The Aleutian Islands are divided into four groups. The most westerly are Nearer, or Blizni, Islands, of which the famed Attu is the largest; the next group to eastward is known as Rat, or Kreesi, Islands; then, Andreanoffski Islands, named for Andreanoff, who discovered them, and whose largest island is Atka, where it is said the baskets known as the Attu baskets are now woven.
East of this group are the Fox, or Leesi, Islands. This is the largest of the four Aleutian groups, and contains thirty-one islands, including Unimak, which is the largest in the archipelago. Others of importance in this group are Unalaska, formerly spelled Unalashka; Umnak; Akutan; Akhun; Ukamak; and the famed volcano islands of St. John the Theologian, or Joanna Bogoslova, and the Four Craters. Unimak Pass, the best known and most used passage into Behring Sea, is between Unimak and Akhun islands. Akutan Pass is between Akutan and Unalaska islands; Umnak Pass, between Unalaska and Umnak islands. (These u's are pronounced as though spelled oo.)
Unalaska and Dutch Harbor are situated on the Island of Unalaska. By the little flower-bordered path leading up and down the green, velvety hills, these two settlements are fully two miles apart; by water, they seem scarcely two hundred yards from one another. The steamer, after landing at Dutch Harbor, draws her prow from the wharf, turns it gently around a green point, and lays it beside the wharf at Unalaska.
The bay is so surrounded by hills that slope softly to the water, that one can scarcely remember which blue water-way leads to the sea. There is a curving white beach, from which the town of Unalaska received its ancient name of Iliuliuk, meaning "the beach that curves." The white-painted, red-roofed buildings follow this beach, and loiter picturesquely back over the green level to the stream that flows around the base of the hills and finds the sea at the Unalaska wharf.
This is one of the safest harbors in the world. It is one great, sparkling sapphire, set deep in solid emerald and pearl. It is entered more beautifully than even the Bay of Sitka. It is completely surrounded by high mountains, peak rising behind peak, and all covered with a thick, green, velvety nap and crowned with eternal pearl.
The entrance way is so winding that these peaks have the appearance of leaning aside to let us slide through, and then drawing together behind us, to keep out the storms; for ships of the heaviest draught find refuge here and lie safely at anchor while tempests rage outside.
Now and then, between two enchantingly green near peaks, a third shines out white, far, glistening mistily—covered with snow from summit to base, but with a dark scarf of its own internal passion twisted about its outwardly serene brow.
The Kuro Siwo, or Japan Current, breaks on the western end of the Aleutian Chain; half flows eastward south of the islands, and carries with it the warm, moist atmosphere which is condensed on the snow-peaks and sinks downward in the fine and delicious mist that gives the grass and mosses their vivid, brilliant, perpetual green. The other half passes northward into Behring Sea and drives the ice back into the "Frozen Ocean." Dall was told that the whalers in early spring have seen large icebergs steadily sailing northward through the strait at a knot and a half an hour, against a very stiff breeze from the north. In May the first whalers follow the Kamchatkan Coast northward, as the ice melts on that shore earlier than on ours. The first whaler to pass East Cape secures the spring trade and the best catch of whales.
The color of the Kuro Siwo is darker than the waters through which it flows, and its Japanese name signifies "Black Stream." Passing on down the coast, it carries a warm and vivifying moisture as far southwest as Oregon. It gives the Aleutians their balmy climate. The average winter temperature is about thirty degrees above zero; and the summer temperature, from fifty to sixty degrees.
The volcano Makushin is the noted "smoker" of this island, and there is a hot spring, containing sulphur, in the vicinity, from which loud, cannon-like reports are frequently heard. The natives believe that the mountains fought together and that Makushin remained the victor. These reports were probably supposed to be fired at his command, as warnings of his fortified position to any inquisitive peak that might chance to fire a lava interrogation-point at him.