Kodiak Surprise

[NightTrain]

Yesterday we were zooming down a very pretty valley over a rugged little river about 300' off the deck in the helicopter, when our pilot asked us over the intercom if we wanted to see some skulls.

It was a pretty random thing to ask, and I didn't really know what to make of the question, so I said back : "Yeah, sure!"

We came out of the valley to the coast, and he banked hard right and we flew up the beach for about a mile and pulled into a hover over a large rocky outcropping and set it down on it. He left it idling and jumped out, so my buddy and I got out and followed him. 20 feet in front of the chopper was a flat black piece of shale propped up by other smaller rocks and he pulled the grass aside.

Here's what greeted us :



Just two very old skulls facing out from under that rock over the ocean.

The backs of the skulls were crushed, and our pilot told us that back in the 1700s and earlier, there were over 100,000 people living on Kodiak - and they were all in a perpetual state of war between the tribes & villages. One village would gear up and attack, and then bash in the heads of the women and children when the men were defeated.

Then when the Russians began exploring and trading in Alaska, they brought with the customary diseases that wiped most of them out.

Didn't expect to get a history lesson yesterday, I'll have to research a bit on Kodiak history when I get back home.