Overview
Three Saints Bay indents Kodiak Island's southeastern shore near Old Harbor, Alaska, and its history is foundational and dark: here in 1784 Grigory Shelikhov planted the first permanent Russian settlement in Alaska — an establishment achieved through violence, including the massacre of Alutiiq (Sugpiaq) people at the Refuge Rock of Awa'uq nearby, a documented atrocity central to any honest telling, and one this record states first with the Alutiiq perspective honoured; earthquake and tsunami soon moved the Russian post toward present Kodiak, leaving Three Saints Bay to archaeology, its site now studied and protected. The bay is remote — reached by boat or air from Old Harbor, itself an Alutiiq community whose heritage organisations tell this history — and casual visiting is neither practical nor appropriate without local guidance. Telling of unease at the old shoreline exists in passing accounts and stays exactly that: passing, subordinate, hedged. Present Three Saints Bay as first-contact history with its violence unhidden — Alutiiq memory first, Russian foundation second, legend a distant third.