Clark’s Point is a historic community and former salmon-cannery site on the eastern shore of Nushagak Bay, at the mouth of Clark Slough, about 57 miles (92 km) west-northwest of Naknek and 14 miles (23 km) south-southwest of Dillingham, Alaska. The Yup’ik name for the point is “Stagarok,” referring to a seasonal fish camp on the sand spit extending north from the point. John Clark, manager of the Alaska Commercial Company store at Nushagak, operated a salmon saltery on the spit until 1888, when the Nushagak Packing Company built a cannery there. In 1901, Jefferson F. Moser visited aboard the USS Albatross and recorded the location as Clark Point. By 1935, a settlement had grown around a post office named Clark’s Point. The point is defined by steep, eroding bluffs of glacial moraine deposits shaped by continental glaciers during the Pleistocene, and a spit of estuarine sediments deposited by tidal currents. Both are susceptible to erosion from tides and storm surges, which prompted residents and community infrastructure to relocate from the spit to higher ground atop the adjacent bluff.

The Yup’ik and Aleut peoples originated in eastern Siberia and migrated east across the Bering Sea in three waves between 16,500 and 11,000 years ago, when the Beringia land bridge was still exposed by lower sea levels near the end of the Last Glacial Maximum. By 3,000 years ago, the ancestors of the Yup’ik had settled along coastal western Alaska and began migrating up major rivers such as the Yukon and Kuskokwim around 600 years ago. In 1818, the Russian-American Company sent Petr Korsakovskiy to explore southwest Alaska with a team of four Russians and 20 Alutiiq from Kodiak; among them was Fedor Kolmakov, tasked independently with identifying new fur sources and establishing trade networks. They founded a trading post known as Fort Alexander, about eight miles (13 km) north of Clark’s Point. In 1883, the vessel Neptune anchored in Nushagak Bay to assess commercial salmon prospects, and by the late 1880s four canneries operated there: Arctic Packing Company at Kanulik, Bristol Bay Canning Company at Scandinavian Creek, Alaska Packing Company at Kanakanak, and Nushagak Packing Company at Clark’s Point.

By 1890, overproduction forced the first of several industry consolidations. The Alaska Packers Association was formed to control output, and in 1893 the Nushagak Packing Company joined its ranks. In 1901, the cannery added a second line, and over 1,000 gillnetters were fishing Nushagak and Bristol Bay waters. Wartime demand during the first world war pushed canneries to operate around the clock, yielding record profits, but the pressure likely contributed to a major crash in sockeye runs in 1919. During the second world war, canning ceased and only salting continued. The plant closed in 1952, after which the Alaska Packers Association used it as a fleet headquarters. Persistent erosion and flooding on the spit prompted construction of a housing project in 1982 on the bluff just south of the spit for permanent residents. Commercial fishing remains the economic base of Clark’s Point. Most residents depend to some extent on subsistence, ranging widely for salmon, smelt, moose, bear, rabbit, ptarmigan, duck, and geese. Exchange relationships with nearby communities are common—whitefish from Ekwok, New Stuyahok, and Bethel are traded for smelt, while lingcod from Manokotak is traded for moose. Air transport is the primary means of reaching Clark’s Point, though freight arrives by barge to Dillingham before being flown or lightered to the community. Read more here and here. Explore more of Clark’s Point and Nushagak Bay here: