Killisnoo Island is a small

island An island (or isle) is an isolated piece of habitat that is surrounded by a dramatically different habitat, such as water. Very small islands such as emergent land features on atolls can be called islets, skerries, cays or keys. An island ...

in the

Alexander Archipelago The Alexander Archipelago (russian: Архипелаг Александра) is a long archipelago (group of islands) in North America lying off the southeastern coast of Alaska. It contains about 1,100 islands, the tops of submerged coastal m ...

in southeastern

Alaska Alaska ( ; russian: Аляска, Alyaska; ale, Alax̂sxax̂; ; ems, Alas'kaaq; Yup'ik: ''Alaskaq''; tli, Anáaski) is a state located in the Western United States on the northwest extremity of North America. A semi-exclave of the U.S., ...

, at . It is located just off the central west coast of

Admiralty Island Admiralty Island is an island in the Alexander Archipelago in Southeast Alaska, at . It is long and wide with an area of , making it the seventh-largest island in the United States and the 132nd largest island in the world. It is one of the ...

, south of the city of

Angoon Angoon (sometimes formerly spelled Angun, tli, Aangóon) is a city on Admiralty Island in Hoonah-Angoon Census Area, Alaska, United States. At the 2000 census the population was 572; by the 2010 census the population had declined to 459. The ...

. Killisnoo Island, an unincorporated area, is a settlement on the island.

History

In 1878, the

North West Trading Company The North West Trading Company was organized in Portland, Oregon, United States in 1879 by Paul Schulze and Henry Villard in order to do business in Alaska. It established a trading post at Killisnoo in 1878; this soon grew to include a fish pro ...

established a trading post and whaling station on nearby Killisnoo Island and villagers were employed to hunt whales. Whaling, a BIA school and a Russian Orthodox Church attracted many

Tlingits The Tlingit ( or ; also spelled Tlinkit) are indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast of North America. Their language is the Tlingit language (natively , pronounced ),

to Killisnoo. In 1882, The first commercial

herring Herring are forage fish, mostly belonging to the family of Clupeidae. Herring often move in large schools around fishing banks and near the coast, found particularly in shallow, temperate waters of the North Pacific and North Atlantic Oceans, i ...

fishery begins at Killisnoo; near

and the first two canneries are built in Central Alaska. In 1886, Alaska Northwest Trading Company was built within the Tlingit Village on Killisnoo Island. The site again was chosen due to the prosperous fishery and the calm inside passage of

Chatham Strait Chatham Strait, or Shee ya xhaak in the Tlingit language, is a narrow passage of the Alexander Archipelago in the southeastern region of the U.S. state of Alaska. It separates Chichagof Island and Baranof Island to its west from Admiralty Island ...

References

Islands of the Alexander Archipelago Islands of Hoonah–Angoon Census Area, Alaska Islands of Alaska Islands of Unorganized Borough, Alaska {{HoonahAngoonAK-geo-stub