pop (2000e) 14 500; area 18 000 km²/7000 sq mi. Group of c.150 islands stretching c.1600 km/1000 mi from the Alaskan Peninsula, USA; chief islands Attu, Andreanof, Rat, Umnak, Unimak, Unalaska (chief town, Dutch Harbor); many volcanic peaks over 1000 m/3000 ft; discovered by Russian explorers in 18th-c; purchased by USA, 1867; several military bases; wildlife refuge.
The Aleutian Islands (possibly from Chukchi aliat, "island") are a chain of more than 300 small volcanic islands forming an island arc in the Northern Pacific Ocean, occupying an area of 6,821 sq mi (17,666 km²) and extending about 1,200 mi (1,900 km) westward from the Alaska Peninsula toward the Kamchatka Peninsula. Nearly all the archipelago is part of Alaska and usually considered as being in the "Alaskan Bush", but at the extreme western end the small, geologically-related, and remote Komandorski Islands, are in Russia. The islands, with their 57 volcanoes, are in the northern part of the Pacific Ring of Fire. The Alaska Marine Highway passes through the islands.
Geography
The islands, known before 1867 as the Catherine Archipelago, comprise five groups: the Fox, Islands of Four Mountains, Andreanof, Rat and Near island groups. Such curved chains are repeated about the Pacific Ocean in the Kuril Islands, the Japanese chain and in the Philippines. 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;
Makushin Volcano (5691 ft/1,735 m) located 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. The
volcanic Bogoslof and Fire islands, which rose from the sea in 1796 and 1883 respectively, lie about 30 miles (48 km) west of Unalaska Bay.
Climate
The climate of the islands is oceanic, with moderate and fairly uniform temperatures and heavy rainfall. Summer weather is much cooler than Southeast Alaska (Sitka), but the winter temperature of the islands and of the Alaska Panhandle is very nearly the same. The mean annual temperature for Unalaska, the most populated island of the group, is about 38 °F (3.4 °C), being about 30 °F (−1.1 °C) in January and about 52 °F (11.1 °C) in August. The highest and lowest temperatures recorded on the islands are 78 °F (26 °C) and 5 °F (−15 °C) respectively. On some of the islands, such as Adak and Amaknak, there are a few coniferous trees growing, remnants of the Russian period.
Instead of trees, the islands are covered with a luxuriant, dense growth of herbage, including grasses, sedges and many flowering plants.
Economy
On the less mountainous islands, the raising of sheep and reindeer was once believed to be practicable.
Demographics
The native people refer to themselves as Unangan, and are now generally known by most non-natives as the "Aleut".
In the 2000 census, there was a population of 8,162 on the islands, of whom 4,283 were living in the main settlement of Unalaska.
History
Prehistory
Because of the location of the islands, stretching like a broken bridge from Asia to America, many anthropologists believe they were a route of the first human occupants of the Americas. People living in the Aleutian Islands developed fine skills in hunting, fishing, and basketry. 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, finally being wrecked and losing his life on the island of the Komandorski Islands (Commander Islands) that now bears his name (Bering Island). The survivors of Bering's party reached the Kamchatka Peninsula in a boat constructed from the wreckage of their ship, and reported that 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. The Aleutian Islands consequently belonged to Russia, until that country transferred all its possessions in North America to the United States in 1867.
The Russians were ruthless in their expansion, using technology and cruelty to demand tribute and labor from the Aleuts, especially for sea otter hunting. The Russians captured otter pelts from the Aleutian Islands, through the Gulf of Alaska, along the Alaska Panhandle, and south, even to California. Some Aleuts were moved to the Pribilof Islands so that fur seals could be captured there as well.
By 1760, the Russian merchant Andrian Tolstykh had made a detailed census in the vicinity of Adak and extended Russian citizenship to the Aleuts.
Despite some attempts to eliminate slavery and reduce cruel treatment in the 1790s, the Shelikhov company depended on the labor of Aleut hunters to collect sea otter pelts.
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.
Christian influences
One of the first Christian missionaries to arrive in the Aleutian Islands was a monk named Herman, who arrived in 1793 with nine other Russian Orthodox monks and priests. He settled on Spruce Island, near Kodiak Island, and often defended the rights of the Aleuts against the Russian trading companies.
Another early Christian missionary of the Russian Orthodox Church was Father Veniaminov who arrived in Unalaska in 1824.
The principal settlements were on Unalaska Island.
US possession
After the American purchase of Alaska from Russia in 1867, further development took place. New buildings included a Methodist mission and orphanage, and the headquarters for a considerable fleet of United States revenue cutters which patrolled the sealing grounds of the Pribilof Islands.
World War II
During World War II, small parts of the Aleutian islands were occupied by Japanese forces, when Attu and Kiska were invaded in order to divert American forces away from the main Japanese attack at Midway Atoll. The U.S. Navy, having broken the Japanese naval radio codes, knew that this was just a diversion, and it did not expend large amounts of effort in defending the islands. American forces invaded Japanese-held Attu and defeated the Japanese, and subsequently regained control of all the islands. See: Battle of the Aleutian Islands. The islands were also a stopping point for hundreds of aircraft sent from California to Russia as part of the war effort.
In 1906 a new volcanic cone rose between the islets of Bogoslof and Grewingk, near Unalaska, followed by another in 1907.
Miscellaneous
The Aleutian Islands would likely be an important part of the National Missile Defense system proposed to defend the United States from small ballistic missile attacks.
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