Through a preliminary study of four contemporary texts, this paper argues that the alternation between object-verb (OV) and verb-object (VO) orders in Itelmen (itl, Chukotko-Kamchatkan) is primarily a function of Information Structure. Objects introducing a new discourse referent primarily occur in preverbal positions, while objects picking out a previously mentioned entity may occur in either order. This descriptive result, I argue, may shed light on the resolution of an analytic indeterminacy in two constructions in Itelmen. The result is also considered in a cross-linguistic context. The broad outlines of a gener alization are tentatively discernible, whereby the discourse-related factors that influence the packaging of information structure may follow common themes across unrelated languages, but where these are tied (at least within the comment portion of a topic-comment rubric) to structure, rather than linear order per se. The pattern in Itelmen, with pre-verbal O-new and optional extraposition of O-old matches one that is known from other OV languages, where VO is a derived order, and is potentially ultimately derivable from prosodic factors, but distinct from what has been seen in some VO languages, suggesting that the properties of the VO order in Itelmen are not (or not merely) the result of Russian contact. In addition, the asymmetry between the robustness of the ordering effect for O-new and the optionality for O-old fits to a common pattern where IS-driven ordering competes with pressure to retain a canonical order, yielding rigidity when these align, and optionality when they conflict. An alternative account in terms of communicative efficiency and redundant coding of grammatical role is considered, but is found not to offer a better account of the Itelmen constituent order alternations.