Simon Panniaq, Paneak (1900-1975) was born in the spring of the year near the mouth of the Killik River valley of the north central Brooks Range. The youngest of six children, Simon, his parents, and siblings were among those fortunate families who survived the years of famine and disease that decimated the Nunamiut and drove them to the Arctic coast in the early years of the century.

Over the next 20 years and more, while living along the coast, Simon grew into an active and robust young hunter mastering the ability to speak and write in English, a set of skills which served him well for the rest of his life. In the midst of the Great Depression he became part of a movement of Nunamiut families who determined to return inland and resume their old way of life, beginning around 1935.

In the summer of 1944 Simon was a participant, along with a handful of other families, in a remarkable event, prompted by war-induced ammunition shortages. Their solution was to return to the ways of their forebears, to build a small fleet of qayaqs outfitted with home-made lances and to drive caribou herds into a lake and to spear them as they swam. No such hunts had been mounted for nearly half a century, and this hunt turned out to be the last one ever conducted.

The previous spring, pioneer bush pilot Sig Wien encountered Simon at Chandler Lake, thus establishing first air contact with the Nunamiut, which in just a few short years led to all Nunamiut families relocating to the Anaktuvuk valley where regular air service was established. Soon thereafter visiting scientists from many differing fields of inquiry began making their way to the Nunamiut to study, as well as to learn from them. It was through his involvement with these researchers that Simon became well known to the outside world.

For the next thirty years Simon worked with a long train of scientists who came to depend upon his obvious intelligence and ability with the English language. Among his closest friends was the noted Arctic biologist Laurence Irving, a man who quickly came to appreciate Simon's knowledge, understanding and mastery of the natural world in which he lived.

In addition to the world of nature Simon was keenly interested in the traditions and history of his own people and made it a lifelong habit to learn from knowledgeable elders across northern Alaska, and in the process he became an important source for anthropologists and archaeologists alike.

Over the years Simon made many other valuable contributions to the record of his people's history and traditions through the recording of oral history tapes, the writing of letters, journals and notebooks, as well as drafting numerous detailed and annotated drawings of traditional implements and life. He is also credited as co-author of at least three scholarly papers and a significant contributor in the acknowledgements of dozen more.

Copies of many of those materials are on file at both the University of Alaska Rasmuson Library Archives and the Simon Paneak Memorial Museum in Anaktuvuk Pass. They represent an invaluable resource upon which the ANEP grant has been able to draw in the development of some of its materials. Thus Simon is making another substantial contribution to his people nearly 30 years after his passing.