Hosted by Lowell Thomas, Jr., “King of the Alaskan Seas” is a portrait of the people of Adak, Alaska including the Inuit peoples. Made in 1965, the film focuses on the wintertime King Crab harvest, including a visit with the captain and crew of the fishing vessel “Deep Sea” and the processing center.
Adak is a city located on Adak Island, in the Aleutians West Census Area, Alaska, United States. At the 2010 census the population was 326. It is the westernmost municipality in the United States and the southernmost city in Alaska.The city is the former location of the Adak Army Base and Adak Naval Operating Base, NAVFAC Adak. There are no radio stations within 200 miles (320 km) of Adak; radio can be received in Adak only through satellite or shortwave receivers.
The Aleutian Islands were historically occupied by the Unanga, more commonly known now as the Aleuts. The once heavily populated island was eventually abandoned in the early 19th century as the Aleutian Island hunters followed the Russian fur trade eastward, and famine set in on the Andreanof Island group. However, they continued to hunt and fish actively around the island over the years, until World War II broke out. Adak Army installations allowed U.S. forces to mount a successful offensive against the Japanese-held islands of Kiska and Attu. After the war, Adak was developed as a naval air station, playing an important role during the Cold War as a submarine surveillance center. Large earthquakes rocked the island in 1957, 1964 and 1977.
Since World War II, the U.S. Navy and Coast Guard developed facilities and recreation opportunities at Adak. At its peak, Adak had a college, a McDonald’s restaurant, movie theater, roller skating rink, swimming pool, ski lodge, bowling alleys, skeet range, auto hobby shop, photo lab, and racquetball and tennis courts. A new $18-million hospital was built in 1990, just seven years prior to the closure of the station. By March 2003, six years after the closure of the station, most of these facilities had closed.
Lowell Jackson Thomas, Jr. (born October 6, 1923) is a film and television producer who collaborated with his father, the accomplished reporter and author Lowell Thomas, on several projects before becoming an Alaskan State Senator in the early 1970s, and later the third Lieutenant Governor of Alaska (1974–1978). In the 1980s, he owned and operated Talkeetna Air Taxi, an Alaska bush flying service.
He graduated from the Taft School in 1942 and went on to Dartmouth College, before joining the United States Army Air Corps.[1]
Lowell Thomas, Jr. was a brother of the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity (Phi chapter).
Invited with his father, Lowell Thomas Sr., by the Tibetan government to make a film there in 1949 with the hope that their reports would help persuade the U.S. government to defend Tibet against the Chinese. The trip lasted 400 days, and the father and son were the last Westerners to reach Lhasa before the Chinese. CBS did not broadcast the resultant film, Expedition to Lhasa, Tibet, until years later, but his book about the expedition, Out of This World, published in 1950 became a bestseller.[2]
In 2005, the Dalai Lama bestowed the International Campaign for Tibet’s Light of Truth Award on Lowell Jr.
Long an inhabitant of Alaska he is best known for his interest in the Arctic Research Labs based in Barrow, AK. Much as his father had done he ventured into the harsh environment of the ice islands where research was done by scientists on the Arctic Ocean and its atmosphere including the Auroras. He published his adventure in National Geographic magazine in 1965.
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This film is part of the Periscope Film LLC archive, one of the largest historic military, transportation, and aviation stock footage collections in the USA. Entirely film backed, this material is available for licensing in 24p HD and 2k. For more information visit http://www.PeriscopeFilm.com
