Chichagof Island – Riveted

Radioville, Alaska

Laura Domela — Thu, 04 Aug 2016 03:32:52 +0000

We left beautiful Klag Bay on Thursday morning (August 4), backtracking out Smooth Channel a little ways to see if we could locate the island where Radioville lived. Bill Pierre in Rose’s Bar in Pelican told us to look for a red shack, and in the Evergreen book Sam had, we managed to find reference to Radioville with a line from the description box to an island (lower left)…

The Douglass guide, in the section about Klag Bay, just says “On a nearby small island (Radioville)…” and Kayley in Active Captain also just says “Also nearby, on an island referred to as ‘Radioville”…” (but she generally just copies the Douglass guide as far as we can tell), so it seems like if either of them had been there, they might have been able to mention where it was). Anyway, we found it. And it’s here (I labeled it):

Klag Bay is in the upper right of the map (where we were anchored) and Radioville is on the island that I marked with the teal green marker near the lower left of the map. The shack is on the northernmost shore. Not exactly what I’d call “nearby” but anyway.

So…Radioville! We did a little research and couldn’t find much more than we’d learned from Bill Pierre in Pelican, but Kevin found this from a 1925 Aspen, Colorado newspaper:

As Bill Pierre told us previously in Pelican, Radioville was a small island with a radio station run by a retired signal corps operator to deliver messages from the outside world to the gold and silver mining village in Klag Bay during the early 1900s. The radio operator’s name was Joseph T. Bauer, and word is that he would go (via rowboat!) between the island of Radioville to the mining village in Klag Bay to deliver news and messages from the outside world. Apparently Mr. Bauer drank quite a bit and littered the beach in front of his radio shack with broken booze bottle glass. Bill told us to look for a red shack, and the blue and purple sparkling beach in front of it.

Radioville, ahead on the right:

We anchored out and took the dinghies into shore:

The “glittering blue and purple glass beach that you can see as you approach” was a bit of an exaggeration. There were only occasional brown and green bits of glass on the beach, but after a bit of digging, we did find a few blue, clear, and purple pieces.

The little shack was filled with mostly junk and was a bit creepy, actually (due mostly to the soggy dolls):

I found what I believe to be a rib bone from a whale, all porous with tiny holes and a few barnacles clinging to it (tough to show scale in these photos, but it was roughly the same size as the rib bones on the humpback skeleton we saw in Bartlett Cove):

Tiffani found a cool rock. Maybe it came from here:

We said goodbye to Radioville (feeling pretty cool that we found it!) and headed off into the ocean for our cruise down to Kalinin Bay on the northern tip of Baranof Island. The weather (and the sea conditions) were just lovely.

Sam had to stop to let a humpback pass:

Looking out into the gulf:

We anchored in Kalinin Bay, but we got in late and didn’t take any photos. There were quite a few boats in there, and we rafted for our last night as a group together. Sam and Anna would continue the next morning in through Peril Strait, to Chatham Strait and on to the east side of Baranof Island, and we’d take the Neva Strait/Olga Strait route into Sitka with Tiffani and Deke. They fly out on Saturday morning (it’s so stupid that they have to leave). We have had SUCH a great time together…all of us. Buddy boating is fun! Alaska’s the best!

Here’s today’s route from Klag Bay to Radioville and then on down to Kalinin Bay (29.4 nautical miles, 4 hours 27 minutes):

The Outside of Chichagof Island

Laura Domela — Wed, 03 Aug 2016 00:59:48 +0000

We left Pelican on Tuesday morning. Lisianski Inlet was gray and drizzly and foggy. This fish boat was just in front of us out of the harbor:

The trip out to Lisianski Strait and on to the outside of Chichagof Island was mellow and the weather gradually improved as we continued further west.

Hey look! It’s the Gulf of Alaska!

The wind was 10-12 knots with 3-4 foot swells, so not a big deal and we weren’t in it for long, either. We’d thought about going to Mirror Harbor to visit White Sulphur Hot Springs (highly recommended), but with the complicated entry (doglegs and rocks, and called “one of the most difficult harbors to enter” in the Douglass Guide) you really need to enter and exit at high slack tide, which meant we’d have had to wait until late the next day to go on to our next place, so we opted to pass this time. We definitely want to get there at some point though!

We went on to Goulding Harbor instead, to Baker Cove.

The route from Pelican to Baker Cove (30.9 nautical miles, 4 hours 5 minutes):

Sea lions:

More sea lions:

Rafted in Baker Cove:

Once settled in, Kevin and Deke got the crab traps out (because hey, let’s keep trying!) and Tiffani and I went with Sam and Anna in the dinghy to check out Dry Pass, and after doing so concluded that none of us would want to bring much more than a dinghy through there. Shallow, rocky, narrow, with lots of eel grass and kelp. Much easier to go around the slightly longer way through Imperial Passage into Goulding Harbor/Baker Cove.

Today our cruise from Baker Cove to Klag Bay was all in protected inside waters. We went through Surveyor Passage….winding narrows and beautiful scenery…can’t beat that!

Here’s the map of our route from Baker Cove to Klag Bay (18.9 miles, 4 hours 9 minutes):

We trolled for salmon along the way (Anna came with us so she could fish, and Sam went on to anchor in Klag Bay and wait for us). Tiffani caught two rockfish (she was really excited!) but no salmon. (We made fish tacos with that rockfish and supplemented with some coho for variety).

Rocky and rugged:

We anchored in Klag Bay right near Chichagof, the site of a gold and silver mining village active during the first half of the twentieth century. According to the Douglass Guide, more than thirteen million dollars in gold was mined here between 1905 and the late 1930s.

Some photos of the ruins, and cool stuff we found on the beach:

A bone, covered in barnacles:

I didn’t go back in here, but Sam and Anna and Deke and Tiffani did, and they found a salmon head and some bear poop. I’m kinda glad I didn’t go!

Rafting buddies:

Sam and Anna took their dinghy over to Lake Anna (of course) and we went over toward the river mouth to see if it was a salmon stream, and it definitely was. Salmon were jumping all around the boat, and creating a whole lot of turbulence as well. It was fun!

We beached the dinghy on the spit and walked around a bit.

Klag Bay is a gorgeous, protected anchorage with tons to explore. We’d definitely come back here.

Tomorrow we’re heading down to Kalanin Bay on Baranof Island (last stop before Sitka) and we’ll have about 17 miles of unprotected cruise. The weather is supposed to be nice…fingers crossed!

Elfin Cove and Pelican

Laura Domela — Tue, 02 Aug 2016 21:16:28 +0000

We left Glacier Bay National Park on Sunday (July 31) and headed to Elfin Cove (through South Inian Pass in Cross Sound). It was nice and calm as we left Glacier Bay, and we even got a little humpback breach on our way out.

A humpback near shore, closer to Elfin Cove:

We were excited to revisit Elfin Cove and Pelican this year with Tiffani and Deke and Sam and Anna. We tried the inner harbor first but there wasn’t enough room for both boats (and maybe not even for one boat), so we ended up on the outer dock (rafted like good visitors, so we took up less dock space in this busy place).

(Just going in and out of the inner harbor is so cool though…it’s very narrow and shallow, and feels like a special place you aren’t supposed to be.) The entrance is up ahead on the right of the photo, by the vertical pilings in the distance:

You can kinda tell from this photo of our walk to the market (later) how narrow the entrance is. (That’s it on the left!)

Elfin Cove’s inner harbor:

The gang, watching the float plane land and take off at the end of our dock:

We walked around town, reprovisioned a little bit at the general store, and then made pizzas for dinner. (Tiffani made the dough, and Deke made the delicious red sauce, and we all made personal pizzas from a variety of toppings…so good!) We hung out on the dock talking to a troller named Joey (F/V Silverlance) about fishing and boats and Elfin Cove…he was really nice and fun to chat with!

Anna bought some coho from him because she hadn’t caught any fish yet and wanted to be sure the freezer on Safe Harbour was stocked!

Our route from Shag Cove in Geikie Inlet in Glacier Bay National Park to Elfin Cove (43.4 nautical miles, 5 hours 49 minutes):

In the morning we went up to the Coho Bar & Grill for breakfast, did another loop around town, and then took off for Pelican. Another gorgeous day!

Here we are rafted on the dock, after all the fish boats left for the day:

Great view of the Fairweathers!

We had no trouble finding dock space in Pelican. Once settled, we walked the boardwalk a bit to explore town.

Totems in front of City Hall (which is where you pay your moorage, by the way).

Springy dolphin in front of the Pelican school:

At the south end of the boardwalk, this area is called “Whiskey Flats”:

Where the river (and the bears) join town. There were quite a few salmon in the stream here, but no bears.

Before dinner we all went up to Rose’s Bar for a beer and some local color.

Rose’s finally has (soon-to-be) new owners! We talked to them quite a bit about their plans for a few upgrades, and how they really want/need to walk a fine line when making changes to this place. It’s got some serious history, and they know the regulars won’t deal well with too much change. They sound excited and like they have some great ideas though. It’ll be cool to see what they do with the place.

From one of the regulars (Bill Pierre, of Bill Pierre Ford), we learned about a place called Radioville, on a small unnamed island on the outside of Chichagof Island (where we plan to go next). Bill Pierre kind of sort of pointed it out on the chart to us, and told us it was a radio station run by a retired signal corps operator to deliver messages from the outside world to the gold and silver mining village in Klag Bay during the early 1900s. Apparently this retired signal corps operator drank quite a bit, and Bill said that the beach is covered in glass from this guy’s broken booze bottles, and for us to look for a red shack and the blue and purple sparkling beach in front of it. (We are of course intrigued by all of this and may try to find it!)

In the morning we walked up to have breakfast at the Lisianski Inlet Cafe. The two specials of the day were biscuits and gravy (really good) and corned beef hash (amazing).

After breakfast we stopped in the gift shop (next door, and part of the cafe) and Tiffani and Anna bought a couple Eric Bealer prints (Alaskan artist/printmaker who lives just outside of Pelican) and a tshirt, and Anna stopped at Yakobi Fisheries and stocked up on some more salmon and halibut. (At home in Portland as part of our weekly organic veggie delivery–Organics to You–we occasionally add a pound of salmon to our order, and guess where it comes from? Yakobi Fisheries in Pelican! Pretty cool.

Elfin Cove to Pelican (19.6 nautical miles, 2 hours 55 minutes):

We left the dock in Pelican and are headed forLisianski Strait. The weather looks good for doing the outside of Chicagof Island to Sitka, and so that’s our plan.