Fodor's Expert Review St. Paul Island

The largest of the Pribilof Islands at 40 square miles, St. Paul Island is home to the greatest concentration of northern fur seals in the world—500,000 of them—and more than 180 varieties of birds. Certainly it's hard to reach, but it's also a guaranteed treat for adventuresome naturalists. Russian fur traders claimed and named St. George, St. Paul, and St. Peter Islands, and they also enslaved the people of the Aleutian communities in Atka, Siberia, and Unalaska, relocating them to the islands to hunt for fur seals. About 500 descendants of Indigenous Aleutian-Russians live in St. Paul year-round, and the community has many elements of Aleutian cultures, as well as the Russian Orthodox Sts. Peter and Paul Church, built in 1907. The local museum provides details on how the U.S. government once controlled seal hunting on the island.