Nurses Rhoda Ray and Mayme Conley, from the U.S. Bureau of Education hospital at Kanakanak, hold two orphaned infants during the 1919 influenza pandemic (Dr. Linus French photograph, courtesy of Bristol Bay Heritage Land Trust).
Join us online for a virtual Cook Inlet Historical Society lecture.
Free.
Advance registration is required to receive the registration link. Please register directly on the Anchorage Museum’s website by following this link: Register Here
Speakers: Katie Ringsmuth and Tim Troll (hosted by Dick Mylius)
View a recording of this event here.
Password: CookInlet618
We’re proud to have a duo of historians discuss the flu pandemic of 1919. Tim Troll will first share a brief film, Bristol Bay Remembers: The Great Flu of 1919, and photographs from the U.S. Revenue Cutter Unalga that responded first in Unalaska and later in Bristol Bay. From there, Katie Ringsmuth will discuss how Bristol Bay was the last manifestation of the Spanish influenza outbreak in Alaska. Her presentation will share the story of how salmon canneries on the Naknek River responded to the pandemic while local communities, hit hard by the disease, survived to give birth to Bristol Bay’s future generations. She will also share a sneak peek of the Mug Up exhibition, slated to open at the Alaska State Museum in 2022. This is the first talk in the Cook Inlet Historical Society’s 2020-2021 Speaker Series, “Disasters.”
In addition to teaching US and Alaska History at the University of Alaska Anchorage, Dr. Katie Ringsmuth is the founder of Tundra Vision and the director of the NN Cannery History Project, which, in collaboration with the Alaska State Museum, is developing the exhibition Mug Up: The Language of Work, the first museum exhibition to tell the story of Alaska’s salmon canneries through the perspective of the diverse cannery community.
Tim Troll came to Alaska as a VISTA volunteer lawyer in 1978. He is currently executive director of the Bristol Bay Heritage Land Trust, an organization he helped found in 2000. The Trust has conserved 36,000 acres of salmon habitat in Bristol Bay. The Trust is also a sponsor of the NN Cannery History Project.