Ouzinkie People Scrapbook
By Timothy Smith, 1999, latest revision in March, 2020
Ouzinkie People Scrapbook, 1958 — 1976
A Photo Album About the People of the Village of Ouzinkie, Alaska
From 1958 to the mid-
Introduction to “Ouzinkie People”
Ouzinkie was my home town for my kindergarten years through the year I got engaged after graduating from college, but my parents lived on in the village for almost fifty years. In the spring of 1958, we moved from Larsen Bay, on the southwest end of Kodiak Island. We were reassigned to a new home base in the village of Ouzinkie. Baker Cottage, the fourth Kodiak Baptist Mission children’s home, had recently been vacated there, and the facility was a logical site for the continuation of the Evangel Ministry. As a result, the mission boat Evangel was based out of Ouzinkie for the next seven years. (See The Evangel Visits Ouzinkie for photos and comments on Ouzinkie as a village we visited frequently in the 1950’s).
Right: The author, “Timmy” Smith, poses with his Yashica camera for Yule Chaffin, on Woody Island in 1968.
I’m wearing my Ouzinkie sweatshirt. Me with a camera around my neck was a very familiar
sight in Ouzinkie in the mid-
Ouzinkie was (and is) a village with colorful characters and good looking kids! Somewhere around the summer of 1964, I got my first camera, and the rest is history. I began taking pictures everywhere. I thought for years that I only took photos of planes, buildings, sunsets, etc. But while scanning hundreds of photos, I came across a ton of wonderful “people shots,” including many of people who are no longer with us. I took photos of cute kids that are now grandparents, and of my peers, who are of retirement age now! And my parents took photos of the kids who came to clubs, youngsters who were enrolled in kindergarten (three generations!), and the people who came to the special events hosted by the Mission in the almost 50 years that my parents lived in the village. My focus is the 18 years that I called Ouzinkie “home.”
NOTE: photos of little kids have no full names attached, in order to respect privacy in the age of Internet searches. These are all adults with their own children and grandchildren now. If you grew up in Ouzinkie, you can identify everyone without letting the whole world in on it! But if you find yourself here, feel free to post that photo. Just tell where you got it!
Informal Portraits of Village Elders
Top Left: Katie and Larry Ellanak at their home high on the hill above the bay, 1968. Above: “Gorka!” The command directed at Larry and Katie prompts a kiss at a wedding reception in 1966. Left: My Mom, Joyce Smith, and Katie Ellanak in the 1990’s (from a poor camera)
Top: Phillip and Alexandra Katelnikoff at a carnival in Ouzinkie in 1971. Alexandra had the most infectious laugh and smile! Right: Phillip was caught by my camera in 1968, carrying some wood for his stove.
Left: Ernest Laschinsky, Claudia Torsen’s dad, in 1968. Right: his charming little home near the beach on the east end of Ouzinkie.
Ernest came to Alaska from Latvia in the 1920, and made his home in Ouzinkie. The last names of the citizens of Ouzinkie reflect its varied heritage, including a grand legacy of immigrants such as Ernest. The predominantly Russian names, imposed on the Native people by their colonial overseers two centuries ago, are joined by names like Opheim and Torsen (Norway), Anderson (Danish) and even two unrelated families of Smiths, all of whom were welcomed into the culture of the village.
Top: Johnny and Verna Panamarioff with Joan at a village dinner in 1971. Left: Johnny’s garden tractor in use hauling gravel for a trail. Center Right: Johnny works on the tractor while prospective riders watch patiently. Both photos from 1966. Right: Verna Panamarioff visits my Mom, Joyce Smith, on her birthday in 2000.
Above Left: Ada Panamarioff, Postmaster for Ouzinkie AK 99644 for many years. Her husband was one of the people who lost his life in the Tidal Wave of 1964. She also ran a small gift shop out of her home. Above Right: Three counselors from Camp Woody in 1975 visit the Ouzinkie Post Office (home of 99644). From the top: Diane, Debbie, and Cathy. I love the trash can art in the foreground!
About the photo: Ada was very camera shy, and Dad caught this photo at a kindergarten
graduation in the Mission in the mid-
Above Left: my brother Kelly looks over an Opheim skiff being built at Pleasant Harbor, 1973. Above Right: “Ed Opheim Sr., Pleasant Harbor” says the woodcut. Ed Opheim, in the hat. seen here with my Dad, Rev. Norman Smith, around 1990 (Mom took the photo).
Ed Opheim’s claim to fame in my generation (before he became an author) was the “Opheim Skiff,” the best wooden skiff ever made, by local estimation. Check out those graceful lines, every inch a handmade wooden masterpiece!
Left: David Opheim, one of Ed’s sons, with his guitar at Pleasant Harbor, 1966.
The playing and singing of David and several of the other Opheim brothers (who could do anything by Johnny Cash, Ernest Tubb and Hank Williams), was a great influence on me. Before I heard David play his guitar, the only guitar music I had heard was in the Gugels’ Peter, Paul and Mary records, with a mostly finger picking and soft style of playing. The aggressive classic Country guitar styles and straightforward vocals of local guitar pickers defined for me what rural music was, and formed a model for an approach to music that will stay with me forever.
Mary and Peter Squartzoff had many children, including Herman, who became the Blessed Reader after the passing of Larry Ellanak. Martin, Theodore, Rhonda and Rosemary were among the other children. Peter and Mary left quite a legacy, and I wish I could have gotten to know them better.
Top Left: A mid-
Above and Right: Peter as the best Santa ever, in the Mission’s kindergarten room. Too bad the Mission’s Santa suit was so old and ratty, but the kids didn’t care. He talked to them as if Santa was one of their village neighbors, but I don’t think any kids ever figured out who he was!
Top Left: ”Wasca” (Bill) Boskovsky in 1968. Top Right: Andy Boskovsky brings the family Star used for Orthodox Christmas caroling to the Mission in 1966. Above: A historic photo of the Boskovsky Star caroling group in Ouzinkie, taken in 1956 by Mildred Crowell, house parent at the Mission at the time.
Wasca was the patriarch of a family of fourteen children, many of whome still lived in the village with their own families in 2007 on my last visit there. I was closest in age to “Robin” (Zack) and my fellow eighth grade graduate Chris.
In the historic “Starring” caroling color photo, several members of the Boskofsky family with a Chernikoff and a couple of others that I can only guess at are visible. Wasca is the last adult on the right, and on the far right is a very young “Tony” Boskovsky (now Squartzoff) who was my Mom’s next door neighbor for many years. When we moved to the Mission in 1958, we put one of the portraits of Jesus in a corner of the living room, as is the Orthodox custom, so our neighbors would have a focus for their twirling star when they came to carol during Russian Christmas.
Below Left: the group of Holy Pictures (Icons) in the corner of Jenny Chernikoff’s home. Below Right: I found another rare photo of Jenny, this time on the phone along with my Mom in the Health Aide office, 1995 (photographer unknown).
My visits with Jenny Chernikoff in 1996 and 1997, along with many photos, are chronicled in my article on this site, “The Art of Island Conversation.” (Link)
Left: Father (Archimandrite) Gerasim Schmaltz sits down to enjoy a wedding reception in 1966. Right and Below Right: Father Gerasim is visited by Dorothy Bucklin, my Dad, Rev. Norman Smith, and Mary Setzekorn, then of the Baptist orphanage in Ouzinkie that became our home, in these 1951 photos. (Photographer unknown)
Father Gerasim served Spruce Island at Monk’s Lagoon and the village of Ouzinkie
for many decades. Father Gerasim (1888-
See the “Old Ouzinkie and the Fourth Mission” (Link) article for unpublished 1940’s photos of Father Gerasim.
Above Left: A view inside the door of the tiny dwelling of Archimandrite Monk-
These 2004 photos were taken carefully so as not to disturb or touch anything inside. Monk’s Lagoon is the site of an annual Orthodox Pilgrimage in honor of Saint Herman of Alaska, and people come from all over the world to pray and pay their respects to Saint Herman and to Father Gerasim, who preserved the Saint’s legacy and helped to bring about his canonization as a Saint. Our trip to Monk’s Lagoon was the day after that Pilgrimage ended, and it was quiet and peaceful.
The Other Smith Family in Ouzinkie (no relation to us, but like family!)
Top Left: Georgia with Sasha. Top Right: Carl with young Kevin, Bottom Left: Sasha’s house on the bluff overlooking the bay as it looked in 2004. A few years later, Kevin tore it down when it became unrepairable. Bottom Right: Kevin and Carl in the early 1970’s.
Kevin has recently assisted me with researching my novel, and Carl says that he was influenced in his own music by my guitar playing and song leading. Georgia was my Mom’s assistant in just about every aspect of her ministry toward the end of her life, and currently serves as a Postmaster in Ouzinkie.
Kodiak Airways Grumman Goose Comings and Goings!
Top Left: Dr. Carolyn Brown, Public Health Service physician, who visited Ouzinkie
multiple times in the mid-
Bottom Left: Mildred Crowell of the Kodiak Baptist Mission walks through the beach grass to visit us in Larsen Bay, 1956. Bottom Right: Mom with Mildred, a former worker at the orphanage in Ouzinkie, and then (1968) a house parent at the Kodiak Baptist Mission.
The Kids of Ouzinkie
A Few Quick Comments:
First, the “kids” in these pictures are most likely grandparents and even great-
Second, to respect some privacy, I have typed only the first names (or sometimes no names at all).
Third: the kindergarten photos were almost all taken by my Mom, the kindergarten teacher for three generations of Ouzinkie children.
Finally, Isn’t it obvious? There were a lot of good looking kids in Ouzinkie back in the day!
Above: one of the earliest photos in this collection, a birthday party for Patty Gugel at their home (later the Panamarioff house), 1959.
I remember pleading to be able to go to the party, even though I was a couple of years too young. That’s me standing in the front row with my knees scuffed up, wearing suspenders. A lot of the kids a few years older than me are in this photo, including my sister Robin, in the back row in front of the boat model. There’s at least six years of upper class students here. All of these folks are retired now!
These are some of my favorite kid shots. But the names of many of these good folks are lost to my memory. I never had to work hard to get smiles out of these kids!
The photo just above was taken with my old camera, which had so slow a shutter that it moved a lot. But if there’s no “Jungle Gym,” then use someone’s stored crab pots!
Below Left: the Delgado family, and Below Right: Howie, Andy, and Dean rest on a skiff after a strenuous morning biking the boardwalks and gravel trails of Ouzinkie!
Wonderful Kindergarten Photos
Below: the oldest existing photo of Joyce Smith’s kindergarten class, taken by Dad in 1961, with a very toddler brother Kelly on the far right.
Above Left and Above Right: Students in the kindergarten play with toys and play teacher reading time.
Below: ViewMasters! I took this one, and I love the lighting from the window, just off camera to the right.
Left and Below: the teacher, Joyce Smith, plays the old pump organ and sings with the kindergarten kids in the upstairs hallway.
Bottom: the 1965-
A Few Kids’ Club Group Shots (from Mission activities)
Below: A summer day camp group in 1966, my brother Kelly in the hat. Middle: Saint Patrick’s Day party for the upper grades. I’m seated at the table trying to be a good sport and wear a party hat. Bottom: the four girls from the middle picture got a special dinner up in the kindergarten room.
The photos below show just a random sample of the school-
Random Kids Shots
These are a few of the “candid” shots of kids that I found in my collection of old prints and negatives. They are a time capsule of growing up in the village in the 1960’s and 70’s.
Left: the oldest photo in this section, big sister Robin (on the right) and the schoolteachers’ daughter, Karen Lassiter, out on the dock in the winter of 1959.
Below: Kelly and Teddy on the sandy beach where the seaplanes load and unload, 1965 (one of the first photos I developed and printed myself in the Mission’s basement darkroom).
Above: two sisters play on the snow-
Right: two Shanigan brothers bring their sleds to the store on a sunny winter day in 1968.
Concluding Comments
I’m delighted to be able to share these photos with you. It brings back so many memories
to see photos of village elders who talked and joked with me long ago and have passed
on now. And as a retired person I look at the photos of kids around my age and realize
that we all are retired, or grandparents, or both now. That section should be fun
for all the kids I grew up with. And many, even some who were much younger than me,
have passed on. These photos can help us remember them. I can’t write authoritatively
about anything that’s happening now, and all my visits since the mid-
These photos are only the tip of the iceberg as far as people shots go, especially photos of the kindergarten and Mission clubs. But I selected some of the best for the years 1958 through the early 1970’s. The shots of village elders are the only good ones I have. I wish I had been more aggressive in taking their photos, because to a person they were always gracious and accommodating to me as a photographer. And I wish I’d gotten to know all of them better. But I’ll always be grateful to have those photos, and to have known those wonderful Alaskan pioneers!
A Novel About Old Ouzinkie? (Not quite, but…)
Incidentally, my recently-
Conclusion: The Changing Village
The color 2004 photo below shows Nick Pestrikoff in his home on the side of the hill above the village.
About the photos: In the window is framed the home Nick was born in, slowly collapsing from age. The old house is now surrounded with newer, more comfortable homes with all the modern conveniences. But it’s sad to see it go. The inset shows the home the way it looked in 1968.
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