Bristol Bay Remembers: The Great Flu of 1919: The Great Flu of 1919

Bristol Bay Remembers: The Great Flu of 1919 tells the story, through first-hand accounts and photographs, of the Spanish Flu Pandemic that struck the remote Bristol Bay Region of Alaska in the Spring of 1919. In the span of a few weeks the Spanish Flu decimated the Native population of the region. The tragedy would have been worse had it not been for the response of the canned salmon industry and a doctor and two nurses at a small government hospital in a village called Kanakanak. Young children tended to survive the Flu and many of them were housed by canneries until the the end of the fishing season when they were taken to the hospital, which the Federal government later expanded into an orphanage. Many of the Native residents of Bristol Bay today are descended from an orphan of the Spanish Flu.