Today it’s a community of 18,500 (and growing) avid racing and sports fans who don’t mind a beer and a bet. Every member must have a common connection to get in to BGP to ensure we have like minded people and who ever adds them can explain to them this isn’t a place of hero’s, sh*t comments and boasting. So we turned it off and now every single post is approved or disapproved. It turned in to 20, 100, 500, 2,000 people and got a bit out of control to be honest, there were people posting pictures of multi’s, basketball BIG bets, sh*t chat, alsorts. We’d tip a horse weekly and hold bragging rights if our horse saluted. The next generation of Unangax̂ leaders spent their formative childhood years in these camps, and they would never forget the injustices they saw there.Boys Get Paid was started in 2011 by the man, the myth, the legend Duan White(in his finest below) as a group of lads who loved to back a winner. Through exposure to the outside world, they had come to understand the importance of their participation in the democracy by which they were governed, and they desired participation with the full rights of citizens. At their camps, the Unangax̂ surreptitiously voted in Territorial elections. invasion of Attu Island, and all were awarded the Bronze Star. Twenty-five Unangax̂ men joined the Armed Forces. government, the Unangax̂ remained a fiercely patriotic people. The religious articles and holy cards brought from the villages took on immense importance, the Unangax̂ again turning to their faith for strength.ĭespite their poor treatment at the hands of the U.S. The villagers of Unalaska erected a makeshift church and named it after their beloved Church of the Holy Ascension of Christ. They built new living quarters in their compounds, repaired the old structures, and brought in electricity and running water. Attempts to keep them sequestered from nearby villages and towns failed. We had to abandon our heirlooms and pets even before the evacuation."ĭespite the horrors of the internment, the Unangax̂ refused to succumb to despair. There existed no church, no school, no medical facility, no store, no community facility, no skiffs or dories, no fishing gear and no hunting rifles. There were 28 of us forced to live in one, designated 15'x20' house. "The overcrowded conditions were an abomination. Pictures such as this one showed homey scenes of camp life, and were published in magazines and local papers.Ĭourtesy Butler/Dale collection, Alaska State Library. With the death of the elders so, too, passed their knowledge of traditional Unangax̂ ways.Īs the government prepared to resettle the Unangax̂, officials launched a propaganda campaign against criticism of their treatment of the internees. Thirty-two died at the Funter Bay camp, seventeen at Killisnoo, twenty at Ward Lake, five at Burnett Inlet. Pneumonia and tuberculosis took the very young and the old. Illness of one form or another struck all the evacuees, but medical care was often nonexistent, and the authorities were dismissive of the their complaints. For two years they would remain in these dark places, struggling to survive. Accustomed to living in a world without trees, one open to the expansive sky, they suddenly found themselves crowded under the dense, shadowed canopy of the Southeast rainforest. The Unangax̂ lacked warm winter clothes, and camp food was poor, the water tainted. The Unangax̂ were transported to Southeast Alaska and there crowded into "duration villages": abandoned canneries, a herring saltery, and gold mine camp-rotting facilities with no plumbing, electricity or toilets. servicemen set their homes and church afire so they would not fall into Japanese hands. Heartbroken, Atka villagers watched as U.S. They were herded from their homes onto cramped transport ships, most allowed only a single suitcase. authorities evacuated 881 Unangax̂ from nine villages. In response to Japanese aggression in the Aleutians during World War II, U.S. I tried to pretend it was really a dream and this could not happen to me and my dear family." "In 1942, my wife and our four children were whipped away from our home. Most buildings had no electricity, heat, windows, or doors, and holes in the roof.Ĭourtesy Aleutian/Pribilof Island Association and the National Archives. There was no sewer system, no laundry or bathing facilities. The water supply was inadequate and unavailable in the winter.
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