St. Matthew Island
Encyclopedia
St. Matthew Island is a remote island in the Bering Sea
in Alaska
, 295 km (183.3 mi) WNW of Nunivak Island
. The island has a land area of 137.857 sq mi (357 km²), making it the 43rd largest island in the United States. Its most southerly point is Cape Upright which features cliff
faces which exceed 1000 feet (304.8 m). Similar heights are found at Glory of Russia Cape
on the north, and the highest point, 1476 feet (449.9 m) above sea level, lies south from the island center.
There is a small island off its northwestern point called Hall Island
. The 3.1 miles (5 km) wide sound between both islands is called Sarichef Strait. A small rocky islet called Pinnacle Rock lies 9.3 miles (15 km) to the south of Saint Matthew Island. The entire island's natural
scenery and wildlife
is protected as it is part of the Bering Sea unit of the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge
.
The United States Coast Guard
maintained a manned LORAN
station on the island during the 1940s.
(1986) is reported as maritime with "considerable wind and cool, humid and cloudy conditions" with mean annual temperature of 3.2 °C (37.8 °F) and annual precipitation of 389 mm (15.3 in), in the St Mathews Island. The geological formation recorded in St. Mathew Island consists of calc-alkaline volcanic rocks of Late Cretaceous
and earliest tertiary
age with Pergelic Cryaquolls and Pergelic Cryoborolls
soil types.
tribe. The first recorded attempt at settlement occurred in 1809, when a Russian group led by Demid Ilyich Kulikalov
, under the guise of the Russian-American Company
, established an experimental outpost.
es and insular vole
s are the only mammals resident on the island, though polar bear
s occasionally visit via pack ice. St. Matthew Island, in fact, represents the southern limit of the North American range of polar bears.
In 1944, 29 reindeer
were introduced to the island by the United States Coast Guard to provide an emergency food source. The coast guard abandoned the island a few years later, leaving the reindeer. Subsequently, the reindeer population rose to about 6,000 by 1963 and then died off in the next two years to 43 animals. A scientific study attributed the population crash to the limited food supply in interaction with climatic factors (the winter of 1963–64 was exceptionally severe in the region). By the 1980s, the reindeer population had completely died out. Although biologists see this as an example of how a single severe weather event can wipe out a population, environmentalists see this as an issue of overpopulation. For example, Garrett Hardin
cited the "natural experiment" of St. Matthew Island of the reindeer population explosion and collapse as a paradigmatic example of the consequences of overpopulation in his essay An Ecolate View of the Human Predicament.
(Oncorhynchus tshawytscha), Dolly Varden (Salvelinus malma) and Arctic char
.
studies were conducted on the island in the 1990s to prepare a list of lichens with their habitat, composition and distribution pattern. These studies were considered important for characterizing the eating habits of caribou and air quality. The vegetation of the islands has been classified as wet, moist and alpine tundra
, based on landforms and drainage patterns. The plant communities were attributed to five categories. In the area of rock rubble fields and high ridges the vegetation was mainly crustacean
lichens. Among the 148 lichen species of the islands, 125 showed the Arctic alpine geographic distribution, 74 boreal
, 18 were coastal, 9 amphi-Berengian and 41 widespread, with many species falling into more than one category. The lichen diversity was characterized by wide-ranging Arctic-alpine and boreal species; it was evaluated as luxuriant that was linked to reindeer
species disappearing from the area.
Bering Sea
The Bering Sea is a marginal sea of the Pacific Ocean. It comprises a deep water basin, which then rises through a narrow slope into the shallower water above the continental shelves....
in Alaska
Alaska
Alaska is the largest state in the United States by area. It is situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent, with Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia further west across the Bering Strait...
, 295 km (183.3 mi) WNW of Nunivak Island
Nunivak Island
Nunivak Island , the second largest island in the Bering Sea, is a permafrost-covered volcanic island lying about 30 miles offshore from the delta of the Yukon and Kuskokwim rivers in the state of Alaska, at about 60° North latitude...
. The island has a land area of 137.857 sq mi (357 km²), making it the 43rd largest island in the United States. Its most southerly point is Cape Upright which features cliff
Cliff
In geography and geology, a cliff is a significant vertical, or near vertical, rock exposure. Cliffs are formed as erosion landforms due to the processes of erosion and weathering that produce them. Cliffs are common on coasts, in mountainous areas, escarpments and along rivers. Cliffs are usually...
faces which exceed 1000 feet (304.8 m). Similar heights are found at Glory of Russia Cape
Glory of Russia Cape
Glory of Russia Cape is the northernmost point of St. Matthew Island in the Bering Sea in the US state of Alaska. The cape is hilly, with the peak south of the cape being high, while at its coastline the cape is 5 m above mean sea level....
on the north, and the highest point, 1476 feet (449.9 m) above sea level, lies south from the island center.
There is a small island off its northwestern point called Hall Island
Hall Island (Alaska)
Hall Island is a small island located to the northwest of St. Matthew Island in the Bering Sea in Alaska, USA. It serves as a haulout site for Pacific walrus. It is in length and has a land area of . The highest point is . Hall Island is uninhabited. It is part of the Bering Sea unit of the...
. The 3.1 miles (5 km) wide sound between both islands is called Sarichef Strait. A small rocky islet called Pinnacle Rock lies 9.3 miles (15 km) to the south of Saint Matthew Island. The entire island's natural
Nature
Nature, in the broadest sense, is equivalent to the natural world, physical world, or material world. "Nature" refers to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general...
scenery and wildlife
Wildlife
Wildlife includes all non-domesticated plants, animals and other organisms. Domesticating wild plant and animal species for human benefit has occurred many times all over the planet, and has a major impact on the environment, both positive and negative....
is protected as it is part of the Bering Sea unit of the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge
Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge
The Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge is a United States National Wildlife Refuge comprising 2,400 islands, headlands, rocks, islets, spires and reefs in Alaska, with a total area of , of which is wilderness)...
.
The United States Coast Guard
United States Coast Guard
The United States Coast Guard is a branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven U.S. uniformed services. The Coast Guard is a maritime, military, multi-mission service unique among the military branches for having a maritime law enforcement mission and a federal regulatory agency...
maintained a manned LORAN
LORAN
LORAN is a terrestrial radio navigation system using low frequency radio transmitters in multiple deployment to determine the location and speed of the receiver....
station on the island during the 1940s.
Geology and climate
The climatic conditions in the entire Bearing Sea Area, according to National Climatic Data CenterNational Climatic Data Center
The United States National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, North Carolina is the world's largest active archive of weather data. The center became established in late 1951, with the move into the new facility occurring in early 1952....
(1986) is reported as maritime with "considerable wind and cool, humid and cloudy conditions" with mean annual temperature of 3.2 °C (37.8 °F) and annual precipitation of 389 mm (15.3 in), in the St Mathews Island. The geological formation recorded in St. Mathew Island consists of calc-alkaline volcanic rocks of Late Cretaceous
Late Cretaceous
The Late Cretaceous is the younger of two epochs into which the Cretaceous period is divided in the geologic timescale. Rock strata from this epoch form the Upper Cretaceous series...
and earliest tertiary
Tertiary
The Tertiary is a deprecated term for a geologic period 65 million to 2.6 million years ago. The Tertiary covered the time span between the superseded Secondary period and the Quaternary...
age with Pergelic Cryaquolls and Pergelic Cryoborolls
Gelisols
Gelisols are an order in USDA soil taxonomy. They are soils of very cold climates which are defined as containing permafrost within two meters of the soil surface...
soil types.
Human habitation
In prehistory, the island was inhabited by members of the AleutAleut
Aleut people are the indigenous people of the Aleutian Islands of Alaska, United States and Kamchatka Krai, Russia.-Name:The name "Aleut" comes from the Aleut word allíthuh, meaning "community." A regional self-denomination is ', Unangan or Unanga, meaning "original people." The name Aleut was...
tribe. The first recorded attempt at settlement occurred in 1809, when a Russian group led by Demid Ilyich Kulikalov
Demid Ilyich Kulikalov
Demid Ilyich Kulikalov was an administrator of Russian America during the first decade of the 19th century. He served in the Russian-American Company for several decades, led early expeditions into what is now Alaska, administered RAC interests in the Pribilof Islands, and headed the...
, under the guise of the Russian-American Company
Russian-American Company
The Russian-American Company was a state-sponsored chartered company formed largely on the basis of the so-called Shelekhov-Golikov Company of Grigory Shelekhov and Ivan Larionovich Golikov The Russian-American Company (officially: Under His Imperial Majesty's Highest Protection (patronage)...
, established an experimental outpost.
Mammals
Presently, arctic foxArctic fox
The arctic fox , also known as the white fox, polar fox or snow fox, is a small fox native to Arctic regions of the Northern Hemisphere and is common throughout the Arctic tundra biome. The Greek word alopex, means a fox and Vulpes is the Latin version...
es and insular vole
Insular Vole
The Insular Vole or St. Matthew Island Vole is a species of rodent in the family Cricetidae. It occurs only on St. Matthew Island and the adjacent Hall Island, in Alaska. On these Bering Sea islands, Insular Voles live in damp lowland areas, on the lower slopes of mountains, and on rye...
s are the only mammals resident on the island, though polar bear
Polar Bear
The polar bear is a bear native largely within the Arctic Circle encompassing the Arctic Ocean, its surrounding seas and surrounding land masses. It is the world's largest land carnivore and also the largest bear, together with the omnivorous Kodiak Bear, which is approximately the same size...
s occasionally visit via pack ice. St. Matthew Island, in fact, represents the southern limit of the North American range of polar bears.
In 1944, 29 reindeer
Reindeer
The reindeer , also known as the caribou in North America, is a deer from the Arctic and Subarctic, including both resident and migratory populations. While overall widespread and numerous, some of its subspecies are rare and one has already gone extinct.Reindeer vary considerably in color and size...
were introduced to the island by the United States Coast Guard to provide an emergency food source. The coast guard abandoned the island a few years later, leaving the reindeer. Subsequently, the reindeer population rose to about 6,000 by 1963 and then died off in the next two years to 43 animals. A scientific study attributed the population crash to the limited food supply in interaction with climatic factors (the winter of 1963–64 was exceptionally severe in the region). By the 1980s, the reindeer population had completely died out. Although biologists see this as an example of how a single severe weather event can wipe out a population, environmentalists see this as an issue of overpopulation. For example, Garrett Hardin
Garrett Hardin
Garrett James Hardin was an American ecologist who warned of the dangers of overpopulation and whose concept of the tragedy of the commons brought attention to "the damage that innocent actions by individuals can inflict on the environment"...
cited the "natural experiment" of St. Matthew Island of the reindeer population explosion and collapse as a paradigmatic example of the consequences of overpopulation in his essay An Ecolate View of the Human Predicament.
Fish
There is a small lake on the island which is inhabited by chinook salmonChinook salmon
The Chinook salmon, Oncorhynchus tshawytscha, is the largest species in the pacific salmon family. Other commonly used names for the species include King salmon, Quinnat salmon, Spring salmon and Tyee salmon...
(Oncorhynchus tshawytscha), Dolly Varden (Salvelinus malma) and Arctic char
Arctic char
Arctic char or Arctic charr is both a freshwater and saltwater fish in the Salmonidae family, native to Arctic, sub-Arctic and alpine lakes and coastal waters. No other freshwater fish is found as far north. It is the only species of fish in Lake Hazen, on Ellesmere Island in the Canadian Arctic...
.
Lichen study
LichenLichen
Lichens are composite organisms consisting of a symbiotic organism composed of a fungus with a photosynthetic partner , usually either a green alga or cyanobacterium...
studies were conducted on the island in the 1990s to prepare a list of lichens with their habitat, composition and distribution pattern. These studies were considered important for characterizing the eating habits of caribou and air quality. The vegetation of the islands has been classified as wet, moist and alpine tundra
Alpine tundra
Alpine tundra is a natural region that does not contain trees because it is at high altitude. Alpine tundra is distinguished from arctic tundra, because alpine soils are generally better drained than arctic soils...
, based on landforms and drainage patterns. The plant communities were attributed to five categories. In the area of rock rubble fields and high ridges the vegetation was mainly crustacean
Crustacean
Crustaceans form a very large group of arthropods, usually treated as a subphylum, which includes such familiar animals as crabs, lobsters, crayfish, shrimp, krill and barnacles. The 50,000 described species range in size from Stygotantulus stocki at , to the Japanese spider crab with a leg span...
lichens. Among the 148 lichen species of the islands, 125 showed the Arctic alpine geographic distribution, 74 boreal
Boreal forest of Canada
Canada's boreal forest comprises about one third of the circumpolar boreal forest that rings the northern hemisphere, mostly north of the 50th parallel. Other countries with boreal forest include Russia, which contains the majority, and the Scandinavian and Nordic countries . The boreal region in...
, 18 were coastal, 9 amphi-Berengian and 41 widespread, with many species falling into more than one category. The lichen diversity was characterized by wide-ranging Arctic-alpine and boreal species; it was evaluated as luxuriant that was linked to reindeer
Reindeer
The reindeer , also known as the caribou in North America, is a deer from the Arctic and Subarctic, including both resident and migratory populations. While overall widespread and numerous, some of its subspecies are rare and one has already gone extinct.Reindeer vary considerably in color and size...
species disappearing from the area.