Residents of a tiny Alaska Native community woke up to a little pre-Thanksgiving excitement Wednesday, with a neighbouring volcano spewing a billowing dark cloud high into the air.

The sooty emissions from Mount Veniaminof were visible from the Aleut village of Perryville nearly 40 kilometres to the south, locals said. But the wind was pushing the plume away from the community of 101 people.

“It’s a big, black, ugly cloud,” lifelong resident Victoria Tague said of the ash, which later slipped behind a cloud cover.

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