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The Aleutian Islands ( ; ; , "land of the "; possibly from the Chukchi language aliat, or "island")—also called the Aleut Islands, (2025). 9780203997857, Routledge. ISBN 9780203997857 Aleutic Islands, or, before Alaska Purchase, the Catherine Archipelago—are a chain of 14 main, larger and 55 smaller ones.
Most of the islands belong to the U.S. state of Alaska, with the archipelago encompassing the Aleutians West Census Area and the Aleutians East Borough.
The Commander Islands, located further to the west, belong to the Russian federal subject of Kamchatka Krai, of the Russian Far East.
The islands form part of the Aleutian Arc of the Northern Pacific Ocean, and occupy a land area of 6,821 sq mi (17,666 km2) that extends westward roughly from the Alaska Peninsula mainland, in the direction of the Kamchatka Peninsula; the archipelago acts as a border between the Bering Sea to the north and the Pacific Ocean to the south. Crossing longitude 180°, at which point east and west longitude end, the archipelago contains both the westernmost and easternmost parts of the United States, by longitude (Amatignak Island and Semisopochnoi Island, respectively). The westernmost U.S. island, in real terms, however, is Attu Island, west of which runs the International Date Line.
The islands, with their 57 volcanoes, form the northernmost part of the Pacific Ring of Fire. Physiographically, they are a distinct section of the larger Pacific Border province, which, in turn, is part of the larger Pacific Mountain System physiographic division. The islands are considered to be among the most geographically isolated areas of the Northern Pacific.
Battles and skirmishes took place during the Aleutian Islands campaign of World War II. The Japanese landing and occupations of Kiska and Attu, in June of 1942, were one of only two invasions of the United States in North America during WWII; the Philippines, Guam and Wake Island, Pacific territories of the United States, were also invaded.
All six are located between 51° and 55° N latitude and 172° E and 163° W longitude.i.e. east of 172° E and west of 163° W longitude, straddling the antimeridian The largest islands in the Aleutians are Attu Island (the farthest from the mainland), and Unalaska Island, Umnak, and Unimak Island in the Fox Islands. The largest of those is Unimak Island, with an area of 1,571.41 mi2 (4,069.9 km2), followed by Unalaska Island, the only other Aleutian Island with an area over 1,000 square miles (2,600 km2).
The axis of the archipelago near the mainland of Alaska has a southwest trend, but at Tanaga Island (about 178° W) its direction changes to the northwest. This change of direction corresponds to a curve in the line of volcano fissures that have contributed their products to the building of the islands. Such curved chains are repeated about the Pacific Ocean in the Kuril Islands, the chain, and in the Philippines. All these island arcs are at the edge of the Pacific Plate and experience much seismology activity, but are still habitable; the Aleutians lie between the Pacific and North American plate tectonics. The general elevation is greatest in the eastern islands and least in the western. The island chain is a western continuation of the Aleutian Range on the mainland.
The great majority of the islands bear evident marks of volcanic origin, and there are numerous volcanic cones on the north side of the chain, some of them active; many of the islands, however, are not wholly volcanic, but contain crystalline or sedimentary rocks, and also amber and beds of lignite. The coasts are rocky and surf-worn, and the approaches are exceedingly dangerous, the land rising immediately from the coasts to steep, bold mountains.
These volcanic islands reach heights of . Makushin Volcano () on Unalaska Island, is not quite visible from within the town of Unalaska, though the steam rising from its cone is visible on a (rare) clear day. Residents of Unalaska need only to climb one of the smaller hills in the area, such as Pyramid Peak or Mt. Newhall, to get a good look at the snow-covered cone. The volcanic Bogoslof Island and Fire Islands, which rose from the sea in 1796 and 1883 respectively, lie about west of Unalaska Bay.
In 1906, a new volcanic cone rose between the islets of Bogoslof and Grewingk, near Unalaska, followed by another in 1907. These cones were nearly demolished by an explosive eruption on September 1, 1907. In 2017, the volcanic cone erupted sending ash and ice particles 30,000 feet (9000 m) into the air.
Alfred Russel Wallace's 1879 book Australasia, Ian Todd's 1974 book Island Realm: A Pacific Panorama and Dean Kohlhoff's 2002 book Amchitka and the Bomb: Nuclear Testing in Alaska all associate the Aleutian Islands with the Oceania region due to their status as remote islands in the Pacific. The islands, having biogeographical and ethnocultural affinities to North America, are not ordinarily considered a part of the region.
The mean annual temperature for Unalaska, the most populated island of the group, is about 38 °Fahrenheit (3 °Celsius), being about 30 °F (−1 °C) in January and about 52 °F (11 °C) in August. The highest and lowest temperatures recorded on the islands were 78 °F (26 °C) and 5 °F (−15 °C), respectively. The average amount of annual rainfall is about ; Unalaska, with about 250 rainy days per year, is said to be one of the rainiest places within the U.S.
Instead of trees, the islands are covered with a luxuriant, dense growth of herbage and shrubs, including crowberry, bluejoint, Poaceae, Cyperaceae, and many flowering plants. There are areas of peat bog near the coasts. Endemic plants include the endangered Aleutian shield fern.
There is currently almost no naturally occurring forest in the Aleutian Islands, except with the help of human intervention. For example, the Adak Forest on Adak Island is a man-made tree group consisting of 33 trees.
The habitats of the Aleutians are largely unspoiled, but wildlife is affected by competition from introduced species such as cattle, caribou, and . Nearly all of the Aleutians are protected as part of the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge and the Aleutian Islands Wilderness.
Observations have identified as a keystone species along the coasts of many of the Aleutian Islands. Their presence encourages the growth of kelp forests, as the otters control sea urchin populations (as large populations of sea urchins can create urchin barrens by clearing away kelp stands).
People living in or on the Aleutian Islands developed skills in hunting, fishing, and basketry. The baskets were woven with shredded stalks of beach rye.
In 1741 the Russian Empire government sent Vitus Bering, a Danish-born Russian, and Aleksei Chirikov, a Russian, in the ships Saint Peter and Saint Paul on a voyage of discovery in the Northern Pacific. After the ships were separated by a storm; Chirikov discovered several eastern islands of the Aleutian group, and Bering discovered several of the western islands. Bering was shipwrecked and died in the Komandorski Islands (Commander Islands); one of which now bears his name (Bering Island), along with the surrounding Bering Sea. The survivors of Bering's party reached the Kamchatka Peninsula in a boat constructed from the wreckage of their ship, and reported the islands were rich in fur-bearing animals.
Siberian fur hunters flocked to the Commander Islands and gradually moved eastward across the Aleutian Islands to the mainland. In this manner, Russia gained a foothold on the northwestern coast of North America. The Aleutian Islands consequently belonged to Russia, until that country transferred all its possessions in North America to the U.S. in the 1867 Alaska Purchase.
In the 1780s Russian merchant and seafarer Grigory Shelikhov established a company based on the systematic exploitation of the indigenous peoples, with whom there was sporadic conflict with the native population (frequently disastrous to the poorly armed and vastly outnumbered Russians), for example the Awa'uq Massacre. The colonies soon entered a relatively stable state based on cooperation, intermarriage, and official policies that provided social status, education, and professional training to children of mixed Aleut-Russian birth. Within a generation, the day-to-day administration of the Russian-American colonies was largely in the hands of native-born Alaskans. Reversing the usual trend in colonization where indigenous technologies are replaced, the Russians adopted the Aleut kayak, or baidarka, sea otter hunting techniques, and the working of native copper deposits. The Russians instituted public education, preservation of the Aleut language through transliteration of religious and other texts into Aleut via an adaptation of the Cyrillic alphabet, vaccination of the native population against smallpox, and science-based sea mammal conservation policies that were ahead of their time. By 1760 the Russian merchant Andrian Tolstykh had made a detailed census in the vicinity of Adak Island and extended Russian citizenship to the Aleuts.
During his third and last voyage in 1778, Captain James Cook surveyed the eastern portion of the Aleutian archipelago, accurately determined the position of some of the more important islands, and corrected many errors of former navigators.
Another early Christian missionary of the Russian Orthodox Church was Father Veniaminov who arrived in Unalaska Island in 1824. He was named Bishop Innokentii in 1840 and moved to Sitka. He is now known in the Orthodox Church as Saint Innocent of Alaska.
The principal settlements were on Unalaska Island. The oldest was Iliuliuk (also called Unalaska), settled in 1760–1775, with a customs house and an Orthodox church.
After the American Alaska Purchase from Russia in 1867, further development took place. New buildings included a Methodism mission and orphanage, and the headquarters for a considerable fleet of United States revenue cutters, which patrolled the seal hunting grounds of the Pribilof Islands. The first public school in Unalaska opened in 1883.
The U.S. Congress extended American citizenship to all Native Americans in 1924; this law has been held to include the indigenous peoples of Alaska. A hospital was built in Unalaska in 1933 by the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs.
The United States moved most of the remaining civilian population (over 800) of the Aleutians and Pribilovians to camps in the Alaska Panhandle.
In May 1943, American forces invaded Japanese-held Attu and defeated the Japanese. In August 1943, American and Canadian troops launched an invasion of Kiska, in which 34,426 men composed of both Americans and Canadian participated; however, Japanese forces had already evacuated the island, ending the campaign in the islands. The invasion was an embarrassment for the Allied forces as the entire Japanese force of 5,183 men had left the island on July 28 without the Americans noticing; however, the Americans suffered significant casualties during their "invasion"—313 men died as a result of accidents, with many dying due to accidental fire.
President Roosevelt visited Adak in 1944, meeting with commanders and eating with soldiers of the garrison. This was his first and only trip to the Aleutian Islands and Alaska as a whole. A rumor spread that FDR had accidentally left his Scottish Terrier "Fala" on one of the Islands and had to send a destroyer to retrieve the dog, costing taxpayers several million dollars. The President made fun of these rumors during a talk with the Teamsters Union in Washington DC, now known as the "Fala Speech". At this speech the President joked with the crowd saying, "Well, of course, I don't resent attacks, and my family doesn't resent attacks, but Fala does resent them!"
June 3, 2002 was celebrated as Dutch Harbor Remembrance Day. The governor of Alaska ordered state flags lowered to half-staff to honor the 43 Americans who died during the two-day Japanese air attack in 1942. The Aleutian World War II National Historic Area Visitors Center opened that month.
The Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act became law in 1971. In 1977, the Ounalashka Corporation (from Unalaska) declared a dividend. This was the first village corporation to declare and pay a dividend to its shareholders.
The Aleutian Islands were designated a UNESCO biosphere reserve in 1976. The Aleutians were one of 17 biosphere reserves in the United States withdrawn by request of the U.S. government from the programme in June 2017.
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