Preserving Kodiak's Maritime Heritage
Sea Stories: True Tales from Kodiak's Maritime History
For centuries, mariners have been going down to the sea in ships around Kodiak- Alutiiq marine mammal hunters, European explorers, Russian fur traders, Yankee whalers, and modern day commercial fishermen. KMM explores that history in this ongoing series of true stories of adventure and heroism, tragedy and survival in the waters of the North Pacific and the Bering Sea. Check back regularly for new sea stories! These stories originally appeared in the Kodiak Daily Mirror, and are copyrighted by Kodiak Maritime Museum. Use by permission only.
All Sea Stories can be found on the KMM blog.
The Once and Mighty Kodiak Shrimp Fishery
March 10, 2020
Almost forgotten now, thirty four years after it ended, a mighty shrimp fishery once thrived around Kodiak and down the Alaska Peninsula. Full blog post »
Sea Otter Skins and the China Trade
March 10, 2020
In the summer of 1792, Alexander Baranov, the 45 year old manager of the Russia’s Kodiak colony, chanced upon the British ship Phoenix in Prince William Sound. Full blog post »
Captain Cook in Alaska, 1778
March 9, 2020
In April 1778, the two ships of Captain James Cook’s 3rd voyage of discovery, Resolution and Discovery, left Nootka Sound, on Vancouver Island, and sailed north in search of the Northwest Passage. Full blog post »
The Romance of the Sea Wears Thin- The St. Patrick Disaster, December 1981
November 23, 2016
For a long time after the St. Patrick was towed into Womens Bay in December 1981, you could drive by on the road to Bells Flats and see it tied to a mooring buoy. Full blog post »
The Prinsendam Fire October, 1980
October 18, 2016
Just after midnight on Saturday, October 4, 1980, a fire broke out in the engine room of the 427 foot Prinsendam, a Holland America cruise ship. Full blog post »
The Tragedy of the John and Olaf
January 12, 2016
A shrimp trawler experiences heavy icing in Portage Bay. Full blog post »
Life and Death on Aiaktalik Island: The Sinking of the Marion A
November 2, 2015
On October 1, 1978, two weeks into the Kodiak King Crab season, the Marion A., a 42 foot steel boat, headed for the south end of Kodiak Island with sixteen crab pots. Full blog post »
Whaling for NASA on the Tom and Al
September 1, 2015
Launched as the Ragnhild in 1900, the vessel was renamed after themselves by Thomas J. King and Albert L. Winge when they purchased it some time after 1910. Full blog post »
Disaster in the Arctic: The Final Voyage of the Karluk.
August 4, 2015
In June of 1913 the 129 foot former Aleutian whaling ship Karluk steamed north from British Columbia, part of an ambitious Canadian expedition to survey Canada’s northern coast. Full blog post »
7,500 Years of Karluk Sockeye Salmon
July 7, 2015
It is July, the peak of summer on Kodiak Island, and salmon are returning in their millions to the island’s rivers, and to the prince of Kodiak’s rivers, the Karluk, on the southwest coast of the island. Full blog post »
Commercial Fishing Safety Regulations and the 1985 Sinking of the Western Sea
June 2, 2015
Until the 1700s, even as shipbuilding technology made huge advances through the centuries, not much effort was put into figuring out how to survive once the ship had sunk. Full blog post »
A Coast Guard Rescue Swimmer’s Story
May 5, 2015
On February 9th, 2007, the Coast Guard Cutter Mellon was tied to the dock in Dutch Harbor with its helicopter, an H-65 Dolphin, parked in a PenAir hanger near the airport. During a school group tour of the helicopter that morning, a student asked about the strobe light on the rescue swimmer’s dry suit. Full blog post »
Uganik Bay Cannery Workers and the Supreme Court
August 7, 2015
In 1981 two young cannery worker union organizers, Gene Viernes and Silme Domingo, were gunned down in Seattle by hitmen hired by a corrupt union president in league with Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos. Full blog post »
Here There Be Dragons: Sea Monsters of Kodiak Island
March 6, 2015
A little after four in the morning on a summer day in 2002, three setnetters pushed their 22 foot skiff off a beach in Uganik Bay on the west side of Kodiak and headed for their gillnet a quarter of a mile away. Full blog post »
The Day FDR Caught a Dolly in Buskin Lake
February 4, 2015
In the late afternoon of August 7, 1944, in the middle of World War II, if you had been standing on Brooklyn Avenue in Kodiak, Alaska, which ran about where the back of Sutliifs Hardware is now, you could have waved to President Franklin Roosevelt as he drove by in a station wagon. Full blog post »
The Wreck of the Eclipse on Sanak Island, 1807
January 8, 2015
In September 1807, a new American sailing ship, the Eclipse, wrecked on Sanak Island, twenty five miles southwest of Unimak Island. Full blog post »
Joshua Slocum and the First American Salmon Fishing Venture in Cook Inlet.
January 8, 2015
While Joshua Slocum is famous among mariners as the first person to sail alone around the world, it is not as well known that he also led the first American commercial salmon fishing expedition to Cook Inlet, in 1871. Full blog post »
1966: High Water Mark of the Kodiak King Crab Fishery
January 8, 2015
Driven by a generation of ambitious and energetic men, the Kodiak king crab fishery in the 1960's was booming. Full blog post »
The Early Years of the Kodiak King Crab Fishery
January 8, 2015
As the King Crab fishery peaked in the mid-1960s, everyone in Kodiak knew that something extraordinary was happening. Full blog post »
Remembering the March 27, 1964 Earthquake and Tsunami
March 12, 2014
The earthquake was the second largest in seismically recorded history, with a 9.2 magnitude, but it was the tsunamis following the quake which devastated Kodiak. Full blog post »