Sanak Island

The trip takes about five hours to cross the roughly 40 mile distance from King Cove to Sanak.

Like many of the other Aleutian Islands, Sanak was inhabited by the Aleut people for thousands of years.

In 1828, the administrators of Russian America removed the island's population to the Alaska Peninsula in order to maintain access to the sea otter hunting grounds in surrounding waters.

The U.S. Navy operated a small naval base at Sanak Island during World War II.

Researchers, led by investigators from Idaho State University studied both the living plants and animals as well as the remains of food animals such as fish, sea mammals, and shellfish preserved in archeological sites.