Today
Residents are concentrated in the towns of St. Paul and St. George, each on an island of the same name.
Today, St. Paul has a population of 532 (2000 census), with its economy heavily dependent on the annual taking of the snow crab and on subsistence and commercial halibut harvests. Support services to commercial fleets plying the waters of the Bering Sea also contribute to the economy. The balance of economic activity on the island relates to working for the government. The U.S. Coast Guard maintains a base on St. Paul, but no longer maintains a LORAN-C master station, as the technology has been replaced by GPS navigation. The National Weather Service has a station on the island, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration maintains a presence.
St. George has a population of 152. The economy is similar to that of St Paul. Many of the residents of the islands are related. The islands are home to a majority of Alaska's Aleut population.
The Pribilof Islands are a birdwatching attraction, home to many species that do not fly in North America beyond Alaska. More than 240 species have been identified, and an estimated two million seabirds nest there annually. St. Paul is particularly popular, having a high cliff wall, known as Ridge Wall, above the Bering Sea.
Read more about this topic: Pribilof Islands
Famous quotes containing the word today:
“The 19-year-old Diana ... decided to make her career that of wife. Today that can be a very, very iffy line of work.... And what sometimes happens to the women who pursue it is the best argument imaginable for teaching girls that they should always be able to take care of themselves.”
—Anna Quindlen (b. 1952)
“There was a time when the average reader read a novel simply for the moral he could get out of it, and however naïve that may have been, it was a good deal less naïve than some of the limited objectives he has now. Today novels are considered to be entirely concerned with the social or economic or psychological forces that they will by necessity exhibit, or with those details of daily life that are for the good novelist only means to some deeper end.”
—Flannery OConnor (19251964)
“Working women today are trying to achieve in the work world what men have achieved all alongbut men have always had the help of a woman at home who took care of all the other details of living! Today the working woman is also that woman at home, and without support services in the workplace and a respect for the work women do within and outside the home, the attempt to do both is taking its tollon women, on men, and on our children.”
—Jeanne Elium (20th century)