The island's human story is one of the longest in Alaska. Alutiiq — Sugpiaq — people have lived on the Kodiak Archipelago for more than seven thousand years, masters of the skin kayak and the rich, rough water, and their descendants are here still: the Alutiiq Museum in town holds one of the deepest archaeological records in the state, and the city's own Alutiiq name, Sun'aq, is older than every other name it has carried. Vitus Bering's expedition sighted the island in 1741; the Russians who followed came for sea otter fur, and the century that followed was brutal for the people who had always lived here — a history the island tells plainly today.
Russian Alaska began here. In 1784, Grigory Shelikhov planted Russia's first permanent settlement in Alaska at Three Saints Bay, on the island's south end; in 1792, Alexander Baranov moved the post north to a deep, defensible harbor he named Pavlovskaya Gavan — Paul's Harbor — and made it the capital of Russian America's fur empire. Today's Kodiak grew straight from that harbor, and its Russian layer is the deepest in the state: the c. 1808 Russian-American Magazin, now the Baranov Museum, stands among the oldest Russian buildings in America.
Why People Visit Kodiak Alaska
- Go bear viewing in the Kodiak National Wildlife Refuge — floatplane, boat, or guided hike to watch the biggest brown bears on Earth work a salmon stream.
- Walk the Russian layer downtown: the Baranov Museum in the c. 1808 Magazin, the Holy Resurrection church and Saint Herman's relics, and the Alutiiq Museum's 7,000-year story.
- Hike Fort Abercrombie State Historical Park — WWII gun emplacements in the spruce above the cliffs — and Pillar Mountain over town.
- Fish the famous water: charters for halibut and salmon, the Buskin River run, and the harbor's forest of masts.
- Ride out to Narrow Cape for the spaceport road, surf-watching, and buffalo on the hills.
- Ferry or floatplane to the wild edges — Shuyak Island's kayak country and Spruce Island's pilgrim trail.
