Ukivok, King Island, Alaska

 unincorporated area / community, ghost town, historic ruins

Former home of approximately 200 Inupiat who called themselves Ukivokmiut or Aseuluk. The Ukivokmiut had lived on the island for centuries, engaging in a subsistence hunting and fishing lifestyle. Due to a lack of flat ground on which to build homes, the people constructed their homes on stilts. Originally they built two types of home: summer homes were made from walrus-hide while winter homes had stone walls. These were later replaced with wooden buildings on stilts, the remains of which can be seen today.

In the 1950s, the Bureau of Indian Affairs claimed a boulder further up the cliff endangered the school and used it as a pretext to close the school and move all of the children to the mainland. Without the children to help gather winter food, the elders and adults had no choice but to move to the mainland. By 1970, the island was depopulated. Some Ukivokmiut continue to make trips to the island during the summer months to maintain the buildings and hunt walrus and seal.

The boulder that threatened the school still sits in the same spot to this day.

www.poa.usace.army.mil/Portals/34/docs/civilworks/BEA/K...