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The Aleutian Islands, an archipelago off of Alaska, is about 1,100 miles long. It is made up of about 14 large islands and 55 small islands; it lies between the Bering Sea and the Pacific Ocean.

The History: The Aleutians were visited in 1741 by Vitus Bering who was a Danish explorer employed by Russia. Russian traders and trappers established settlements in the late 18th, early 19th century. As they expanded, the Aleuts were exploited. The islands were included in the Alaska purchase of 1867.

The Aleut People:
The seal hunters of the Pribilof and Commander islands are descendants of a great maritime race of Aleuts who settled along the Aleutian archipelago, a 1,300-km chain of islands extending southwest of the Alaskan mainland. Russians called them Aleut, but their own name is Unangan, meaning "the coast" or "seashore."

They are believed to have migrated across the Bering land bridge from Asia between 12,000 and 15,000 years ago. An early Eskimo-Aleut culture began to develop about 8,000 years ago in the Bering Sea and North Pacific region, later branching into the distinctive maritime culture and language of the Unangan along the Aleutian Islands.

Living in subterranean house, the Aleuts developed a sophisticated marine technology to cope with the limitations imposed by their environment and rigorous climate. They possessed special skills for hunting marine mammals from skin-covered kayaks, skills that were later exploited by the Russian fur traders who came to the islands after 1750 in search of sea otters and fur seals.

In the first fifty years of Russian control, Aleuts died from introduced diseases, wars resisting colonizers, malnutrition, and privation caused by the transport of hunters away from their villages to hunt sea mammals for the Russians. At the time of contact, the Aleut population is estimated to have been between 12,000 and 15,000. Today, there are about 2,000 Aleuts, of whom only 340 people still speak the Aleut language.

About the Wild Life:
Did you know?

  • > More than half the fish we eat comes
from the Bering Sea.
>
  • The Pribilof Islands, in the central Bering
Sea, are home to the world's largest
concentration of northern fur seals.
>
  • The Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta, on Alaska's west coast, has the largest concentrations of breeding waterfowl and shorebirds in North America.
    >
  • In Russia, the Kamchatka Peninsula's 20,000 rivers provide habitat for one-third of the world's Pacific salmon.
    >
  • Bering Sea provides an estimated one-third of Russia's fish supply, and more than half of the US's.

The Bering Sea:
The Bering Sea is separated from the Gulf of Alaska by the Alaska Peninsula and Aleutian Islands. Covering over two million square kilometers (775,000sqmi), it is bordered on the east and northeast by Alaska, on the west by Russia's Siberia and Kamchatka Peninsula, on the south by the Alaska Peninsula and the Aleutian IslandsBering Strait which separates the Bering Sea from the Arctic Ocean's Chukchi Sea. Bristol Bay is the portion of the Bering Sea which separates the Alaska PeninsulaAlaska. The Bering Sea is named for the first European discoverer to sail its waters, the Danish navigator Vitus Bering. from mainland and on the far north by the The Bering Sea ecosystem includes resources within the jurisdiction of the United States and Russia, as well as international waters in the ‘Donut Hole’. The interaction between currents, sea ice, and weather make for a vigorous and productive ecosystem.		 aleutian islands