Chirikof Island
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Chirikof Island is a treeless, uninhabited island in the northern Pacific Ocean, 290 km west of Kodiak Island in the Kodiak Island Borough, and south of the Alaska Peninsula in Alaska, USA, at . The land area of the island is 114.787 km² (44.32 sq mi). It is 18 km long, and just over 11 km wide. The highest peak of the island is 300 m.
It was inhabited in pre-historic times. Chipped and ground tools has been tentatively dated to circa 4200 years ago. The island is currently uninhabited.
The Old Islanders of Chirikof Island (near ANIA) employed chipped and ground tool technology but in different styles from Takli and Ocean Bay II. It probably represents a regional phase of the central and western Alaska Peninsula and offshore islands of the 4200 BP period.
The island was "discovered" by a Russian seafarer Aleksei Chirikov in 1741. An English explorer George Vancouver named it after Chirikov in 1798.
It is said to have been used at times by the Russians as a prison island - very much feared because, periodically, huge waves would sweep right over the island taking everyone with them. This is why it was never settled for any length of time.
Because it is so low, it affords only slight protection from the wind, though fishing boats sometimes anchor nearby to get what shelter they can. It was famous for its wild cattle (including highland cattle) descended from stock left ashore at times to provide emergency provisions for people stranded there. There was a cattle ranch on the island for a few years but the lease expired in 2000.
Chirikof Island was included by the U.S. Congress in the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge in 1980.
[edit] External links
- [1] Excellent photos as well as a satellite photo and a map of the island plus details of the cattle ranch.
- [2] Brief archaeological report of the region, including Chirikof Island
- Chirikof Island: Block 1017, Census Tract 1, Kodiak Island Borough, Alaska United States Census Bureau
