Alaska Native Collections – Sharing Knowledge

Mary N. Bourdukofsky

Mary N. Bourdukofsky, born in 1923, is a basket and skin sewing artist. She was raised at St. Paul in the Pribilof Islands, speaking both Russian and Unangan. She learned English in school and like many Elders remembers being punished by her teachers for using her native language. She and her family were among the hundreds who were evacuated from the islands during World War II, and who spent 1942-1945 at internment camps in Southeast Alaska.