ARCUS | Arctic Research Consortium of the United States

6th Annual ARCUS Award for Arctic Research Excellence

Honorable Mention Social Science
Submitted by   Annette Watson
Authors   Annette Watson
Category   Social Science
Title   The Geography of Island Exploration: Field Science in the Aleutians
Affiliation   Geography, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA

Abstract

Discovering the Ring of Fire Apart from brief accounts by explorers from the James Cook party and rarely-translated Russian narratives, the first United States expedition to the newly-acquired Russian America had few textual references to guide its journey. And in the summer of 1867 it appeared that the fog controlled, like a curtain, what aspects of Alaska would be reported to an awaiting Congress, in the midst of the debate over appropriations for the purchase: a curtain which closed off Southeast Alaska but revealed the apparent splendors of the Aleutian Islands. The Aleutian weather that summer was either uncharacteristically clear, or the U.S. Coast Survey party exceedingly lucky during their week-long stay in the eastern Aleutian island of Unalaska. Coast Survey Assistant George Davidson and his party experienced good to excellent weather, some of which allowed members of the party to ascend Unalaska's Makushin Volcano:
We camped for the night on the north side of the valley, four miles distant from the beach. The morning of the following day we ascended the grassy range of hills north of our camp. Opposite this point, on the southern side of the valley, is a bold, volcanic range, with sharp and angular peaks, rising from a ravine which enters the valley from the southwest. Its serrated summit is marked by snow in patches, from which the water flows, marking its flanks with silver threads, which contrast beautifully with the dark frowning crags and bare rocky surfaces. The ascent was soon made, and we beheld, for the first time, a panoramic view of the surrounding country and waters: the island, with its deeply indented shores and intricate channels; its complex system of mountain peaks, with here and there a volcanic cone rising in beautiful symmetry and over-shadowing the sharp and more angular summits of surrounding hills; the bold and rocky shore line, produced by the action of the water cutting the hills away at their base, causing extensive cavings and slidings an action greatly assisted by the sharp and frequent shocks of earthquakes which occur here... The stream...now tumbled and foamed through deep rocky gorges and channels which it, with its own power, had cut through the volcanic debris and lava out-flows, while further west it spreads out into a fan-like form and drains the vast amphitheater of mountains which flank the grand snow-covered volcano. A glacier, with imperfectly formed moraines, curves gracefully around a sharp ridge formed by an outflow from the side...