Laz Lewis, age 11, of Berkeley, Calif 

What are the Aleutian Islands like?

The southwestern tip of Alaska dips down into the North Pacific 3  n a peninsula 550 miles long, Its backbone is the rugged Aleutian Range which continues on along the floor of the ocean where the peninsula ends, Here and there peaks and high points of the range poke above the water and form the Aleutian Islands  The islands hang like a chain under the chin of the Bering Sea, separating it from the vast Pacific Ocean to the south,

Altogether there era 3  4 large and 55 small island s  A chart of the ocean floor shows that they stand at the very edge of a steep cliff where the bed of the shallow Bering Sea plunges down to the deep abyss of the Pacific  At the base of the underwater cliff is a deep trench and stresses and strains in the earth's crust make this an unstable raglan  Earthquakes tremble and volcanoes pour out smoke and fire from the restless sea bed below,

Though the Aleutians are no farther north than England and parts of Germany, they have a far less friendly climate  They era exposed to the bleak polar weather and icy seas of the north  Though winter temperatures do not fall much below freezing point, a warm July day tends to be around 51 degrees Fahrenheit, Summer and winter the region is damp and foggy and subject to sudden chilly polar gales, The region has been called a weather kitchen, for here many storms and cold spells are brewed and sent on their way across Canada and the central United States:

The climate and the restless mountains make the Aleutians an unfriendly place to plant and animal life, The ground is punctured with hot springs and cold springs, and washed with swift, icy streams  There era glaciers and a swampy tundra area, Few if any plants grow big enough to become trees 

Small shrubs cower before the Arctic gales; mosses and a few grasses

cuddle close to the ground  In the summer, some of the small plants

burst into flower 

The crescent‑shaped chain of islands is about 900 miles long  Besides the 1  4 fairly large islands and about 55 islets, there are a number of small bits of dry land poking above the water  The Aleutians lie on the polar flight route from our west coast to Europe  The western tip of the chain reaches towards Asia, which makes the islands a strategic point in our defense program  A large United States naval base is stationed at Dutch Harbor on the second largest of the islands 

The unfriendly islands are the native homeland of Aleut Indians, a branch of the cheerful Eskimo people  In the past the Aleuts suffered great hardships from the Russian fur hunters and, during World War II, many of them perished when the Japanese invaded the islands  Those that remain are skillful fishermen who know how to harpoon a seal and kill a whale with poisoned lances  Their ancestors named Alaska from their own language with words meaning the Great Land„