A brief history

When the Russians arrived on Kodiak Island, there were already 20,000 Alutiiq people on the island. Kodiak's natives have inhabited the island for 7,500 - 8,000 years.

The Alutiiq people are a southwest Alaskan maritime culture. The Alaskan Penisula and Kodiak group of Alutiiq are know as Koniag, or Koniagmiut. The suffix "miut" is added to names signifying "the people of". Each village has a name for its people, and each region has a name for it's people. The people of Kodiak Island were called Qikertarmiut meaning “people of the large island.”

The written history of Kodiak begins in 1741. The Bering expedition discovered Kodiak on the return to Russia from exploring mainland Alaska. After leaving Kodiak, the ship was grounded on the Commander Islands in the Aleutians, and the crew spent the winter on the bitter cold islands. Over the winter, they discovered the sea otter pelt.

After a winter in which many of the men died, they headed back to Russia, taking sea otter pelts with them. The skins demanded a high price in Petropaulovsk. News of the otter pelts created a flurry of excitement among traders and trappers (Promishleniki), who returned to the Aleutions in force exploring every bay and inlet.

In 1763, Stefhen Glotof anchored off of a large mountainous island known as Kikhatak - the Innuit word for island. From this word and the native peoples - Koniag came the name Kadyak - later Kodiak. Shortly thereafter, the first Russian colony headed by Gregory Shelekhov arrived.