Afognak, Alaska
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Afognak Ag’waneq |
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| Village | |
 Afognak (Ag'waneq)
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| Coordinates: 58°00′28″N 152°46′05″W / 58.00778°N 152.76806°WCoordinates: 58°00′28″N 152°46′05″W / 58.00778°N 152.76806°W | |
| Country | United States of America |
| State | Alaska |
| Borough | Kodiak Island Borough |
| Island | Afognak Island |
| First settled | abt. 5,500 B.C. |
| Destroyed | March 27, 1964 (Good Friday earthquake) |
| Named for | Named by Russian settlers; derived from Afognak Island in 1839. |
| Time zone | AKST (UTC-9) |
| • Summer (DST) | AKDT (UTC-8) |
Afognak (/əˈfɒɡnæk/; also Ag’waneq in Alutiiq) was an Alutiiq village on the island of Afognak in Kodiak Island Borough, Alaska, United States. It was located on Afognak Bay on the southwest coast of the island, three miles north of Kodiak Island.
For more than 7,500 years, the Alutiiq people lived in hundreds of settlements in the Kodiak Archipelago. Like most other early native Alaskan peoples, the people of Afognak fished and hunted sea mammals from kayaks covered in seal skin. Men and women performed different tasks for the village. The people of Afognak traded services and goods with other settlements in Southeast Alaska and the Aleutian chain.
The Russian American Company arrived on the island in 1784. The Russians invited and took several men from the village to hunt sea otters for sale in Europe. However, many people died as a result of mistreatment, and the smallpox epidemic of 1837-1840 killed many others in the archipelago. The Alutiiq began to change their lifestyle and governance. The name "Afognak" was derived from Afognak Island and was first reported in 1839 by Russian Sub-Lt. Mikhail Murashev. The natives and Russians on the island continued to fish, hunt, and gather food. Despite tensions between the two groups, many Russians and natives married and started families, and many natives learned Russian and converted to Russian Orthodoxy. The Alutiiq tradition was not abandoned, however, and was just added to. Many Russian workers who had married into the native community settled into the Russian American Company retirement communities upon their retirement. Eventually, the community of Russian Town, located next to Aleut Town, grew into the Afognak village, and the two merged.
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