Takli Island is in Amalik Bay, between Cape Ilktugitak to the southwest and Cape Atushagvik to the northeast, along the Shelikof Strait coast of the Alaska Peninsula in Katmai National Park and Preserve, about 154 miles (248 kilometers) southwest of Homer and 81 miles (130 kilometers) west-northwest of Kodiak, Alaska. The Alutiiq name for the island was first recorded on Russian hydrographic charts as Takali. The bay’s name is also of Alutiiq origin and was first reported in 1895 by William H. Dall of the US Coast and Geodetic Survey. The southeast flank of the Aleutian Range on the Alaska Peninsula consists of volcanic rocks that formed during the Neogene period, primarily from Aleutian Range volcanoes. These include breccia, lava flows, and sills. Takli Island is composed mostly of igneous lava sills that display columnar jointing, a structure created as lava cooled and contracted into tall polygonal columns. Weathering has broken these columns into boulders that have accumulated at sea level and in coastal indentations. The island was later blanketed by pumice ejected during the 1912 Katmai Novarupta eruption. This pumice, which floats, has been concentrated by wind into topographic depressions up to 6 feet (2 meters) thick.

This part of the Katmai coast has a long history of human occupation. While there are no salmon streams on Takli Island, the area has abundant sea mammals, which evidence suggests were exploited seasonally. Archaeological excavations have established a 7,000-year 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, the introduction of fiber-tempered pottery. Amalik Bay lies between Bristol Bay to the northwest, where the dominant linguistic group is Yupik Eskimo; Kodiak Island to the southeast, which is predominantly Koniag Alutiiq; and the Aleut, who inhabited the peninsula and islands to the southwest. This strategic location suggests that the Shelikof Strait coast may have served as a gateway for the exchange of ideas and technological innovations. Based on archaeological evidence, it is likely that between 2500 B.C. and A.D. 1000, no single ethnic or linguistic group dominated these regions, which may explain the observed technological transitions. After about A.D. 1000, Yupik Eskimos began expanding along the North Pacific coast, and by the beginning of the Christian era, they were well established.

Russian fur traders arrived in the late 18th century and recorded several Alutiiq villages along 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 none in Amalik Bay. All Alutiiq settlements were abandoned after the massive Katmai-Novarupta eruption in 1912. In 1931, Joe Tanzer established a fur farm on Takli Island, while W.E. Baumann staked several placer claims on the island’s north shore. Sixteen years later, George Hadden occupied a cabin on the north shore—the same cabin used by trapper John A. Smith in 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 the second world war. Around this time, several fishing lodges on the Bristol Bay side of the Alaska Peninsula began flying guests on day trips to the Shelikof Strait coast. In 1989, the Exxon Valdez oil tanker spilled crude oil in Prince William Sound. The resulting oil plume entered the Gulf of Alaska and was carried west, then south, through Shelikof Strait. Stranded oil surveys later mapped oiled shorelines in Katmai National Park and Preserve, including Takli Island. Coastal park visitation surged after the spill, primarily for bear-watching excursions, with aircraft access to Hallo Bay and small cruise vessels traveling to Amalik Bay and Geographic Harbor. Read more here and here. Explore more of Takli Island and Amalik Bay here: