The camp is being held on Korovin Beach in Atka. (Credit: Lauren Rosenthal)

Unangan elders and cultural experts are converging on a remote beach in Atka this week for the island’s first-ever culture camp.

"The camp’s going to focus on traditional foods, traditional boat building and basket weaving," says David Michael Karabelnikoff.

Karabelnikoff is an activist and traditional qayaq maker from Anchorage. He helped the Atka tribal council plan the event.

There are lots of culture camps around the state, but Karabelnikoff says Atka wanted theirs to be a little different. For one thing, it’s not geared toward kids.

"It’s intergenerational, so we have everyone from elders to young people," he says. "The whole idea is to take the subsistence knowledge that Atka has been able to maintain and to transfer that between the generations so that young people are in the know."

But transferring knowledge doesn’t mean giving lessons or lectures. Marc Daniels is a California carpenter who builds Aleut iqyan, or skin boats.

He was heading out to Atka to serve as an instructor -- but Daniels hoped youth and elders would simply work alongside him.

"While our hands are busy, we can chat and get to know each other," Daniels says. "And that’s when the stories start coming out."

Atka elders will also be on hand to hunt and prepare traditional foods, and a resident of Russia’s Commander Islands has traveled out to share his expertise on boot-making.

The camp goes through Sunday on Korovin Beach in Atka. It will end with a community potluck.