As of the 2000 census, Montague did not have a permanent resident population, making it at that time the largest uninhabited island in the United States.
Montague Island is well known in Seward, Alaska, for its sports fishery, and it is referred to as "The Land of the Giants."
In 2007, the waters around the island produced a 350-pound (156-kg) halibut and many boats full of fish weighing over 100 pounds (45 kg) each.
The island's coastal ecology has been subjected to "unprecedented amounts of ocean trash" transported by wind and currents from Japan's March 2011 tsunami, according to the Center for Alaskan Coastal Studies in May 2012.
[2] A large-scale clean-up began on 22 May 2012, funded by The Marine Conservation Alliance Foundation.