A site on the Ugashik River that has been dated to 9000 years is the oldest known site of human occupancy in the Lake & Peninsula Borough.

Archeological evidence confirms that Alaska Native peoples have inhabited Bristol Bay for thousands of years and suggests that over time indigenous cultures arose and disappeared or moved through the region leaving evidence of their occupation.  Oral history as well as the archeological record suggests that conflict was not uncommon between the differing indigenous groups and within the same groups.  

The European discovery of Alaska came in 1741, when a Russian expedition led by Danish navigator Vitus Bering sighted the Alaskan mainland. ¹

The Three Saints Bay colony was founded on Kodiak Island in 1784, and Shelikhov lived there for two years with his wife and 200 men. From Three Saints Bay, the Alaskan mainland was explored, and other fur-trade centers were established. 

In 1786, Shelikhov returned to Russia and in 1790 dispatched Aleksandr Baranov to manage his affairs in Alaska.

Missionary activity of the Russian Orthodox Church in the Lake Clark area probably began before 1796; however acceptance of Christianity among the people of Lake Clark region was not immediate. Although Farther Juvenal passed through the area in 1796.

Baranov established the Russian American Company and in 1799 was granted a monopoly over Alaska. Baranov extended the Russian trade far down the west coast of North America

When the Russian Church established the mission at Nikolaevskii Redoubt on Kenai Peninsula in 1845, Hieromonk Nikolai and his priests began to make more frequent forays into the interior around Lake Clark.

Russian interests in Alaska gradually declined, and after the Crimean War in the 1850s, a nearly bankrupt Russia sought to dispose of the territory altogether.

The czarist government first approached the United States about selling the territory during the administration of President James Buchanan, but negotiations were stalled by the outbreak of the American Civil War.

After the war, Secretary of State William H. Seward, a supporter of territorial expansion, was eager to acquire the tremendous landmass of Alaska, one-fifth the size of the rest of the United States.

Secretary of State William H. Seward signed a treaty with Russia for the purchase of Alaska for $7.2 million. 

Despite the bargain price of roughly two cents an acre, the Alaskan purchase was ridiculed in Congress and in the press as “Seward’s folly,” “Seward’s icebox,” and President Andrew Johnson’s “polar bear garden.” In April 1867, the Senate ratified the treaty by a margin of just one vote.

The first commercial fishing boats paved the way for the fishing industry.

Despite a slow start in settlement by Americans from the continental United States, the discovery of gold in 1898 brought a rapid influx of people to the territory. Alaska, rich in natural resources, has been contributing to American prosperity ever since. 

in 1901-1902 a measles epidemic seriously depleted the Kijik population and provided impetus to found a new settlement at Nondalton on Sixmile Lake, which was closer to the trading posts on Iliamna Lake and the canneries of Bristol Bay.

In 1940 the people of Kijik moved two miles south on Sixmile Lake, to found the present village of Nondalton, thus continuing the tradition of periodic resettlement established by their Kijik forebears.

President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed a proclamation admitting the territory of Alaska into the Union as the 49th state.

On March 27, 1964 at 5:36pm local time (March 28 at 3:36 UTC) an earthquake of magnitude 9.2 occurred in the Prince William Sound region of Alaska. The earthquake rupture started approximately 25 km beneath the surface, with its epicenter about 6 miles (10 km) east of the mouth of College Fiord, 56 miles (90 km) west of Valdez and 75 miles (120 km) east of Anchorage. The earthquake lasted approximately 4.5 minutes and is the most powerful recorded earthquake in U.S. history. It is also the second largest earthquake ever recorded, next to the M9.5 earthquake in Chile in 1960.

The Atlantic Richfield Company and Humble Oil and Refining Company announce the discovery of oil on the North Slope of Alaska at Prudhoe Bay.