The Aleutian Islands

Unalaska, Dutch Harbor

(53.50’ N, 166.35’ W)

The sun rides its low arch across the southern quarter of the sky, and looking out through the open hatch of the fidley across the back deck are the silhouttes of sea birds, they are the outriders of ships, and they glide without effort like marionettes on the strong breeze that blows off the beam, they dip then rise again over the capping waves of a golden coruscated sea.   And past the trailing barge, basked in the falling light is the Aleutian Island of Unalaska, defined by her serried snow laden peaks that rise aloft amid the incessant storm clouds, and encompassed by the turbulent waters of two converging seas.  This island and her string of sisters were once long ago conceived on a threshold between continental plates where the colliding continents gave rise to the arcing chain of volcanic islands that now define the northern boundary of the great Pacific rim of fire. 

Now look far to the south, by about 2,000 miles.  There lies the center of an extensive chain of seamounts.  And if one traces the line of these mounts one can begin near the historic island atoll of Midway, then follow what looks like an underwater bread crumb trail to the present day big island of Hawaii.  Just to the southeast of this island, below the warm tropic waters is the center of a thin place in the earth’s crust where molten lava bursts through to the cold sea and is ever birthing new land.  In our story of the Aleutian Islands these seemingly insignificant hills far below the surface of the greatest of the world’s oceans become ever more the important key to the creation of this unique landmass reaching out from the Alaskan Peninsula.  For the small island atoll of Midway once occupied the coordinates of the present archipelago of Hawaii, but over millions of years drifted Northwest, confirming to geologists the directional movement of the pacific plate over the Hawaiian hotspot, the same plate that converged, and converges still, just below this ship’s keel. 

It is from these grinding and colliding plates that gave rise the greatest concentration of volcanoes in the world.  Conical peaked mountains pocketed with craters, these islands are dramatic in their elevation.  Some of the more prominent and still active volcanoes rise nearly 10,000 feet above the waves.  But it is the water about them that dominates their stormy features.  To the north of the Aleutian Islands the Bering Sea is shallow, little more than 100 fathoms on average and it is cold, but to the south the Pacific is deep, averaging well over 1,000 fathoms, and it is much warmer, for the Japanese current, much akin to the Atlantic’s Gulf Stream, reaches its apex here before feeding the great Alaskan Gyre, a circulating cauldron of current in this northeastern region of the Pacific.  This warm Japanese current meets the cold waters that flow out of the Arctic through the Bering Straits and the result is that the cold dry air of the north condenses the moist warm air from the Pacific, and when warm meets cold wind is created, and so with a combination of wind and condensation there is persistent storm like conditions that lash the islands with snow and sleet and rain throughout the year maintaining an average temperature just above freezing in the winter, and reaching the 60’s and maybe into the 70’s in the summer. 

To arrive at our bearings geographically, the Aleutians are not as far north as one might think.  Draw a straight line from the southern end of Unalaska to the continent of North America and the ship’s compass arrives us in Queen Charlotte Sound, which is just to the North of Vancouver Island in Canada, making these islands the southern most landmass of the State of Alaska.  Continue East to the Atlantic on this latitude and you will arrive just north of the island of New Foundland, and further again in three weeks sailing time one would arrive in the proximity of Northern Ireland.  In length, these islands are 1,000 miles long, and reach beyond the 180^th degree of longitude, placing their farthest outpost in a new day entirely, had not man bent the International Date Line around them to conform to his international boundaries.  

These islands give only enough nutrients for the odd squat pine tree, and are mostly covered in grass, moss, and low shrubs.  The features of the land are difficult to walk across.  The terrain is new born, unsettled by erosion, given to deep swales and precipitous mountains, falling streams over volcanic rock, and the highlands here are in places cloaked in ever grinding glacier fields, that carve away new valleys and great canyons, yet to be revealed to the mortal eye.

Blue foxes call this tussock landscape home, and I recently discovered their shy curiosity as one revealed itself only long enough to flee away just as I was recovering from the unexpected shock of coming across its path.  As large as a small coyote, dark in color, they bound fluidly, much as their cousin the sea otter swims, their spines moving in a wave like motion.  Sea otters are commonly seen floating by on their backs, grasping something in their small hands, a mussel or snail, which they feast upon, and generally take no interest in our happenings.  Also, their larger kin, the seal, slightly more inquisitive, comes by for a look at us as we are passing by on our way to or from some mooring.

But, these islands are mostly inhabited by birds.  No great ornithologist, I can identify few.  The common and most dominant are your usual gulls.  But there are also puffins and cormorants swimming atop and beneath the waves.  They feast the day away and get to be so fat they can’t fly, so as the bow of our ship approaches there is a moment of panic as their wings beat the top of the water, elevating themselves some few inches off the surface, just enough to get out of the way.  But the cormorants take the route of diving, and to watch their acrobatics under the clear water is entertaining. 

The two predatory birds are the ever combating ravens, and their nemeses the scavenging bald eagles.  These eagles are common nuisances here, and occupy every lamppost, road sign, steeple cross, or other elevated perch not yet inhabited by another eagle. They bully the other birds, and are less than their usual iconic regal selves when you come across them diving on dumpsters, their feathers tussled and their white sullied by refuse.  The raven, however, is the Jack of the birds.  Smaller, it relies more on its brain than its brawn.  Known for their intelligence it is said that one ought not kill a raven.  And this is not for fear of some dark superstition derived from their sleek iridescent black coat, but because they mate for life, and should you kill ones partner, the other will not hesitate to follow and torment you for as long as you remain in their territory of influence.  They, too, are connoisseurs of garbage, however they are not so brazen to alight on it in plane sight, but will sneakily steal bit by bit from a bag of trash left out on deck, or in the back of a pickup. 

 

The original inhabitants of these islands were the Aleuts.  A maritime people, they subsisted off of seal and whale meat, and would go offshore in kayaks, and the larger open boats made of whalebone and sealskin known as umiaks.  The Aleuts were known for the curious hats they wore that were made of whale baleen that formed a sort of visor with two feathers hanging down from each side.  A small people, they were peaceful, and took from the sea a good number of skins to keep warm by, and were of a population of about 18,000 when the first contact with whites from Russia came to them in 1741.  This exploration was captained by the Dane, Vitus Bering, who actually unknowingly in the fog passed the island chain on his way east in search of North America.  When Bering arrived at the mainland of America it was in the vicinity of Glacier Bay, and his first sighting was the magnificent volcano, Mt. St. Elias. But his ship was old and of poor construction, so he did not tarry, but turned back only then to discover the Aleutian chain on his return. 

The Russian fur traders would be the next to arrive.  Raping, massacring, and enslaving the native people before converting them, giving them orthodox names, and finally settling into a coexistence with them after having moved them all about this new arm of their western empire.  These first Russians decimated the populations, not only of the people, but of the seals and otters, driving them nearly to extinction with their cruel methods of hunting. 

Captain James Cook also paid a brief visit to the islands to find the Russian influence already rooted.  Then came the whalers from Boston on their search of riches in whale oil, and with them they brought the influence of alcohol, which devastated, and continues to devastated the native populations through out these northern regions. 

The northern shore of Unalaska is defined by two harbors, and this is where man has made his foothold.  Iliuliuk Bay, to the east, is separated from Captain’s Bay by a mountain by the name of Ballyhoo.  This mountain is connected to Unalaska by a small isthmus.  Dutch Harbor rests here under the shadow of Ballyhoo, and across the isthmus rests the older township of Unalaska.  Both harbors are utilized by docking facilities and shipping yards, and occupying any inch of flat land are caches of shipping containers, if not full of crab, then used as storage for the fishing fleets’ gear. 

Ballyhoo and the rest of Dutch Harbor are reminders of how close the war with Japan came to the continental United States.  Japan actually gained a foothold on the islands of Kiska and Attu to the west, the first time since the War of 1812 that American territory has been captured and occupied by enemy forces.  On June 3^rd, 1942 two Japanese aircraft carriers launched aircraft for an attack on Unalaska in preparation for a landing there, but were fought off in an aerial dogfight over the island.   Bunkers, pill boxes, aerial towers, military roads, and barracks can still be found here, and as late as the 80’s the roads were still lined with rusting hulks of military vehicles. 

This was a difficult time for the local population.  Soldiers were brought in from all across the United States.  Overnight a movie hall, barrooms, and brothels became establishments of the small township.  There are a number of disappointing accounts of the abuse of the native people, particularly of their women, by U.S. GI’s.  The government soon decided that the two races could not live together on such a small and confined island and so an order was given that the Aleuts inhabiting Unalaska were to be shipped to internment camps, and overnight they were relocated, lining the wharves with little more than cardboard suitcases to carry their possessions as they boarded a rusty hulk of a ship that would carry them to the mainland, and on to an American likeness of a concentration camp.

Today everything that comes to this island, like any island, is imported from the sea.  To build the most modest home would easily cost the builder over 350,000 dollars.  Every nail, timber, and appliance is shipped in.  The cost of groceries also increases, and the cost of a gallon of gas is at 4.50 a gallon.  Given its remote location and cost of living no one moves here, but instead moves away.

Now all this is to describe the place.  You might see it in your mind’s eye filling in the voids with your imagination, and in this way you may suffice your need to know more.  Or, to accompany words you may look upon some server to gather a more concise image of where and what these pages have attempted through wordsmithing to convey.  But the image still lacks dimension.  In the ever-nomadic course which a sailor’s life steers one makes port in regions far and near.  The brief interlude in port affords little time, but if one is adept one can soon feel the very soul of a place.  And it is this soul that gives us the most honest definition.

But what defines the soul of a place?  The people?  What defines the people?  The environment in which they live?  Their history?   But here is the rub.  A port such as Unalaska and Dutch Harbor where the vast number of its inhabitants are migrant takes for itself a transient soul.  Riding the streets this town is a shell of its former self.  Once a strong Aleut community, few have remained, but the industries and wealth here are for the outsiders.  Most occupants bear no roots to this place, and ill-associate it with their servitude to vessels and canneries, made even drearier by the weather, in which the forecast is always, “transitioning from shit to shittier, and progressively getting worse by the hour.”  These temporary inhabitants are always sadly coming as paupers, and happily going with pockets well laden in wages.  They have created an atmosphere that is reticent of the last of the fabled pirate towns, or even perhaps of town’s like Dawson City, where the dream of fortunes meet reality and wash themselves out in drink.  And so the sailor bars and women of trade here are infamous, and the stories of drunken brawls and broken glass seem to abound. 

But for those of us not consumed in the bottle, we are working.  We are transiting between hardware stores, grocers, and shipyards by truck or by boat, clad in a uniform of Grunden foul weather jackets, Carhart pants, and Xtra Tuff sea boots.  We are all comrades in purpose and we are all biding our time.  We are far from home, family, and often kindness.  We are hardened by this place, and are men without women who toil against the elements, but when one stops for a moment and looks out anew through virgin eyes, having quieted the over industrious mind, then perhaps one might see Captain’s Bay in a mirror like calm, the mist rising off the still water, and the umber base of the mountains rising up and rimmed afresh with rime ice below the peaked lofts of snow, and the colors of the sun rising over Pyramid Peak varying its cast of hues through the clouds from glacier blue to stormy gray, and ignited with flakes of gold, and as you sip your coffee an otter swims on its back past your hull, its nose working the smells of a clam chowder as it stews in the galley, then all the hardness is cleansed away for the moment, and you can remember that before man was here, there was creation, and in the dichotomies of nature there was a balance, and as all things can be born down into the one universal truth that reveals itself in infinite subtle shades, that this time here is temporary for everyone, a moment in a fluid continuum, and it is not to be shied away from or simply endured, but that instead much is to be gained, and these islands are monuments to this concept, that they stand between two seas and two plates, born up by conflict and ever taken slowly away by it, and that this harsh home is mother to a great diversity of life, that in this ruggedness is a beauty few will ever see, but that all could