The faith the Russians brought outlasted the fur company. The Holy Resurrection parish, founded in 1794, is the oldest Russian Orthodox parish in North America, and its most beloved figure — the gentle monk Herman of Spruce Island, defender of the Alutiiq against the company's abuses — was canonized in Kodiak in 1970 as Saint Herman of Alaska, the first Orthodox saint of the Americas. His relics rest in the church downtown, and pilgrims still cross to Spruce Island every August.
Fishing is the island's bloodstream. Kodiak is home port to one of the largest and most diversified fishing fleets in America — several hundred boats working salmon, halibut, cod, and the famous red king crab — and the harbor consistently ranks among the top fishing ports in the United States by volume. The canneries along the channel have processed the catch for over a century; the Crab Festival every May throws the town's biggest party; and when the fleet is in, the harbor is a forest of masts.
Why People Visit Kodiak Alaska
Kodiak offers Alaska in concentrate — the deepest Russian heritage in the state, a 7,000-year Alutiiq homeland, a top American fishing port, and the only place on Earth to meet the Kodiak bear at home. People come for the bears and the fishing, and find the Emerald Isle: green, rain-washed, and genuinely wild ten minutes from town.
