LOCATION: On Kuluk Bay on Adak Island in the Aleutian Islands, 1,300 miles southwest of Anchorage, the southernmost community in Alaska, on the latitude of Vancouver Island in Canada.

DESCRIPTION: A community that in a few years has changed from a U.S. military station to an Aleut town, with some of the old facilities still in use. Three of every eight residents are Alaska Native. Adak provides a fueling port and crew-transfer facility for foreign fishing fleets. Contractors are performing an environmental cleanup. Norquest-Adak Seafood Co. processes Pacific cod, pollock, mackerel, halibut, albacore and brown king crab. A grocery, ship-supply store and restaurant opened in February 1999. There is one school, attended by about 20 students.

HISTORY: The Aleutians were historically occupied by the Unangas. Once heavily populated, Adak was abandoned in the early 1800s as hunters followed the Russian fur trade eastward, and famine hit the Andreanof Island group. Adak Army installations allowed U.S. forces to mount a successful offensive against the Japanese-held islands of Kiska and Attu to the west. After the war, Adak was developed as a naval air station, playing a key role during the Cold War as a submarine surveillance center, housing 6,000 naval personnel and their families at its peak. The station closed on March 31, 1997. The Aleut Corp. acquired Adak's facilities under an agreement with the United States. About 30 families with children relocated to Adak in September 1998, most of them Aleut Corp. shareholders, and a school was reopened. Aleut Corp. is developing Adak as a commercial center. The community formed a second-class city government in April 2001.