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.
The modern town wears three uniforms: fisherman's raingear, Coast Guard blue, and rocket-crew white. Base Kodiak is the largest Coast Guard installation in the United States, guarding the most dangerous fishing grounds in the country; the Pacific Spaceport Complex on Narrow Cape has launched rockets over the Gulf since 1998; and Fort Abercrombie's WWII gun emplacements stand in spruce and salmonberry above the sea cliffs, a state park now, remembering the war that first brought the military north.
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.
