Amchitka Community Page

Location: Amchitka, so named by the Aleuts who allegedly lived there for at least 9000 years, is one of the North Pacific Aleutian Chain's Rat Islands. It is located approximately 1340 miles west southwest from Anchorage, Alaska, and 870 miles east of Petropavlovsk, Kamchatka, in the Russian Far East. It is 35 miles long, and almost 3 miles wide. Early Russians referred to this island as Ostrov Amchitka.

History: Amchitka was the site of some of the earliest American and Canadian victories during WWII, having been retaken from the Japanese in January of 1943. A large contingency of USAAF personnel and aircraft operated from Amchitka through the end of WWII. The U. S. Atomic Energy Commission created a nuclear testing facility on Amchitka in the early 1960s. Three underground nuclear explosions occurred in the 1960s and 1970s. The first detonation was the "Long Shot," an 80 kiloton bomb. The second was "Milrow," a one megaton device exploded on 2 Oct 1969, 4,000 feet below the surface of the island. The third device, "Cannikan," weighing in at 5 megatons, was detonated on 6 Nov 1971. It was the largest underground nuclear explosion in U.S. history. This facility was closed down in 1994, with on-going U. S. Government cleanup of the radioactive, chemical, and other hazardous waste. While there is an airstrip on Amchitka, it is currently restricted to U. S. Government flights only.

Climate: Amchitka's weather is much like the rest of the Western Aleutian Islands...fog, rain, snow, with temperatures ranging from 11 to 65 degrees through the year. Annual snowfall averages around 41 inches, with a total precipitation of around 21 inches.