Aleutian Islands

The Aleutian Islands make up a chain of sixty-nine islands and many islets between the US state of Alaska and Russia. Most of the islands are part of Alaska. They are primarily of volcanic origin and mark the edges of the Pacific and North American tectonic plates. The chain divides the Bering Sea in the north from the Gulf of Alaska and the main Pacific Ocean in the south. The region has been occupied for nearly ten thousand years. Many of the islands provide breeding habitat for seabirds, and, in modern times, much of the area is protected. Historically, the region is significant as one of the few US lands occupied by Japan during World War II. Wartime activities there continue to resonate as plans are made to remove fuel and other leftover pollutants.

Background

The Alaska Archipelago marks the Aleutian Trench, part of a convergent plate boundary where the Pacific Plate is being subducted under the North American Plate at a closure rate of 3 inches (8 centimeters) a year. The Aleutian Arc, a geologic volcanic grouping, crosses longitude 180° and includes more than eighty active and dormant volcanoes. More than forty-four of these have erupted since written records began in 1741. These volcanoes have formed the islands as they erupted, venting rock, ash, and lava. Furthermore, lava, ash, and mud that reaches the ocean often return to shores where it rebuilds beaches. Volcanoes have also destroyed small islands. Bogoslof, for example, has been quickly built up and destroyed by eruptions. One of two small islands of low elevation offering evidence of a large stratovolcano (or composite volcano) rising about 6,000 feet (1,800 meters) from the floor of the Bering Sea, at its highest point, Bogoslof is just about 300 feet (100 meters) above sea level and frequently altered by both explosions and erosion. A small dome on the north end was created by eruptions in 1992.

The Unangan people, later called the Aleuts, inhabited the islands for thousands of years before Russians and Europeans arrived in the eighteenth century. The Paleo-Aleuts arrived from the mainland about 2000 BCE and settled in villages near the shores where fresh water was found. Villages usually comprised matrilineal-related families who shared semi-subterranean homes. Men usually hunted seals, sea otters, sea lions, whales, and, in some areas, bears and caribou. Women generally gathered mollusks, berries, and other edible wild plants, fish, and birds. The people traveled in skin boats.

The Indigenous population before the eighteenth century may have been fifteen thousand to as much as twenty-five thousand across the archipelago’s islands, with greater numbers in the east nearer the mainland. The abundance of fur-bearing creatures prompted hunters from Siberia to journey to the Commander Islands in the mid-1700s. From there, they advanced eastward to mainland Alaska. Many Indigenous islanders were killed, forced to move, or enslaved. The islands were included in the Alaska Purchase of 1867 when the United States bought Alaska from Russia. Only about two thousand Unangan people remained by the late nineteenth century. Some people continued to live on the islands until June 1942, when Japanese troops invaded during World War II. They occupied Attu and Kiska Islands, imprisoning Indigenous peoples who were there. The US government evacuated others to the mainland. A naval station was established on Adak in 1942 for the Attu campaign, when US troops retook the islands the following year; it remained in use until 1997.

Overview

The Aleutian Islands stretch about 1,100 miles (1,800 km) from the Alaska Peninsula westward, ending with Attu Island. Further west are the Commander (Komandor) Islands, which are part of the same archipelago but are Russian territory. The total area of the Aleutians is 6,821 square miles (17,600 square kilometers). Fourteen of the islands are large, while another fifty-five are small. The American segment of the chain, which also includes many islets, consists of five major island groups: Fox, Andreanof, Rat, Near, and Islands of the Four Mountains. Most islands have little in the way of shorelines but instead, rise sharply from the rocky coasts. The Aleutian Islands are part of the Ring of Fire, a large circle of seismic and volcanic activity along the rim of the Pacific Ocean, and formed along the Aleutian Trench. Many volcanoes remain active, including Shishaldin on Unimak Island. Twenty-seven of the sixty-five historically active volcanoes in the United States are in the Aleutian Islands.

The climate of the islands is not very variable. The archipelago receives a great deal of precipitation, and despite its northern situation, this primarily falls as rain. Heavy winds and fog are typical. Few trees grow there, but grasses, sedges, and shrubs are found. Tens of millions of seabirds, including puffins and fulmars nest here, while the islands also host sea lions, seals, sea otters, Pacific walrus, and other marine mammals. The only large land mammals found on the islands are strong swimmers, notably bears that arrive from the mainland. Endemic species include small animals such as the Unalaska collared lemming and the St. Paul-Pribilof shrew. The Western Aleutian Islands host seven endemic plant species, including chickweed, bellflower, and holly fern.

The islands are sparsely populated. The oldest and largest settlement is on Unalaska Island. Unalaska was established by Russians in the 1770s and later was a US Coast Guard fleet headquarters. It is notable for the Russian Orthodox Church of the Holy Ascension, parts of which date to 1825, and its status as a major US fishing port where fish are processed both on land and in factory ships.

The Aleut Islands and their wildlife are endangered by human activity. A fuel oil and diesel fuel spill caused by the breakup of a freighter in 2004 killed thousands of birds and fish. Cleanup of the spill of hundreds of thousands of gallons of oil and 60,000 tons of soybeans took more than one and a half years. A 2010 diesel fuel spill at Port of Adak caused by overfilling an underground tank polluted marine and riparian habitats, shorelines, and wetlands. Pollution on Great Sitkin Island that dates to World War II, when it hosted a refueling station, was evaluated in 2021 for future cleanup. Nuclear testing on Amchitka Island has caused radiation damage. Furthermore, the overfishing and introduction of species such as rats, reindeer, and the Arctic fox have disrupted the food web. Rats are particularly devastating among nesting seabirds.

Most of the land area of the islands is part of the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge. The Aleutian Islands unit includes 4,500 square miles (11,000 square kilometers), much of which is classified as wilderness, from Unimak in the east to Attu in the west.

Bibliography

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“Attu, a Lost Village of the Aleutians.” National Park Service, 11 Dec. 2023, www.nps.gov/articles/featured‗stories‗aleu.htm. Accessed 2 Jan. 2025.

“Battle of the Aleutian Islands.” History, 30 June 2020, www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/battle-of-the-aleutian-islands. Accessed 2 Jan. 2025.

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Krakow, Morgan. “WWII Contaminants on an Aleutian Island Are One Step Closer to Finally Being Cleaned Up.” Anchorage Daily News, 28 Nov. 2021, www.adn.com/alaska-news/rural-alaska/2021/11/28/wwii-contaminants-on-an-aleutian-island-are-one-step-closer-to-finally-being-cleaned-up. Accessed 2 Jan. 2025.

Noss, Reed. “Aleutian Islands Tundra.” One Earth, www.oneearth.org/ecoregions/aleutian-islands-tundra. Accessed 2 Jan. 2025.

Veltre, Douglas W. “History.” Aleutian Pribilof Islands Association, www.apiai.org/departments/cultural-heritage-department/culture-history/history. Accessed 2 Jan. 2025.