Journal of an Aleutian year

In 1942 the Japanese captured the Aleutian Island village of Attu and the Attuans spent the war at forces labor in a Japanese prison camp. Other villages were evacuated to camps in Southeast Alaska where, practically forgotten by the authorities, many died from privation and disease. This book tells the story of one village after the war. In mid-1945, the inhabitants of Atka Island came home. Because Atka Village had been burned to the ground by the U.S. Navy at the time of the evacuation, the government undertook its complete rebuilding. Six months later, the few surviving prisoners of war were brought back from Japan. Too few to repopulate their own island, they were brought to Atka for resettlement - an island 400 miles form their home, whose inhabitants spoke a different dialect. Journal of an Aleutian Year is based on the journals kept by Ethel Ross Oliver during 1946-47, the year she and her husband spent in Atka at the request of the Alaska Native Service. The book contains personal accounts of the Attuans' imprisonment in Japan and an introduction by anthropologist Margaret Lantis provides historical background and summarizes postwar developments. A glimpse of present-day life on Atka is presented in a Foreword by Moses L. Dirks. Mr. Dirks, a native of Atka, is an Aleutian language specialist now working with the Aleutian Region School District.