He said he started tracking missing and murdered Unangax̂ people informally, at first. “Because we believe that if people are aware of the tragedies, we can take action to try to make sure that this pattern doesn’t continue - the pattern of missing people from our region, the pattern of one Unangax̂ homicide per year, dating back to 1959.”īefore joining APIA, Livingston served as a police officer in the region for almost three decades, investigating homicides. “We are trying to raise awareness,” Livingston said. And nobody was supposed to talk about it.”Īll these years later, Livingston helped organize the vigil in Nielsen’s honor, and said he’s grateful for the chance to do so. But in my community, it became a taboo topic. “The tragedy has haunted me for years, and I’ve wanted to do something for the family for decades. “The tragic event shocked everyone up and down the Peninsula and the Aleutian Islands, the Pribilof Islands and the Shumagin Islands,” Livingston said. He didn’t know Nielsen himself, but he lived in neighboring Cold Bay at the time of her death and heard about what happened as a teenager.ĪPIA Map of missing and murdered Unangax̂ from 1741-2020. Michael Livingston is the healthy relationships coordinator at APIA and one of the three researchers working on this project. And for the Unangax̂ homicides occurring outside of the region, about 50% of them occurred in Anchorage. Nine of the 64 victims are still missing. Their ages range from one to 57 years old. Others were killed elsewhere in Alaska or in the Lower 48. But talking about what happened, I think it’s a part of the healing process.”Ībout half of the 64 homicides took place within the Aleutian Islands region, according to a group of researchers who began compiling data about 20 years ago on Indigenous people from the region who have been murdered or who have gone missing. “We just talk about how she was and where she would be if she was with us today. “We never really talked about what happened,” Gundersen said. Gundersen said she chose this poem to honor her sister who died in the Eastern Aleutian village of Belkofski in 1973, when a man stabbed her at school. ![]() APIA Portrait of Olga Nielsen by artist Lindsay Carron.
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