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Compiled
by Vicki Max, Thanks Vicki! |
| According
to legend many years ago when Russian ships roamed Alaska
waters one foundered in the uncharted waters of Cross Sound.
Survivors rowed their lifeboat up an inlet that would later
be known as Lisianski. In a sheltered cove they founded a
settlement. They cleared and planted gardens, trapped and
hunted game. The story goes that a shipyard was built and
a ship constructed. This allowed them to returned to their
homeland. The story most likely should have read Native Americans,
who while gathering winter food found them and returned them
to a settlement, perhaps, Sitka.
When
the Russian settlement died, the land again reverted to wilderness.
Early hunters and trappers noticed the clearing in the woods,
and found iron and copper tools along with sunken graves.
They named the abandoned settlement "Sunnyside."
By
1938 the Russians were long forgotten and Lisianski Inlet
had become home to gold miners. Hjalmor Mork, Jack Ronning
and the older of the Mork family boys operated the Mork mine.
Besides the Mork mine there was another gold mine called the
Apex, which can be found across the inlet from Sunnyside.
Jack Koby was developing a mine up towards the head of the
inlet and another mine was being worked at its mouth. This
is the Lisisanski Inlet Kalle (Charley) Raatikainen found
when he started looking for a place to build a town. |
| Left:
Pile driver driving the first piles for Pelican's boardwalk
Right: F/V Aurora Pelican's first mail boat, brought mail
once a week |
| Charley
Raatikainen was an Alaskan pioneer and fish buyer when fish
made people wealthy. Kallie wasn't rich he was just tired.
During the fishing season he would hardly sleep, as he bought
fish and ran them from the fishing grounds to Sitka. Charley
would leave Deer Harbor when the last troller had unloaded
for the night. He would arrive in Sitka around 3 in the morning
awaken the crew, unload, pick up groceries and arrive back
on the fishing grounds by noon. Hoping to give better and
faster service to the fisherman and buyers, he began looking
for a place to build a cold storage plant close to the fishing
grounds.
Charley
went to his friend Hjalmor Mork and told him what he was looking
for. On August 2, 1938 Hjalmor took him to a place up the
inlet near his mine. Kallie found a harbor, land and a large
lake with a waterfall. He knew he had found his town site.
Located between Juneau and Sitka the site had everything he
was looking for.
Charley
organized a corporation and brought in a crew to start the
building. His boat the Pelican, brought Bob DeRmond as timekeeper
and storekeeper, Eli Rapichin as camp bullcook and another
cook known as Slim. Others may have been Don White and Gust
Savela. A. P. Walder and his wife Martha arrived with their
troller and Charley had one or two others with him when he
brought in his fish scows. One scow was put on the beach and
became the messhouse with worker quarters in the upper section.
The other scow was anchored out and connected to the beach
by a floating walkway. It served as a warehouse as well as
living quarters for workers. The town site became know as
Pelican City. Why is not known, but probably not to confuse
it with Charlie's boat the Pelican. |
| Four
of the Paddock brothers came with their pile driving equipment.
They used their donkey engine on the pile driver to clear
timber from the cold storage site. Hjalmer Mork and Jack Ronning
moved their air compressor and jackhammers up from their mine
to clear rock from the cold storage site.
The
first building erected ashore had a dual purpose. It housed
a Finnish steam bath on one side and on the other a store
and offices for the new corporation. The town started looking
like a town when the Paddocks and Charley built homes. Arthur
Silverman arrived from Sitka with lumber, beer and a license
to operate a beer parlor and soon was open for business.
The
steam schooner the SS Tongass arrived and dropped overboard
tons of lumber and piling in front of the town. . A sawmill
and other supplies were loaded on rafts and dragged ashore.
The SS Tongass would be the only steamer into Pelican for
the next few years with supplies but not on regular basis.
The
expense of building a cold storage, acquiring diesel engines,
building a water and electric system left the company short
of money. Charley went to Seattle and raised money, but it
was never enough. The town continued to grow, because the
depression left little winter work elsewhere. Fishermen and
others were willing to take grub, tobacco and stock in the
company for their work.
There
was a major setback when the bathhouse caught fire and the
only available fire equipment was a few buckets of salt water
brought up from the beach. The bath/store building was quickly
replaced and would later become home to Pelican's first school.
One of the first major construction sites was a two-story
multipurpose building. On the first floor a kitchen and mess
hall occupied one end with the office, store and later the
post office on the other side. The upper floor was used for
a bunkhouse. This buildings second floor is still used as
a bunkhouse. |
Gus
Servile, a Finn and Alaskan fish buyer oversaw the building
of the dam. The Paddock brothers built the wharf, fish house
and started the boardwalk. When the summer fishing season
began, the men left to work other jobs or fish their boats
and even Charley had to take his scows to their summer stations.
Work
slowed in 1939, when the Navy began building a base on Japonske
Island and outside jobs became available. Jobs that paid
cash instead of stock in what appeared to be a very shaky
corporation. Even so, things progressed, a Post office was
established on November 27, 1939 with Bob De Armond as first
postmaster. Pelican's school opened with Arvo Wahto becoming
its first teacher. He would teach two generations of children
before retiring in the 60's. A sawmill was built and put
into operation producing the lumber to build homes adding
to the permanence of the town.
In
the summer of 1940 things got livelier when A. R. Breuger
of Wrangell brought his floating cannery to Pelican and
moored it to the dock. It brought new people and small seine
boats to town, and employment to a few of the residents.
By the summer of 1941 Pelican had another salmon cannery.
The Cape Cross Salmon Company organized by Larry Freeburn
and Pros Ganty put canning machinery and a retort in the
fish house, they made a pack of more than 17,000 cases.
Later, Cape Cross would build a separate cannery next to
the cold storage.
Henry
Roden the former attorney general of Alaska who was helping
Charlie raise money, finally had success when Norton Clapp
agreed to participate in the project. The work of getting
the cold storage plant operating immediately gathered speed.
J. P. McNeil, who had been in charge of the Booth Fisheries
cold storage at Sitka for many years, was hired as manager
to oversee the installation of the refrigeration machinery.
The hydroelectric power plant was completed and a new office
and store building were attached to the cold storage.
In
August of 1942 the first fish was loaded into the sharp
freezer. The census in 1939 gave Pelican a count of 48.
In 1951 it was up to 180, it would later reach its peak
at 250. Today we have an average count of 150.
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