Unalaska
United Methodist Church
...serving Unalaska and the greater Aleutian community in the name of Christ
Aleutian Weather
The Coast Pilot, a
handbook for mariners says this about the weather, “No other area in
the world is recognized as having worst weather in general than that
which the Aleutian Islands experience.”
“The botanist Eric Hulten wrote, ‘It is quite clear that the mosaic of plant communities in the Aleutians is to a large extent regulated by the Wind.’
“(Father) Veniaminov was more emphatic: … one can say with certainty, that (above all) the local climate depends entirely upon the winds.”
And Veniaminov again: ‘This region is the empire of the winds.’
“As a young man, the great chief of Unalaska, Alexei
Yatchmenef, was a member of a sea otter hunting expedition that was
caught in a storm at the end of summer in 1885. Terrible winds
caused the deaths of several of his companions and forced him and
others ashore for several days. The ancient prohibition against
grumbling about severe or adverse winds is reflected in the
restrained account he wrote in Aleut in 1910. As translated by Knut
Bergsland and Moses Dirks, his first comment on the weather was, ‘A
breeze from the northeast blowing up to a storm, we passed four
nights there.’ The gradual increase of winds on this occasion
confirmed Veniaminov’s statement that winds which begin
imperceptibly and grew gradually were the longest-lasting.
Yatchmenef continued, ‘The wind became strong, in the evening there
came rain … we lay down to sleep … and, hearing the wind and the
rain sounding like singing, I spent the night without sleep.’
Today the Aleutians and Bering Sea region are simply referred to
as the “Birthplace of storms.”
Last Update: Nov. 13, 2007
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