We, Nicolette and myself, asked Elena Sergie how Lower Kalskag first started and when they built the Orthodox Church, the post office and the clinic. After interviewing our grandma, we learned a lot of important information that we did not know about our village.

   The first location site was back a little above Mud Creek. Valka Valka and his wife Molly Valka were the first people to start it off. Their homes were mud houses made underground with wood, branches, and rocks. Then they moved the location to present day Lower Kalskag. It started out as a fish camp owned by John Elia and his wife Anna Elia in 1944. They decided to move the location closer to the river because the first location was too far back for them.

  After moving to the new location other families started to move in also. The Evans, Kameroffs, Wises, Williams, and the Levis all moved to this location. In 1940 the Russian Orthodox Chapel of St. Seraphim was built, 6 years before my grandma Elena Sergie was born. Later in 1959 the Zackar Levi Elementary School was built in Lower Kalskag. Before the new clinic was built in 1969 there were only health aids, which were on call, they all took turns out of the week to help the people in the village.

     The location of Lower Kalskag is a great place to go fishing, hunting, and a beautiful place to live that is why they moved the location to this area closer to the river. The river is not only a good resource for food, but it was also used for transportation up and down the Kuskokwim River. As families moved in, more homes were built and then came larger boats with equipment for construction. From this point the community became more civilized.