Entry # 8 Begin at Sitka, AK on August 7, 2011
Sitka is a special place in Alaska, and after a couple of days here, I think we like it the best of all the Alaskan communities we have visited. Like all others, the town sits in a gorgeous setting, and above all is dedicated to fishing. So it has all the usual components of a fishing community: large marina facilities with hundreds of slips for the fleet, a waterfront largely lined with everything the fish folk need, from packing plants to machine shops to one of the best marine stores I’ve ever seen (sort of like Hamilton’s on steroids). This place featured, among other things, a special place for kids’ fishing gear. Prominently displayed were very small scale fishing rods with reels, spinners, etc., all ready to go catch fish. The ones for the girls were pink and purple. We saw the kids, hardly old enough to walk, fishing with them in the marina! As elsewhere in Alaska, we found that many of the hundreds of fishing boats tied up, coming and going, are family affairs. Children run up and down the docks happily screaming and yelling, and moms, dads and sweethearts are very much in evidence all the time. Also the occasional rowdy fisherman headed to his boat, weaving his way down the dock thoroughly in his cups on his way out to sea.
But Sitka also has an atmosphere quite different from the others towns. It has 9200 residents, more or less, most of whom are involved in the fishing business in some way. There is a tourist shopping street for the many who wander through – either like us or on the occasional cruise ships, or the many who just come to fish with the private operators who take them out. But it also has an active cultural life, and a sort of a modern hippie edge: it is a curious amalgam of the ancient Tlingit population, which is still very much in evidence, the Russian rulers who ran the place from 1804 until Mr. Seward and the U.S. took over, and many folks “from away” who have settled here because they love it. The town (and the National Park Service) have done a marvelous job in creating parks and museums to celebrate all of this. One astounding walk we took was through the Totem Historical Park, a recreation of dozens of totems, both ancient and modern, through a rain forest setting on the site of the horrific battles that occurred between the Tlingits and the Russians in 1802 and 1804. Because Sitka sits in the Tongass National Forest, there are wonderful side roads and trails maintained by the Forest Service. One in particular provided us with a great hike up Harbor Mountain, and thanks to the good weather the views out over the town and the ocean, and the mountains and snowfields in the interior, could not have been better. We made the wise (if expensive) decision to rent a car to explore the whole area: Sitka has a total of 14 miles of paved roads, but we made great use of all of them and the many more unpaved ones also.
I decided to visit the historic Russian Orthodox cathedral (somewhat rebuilt after a fire a couple of decades ago but still in its original condition from the Russian presence) for Saturday vespers. It is a small, simple but lovely place, in the center of town, much adored by the population. There is still an active Orthodox community here. A small choir sang the traditional responses (I could even hum along), and the priests chanted and swung incense on all of us. At least half of the choir and small congregation was native American.
Meanwhile, Mark and Joanne Woodward arrived, so for a couple of days we were five muskateers. Then Joel and Pam left and off we headed south on the West coast of Baranof Island, an area seldom visited by anybody. About twenty miles along we made our first stop: the Goddard Hot Springs, which are maintained by the Forest Service. A small hut up a grassy slope contains a large round cedar hot tub, with two pipes with valves leading into it. A sign says please don’t turn off either one! One pipe runs very hot water, the other a little less so. You sit and soak and watch the boat at anchor in the cove below. It was a beautiful day, with a nice Southwest breeze blowing. All was well with the world.
The night was spent in Herring Cove, a quiet nook in an island close to the outer edge of the Pacific. It was raining in the morning, but we set out, not sure how far we’d get. Joanne has an uneasy stomach, even well laden with seasick pills, and since this part of the trip involved some extended outside runs, I was leery of pushing it too hard. As it was, it was windless, and the Pacific was at its least rolly. So we headed offshore and just kept going. Eight hours later we were in Puffin Cove, near the southern end of Baranof Island, ready to make the leap over to Cape Decision and on to quieter waters. Joanne was fine all day long.
At this point, however, I need to pause to fill you in on an important part of this trip: fishing. Mark is an avid fisherman, and I was counting on him to provide a lot of our dinners. Right out of Sitka we put the hook over, and within a few minutes there was something really big on the line. So big, in fact, that when Mark reeled it in the whole lure was gone, along with what must have been a magnificent fish. So nothing to do but try again. The line went out, and all of a sudden the brake on the reel failed, leaving the line spinning out and impossible to stop. What a mess! Mark got it under control, but fishing was done for the day, and perhaps for the trip. I found a machine screw on the deck that had come out of the reel, and in the evening Mark and I disassembled the reel to try to figure out the problem, to little avail. Mark was as disconsolate as I’d ever seen him. So I resolved to try to fix the problem, and during our outside run down Baranof Island I hailed every passing boat (perhaps six in all) to see if they had a reel and rod they would be willing to sell. At the very end of the day the effort paid off: a small fishing boat said they’d sell us a rod and reel – for the outrageous sum of $200 – but they were the only game in town until Craig. So we did the transaction across the heaving Pacific Ocean, and were back in business. Mark couldn’t wait to get the lure out, and within fifteen minutes we had a 10 lb Coho salmon on board. All was well with the world.
Puffin Cove is a picture perfect setting in any weather. We came in with little cloud cover, with green peaks and valleys rising all around us. I had a swim and a hot shower. The fresh salmon was fantastic. We put the crab pot out, and in the rainy morning we had lots of periwinkles, a small sculpin fish, and six small shrimp. Apparently the crabs didn’t like Coho guts! With a benign wind forecast and Joanne’s stomach in mind, we made the run around Cape Ormaney, across Chatham Strait and around Cape Decision in record time in a long rolling power sail. With that, the most difficult miles were behind us, and we headed up to Bear Harbor in the Affleck Canal. There we found masses of jumping pink salmon, and a number of seiners anchored at the mouth of the harbor. They were waiting for the opening of the salmon season in that area, to begin at 5 a.m. We settled down in the harbor, and took the dinghy up the estuary which seemed to be a major salmon run. Thousands of pink salmon jumped everywhere: I thought several would land in the dinghy. When we could go no further we walked around a rocky corner, finding what we’d hoped for – a large black bear roaming the beach, oblivious to us. The sight of fish jumping out of the water all around you is intoxicating to a fisherman. Mark was going crazy. But the reality is that at this stage of a salmon’s life he (or she) is not interested in eating, only getting ready to make the trip up the falls into fresh water to spawn and die. No amount of coaxing with any lure or bait will work. Meanwhile they practically jump onto the deck, and the splashing and flopping sounds are always with us at every anchorage. However, out in the deeper water the salmon have grabbed our hooks: two more big Coho came aboard after Bear Harbor.
Mark and Joanne are both great cooks. JACA has a number of cookbooks aboard, including one with every possible recipe for salmon. So I have been more than a little well fed with salmon in every form. Most extreme, perhaps, is Mark’s experiment at smoking salmon on JACA’s gas grill on the stern. We spent some time finding alder branches and leaves ashore in El Capitan pass – they are supposed to be the best smoke makers for smoked salmon. On a gorgeous morning in Dry Pass the experiment began, with wonderful smelling smoke pouring from the grill. Within a couple of hours, the most delicious smoked salmon was on hand.
Full of one of the best mid-morning snacks I’ve ever had, we headed on through the narrow shallows of Dry Pass, and shortly wound up at the National Forest Service’s dock at El Capitan cave, which is at a 367 step hike in the forest up a boardwalk-staircase. The cave itself is the largest limestone cave in the world, in terms of length of tunnels, canyons, etc. The rangers offered to give us a 2 hour tour later in the afternoon, but we settled for our own self-guided crawl a few hundred feet in total darkness to a big iron gate, which marks the point when you can’t self-guide any more. The rangers said that the limestone originally migrated from South America millions of years ago. Everything is strange in Alaska but this was one of the strangest.
With time to kill on our way to Craig, we wandered through the tiny channels and byways of the innumerable densely wooded small islands and islets that populate this area, which is unlike anything else I’ve seen in Alaska to date. Here and there are tiny fishing camps, and some larger lodges. Many of the small camps are the floating variety, towed into place for the summer. One installation sported two satellite dishes somewhat hidden in nearby trees. But the overall impression is one of being very much alone in an enormous maze of islands and bays. We decided to visit New Tokeen, on small El Capitan Island, which the cruising guide indicated was a seasonal outport for the fishing fleet. I thought we’d find another small boardwalk community, which would be fun for Mark and Joanne to see. When we got there, the community was gone. Smoke was coming out of the chimney of a reasonably well-maintained house. A nice lady met us on the remaining dock, introduced herself as Coreen Fitzgerald, and told us she and her husband had bought the whole place four years ago on the internet. We could see the remains of a cold storage facility, what had been the store, a few shacks, the caretaker’s cottage, and the Fitzgeralds’ home, which was in the process of restoration. They come from southern California in late April, and go home in October. He mostly fishes and she works on restoring and maintaining what they can. Bears show up occasionally from the forest which crowds all around them. Apart from the stray cruising boat such as us, they have few visitors.
We wound up that night in another bucolic place, Khali Cove, and ate more salmon in the rain. The forecast was bleak for the next few days. But in the morning, we had bright sunshine, and headed out to visit tiny Elghi Island, a couple of miles away. Coreen had said that they had found two small ancient totems here, unchanged (except for centuries of deterioration), and abandoned in the dense forest that rises from the shore. We found them after some effort, their carved wolves, bears and eagle standing solitary sentinel on a knoll now crowded out by rain forest. What they represent and why they were there seems a mystery: were we standing on some ancient burial ground? Or on top of an ancient clan house? We felt like intruders in others’ lives, but were profoundly glad to have had the opportunity just to be there.
That day was the first truly bust day in the fishing department, though not for lack of trying. We trolled under power, and under sail, and tried every likely spot along the way, but no bites. This despite enormous numbers of whales, sea otters and sea birds buzzing around. Even worse, this is the season when the “pink” salmon are getting ready to head upstream, and they constantly throw themselves out of the water in large numbers, sometimes almost landing on the boat. It drives Mark crazy. On the other hand, it was a good sailing day for me, as we tacked back and forth in a brisk southwest wind. Our destination was Nagasay Cove, in the Maurelle Island group. Good fishing was reported to be in the various passes just outside. The entrance pass, named “Launch Pass”, was the hardest one to date: a tiny, shallow rock strewn kelp choked channel with little help from the charts or guides. We crept forward, sometimes just drifting, sometimes winding up kelp in the prop, and eventually settled into another quiet, protected cove, along with another long-line fishing boat. A king and coho salmon season started at 5 a.m. the next morning, and they were ready to be the first ones out! Mark and I took the dinghy over to ask for some fishing advice, which was guardedly but pleasantly given. We went to bed with the sounds of wolves howling at each other on the islands, echoing eerily across the bay. We were grateful to be on a boat.
The next day was supposed to be salmon fishing day, and we started out to do that into the Maurelle Islands and then out into the Ariagga Passage. But the forecast was foul, and we soon found it to be true – driving rain and a rising southeast wind that eventually reached gale force. After thrashing around in the outer channel for a while, we hunkered in for lunch behind an island in the “Hole in the Wall”, so called, along with a bunch of fishing boats that had been similarly driven in. Finally we cashed it in when the wind registered consistently over 30 kts and powered our way back to Nagasay Cove, glad to be in a sheltered spot to weather it out. The wind howled over the masthead, but that big anchor was down deep in the mud and we went nowhere. It was a good occasion for a game of “Oh Hell”.
Tuesday the 16th we planned to get to Craig, and in fact we did. But along the way we spent about 4 hours looking for salmon and anything else that would bite. The wind was down somewhat, and after a while we hooked a couple of nice rock fish, locally known as “black bass”. We also lost a few big ones off the hook. Mark made some fantastic “bassburgers” for lunch, and on we went, finally hooking a fat coho. There were lots of fish boats around us, all complaining that there nothing was to be had, so we were grateful for that one. It will go home with the Woodwards for a future celebratory supper.
By mid afternoon a big southerly was breezing up. I called a halt to the fishing, and spread out JACA’s wings to head for Craig. We flew across the sound at 8+ kts, with the wind now gusting to 30 or so in a driving rain. JACA loves this stuff, and for me it is a lot better than trolling at 2 kts. Now we are tied up and plugged in at the Craig Marina. It is still raining somewhat, and the forecast for the next few days is wretched, particularly for heading south across Dixon Entrance, which is what we must do. But this is Alaska, and who knows what will happen next. A local wag on the dock here told us that tonight we might get 60 kt gusts, but so far there has been none of that.
Tomorrow, weather permitting, John and Eunice Wilcox, and Peter Murray arrive, and Mark and Joanne will leave. It’s been a great time with them. I’ve never been so well fed with fresh fish! The next post, I hope, will be from Prince Rupert in about a week or so.
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