Young Thais are drawn by the big city lifestyle Exactly 100
years ago, the largest volcanic eruption in the 20th Century
blasted away for three days in a remote patch of southwest
Alaska. The eruption blackened the skies over Kodiak, nearly 100
miles away, and covered the village in a quilt of ash two feet
deep. Residents in Juneau, 750 miles away, heard the explosion
an hour after it blasted. The eruption eventually tarnished
brass in California and Colorado, and lowered the earth’s
average temperature that year by 2F. Although the eruption was a
century ago, one of its more visually astounding effects
remains. In the middle of Katmai National Park and Preserve, a
6,395-sq-mile swatch of wilderness known mainly for its bear
watching and salmon fishing, a wide, ash-covered valley is
surrounded by steaming, snow-covered volcanic mountains and
marked by a surprisingly small, yet several-story-high black
mound. This mound is Novarupta (which means “new eruption”), a
volcanic vent and the source of the massive 19