Kodiak Island (
Alutiiq: ''Qikertaq''), is a large island on the south coast of the
U.S. state of
Alaska
Alaska ( ; russian: Аляска, Alyaska; ale, Alax̂sxax̂; ; ems, Alas'kaaq; Yup'ik: ''Alaskaq''; tli, Anáaski) is a state located in the Western United States on the northwest extremity of North America. A semi-exclave of the U ...
, separated from the Alaska mainland by the
Shelikof Strait. The largest island in the
Kodiak Archipelago, Kodiak Island is the
second largest island in the United States and the
80th largest island in the world, with an area of , slightly larger than
Cyprus
Cyprus ; tr, Kıbrıs (), officially the Republic of Cyprus,, , lit: Republic of Cyprus is an island country located south of the Anatolian Peninsula in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Its continental position is disputed; while it is ...
. It is long and in width ranges from . Kodiak Island is the namesake for
Kodiak Seamount, which lies off the coast at the
Aleutian Trench
The Aleutian Trench (or Aleutian Trough) is an oceanic trench along a convergent plate boundary which runs along the southern coastline of Alaska and the Aleutian islands. The trench extends for from a triple junction in the west with the Ulak ...
. The largest community on the island is the city of
Kodiak, Alaska
Kodiak ( Alutiiq: , russian: Кадьяк), formerly Paul's Harbor, is the main city and one of seven communities on Kodiak Island in Kodiak Island Borough, Alaska. All commercial transportation between the island's communities and the outside ...
.
Kodiak Island is mountainous and heavily forested in the north and east, but fairly treeless in the south. The island has many deep, ice-free bays that provide sheltered anchorages for boats. The southwestern two-thirds of the island, like much of the Kodiak Archipelago, is part of
Kodiak National Wildlife Refuge
The Kodiak National Wildlife Refuge is a United States National Wildlife Refuge in the Kodiak Archipelago in southwestern Alaska, United States.
Description
The Kodiak National Wildlife Refuge includes the southwestern two-thirds of Kodiak Is ...
.
Kodiak Island is part of the
Kodiak Island Borough and
Kodiak Archipelago of Alaska. The town of
Kodiak Kodiak may refer to:
Places
* Kodiak, Alaska, a city located on Kodiak island
* Kodiak, Missouri, an unincorporated community
*Kodiak Archipelago, in southern Alaska
* Kodiak Island, the largest island of the Kodiak archipelago
** Kodiak Launch C ...
is one of seven communities on Kodiak Island and is the island's main city. All commercial transportation between the island and the outside world goes through this city either via ferryboat or airline. Other settlements include the villages of
Akhiok,
Old Harbor,
Karluk,
Larsen Bay,
Port Lions, and an unorganized community near Cape Chiniak. The village of
Ouzinkie on nearby
Spruce Island
Spruce Island (russian: Еловый остров) is an island in the Kodiak Archipelago of the Gulf of Alaska in the US state of Alaska. It lies just off the northeast corner of Kodiak Island, across the Narrow Strait.
Demographics
Spruce Islan ...
is also part of the island community.
Kodiak is also home to the largest
U.S. Coast Guard base, which includes
Coast Guard Base Kodiak
Coast Guard Base Kodiak is a major shore installation of the United States Coast Guard, located in Kodiak, Alaska. The largest tenant unit on the base is Air Station Kodiak. It is also the home port for several cutters. Historic elements that ...
,
Coast Guard Air Station Kodiak, Communications Station Kodiak, and Aids to Navigation Station Kodiak. The island is also home to the
Pacific Spaceport Complex.
The
Kodiak bear
The Kodiak bear (''Ursus arctos middendorffi''), also known as the Kodiak brown bear, sometimes the Alaskan brown bear, inhabits the islands of the Kodiak Archipelago in southwest Alaska. It is the largest recognized subspecies or population ...
and the
king crab are native to the island. The
fishing industry
The fishing industry includes any industry or activity concerned with taking, culturing, processing, preserving, storing, transporting, marketing or selling fish or fish products. It is defined by the Food and Agriculture Organization as including ...
is the most important economic activity on the island;
fisheries
Fishery can mean either the enterprise of raising or harvesting fish and other aquatic life; or more commonly, the site where such enterprise takes place ( a.k.a. fishing ground). Commercial fisheries include wild fisheries and fish farms, ...
include
Pacific salmon
''Oncorhynchus'' is a genus of fish in the family Salmonidae; it contains the Pacific salmon and Pacific trout. The name of the genus is derived from the Greek ὄγκος (ónkos, “lump, bend”) + ῥύγχος (rhúnkhos, “snout”), i ...
,
Pacific halibut, and
crab
Crabs are decapod crustaceans of the infraorder Brachyura, which typically have a very short projecting "tail" (abdomen) ( el, βραχύς , translit=brachys = short, / = tail), usually hidden entirely under the thorax. They live in all th ...
. The
Karluk River is famous for its
salmon run. Logging, ranching, numerous canneries, and some copper mining are also prevalent.
An
antenna farm at the summit of Pillar Mountain above the city of Kodiak provides primary communications to and from the island.
History
Kodiak is the ancestral land of the
Sugpiaq, an
Alutiiq nation of
Native Americans. The original inhabitants subsisted by hunting marine mammals, fishing, and gathering. Kodiak Island was explored in 1763 by Russian fur trader
Stepan Glotov 400px, Stepan Glotov
Stephan Gavrilovich Glotov (russian: Степа́н Гаврилович Гло́тов) (c. 1729 in Yarensk, Russia – May 5, 1769 in Unimak Island) was a Russian navigator, explorer, and fur trader. He was the first Russi ...
.
The first outsiders to settle on the island were Russian explorers under
Grigory Shelikhov, a
fur trader
The fur trade is a worldwide industry dealing in the acquisition and sale of animal fur. Since the establishment of a world fur market in the early modern period, furs of boreal, polar and cold temperate mammalian animals have been the most ...
, who founded a
Russian settlement on Kodiak Island at
Three Saints Bay in 1784; the present-day village of Old Harbor developed near there.
[Brown, S.R., 2009, Merchant Kings, New York:St. Martin's Press, ] In 1792, the settlement was moved to the site of present-day
Kodiak Kodiak may refer to:
Places
* Kodiak, Alaska, a city located on Kodiak island
* Kodiak, Missouri, an unincorporated community
*Kodiak Archipelago, in southern Alaska
* Kodiak Island, the largest island of the Kodiak archipelago
** Kodiak Launch C ...
and became the center of Russian
fur trading with the Alaska Natives.
In 1793, Grigory Shelikhov, with the help of the governor-general of
Irkutsk
Irkutsk ( ; rus, Иркутск, p=ɪrˈkutsk; Buryat and mn, Эрхүү, ''Erhüü'', ) is the largest city and administrative center of Irkutsk Oblast, Russia. With a population of 617,473 as of the 2010 Census, Irkutsk is the 25th-larges ...
, was given twenty craftsmen and ten families of farmers with the obligation of paying government taxes for them, for promoting successful development of Russia-America settlements and the establishment of shipyards and factories.
The settlers provided to Shelikhov were not serfs in the full sense of the word. It was not possible to sell, mortgage, or give away the settlers; they were owned by the company for as long as the
Shelikhov-Golikov Company
The Shelikhov-Golikov Company (SGC) was a Russian fur trading venture, founded by Irkutsk entrepreneurs Grigory Shelikhov and Ivan Larionovich Golikov in 1783. Formed in Eastern Siberia during the 1780s along with several competing companies, ...
existed.
In 1784, Shelikhov, along with 130
Russian fur traders, massacred (see
Awa'uq Massacre
The Awa'uq MassacreSven Haakanson, Jr. (2010)"Written Voices Become History" In ''Being and Becoming Indigenous Archaeologists''. George Nicholas (editor). Left Coast press, Inc., 2010 or Refuge Rock Massacre, or, more recently, as the Wounded ...
) several hundred ''Qik’rtarmiut Sugpiat'' ("Sugpiaq people of Qik’rtaq/Kodiak") tribe of
Alutiiq men, women and children at Refuge Rock, a tiny
stack
Stack may refer to:
Places
* Stack Island, an island game reserve in Bass Strait, south-eastern Australia, in Tasmania’s Hunter Island Group
* Blue Stack Mountains, in Co. Donegal, Ireland
People
* Stack (surname) (including a list of people ...
island off the eastern coast of
Sitkalidak Island Sitkalidak Island (russian: Ситкалидак) is an island in the western Gulf of Alaska in the Kodiak Island Borough of the state of Alaska, United States. It lies just off the southeast shore of Kodiak Island, across the Sitkalidak Strait f ...
. In Alutiiq, this sacred place is now known as ''Awa'uq'', "to become numb".
[Ben Fitzhugh (2003)]
''The Evolution of Complex Hunter-Gatherers: Archaeological Evidence from the North Pacific''
Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers, New York, 2003
The
Alutiiq were conscripted by the Russian occupants for the purpose of hunting, gathering, and processing food and furs. Native labor was commandeered through hostage taking, physical threat, and punishment.
The Alutiiq men were forced to obtain quotas of otter pelts and bird skins which were then stitched into waterproof parkas by the Alutiiq women.
The waterproof garments, made by the Alutiiq women, were given to the Alutiiq men as payment for the furs brought to the Russian fur traders.
The Orthodox mission in
Russian America
Russian America (russian: Русская Америка, Russkaya Amerika) was the name for the Russian Empire's colonial possessions in North America from 1799 to 1867. It consisted mostly of present-day Alaska in the United States, but a ...
was authorized by
Catherine II
, en, Catherine Alexeievna Romanova, link=yes
, house =
, father = Christian August, Prince of Anhalt-Zerbst
, mother = Joanna Elisabeth of Holstein-Gottorp
, birth_date =
, birth_name = Princess Sophie of Anhal ...
in 1793, and then was established on Kodiak Island in 1794 by a group of monks from the
Valaam Monastery in
St. Petersburg.
The Russian fur traders radically expanded
sea otter
The sea otter (''Enhydra lutris'') is a marine mammal native to the coasts of the northern and eastern North Pacific Ocean. Adult sea otters typically weigh between , making them the heaviest members of the weasel family, but among the smal ...
hunting operations and forced the Alutiiq men to hunt for longer periods of time at increasingly distant areas as the local population of fur-bearing animals was extinguished.
The Alutiiq suffered starvation and physical separation of families because of the able-bodied men hunting and trapping furs rather than providing food for the women, young, old, and sick as they had done traditionally.
In 1837-1839, a
smallpox
Smallpox was an infectious disease caused by variola virus (often called smallpox virus) which belongs to the genus Orthopoxvirus. The last naturally occurring case was diagnosed in October 1977, and the World Health Organization (WHO) c ...
epidemic swept through all the
Russian America
Russian America (russian: Русская Америка, Russkaya Amerika) was the name for the Russian Empire's colonial possessions in North America from 1799 to 1867. It consisted mostly of present-day Alaska in the United States, but a ...
territory and destroyed an estimated one-third of the Native population.
The remaining Alutiiq on Kodiak Island were then consolidated into seven settlements where they were more readily offered medical, educational, and religious services by the
Russian-American Company
The Russian-American Company Under the High Patronage of His Imperial Majesty (russian: Под высочайшим Его Императорского Величества покровительством Российская-Американс� ...
.
The smallpox epidemic was eventually stopped with
vaccination
Vaccination is the administration of a vaccine to help the immune system develop immunity from a disease. Vaccines contain a microorganism or virus in a weakened, live or killed state, or proteins or toxins from the organism. In stimulat ...
of the natives.
Following the 1867
Alaska purchase
The Alaska Purchase (russian: Продажа Аляски, Prodazha Alyaski, Sale of Alaska) was the United States' acquisition of Alaska from the Russian Empire. Alaska was formally transferred to the United States on October 18, 1867, through a ...
by the United States, the island became part of the United States. Gradually Americans settled there, also engaging in hunting and fishing.
1912 Novarupta eruption
Novarupta is a volcano northwest of Kodiak Island that erupted from June 6 to June 8, 1912: the largest eruption in the 20th century. Life on Kodiak Island was immobilized during the 60-hour eruption. Darkness and suffocating conditions caused by the falling
ash
Ash or ashes are the solid remnants of fires. Specifically, ''ash'' refers to all non-aqueous, non-gaseous residues that remain after something burns. In analytical chemistry, to analyse the mineral and metal content of chemical samples, ash ...
and
sulfur dioxide
Sulfur dioxide (IUPAC-recommended spelling) or sulphur dioxide (traditional Commonwealth English) is the chemical compound with the formula . It is a toxic gas responsible for the odor of burnt matches. It is released naturally by volcanic a ...
gas rendered villagers helpless. Among Kodiak's 500 inhabitants, sore eyes and respiratory problems were widespread. Water became undrinkable.
Radio communication
Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 30 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a trans ...
s were disrupted and visibility was nil. Roofs in the village collapsed under the weight of more than a foot of ash. Buildings were destroyed as avalanches of ash rushed down from nearby hillsides.
On June 9, Kodiak villagers saw the first clear, ash-free skies in three days, but their environment had changed dramatically. Wildlife on Kodiak Island was devastated by ash and acid rain from the eruption.
Bear
Bears are carnivoran mammals of the family Ursidae. They are classified as caniforms, or doglike carnivorans. Although only eight species of bears are extant, they are widespread, appearing in a wide variety of habitats throughout the No ...
s and other large animals were blinded by thick ash, and many starved to death because large numbers of plants and small animals were smothered in the eruption. Birds blinded and coated by volcanic ash fell to the ground. Even the region's prolific
mosquito
Mosquitoes (or mosquitos) are members of a group of almost 3,600 species of small flies within the family Culicidae (from the Latin ''culex'' meaning " gnat"). The word "mosquito" (formed by ''mosca'' and diminutive ''-ito'') is Spanish for "li ...
es were exterminated. Aquatic organisms in the region perished in the ash-clogged waters.
Salmon
Salmon () is the common name for several commercially important species of euryhaline ray-finned fish from the family Salmonidae, which are native to tributaries of the North Atlantic (genus '' Salmo'') and North Pacific (genus '' Onco ...
in all stages of life were destroyed by the eruption and its aftereffects. From 1915 to 1919, southwestern Alaska's
salmon-fishing industry was devastated.
1964 earthquake
The island was also hit by the 1964
Good Friday earthquake and
tsunami
A tsunami ( ; from ja, 津波, lit=harbour wave, ) is a series of waves in a water body caused by the displacement of a large volume of water, generally in an ocean or a large lake. Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and other underwater exp ...
, which destroyed much of the waterfront, the business district, and several villages.
Climate
The weather of Kodiak is temperate by Alaskan standards. December to March is the cold season while June to August is the summer season.
Education
The
University of Alaska Anchorage
The University of Alaska Anchorage (UAA) is a public university in Anchorage, Alaska. UAA also administers four community campuses spread across Southcentral Alaska: Kenai Peninsula College, Kodiak College, Matanuska–Susitna College, and Pr ...
has a campus which opened in 1968, located about northwest of the City of Kodiak.
[Kodiak College](_blank)
/ref>
Parks and protected areas
Nearly two-thirds of the island is located within the Kodiak National Wildlife Refuge
The Kodiak National Wildlife Refuge is a United States National Wildlife Refuge in the Kodiak Archipelago in southwestern Alaska, United States.
Description
The Kodiak National Wildlife Refuge includes the southwestern two-thirds of Kodiak Is ...
and has no road access. Refuge headquarters are located on the Chiniak Highway, right at the access road for the Buskin River State Recreation Site, which has camping, picnic areas, beaches, and fishing for salmon and trout in the Buskin River.
The Pasagshak River State Recreation Site is a park with a small campground and access to some of the island's best salmon and trout fishing.Pasagshak River SRS
Alaska Department of Natural Resources
The island is also home to the
Fort Abercrombie State Historical Park.
References
External links
Official Kodiak Island websiteReconnaissance Geologic Map of Kodiak Island and Adjacent Islands, AlaskaUnited States Geological Survey
The United States Geological Survey (USGS), formerly simply known as the Geological Survey, is a scientific agency of the United States government. The scientists of the USGS study the landscape of the United States, its natural resources, ...
Kodiak management area salmon daily and cumulative escapement counts for river systems with fish weirs, 1997-2006, and peak indexed escapement counts, 2006 / by Iris O. Caldentey.
{{Authority control
Islands of Alaska
Islands of the Kodiak Archipelago