Qagiigun

Qaĝiiĝun is a name for the Unangan people of the Shumagin Islands, south of the Alaska Peninsula. Their island home faces the North Pacific, with sea mammals, fish and birds providing food and materials. Skin boats enabled hunters to move between islands and along the peninsula’s coast. In the eighteenth century Russian traders entered these waters seeking sea otter pelts, relying on Unangan hunters while bringing violence and coercion to the island communities.