Carvel Zimin, Sr.

Carvel Zimin, Sr. was interviewed on January 27, 1998 by Pat Partnow at his house in South Naknek, Alaska. As the two sat at his kitchen table, they looked at the map of the Katmai/South Naknek area and a collection of historic photos that Carvel had collected over the last half century. Carvel was especially concerned with the changes in the subsistence practices of local people made necessary by legislative action in Washington, D.C., far from the Alaska Peninsula. These changes ranged from the original establishment of Katmai National Park and the banning of fishing and hunting within its boundaries to its expansion in 1980 following the passage of ANILCA (Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act). Halfway through the interview, Carvel had to leave his house to drive the school bus that collects high school students from the airport after their five-minute flight across the river from Naknek, where the high school is located. When he returned, he continued looking through the photographs and at the map, remembering personal experiences and those he had been told about by elders who have since passed on. He speaks movingly about his own and his mother's feelings for the land and the subsistence way of life.