{"id":59,"slug":"old-savonoski-alaska","story":[{"heading":null,"paragraphs":["Old Savonoski was one of the Severnovsk settlements — Alutiiq villages in the Savonoski River drainage between Naknek Lake and the Pacific, communities the archaeological record shows had been shifting locations within the drainage for at least 1,700 years. In early June 1912, earthquakes drove most residents toward the coast; Petr Kayagvak, 'American Pete,' was mid-move from Iqkhagmiut to Old Savonoski when Novarupta blew on June 6.","His account, preserved by Griggs, is the file's ground truth: 'We go fast Savonoski. Everybody get bidarka... We come Naknek one day, dark, no could see. Hot ash fall.' The villages were never re-established — photographed in 1952 as roofless log houses in the grass, they had already been folded into Katmai National Monument in 1918."]},{"heading":"The year the ground stayed warm","paragraphs":["The strangest documented detail comes from Pelegia Melgenak, American Pete's widow: two families remained at Old Savonoski for a year after the eruption, and she remembered the ground and water staying warm — 'just like they never have winter' — before those families finally joined the resettlement on the lower Naknek at New Savonoski.","American Pete kept returning to hunt bear along the Savonoski for decades, but his 1918 verdict on resettlement closes the file: 'Never can go back to Savonoski to live again. Everything ash.' The dossier keeps it as eyewitness disaster history — documented, oral, and final — with no paranormal claim attached."]}],"name":"Old Savonoski","aliases":[],"type":"FORMER_VILLAGE","type_label":"Former Village","cats":["ABANDONED_SETTLEMENT","DISASTER_HISTORY"],"groups":["dark-history","ghost-towns"],"desc":"Former Alutiiq village in the Savonoski drainage.","full_desc":"A former village in Naknek, Alaska, Old Savonoski is filed here for what the record attaches to it. Former Alutiiq village in the Savonoski drainage. HauntHunt files it with abandoned settlements and disaster history. The dossier holds 1 documented fact — a documented spine with no haunting reports attached. Visitor status is unverified; confirm before making the trip.","address":null,"city":"Naknek","county":null,"state":"Alaska","postal":null,"region":"West","lat":58.787969,"lon":-156.873126,"coord_kind":"CITY","status":"HISTORIC_SITE","access":"UNKNOWN","access_notes":null,"ownership":null,"website":null,"phone":null,"year_built":null,"year_opened":null,"year_closed":null,"year_demolished":null,"designation":null,"current_use":null,"research_notes":"Discovery pass; historical, geographic, and access enrichment remain queued. Confidence describes source provenance, not supernatural reality.","stage":"SOURCE_RESEARCH","quality":{"level":"LOW","score":49.3,"dims":{"location_confidence":0.35,"identity_confidence":0.65,"historical_confidence":0.8,"source_quality":1,"paranormal_claim_provenance":null,"coordinate_confidence":0,"current_access_confidence":0,"freshness":0.65}},"claims":[],"history":[{"description":"Most residents left during the 1912 eruption; oral history records two families remaining another year before joining New Savonoski. Old Savonoski's past is on record — the entry belongs to the verified layer beneath whatever lore attaches. It's verified history: the dossier's load-bearing detail. 'Witness: Firsthand Accounts of the Largest Volcanic…' documents the entry. The record keeps it — history, not lore.","evidence":"HISTORICALLY_VERIFIED","date_start":null,"date_end":null,"confidence":null,"source":{"name":"Witness: Firsthand Accounts of the Largest Volcanic Eruption in the Twentieth Century","url":"https://www.nps.gov/articles/aps-v11-i1-c9.htm","publisher":"National Park Service","type":"GOVERNMENT","authority":1}}],"legends":[],"entities":[],"events":[],"investigations":[],"encounters":[],"media":[],"persons":[],"visitor":{"tour_availability":"Verify before visiting","notes":"Access details are unverified; research before visiting.","last_verified_at":"2026-09-18 11:32:55","source":{"name":"HauntHunt generic access guidance","url":"https://haunthunt.com/about#access-guidance","publisher":"HauntHunt editorial","type":"DIRECTORY","authority":2}},"sources":[{"name":"Witness: Firsthand Accounts of the Largest Volcanic Eruption in the Twentieth Century","url":"https://www.nps.gov/articles/aps-v11-i1-c9.htm","publisher":"National Park Service","type":"GOVERNMENT","authority":1}],"conflicts":[],"wiki":null,"counts":{"claims":0,"history":1,"legends":0,"entities":0,"sources":1}}