Takli Island is situated in Amalik Bay, between Cape Ilktugitak to the southwest and Cape Atushagvik to the northeast, on the Shelikof Strait coast of the Alaska Peninsula in Katmai National Park and Preserve, about 154 miles (248 km) southwest of Homer and 81 miles (130 km) west-northwest of Kodiak, Alaska. The Alutiiq name for the island was first published on Russian hydrographic charts as ‘Takali’. The name for the bay is also Alutiiq in origin and was first reported in 1895 by William H. Dall of the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey. The southeast flank of the Aleutian Range on the Alaska Peninsula is formed by volcanic rocks that developed during the Neogene period and primarily consists of volcanics from the Aleutian Range volcanos including breccia, lava flows and sills. The rocks forming Takli Island are mostly igneous lava sills that show columnar jointing. This structure formed as the lava cooled and contracted, creating tall polygonal columns. Weathering has degraded the columns into boulders that have accumulated at sea level and in coastal indentations. The island was subsequently blanketed by pumice ejected during the 1912 Katmai Novarupta eruptions. The pumice floats and has been concentrated by wind in topographic depressions up to 6 feet (2 m) thick.

This part of the Katmai coast has a long record of human occupation. There are no salmon streams on Takli Island, but the area has abundant sea mammal populations and evidence suggests that this food resource was exploited seasonally. Archaeological excavations have resulted in the formulation of a 7,000-year long cultural sequence. The earliest evidence includes projectile points and scrapers made from chipped basalt or chalcedony, coastal middens and at least one semisubterranean dwelling. Cultural transitions are marked by the appearance of ground slate tools and later by the introduction of fiber-tempered pottery. Amalik Bay is located between Bristol Bay to the northwest that is linguistically Yupik Eskimo, Kodiak Island to the southeast that is dominantly Koniag Alutiiq, and the Aleut that inhabited the peninsula and islands to the southwest. Therefore, the Shelikof Strait coast may have been a gateway for the widespread exchange of ideas and technological innovations. Based on this evidence, it is likely that between 2500 B.C. and A.D. 1000, no single ethnic or linguistic group occupied these respective regions which may have resulted in the observed technological transitions. After about 1000 A.D., Yupik Eskimo began to spread across the North Pacific coast, and by the beginning of the Christian era were well established.

Russian fur traders arrived in the late 18th century and noted several Alutiiq villages on the Shelikof Strait coast in what is now Katmai National Park and Preserve including Katmai Bay and Kukak Bay as well as several seasonal encampments, but not in Amalik Bay. All Alutiiq settlements were abandoned after the massive eruption of the Katmai Novarupta volcano in 1912. In 1931, Joe Tanzer established a fur farm on Takli Island, and W.E. Baumann located several placer claims on the north shore of the island. Sixteen years later, George Hadden occupied a cabin on the north shore of Takli Island; this was the same cabin that trapper John A. Smith had used during the late 1930s and early 1940s. In 1947, Anchorage residents Don Goodman and Harold Swank formed the Pumice Block Company and attempted to (illegally) extract pumicite from Takli Island. Commercial fishing for salmon and Dungeness crabs increased after World War II, and several fishing lodges on the Bristol Bay side of the Alaska Peninsula started flying guests for day trips to the Shelikof Strait coast. In 1989, the Exxon Valdez tanker spilled crude oil in Prince William Sound and the resulting oil plume entered the Gulf of Alaska and was transported west and then south through Shelikof Strait. Stranded oil surveys subsequently mapped oiled shorelines in Katmai National Park and Preserve including Takli Island. Coastal park visitation increased dramatically after the oil spill, mostly for bear watching excursions with aircraft access to Hallo Bay and small cruise vessels to Amalik Bay (Geographic Harbor). Read more here and here. Explore more of Takli Island and Amalik Bay here: