Kodiak became the capital of Russian America in 1799, until Alaska was sold to America in 1867. From the fur trade to fishing, the island has a varied history and is still pleasantly off the beaten track – beautiful scenery and the world’s largest bears are two of the big attractions.

The marbled murrelet is a small brown seabird with an unusual characteristic when it comes to nesting: it likes to lay its egg in spruce trees which have sufficiently large mossy branches to support it. Scientists didn’t even work this out until 1990!

The murrelet is right at home in Fort Abercrombie State Park on a tip of Kodiak Island, Alaska. The park is only 5 miles from downtown but a world away in nature.

We had just come off the boat from Unalaska in the Aleutian Islands which is nearly treeless so this landscape was even more breathtaking. The thick forest of gnarled old growth spruce trees was wreathed in moss, it sat in thick cushions on the branches and wrapped itself around the trunks in great swathes.

It was an ethereal world from a Lord of the Rings vision. Add in a rather pretty lake with yellow water lilies, wild flowers, a beach scattered with huge driftwood logs and stunning views from the cliffs around Miller Point and it is indeed a destination that shouldn’t be missed.

Oh and I nearly forgot – it was also home to a coastal defence installation in WWll so there are old gun emplacements to explore – the 8 inch guns are still there but were sadly blown up in 1948 so they couldn’t be used – as well as a few other buildings and a neat little museum with rather erratic hours (Friday – Monday 1 – 4 / $7) housed within the old ammo storage building for the 8 inch guns.

It is manned by enthusiastic volunteers and has an eclectic collection of war stuff from a Japanese fire hydrant that was installed on Kiska to a blingy dining room chair, war booty from Saddam Hussein’s Water Palace.

There was a giant restored searchlight on wheels, a Willy’s jeep and a very elegant model of a WW2 Japanese submarine which actually carried a seaplane housed on its deck for reconnaissance.

Equally elegant were the smooth ceramic hand grenades made by Japanese porcelain manufacturers when the country ran out of raw materials – these days they would make perfect flower vases and one would never guess their origin.

Curled up on a clifftop viewpoint, enjoying a picnic lunch on our second day in the park, we even had the excitement of our phone suddenly beeping violently with a tsunami alert. Sirens from the nearby fire station also split the air and we started wondering if 50 m were high enough!

Some dog walkers told us that 40 feet was usually adequate so we were somewhat reassured and within an hour the alert was downgraded so we never had to find out – although we later heard that 100 feet or a half mile inland is considered the ideal! The whole thing was caused by a 7.2 earthquake near Sand Point, which we had visited with the Tusty on our way to the island.

Whilst in the area, we also checked out the popular Mill Bay Beach which has easy access. There are plenty of picnic tables and although it is of the black volcanic pebble type it is quite pretty. Nearby Spruce Cape is another short walk option; we even saw 5 black tailed Sitka deer on the beach – they were introduced to the island in 1924 and have since flourished.

In the evening a squirrel visited our campsite, seeking out grains of popcorn that Simon had discarded in the fireplace – it doesn’t say much for our clean camp regime! It will be a bear next!

Termination Point

We moved on to camp above White Sands Beach amidst atmospheric, closely spaced spruce trees. It is actually more black bar one short dirty beige bit due to ashes from a volcanic eruption on the Alaskan peninsula in the 1990’s .

The weather had turned grey and drizzly although it is the 82 inches of rainfall a year which give Kodiak its lush, vivid green countryside that is so attractive.

The walk to Termination Point started on the left hand side of the beach. Bear spray at the ready, we headed off on a rough trail through mossy trees, winding through vivid salmon berries (favourite bear food).

The inland route led us to a primordial lake, still and hemmed in by dark spruce trees. Diving kingfishers flashed amongst the bright yellow water lilies.

We dropped down to Pelenga Bay, a pretty, sheltered, driftwood strewn beach with a creek to one end. The rugged cliffs were thickly covered in tall spruce trees but low cloud prevented us seeing much higher.

We followed the headland around to Termination Point, a grassy area from where we looked out over isolated rocks in the sea below. Bobbing otters were difficult to distinguish from the bulbous seaweed. One ate a large salmon as we watched, deftly holding the carcass on his belly and stripping it between his front paws.

Eventually we turned for home, disappointed that the cloud had still not lifted. On the beach below us was a rusted stack from an old ship and silver minnows darted in the rock pools.

The coastal trail turned out to be relentlessly up and down, with the best views over White Sands beach coming at the end. We were quite relieved to finally see it and set up camp in the spruce trees for another night.

We probably had a quieter night than the campervan from Florida which was limited to the car park. As Saturday night progressed it became apparent that it was the end of the race track from downtown, preferably with a handbrake turn and lots of burning rubber before setting off on the return trip.

Someone else went onto the beach and set fireworks off monotonously. It is worrying what the locals do for entertainment but when they are armed as well, it is doubly so!

Pillar Mountain 

Amazingly, we survived the night and all was peace in the morning with the normal routine of early dog walkers and a couple of shy fragile deer who tiptoed past us.

Surprisingly too, we had a bright sunny day so decided to seize the opportunity and visit Pillar Mountain, 1,270 feet above town with wind turbines and towers. Whilst I am quite happy to walk up mountains, it seems to defeat the purpose if there is a perfectly good (gravel) road, so we drove up. 

There were great 360° views over town, the docks, the mountains to the south and Termination Point which was gloriously visible and cloud free! Islands were scattered about and we watched the clumsy seaplanes landing in their shelter.

We had a tasty salmon chowder at the RendezVous roadhouse, on the edge of town at Women’s Bay, which seemed a fairly authentic popular local hangout, then drove down Anton Larsen Bay Road which is a scenic detour to the eponymous bay.

The lush vegetation opened onto the head of the bay where the open flat grasslands looked very bear friendly. There was a busy boat dock. We proceeded to the end of the road where there were trail heads for various walks and a little creek.

We walked along one and picked salmon berries for breakfast. Related to a raspberry, they are a satisfyingly large berry which don’t stain the hands and grow on non-thorny bushes. The locals make jams and jellies from them.

Checking out a pretty bay nearby we got talking to a Coloradian who had moved north. She admitted to being a rare democrat in a republican state, where ‘people don’t like to be told what to do’.

She had a house on one of the nearby islands and was off shopping, with a final warning to watch out for bears. We very carefully checked out the grassy inlet as we drove back but no luck – I rather felt if we saw one, he was going to find us rather than us find him!

A Word about Kodiak Bears

Kodiak is synonymous with bears. The Kodiak bear is separate genetically from its cousins on the mainland but is basically a grizzly bear. Due to the abundance of food on the islands, they grow the largest of any grizzly bear – so much so that they can be 1000 lb heavier than their cousins and even bigger than polar bears in some instances.

This also makes them highly desirable to trophy hunters and they are carefully managed on the Kodiak islands. I find it a slightly uncomfortable juxtaposition how in the summer every tourist is dashing about on bear viewing tours, yet in the spring and autumn they are being hunted.

In another example of double standards, on the mainland presently there is aerial culling of bears and wolves, supposedly to protect the caribou and moose populations so that there are more for hunters to harvest. This has actually included lands close to the famous Brooks Falls, where hundreds of tourists gather every day to see bears catching salmon as they ascend the river and waterfalls on their spawning run.

Scientists have actually said that the reduction in numbers of the caribou is due to overgrazing, illegal hunting and brucellosis and not natural predators but at the moment the Alaskan Fish and Game Department are not listening – 186 grizzly bears, 5 black bears and 20 wolves have been killed so far, whilst liberalisation of the hunting regulations are surreptitiously encouraging their widespread hunting in a manner which was previously illegal.

it worries me that there always seems to be an erroneous external cause if game cannot be harvested as wished, yet its scarcity is most often caused by the actions of humankind, being in most cases due to indiscriminate overhunting or habitat destruction. I fear one day the only wild animals left will be in a zoo or Walmart.

Pesagshak

We headed south to camp in a leafy secluded niche on Pesagshak Bay. Beside a stream and on the bay it was a very pretty spot. A Californian walked past and remarked that we could be in the south of France as the sun continued to shine in a hazy evening light – soon I will have enough energy to stay up for sunset!

The bay is a popular fishing spot as salmon head upstream to spawn in Lake Rose Tead. There is a $20 a night campsite with spots right on the bay, although an old road loop 200 m on serves the same purpose for free.

There are scattered houses along the head of the deeply indented bay, which has high mountains to each side.

We headed out to Pesagshak Point in the early morning. Expecting a 2 mile walk from the bitumen, we were happy to find that the gate to the gravel road was open to traffic so we were able to drive to the grassy bluff which has superb views over Ugak Island and the bay.

En route, we found scrubby cattle and two delicate Sitka black tailed deer which watched us from a lagoon.

At the bluff, I left Simon and took the steep cattle track to the top of the mountain. Within 40 minutes I was on the jumbled summit; it was fairly flat and spread out with thick vegetation so I had some trouble in finding the actual top but once I did I was treated to fine views over the mountains; some of the more distant ones were snow capped.

I got completely lost coming down, being engulfed in salmon berries and larch trees. I could have been eaten by a bear in the head high shrubs and noone would have noticed! 

Eventually I fought my way through to the rough track and descended to find that Simon had happily been watching otters with young, tufted puffins and whales, totally oblivious to my plight.

We picniced overlooking the silvery bay and distant beaches. It would be a wonderful wild camping spot.

Fossil Beach & Narrow Cape

Fossil Beach is the end of the road in the south.  Having passed through the Kodiak Rocket Launch Complex, the road leaves from near the rocket tower and drops down in gravel and potholes. It is quite a short beach with a lagoon to each side of the road but the tall muddy cliffs at each end are interesting for the fossils they contain.

Look closely for concretions or ball like formations within the cliff. Each ball has coalesced around a fossil. Even the rocks at the foot of the cliffs contain minute traces of shells.

It is worth proceeding a little further: we ascended to Narrow Cape above the beach by a rough track which leads to superb views and some WWll bunkers and searchlight buildings.

We stopped at the base end station. It was too flooded to go inside but we sat on top and enjoyed the view over Ugak Island and a wide sea. A seal swam by far below; in the spring it is supposed to be a great place to watch the grey whale migration.

A coastguard aeroplane circled lazily then came in over our heads – he would have been an easy target in the war era!

We continued around the cliff, and found another searchlight building. Tufted puffins flew past. The path became progressively fainter until we lost it altogether. No one walks these tracks, they are not maintained in any way and it was hard work wading through the thick coastal vegetation. Finally we gave up and cut through the spruce forest back to a dirt road and down to the car.

We had beaten our way through the thickest, wildest undergrowth and still hadn’t seen a bear (although plenty of deer). I don’t think they exist unless they were frightened off by our bear bells!

Chiniak

However, that evening we had a very strange experience that proved us wrong. We had driven out on the Chiniak Highway to have a look at the very scenic Cape Chiniak and pulled in to camp in a beautiful spot just above the beach.

I went for a walk westwards along the beach to a rugged headland and on rounding it discovered some WW2 army ruins, including an observation post that had fallen off the cliff and was upended on the rocks.

I spend some time exploring these before I started wandering back over the rocks, exposed on an especially low tide. Suddenly something flashed across the side of my vision and I thought a furry hound and felt vaguely annoyed that I was going to be bothered by a dog walker. Another flash of a snarling face over the edge of the headland and they were thankfully gone.

Ten minutes later Simon appeared and asked:

“Did you see the bears?”

He had gone up the beach in the opposite direction looking for water. As he returned he saw what he thought were two dogs bound onto the beach and run up it in my direction. He was some way away and it wasn’t until be reached the footprints that he thought these aren’t dogs!

He saw them reach my headland and disappear then reappear before running on and disappearing up a track into high grass. He decided to get in the car and check I was ok, emerging to find them running down the road, at which stage he came to find me, who annoyingly was largely oblivious to all the excitement that I had missed.

I must have glimpsed them briefly as they disappeared back over the headland. It was quite a scary thought that if I had been only a few minutes earlier I could have gone around the corner and been faced with two galloping grizzlies. Whether they were in deadly pursuit or not was uncertain; but they certainly ran quite a long way. A female bear at Brooks Camp was recently killed by a male so it is possible.

I was right in that they found us anyway – the tent walls felt quite flimsy that night!

Kodiak

We had a day in town before we got the boat to Homer in the evening so did all the sights, the most entertaining of which has to be the Kodiak Aquarium which is run by the Kodiak Fisheries Research Centre and appears to be only open on Tuesdays between 12 – 4. Its main draw is the touch pool where starfish, crabs and the odd fish can be touched or picked up, although I suspect the resident fish on our visit ended up traumatized after one child tried to pick him up by his tail!

Otherwise there were reasonably informative displays on the salmon and crab fishing industries. I liked their wall models where they showed each salmon species with and without the colourful spawning guise.

There are actually 5 different Pacific salmon in Alaska which always confused me as they each seem to have two different names. The most sought after and thus the rarest is the Chinook (King) which averages 18-24 pounds although 127 pounds has been recorded. Next on the list appears to be the  Sockeye (Red) which is equally popular especially the Copper River run, then Coho (Silver), Chum (Dog) and Pink – happy is the fisherman where all five species converge!

Interestingly, record salmon runs are being recorded this year; given that the salmon run on a 5 year cycle, many people are saying it is due to COVID and the lack of fishing in that year – it just goes to show the impact we have on the species.

The aquarium is just across the bridge from downtown on little Near Island which also has a big fishing port. There are short trails at both ends: we did the North End Trail which led through spruce forest and salmon berries, over little pebbled bays, to a point overlooking the next channel – it was all very pretty and felt a million miles from town.

The familiar domes of a Russian Orthodox Church occupy the middle of town. Built in 1945, it is the 3rd one to occupy the site and contains the body of Saint Herman. He helped the local Alutiiq people and later lived on nearby Spruce Island – there is a popular pilgrimage there every year. It was locked when we visited but we were able to peek through the door and see the colourful interior. 

The chapel of the Saint Herman Theological Seminary a little further up the road is a picturesque wooden replica of a 16th century mission chapel.

The Kodiak History Museum has an unusual history which matches the island. Discovered in 1763 by Russian explorer Stephen Glotov, Kodiak started life in 1793 as Pavlovsk and became the Russian capital of America until it was moved to Sitka in 1804. The building dates back to 1808 and is the oldest Russian building in America, as well as the oldest in Alaska.

Captain Cook actually coined the name Kodiak in 1788; it is derived from the local Alutiiq word for island, qikertaq.

The museum started life as a fur storage depot, having been built by Finnish craftsmen. The neatly intertwined logs ensured it was one of the few buildings to survive the great 1964 earthquake and tsunami which destroyed the waterside buildings of the town.

Later incarnations included a private residence and a boarding house and all periods are covered in informative displays. Entry is $10.

Just across the road the Kodiak National Wildlife Refuge Visitor Centre has displays on the wildlife contained within the refuge which covers two thirds of the Kodiak Archipelago. There are public cabins in the refuge at a bargain $45 a night as well as in the Afognak and Shuyak State Parks (both separate islands) but these and the exclusive private lodges are only accessible by boat or floatplane.

Kingfisher Aviation can do taxi runs or bear watching tours from approximately $900 for 4 hours – the locals suggested I visit Women’s Bay when the salmon run was on instead which sounded a much more sensible idea!

Upstairs there is a suspended grey whale skeleton – the body washed ashore in 2000 and was buried for 4 years, after which the skeleton was exhumed, cleaned up and reassembled.

 We finished the day at the Kodiak Island Brewing Company which has been producing good quality craft beer since 2003 – check out the neat tap handles! It does not serve food although apparently one is welcome to bring it in, and there is sometimes a food truck outside – a reverse form of BYO, I guess.

Finally it was time to board the Tustumena to Homer and we quietly slipped out of the harbour after a 360° turn – it was a final parade of all the delights of town.

NOTES

Kodiak can be reached via the Alaskan Marine Highway System from Homer in about 9 hours – it is a fun way to arrive and very scenic. Otherwise there are daily flights from Anchorage with Alaskan Airlines.

There are various car hire options but we chose to use Turo for this one which worked really well. There is also a mini bus within the city limits called Kats Bus.

We were camping but there is various handy accomodation including a Best Western in the middle of town and a Quality Inn near the airport.

Olds Inn at the junction of the Chiniak and Pasagshak roads also had a good restaurant, as well as simple cabins.