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Coronation Island

We left Explorer Basin on Kuiu Island early this morning…7:00a.m. It was foggy as we pulled anchor, but as we got out into Chatham Strait, it cleared up and turned into a beautiful day.

Our destination was Coronation Island, south of Kuiu Island, off the northwest coast of Prince of Wales Island. It’s about 45 square miles and has five bays. We aimed for Egg Harbor.

Egg Harbor gets its name from the Henyakwan Tlingit. They traditionally used this harbor as a campsite while they waited for fair weather to travel out to the Hazy Islands to gather bird eggs. Egg Harbor also once had a lead mine that operated on the west shore from the early 1900s until the late 1960s. In the 1960s, biologists introduced wolves to Coronation Island as an experiment. Unfortunately, none remain today (that we know of).

Coronation Island is in the Gulf of Alaska, and its shoreline is subject to raging storms and never ending surf. A handful of big sea caves, carved by millennia of pounding waves, lie along the rocky, white granite beach on the west side of the harbor.

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