Hunting and fishing parties of the Ainu have long visited Matua, but the island had no permanent habitation[citation needed] at the time of European contact.

In icy or snowy weather, hot water generated by the island's geothermal activity would be pumped through these channels, keeping these airstrips free of ice year-round.

During 1944 the US Army Air Forces intermittently bombed the Japanese facilities on the island and ships of the United States Navy shelled it.

During the Soviet Battle of the Kuril Islands in the last weeks of World War II, the Japanese garrison surrendered to the Red Army without resistance (August 1945).

In 2016 some two hundred Russian officials and technical experts made an expedition to the island, part of a plan to rehabilitate the derelict 1.2 km Soviet airfield and establish a new naval and logistical forward military base.

Unlike the quintessential subarctic climate of Siberia or Mongolia, however, Matua has very heavy precipitation as rain, snow and fog.

Seasonal lag, like in all the Kuril Islands, is a major feature of the climate, with August being the mildest month and February the coldest.