Hoonah

Hoonah Harbor on a sunny day

“Are you Doug and Jean off of Greywolf?”

Doug and I were at the top of the ramp in Hoonah Harbor, returning from a dog walkie in the rain, when a gentleman walking up the ramp stopped us with that question.

“Yessss......” with the unspoken how did you know that and do we know you?

“I’m a friend of Bart’s, and he told me you were in Alaska.”

We both started mentally sorting through the various marinas and anchorages, searching for Bart among the people we had met along the way.

After a couple of other hints (such as Bart’s last name...), our 20-question episode ended with “Bellingham.”  OH!  BART!  Our brains had been searching for strangers. Bart is Jolie’s B’ham friend, who we met in Friday Harbor.

John came down to the boat for coffee.  He is  skippering a whale watching boat in Hoonah working with the the cruise ships that call at Icy Strait Point. Although John and his wife call Newport, Washington, home, he had many  stories from years of working in Alaska.  We loved it.  For a moment, talking with him about Kodiak, he had me convinced that we could take Greywolf there next year.  Maybe not.

Container gardening in Hoonah.

Hoonah has been on our “list” since our first trip.  When I heard that a cruise ship line installed a zip line in Hoonah, it did not compute.  A  ZIP LINE in a Native village in Alaska???  Just what would that look like?  It looks much better than I though it would.  And that was not exactly what happened.

The Huna Tlingit people settled in Hoonah two thousand years ago when they were forced to abandon their original villages in what is now Glacier Bay National Park because of advancing glaciers.  That area remains sacred to the Tlingit.  

In 1912, a large salmon cannery was built north of the town.  The cannery, and the salmon fishery that supplied it, provided jobs under various ownerships to Hoonah families until the cannery closed in 1953. Hoonah still has a large fishing fleet.

Huna Totem Corporation, a Native Alaskan corporation, purchased the cannery in 1996 and proceeded to create a cruise ship destination. The carefully thought out and executed Icy Strait Point opened in 2004.  Restored cannery buildings now house shops, restaurants, and a cannery museum, as well as spaces for Native performances. The corporation  also offers bear and whale watching tours and and other activities for the cruise ship passengers. Eighty percent of the people employed at Icy Strait Point are Hoonah residents. And the landscaped grounds are home to THE WORLD’S LONGEST  ZIP LINE.  

Little pods ferrying passengers.  Note rain/clouds.

The ships only call at Icy Strait Point on Mondays and Tuesdays and there is no cruise ship dock.  As far as I can tell, no one can see the world’s longest zip line because of the dense cloud cover which alternates with the rain.  The on-line pictures show an amazing (sunny) view from the top of the zip line; it looks like you can see all the way to Glacier Bay, twenty five miles away.  I think for the majority of the participants (victims) it would be like hurtling into a void with an infusion of moisture into your skin.  

I caught these two wooden fish at Icy Strait Point, but have no license, so I had to put them back.

Doug and I arrived in Hoonah early on a Tuesday afternoon and decided to walk to Icy Strait Point.  In the rain.  As we ambled along (in the rain), one of the tour buses stopped to ask we wanted a ride.  We told him that we weren’t cruise ship passengers, but he welcomed us aboard anyway.  

We strolled through the shops and grounds, stopping to inspect the landing zone for the world’s longest zip line.  No victims were in sight.  The small shops offered a well-selected variety of Native and other merchandise. No oriental rugs.  The school district operates one shop, selling cards, and books (of course) as well prints by Rie Munoz and other artists.  I bought cards.  

On our way back to the boat, we stopped at The Office, a bar that won Esquire’s One of the Best Bars in America award in 2006.  This is 2012.  BUT, they had beer and peanuts. Yes, beer and peanuts do warm you up and help you forget that you are soaking wet.

As we walked into the small dark building,with 3 small windows overlooking the bay, a man about our age was assembling photos and flyers on the pool table.  We bellied up to the bar and he came over to share a little Hoonah history with us.  One picture of the town in the 1940’s showed the shore lined with houses.  They were all destroyed in a fire in 1944.  

“Was anyone killed?”

“No, all the men were out fishing.  The women got the children into small boats. They watched from the water as the town burned.”

Wow.  I learned later that many of the families lived in the cannery buildings while they were rebuilding their homes.

He had other pictures and stories.  We asked him if he was the mayor of Hoonah.  No, just someone who likes to give visitors a little background.  We appreciated him sharing his love of this town.

We went back to The Office the next night to eat crab and use their internet.  

“Oh.  We don’t have crab tonight.”

“That’s fine.  We’ll have pizza.”

“No pizza tonight.”

“What do you have?”

“Tacos and nachos.”

“Two Alaska Ambers and nachos.”

Our vision of a lovely interlude of fresh crab, a cold beer and the  ability to check our email was dimming.

It got dimmer yet when the Cheeze Whizz nachos arrived and our waitress signed us in to what passed for an internet connection.  But the beer was good, and Cheese Whiz is really not bad when it is warm.  Fortunately, we didn’t need to download a huge file, or even a small one, on the computer.  (As we were leaving, we found out they did have crab, but it was cold.  Not freshly cooked that hour.  We are fine with cold crab.)

Disclaimer: The following are ramblings about what Hoonah felt like to an almost-elderly white woman.  This is a little dis-jointed. You might want to just skip down to the pictures...


When Doug and I visited the Queen Charlotte Islands (by car and ferry) we both felt the magical history of the Haidas that permeated the land.  My impression of the Huna Tlingit home was similar to that feeling of the land and the people holding the history.

Hoonah has houses in need of paint and some abandoned houses, but Hoonah did not feel sad, and depressing like Prince Rupert's commercial district did.  

Totem poles are allowed to decay.  They do not get restored.  Nothing is permanent.  The houses seemed to reflect that. 

When we understand the truth of impermanence and find our composure in it, then we find ourselves in nirvana.  Or maybe Hoonah.  Shunryu Suzuki, Buddhist

Eagle’s nest.  With eaglette.

Cemetery along the main road

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Bear watching over a grave.

1. 
   

If we were hold a boat name contest, this would be a finalist.

We have to ask someone how these traps work....

Salmon canning supplies.

Hoonah Trading Company has EVERYTHING from radishes to refrigerators.

Totem pole near city hall and one of those tourists.  Note raincoat.
It probably did stop raining for a bit while we were in Hoonah.

Icy Strait Point.

Bottom of World’s Longest Zip Line.  I have this feeling that if
I were to try it, I would actually like it.

Did we tell you how much we appreciate watching the scenery
from the warm,  dry pilothouse?

Icy Strait, headed to Cross Sound.  This is directly across the
strait from Glacier Bay.

Pelican and the Gulf of Aaska

We left Hoonah on Friday, June 29th, headed for Elfin Cove, about 35 miles away.  Whales joined us before we went through North Inian Pass (we avoided South Inian with its currents of 6-8 knots) and were spit out into Cross Sound.  Cross Sound was cross and Greywolf got tossed about as we headed for Elfin Cove.  We’d been looking forward to visiting this tiny village, but found the transient moorage full and very little water (at low tide) in the confusing channel leading to the inner harbor. Greywolf tucked in her almost-five-foot keel and picked her way back out to open water. We headed for Pelican, our planned destination after Elfin Cove.  

The Official Word on How to Photograph Whales  

We have been told by our friend Bruce, who crewed on a charter sailboat, that you have to snap the picture of the whale 1.5 seconds before the whale breaks the surface.  Now we know.

  Pelican’s very nice transient moorage.  No, it is not snowing.

Our cruising guides (you are probably rolling your eyes now, as I have complained previously about these publications) assured us that Pelican, the supply center for Cross Sound fishermen, had a bar and grill, restaurant, marine supply store, gift shop, public library with internet, public telephones (that translates to no cell reception) friendly people, good moorage, limited repairs, fuel, a post office, etc.  Pictures showed substantial buildings and a boardwalk, all on pilings.  After we tied up at and started our explore  along “Salmon Way”, it became clear that the amenities described in our 2011 guide were mostly defunct.  Pelican has one large charter fishing resort and a few small ones.

At one end of the boardwalk was the former fish processing facility and the closed grocery store. Pelican residents put in their two-week grocery orders with a store in Juneau, and Alaska Ferries deliver.  No spur of the moment trips to the 7-11 for chips.

At the other end of the boardwalk we found the school built on stilts on a delta; the four separate edifices were all newer than any of the buildings we had passed.  As we wandered around taking pictures, an aging once-red pick-up with a barrel of diesel in the bed and more rust than paint, drove slowly by.  The driver rolled down his window and Doug explained that the retired teacher with him just had to take pictures.  

High school building

The driver brightened.  I’m president of the school board. We have a teacher for this year, but keep us in mind!   We’re always looking.  Humm....  Doug had seen a flyer requesting lodging for the next year’s teacher.  

We asked about the school. The buildings were for elementary/Head Start, middle, high school and the music program.  Now only the Head Start and high school buildings were being used.  Eleven students are enrolled for this fall. 

Pelican Seafoods flourished for decades, but time and fish move on.  We had read before we left BI, that the town of Pelican had recently purchased the closed facility from a Native corporation, but did not know the details. 

And the seafood plant?  It was sold to “The Japanese” some years ago.  They sold it to a Native cooperation from Kake which had converted another fish processing facility into a high-end fishing resort.  They planned to do the same with Pelican.  Our Pelican-booster was pleased that the residents had somehow defeated the plan and had purchased the plant.  The town now hopes to start a fish hatchery and eventually have a profitable fish run and attract a buyer for the now-empty facility.    

Salmon Way

School Board President’s headed....not far.

For an outsider, it doesn’t look like there is enough money in all of Southeast make Pelican viable. But an outsider is called that for a reason.  The passion and commitment of the forty or so full-time residents, combined with a good plan and good luck, just might be what it takes to make it work.  In The Lisianski Gazette, the one graduating high school senior was quoted as saying that Pelican would always be his home town, even if it were a ghost town.  

We ignored our resolve to frequent local establishments and didn’t go to Rosie’s Bar on Friday night.  Our school board chairman said that if you go to Rosie’s, the locals will encourage you to stand on the bar to tack a dollar bill to the ceiling.  Don’t do it: they will “pants” you. Now, I know you’re chuckling at the mental imagine of Doug or I standing on the bar, but as a former middle school teacher, it sounded too much like teaching seventh grade, and I’m on vacation.

Someone needs to be marketing this sign......

How could you not like this town????

It only LOOKS cold!  
No, this is not Find Waldo.  Greywolf is not in the picture.

Library with good internet connection.  Staffed by volunteers and open two hours a day.
Thank you!

Very nice moorage.  The Port of Pelican charged almost as much
for electrical power as they did to moor our 40-foot boat.
Can you find her gray hull in the gray water/land/sky?

We had tentatively planned to stay in Pelican for the Fourth of July, but since we had by-passed Tenakee Spring, that would have meant six days in Pelican.  Above our limit.

Saturday morning, we  headed for Lisianski Strait and the Gulf of Alaska: destination  Sitka, two days away.  Navigation in this area is recommended only in fair weather with good visibility.  A forecast of 10 knots of NW winds qualified as fair weather.  And when the clouds lifted off the water here and there, the visibility was adequate. 

We had our poles out, ready to launch the paravane fish, but we wouldn’t do it until we were clear of the myriad number of rocks and islets at the mouth of Lisianski Strait and were out in THE GULF OF ALASKA.  

The seas in the Gulf were “confused”. This is a clear description of water when it is a mess. We had a two-to-four foot swell, but we also had chop and lumps and bumps (nautical terms, all). 

“That’s why you have an insurance company.  And a cremation plan.”  This was Doug’s  comment as we slowed down, set the auto pilot and put on life jackets with safety harnesses to launch the paravane fish.  Greywolf  settled her substantial stern into the sloppy seas and the dog threw up.  

Two hours later, we entered a series of island that would afford us shelter and a navigation challenge.  The water flattened out and we retrieved our fish.  As we snaked our way through the islands, I asked Doug if we should pull in our poles; some of the passages were narrow and intricate.  Doug did not roll his eyes, but did assure me that Greywolf would fit.

View from our anchorage in Double Cove.  
Going through the narrow entrance on Friday afternoon, the chart plotter showed the little orange triangle that represents Greywolf up on the shore.  Not terribly helpful.  I was on the foredeck, looking for sea monsters.  

Handsome mini-cruise ship in Neva Strait north of Sitka

High speed Alaskan Ferry Fairweather headed for Juneau.
We turned in to her substantial wake and imagined the conversations among
the kayakers near the shore.

Sitka!  

Taku Harbor and Auke Bay

Our plan, after leaving Sawyer Glacier, was to spend the night in Tracy Arm Cove, but our guide book (In anything stronger than light southerlies, Tracy Arm Cove receives quiet a chop and the icebergs enter it on a flood tide with gusto! ) and the weather forecast (15-20 southerlies overnight ...our favorite time for the winds to increase...) caused  of a change of plans.  We headed north in the late afternoon sunshine for Taku Harbor, nineteen miles south of Juneau, with its secure Alaska State Park float.

We’d been in Taku twice in 2007 and had fond memories.   Now we have more.  A number of local boats from Juneau and one other cruising powerboat were tied up at the float with kids and dogs in the water and folding chairs for the adults on the dock.  More locals who had been out fishing, joined us before, and after, dark.  It doesn’t get better than an 80 degree Saturday in Southeast.

We were advised to take care if we walked to the nearby Forest Service cabin; there was fresh bear scat on the trail.  Allie loved running on the dock with the kids, but every once in a while, I had to call her back from going on an unauthorized, unaccompanied Explore.

We met an Alaska native!!!  No, not an Alaskan Native.  Like "a Seattle native". Her husband has lived in Juneau for thirty years, so he considers himself a resident.  Most of the people we’ve met have moved here from somewhere else.  

The family that own this water-dog moved to Juneau from Lake City; I don’t think they’ll be going back.  The whole family loves to fish.  They gave us the two salmon their daughter had caught.  

There were two small open boats tied up at the dock.  In the morning, a man (carrying a rifle) and woman, who had camped on shore, appeared and fixed their breakfast on the dock.  Apparently, they didn’t want to share it with the brown bears.  Before they left (to go halibut fishing), they gave us a jar of smoked salmon.  Their boat was a typical aluminum skiff with an outboard.

The other boat was fiberglass and looked like it should be on a lake: a jet ski with two places to sit. Doug and I could not figure out who, what, why and how.  Who turned out to be two men who pilot whale watching boats out of Auke Bay.  (Listen to VHF Channel 68 for whale sightings.)  They had spent the night in a friend’s cabin.  Jeff told us that when he got up to use the bathroom in the middle of the night (a.k.a. the porch) a brown bear was staring up at him.  That might have kept me awake for a while...

I don’t remember what make of boat it was, a small pickle fork hydroplane, 12 ft long at the most.  I believe it had a 14,234.8 horsepower engine.  They said that when they came down from Juneau on Saturday, they decided not to put on their wet suits; it didn’t seem like a macho thing to do (their words).  They were carefully zipped and Velcroed into those suits before they left Taku Harbor.

The why? The weather made them do it. They were re-thinking the how (and maybe the why) of traveling at 45mph.  They agreed that was a bit too much of an adrenaline rush and they’d take it slower (40?) going back.   FYI, the pictures do not adequately show the vastness of the open water they had to cross to get back to Juneau.

The cabin where they spent the night is never locked.  The owners decided that locking it might lead to someone breaking in.  Uninvited “guests” use it and leave notes and sometimes food.  Jeff and the boat’s owner found a $10 bill and a note on the counter: “Thanks for the vodka.”  There has never been any vandalism.

Mary Jane’s owners moved to Southeast from Burien.

We stayed until late in the morning, enjoying the sunshine and the opportunity to talk to someone other than our spouse. Greywolf  then headed for Funter Bay on Admiralty Island, which we had determined was about 35 miles away.  After we’d been underway for two or three hours, we looked at the chart again.  Funter Bay on Admiralty Island was about 35 miles away.  A Mistake Had Been Made.  We changed course and headed for Auke Bay.

Auke Bay, with the Mendenhall Glacier as a back-drop, is the favored transient moorage for Juneau although it is twelve miles out of town.  With “7,672 lineal feet (no individual slips) of open moorage”, you’d think it would be easy to find a place to put a chunky 40 foot boat.

“Open moorage” translates to NO ONE IS IN CHARGE. Except for boats over 50 feet (and there were a lot of them), all moorage is on a first-come, first-served basis. Boats come and go on the long docks, leaving various sizes of openings, only a few of which fit Greywolf.  Additionally, we need a “starboard tie”, since she only has a gate on the starboard side, through which I daintily step onto the dock with a line in my teeth.

We found a spot that required more than a little fancy helms-man-ship from Doug.  Greywolf came to us equipped with a bow thruster, an electric motor and propeller that allows the skipper to push the bow to port or starboard while docking.  In theory, if you push the bow to port, the stern will swing to starboard.  Try to dock using a theory.   And no part of Greywolf  “swings”.  She weights more than 50,000 pounds.  She may lumber, but swing...no.  It soon became apparent, that since she is now crewed by a short, non-athleteic  person, we needed more mechanical advantage.   

We had a stern thruster (That sounds almost lewd, or at least a bit tartish.  I guess it’s no worse than bow thruster.) installed last spring and give thanks for it every time we dock.  Doug can actually make the boat go sideways, when required.  

Greywolf’s stern thruster in the boat yard...before it became a home for sea grass.   The fancy guard it to protect it.

Boats over 50 feet.  ‘Way over.

We went for walkies, followed by a disgustingly unhealthy delicious dinner outside at a renowned (in the boating community) fast food establishment.  In the morning, we headed for Funter Bay (again), this time in the rain.