Kodiak.

• Author: Hill, Robin Mackey
• Position: Kodiak Island, Alaska

When Scott Phelps moved to the remote Kodiak Island village of Port Lions five years ago, he and a partner opened a small grocery store. Eighteen months after opening the store, they closed it and Phelps went to work part-time for the competition. In 1992, anxious to improve his earnings and sow the seeds for a more secure economic future, Phelps launched a guiding service, Kodiak Sports and Tours.

In addition to his own hard work, the young entrepreneur hopes a new program known as the Kodiak Island Connection Project will help increase the number of bookings he receives. He also expects the effort to help neighbors market their goods or services and improve cash flow to the community.

"It's a way some of them could have their own little business," he says. Adds 32-year-old Phelps, "The main reason I'm interested is not for myself. Our community is in serious financial trouble right now."

The project, initiated by the Southwest Alaska Municipal Conference (SWAMC), with help from the Kodiak Chamber of Commerce and the Kodiak Area Native Association, is intended to serve as a link between island communities. Essentially, the intent is to inform residents about what others are doing and what opportunities may exist.

If successful, Kodiak Island Connection Project will build commerce among communities in the Kodiak Island Borough, creating jobs and keeping more dollars circulating in the borough that otherwise might benefit Seattle or Anchorage.

"We're not proposing to start anything new," says Marideth Sandler, executive director of SWAMC, a non-profit regional development organization. "We're just trying to make the link." Although business primarily follows a one-way street, with goods and services moving from the city of Kodiak out to the island's six remote villages, the connection project is expected to help turn that one-way street into a two-way thoroughfare, with villagers providing goods and services to the rest of the island, she explains.

Among village-produced items that might be marketed are beadwork, masks, dried flowers and berries. Services could include net repair and other marine-related operations. Also, villages willing to develop a small tourism industry could lure visitors interested in fishing, hunting and -- in Ouzinkie -- biking, says Sandler.

The idea for the project came to Sandler last summer after a tour of the island's communities revealed that, in many cases, residents in the city of Kodiak were unaware of what village residents had to offer. Since then, she's discovered that gift shops in downtown Anchorage also are interested in village-produced items. As part of the project, SWAMC plans to conduct some small-business training on topics such as marketing and recordkeeping and to publish a Kodiak Island business and service directory.

At a meeting this spring in Kodiak, about 20 people interested in the connection project shared their ideas and concerns. One of those in attendance was an elder and guide from Old Harbor. "I felt honored that he was there," says Sandler. "I felt we were going in the right direction."

HISTORY

Kodiak's history is closely tied to its relationship with the sea and the lingering influences of early Russian settlers. The island's past also is marked by foreign conquests and natural disasters. Archaeologists have sifted through the remains of scattered settlements and estimate that, through time, more than 2,000 prehistoric coastal villages existed, some a mile long and with as many as 1,500 residents.

It is believed that the area was first settled between 7,000 and 8,000 years ago. Early islanders were hunter-gatherers who developed skills and tools to harvest from the sea.

An often brutal occupation by Russian fur traders beginning in the mid-1700s nearly destroyed the thriving, sophisticated Koniag Native culture, considered one of the most highly developed of the Pacific Northwest. Some experts believe Kodiak's Native population numbered between 20,000 and 30,000, but declined dramatically after contact with white hunters.

In 1784, Russian explorer Grigor Shelikof and his followers settled in Three Saints Bay on the southeast shore of Kodiak Island, establishing the first settlement in Russian America. The hunt for sea otters intensified. Eight years later, with Alexander Baranov in command, the colony was moved north to what is now the city of Kodiak.

Sea otter hunts continued, and by the early 1800s whaling crews also were harvesting in the area. Because of vigorous hunting, the numbers of otters and whales were greatly diminished by the end of that century. Salmon soon emerged as Kodiak's predominant industry.

In June 1912, Mount Novarupta, across Shelikof Strait on the mainland, erupted, blanketing Kodiak with up to 18 inches of ash and forcing the temporary evacuation of hundreds of terrified residents...