Unalaska, Alaska
Kanus/ullstein bild via Getty Images
Kanus/ullstein bild via Getty Images
Unalaska is a scenic waterside down, but living there can get a little confusing, at least when it comes to describing the name to other people. As the city’s website outlines, it doesn’t help that the town is also known as “Dutch Harbor,” so it’s not uncommon not to realize that this is the same place as Unalaska.
Of course, the big question is why an Alaskan town is called “Unalaska.” And the local government takes pains to explain that it didn’t try to secede from the state, nor was it named as some kind of Dadaist anti-town. It was instead an amalgamation of various Russian spellings like “Ounalashka,” which were themselves derived from the Aleut word, “Agunalaksh.”