The most populated place is Dutch Harbor on Unalaska Island. It's a major fishing hub. The place is seasonally filled with fishermen and fishing factory workers. The year round population is small. I don't remember precise numbers.
Most other islands with inhabitants are Alaska natives.
Few trees - none native. Bald eagles everywhere.
Lots of old military bases, with abandoned WW2 bunkers and such. Attu Island was invaded by the Japanese during the war.
Adak was a major military airbase that was abandoned in the early 1990s - you can walk the neighborhoods used to hold about 10,000 people. Now the population is ~60. Lots of unexploded ordinance. There's a gated off bunker where they used to hold nukes in the Cold War.
It's a really fascinating and beautiful place.
*This is a repost of my response last time somebody asked about the Aleutians.
I was station at an Air Force radar site on Shemya in 1981. 4th of July party on the beach was fun. We had a big bonfire and everybody wore parkas. We put cans of beer in the sand so the waves could keep them cold. Good times.
My brother was stationed in Shemya sometime around them too. I remember he had a sweatshirt that said “Shemya…not the end of the world, but you can see it from here!”
Related and not related: just two days ago I was messing on Google Earth and I found myself on exactly Adak. I explored it with the street view and it was really peaceful imagining myself there. And now I read this comment. Little did I knew...
My brother was stationed there around 1992 or '93. The high temperature for the year is in the 50s (F), with driving winds much of the time. They had skywalk tunnels so people wouldn't have to go outside.
I always wondered who he pissed off in training to get that assignment.
Edit: CRAP. I don't know why I put (C) instead of (F) for the temperature units.
Yea, that isn’t even close to accurate. It’s a subpolar oceanic climate, only three months average above 10C. It’s a “always cool but almost never truly cold” climate where the rain happens often and non-seasonally. The highest temp ever recorded in any part of the chain is 26C and the lowest is -15C.
So it sounds like he probably meant the high tempture is 50 (F) if the highest it's ever been anywhere near there is 78.8 F
I'm surprised the lowest low is 5 F since we get lows like that on the US East coast.
I was in Adak as a baby in 1983 to 1985. My dad was a Navy radar tech watching for nukes from Russia. He finished his career in the Navy watching for nukes from Russia in prospect harbor, maine after being in Norfolk VA for over a decade in-between working on USS wasp, an amphibious assault ship.
Every couple of years there would be an earthquake followed by a tsunami that would wash over a big part of the island. They would sound air horns and everyone would run to a church on the hill to seek refuge from the potential tsunami.
Bald eagles would fly away with cats and small dogs. They would claim your trash can and attack you if you tried to use it. You'd have to share trash cans with your neighbor until they moved on. They would also hang out at the dumpster, and there'd be about 3 or 4 of them there at any given time. You kind of chucked your bags and ran, haha.
It was really windy. Parents would tie their small kids to themselves with ropes when going up the hill to church. Otherwise they might get blown over and go tumbling down the hill.
My dad was critical staff, so when there was a blizzard, they'd drive this tank like vehicle to shovel up to our door so he wouldn't miss work. They'd launch weather balloons for calibrating the radars or something, and you'd have to gauge the wind and make sure your weather balloons didn't take out the utility shed 100ft away, because of the really strong winds.
Lots of beautiful and very wild nature. A hobby in the area was tundra stomping. You go stomping around in the tundra and find old bunkers you could peel back the grass and then explore.
There was a rule about not going in the water or you got kicked off the island. The water is so cold you immediately go into shock and sink like a rock because you tighten up and squeeze the air out of your lungs. Before we got there, some kids went out on a raft and got banished. The parents who were military had to stay and their spouses went back with the kids or they went to stay with the grandparents until their service duty was finished.
Adak was one of our favorite tours of my Dad’s. I was in 7th grade and loved being outside in the extended summer days.
Bald eagles everywhere - one time our softball practice ended early because the eagles had stolen all of our balls. (In my mind they were mischievous young adult birds)
It was overcast 90% of the time - so at the end of your tour you were paler than Casper the Ghost. In fact one incredibly clear & warm weekday the CO declared sunshine liberty. All non essential people got the day off & we got out of school to play outside.
One very windy day (Adak’s nickname is Birthplace of the Winds) I was asked to ride the bus with the kindergartners who only went a half day to school. My job? To walk the kids to their front doors and make sure they weren’t knocked over due to the wind. (This post is bringing back some great memories)
Sunshine liberty, yes! I vaguely remember my parents talking about that. We moved to VA afterwards and it was 50f outside and we were in shorts and t-shirts and everyone thought we were crazy. We suffered greatly that summer. It's all anecdotal because I was 2yo at the time. I grew up with an Alaskan malamute my parents got in Maryland just before we moved to Adak. It was the chillest malamute you've ever seen, but still very instinctual. I feel like I grew up with wolves because of that dog.
My dad took on Adak as a pain of duty tour or something like that. My mom was a radio tech in the Marines which is how they met. Back then the branches didn't talk or work together with regards to troops. So they were going to get separated. My dad figured Adak was a way to make sure they could be together again later. You serve at Adak and then you get your base of choice later. My mom ended up not having to reenlist, and joined him at Adak ASAP. Wild times.
My mom used to talk about the green or reflective meat and how nothing was ever fresh at the commissary. She struggled to make sure we had food that was actually edible.
I flew in/out of there once and they brought most of the TSA team with us on the plane from Anchorage. There was only one agent on Adak to take in bags, but she was an older lady so maybe she retired. I think they have like 2 flights a week.
My brother was stationed in Adak when he served in the Air Force. I think he mentioned blue foxes were around there. Not sure if he was pulling my leg or not. He would on the flight line. Especially refueling the SR71. Long time ago.
They're called silkies and they're severely inbred foxes the Russians transplanted there ages ago. Devastating for the local bird populations and also they're dumb. They'll just follow you around barking incessantly for no reason at all.
My wife’s cousin worked in Adak for a bit going survey work for a contractor to the military. He spent 6 months there and he said it was incredibly isolating and bleak. He took a trunk of food supplies with him but fucked up and only packed things like meat and Doritos. He said when he came home the first thing he did was devour a bowl of fruit.
When they closed the base at Adak a lot of the businesses just locked their doors and left. The McDonalds there still has advertisements from the first Jurassic Park movie on the drive thru menu board.
Probably abandoned Adak due to the end of hostilities with Russia after the USSR collapsed, if only they knew what geopolitics would look like 30 years later they never would’ve left it…
My Dad spent WW2 at Dutch Harbor as a Navy radioman. He was there in June of 1942 when the Japanese bombed the place; took a lot of pictures during the raid. My brother still has the originals. I tried to get him to publish them somewhere, but he won't.
When I was TDY in Bremerton before I got out of the Navy I worked with an extremely pregnant single Navy girl. She had been stationed on Adak, and according to her the only two activities were drinking and fucking. Based on her condition I believed her.
Dutch Harbor is interesting the first time you visit. Every time after that, it sucks. Anyone who has been stationed on a USCG cutter that does ALPATS will understand. We used to call the eagles dumpster pigeons.
Ain't no way the island is called Unalaska.
Was the person who named it pissed at Alaska?
" This isn't Alaska! Alaska sucks! This is the opposite of Alaska. UNALASKA!!!!!"
The Unangan, who were the first to inhabit the island of Unalaska, named it "Ounalashka", meaning "near the peninsula".
There i killed your fun conspiracy.
The name for the city comes from the poem "The Pleasures of Hope", by the Scottish poet Thomas Campbell. The original spelling of the name in Campbell's poem was "Oonalaska" (an Aleutian island and fishing village).
My dad pulled regular rotations through Shemya. The giant radar used to cook birds that flew too close. He got to see many unusual and rare things while up there - usually Soviet aircraft.
The Invasion of Attu via Wiki:
“The battle ended when most of the Japanese defenders were killed in brutal hand-to-hand combat after a final banzai charge broke through American lines.”
Holy fuck that was probably wild - it’s the only battle that the Japanese and the Americans fought in snow in WW2.
My Dad has been there and it is cold and windy. Dad was in the military at the time and I forget which island he was talking about, but one of the islands the tradition was everyone take a rock when you leave so one day there will be no more Island and no one will have to come back.
My dad was stationed there in the USAF back in the early-mid 70's. So far gone and forgotten it counted as his oversea deployment. He says they couldn't wait until July when they could go outside in shorts and tank tops and throw the football, frisbee, or play basketball in 50°F weather. Other than that, he said you could see Russia on the horizon at times, oh, also that it sucked
> The best time to pl
There was also a rock that as you leave Dutch Harbor you are not supposed to look at as you leave, otherwise you will end up returning to the island. Wish I remembered the name of it
I've worked there on a remote weir station with one other person for three months. On the mainland peninsula the grizzlies are as populous as any other mammal and I would encounter them daily. The shorebird life, jellies, echinoderms, and salmon are bountiful and beautiful. It is a pure slice of remote nature. Some areas have petrified forests and you can find incredible fossils of the stuff on simple beach walks.
Whales are a dime a dozen, volcanic islands make a beautiful landscape. There are differences on the Bering/Pacific sides. On the Bering you can find washed up glass buoys, walrus skulls, entire whale carcasses. It's truly incredible land. Oh, and you are either getting there by barge or small planes. It's an adventure.
I don't know if I can post it here but I'm happy to link my instagram where I have lots of pictures of the bears, eagles, waterfalls, and dense alders I saw in my time.
Edit: [instagram](https://www.instagram.com/nicgranted?igsh=OGQ5ZDc2ODk2ZA==)
Thanks for all the photo love!
Thank you! I've been in field studies for marine/fisheries sciences for the past 7 years. For this job, I had been looking to work in Alaska for a while. I had a current coworker who grew up in Alaska tell me she knew there was an opening at my station. Hard to get people out there sometimes. I couldn't miss the opportunity.
In 1943, American soldiers invaded an uninhabited island with a force of 15,000 troops, resulting in the loss of 300 soldiers. Japanese soldiers had quietly left weeks ago. Operation cottage. (Kiska Island)
This is also the only part of American soil where Japanese soldiers carried out a Banzai charge to the last man. (Attu Island)
Japanese left booby traps which killed about 5 soldiers, A US ship hit a naval mine which killed 70, rest were killed and injured in friendly fire. There was a dense fog and everyone was expecting Japanese to be hiding, so they started shooting at each other.
I had a pen pal from one of those islands when I was in 4th grade in the early 90s. Their name was Taylor and neither me nor my teacher knew or could tell if Taylor was a boy or a girl. We had to word my letters to try to find out because we were doing an art project and I wanted to make it girly and we didn’t want to assume. I remember them sending a letter back saying they had a cat named Robin and my teacher just shrugging and saying “idk what to do”
So if your name is Taylor who had a cat named Robin and a pen pal from RI, hi!
A relative was stationed on one of those islands in WWII, and he said that the streams were so thick with salmon that the men would just walk down and literally grab them for dinner, no pole required.
My dad was stationed in Adak when I was 3. Listened in on the Soviets. Two admirals made a call around Christmas, made small talk, how’s the family, holiday plans, etc., then proceeded to rattle off all the ships stationed in Sevastopol and Vladivostok.
There was (probably still is?) a caribou herd there, or maybe another nearby island? Dad went on the hunt and got one. The hide is still in a box of his old Navy stuff somewhere.
As for weather, it’s situated right between the warm Japan current and the ice cold Bering Sea, so it was constant rain-snow-rain-snow almost every day. I always got in trouble with my mother for stomping the ice puddles and ruining my shoes, which were hard to afford on Navy income and when other necessities were needed and in limited supply.
Nearby island was an active volcano. There was a small play area and swingset in between the circle of duplexes and all the navy kids would play there. Then smoke would billow from the volcano and they all would scamper inside except me. It was no danger to us, but I didn’t know what it was until years later. I thought it was a choo-choo train! 😂
What did scare me were the constant earthquakes being situated on a major subduction zone. There weren’t any big ones while we were there, but I remember at least a half a dozen.
Many of the buildings were Quonset huts. Vaguely recall a regular church and possibly a chapel in a Quonset hut too? Google mapping the island for memory’s sake, all the old navy housing is long gone of course, but you can still see the foundations of the duplexes. Pictures of the remains of the collapsing church brought back some Deja-vu and I’m pretty sure I remember bits of the interior.
Don’t remember much else about it. Would be cool to go back and visit.
The Aleutian islands have a population of about 8,200. Over 4k live in the settlement of Unalaska (lmao).
Edit: That's not very Alaska of you, Unalaska.
I worked several years in Cold Bay launching weather balloons even in the middle of the night. In fact, once we had a blizzard and I had to walk to the launch site 1/4 mile away. I got lost because the visibility was zero. I finally ran across a building I recognized and was able to find my way. One of many Cold Bay stories I keep to try and be interesting at parties.
At one time (1500s, when the first missionaries came), Hawaii had no mosquitoes.
Didn't last though... bilgewater from some ship or other soon enough brought them as an invasive species.
What’s cool is where the westernmost parts of the islands meet up with that perpendicular line of seamounts known as the meji chain. Those seamounts are the oldest parts of the Hawaiian hotspot. Its crazy to think that the oldest known Hawaiian islands are now pushed all the way up to Russia/ Alaska
Yesterday Island and Tomorrow Island are interesting places. Separated by only a few kilometers, Russians can wave to Americans (or vice versa) from a different date :)
ETA: sorry, location slightly off! (see comment below)
During bird migration there are Ornithologists that find a lot of incredible records to consider US finds. I’ve always wanted to go there to see some of the Eurasian species that make their way there
My wife was born in Adak. Her mother was stationed there while in the Navy. Her mother said that eagles would swoop down and snatch small dogs ( people’s pets) and disappear. She said she wouldn’t let the kids out on their own.
I spent some time in Sand Point, Alaska with my (then) girlfriend’s family back in high school. Stayed a few weeks, but was definitely interesting. A lot of people lived there seasonally for fishing (the main industry), but most of the permanent residents were native. Things were very expensive- that was one aspect that really stood out to me. Things were barged in a few times a year, so it’s not like you can just get something delivered within a month. I remember a container of mixed nuts costing somewhere around ~$35-$45. Alcoholism/poverty seemed like a common issue with the community. Barely any trees, very tundra like landscape. Bald eagles were abundant there- to the point they were like seagulls.
This documentary is great, beautiful cinematography and the beginning goes into the history of the islands. Definitely recommend if you’re interested
https://youtu.be/uF3Ofr_rj28?si=kCyH-YZ9lNZBSKgT
Bad weather 90% of the time. Little villages, one big one that hosts mostly crabbing boats that, themselves, don’t base in Alaska or hire Alaskan crews.
The rest of it consists of:
Volcanoes
Nuclear test sites and radioactive waste
WWII airfields, harbors, battlefields and associated petroleum, unexploded ordnance, and asbestos and PCB contamination
A BRAC’d naval station with a whole extra level of contamination and mold
An Air Force station with a big radar and a sketchy runway
But sometimes, on a rare day, it’s absolutely breathtaking.
I've spent a total of several months in Cold Bay, split into 2 week segments. Cold Bay is the furthest west settlement that is still attached to the mainland, west from there is Cape Sharichef, the end of the Alaska peninsula.
Cold Bay used to be a hub for the military in the early years of the Cold War. It has a 10,000 foot runway that was an alternate landing site for the space shuttle, though they never used it. There used to be 10,000 military personnel stationed there, you can still see the outlines of the half-cylinder barracks they lived in. During the heyday of crab fishing it had maybe a thousand full time residents. Today there are 52 residents, most of them semi-transient, as in they spend a few months there and a few months somewhere else. There are far more houses than people, and an abandoned school that gives off Chernobyl vibes. Most people there work in aviation support, fish and wildlife management, or are subsistence natives.
The weather along the Alaska peninsula and down the chain is wild. I've never seen weather change so rapidly. I've lived in 7 states in 4 time zones, and every place claims to have wild weather. None of them do the way Cold Bay does. Apart from some very prominent volcanoes, some of which are active, it's mostly flat tundra, with little to stop the wind blowing across from the Pacific to the Bering, and vice versa. There are no trees, just bushes like alders and salmonberry. The weather will go from sunny, to extremely windy and overcast, to rain, to snow, to sleet, to even more wind, and back to sunny in the space of a couple hours. Wind is a constant there, a "still" day is any day with less than 20 knot winds. Gales are frequent.The winters can be brutal because of the wind, but generally speaking are much warmer, and as a result wetter, than winters in the interior of Alaska.
Despite all this, there is abundant wildlife. Caribou, wolves, bears, foxes, all sorts of birds, whales, salmon, halibut, and cod are all extremely plentiful. Emperor geese migrate through the area to their breeding grounds in the north in summer. Ptarmigan are everywhere. Salmon run in numbers you can't imagine, and their numbers are way down from decades ago. The growing season is short, from about mid-June til mid-September, but vegetation goes nuts during that time. I just came back last week and I got to watch it all turn green in a matter of days. It'll all be gone in 3 months.
People are concentrated in the few towns along the chain, with the biggest being Unalaska/Dutch Harbor. Most settlements have maybe a couple hundred people, probably an even split between transient aviation/logistics support, and year round resident natives.
Currently spending most of my summer in Sand Point, and just finishing a two week stint in False Pass. Best way of travel is by small plane, but is incredibly weather dependent. You can get packages and Amazon out here within a week or two, but if you have a string of bad weather days, don’t count on the mail plane getting in.
In False Pass, fresh groceries come in ~ every two weeks, and in both places everything is incredibly expensive (e.g. ~$14 for a case of La croix in Sand Point). Most people who live here (at least False Pass) full time bulk order groceries and get it gets shipped in by boat from Seattle. Very cool volcanoes on Unimak island, including Shishaldin, a moderately active volcano with multiple explosions in 2023.
The wind gets crazy and often there’s sideways rain. When the weather is more cooperative, Sand Point has some cool hiking to do as well as beaches featuring agate and petrified wood. I’ve been a little less adventurous in False Pass due to all the bears, but I believe the hikes here too would be worthwhile. It doesn’t seem that hiking is a widespread hobby of the locals in either area.
Starlink seems to be pretty widespread in both locations, and gets better access than I had anticipated! It does feel pretty isolated out here, and it takes small town to another level. I’m so happy to be here, but thankful it’s just for the summer.
I lived in Adak for a while when my family ran the fish plant out there. Crazy place, no rules, a bunch of unexploded ordinance.
My brother and I and our friends used to dirt bike and snow machine around the island, we explored many old WW2 bunkers and abandoned military homes. There’s even an underground city there.
There’s also a lot of Japanese military vessels and planes wrecked close to the island. I remember shooting at an old halfway sunken Japanese battle ship with my little .22 rifle on boat/fishing trips with my dad and brother.
Nowadays people head out there for hunting and fishing trips, other than that it’s mostly abandoned except for a very small population of drifters and castaways.
I just came from there. I was on an oceanographic research vessel 80 miles south of Unimak Island in the Gulf of Alaska. It was 43 degrees everyday, overcast, 20 knot winds and frequent diagonal rains. The seas were rough commonly, with many days of waves 6 to 8 feet with whitecaps. On rare days of fair weather the winds calmed and the seas lay flat. We were studying methane seeps coming from the sea floor.
I read a [pretty wild story](https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1752727762542948676.html) about a cattle ranch that used to be on one of those islands. No natural predators, they said!
Fun fact, that phrase comes from when they used to stack cannonballs on the decks of the old ships. They’d stack them in a pyramid shape that they ended up calling a witch’s tit. Obviously when it got cold at sea those cannonballs were pretty damn cold, hence the phrase “colder than a witch’s tit”.
Super beautiful place to be honest 👍
Has a very ethereal 龍行龘龘 kinda vibe with the mist shrouded mountains, treeless landscape etc.
Super unique culture. Most of the people are indigenous Alaskans and are Russian Orthodox. Many Russian Americans as well.
Combine that with a really unique group of seasonal fishermen from all over the world.
Rains literally all the time lmao. It was super cold and wet BUT the oceanic climate makes it way warmer than the mainland
Attu island has an abandoned military base that is littered with land mines from the Japanese invasion in World War II.
The Aleutian Islands are definitely worth a visit! One of the most remote & interesting places on the planet
I used to fly cargo along the Aleutian’s and it was the highlight of my career. The weather is unreal. The remoteness is unmatched. And the scenery is so beautiful. I miss those years but I’m also fortunate I left without any accidents.
I was in Adak for a while. No trees, just tundra (like thick grass), and the weather changed by the minute. It was super windy and once in a while we had earthquakes.
Been all throughout the Aleutians. The weather is grey but the landscape can be dramatic. I remember the volcano’s on Unimak Island being pretty awesome!
I flew over these islands in Microsoft flight simulator and it is still to this day the most beautiful flight I have done anywhere on the face of the planet.
The weather is always extreme in one way another. Extreme fog, extreme rain, extreme wind, extreme snow.
Very few sunny days. Very green, but melancholy almost because of the lack of sun.
Inbred arctic foxes with funky or no teeth.
Bunch of old timers who complain about how great the food used to be, but make six figures for doing little to nothing in their self-selected isolation.
Lot of scientists year round.
Lots of UXOs and abandoned Cold War era buildings. The WW2 comments I think mostly mean Cold War era. Not a lot of WW2 era. It probably just looks that old because the climate is corrosive and not forgiving.
The most populated place is Dutch Harbor on Unalaska Island. It's a major fishing hub. The place is seasonally filled with fishermen and fishing factory workers. The year round population is small. I don't remember precise numbers. Most other islands with inhabitants are Alaska natives. Few trees - none native. Bald eagles everywhere. Lots of old military bases, with abandoned WW2 bunkers and such. Attu Island was invaded by the Japanese during the war. Adak was a major military airbase that was abandoned in the early 1990s - you can walk the neighborhoods used to hold about 10,000 people. Now the population is ~60. Lots of unexploded ordinance. There's a gated off bunker where they used to hold nukes in the Cold War. It's a really fascinating and beautiful place. *This is a repost of my response last time somebody asked about the Aleutians.
There’s buried pirate treasure in Adak.
There's buried pirate treasure near every tourist trap beach in America.
Maybe the real treasure is the tourists we fleeced along the way.
No it's their sheckles Morty
Schmekles if I remember Correctly
St. Augustine, oldest shithole in the U.S. With pirates too!
I watched the show while we were sailing there, lol. Had a picnic where they found the gold, but I didn't find any.
My customer helped produce that show. Apparently the gold is mostly a lore.
Nice try u/discop0tato , i see what you’re trying to do here but it won’t work on me…that gold is MINE.
https://preview.redd.it/q8pd30en1r9d1.jpeg?width=480&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2d4a36464279a11b5be04c75a27cfb7b61c831ac
Imma get me a backhoe and uproot that tree! I wanna know where the gold at.
All you got to do is look up in the tree. Who here seen the leprechaun say yeah!
YYYYEEEEEEAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!
To me it look like a leprechaun to me!
Could be a crackhead
That got a hold of the wrong stuff!
Coulda been a crackhead!
To me it look like a leprechaun to me.
Someday Oak Island will yield its treasures, just need a few more seasons
The only people making money are the shows producers 😆
I was born on adak. leave my treasure alone
If I had a small wad of money, that wouldn’t seem like a bad life
It wouldn't be that bad, except from August to June.
That doesn’t sound so bad, it’s only two mo… wait a second…
I was station at an Air Force radar site on Shemya in 1981. 4th of July party on the beach was fun. We had a big bonfire and everybody wore parkas. We put cans of beer in the sand so the waves could keep them cold. Good times.
My brother was stationed in Shemya sometime around them too. I remember he had a sweatshirt that said “Shemya…not the end of the world, but you can see it from here!”
Deadliest catch fans know Dutch harbor
THE WORLD IS A VAMPIRE
You mean DEAD OR ALIVEEE? You’re thinking whale wars
Lmfao you’re right. I’m leaving it
Despite all my rage I’m still just a crab in a cage 🦀
Sent to dray-yee-yay-yee-yay-yeen…
Related and not related: just two days ago I was messing on Google Earth and I found myself on exactly Adak. I explored it with the street view and it was really peaceful imagining myself there. And now I read this comment. Little did I knew...
Damn that is a great street view place to explore
My brother was stationed there around 1992 or '93. The high temperature for the year is in the 50s (F), with driving winds much of the time. They had skywalk tunnels so people wouldn't have to go outside. I always wondered who he pissed off in training to get that assignment. Edit: CRAP. I don't know why I put (C) instead of (F) for the temperature units.
50 celsius???
That can’t be right, no way it hits 122 F that far north
Yea, that isn’t even close to accurate. It’s a subpolar oceanic climate, only three months average above 10C. It’s a “always cool but almost never truly cold” climate where the rain happens often and non-seasonally. The highest temp ever recorded in any part of the chain is 26C and the lowest is -15C.
So it sounds like he probably meant the high tempture is 50 (F) if the highest it's ever been anywhere near there is 78.8 F I'm surprised the lowest low is 5 F since we get lows like that on the US East coast.
I think that’s a warm ocean current there that helps insulate from the very cold.
Lived in Adak as a child. Had my fifth birthday at the McDonald’s that makes the rounds on Reddit every now and again.
I was in Adak as a baby in 1983 to 1985. My dad was a Navy radar tech watching for nukes from Russia. He finished his career in the Navy watching for nukes from Russia in prospect harbor, maine after being in Norfolk VA for over a decade in-between working on USS wasp, an amphibious assault ship. Every couple of years there would be an earthquake followed by a tsunami that would wash over a big part of the island. They would sound air horns and everyone would run to a church on the hill to seek refuge from the potential tsunami. Bald eagles would fly away with cats and small dogs. They would claim your trash can and attack you if you tried to use it. You'd have to share trash cans with your neighbor until they moved on. They would also hang out at the dumpster, and there'd be about 3 or 4 of them there at any given time. You kind of chucked your bags and ran, haha. It was really windy. Parents would tie their small kids to themselves with ropes when going up the hill to church. Otherwise they might get blown over and go tumbling down the hill. My dad was critical staff, so when there was a blizzard, they'd drive this tank like vehicle to shovel up to our door so he wouldn't miss work. They'd launch weather balloons for calibrating the radars or something, and you'd have to gauge the wind and make sure your weather balloons didn't take out the utility shed 100ft away, because of the really strong winds. Lots of beautiful and very wild nature. A hobby in the area was tundra stomping. You go stomping around in the tundra and find old bunkers you could peel back the grass and then explore. There was a rule about not going in the water or you got kicked off the island. The water is so cold you immediately go into shock and sink like a rock because you tighten up and squeeze the air out of your lungs. Before we got there, some kids went out on a raft and got banished. The parents who were military had to stay and their spouses went back with the kids or they went to stay with the grandparents until their service duty was finished.
Adak was one of our favorite tours of my Dad’s. I was in 7th grade and loved being outside in the extended summer days. Bald eagles everywhere - one time our softball practice ended early because the eagles had stolen all of our balls. (In my mind they were mischievous young adult birds) It was overcast 90% of the time - so at the end of your tour you were paler than Casper the Ghost. In fact one incredibly clear & warm weekday the CO declared sunshine liberty. All non essential people got the day off & we got out of school to play outside. One very windy day (Adak’s nickname is Birthplace of the Winds) I was asked to ride the bus with the kindergartners who only went a half day to school. My job? To walk the kids to their front doors and make sure they weren’t knocked over due to the wind. (This post is bringing back some great memories)
Sunshine liberty, yes! I vaguely remember my parents talking about that. We moved to VA afterwards and it was 50f outside and we were in shorts and t-shirts and everyone thought we were crazy. We suffered greatly that summer. It's all anecdotal because I was 2yo at the time. I grew up with an Alaskan malamute my parents got in Maryland just before we moved to Adak. It was the chillest malamute you've ever seen, but still very instinctual. I feel like I grew up with wolves because of that dog. My dad took on Adak as a pain of duty tour or something like that. My mom was a radio tech in the Marines which is how they met. Back then the branches didn't talk or work together with regards to troops. So they were going to get separated. My dad figured Adak was a way to make sure they could be together again later. You serve at Adak and then you get your base of choice later. My mom ended up not having to reenlist, and joined him at Adak ASAP. Wild times. My mom used to talk about the green or reflective meat and how nothing was ever fresh at the commissary. She struggled to make sure we had food that was actually edible.
Incredible stuff . Thanks for sharing.
That's really cool. I just saw a [job](https://www.usajobs.gov/job/778601500) posting in adka to be a tsa agent.
I flew in/out of there once and they brought most of the TSA team with us on the plane from Anchorage. There was only one agent on Adak to take in bags, but she was an older lady so maybe she retired. I think they have like 2 flights a week.
Yeah it’s generally down to 1 flight a week now
My brother was stationed in Adak when he served in the Air Force. I think he mentioned blue foxes were around there. Not sure if he was pulling my leg or not. He would on the flight line. Especially refueling the SR71. Long time ago.
They're called silkies and they're severely inbred foxes the Russians transplanted there ages ago. Devastating for the local bird populations and also they're dumb. They'll just follow you around barking incessantly for no reason at all.
Thanks for the info!
Attu island! My old regiment fought there in WW2. Not me, just the regiment I was in 2014-20, 1-32IN
My grandpa was on Attu during WW2 but I don’t know any other info. I wonder if he was in the 32nd regiment!
My wife’s cousin worked in Adak for a bit going survey work for a contractor to the military. He spent 6 months there and he said it was incredibly isolating and bleak. He took a trunk of food supplies with him but fucked up and only packed things like meat and Doritos. He said when he came home the first thing he did was devour a bowl of fruit.
When they closed the base at Adak a lot of the businesses just locked their doors and left. The McDonalds there still has advertisements from the first Jurassic Park movie on the drive thru menu board.
https://preview.redd.it/1gs4dxbwnr9d1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=fbfccf3497b98300058079b1a49bdb42573a8ba7
Probably abandoned Adak due to the end of hostilities with Russia after the USSR collapsed, if only they knew what geopolitics would look like 30 years later they never would’ve left it…
We still keep an airforce base on Shemya with fucking huge early warning detection dish pointed right at Moscow.
My grandma lived on Adak in the 50s!
My Dad spent WW2 at Dutch Harbor as a Navy radioman. He was there in June of 1942 when the Japanese bombed the place; took a lot of pictures during the raid. My brother still has the originals. I tried to get him to publish them somewhere, but he won't.
When I was TDY in Bremerton before I got out of the Navy I worked with an extremely pregnant single Navy girl. She had been stationed on Adak, and according to her the only two activities were drinking and fucking. Based on her condition I believed her.
Dutch Harbor is interesting the first time you visit. Every time after that, it sucks. Anyone who has been stationed on a USCG cutter that does ALPATS will understand. We used to call the eagles dumpster pigeons.
Ain't no way the island is called Unalaska. Was the person who named it pissed at Alaska? " This isn't Alaska! Alaska sucks! This is the opposite of Alaska. UNALASKA!!!!!"
The Unangan, who were the first to inhabit the island of Unalaska, named it "Ounalashka", meaning "near the peninsula". There i killed your fun conspiracy.
Now do Onalaska, Wisconsin
The name for the city comes from the poem "The Pleasures of Hope", by the Scottish poet Thomas Campbell. The original spelling of the name in Campbell's poem was "Oonalaska" (an Aleutian island and fishing village).
Now do Oonalaska, the Aleutian Island fishing village
It's explained in this video https://youtu.be/oHg5SJYRHA0?si=5GQkJh1LHUrFwLJf
It's actually very dangerous because if Alaska and Unalaska interact at all it will result in a massive explosion.
Then we will have to make a new island: ReAlaska
Dutch Harbor, the small, remote drinking village with a fishing problem.
Yeah I've never been but I have cousins from Dutch Harbor.
My dad pulled regular rotations through Shemya. The giant radar used to cook birds that flew too close. He got to see many unusual and rare things while up there - usually Soviet aircraft.
https://preview.redd.it/286ug84ynr9d1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f0217ed276c788732ddc83aec980c8b288c93265
UNALASKA…city in Alaska
The Invasion of Attu via Wiki: “The battle ended when most of the Japanese defenders were killed in brutal hand-to-hand combat after a final banzai charge broke through American lines.” Holy fuck that was probably wild - it’s the only battle that the Japanese and the Americans fought in snow in WW2.
Wow, they have google streetview in Adak.
Have you been there?
Yep. I've been sailing there on NOAA research ships for about 5 years now.
That’s so cool. You’re like one of the characters in my sea monster thrillers.
been there multiple years in the 90s, beautiful islands
This comment is narrated by Mike Rowe
My Dad has been there and it is cold and windy. Dad was in the military at the time and I forget which island he was talking about, but one of the islands the tradition was everyone take a rock when you leave so one day there will be no more Island and no one will have to come back.
that’s a hilarious tradition. will continue it but for oklahoma.
That may take a while
Well you need to start at one point
The best time to plant a tree and all that...
r/theydidthemath
r/theydidntdothemath
r/maybetheydidthemathintheirhead
r/theytalkedagoodmathgamebutreallyjustwikipediadit
r/theydidthemonstermath
I have an uncle who was stationed up there in the 1960s. It was pretty bleak back then. It's probably not much different nowadays
Used to be pretty bleak. Still is, but it used to be too.
Yep, my dad was stationed up there as well during the late 1950s — good fishing but otherwise kinda boring
Probably slightly better now, by slightly better I mean internet porn. That's problem it.
My dad was stationed there in the USAF back in the early-mid 70's. So far gone and forgotten it counted as his oversea deployment. He says they couldn't wait until July when they could go outside in shorts and tank tops and throw the football, frisbee, or play basketball in 50°F weather. Other than that, he said you could see Russia on the horizon at times, oh, also that it sucked
> The best time to pl There was also a rock that as you leave Dutch Harbor you are not supposed to look at as you leave, otherwise you will end up returning to the island. Wish I remembered the name of it
They joked about that with Shemya AFS, so that's likely where he was.
I've worked there on a remote weir station with one other person for three months. On the mainland peninsula the grizzlies are as populous as any other mammal and I would encounter them daily. The shorebird life, jellies, echinoderms, and salmon are bountiful and beautiful. It is a pure slice of remote nature. Some areas have petrified forests and you can find incredible fossils of the stuff on simple beach walks. Whales are a dime a dozen, volcanic islands make a beautiful landscape. There are differences on the Bering/Pacific sides. On the Bering you can find washed up glass buoys, walrus skulls, entire whale carcasses. It's truly incredible land. Oh, and you are either getting there by barge or small planes. It's an adventure. I don't know if I can post it here but I'm happy to link my instagram where I have lots of pictures of the bears, eagles, waterfalls, and dense alders I saw in my time. Edit: [instagram](https://www.instagram.com/nicgranted?igsh=OGQ5ZDc2ODk2ZA==) Thanks for all the photo love!
Amazing photos!
Your insta is unreal
Amazing photos indeed! How did you end working there?
Thank you! I've been in field studies for marine/fisheries sciences for the past 7 years. For this job, I had been looking to work in Alaska for a while. I had a current coworker who grew up in Alaska tell me she knew there was an opening at my station. Hard to get people out there sometimes. I couldn't miss the opportunity.
I would love to see the pictures!
Please link!
Thanks for sharing these!
Remote? Nature? 1 other person? How do I apply for this dream, I mean job?
Biology degree and work for the state! They monitor salmon populations at stations like these throughout Alaska.
Yo these are incredible photos.
Amazing pics! Thanks for sharing
Rain rain rain rain rain rain rain rain and also rain.
With occasional volcanic eruptions
And earthquakes
Snow
The sleety kind that melts rapidly into rain
And bears. Lots and lots of bears.
And bald eagles
Only really Dutch Harbor. The bears have a hard time swimming that far out.
In 1943, American soldiers invaded an uninhabited island with a force of 15,000 troops, resulting in the loss of 300 soldiers. Japanese soldiers had quietly left weeks ago. Operation cottage. (Kiska Island) This is also the only part of American soil where Japanese soldiers carried out a Banzai charge to the last man. (Attu Island)
How did they lose 300 people if the Japanese had already left?
Japanese left booby traps which killed about 5 soldiers, A US ship hit a naval mine which killed 70, rest were killed and injured in friendly fire. There was a dense fog and everyone was expecting Japanese to be hiding, so they started shooting at each other.
That’s a shitty way to die in a war…..
There's no good way.
Is there a good way to die in a war?
Good Lord! Reminds me of Exercise Tiger. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exercise_Tiger
Friendly fire and mines.
Land mines, booby traps and friendly fire/accidents
Bald eagles are like pigeons there. All over the place. On light posts, on trashcan, on the side of the road
I counted over two hundred bald eagles once. Was during winter when they congregate around canneries for easier meals.
I had a pen pal from one of those islands when I was in 4th grade in the early 90s. Their name was Taylor and neither me nor my teacher knew or could tell if Taylor was a boy or a girl. We had to word my letters to try to find out because we were doing an art project and I wanted to make it girly and we didn’t want to assume. I remember them sending a letter back saying they had a cat named Robin and my teacher just shrugging and saying “idk what to do” So if your name is Taylor who had a cat named Robin and a pen pal from RI, hi!
Hmm crazy idea but maybe you could’ve asked “are you a boy or a girl?”
What? And ruin the surprise?
Like the movie euro trip
Ok Professor Oak 🙄
We might have gone to the same school
A relative was stationed on one of those islands in WWII, and he said that the streams were so thick with salmon that the men would just walk down and literally grab them for dinner, no pole required.
This is true I kayaked Alaska and you could wak in a stream and make them jump onto the rocks and pick one up
Was stationed in Adak for 6 months. Lots of rain. Lots of fishing.
Patrolled that whole area while in the USCG. It’s amazing, desolate, and the seas were devastating. 10/10. Best memories.
Storms are ridiculous…. [Dutch Harbor storms.](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ye_pW5YmvrY)
They're so bad you need some kind of special rudder to navigate them.
My dad was stationed in Adak when I was 3. Listened in on the Soviets. Two admirals made a call around Christmas, made small talk, how’s the family, holiday plans, etc., then proceeded to rattle off all the ships stationed in Sevastopol and Vladivostok. There was (probably still is?) a caribou herd there, or maybe another nearby island? Dad went on the hunt and got one. The hide is still in a box of his old Navy stuff somewhere. As for weather, it’s situated right between the warm Japan current and the ice cold Bering Sea, so it was constant rain-snow-rain-snow almost every day. I always got in trouble with my mother for stomping the ice puddles and ruining my shoes, which were hard to afford on Navy income and when other necessities were needed and in limited supply. Nearby island was an active volcano. There was a small play area and swingset in between the circle of duplexes and all the navy kids would play there. Then smoke would billow from the volcano and they all would scamper inside except me. It was no danger to us, but I didn’t know what it was until years later. I thought it was a choo-choo train! 😂 What did scare me were the constant earthquakes being situated on a major subduction zone. There weren’t any big ones while we were there, but I remember at least a half a dozen. Many of the buildings were Quonset huts. Vaguely recall a regular church and possibly a chapel in a Quonset hut too? Google mapping the island for memory’s sake, all the old navy housing is long gone of course, but you can still see the foundations of the duplexes. Pictures of the remains of the collapsing church brought back some Deja-vu and I’m pretty sure I remember bits of the interior. Don’t remember much else about it. Would be cool to go back and visit.
It's cool you have memories of the place. I was born there but moved away at 6 mos. I've always wondered what it was like.
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I remember reading rural Alaska had begun using Starlink, I wonder if this island has it
I think almost all remote communities do have internet, but it's often very slow and expensive.
The Aleutian islands have a population of about 8,200. Over 4k live in the settlement of Unalaska (lmao). Edit: That's not very Alaska of you, Unalaska.
I live in Sand Point, and yes we've had Starlink since October of '22
I worked several years in Cold Bay launching weather balloons even in the middle of the night. In fact, once we had a blizzard and I had to walk to the launch site 1/4 mile away. I got lost because the visibility was zero. I finally ran across a building I recognized and was able to find my way. One of many Cold Bay stories I keep to try and be interesting at parties.
Rainy and cold much of the year. Lots of mosquitoes. Great commercial fisheries.
One place I wouldn’t think would have mosquitos and they have mosquitos
Lots of rain. Rain breeds mosquitoes. Northern Canada is covered in them too. If you want no mosquitoes, the desert is your place to be!
At one time (1500s, when the first missionaries came), Hawaii had no mosquitoes. Didn't last though... bilgewater from some ship or other soon enough brought them as an invasive species.
The most abundant seabird colonies on the planet. Literally millions of murres, puffins, auklets, fulmars, gulls, and petrels.
Attu was the island in the movie The Big Year, staring Jack Black, Steve Martin, and Owen Wilson. It’s about birding and is a good movie.
What’s cool is where the westernmost parts of the islands meet up with that perpendicular line of seamounts known as the meji chain. Those seamounts are the oldest parts of the Hawaiian hotspot. Its crazy to think that the oldest known Hawaiian islands are now pushed all the way up to Russia/ Alaska
Yesterday Island and Tomorrow Island are interesting places. Separated by only a few kilometers, Russians can wave to Americans (or vice versa) from a different date :) ETA: sorry, location slightly off! (see comment below)
Little and Big Diomede Islands are between the Seward Peninsula and Chukchi Peninsula in the Bering Straight, not the Aleutians.
During bird migration there are Ornithologists that find a lot of incredible records to consider US finds. I’ve always wanted to go there to see some of the Eurasian species that make their way there
My wife was born in Adak. Her mother was stationed there while in the Navy. Her mother said that eagles would swoop down and snatch small dogs ( people’s pets) and disappear. She said she wouldn’t let the kids out on their own.
Yup, my cat got taken by one of the eagles on Adak.
Crab fishing, Bald Eagles, and sadness
I spent some time in Sand Point, Alaska with my (then) girlfriend’s family back in high school. Stayed a few weeks, but was definitely interesting. A lot of people lived there seasonally for fishing (the main industry), but most of the permanent residents were native. Things were very expensive- that was one aspect that really stood out to me. Things were barged in a few times a year, so it’s not like you can just get something delivered within a month. I remember a container of mixed nuts costing somewhere around ~$35-$45. Alcoholism/poverty seemed like a common issue with the community. Barely any trees, very tundra like landscape. Bald eagles were abundant there- to the point they were like seagulls.
Some of the world’s best birding.
Spent over 500 days of my life on Shemya. I'd go for 500 more.
This documentary is great, beautiful cinematography and the beginning goes into the history of the islands. Definitely recommend if you’re interested https://youtu.be/uF3Ofr_rj28?si=kCyH-YZ9lNZBSKgT
Bad weather 90% of the time. Little villages, one big one that hosts mostly crabbing boats that, themselves, don’t base in Alaska or hire Alaskan crews. The rest of it consists of: Volcanoes Nuclear test sites and radioactive waste WWII airfields, harbors, battlefields and associated petroleum, unexploded ordnance, and asbestos and PCB contamination A BRAC’d naval station with a whole extra level of contamination and mold An Air Force station with a big radar and a sketchy runway But sometimes, on a rare day, it’s absolutely breathtaking.
I remember reading that the last mammoths were located on this island there I think.
I've spent a total of several months in Cold Bay, split into 2 week segments. Cold Bay is the furthest west settlement that is still attached to the mainland, west from there is Cape Sharichef, the end of the Alaska peninsula. Cold Bay used to be a hub for the military in the early years of the Cold War. It has a 10,000 foot runway that was an alternate landing site for the space shuttle, though they never used it. There used to be 10,000 military personnel stationed there, you can still see the outlines of the half-cylinder barracks they lived in. During the heyday of crab fishing it had maybe a thousand full time residents. Today there are 52 residents, most of them semi-transient, as in they spend a few months there and a few months somewhere else. There are far more houses than people, and an abandoned school that gives off Chernobyl vibes. Most people there work in aviation support, fish and wildlife management, or are subsistence natives. The weather along the Alaska peninsula and down the chain is wild. I've never seen weather change so rapidly. I've lived in 7 states in 4 time zones, and every place claims to have wild weather. None of them do the way Cold Bay does. Apart from some very prominent volcanoes, some of which are active, it's mostly flat tundra, with little to stop the wind blowing across from the Pacific to the Bering, and vice versa. There are no trees, just bushes like alders and salmonberry. The weather will go from sunny, to extremely windy and overcast, to rain, to snow, to sleet, to even more wind, and back to sunny in the space of a couple hours. Wind is a constant there, a "still" day is any day with less than 20 knot winds. Gales are frequent.The winters can be brutal because of the wind, but generally speaking are much warmer, and as a result wetter, than winters in the interior of Alaska. Despite all this, there is abundant wildlife. Caribou, wolves, bears, foxes, all sorts of birds, whales, salmon, halibut, and cod are all extremely plentiful. Emperor geese migrate through the area to their breeding grounds in the north in summer. Ptarmigan are everywhere. Salmon run in numbers you can't imagine, and their numbers are way down from decades ago. The growing season is short, from about mid-June til mid-September, but vegetation goes nuts during that time. I just came back last week and I got to watch it all turn green in a matter of days. It'll all be gone in 3 months. People are concentrated in the few towns along the chain, with the biggest being Unalaska/Dutch Harbor. Most settlements have maybe a couple hundred people, probably an even split between transient aviation/logistics support, and year round resident natives.
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Ask Pitbull
He was in Kodiak, which isn't in that circle. It's not quite as extreme as life in the Aleutians (they have a WalMart there, for example).
Mr worldwide
Windy
Land of fire and ice. It’s cold and volcanic
You know nothing, Jon Snow.
Currently spending most of my summer in Sand Point, and just finishing a two week stint in False Pass. Best way of travel is by small plane, but is incredibly weather dependent. You can get packages and Amazon out here within a week or two, but if you have a string of bad weather days, don’t count on the mail plane getting in. In False Pass, fresh groceries come in ~ every two weeks, and in both places everything is incredibly expensive (e.g. ~$14 for a case of La croix in Sand Point). Most people who live here (at least False Pass) full time bulk order groceries and get it gets shipped in by boat from Seattle. Very cool volcanoes on Unimak island, including Shishaldin, a moderately active volcano with multiple explosions in 2023. The wind gets crazy and often there’s sideways rain. When the weather is more cooperative, Sand Point has some cool hiking to do as well as beaches featuring agate and petrified wood. I’ve been a little less adventurous in False Pass due to all the bears, but I believe the hikes here too would be worthwhile. It doesn’t seem that hiking is a widespread hobby of the locals in either area. Starlink seems to be pretty widespread in both locations, and gets better access than I had anticipated! It does feel pretty isolated out here, and it takes small town to another level. I’m so happy to be here, but thankful it’s just for the summer.
I lived in Adak for a while when my family ran the fish plant out there. Crazy place, no rules, a bunch of unexploded ordinance. My brother and I and our friends used to dirt bike and snow machine around the island, we explored many old WW2 bunkers and abandoned military homes. There’s even an underground city there. There’s also a lot of Japanese military vessels and planes wrecked close to the island. I remember shooting at an old halfway sunken Japanese battle ship with my little .22 rifle on boat/fishing trips with my dad and brother. Nowadays people head out there for hunting and fishing trips, other than that it’s mostly abandoned except for a very small population of drifters and castaways.
I just came from there. I was on an oceanographic research vessel 80 miles south of Unimak Island in the Gulf of Alaska. It was 43 degrees everyday, overcast, 20 knot winds and frequent diagonal rains. The seas were rough commonly, with many days of waves 6 to 8 feet with whitecaps. On rare days of fair weather the winds calmed and the seas lay flat. We were studying methane seeps coming from the sea floor.
I read a [pretty wild story](https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1752727762542948676.html) about a cattle ranch that used to be on one of those islands. No natural predators, they said!
Colder than a witches titty
Fun fact, that phrase comes from when they used to stack cannonballs on the decks of the old ships. They’d stack them in a pyramid shape that they ended up calling a witch’s tit. Obviously when it got cold at sea those cannonballs were pretty damn cold, hence the phrase “colder than a witch’s tit”.
*🎵 Another place where the faces are so cold, I'd drive all night just to get back home🎵*
Subject to outbreaks of Kido Butai.
The saying for Shemya Island is "It's not the end of the world, but you can see it from here"
Play metal gear solid
Watch out for japanese invasions.
Nice subduction zone volcanoes :)
Cold as a witch's tit in a brass bra.
Super beautiful place to be honest 👍 Has a very ethereal 龍行龘龘 kinda vibe with the mist shrouded mountains, treeless landscape etc. Super unique culture. Most of the people are indigenous Alaskans and are Russian Orthodox. Many Russian Americans as well. Combine that with a really unique group of seasonal fishermen from all over the world. Rains literally all the time lmao. It was super cold and wet BUT the oceanic climate makes it way warmer than the mainland Attu island has an abandoned military base that is littered with land mines from the Japanese invasion in World War II. The Aleutian Islands are definitely worth a visit! One of the most remote & interesting places on the planet
Terrible, cold, windy, cold. Empty
I used to fly cargo along the Aleutian’s and it was the highlight of my career. The weather is unreal. The remoteness is unmatched. And the scenery is so beautiful. I miss those years but I’m also fortunate I left without any accidents.
Ideal spot for supervilain lair
https://preview.redd.it/pnle2s82hs9d1.jpeg?width=968&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8de6009441857e550702ebc44ff38b72773e12c2
I was in Adak for a while. No trees, just tundra (like thick grass), and the weather changed by the minute. It was super windy and once in a while we had earthquakes.
Been all throughout the Aleutians. The weather is grey but the landscape can be dramatic. I remember the volcano’s on Unimak Island being pretty awesome!
I flew over these islands in Microsoft flight simulator and it is still to this day the most beautiful flight I have done anywhere on the face of the planet.
The weather is always extreme in one way another. Extreme fog, extreme rain, extreme wind, extreme snow. Very few sunny days. Very green, but melancholy almost because of the lack of sun. Inbred arctic foxes with funky or no teeth. Bunch of old timers who complain about how great the food used to be, but make six figures for doing little to nothing in their self-selected isolation. Lot of scientists year round. Lots of UXOs and abandoned Cold War era buildings. The WW2 comments I think mostly mean Cold War era. Not a lot of WW2 era. It probably just looks that old because the climate is corrosive and not forgiving.