Kodiak Island (; ) is a large island on the south coast of the U.S. state of Alaska, separated from the Alaska mainland by the Shelikof Strait. The largest island in the Kodiak Archipelago, Kodiak Island is the second largest island in the United States and the 80th largest island in the world, with an area of , slightly larger than Cyprus. It is long and in width ranges from . The largest community on the island is the city of Kodiak, Alaska.
Kodiak Island is mountainous and heavily forested in the north and east, but fairly treeless in the south. The island has many deep, ice-free bays that provide sheltered anchorages for boats. The southwestern two-thirds of the island, like much of the Kodiak Archipelago, is part of Kodiak National Wildlife Refuge.
Kodiak Island is part of the Kodiak Island Borough and Kodiak Archipelago of Alaska. The town of Kodiak is one of seven communities on Kodiak Island and is the island's main city. All commercial transportation between the island and the outside world goes through this city either via ferryboat or airline. Other settlements include the villages of Akhiok, Old Harbor, Karluk, Larsen Bay, Port Lions, and an unorganized community near Cape Chiniak. The village of Ouzinkie on nearby Spruce Island is also part of the island community.
Kodiak is also home to the largest U.S. Coast Guard base, which includes Coast Guard Base Kodiak, Coast Guard Air Station Kodiak, Communications Station Kodiak, and Aids to Navigation Station Kodiak. The island is also home to the Pacific Spaceport Complex.
The Kodiak bear and the king crab are native to the island. The fishing industry is the most important economic activity on the island; fisheries include Pacific salmon, Pacific halibut, and crab. The Karluk River is famous for its salmon run. Logging, ranching, numerous canneries, and some copper mining are also prevalent.
An antenna farm at the summit of Pillar Mountain above the city of Kodiak provides primary communications to and from the island.
History
left|thumb|Native artifacts from the Kodiak Islands, engraving c.1805 from a Russian journal
thumb|Location of Three Saints Bay and St. Paul on Kodiak in 1805
left|thumb|Chart including Kodiak Island
Kodiak is the ancestral land of the Sugpiaq, an Alutiiq nation of Native Americans. The original inhabitants subsisted by hunting marine mammals, fishing, and gathering. The European discoverer of Kodiak Island was the Russian fur trader Stepan Glotov (1793).
The first outsiders to settle on the island were Russian explorers under Grigory Shelikhov, a fur trader, who founded a Russian settlement on Kodiak Island at Three Saints Bay in 1784; the present-day village of Old Harbor developed near there. In 1792, the settlement was moved to the site of present-day Kodiak and became the center of Russian fur trading with the Alaska Natives.
In 1793, Grigory Shelikhov, with the help of the governor-general of Irkutsk, was given twenty craftsmen and ten families of farmers with the obligation of paying government taxes for them, for promoting successful development of Russia-America settlements and the establishment of shipyards and factories. The settlers provided to Shelikhov were not serfs in the full sense of the word. It was not possible to sell, mortgage, or give away the settlers; they were owned by the company for as long as the Shelikhov-Golikov Company existed.
The Alutiiq were conscripted by the Russian occupants for the purpose of hunting, gathering, and processing food and furs. Native labor was commandeered through hostage taking, physical threat, and punishment. The Alutiiq men were forced to obtain quotas of otter pelts and bird skins which were then stitched into waterproof parkas by the Alutiiq women.
The Russian fur traders radically expanded sea otter hunting operations and forced the Alutiiq men to hunt for longer periods of time at increasingly distant areas as the local population of fur-bearing animals was extinguished.
In 1837–1839, a smallpox epidemic swept through all the Russian America territory and destroyed an estimated one-third of the Native population.
On June 9, Kodiak villagers saw the first clear, ash-free skies in three days, but their environment had changed dramatically. Wildlife on Kodiak Island was devastated by ash and acid rain from the eruption. Bears and other large animals were blinded by thick ash, and many starved to death because large numbers of plants and small animals were smothered in the eruption. Birds blinded and coated by volcanic ash fell to the ground. Even the region's prolific mosquitoes were exterminated. Aquatic organisms in the region perished in the ash-clogged waters. Salmon in all stages of life were destroyed by the eruption and its aftereffects. From 1915 to 1919, southwestern Alaska's salmon-fishing industry was devastated.
1964 earthquake
The island was also hit by the 1964 Good Friday earthquake and tsunami, which destroyed much of the waterfront, the business district, and several villages.
Climate
thumb|Snows cling to the mountaintops in summer
The weather of Kodiak is temperate. December to March is the cold season while June to August is the summer season. It is Dfc bordering on Cfb, Dfb and Cfc in the Koppen classification.