Southwest Alaska: Where the sea breaks its back

Abstract

The authors have borrowed their title from the title of the book "Where the Sea Breaks Its Back: The Epic Story - Georg Steller and the Russian Exploration of Alaska" by Corey Ford. Mr. Ford's title may have also been borrowed/derived from older Unangax or Sugpiat origins, though the authors were not able to verify this. The following volume is the story of Southwest Alaska. The authors make no claim that the story presented within is comprehensive; though we believe that the following pages contain a breadth of topics that will hopefully entice the curious reader to further explore the rich and sea-fringed world we have introduced. The Aleutian islands, the Pribilof, the Shumagin and much of the Alaska Peninsula are remote (to most readers) even by Alaska standards. Though parts of the Kodiak Archipelago, the south coast of the Kenai Peninsula and Prince William Sound are less remote and more peopled, they are at least as beautiful. It is the ocean that ties these areas, and their disparate, though intermingled cultures, together. Southwest Alaska is a place where one can rarely get far from the sea. We hope within these pages you can hear an echo of long traveling, white waves crashing onto windswept, dark shores of Aleutian beaches. There, the Unangax continue to live between the ocean below and the omnipresent volcano above. We also hope that you will be able to visualize the steep-walled, glacial disgorging fjords that shelter communities of the Sugpiat and the large runs of salmon that still sustain them.