The Aleutian Islands sweep about 1,900 km (1,200 miles) west from the Alaska Peninsula towards Kamchatka, separating the North Pacific from the Bering Sea. Fourteen large volcanic islands, 55 smaller ones and hundreds of islets make up the chain, together with 57 volcanoes that form the northern arc of the Pacific Ring of Fire. Surf, smoking cones, fog and wartime history all come together on these remote islands.
Aleutian Islands geography: six island groups
From east to west, the chain is divided into six groups: the Fox Islands, the Islands of Four Mountains, the Andreanof Islands, the Rat Islands, the Near Islands and, across the international border, the Commander Islands, which belong to Russia’s Kamchatka Krai. Altogether the islands cover about 17,670 km² of land.
The highest point is Mount Shishaldin on Unimak Island, which rises 2,857 metres (9,373 ft) high. Unalaska Island has Makushin Volcano at 1,735 metres. Nearly all the American islands are protected within the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge and the Aleutian Islands Wilderness.
Climate: fog, wind and the Aleutian Low
The climate is oceanic: cool summers, heavy rainfall and fog that is almost constant. Unalaska receives about 2,000 mm (80 inches) of rain a year and has around 250 rainy days. In winter, a semi-permanent low-pressure system called the Aleutian Low settles over the islands and drives storms across the North Pacific. The wind is so strong that trees stay stunted, and taller ones are liable to snap.
Travel plans need slack. Flights and boats are often delayed by weather, so build spare days into any trip.
The Unangan people and Unalaska
The islands are the homeland of the Unangan (Unangax̂), generally known as the Aleut, whose language forms one of the two main branches of the Eskimo–Aleut family. The 2020 census counted 7,152 people in the US Aleutians, 4,254 of them in Unalaska, the largest settlement and home of the port of Dutch Harbor.
The Aleutians in World War II
Six months after Pearl Harbor, in June 1942, Japanese aircraft attacked the naval base at Dutch Harbor and the town of Unalaska. Days later Japanese forces occupied Attu and Kiska, the only invasions of US soil during the war; at its peak about 6,800 Japanese personnel were on Kiska.
In May 1943, American troops landed on Attu. The 18-day battle that followed was one of the deadliest of the war. In August 1943, American and Canadian forces landed on Kiska, only to find that the Japanese garrison had slipped away on 28 July.
The war fell hardest on the islanders. The people of Attu spent the war as prisoners of Japanese forces. The US government moved more than 800 Unangan civilians from the Aleutians and Pribilofs to camps in south-east Alaska, the so-called “duration villages”, where communities struggled to survive. Several villages, including Biorka, Kashega and Makushin, disappeared during the war. The National Park Service’s Aleutian history pages tell this story in detail.
For a mainland Alaska glacier landscape, explore the Ruth Glacier and its Great Gorge. For a very different use of volcanic terrain on camera, see our snow-free volcano skiing clip.
Related reading
- Alaska’s Changing Glaciers: A Guide to the Historic Photo Pairs
- Valdez Heli-Skiing: H2O Guides in the Chugach
- Five Alaskan Landscape Photographs: Mountains, Water and Northern Light
- Winter in Yakutsk: Streets, Transport and Everyday Adaptation
- Tent-Door Views in the Fann Mountains
- Anton Pankov’s Floating-Ice Camping Film
- A Car Recovered from an Opening in Lake Ice
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