The islands form part of theAleutian Arc of the NorthernPacific Ocean, and occupy a land area of 6,821 sq mi (17,666 km2) that extends westward roughly 1,200 mi (1,900 km) from theAlaska Peninsula mainland, in the direction of theKamchatka Peninsula; the archipelago acts as a border between theBering Sea to the north and the Pacific Ocean to the south. Crossinglongitude 180°, at which point east and westlongitude end, the archipelago contains both the westernmost and easternmost parts of the United States, by longitude (Amatignak Island andSemisopochnoi Island, respectively). The westernmost U.S. island, in real terms, however, isAttu Island, west of which runs theInternational Date Line.
The islands, with their 57 volcanoes, form the northernmost part of thePacific Ring of Fire.Physiographically, they are a distinct section of the largerPacific Border province, which, in turn, is part of the largerPacific Mountain System physiographic division. The islands are considered to be among the most geographically isolated areas of the Northern Pacific.[6]
Motion between theKula Plate and theNorth American Plate along the margin of the Bering Shelf (in the Bering Sea north of the Aleutian arc) ended in the earlyEocene. The Aleutian Basin, the ocean floor north of the Aleutian arc, is the remainder of the Kula Plate that was trapped when volcanism andsubduction jumped south to its current location atc. 56 Ma.[8]The Aleutianisland arc formed in the Early Eocene (55–50 Ma) when the subduction of thePacific Plate under the North American Plate began. The arc is made of separate blocks that have been rotated clockwise. Thebasement underlying the islands is made of three stratigraphic units: an Eocene layer of volcanic rock, anOligocene–Miocene layer of marine sedimentary rock, and aPliocene–Quaternary layer of sedimentary and igneous rock.[9]
All six are located between 51° and 55° N latitude and 172° E and 163° W longitude.[10] The largest islands in the Aleutians areAttu (the farthest from the mainland), andUnalaska,Umnak, andUnimak 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 ofvolcanic fissures that have contributed their products to the building of the islands. Such curved chains are repeated about the Pacific Ocean in theKuril Islands, theJapanese chain, and in thePhilippines. All these island arcs are at the edge of thePacific Plate and experience muchseismic activity, but are still habitable; the Aleutians lie between the Pacific and North Americantectonic plates.[citation needed] The general elevation is greatest in the eastern islands and least in the western. The island chain is a western continuation of theAleutian Range on the mainland.[11]
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 oflignite. The coasts are rocky and surf-worn, and the approaches are exceedingly dangerous, the land rising immediately from the coasts to steep, bold mountains.[11]
These volcanic islands reach heights of 6,200 feet (1,900 m).Makushin Volcano (5,691 feet (1,735 m)) on Unalaska Island, is not quite visible from within the town ofUnalaska, 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 asPyramid Peak or Mt. Newhall, to get a good look at the snow-covered cone. The volcanicBogoslof andFire Islands, which rose from the sea in 1796 and 1883 respectively, lie about 30 miles (50 km) west ofUnalaska Bay.[11]
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.[11] In 2017, the volcanic cone erupted sending ash and ice particles 30,000 feet (9000 m) into the air.[12]
Alfred Russel Wallace's 1879 bookAustralasia, Ian Todd's 1974 bookIsland Realm: A Pacific Panorama and Dean Kohlhoff's 2002 bookAmchitka and the Bomb: Nuclear Testing in Alaska all associate the Aleutian Islands with theOceania region due to their status as remote islands in the Pacific.[13][14][15] The islands, having biogeographical and ethnocultural affinities toNorth America, are not ordinarily considered a part of the region.[16][17]
The Aleutians seen from space
Image of the islands taken by theSTS-56 crew. Amlia Island is visible in the upper left of the photo, while the eastern half of Atka Island is shown at the right. North is to the bottom left in this photo.
These cloud formations were seen over the western Aleutian Islands.
The climate of the islands is oceanic, with moderate and fairly uniform temperatures and heavy rainfall. Fogs are almost constant. Summer weather is much cooler than Southeast Alaska (aroundSitka), but the winter temperature of the islands and of theAlaska Panhandle is nearly the same.[11] According to theKöppen climate classification system, the area southwest of53°30′N167°00′W / 53.5°N 167.0°W /53.5; -167.0, onUnalaska Island, has a "Subpolar Oceanic Climate" (type "Cfc", as doesReykjavík,Tórshavn,Punta Arenas,Ushuaia and theAuckland Islands), characterized by the coldest month averaging above 0 °C (32 °F), one to three months averaging above 10 °C (50 °F), and no significant precipitation differences between seasons. To the northeast of that point, the climate becomes "Subarctic With Cool Summers And Year Around Rainfall" (type "Dfc", likePetropavlovsk-Kamchatsky,Murmansk,St. Moritz, andLabrador City), where it is similar albeit colder, with the coldest month averagingbelow 0 °C (32 °F).[18] During the winter, the islands become the center of a semi-permanentlow-pressure area called theAleutian Low.[19]
The mean annual temperature for Unalaska, the most populated island of the group, is about 38 °F (3 °C), 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 80 inches (2,000 mm); Unalaska, with about 250 rainy days per year, is said to be one of the rainiest places within the U.S.[11]
Cape Promontory, Cape Lutkes onUnimak Island in the Aleutian Islands, Alaska
The growing season lasts approximately 135 days, from early in May until late in September, but agriculture is limited to the raising of few vegetables. With the exception of some stuntedwillows, the vast majority of the chain is devoid of native trees.[11] On some of the islands, such asAdak andAmaknak, there are a fewconiferous trees growing, remnants of theRussian period. While tall trees grow in many cold climates, Aleutian conifers — some estimated to be two hundred years old — rarely reach a height of even 10 feet (3 m), and many of them are still less than 5 feet (1.5 m) tall. This is because the islands, much like theFalklands and other islands of similarlatitudes, experience such strong winds that taller trees are vulnerable to snapping off.
Instead of trees, the islands are covered with a luxuriant, dense growth of herbage and shrubs, includingcrowberry,bluejoint,grasses,sedges, and many flowering plants.[20] There are areas of peat bog near the coasts. Endemic plants include the endangeredAleutian 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 onAdak Island is a man-made tree group consisting of 33 trees.[21][22]
Observations have identifiedsea otters as akeystone species along the coasts of many of the Aleutian Islands. Their presence encourages the growth ofkelp forests, as the otters controlsea urchin populations (as large populations of sea urchins can createurchin barrens by clearing away kelp stands).[25]
The native people refer to themselves as Unangan, and are now generally known by most non-natives as theAleut. TheAleut language is one of the two main branches of theEskimo–Aleut language family. This family is not known to be related to any others. The2020 U.S. census recorded a population of 7,152 on the islands, of whom 4,254 were living in the main settlement ofUnalaska.
On the less mountainous islands, the raising ofsheep andreindeer was once believed to be practicable.[20] There arebison on islands near Sand Point. Sheep raising seems to have died off with the advent of synthetic fibers, which lowered the value of wool. During the 1980s, there were somellama being raised on Unalaska. The current economy is primarily based onfishing, and the presence of U.S. military. The only crop ispotato.Chickens are raised in barns under protection from the cold.
Because the islands stretch like a broken bridge from the continent Asia to the continent North America, many anthropologists[citation needed] hypothesize they were a route of thefirst human occupants of the Americas. However, the earliest known evidence in publicrecorded history of human occupation in the Americas is found much farther south. The early human sites in the Bering Sea were probably submerged by rising waters and sand during the currentinterglacial period.
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.
AnAleutian man with aCreole woman in the Aleutian IslandsA Creole winter home inUnalaska, Aleutian Islands
Explorers, traders and missionaries arrived from Russia beginning in 1741.
In 1741 theRussian government sentVitus Bering, a Danish-born Russian, andAleksei Chirikov, a Russian, in the shipsSaint Peter andSaint 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 theKamchatka Peninsula in a boat constructed from the wreckage of their ship, and reported the islands were rich in fur-bearing animals.[11]
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 1867Alaska Purchase.[11]
In the 1780s Russian merchant and seafarerGrigory Shelikhov established acompany 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 theAwa'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.[26] 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, orbaidarka, 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 againstsmallpox, and science-based sea mammal conservation policies that were ahead of their time.[26]
Russian Orthodox Church on Unalaska Island
By 1760 the Russian merchant Andrian Tolstykh had made a detailed census in the vicinity ofAdak and extended Russian citizenship to the Aleuts.
During his third and last voyage in 1778, CaptainJames 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.[11]
Among the firstChristian missionaries to arrive in the Aleutian Islands was a party of tenRussian Orthodox monks and priests, who arrived in 1793. Within two years, a monk named Herman was the only survivor of that party. He settled onSpruce Island, nearKodiak Island, and often defended the rights of the Aleuts against the Russian trading companies. He is now known in the Orthodox Church as SaintHerman of Alaska.
Another early Christian missionary of the Russian Orthodox Church was Father Veniaminov who arrived inUnalaska in 1824. He was named Bishop Innokentii in 1840 and moved toSitka. He is now known in the Orthodox Church as SaintInnocent 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.
Western Aleutian Islands, from a 1916 map of the Alaska Territory
After the Americanpurchase of Alaska from Russia in 1867, further development took place. New buildings included aMethodist mission and orphanage, and the headquarters for a considerable fleet of United Statesrevenue cutters, which patrolled thesealing grounds of thePribilof Islands.[11] The first public school in Unalaska opened in 1883.
TheU.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.
U.S. soldiers of the southern landing force on the beach atMassacre Bay, Attu Island during theBattle of Attu, May 11, 1943
On June 3, 1942, which was duringWorld War II, in what were the only two invasions of the United States during the war, small parts of the Aleutian islands were occupied byJapanese forces, whenAttu andKiska were invaded possibly to divert American forces away from the main Japanese attack atMidway Atoll.[27] The U.S. Navy, having broken theJapanese naval codes, proceeded as if this was just a diversion,[28][29][30] and it did not expend large amounts of effort in defending the islands. More than 90 Americans were taken to Japan as prisoners of war.
The United States moved most of the remaining civilian population (over 800) of the Aleutians and Pribilovians to camps in theAlaska Panhandle.
In May 1943, American forces invaded Japanese-held Attu and defeated the Japanese. In August 1943, American and Canadian troops launched an invasion ofKiska, 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!"[31]
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. TheAleutian World War II National Historic Area Visitors Center opened that month.
TheAlaska Native Claims Settlement Act became law in 1971. In 1977, the Ounalashka Corporation (from Unalaska) declared adividend. This was the first village corporation to declare and pay a dividend to its shareholders.
The Aleutian Islands were designated aUNESCO 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.[32][33]
^abThe Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica (18 December 2015)."Aleutian Islands". Encyclopædia Britannica.Archived from the original on 12 September 2019. Retrieved6 February 2017.
^"Aleutian Islands".Merriam-Webster. Merriam-Webster, Inc.Archived from the original on 22 February 2016. Retrieved14 February 2016.
^Mark Nuttall, ed. (2005).Encyclopedia of the Arctic. Routledge. p. 333.ISBN0-203-99785-9.
^George Forchhammer (1863). Royal Society of London (ed.). "On the Constitution of Sea-Water, at different Depths, and in different Latitudes".Proceedings of the Royal Society of London.12. Taylor & Francis: 131.
^Domenech, Douglas W. (11 September 2020)."Op-Ed: U.S. Territories, Not States, Bear the Scars of World War II".Department of the Interior www.doi.org.The Federalist.While there were German and Japanese submarine attacks on both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, it was four U.S. territories –Guam, thePhilippines,Kiska and Attu in the Aleutian Islands of Alaska, and Wake Atoll – which were the only American land to suffer enemy occupation. It was not until 1959 thatHawaii andAlaska became states. ThePhilippines became a territory of the United States in 1898 and achieved its independence on July 4, 1946. The U.S. territory of American Samoa was bombed in WWII but never occupied.
^Wallace, Alfred Russel (1879).Australasia. The University of Michigan. p. 2.Archived from the original on 30 July 2022. Retrieved12 March 2022.Oceania is the word often used by continental geographers to describe the great world of islands we are now entering upon [...] This boundless watery domain, which extends northwards of Behring Straits and southward to the Antarctic barrier of ice, is studded with many island groups, which are, however, very irregularly distributed over its surface. The more northerly section, lying between Japan and California and between the Aleutian and Hawaiian Archipelagos is relived by nothing but a few solitary reefs and rocks at enormously distant intervals.
^Kohlhoff, Dean (2002).Amchitka and the Bomb: Nuclear Testing in Alaska. University of Washington Press. p. 6.ISBN9780295800509.Archived from the original on 17 May 2023. Retrieved12 March 2022.The regional name of the Pacific Islands is appropriate: Oceania, a sea of islands, including those of Alaska and Hawaii. The Pacific Basin is not insignificant or remote. It covers one third of the globe's surface. Its northern boundary is the Aleutian Islands chain. Oceania virtually touches all of the Western Hemisphere.
^Henderson, John William (1971).Area Handbook for Oceania. U.S. Government Printing Office. p. 5.Archived from the original on 6 April 2023. Retrieved11 March 2022.
^Rodionov, S.N.; Bond, N.A.; Overland, J.E. (November 2007). "The Aleutian Low, storm tracks, and winter climate variability in the Bering Sea".Deep Sea Research Part II: Topical Studies in Oceanography.54 (23–26):2560–2577.Bibcode:2007DSRII..54.2560R.doi:10.1016/j.dsr2.2007.08.002.
Gibson, Daniel D., and G. Vernon Byrd.Birds of the Aleutian Islands, Alaska. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Nuttall Ornithological Club, 2007.ISBN978-0-943610-73-3
Ivanov, Viacheslav Vsevolodovich.The Russian Orthodox Church of Alaska and the Aleutian Islands and Its Relation to Native American Traditions—An Attempt at a Multicultural Society, 1794–1912. Washington, DC: Library of Congress, 1997.ISBN0-16-048781-1
Jochelson, Waldemar.Archaeological Investigations in the Aleutian Islands. Washington: Carnegie Institution of Washington, 1925.
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