Hello Photography Lovers,
I hope you are all having a great weekend. Today, I want to share my experience in Dutch Harbor, Alaska.
We arrived with 50-knot winds, which only calmed down once we docked at the main village. After being underway for two days without the wind we wanted, a rest was much needed.
A bit of history on Dutch Harbor: During World War II, it was bombed by the Japanese. As a result, you can find bunkers and gun placements throughout the area, primarily to protect the harbor from Japanese ships and planes. The museums vividly depict the brutality of the war. Around 800 Aleuts were relocated to Southeast Alaska on a ship that could only hold 500 passengers. They were not treated or fed properly, and upon arrival, approximately 80 to 100 Aleuts died in the camps due to insufficient food and the struggle of living in a completely different environment. Sadly, some even remarked that Nazi camps were better as they at least provided meals.
To this day, only a few hundred have been able to return to visit their villages. Due to this incident, the American government now provides financial support to native Aleuts, which is evident when you see them driving brand new vehicles and living in new houses.
I won’t bore you with too much history, but if you’ve watched the show "Deadliest Catch," you might know that it was filmed here. One of the ships in the show, the "Saga," is in the harbor. Dutch Harbor was a gold mine in the late 80s and 90s. Fishermen would take out loans for new fishing vessels and pay them off in just three months, showing how the industry boomed. To this day, it remains one of the biggest fishing harbors in America.
We are friends with one of the fishermen (a long story how), and he told us that the fishing industry crashed when the Ukraine war started. The sanctions are currently having little effect on Russia but are negatively impacting America.
I hope you enjoyed this blog. If you did, feel free to check out my profile for similar content.
Paul