Alagnak River
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The Alagnak River is a tributary of the
Kvichak River The Kvichak River (Yup'ik: ''Kuicaraq'') is a large river, about long, in southwestern Alaska in the United States. It flows southwest from Lake Iliamna to Kvichak Bay, an arm of Bristol Bay, on the Alaska Peninsula. The communities of Igiugi ...
in the
U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its sove ...
of
Alaska Alaska ( ; russian: Аляска, Alyaska; ale, Alax̂sxax̂; ; ems, Alas'kaaq; Yup'ik: ''Alaskaq''; tli, Anáaski) is a state located in the Western United States on the northwest extremity of North America. A semi-exclave of the U.S. ...
. It has a
catchment area In human geography, a catchment area is the area from which a location, such as a city, service or institution, attracts a population that uses its services and economic opportunities. Catchment areas may be defined based on from where people are ...
of approximately 1400 square mi (3600 km2). It is located in central
Lake and Peninsula Borough Lake and Peninsula Borough (russian: Лейк-энд-Пенинсула, ''Leyk-end-Peninsula'') is a Borough (United States)#Alaska, borough in the U.S. state, state of Alaska. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population wa ...
.


Names

According to the National Park Service, in the local language the word ''Alagnak'' means "making mistakes". The river course is dynamic, changing often and splitting into new branches. For this reason, it is known locally as the "Branch River", where boaters may mistake one branch for another. On the other hand, ''Native American Placenames of the United States'' says that the river's name may come from the
Yupik Yupik may refer to: * Yupik peoples, a group of indigenous peoples of Alaska and the Russian Far East * Yupik languages, a group of Eskimo-Aleut languages Yupꞌik (with the apostrophe) may refer to: * Yup'ik people The Yup'ik or Yupiaq (sg ...
word ''alagnaq'', a kind of red berry. The
United States Geological Survey The United States Geological Survey (USGS), formerly simply known as the Geological Survey, is a scientific agency of the United States government. The scientists of the USGS study the landscape of the United States, its natural resources, ...
says something similar, citing Richard H. Geoghegan, a
philologist Philology () is the study of language in oral and written historical sources; it is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics (with especially strong ties to etymology). Philology is also defined as th ...
, who said the native word referred to a wild raspberry.


Course

It begins as the outflow of Kukaklek Lake in
Katmai National Park and Preserve Katmai National Park and Preserve is an American national park and preserve in southwest Alaska, notable for the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes and for its brown bears. The park and preserve encompass , which is between the sizes of Connecticut ...
and meets the sea at Bristol Bay. The beginning of the river lies in the
Aleutian Range The Aleutian Range is a major mountain range located in southwest Alaska. It extends from Chakachamna Lake (80 miles/130 km southwest of Anchorage) to Unimak Island, which is at the tip of the Alaska Peninsula. It includes all of the mountain ...
. The first six miles of the river run slowly through the
tundra In physical geography, tundra () is a type of biome where tree growth is hindered by frigid temperatures and short growing seasons. The term ''tundra'' comes through Russian (') from the Kildin Sámi word (') meaning "uplands", "treeless mou ...
. Vegetation along the upper part of the river consists mostly of spruce. Afterwards, the valley becomes much narrower with near-vertical rock faces. Miles 7–14 run through a narrow canyon at around 7.5 mph. The Nonvianuk River runs into the Alagnak at around mile 20. To the west, the river meanders over the Alaska Peninsula before flowing into the
Kvichak River The Kvichak River (Yup'ik: ''Kuicaraq'') is a large river, about long, in southwestern Alaska in the United States. It flows southwest from Lake Iliamna to Kvichak Bay, an arm of Bristol Bay, on the Alaska Peninsula. The communities of Igiugi ...
, which itself flows into Bristol Bay.


Flora and fauna

Due to the large numbers of
salmon Salmon () is the common name for several commercially important species of euryhaline ray-finned fish from the family Salmonidae, which are native to tributaries of the North Atlantic (genus ''Salmo'') and North Pacific (genus '' Oncorhy ...
, there is a significant bear population in the summer and fall, including both
grizzly The grizzly bear (''Ursus arctos horribilis''), also known as the North American brown bear or simply grizzly, is a population or subspecies of the brown bear inhabiting North America. In addition to the mainland grizzly (''Ursus arctos horri ...
and black bears. The majority of the catchment area is a winter habitat for Alaskan caribou.
Moose The moose (in North America) or elk (in Eurasia) (''Alces alces'') is a member of the New World deer subfamily and is the only species in the genus ''Alces''. It is the largest and heaviest extant species in the deer family. Most adult ma ...
are also to be found during the entire year. Along the river, beaver,
fox Foxes are small to medium-sized, omnivorous mammals belonging to several genera of the family Canidae. They have a flattened skull, upright, triangular ears, a pointed, slightly upturned snout, and a long bushy tail (or ''brush''). Twelve sp ...
es,
wolverine The wolverine (), (''Gulo gulo''; ''Gulo'' is Latin for " glutton"), also referred to as the glutton, carcajou, or quickhatch (from East Cree, ''kwiihkwahaacheew''), is the largest land-dwelling species of the family Mustelidae. It is a muscul ...
s, mink, and otter are all found as well occasional
wolf The wolf (''Canis lupus''; : wolves), also known as the gray wolf or grey wolf, is a large canine native to Eurasia and North America. More than thirty subspecies of ''Canis lupus'' have been recognized, and gray wolves, as popularly un ...
. In the water, there are several varieties of salmon, including sockeye salmon,
pink salmon Pink salmon or humpback salmon (''Oncorhynchus gorbuscha'') is a species of anadromous fish in the salmon family. It is the smallest and most abundant of the Pacific salmon. The scientific species name is based on the Russian common name for ...
, chum salmon,
king salmon The Chinook salmon (''Oncorhynchus tshawytscha'') is the largest and most valuable species of Pacific salmon in North America, as well as the largest in the genus '' Oncorhynchus''. Its common name is derived from the Chinookan peoples. Other v ...
, and
silver salmon The coho salmon (''Oncorhynchus kisutch;'' Karuk: achvuun) is a species of anadromous fish in the salmon family and one of the five Pacific salmon species. Coho salmon are also known as silver salmon or "silvers". The scientific species name i ...
. There are also rainbow trout, char,
Arctic grayling The Arctic grayling (''Thymallus arcticus'') is a species of freshwater fish in the salmon family Salmonidae. ''T. arcticus'' is widespread throughout the Arctic and Pacific drainages in Canada, Alaska, and Siberia, as well as the upper Mis ...
, and
northern pike The northern pike (''Esox lucius'') is a species of carnivorous fish of the genus ''Esox'' (the pikes). They are typical of brackish and fresh waters of the Northern Hemisphere (''i.e.'' holarctic in distribution). They are known simply as a p ...
. Along the river there is also eclectic vegetation including spruces,
willow Willows, also called sallows and osiers, from the genus ''Salix'', comprise around 400 speciesMabberley, D.J. 1997. The Plant Book, Cambridge University Press #2: Cambridge. of typically deciduous trees and shrubs, found primarily on moist so ...
s and various types of berries.


History


Early history

The first humans to arrive at the Alagnak were apparently 14000 years ago, during the glacial retreat of the last
ice age An ice age is a long period of reduction in the temperature of Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in the presence or expansion of continental and polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers. Earth's climate alternates between ice ages and gre ...
. The earliest documented records of humans settling there were 9000 years ago; stone tools dating from this time have been found in middens at abandoned camps near the river. Microblades known as atlatl were used from about 7000 years ago to hunt caribou by natives. The first known all-year winter villages weren't constructed until about 2300 years ago; house development and town size to contend with climate change occurred rapidly at around this time. Pottery dating from 2500 years ago has also been found. The first white humans arrived in the 19th century, with the first white man to document the river being the Russian captain Tebenkov in 1852. At the same time, native peoples began leaving the area, with the Alagnak River village being abandoned around 1860. In 1900 the North Alaska Salmon Company built two canneries at the junction of Alagnak and Kvichak rivers. The cannery at the river mouth became known as Lockanok and the other cannery, 1000 feet upstream on the Kvichak River, was called Hallerville, in honor of J.P. Haller, president of the company. The two canneries were connected by a narrow gauge railroad that brought salmon from Hallerville to be processed at the Lockanok plant. The abundance of salmon in the rivers made this fishery one of the most prolific in Alaska. People from as far away as the
Yukon River The Yukon River ( Gwich'in: ''Ųųg Han'' or ''Yuk Han'', Yup'ik: ''Kuigpak'', Inupiaq: ''Kuukpak'', Deg Xinag: ''Yeqin'', Hän: ''Tth'echù'' or ''Chuu k'onn'', Southern Tutchone: Chu Nìikwän, russian: Юкон, Yukon) is a major watercourse ...
area came to get jobs at the canneries, and before long cash income allowed subsistence users to buy food store items such as coffee, tea, sugar and salt. The 1912 eruption of
Mount Katmai Mount Katmai (russian: Катмай) is a large stratovolcano (composite volcano) on the Alaska Peninsula in southern Alaska, located within Katmai National Park and Preserve. It is about in diameter with a central lake-filled caldera about i ...
nearby only mildly devastated the region and the Yu'pik Indians continued to keep food caches at the site.


Growing importance

In 1916 Libby, McNeill & Libby purchased both the Lockanok and Hallerville canneries from the North Alaska Salmon Company. Growing erosion around the Kvichak River banks made canning more difficult by the 1920s, and the cannery was closed in 1936 and burned down during a 1937 fire. Any remaining planks of wood from the building were taken to houses along the river and helped to create new homes for the natives. In 1918 the
Spanish flu The 1918–1920 influenza pandemic, commonly known by the misnomer Spanish flu or as the Great Influenza epidemic, was an exceptionally deadly global influenza pandemic caused by the H1N1 influenza A virus. The earliest documented case wa ...
epidemic broke out and ravaged the villages throughout June 1919, killing 39 natives and creating 16 new orphans. Despite the tragedy, villages along the river prospered due to jobs offered by the cannery. After the decimation of natives by the disease, white human settlement around the Alagnak increased rapidly. In June 1927 Russell Merrill of Anchorage Air Transport flew to the canneries at the river junction, making it the first plane to land at Bristol Bay. At the same time, big game hunting and fishing became popular at the site, and from 1937 onwards, big game hunting charters regularly flew trips to the site. When the site's rainbow trout streams were discovered, the find was a feature in the April 1941 article of '' Field and Stream'' magazine.
Jay Hammond Jay Sterner Hammond (July 21, 1922 – August 2, 2005) was an American politician of the Republican Party, who served as the fourth governor of Alaska from 1974 to 1982. Hammond was born in Troy, New York and served as a Marine Corps fighter pil ...
, who would later become the 4th governor of Alaska, was one of the major fishing charters in the area, first flying to it in 1946 and meeting with friend Bill Hammersley, who first came there in 1940. Beginning in 1938–47, prospectors and beaver trappers began to regularly visit the site, as they found gold in abundance and beavers, whose fur was to become one of the most important pelts in Alaska until the collapse of the fur trade. One of the most prized big game mammals in the area was the Alaska Peninsula brown bear, which led many big game hunters in the wilderness to seek fame and fortune. Hunting and fishing lodges were established about 1957. By 1973, a galley-scow that was towed up the Alagnak from
Naknek Naknek ( esu, Nakniq) is a census-designated place located in and the borough seat of Bristol Bay Borough in the U.S. state of Alaska. As of the 2020 census, the population of the CDP was 470, down from 544 in 2010. Naknek is located on the no ...
had been established.


Protected area

When nearby Katmai National Monument was established in 1921, conservationists began to consider creating a protected area around Alagnak as well. Hunters and fisherman spoke out against this, believing it would deprive them of hunting and fishing opportunities. As the legislation for Katmai National Park did not allow any hunting and fishing, the 1980
Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act The Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA) is a United States federal law signed by President Jimmy Carter on December 2, 1980. ANILCA provided varying degrees of special protection to over of land, including national parks, n ...
established Alagnak Wild River to allow protection of wilderness but legal, limited sport and subsistence hunting and trapping, along with fishing. Most hunters come to Alagnak to hunt for moose to eat and grizzly bear to bag as trophies.


Wild River

In 1980, a total of on the upper Alagnak and one of its tributaries, the Nonvianuk River, were designated "wild" as part of the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System. The tributary, which drains Nonvianuk Lake, is long.


Tourism

The Alagnak is one of the most important rivers for
sport fishing Recreational fishing, also called sport fishing or game fishing, is fishing for leisure, exercise or competition. It can be contrasted with commercial fishing, which is professional fishing for profit (economics), profit; or subsistence fishing ...
in Alaska. The river is navigable for canoeists. In the ravine, there are rapids from levels 1 to 3. This section of the river is dangerous for inexperienced rafters, especially during highwater. Portage is possible but difficult.


See also

*
List of rivers of Alaska This is a List of rivers in Alaska, which are at least fifth-order according to the Strahler method of stream classification, and an incomplete list of otherwise-notable rivers and streams. Alaska has more than 12,000 rivers, and thousands more st ...


References


External links


National Park Service Alagnak River website
{{authority control Rivers of Alaska Rivers of Lake and Peninsula Borough, Alaska Aleutian Range National Park Service areas in Alaska National Park Service Wild and Scenic Rivers Wild and Scenic Rivers of the United States