COLD BAY, Alaska - The Coast Guard Cutter Storis is assisting in the humanitarian aid of isolated villages located in the Aleutian Islands.

Capt. Carl Cwiklinski, a Coast Guard Russian Orthodox Chaplain, and Lt. Col. Les Williams, a dental officer from Elmendorf Air Force Base in Anchorage are onboard Storis visiting the islands and providing services to the isolated villages in Atka, Alaska, before continuing on their final leg to Kodiak, Alaska. 

Storis is scheduled to be decommissioned in Kodiak after completing its last Bering Sea patrol, and more than 65 years of service.  The decommissioning ceremony is tentatively scheduled for February 8, 2007.

Coast Guard Public Affairs will be posting information and imagery throughout this final patrol, which is scheduled to end the morning of December 3, 2006 with the Storis returning to Kodiak.

Storis' keel was laid July 14, 1941. Built as an ice patrol tender, it was assigned to patrol the North Atlantic during World War II in 1942.  The 230-foot cutter was homeported in Boston, Massachusetts, and assigned to participate in the Greenland Patrols, a mission targeted at preventing the establishment of German weather stations in Greenland.  After World War II, the Storis remained in the Atlantic, homeported in Curtis Bay, Maryland.

On September 15, 1948, Storis was reassigned to the home port of Juneau, Alaska, beginning what would become 59 years of service in the Last Frontier state.  Its new mission would be the Bering Sea Patrol, delivering medical, dental, and judicial services to isolated native villages in the far reaches of the territory. Crews aboard the Storis also assisted in establishing LORAN radio navigation stations, providing supplies for the Defense Early Warning System and conducting hydrographic surveys in the uncharted waters.

On July 1, 1957, the Storis, accompanied by the Coast Guard Cutters Bramble and SPAR, began searching for a deep draft channel through the Arctic Ocean. The mission was a success, and ended a 450-year search for the Northwest Passage. Storis became the first U.S. registered vessel to circumnavigate the North American continent. Shortly after its return from this historic mission, Storis was reassigned to the homeport of Kodiak, Alaska.

In 1972, the Storis underwent major renovations, which converted it from a light ice breaker to a medium endurance cutter. The cutter's primary function changed to enforcing laws and treaties of the domestic and foreign fisheries in the Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska, which remains its primary mission to this day.

In 1986 the Storis' power plant was replaced and berthing quarters were expanded to include female quarters and a new lounge for the crew.

The Storis is now the oldest commissioned cutter in the Coast Guard fleet. Careers have begun and ended, and lives have undoubtedly been changed in the pursuit of its patrols and historic missions.