Recent Events on Adak

News as of October, 2004:

  • Alaska Airlines flies to Adak; it costs about $1,000 from Anchorage (round trip or one way?)
  • A small but steady stream of visitors comes to Adak, and not just at the salmon run.
  • If you are not Aleut, you'll probably need a travel permit, even if you are a resident.  Terms and price change frequently but recently an annual pass cost $100.  That's less than a night in a rented house and much less than the cost to fly to Adak but it is still something to be aware of.
  • The Blue Shed houses the main industry of Adak, fish packing.  They are doing fairly well and are considering expanding to the Red Shed.
  • A new small boat harbor is soon to be constructed for boats up to 60 feet.
  • The concrete buildings are in pretty good shape but the interior pipes and wires are generally not; the Navy did not drain the water pipes so when they froze and burst, it made one mell of a hess.  
  • The Navy's X-band radar, on a drilling rig in Kuluk Bay, may get started next year.  What exactly that means for the city nobody knows. It is supposed to be minimum impact, and yet, maybe we'd rather see a positive impact than no impact at all.

The U.S. Navy completed its operations and left the island on September, 2000 (near as I can tell).

Incorporation Election Results -- April, 2001

Local Boundary Commission Final Decision in Adobe ® Acrobat ® (PDF) format.

The official website for DCED and LBC have many interesting documents pertaining to the formation of the City of Adak. I admire the efforts of the residents of Adak to create a new way of life that springs from the fruits of the cold war era, but which soon will become a city as genuinely Alaskan as any you can imagine.

As I obtain information useful to visitors I will post it on this website. Obviously, many will want to return to Adak for the salmon run in August. The caribou herd is alive and well.  Hunting is permitted; you'll need state and tribal permits depending on where you go.  In fact, you'll probably need a tribal permit just to go hiking.  The price and terms change frequently.  It is a bit of a sensitive issue; the citizens of Adak depend on the caribou for subsistence hunting as it is extremely expensive to ship food to Adak by air or barge.

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