Amazing Abandonded Adak
I've been following Kensblog for a while now--it's the chonicle of the Great Siberian Sushi Run, a voyage by four Nordhavn trawler yachts from Seattle to Tokyo, for lunch. Our protagonst, Ken Williams, is now on the Alaskan island of Adak, way out in the Aleutians. Says Ken, After WWII, Adak was taken over by the Navy. From the 1950s to the late 1990s, Adak was a major Navy air base. At its peak, Adak was home to over 6,000 Navy and Coast Guard personnel. There was essentially no civilian population. The Navy base on Adak had no nearby city that the troops could visit for a little relaxation. The base was essentially in the middle of nowhere, disconnected from the rest of the world. It is perhaps for this reason that the Navy seems to have gone ‘over the top’ to create a livable community here on Adak. Families seem to not only have been tolerated, but welcomed, and encouraged. In the 1990s, Adak had all the comforts of a ‘real city;’ a college, movie theater, two high schools...