Category: News Feeds

By: James Brooks, Alaska Beacon

A small creek on Alaska’s Little Kiska Island has been renamed, more than 80 years after it was named after Germany’s Nazi Party by World War II soldiers fighting in the Aleutians.

Nazi Creek was the last landmark in the United States to bear the Nazi name. Its new name is “Kaxchim Chiĝanaa,” meaning either “gizzard creek” or “creek or river belonging to gizzard island” in Unangam Tunuu, the language of the Indigenous Unangax̂ people. 

On Thursday, the Domestic Names Committee of the U.S. Board on Geographic Names voted 17-0 to approve the new name, without discussion.

The board’s decision allows the federal government to officially change the creek’s name in federal databases that are the official repository of geographic names. That repository is used by federal agencies and commercial companies that provide maps to the general public.

The board also approved the renaming of nearby “Nip Hill,” named by soldiers using a derogatory term for Japanese people. That hill was renamed “Kaxchim Qayaa,” or “gizzard hill,” again using the traditional name for Little Kiska Island, which is not far from Kiska Island, site of a World War II battle.

Michael Livingston, an employee of the Aleutian Pribilof Islands Association, has been working for almost two years to have the names changed. Moses Dirks, an expert on Unangam Tunuu, recommended the new names.

“I think that’s pretty awesome. I think elders … and others are happy about it. It really should have never been there in the first place,” Livingston said of Thursday’s vote.

“Like one of my teachers … used to say, if you know something that can make our community better, our villages better, be brave and stand up and say something about it, do something about it,” Livingston said. 

The new names were previously recommended by the Alaska Historical Commission, which considered them in April. The changes were endorsed by local Native tribes and Native corporations, the Museum of the Aleutians, the manager of the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge, Congregation Beth Sholom of Anchorage, and the Alaska Chapter of the Japanese American Citizens League, among others.

Kiska Island is located 242 miles west of Adak, at the far end of the Aleutian Islands. The area has been mostly uninhabited since World War II, when invading Japanese forces took 42 people on Attu Island prisoner. More than half died in Japanese internment camps.

The United States forcibly relocated almost 900 Unangax̂ residents of the Aleutian Islands, housing them in unsuitable internment camps in Southeast Alaska and elsewhere. Many became sick and died from the conditions imposed by the government.

Aleutian Islands residents subsequently received reparations from the federal government under legislation that also paid reparations to Japanese Americans also interned during the war.

Livingston’s work isn’t yet complete. He’s also seeking to rename Quisling Cove, a small body of water named after the Norwegian Nazi collaborator Vidkun Quisling. That name change remains pending.