the Aleutians

The Aleutians are not like other places. Stretching 1,000 miles from the Alaska Peninsula to the doorstep of Russia, they are gray and deadly and beautiful. Early Russian priests called these islands the Birthplace of the Wind. They are a battleground, the breakers between the warm Pacific Ocean and the cold Bering Sea.

A place where atomic bombs were tested, where Japanese Zeros bombed an American base, where Aleut POWs were captured, where hundreds were forced into internment camps, where the first Americans may have stepped across from Asia, where revered whale hunters were mummified in volcanic caves, where tsunamis reign, where North America harvests most of its fish, where the wind clocks at 100 knots, where the edge drops off.

If you aren’t hung up on comfort, or given to whining and bitching, you should go. There are few places you can be so far away from anything that doesn’t matter.

Find Your Voice

Cindy's sister Jana Osturgut created this slide show for a digital media class while getting her master's in literary criticism. Although not specifically about the Aleut people, many of the images Jana chose document Aleut history. She created the piece to help us to connect to the destruction in our pasts, whether a torn culture or a worn past, and to sense the hope that lies in our futures. The strong, she says, remember, listen, and speak. They tell their stories so that history will be more complete, more powerful, more redemptive.

Aleut history slideshow