Cold Bay Airport — Cold Bay, United States

Cold Bay Airport occupies a windswept stretch of the Alaska Peninsula beside the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge, a wetland famous for migratory waterfowl including a large share of the world's Pacific black brant geese at certain times of year. Constructed in the early 1940s as Fort Randall, a wartime staging base meant to guard against a feared Japanese advance through the Aleutians, CDB retains one of the longest runways in Alaska, a legacy of its military origins that today makes it a valuable alternate landing site for aircraft along this remote stretch of coastline. Fewer than a hundred people live in Cold Bay itself, yet the airport remains essential for the region's commercial fishing fleet, refuge staff, and hunters who rely on it as their primary link to Anchorage and the rest of the state.