Kodiak’s Alutiiq Museum announced on Aug. 12 that it’s planning a potential monument commemorating the Refuge Rock Massacre. The massacre laid the groundwork for Russian colonization of the Kodiak archipelago. The museum hopes to make the planning of the monument a community effort.
On an August afternoon in 1784, Russian fur trader Grigorii Shelikhov and 130 armed men crossed a spit of land leading to an island near what is now the village of Old Harbor, on the southeast side of Kodiak. Thousands of Alutiiq people had gathered there to shelter from the Russian attack, according to the Alutiiq Museum, as they had done for many conflicts before with other Native groups.
But Shelikhov and his men opened fire. And it’s estimated that as many as 500 Alutiiq people were killed. Many more were taken hostage.
April Councellor, the executive director at the Alutiiq Museum, said the event became known as the Refuge Rock Massacre. The island later gained the Alutiiq place name Awa’uq, which means ‘to become numb.’
“Usually that's most of the story, that there was a big massacre and that the Russians killed a bunch of Native people," Councellor said. "But that really short version of the story leaves so much out.”
She said the massacre had consequences for the entire state of Alaska.
“After Refuge Rock happened, Shelikhov and his men claimed control over the entire Kodiak archipelago, and set up the first capital of Russian America," she explained. "That was the beginning of all of Alaska eventually being colonized by Western countries.”
Despite its historical significance, Councellor said most people still don’t know anything about Refuge Rock, and those who do might only know the basics.
“I wanted there to be a way for Kodiak's history to be better known and more fully discussed in the community," she said. "Because you can't really heal from something if you've never discussed it.”
Now, the Alutiiq Museum is in the early stages of planning a monument to remember the events at Refuge Rock. Councellor said she hopes it will make the massacre more widely known and honor the endurance of the Alutiiq people.
The first step was to find a funder. Councellor said that after several attempts to secure funding, the museum finally won a grant from a funder – that wished to remain anonymous – to conduct a two year long planning process. The museum announced the start of that process this August.
The museum hired the Gínga and Igniñ Collective, an Indigenous-led nonprofit that provides support to other Native organizations across Alaska, to be the project manager for the planning process. Melissa Marton, a co-founder of the collective, said one of the first things they did is form a community advisory committee.
“We have a few representatives from Old Harbor that'll be on the committee, and then the rest of the committee is made up of various tribal leaders and Native leaders throughout our archipelago," Marton said.
She said they are planning several town halls over the course of the next two years, which will educate people on the history of the massacre and provide a space for people to offer input on the monument.
“Then there will be the discussion about, if a monument gets placed, what site it will be placed at," Marton said. "And that discussion will evolve depending on who the ownership of the land is, and then a whole public process could come up.”
Councellor said it isn’t guaranteed they’ll get the funding to actually build the monument once the planning process is over. And she said the eventual result might not be a monument at all: the community might want a non-physical form of remembrance instead.
Whatever they decide, Councellor said she hopes any remembrance won't focus solely on the trauma of the massacre.
"I don't feel like [Awa'uq] is really the right name for the monument," she said. "I want to focus more on the fact that our community has survived. The Native people of the Kodiak Archipelago have not been exterminated."
The first town hall will happen on Wednesday, Sept. 2 at the Alutiiq Museum, with more to be announced. Councellor encouraged anyone who wants to learn more about what happened on Refuge Rock, or who wants to get involved with the planning process, to attend the next town hall.
