What's with Kodiak? Kodiak is Alaska's Emerald Isle — first capital of Russian Alaska, home port of a huge fishing fleet, and the only home of Earth's biggest brown bears. It sits on Chiniak Bay at the edge of Alaska's largest island — the second-largest in the United States — green under near-constant cloud, ten hours by ferry from the road system and perfectly content about it.
The twentieth century tested the town twice. In June 1912 the Novarupta eruption — the largest of the century, across Shelikof Strait near Mount Katmai — buried Kodiak under a foot and a half of ash and turned midday to midnight for three days. Then on March 27, 1964, the Good Friday earthquake — magnitude 9.2, the strongest ever recorded in North America — sent tsunamis through the harbor that carried the fishing fleet into the streets and destroyed most of downtown. Kodiak rebuilt both times, faster than anyone expected, and the working waterfront you see today is the answer the town gave.
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.
