Chankliut Island is 2.9 miles (4.7 km) long and 0.9 miles (1.5 km) wide and lies 6 miles (10 km) south of Castle Cape in the Pacific Ocean, roughly 240 miles (387 km) southwest of Kodiak and 15 miles (24 km) southeast of Chignik, Alaska. The island is uninhabited and, from a distance, looks like three separate, barren islands with grassy slopes; in fact, low sand flats dotted with small lakes connect them. Chankliut is part of the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge. Its Alutiiq name first appeared on Russian hydrographic charts in 1847.

Russians were the first to introduce foxes to the many islands off the southern coast of the Alaska Peninsula, hoping to supplement revenue as sea-otter populations dwindled. From 1882, overseen by the US Secretary of the Treasury, the Alaska Commercial Company turned fox farming into a commercial enterprise, charging farmers $200 a year to lease an island. By 1920 European immigrants leased many of the islands off the Alaska Peninsula. George Anderson and his Alutiiq wife, Ocelena, began raising foxes on Chankliut Island in 1910. By 1920 the lease had passed to their son-in-law, Lars Hanson; that year Anderson, five children, two grandchildren, and Hanson all lived on the island.

By 1922 more than 150 fox farms had been recorded in Alaska, several of them on islands off the coast of Aniakchak. By 1930 fox farming was Alaska’s third-largest industry, behind only fishing and mining. Writing in the journal Science, biologists today describe the era’s introduction of predators to coastal islands as possibly one of Alaska’s worst ecological disasters. Read more here and here. Explore more of Chankliut Island and Castle Cape here: