She’s acted as a liaison between Pribilof elders and people in Southeast Alaska working to preserve the history of the internment. That would mean the land couldn’t be sold or developed, and people would always be able to care for the cemetery so it wouldn’t gradually vanish in the forest.īut the bill also serves a more immediate need.
Preserving that history is part of the impetus behind a bill that would add about 250 acres of state land, including the cemetery, to Funter Bay State Marine Park. “Who are these people? What happened, and why are they here?” “Why is there a cemetery in the middle of the forest out in Funter Bay?” Stepetin imagined them asking. When he found the cemetery, he realized anyone who stumbled on it would have no idea what they were seeing. About 10% died - mostly young children and elders - before they were allowed to return home in 1944. government forcibly removed them from the treeless Pribilof Islands in the Bering Sea and took them to the Southeast rainforest, about 1,300 miles away - with only one bag apiece and no hunting or fishing gear.Īt Funter Bay they were left to fend for themselves, living in tents and the remains of an old mine and cannery, without clean water or medicine. The cemetery holds the graves of 30 to 40 Unangax̂ people who died at Funter Bay during World War II. And we’re asking folks, ‘Hey, do you know where this is - where the Aleuts were kept?’ And many people didn’t even know. “We looked all over inside of Funter Bay,” Stepetin said.
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The first time Martin Stepetin went to the Unangax̂ cemetery at Funter Bay, he didn’t know how to find it. Even my own people,” Bourdukofsky said.Įven though the bill is now law, Bourdukofsky thinks it will require continual education for people to understand the effects of the World War II internment on the Unangax̂ people to this day.Martin Stepetin and wife Ann embrace at the Killisnoo cemetery in 2014. “Probably a lot of people, even my own fellow Unangax̂, much in the way that many still don’t understand what happened in World War II, that the bill is probably even a little foreign to them and what it means because people are still learning about it. To Tara Bourdukofsky, director of Aleut Corporation, the bill is educational for everyone. Tara Bourdukofsky looks at the current exhibit on display at the Juneau-Douglas City Museum about the Unangax̂ internment in Southeast Alaska during World War II. So it’s sad but it’s healing at the same time,” Bergo said. “It’s sad because it took … The last time, I guess, the Elders that came down - there was four, five of them. Paul, flew to the capital for the signing event.įor Constance Bergo, vice president of TDX Corporation, the feeling of the bill being signed was indescribable, in a good way. In addition to lawmakers and others in Juneau, leaders from the Aleut Corporation and TDX Corporation, the village corporation of St. As part of the state park, cemetery land cannot be sold or developed, ensuring protection for grave sites. The bill signed Tuesday adds the cemetery to the Funter Bay Marine Park. Between 30 and 40 people died and were buried in a cemetery there. government forced Unangax̂ people to live in an internment camp in Funter Bay on Admiralty Island. (Lyndsey Brollini/KTOO)ĭuring World War II, the U.S. The graphic is part of an exhibit at the museum – Echoes of War: Unangax̂ Internment During WWII – which runs through October 18, 2021. It protects it from happening, you know?” A graphic in the Juneau-Douglas City Museum showing the forced internment of Unangax̂ people from the Pribilof Islands to Southeast Alaska. “We’ve seen so many times, all throughout our country, where our sacred grounds have been desecrated and disrespected and not cared for,” Stepetin said. Martin Stepetin has been advocating to protect the Funter Bay cemetery since 2014. Mike Dunleavy signed a bill into law protecting the Unangax̂ cemetery in Funter Bay on Tuesday at the Juneau-Douglas City Museum. Mike Dunleavy signed the bill into law on June 8 at the Juneau-Douglas City Museum.
Martin Stepetin stands with his family holding House Bill 10.
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