southwest alaska includes a big area that does not have a lot of people or towns in it. it is over 500 miles from the western bering sea coast to cook inlet. a lot of it is on the coast. there is also thousands of square miles forests, swamps, and mountains. one of these mountain ranges is called the aleutian range. it is part of the ring of fire, which means it is on the coast of the pacific ocean and has lots of volcanoes. isome of the bigger ones are mount katmai, novarupta and the valley of ten thousand smokes, mount redoubt, mount iliamna, and augustine volcano.