Anchorage 1910 - 1940 Legends & Legacies

Stephan, Sava, Sr.

1920-2013 | Dena'ina Athabascan Elder, and Commercial Fisherman and Trapper

Sava “Chudda” and “Duggel” Stephan Sr. was believed to be the last speaker of the Upper Cook Inlet Dena’ina Athabaskan dialect. He was a fisherman and trapper by trade, and was also an acclaimed traditional Native dancer. He also spent his life devoted to the Russian Orthodox Church and, in recognition, was given the title of starista, or caretaker of the church. In addition, he was instrumental in preserving the Dena’ina language by working with the Alaska Native Language Center at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.[1] His other nickname was Duggel, the Russian word for “handle.” Sava Stephan later explained: “I used to haul that cooking utensil. They called me Duggel because I used to handle them cooking utensils. Joe Nicoli, guy from Kroto Creek, named me that.”[2]

Sava Stephan Sr., nephew of Shem Pete, was born in Tsat'ukeg, renamed Susitna Station,[3], on January 18, 1920, to Anderson and Inga Stephan of the Dena’ina village of Kroto Creek. He was born just six hours after his cousin, Bill S. Pete, was born. His mother’s full maiden name was Evgenia Ephim. She and Anderson Stephan were married in Talkeetna in 1919. His mother died in 1927. Shem Pete’s wife died in 1925. After losing their wives, Anderson Stephan and Shem Pete would often travel with Sava and Bill S. Pete.

Stephan grew up hunting and trapping with his father, Anderson Stephan. Sava recalled: "We used to make about one thousand dollars a year" trapping around Susitna.   He did not even remember the first time he went out, barely able to walk in snowshoes. Sava Stephan remembered the Susitna Station area fondly. "We used to eat good all the time."

In 1934, Stephan was one of eleven people who left the abandoned village of Susitna Station to move to Tyonek (a small fishing village on the west side of Cook Inlet) at the invitation of Chief Simeon Chickalusion. He began fishing instead of trapping.

Stephan later recalled:

“I don’t remember when I first went out hunting. I started walking with my dad when I was about five years old. I can hardly walk in snowshoes. But I have been with him all the time after that since I started putting the snowshoes on. I have been trapping with him all the time. Every year. I was with my dad, all the time. I didn’t go to school or nothing. Because he was takin’ me out trapping. I think I was trapping since I was seven years old. I was traveling with him. All that time I was out trapping with him. Until they brought us down here [to Tyonek], we started fishing. Then I quit trapping, and my dad died down here [in Tyonek], too. Since then I’m still in Tyonek, and that’s all we can do—fishing. I never can go out trapping or nothing since my dad died.”[4]

Sava Stephan frequently reminisced about the Dena’ina people who lived in Anchorage in the 1920s to the 1940s. Stephan often stayed in Anchorage with his grandmother and another old Dena'ina lady near the mouth of Chester Creek, "by the railroad bridge," where a small number of Dena'ina had cabins. Of these two old women Stephan said: "You know how they do, old timers, they set net, they catch geese, ducks, everything like that, by a set net on the beach at Point Woronzof."  While there, he listened to his grandmother's stories. She encouraged Stephan to become a storyteller himself, but he did not.[5] Later, in Shem Pete’s Alaska, some of his recollections were published and his stories offer a Dena’ina view of Anchorage.[6]

In 1938, he married Anna “Annie” Chickalusion, the daughter of Simeon and Annie Chickalusion. Anna Chickalusion was born on June 10, 1925.[7] Together they had seven children, including Sava Jr., Isaac, Ralph, and Agrefena before Anna's death in 1951. Throughout his adult life, he travelled extensively throughout the Cook Inlet region; he credited Buster Ephim with teaching him to row and captain boats around treacherous Cook Inlet. He once rowed from Point Possession to Kenai. Sava Stephan was the last Dena'ina Athabascan to have gone to Rainy Pass in the fall for hunting.[8] He served as dichuk (churchwarden) for the Tyonek Russian Orthodox Church for over thirty years and was honored by the church as a starista, supporter of the church, for his service.[9]

Stephan was a strong proponent of Dena'ina culture and language, and he helped found the Tyonek Singers and Dancers to carry on traditional Dena'ina practices. He was a prominent Native Elder and important contributor to preserving Dena'ina traditions.

Stephan co-authored two sets of Dena'ina language materials. These were a set of Upper Cook Inlet Dena’ina literacy exercises[10] and Upper Cook Inlet Dena’ina Language Lessons.[11]

For more than ten years, Stephan served as a main source for technical translations with fellow Dena'ina elder Shem Pete's complex and multi-faceted story collection. He had a strong interest in his Native culture and heritage. He was also a source of information about Dena’ina lifeways for the book, Shem Pete’s Alaska: The Territory of the Upper Cook Inlet Dena’ina, with principal contributor Shem Pete. It was originally published in 1987, by the Alaska Native Language Center at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, with assistance from the CIRI Foundation. It became a classic reference for its documentation of Upper Cook Inlet place names and an essential reference book on the Dena'ina Indian people. The 1987 and 2003 editions of Shem Pete's Alaska influenced Dena'ina scholarship and cultural identity, and led to visible recognition of Dena'ina identity and place-names in Anchorage and the Cook Inlet region.[12] In 2016, a second revised edition was published by the University of Alaska Press with the Alaska Native Language Center.[13] Stephan was also interviewed in 1985 for the CIRI Foundation publication, Our Stories, Our Lives: A Collection of Twenty-Three Transcribed Interviews with Elders of the Cook Inlet Region (1986).[14] 

In 1990, Stephan moved to Anchorage after a fall, injuring his spine, in Tyonek. Following publication of the 2003 edition of Shem Pete’s Alaska, he continued his contributions to Dena’ina language and culture. After Shem Pete’s death in 1989, Stephan became the leading authority on Dena’ina culture and recognized expert on the Upper Inlet Dena’ina people. In 2003, the Cook Inlet Region, Inc. acknowledged his outstanding contributions to Dena’ina language and culture with the Shareholder of the Year award. He participated in several Dena’ina language classes in 2004-2005 at the Alaska Native Language Center.[15]

Anna “Annie” Stephan died on January 19, 1951. Sava Stephan died at the Alaska Native Medical Center in Anchorage, at the age of ninety-three, on June 1, 2013. They are buried in the Tyonek Cemetery, in the village of Tyonek, Kenai Peninsula Borough, Alaska.

In addition to Anna “Annie” Stephan, he was preceded in death by his sons Ralph D.[16] and Sava, Jr.[17], and daughter, Agrefena [Agrafena?]. He was survived by his son and daughter-in-law, Isaac and Ellen Stephan, seven grandchildren, seven great-grandchildren, and one great-great grandchild.[18]

• Print
• Email