| Nickname: Emerald Isle[1] | |
|---|---|
| Geography | |
| Location | Pacific Ocean |
| Archipelago | Kodiak Archipelago |
| Total islands | 25 |
| Area | 9,311.24 km2 (3,595.09 sq mi) |
| Country | |
|
United States
|
|
| State | Alaska |
| Borough | Kodiak Island |
| Largest city | Kodiak |
| Demographics | |
| Ethnic groups | Alutiiq, European, Filipino other Asian and Indigenous peoples, Hispanics, including Filipino Hispanics |
Kodiak Island is a large island on the south coast of the U.S. state of Alaska, 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 9,311.24 km2 (3,595.09 sq mi).[2] It is 160 km (100 miles) long and in width ranges from 16 to 96 km (10 to 60 miles). Kodiak Island is the namesake for Kodiak Seamount, which lies off the coast at the Aleutian Trench. The largest community on the island is the city of Kodiak, Alaska.
Kodiak Island is mountainous and heavily forested in the north and east, but fairly treeless on 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.
Kodiak Island is part of the Kodiak Island Borough and Kodiak Archipelago of Alaska. The town of Kodiak 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 is also part of the island community. Kodiak is also home to the largest U.S. Coast Guard base, which includes Integrated Support Command Kodiak, Air Station Kodiak, Communications Station Kodiak, and Aids to Navigation Station Kodiak.
The Kodiak Bear and the king crab are native to the island. The fishing industry is the most important economic activity on the island; fisheries include Pacific salmon, Pacific halibut, and crab. 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.
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Kodiak is the ancestral land of the Sugpiaq, an Alutiiq nation of Alaska Natives. The original inhabitants subsisted by hunting, fishing, farming, and gathering. The first outsiders to settle on the island were Russian explorers under Grigory Shelekhov, who founded a Russian settlement on Kodiak Island at Three Saints Bay near the present-day village of Old Harbor in 1784. Following the 1867 Alaska purchase the island became part of the United States; Americans settled there and engaged in hunting and fox farming.
The Koniaga had been studied by European explorers, who marveled at their practice of male concubinage: "A Kodiak mother will select her handsomest and most promising boy, and dress and rear him as a girl, teaching him only domestic duties, keeping him at women's work, associating him with women and girls, in order to render his effeminacy complete. Arriving at the age of ten or fifteen years, he is married to some wealthy man who regards such a companion as a great acquisition. These male concubines are called Achnutschik or Schopans'" (Richard Francis Burton in his Terminal Essay, after Holmberg, Langsdorff, Joseph Billings, Choris, Yuri Lisiansky and Marchand)
Kodiak Island was explored in 1763 by Russian fur trader Stephan Glotov. The island was the location of the first permanent Russian settlement in Alaska, founded by Grigory Shelikhov, a fur trader, on Three Saints Bay in 1784. The settlement was moved to the site of present-day Kodiak in 1792 and became the center of Russian fur trading.
Novarupta is a volcano 100 miles (160 km) northwest of Kodiak Island that erupted in 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 and sulfur dioxide gas rendered villagers helpless . Among Kodiak's 500 inhabitants, sore eyes and respiratory problems were widespread. Water became undrinkable. Radio communications 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.[3][4]
On June 9 Kodiak villagers saw the first clear, ash-free skies in three days, but their environment had changed fundamentally. Wildlife on Kodiak Island was decimated by ash and acid rain from the eruption. Bears 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 mosquitoes were exterminated. Aquatic organisms in the region perished in the ash-clogged waters. Salmon, 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.[5]
The island was also hit by the 1964 Good Friday Earthquake and tsunami, which destroyed much of the waterfront, business district, and several villages.[6]
| Wikisource has the text of the 1920 Encyclopedia Americana article Kodiak. |