implemented in 1960 (Mackintosh 1985:39-42).
In Alaska there are 49 NHLs, including archaeological sites, buildings, and battlefields (Table 2). Since 1962, several historical themes have been identified as of sufficient national interest to warrant NHL designation for Alaskan properties. Archaeological sites thousands of years old – evidence of early human migrations across the Bering Strait that populated North, Central, and South America, as well as those reflecting later prehistoric developments, form 13 NHLs. The colonization of Alaska by the Russian-American Company, not incidentally leaving a legacy of Russian Orthodox churches, has been recognized in 13 NHLs including the Seal Island (Pribilof Islands) Historic District. Other European and American explorations as well as Territorial military activity form the subject matter of several related NHLs. Alaska’s role in World War II is recognized with eight NHLs. Other themes are represented by fewer or only one NHL. NHLs are not distributed uniformly across Alaska; Sitka has eight, for example. All but five Alaska NHLs were designated between 50 and 20 years ago.
Cultural Property |
Location |
Designated |
---|---|---|
Ipiutak Site |
North Slope |
1961 |
Iyatayet Site |
Nome |
1961 |
American Flag Raising Site |
Sitka |
1962 |
Skagway Historic District and White Pass |
Skagway |
1962 |
Birnirk Site |
North Slope |
1962 |
Chaluka Site |
Umnak Island, Aleutian Islands |
1962 |
Palugvik Site |
Prince William Sound |
1962 |
Old Sitka |
Sikta |
1962 |
Wales Site |
Wales |
1962 |
Yukon Island Main Site |
Kachemak Bay |
1962 |
Russian-American Company Magazine |
Kodiak |
1962 |
Russian Bishop's House |
Sitka |
1962 |
St. Micahel's Cathedral |
Sitka |
1962 |
Seal Island Historic District |
Pribilof Islands |
1962 |
Holy Assumption Orthodox District |
Kenai |
1970 |
Church of the Holy Ascension |
Unalaska |
1970 |
Cape Krusenstern Archeological District |
Northwest Arctic |
1973 |
Alaska Native Brotherhood Hall |
Sitka |
1978 |
Anangula Site |
Ananiuliak Island, Aleutian Islands |
1978 |
Bering Expedition Landing Site |
Kayak Island, Prince William Sound |
1978 |
Cape Nome Mining District Discovery Sites |
Nome |
1978 |
Dry Creek Archeological Site |
Healy |
1978 |
Chilkoot Trail and Dyea Site |
Skagway |
1978 |
Eagle Historic District |
Skagway |
1978 |
Fort Durham Site |
Juneau |
1978 |
Fort William H. Seward |
Haines |
1978 |
Gallagher Flint Station Archeological Site |
North Slope |
1978 |
Leffingwell Camp Site |
Flaxman Island, North Slope |
1978 |
New Russia Site |
Yakutat |
1978 |
Three Saints Bay Site |
Kodiak Island |
1978 |
Sitka Spruce Plantation |
Unalaska |
1978 |
Onion Portage Archeological District |
Kobuk River |
1978 |
George C. Thomas Memorial Library |
Fairbanks |
1978 |
Dutch Harbor Naval Operating Base & Fort Mears, U.S. Army |
Unalaska |
1985 |
Attu Battlefield and U.S. Army & Navy Airfields |
Attu Island, Aleutian Islands |
1985 |
Japanese Occupation Site, Kiska Island |
Kiska Island, Aleutian Islands |
1985 |
Kodiak Naval Operating Base and Forts Greely and Abercrombie |
Kodiak |
1985 |
Ladd Field |
Fairbanks |
1985 |
Kennecott Mines |
McCarthy |
1986 |
Sitka Naval Operating Base & U.S. Army Coastal Defenses |
Sitka |
1986 |
Adak Army Base and Adak Naval Operating Base |
Adak Island, Aleutian Islands |
1987 |
Fort Glenn |
Umnak Island |
1987 |
Russian-American Building #29 |
Sitka |
1987 |
River Steamboat Nenana |
Fairbanks |
1989 |
Brooks River Archeological District |
Katmai, Central Alaska |
1993 |
Kijik Archeological District |
Lake Clark |
1994 |
Kake Cannery |
Kake, Kupreanof Island |
1997 |
Sheldon Jackson School |
Sitka |
2001 |
Amalik Bay Archeological District |
King Salmon |
2005 |
The list of NHLs (Table 2) illustrates the types of Alaskan properties judged eligible in decades past, and the question addressed in this chapter is whether the six World War II Aleut relocation camps warrant similar recognition. Except for the exclusion of local- and state-level significance as a factor, and the use of six rather than four significance criteria, the considerations are much the same as those for evaluating a property for eligibility to the National Register of Historic Places. Usually excluded from NHL designation are cemeteries, birthplaces, graves of historical figures, religious properties, moved or reconstructed buildings, and properties whose significance pertains to the last 50 years or less (U.S. Department of the Interior 1999:11). But criteria for declaring exceptions to that exclusionary list are also identified in federal regulation, and so, for example, Alaska’s major World War II sites achieved NHL status between 1985 and 1987 (when less than 50 years old) because they had extraordinary national significance.
Once significance is established, a second factor comes into play – integrity. “Integrity is the ability of a property to convey its historical associations or attributes,” states the U.S. Department of the Interior (1999:36), though “the evaluation of integrity is somewhat of a subjective judgement.” The integrity of potential NHLs is evaluated using the same seven qualities used for National Register evaluation: location, design, setting, materials, workmanship, feeling, and association. Generally, NHL designation is reserved for cultural properties that are outstanding examples in some way.
Significance of the Six Properties
The association of the Funter Bay cannery and mine, Killisnoo, Wrangell Institute, Burnett Inlet cannery, and Ward Lake CCC Camp with the WorldWar II Aleut relocation event was demonstrated in earlier chapters. Though the Wrangell Institute was only a temporary staging area for villagers destined for Burnett Inlet and Ward Lake, all the camps were supposed to be temporary, and the school site justifiably joinsthe five longer-term camps as acontributing property to a potential NHL because of its firm historical association.
The six sites investigated are here evaluated only for their World War II significance. Each of the sites may deserve further consideration at a later time for potential eligibility to the National Register at the local or state level, within different historical periods and themes.
The World War II Aleut relocation experience is nationally significant in two contexts: Aleut Culture Change, and U.S. Military History.
Aleut Culture Change
The Aleuts of Alaska are a distinct culture and have occupied the Aleutian Islands for at least 9,000 years. However, the Aleut communities of St. Paul and St. George in the Pribilof Islands of the Bering Sea are a consequence of the Russian-American Company’s, and then the U.S. government’s, commercial exploitation of the fur seal rookeries there. Aleut workers and families from villages in the Aleutian Islands were moved to the otherwise uninhabited islands in the late 1700s, and though they maintained social ties with relatives in places like Nikolski and Unalaska, their lives were strictly controlled for commercial purposes by the government then holding the Pribilof fur seal franchise. Collectively, the Aleuts of the Aleutian and Pribilof Islands had a long cultural history with two major interruptions: the arrival in the late 1700s of Russian explorers and merchants exploiting fur seals and sea otters for their pelts, and World War II.
The circumstances of the Aleutian Island villagers before compared to after World War II were very different, whereas those of the Pribilof Island villagers were much the same. The government-built concrete houses of St. Paul and St. George were occupied by Army and Navy troops during the war, and many were damaged along with their household contents, but able-bodied male villagers shipped back through the war zone in 1943 and 1944 to continue the annual Pribilof seal harvest (the fur sales were needed by the federal treasury to help fund the war) – along with federal overseers – were able somewhat to monitor military use. After the war the USFWS resumed management of the islands and their human and animal populations as before. Though their memories would be forever marked by the relocation, St. Paul and St. George villagers were largely able to resume the life they’d had prior to the war.
That was not the case for many of the Aleutian Island villagers. Prior to World War II they’d had limited exposure to federal or territorial government, and then it was mostly in the form of a territorial school teacher. Adjusting to the governmental restrictions of the relocation experience was more difficult, culminating with the government’s refusal to return the people of Attu, Kashega, Biorka, and Makushin to their original settlements. Like the village of Chernofski on the west end of Unalaska Island, which by 1940 “had already died as an Aleut village” (Petterson et al. 1983:36), the populations of the latter three villages had been dwindling for years ( Jones 1973:19). The forced amalgamation resulted in four Aleut communities – Atka, Akutan, Nikolski, and Unalaska – in all of the Aleutian Islands. The Unalaska to which many Aleuts returned was hardly recognizable, surrounded as it was with a large naval base, airstrip, and numerous other military installations. Atkans returned to a destroyed village adjacent to an Army airstrip and base, their burned and strafed houses framed by Japanese bomb craters on the hillside. Of all the Aleut villages, the people of Nikolski were best able to return to the traditional subsistence life they’d had before the war.
World War II caused a marked shift in settlement and subsistence for the Aleuts of the Aleutian Islands. Archaeological evidence for over 9,000 years of continuous settlement in the Aleutian Islands makes the Aleuts one of the nation’s oldest and most permanent Native peoples. The relocation experience during WW II marked a major transition for the Aleuts, and the event is the defining element in the culture’s recent past. In that regard the Aleut relocation experience is of national significance, and by association the six Aleut relocation camps are of national significance. The theme of Aleut Culture Change is embedded within the context of Social History, particularly Native American Social History.
Tags
- aleutian islands world war ii national historic area
- alaska
- national historic landmarks
- nhl
- nhls
- national historic landmark
- world war ii
- world war ii alaska
- cannery
- aleut relocation
- aleut removal
- aleut evacuation
- southeast alaska
- funter bay
- killisnoo
- burnett inlet
- ward cove
- ccc camp
- wrangell institute
- internment
- internment camps
Last updated: February 14, 2021