Some Notes on the History and Pre-history of Ninilchik
Since its founding, Ninilchik has always been something of a cultural isolate on the Kenai Peninsula. It was small enough that it did not require a military presence after the U.S. purchased Alaska from Russia. Its people, for the most part, have been related to each other, through direct descendance from Agrafena of Kodiak or through marriage. Russian customs were maintained for many years, supported by allegiance to the village church of the Russian Orthodox faith. This cultural homogeneity allowed the residents of Ninilchik to carry on life much as it had been when the first Russian settlers arrived in the 1840's, unlike the greater diversity which came to the larger communities, such as Kenai, which also had a history grounded in Russian settlement.
But what of the time before the Russians came to Ninilchik? Were there any people in the village area then? Just looking at the natural surroundings, a deep river valley, dense forestation, animal and marine life available for food, one would guess that the Ninilchik area would have been an area where it would have been expected that aboriginal peoples would have lived, if not in large numbers, at least in small family units.
Many of us have seen indentations in the earth at various places surrounding the river valley. We have been told that these are remains of barabaras, the excavated holes which formed the subterranean portion of lodges used by Native peoples before the Russians arrived.
And which Native peoples would these have been? Aleuts or southern Eskimos, who later were part of the bloodstream of the people of Ninilchik? Probably not. Before the Russians came, the aboriginals who lived in the Ninilchik area were likely southern portions of Athabaskans, who lived in greater numbers to the north in the Kalifornsky, Kenai, Skilak, Tyonek, and Knik areas, and beyond. This idea is strongly supported by researchers at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks who have worked with the Athabaskans of the Upper Kenai Peninsula and who know that the people whom the Russians called the Kenaitzes did work or live as far south as Ninilchik and probably even as far as Anchor Point or farther south.
Our village has had two names. It was named Munina after Mr. Munin (Moonin), one of the first Russian men to try living in Ninilchik. (He decided not to stay, but his descendants live on in other parts of Alaska.) On the 1900 census records for Ninilchik (see the back of this book) the name Munina is given, as well as the name Ninilchik. The name Ninilchik probably comes from Niqnilchint, a Denaina Athabaskan word meaning "lodge is built place". Peter Kalifornsky of Kenai remembers this old name which his people called Ninilchik, a place where they would do subsistence hunting or fishing. We assume from the meaning of the Indian name that his people built a lodge of some kind along Ninilchik River for staying in while they fished or hunted. After the Russians and Russian-Aleut creoles permanently settled along the river, they must have adopted the original Athabaskan name and pronounced it more like an Aleut (or Eskimo) word, giving us the word Ninilchik, which has an ending like many of the other Aleut or Eskimo names of places in southwestern Alaska, such as Chignik, Nanwalek (English Bay), Naknek, etc.
What happened to these Denaina Indians who had lived or camped in the Ninilchik area before the Russians came? We can only speculate. Perhaps they were decimated by the great smallpox epidemic that swept through the Native population of the Kenai Peninsula in 1838-40, after spreading from southeastern Alaska. Perhaps they were frightened by those who came to settle permanently in the Ninilchik basin, and moved back northward to rejoin people of their own tribal affiliation in villages near Kenai.
In any event, Ninilchik did not, originally, become a blend of Russian blood with surrounding Athabaskan blood. Some of this mixing came later, when Russians or Russian-Aleut creoles from Kodiak intermarried with people of Athabaskan descent, or of Russian-Athabaskan creolization, from the Kenai area.
The permanent village of Ninilchik was first settled in 1842, but abandoned just a few weeks later. It was permanently settled in 1847 by Grigorii and Mavra Kvasnikoff. The village was established by decree as a place where "colonial citizens", former employees of the Russian-American fur trading company and their dependents, could settle, if they so wished, rather than return to Russian. A Russian document, recently translated, describes the establishment of the village and who its first settlers were (see the article beginning on page 31 of Agrafena's Children, by Ms. Arndt).
The Oskolkoff sons of Iakov and Anna Oskolkoff arrived soon after the Kvasnikoffs. They were brought to Ninilchik from Sitka, where they had previously lived, by their stepfather Leontii Ostrogin and their mother, Anna, some time after their father died in 1847 and their mother remarried in 1848.
The Kvasnikoffs' fourth child, daughter Fedosia, married Ioann (John) Kompkoff, in 1855. Mr. Kompkoff may have come from Nutchek, a Russian settlement near Valdez, where a number of Kompkoffs lived. (Kompkoff descendants today continue to live near Nutchek, in the Cordova area.) Fedosia had several children, one of whom was named Fedosia after her. This daughter Fedosia married Mike Crawford in 1891 and from them came the Crawford and Steik families.
In 1856 Aleksei Oskolkoff married Elena Kvasnikoff, daughter of Grigorii and Mavra. From this union come the two main Oskolkoff families of Ninilchik, as well as the Matson family, and many of the Panfiloffs and Dariens of Kenai.
Two years later, in 1858, Elena's older brother, Feodor Kvasnikoff, married Maria Andreev, probably a Kodiak creole. From their marriage came six children, three of whom have descendants in Ninilchik today: Michael, who married Irene Ostrogin, daughter of Leontii Ostrogin and Anna Oskolkoff Ostrogin, and the father of Louie Kvasnikoff Sr.; Elizabeth, who married the goldminer Joseph Cooper, from whom come the Cooper and Leman families (the Deitz family of Homer and the Resoffs also descend from Elizabeth); and Alexander, father or grandfather (or great grandfather, etc.) of most of the Kvasnikoffs we know in Ninilchik today.
Mavra's daughter Anna married John Linberg and church records state that they had three children. We do not know where their descendants, if any, live today. It is said that John and Anna moved to Russia.
Mavra's son Ivan Kvasnikoff married Alexandra Sorokovikoff, and their descendants include some Crosleys who have lived in Anchorage; the descendants of Ivan's daughter Groonia and her husband, Charley Cook; the more than 100 descendants of Sarjus Kvasnikoff who moved from Ninilchik to English Bay (Nanwalek), married and raised his family there; and the descendants of Sarjus' sister, Alma, who married Joe Tanape of the English Bay/Port Graham area.
Mavra's daughter Ekaterina (Catherine) married Daniel Kennedy in Sitka and among their descendants is Kay Poland Silides, who served as a State Senator from Kodiak for several years.
Mavra's daughter Evdokia (Eva) married Ioann Iakovlev (John Jakolof), who had come to Ninilchik in 1861. They moved to the Seldovia area and raised their family there. The Jackolofs had Jakolof and Nielson descendants whom we are still trying to track down.
Today there are more than 2700 known "Ninilchik" descendants of Grigorii and Mavra Kvasnikoff. Each member of the old Ninilchik families can trace his or her ancestry back to Grigorii and Mavra. We each receive our Native blood from Mavra's mother, Agrafena, who was likely a full-blooded Aleut or, more likely, Alutiiq.
John Kennedy's written history:
The information which we have so far on Grigorii Kvasnikoff, who brought the Kvasnikoff name to Alaska, information which we include in this book, was passed on orally from generation to generation. John Kennedy, grandson of Grigorii and Mavra Kvasnikoff, recorded much of what he had been told about the history of Grigorii Kvasnikoff (and Grigorii's ancestry). Due to the gracious sharing of his niece, Kay Poland Silides, we are able to include John's history, written in his beautiful penmanship, next in this book.
Arndt history:
Early in 1993 Ms. Katherine Arndt, an anthropological researcher, presented a crucial article on the founding of Ninilchik to a symposium, held in Anchorage, on the anthropology of the Cook Inlet area. Ms. Arndt documented her research with references to original Russian manuscripts (which are available to the public, such as at the library at the University of Alaska Anchorage). With her research we now have a firm basis for stating when and how Ninilchik village was first settled. Ms. Arndt's article begins on page 31 of Agrafena's Children, following John Kennedy's history.
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