Heritage Expeditions
Kuril Islands
Lying like a string of pearls from northern Japan to the Kamchatka Peninsula, the Kuril Islands are the mountain tops of a line of undersea volcanoes along the boundary of the Pacific and Eurasian plates. Many of the volcanoes are still active. The islands are washed by the rich Pacific Ocean on their eastern coastlines and the Sea of Okhotsk in the west. These waters provide food for a wide range of wildlife including birds, seals and whales. This region has the greatest diversity of seabirds in all of Asia. During the Cold War the islands were home to impressive Naval and Airforce bases, both of which are now abandoned.
Area:
Total island area is 156,000 square km
Maximum altitude:
The highest mountains are Alan at 239m, Tyatya 1819m, Bogdan Khmelnitsky 1589m and Milha at 1539m.
Physical Features:
The Kuril Islands consist of two parallel ranges, the Great Kuril Ridge and the Little Kuril Ridge which separate the Sea of Okhotsk from the Pacific Ocean.
The Great Kuril Ridge stretches for 1200 km from the Kamchatka Peninsula, in the north, to the Japanese Island of Khokkaido, in the south. It comprises more than 30 islands, the largest of them are Paramuschir Simushir, Urups, Iturup and Kunashir. Relief of the Islands is mainly mountainous and volcanic.
The Little Kuril Range is only 120km long, it stretches from Khokkaido Island to the north east. A total of size small islands which represent flat smoothed areas rising only 20 – 30 metres above seal level. An exception is Shikotan Island which is characterized by low mountain relief, formed as a result of the destruction of an ancient volcano.
The larger islands of the Kuril Range are cut through by numerous rivers and streams. The landscape is dotted with lakes including those situated in craters of extinct volcanoes. The shores of the islands are mainly steep or terraced.
The Kuril Islands are famous for their numerous hot springs and mineral craters. There are approximately 120 volcanoes in the Kuril Islands with 40 of them active.
History:
The first information about the Kuril Islands comes from Russian pioneers in the middle of the 17th century. In 1698 V Atlasov discovered the Island which was later named in his honour. In 1711 – 1713 D Antsiferov and I Kozyrevsky investigated Shumshu, Paramushir and Makanrushy Islands. In 1738-1739 M Shpanberg had mapped Kuril Island for the first time and S Krasheninnikov had made a description of their nature.
Today they are a part of the Sakhalin administration region which is divided into three districts; Severo-Kurilsky, Kurilsky and Yehno-Kurilsky. The permanent population of the Islands mainly inhabit the southern islands of Iturup, Kunashir, Shikotan and the two northern islands of Paramushir and Shumushu. Other islands have virtually no permanent population. Fishing is the main source of income.
Natural History:
The Islands are unique, they look like vast botanical gardens where subtropical flora representatives neighbour with flora of the Polar latitudes. One of the highlights are the gigantic herbs whose heights sometimes reach 3-4 meters. Wildlife includes both bear and foxes, the islands are especially good for marine mammals including seals, sealions, furseals and otters. One of the “birding” highlights must be the Stellars Sea Eagle.
Click here for a detailed Bird Checklist
Further Reading:
- Barratt Glynn - Russia in Pacific Waters 1715 – 1825, University of British Columbia Press. Vancouver and London 1981
- Frost OW (Edt) Georg Wilhelm Stellar - Journal of a Voyage with Bering 1741 – 1742, Translated Margritt A Engel and OW Frost. Stanford University Press. Stanford California 1988.
- Frost OW (Edt) Bering and Chirikov - The American Voyages and their impact, Alaska Historical Society, Anchorage, Alaska 1992.
- Frost OW - Bering: The Russian Discovery of America
- Kushnarev Evgenii G - Berings search for the Strait, The First Kamchatka Expedition 1725-1730, Edt/Translated by E A P Crownhart-Vaughen
- Ford Corey - Where the sea breaks its back: The epic story of early naturalist Georg Stellar and the Russian Exploration of Alaska, Alaska Northwest Books, Anchorage Seattle 1992.
- Reid A - The Shamans Coat, A Native History of Siberia.
- Sleskin Y - Arctic Mirrors: Russia and the Small Peoples of the North.
- Sweetland Smith Barara, Barnett Redmond J (Edts) - Russian America: The Forgotten Frontier, Washington State Historical Society, Tacoma, Washington 1990.
- Knystautas Algirdas - The Natural History of the USSR, McCraw-Hill Book Company 1987.
- Blix Arnoldus S - Arctic Animals and their adaptations to life on the edge Tapir Academic Press, Trondheim 2005.
- Lincoln W B - The Conquest of a Continent, Siberia and the Russians.
- National Audubon Society Guide to the marine Mammals of the World, Chanticler Press Ltd 2002.
- Boner Nigel - Seals and Sealions of the World, Octopus Publishing group 2004.
