Site Credits

The Native Place Names project initially began at the prompting of the late native leader Harvey Samuelsen, who spoke at a board meeting about the need and importance of preserving place names in the Bristol Bay Region. Samuelsen's efforts in getting the project started received broad-based support and resulted in this website, which is populated with place names from all over the region.

The Bristol Bay Online! Project was initially conceived by Bristol Engineering Services Corporation. with early funding for a pilot project provided by parent company, Bristol Bay Native Corporation through the CAMPTEX Project (Compile, Analyze, Market, Protect, Teach, Explore), which is now known as Responsible Resource Development. This project is in line with the BBNC's corporate mission to celebrate and preserve native heritage.
In addition, the Bristol Bay Native Association (BBNA) has provided major funding to accumulate and digitize previously documented place names data and to develop this public website. The website is intended to help collect, preserve and increase accessibility to native place names information for the people of Bristol Bay.

Community Profile Maps and the supporting data, both integral to the project, were provided to the project by the Lake & Peninsula Borough and Bristol Bay Native Association.The Community Profile projects were carried out with major funding from the State of Alaska Department of Commerce, Community, and Economic Development, Lake & Peninsula Borough, Bristol Bay Native Association, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Denali Commission Alaska, National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration, Alaska Department of Transportation & Public Facilities, Division of Governmental Coordination, Bureau of Indian Affairs, and the communities of the borough and the region.

Orthophoto imagery and Community Profile linework is used with permission from State of Alaska Department of Commerce, Community, and Economic Development, the Lake & Peninsula Borough, and the Bristol Bay Native Association.The Alaska Cadastral Project, a joint US Bureau of Land Management and Alaska Department of Natural Resources effort, supplied funding for Bristol Bay Online! through a grant administered and partially funded by the Bristol Bay Native Association. Additional funding and support were provided by Bristol Bay Native Corporation.

Sources who shared work

Much credit is also due to the late Irene Reed and Robert Drozda, who helped compile place names during an elders conference. Reed was the former director of UAF's Alaska Native Language Center, and Drozda is the Director of ANCSA Project at the Elmer E. Rasmuson Library, University of Alaska Fairbanks. Drozda suggested many of the data collection fields within the base system's data entry form. We collected information from public and private documents and typed them into the system using this form, and included the modern Yup'ik writing system for recording place names showing both old and new ways of spelling.