John arrived in Alaska from Montenegro in 1903. He and Rika remained friends through the years from 1917 on. He always stayed at Rika's when in the area. He died July 18 1965.

Rika Wallen came to the US with her sister in 1891. Rika decided to explore Alaska and arrived in Valdez in 1916. Moving north, she took a job as a cook at Kennecott Copper Mine, tucked into the Wrangell Mountains, north of Valdez - now Wrangell-St Elias National Park. Later she was cooking at a boarding house in Fairbanks. She returned south to Big Delta in 1917-18 and ran John Hajdukovich's roadhouse near the Tanana River ferry crossing. He sold out to Rika sometime between 1918 and 1923. The roadhouse changed names from McCarty's to Rika's. She spent the rest of her life there.

The gravesite is located 0.4 miles along a spur off Rika Road,

Richardson Hwy ~ Rika's Roadhouse

Big Delta ~ Alaska