Home About Projects Newsroom Outreach FAQs Calendar Resources RFPs

Community Spotlight

 

Cordova

By Linda Robinson, Outreach Coordinator

This year, 2007, the U.S. Forest Service celebrates the 100th anniversary of the Chugach National Forest. The community of Cordova, dubbed “Alaska’s hidden treasure,” lies within the national forest and will celebrate its own centennial in 2008.

Cordova, whose population hovers around 2400, is historically the home of the Alutiiqs. Athabascan and Tlingit Natives immigrated there and called themselves Eyaks. About 15 percent of the population is Native.

One of the first producing oil fields in Alaska was discovered in 1902 at Katalla, 47 miles southeast of Cordova. This oil field was destroyed by fire in 1938 and since then commercial fishing has been Cordova’s economic base.

Cordova was built at the foot of Eyak Mountain on Orca Inlet, located at the southeastern end of Prince William Sound in the Gulf of Alaska. It can be reached by air (the airport is 13 miles from town) and by the Alaska Marine Highway System. The road past the airport continues another 37 miles through the Copper River Delta and comes to the “Million Dollar Bridge” which was damaged in the 1964 earthquake. The bridge has recently been repaired, but the road only continues about another mile towards Chitina. Childs Glacier, near the bridge, calves ice chunks and attracts both tourists and locals.

Cordova is the home to the Ilanka Cultural Center, Museum, and Gift Gallery. It contains a tribal repository and classroom, allows visitors to experience the history and art of the original people of this area, and contains a 24 ½-foot articulated orca (killer whale) skeleton hanging from the ceiling. The gift gallery carries Alaska Native and Alaskan made original art, jewelry, crafts, and educational and art books of tribal interest. It also has a totem pole carved by local artist Mike Webber, the first totem pole carved in over a hundred years, and the northernmost Tlingit totem in the world.

Cordova’s Prince William Sound Science Center was founded in 1989 to implement ecosystem-based research and education programs, intended to increase understanding of the sound and Copper River Delta ecosystems. The center hosts weekly community programs, and its discovery room serves K-6th grade students; instructors travel to the villages of Tatitlek and Chenega Bay where they teach supplemental science topics in the schools.

Also housed in the science center is the Oil Spill Recovery Institute, or OSRI. OSRI was established by Congress in response to the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill. The Congressional mandate is:

1. To identify and develop the best available techniques, equipment and materials for dealing with oil spills in the Arctic and sub-Arctic marine environment; and
2. To complement federal and state damage assessment efforts and determine, document, assess and understand the long-range effects of Arctic and sub-Arctic oil spills on the natural resources of Prince William Sound, and the environment, the economy and the lifestyle and well-being of the people who are dependent on those resources.

OSRI’s research program will continue as long as oil exploration and development occur in Alaska.

The Copper River Delta, a 60-mile-wide arc formed by glacial-fed river systems, is a staging area in spring and fall for migrations of millions of shorebirds. During the Shorebird Festival buses take birders out to places such as Hartney Bay to view and photograph the birds.

Cordova has a swimming pool, preschool to community college level education, and a downhill ski slope with a chair lift, as well as fishing, kayaking, and heli-skiing. Cordova is world famous for its Copper River red salmon.

Prince William Sound RCAC board members representing Cordova are Patience Andersen-Faulkner, representing Cordova District Fishermen United, and Nancy Bird, who represents the City of Cordova.

 

For more information, visit these websites:

City of Cordova

Prince William Sound Science Center

Oil Spill Recovery Institute