Native peoples of Kamchatka (Itelmen, Ainu, Koryaks, and Chuvans), collectively referred to as Kamchadals, had a substantial hunter-gatherer and fishing society with up to fifty thousand natives inhabiting the peninsula before they were decimated during the Russian conquest, both by brutal repressions of the rebellions of locals and by a major smallpox epidemic, in the 18th century.

Four beams at the center of the dwelling supported the roof of the house, upon which rafters were laid, connecting the top of the yurt to the earthen walls.

Atop the wooden rafters, approximately 30 cm (1 ft) of straw was laid, on top of which the excavated dirt was placed and stamped down.

Most villages, in addition to summer and winter houses, contained straw huts built on the ground, which were used for cooking food, boiling salt from sea water and rendering fat.

They postulated a devil, who was called Kamma, who was said to live in a tree outside Nizhnoi village, which was annually shot up with arrows.

A common food enjoyed at festivities, selaga, was a mash made of sarana, pine nuts, fireweed, cow parsnip, bistort roots, and various berries cooked in seal, whale or fish oil.

[4] Steller cites anecdotal evidence of several Russian forays into Kamchatka prior to the arrival of Vladimir Atlasov.

Atlasov began his conquest of Kamchatka by sending Luka Morozko on reconnaissance foray in 1695, and embarked himself a year later with 120 men, half of whom were Yukakghir auxiliaries, to gather tribute and to annex the region for the crown.

[6] Leaving from Anadyrsk bay on the backs of reindeer, they explored much of the western coast and crossed the mountains to the east to subdue the population there.

By mid July 1696, he had reached the Kamchatka River, at which point he divided his party in two, one band returning westward and the other remaining on the eastern coast.

A band of Koryaks additionally absconded with Atlasov's itinerant reindeer herd, but were chased down by the Russians and killed to one man.

[6] The first Cossack settlement in the area was Bolsheretsk, founded in 1703 by Atlasov, although Steller notes that it was already a prominent village at the arrival of “that wind-bag Atlasov.”[4] The Itelmens he found there were in possession of a captive Japanese merchant's clerk, who had been part of an expedition that was shipwrecked and overtaken by Itelmens upon arrival at the Kamchatka River.

Atlasov, who initially assumed the prisoner to be a Hindu from India, resulting in confusion over the word "Hondo" or Tokyo, had him sent to Moscow where Peter the Great had him establish a Japanese-language school.

After serving some time in jail, Atlasov resumed legal control in an effort to reimpose law and order on the peninsula.

Thus an expedition to the southern tip of the peninsula and onto the Kuril Islands was conducted, led by Danila Antsiferov and Ivan Kozyrevsky.

Due to increasingly large suicide rates, the Crown made a law prohibiting natives from taking their own lives.

[8] Over time, many Itelmens accepted baptism into the Russian Orthodox Church, though animism remained widespread in practice.