❖ KING ISLAND

BERING SEA from the archives.

King Island, 1950
Original photo from the archives of the S.P.H.S.©

King Island houses are sturdier than they look, to withstand almost constant high winds and heavy SNOW. A network of stairs connects homes and the Alaska Native Service school, and serves as a precarious playground. The Eskimos have learned to scale the rocky 1,100-ft cliff with the sure-footedness of mountain goats.
      When this image was captured by Frank Morgan, it was reported that once each fall a government boat called at the farthest north Alaska points. The government boat would anchor off from the rocky shore and the skin boats would work back and forth from ship to shore unloading a years supplies for the isolated village in the Bering.
Text by Ethel MacNair for The Seattle Times, 1952.