Kodiak Island

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Kodiak Island

Kodiak Island is a large island on the south coast of the U.S. state

U.S. state

A U.S. state is any one of the 50 state of the United States that share sovereignty with the federal government of the United States . Because of this shared sovereignty, an United States is a citizen both of the federal entity and of his or her state of Domicile ....
of Alaska

Alaska

Alaska is the largest U.S. state of the United States by area; it is situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent, with Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia further west across the Bering Strait....
, separated from the Alaska mainland by the Shelikof Strait

Shelikof Strait

Shelikof Strait is a strait on the southwestern coast of the U.S. state of Alaska between the Alaska mainland to the west and Kodiak Island and Afognak islands to the east....
. The largest island in the Kodiak Archipelago

Kodiak Archipelago

The Kodiak Archipelago is an archipelago, or group of islands, south of main land mass of the state of Alaska , about 405 km by air south of Anchorage, Alaska in the Gulf of Alaska....
and at 8975 km² (3465 square miles) in area, it is the second largest island in the United States

List of islands of the United States by area

This is a list of islands of the United States, as ordered by area. It includes all islands with an area greater than 20 square miles , but excludes peninsulas such as Cape Cod, Copper Island, or Delmarva Peninsula that were originally connected to the mainland, but have been effectively transformed into islands by the building of canals....
and the 80th largest island in the world

List of islands by area

This is a list of islands in the world ordered by area. It includes all islands with an area greater than 2,500 km? , and several other islands over 500 km? ....
. 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

Kodiak Seamount

Kodiak Seamount is the oldest seamount in the Kodiak-Bowie Seamount chain, with an estimated age of 24 million years. It lies at the northernmost end of the chain and its flat-topped summit is strewn with fault lines....
, which lies off the coast at the Aleutian Trench

Aleutian Trench

The Aleutian Trench is a subduction zone and oceanic trench which runs along the southern coastline of Alaska and the adjacent waters of northeastern Siberia off the coast of Kamchatka Peninsula....
. The largest community on the island is The City of Kodiak

Kodiak, Alaska

Kodiak is one of 6 communities and the main city on Kodiak Island in Kodiak Island Borough, Alaska in the U.S. state of Alaska. All commercial transportation between the entire island and the outside world goes through this city either via ferryboat or airline....
.

Kodiak Island is mountainous and heavily forested in the north and east, but fairly treeless on the south.

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Encyclopedia

Kodiak Island is a large island on the south coast of the U.S. state

U.S. state

Alaska

Shelikof Strait

Kodiak Archipelago

List of islands of the United States by area

List of islands by area

Kodiak Seamount

Aleutian Trench

Kodiak, Alaska

Headlands and bays

Headlands and bays are two related features of the coastal environment....
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 National Wildlife Refuge

The Kodiak National Wildlife Refuge is a wilderness area in the Kodiak Archipelago in southwestern Alaska, United States.The Kodiak National Wildlife Refuge includes the southwestern two-thirds of Kodiak Island, Uganik Island, the Red Peaks area of Afognak Island and all of Ban Island in the archipelago....
.

Kodiak Island is part of the Kodiak Island Borough

Kodiak Island Borough, Alaska

Kodiak Island Borough is a Borough located in the U.S. state of Alaska, United States. As of the United States Census 2000, the population was 13,913....
and Kodiak Archipelago

Kodiak Archipelago

Kodiak, Alaska

Kodiak is one of 6 communities and the main city on Kodiak Island in Kodiak Island Borough, Alaska in the U.S. state of Alaska. All commercial transportation between the entire island and the outside world goes through this city either via ferryboat or airline....
is one of 6 communities and the island's main city. All commercial transportation between the entire island and the outside world goes through this city either via ferryboat or airline. Other settlements include the villages of Akhiok

Akhiok, Alaska

Akhiok is a 2nd class city in Kodiak Island Borough, Alaska, Alaska, United States. Akhiok is Kodiak's southernmost village. The population was 80 at the 2000 United States Census....
, Old Harbor

Old Harbor, Alaska

Old Harbor is a city in Kodiak Island Borough, Alaska, Alaska, United States. At the 2000 United States Census the population was 237....
, Karluk

Karluk, Alaska

Karluk is a census-designated place in Kodiak Island Borough, Alaska, Alaska, United States. The population was 27 at the 2000 United States Census....
, Larsen Bay

Larsen Bay, Alaska

Larsen Bay is a city in Kodiak Island Borough, Alaska, Alaska, United States. At the 2000 United States Census the population was 115....
, Port Lions

Port Lions, Alaska

Port Lions is a city located on Kodiak Island in the Kodiak Island Borough, Alaska of the U.S. state of Alaska. As of the United States Census, 2000, the population of the city was 256....
, and Ouzinkie

Ouzinkie, Alaska

Ouzinkie is a city in Kodiak Island Borough, Alaska, Alaska, United States. At the 2000 United States Census the population was 225....
. Kodiak is also home to the largest U.S. Coast Guard

United States Coast Guard

The United States Coast Guard is a branch of the Military of the United States and one of seven Uniformed services of the United States. In addition to being a military branch at all times, it is unique among the armed forces in that it is also a Admiralty law agency and a Federal government of the United States regulatory agency....
base, which includes Integrated Support Command Kodiak

Integrated Support Command Kodiak

Integrated Support Command Kodiak is the largest operating base of the United States Coast Guard, in Kodiak, Alaska. It includes Air Station Kodiak, LORAN Station Kodiak, and other units in the Coast Guard's Seventeenth District ....
, Air Station Kodiak, Communications Station Kodiak, and Aids to Navigation Station Kodiak.

The Kodiak Bear

Kodiak Bear

The Kodiak bear , also known as the Alaskan brown bear, is the largest subspecies of Brown Bear and occupies the islands of the Kodiak Archipelago in southcentral Alaska....
and the king crab

King crab

King crabs, also called stone crabs, are a family of crab-like Decapoda crustaceans chiefly found in cold seas. Because of their large size and the taste of their flesh, many species are widely caught and sold as food....
are native to the island. The fishing industry

Fishing industry

File:Albatun Dod.jpg.The fishing industry includes any industry or activity concerned with taking, culturing, processing, preserving, storing, transporting, marketing or selling fish or fish products....
is the most important economic activity on the island; fisheries

Fishery

Generally, a fishery is a unit, engaged in raising and/or harvesting fish, which is determined by an authority or other entity to be a fishery....
include Pacific salmon, Pacific halibut

Pacific halibut

The Pacific halibut, Hippoglossus stenolepis, is a large flatfish found in the northern Pacific Ocean closely related to the Atlantic Halibut....
, and crab

Crab

Crabs are Decapoda crustaceans of the infraorder Brachyura, which typically have a very short projecting "tail" , or where the reduced abdomen is entirely hidden under the thorax....
. The Karluk River

Karluk River

The Karluk River is located on the southwest end of Kodiak Island in Alaska.The Karluk River is 35 km long. The upper 23 km of the river are within the Kodiak National Wildlife Refuge....
is famous for its salmon run. Logging, ranching, numerous canneries, and some copper mining are also prevalent.

An antenna farm

Antenna farm

Antenna farm or satellite dish farm or just dish farm are terms used to describe an area dedicated to television or radio telecommunications transmitting or receiving antenna equipment, such as satellite dish antennas, UHF / VHF / AM broadcasting / FM transmitter towers or mobile cell towers ...
at the summit of Pillar Mountain above the city of Kodiak

Kodiak, Alaska

History

Kodiak is the ancestral land of the Koniaga, an Alutiiq

Alutiiq

The Alutiiq , also called Pacific Yupik or Sugpiaq, are a southern coastal people of the Yupik peoples of Alaska. Their language is also called Alutiiq language....
nation of Alaska Natives

Alaska Natives

Alaska Natives are the indigenous peoples of Alaska. They include: Inupiat, Yupik, Aleut, Tlingit, Haida, Tsimshian, Eyak, and a number of Northern Athabaskan cultures....
. The original inhabitants subsisted by hunting, fishing, farming, and gathering. The first outsiders to settle on the island were Russian explorers under Grigory Shelikhov

Grigory Shelikhov

Grigory Ivanovich Shelikhov was a Russian seafarer and merchant born in Rylsk.Shelikhov organized commercial trips of the merchant ships to the Kuril Islands and the Aleutian Islands starting from 1775....
, who founded a Russian settlement

Russian Alaska

Russian America was the name used for Russian possessions in the New World the period between 1733 and 1867 in which Russian Empire claimed the territory that today is the U.S....
on Kodiak Island at Three Saints Bay

Three Saints Bay, Alaska

Three Saints Bay is a -long inlet on the southeast side of Kodiak Island in southern Alaska, North off of Sitkalidak Strait. It is 97 km southwest of Kodiak, Alaska....
near the present-day village of Old Harbor in 1784. Following the 1867 Alaska purchase

Alaska purchase

The Alaska Purchase by the United States from the Russian Empire occurred in 1867 at the behest of Secretary of State William H. Seward. The territory purchased was 586,412 square miles of the modern state of Alaska....
the island became part of the United States

United States

The United States of America is a Federal government constitutional republic comprising U.S. state and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its Contiguous United States and Washington, D.C., the Capital districts and territories, lie between the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Oceans, Borders of the U...
; Americans settled there and engaged in hunting and fox farming.

The Koniagas 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

Richard Francis Burton

Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton Order of St Michael and St George Royal Geographic Society was an English explorer, translator, writer, soldier, orientalist, ethnologist, linguistics, poet, hypnotism, fencing and diplomat....
in his Terminal Essay, after Holmberg, Langsdorff, Joseph Billings

Joseph Billings

Joseph Billings was an England navigator and List of explorers.In 1785, the Russian government of Catherine II of Russia commissioned a new expedition in search for the Northern Sea Route, led by English officer Joseph Billings, who had previously sailed with James Cook, and the Russian officer Gavril Sarychev as his deputy....
, 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

Grigory Shelikhov

Three Saints Bay, Alaska

Three Saints Bay is a -long inlet on the southeast side of Kodiak Island in southern Alaska, North off of Sitkalidak Strait. It is 97 km southwest of Kodiak, Alaska....
in 1784. The settlement was moved to the site of present-day Kodiak

Kodiak, Alaska

Kodiak is one of 6 communities and the main city on Kodiak Island in Kodiak Island Borough, Alaska in the U.S. state of Alaska. All commercial transportation between the entire island and the outside world goes through this city either via ferryboat or airline....
in 1792 and became the center of Russian fur trading. In 1912 the eruption of Novarupta

Novarupta

Novarupta, meaning "new eruption", is a volcano located on the Alaska Peninsula in Katmai National Park and Preserve, about southwest of Anchorage, Alaska....
on the mainland (erroneously attributed at one time to the more famous Mount Katmai

Mount Katmai

Mount Katmai is a large stratovolcano on the Alaska Peninsula in southern Alaska, located within Katmai National Park and Preserve. It is about in diameter with a central lake-filled caldera about 3 by 2 mi in area, formed during the Novarupta eruption of 1912....
) blanketed the island with volcanic ash, causing widespread destruction and loss of life. The island was also hit by the 1964 Good Friday Earthquake

Good Friday Earthquake

The 1964 Alaska earthquake, also known as the Great Alaska earthquake, began at 5:36 P.M. AST on Friday, March 27, 1964. Across south-central Alaska, ground fissures, collapsing buildings, and tidal waves directly caused about 131 deaths....
and tsunami, which destroyed much of the town.

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Kodiak Island

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