Helena Pagano’s great-grandfather was the last Alaska Native chief of a remote island in the Bering Sea, closer to Russia than ...

U.S. and Japanese forces fought over the Aleutian Islands during World War II. Relics of this conflict can still be found on seafloor today, and the Indigenous people who used to call the islands home ...

The island is part of the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge. In August, Pagano made her first trip to Attu, on a ship operated by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which manages the refuge.

Pagano has long believed Japan should pay more restitution for what its soldiers did to her great-grandfather and the other residents of Attu Island. But her demand was sparked anew this summer by ...