In the islands north of Yakutat
Yakutat Bay is the first all-weather, all-vessel safe harbor north of Icy Point. The 16-mile-wide entrance can have adverse sea conditions during stormy weather but generally is passable at all times. The entrance to the bay a couple of miles seaward of a line between Ocean Cape and Point Manby is underlain by shoals that rise in places to as little as 3 fathoms of the surface. The shoals are remnants of a glacial moraine. When combined with an ebb tide and onshore winds this can be a lively place.
Access from the south is at Ocean Cape, to which mariners should give a wide margin due to shoal water as much as a mile off the northwest tip, producing breakers in heavy weather. It is prudent to keep the red cans that are positioned southwest and northwest of Ocean Cape to starboard and not turn into Monti Bay until after passing the latter. In season set gillnets may be anchored a mile or more off the beach and they are hard to see if there is a sea running.
Derelict boats outside Yakutat
Trollers at the YakTat Seafoods dock
Yakutat boat harbor
Once around the second red can off Point Carrew it’s a straight shot down the channel between Point Carrew and Point Munoz on the western end of Khantaak Island to Monti Bay and the village of Yakutat. Adequate anchorage exists right at the head of the bay between the YakTat Seafoods (VHF Ch. 10) dock and the barge ramp, but it may be noisy with processing and boat traffic. The fish plant dock also is the fuel dock, and fuel is dispensed there from a truck run by Delta Western, VHF Ch. 12. When an afternoon westerly whistles down the bay, boats get slammed against the pilings while taking fuel. Small boats can maneuver to the inside of the fuel dock and get partial relief from the abuse.
More comfortable anchorage is found in several small bays nearby, such as Rurik Cove and Sea Otter Bay on the south side of Khantaak Island. Yakutat Roads gets enough wind and boat traffic that it would be an uncomfortable place to lay except in a larger vessel, but by following the channel of the Yakutat Roads a vessel soon approaches the entrance to Shipyard Cove, location of the Yakutat boat harbor. Avoid the temptation to cut into the cove through the opening where the floats first come into sight. Instead pass the red marker on the small island to starboard and approach the floats motoring slowly on a southeast heading. Signs at the head of the float indicate how to contact taxis and other sources of assistance. The harbormaster is on Ch. 16 and is at 907-784-3323, although at this writing there is no cell service in Yakutat. Tidal range is 10 feet.
At the head of the floats is a road that leads a mile or so into Yakutat. The village is dispersed with no real center but rather several small clusters of homes and businesses separated by woods and ponds and connected by three main roads. There are two general stores, a hardware store, a couple of cafes, a marine repair business, a fly-fishing shop, several lodges, a park with swimming beach and picnic pavilion, a medical clinic, and offices of several agencies including Alaska Department of Fish and Game, the U.S. Forest Service, and the National Park Service. NPS has a modest visitor center with books and displays. The airport a few miles out of town supports daily jet service to Anchorage and to Juneau and points south. Local air taxis provide access to wilderness from Dry Bay to Cordova.
Ocean beach outside Ankau Lagoon
Ankau Lagoon
Ankau Lagoon is an extensive tidal inlet that occupies much of the spruce- and hemlock-forested Phipps Peninsula, the land mass that separates Monti Bay from the ocean. The lagoon can be entered by skiff or kayak through a passage with a minimum depth of 5 feet, about 2 miles west of the fish plant. A shoal extends some distance out from the east side of the entrance, so carefully choose a place to anchor a larger vessel and watch for setnets. Just inside the entrance is a low road bridge that prevents passage of vessels with superstructure. Current is brisk enough to be difficult to paddle against, so time entry and egress with the tide. Tides are as much as two hours later than at Yakutat. Inside is a maze of peninsulas, islands, and passages, rich with birds and other wildlife. A road encircles the lagoon and it is a short walk from the lagoon across the road to the ocean beach. The innermost lake of the lagoon is known locally as Salt Lake and on its shore was once one of the early Russian forts, destroyed by a Tlingit war party in 1805.
Strewn over a distance of about 8 miles along the east side of Yakutat Bay north of town is a small archipelago known as the Khantaak Islands. Largest is Khantaak itself, fronting town. Consult the Coast Pilot for detailed information about these islands as well as attractive anchorages on the mainland side at places such as Broken Oar Cove, Redfield Cove, and Puget Cove. Be aware that Johnstone Passage, which connects several apparently enticing anchorages, is extremely shallow and may be impassible at low water. The islands are push moraines from a long-retreated glacier and are unconsolidated sands and gravels, picturesque locations of forest and wildlife but geologically unstable. During the 1958 earthquake that triggered the cataclysmic slide in Lituya, Turner Point at the southern tip of Khantaak Island suddenly dropped 100 feet and three berry pickers vanished into Monti Bay.
Yakutat Bay remains a seismically active area and in places actual depths may be as much as 20 feet less than shown on charts. Earthquakes, wind, ice, and climate continue to reshape the region.
Notes
Seismic disasters aren’t the only peculiarities of this rugged and unforgiving region. A few miles northeast of Point Manby is Schooner Beach, named for the hulk of a wooden Japanese schooner that lay, mostly buried in the sand but exposing three masts above the waves, for an astounding 84 years. The trading schooner Satsuma Maru went aground there in a fierce fall storm in 1907. Before the crew was rescued from a nearby beach several months later, a total of eight of its members perished. Some Yakutat residents recall picnicking at the site and swinging from the rigging as children. The hull remained surprisingly intact as it was encased in silt from the retreating Malaspina Glacier, but it gradually emerged in the late 1980s due to retreat of the shoreline and a storm in 1991 finally broke it up and dispersed the remains. An account is at www.ptialaska.net/~rejohn/oldsite/SATSU.HTM.
Mount St. Elias from Yakutat Bay
The name Yakutat allegedly is Tsimpsean coming from Eyak, and means “canoe resting place.” With a population of more than 660, Yakutat has several attractions in addition to angling (the Situk River in particular is revered statewide for its steelhead trout fishing), scenery (dominated by 18,000 foot Mount St. Elias), and surfing at Canon Beach.
Author with retired locomotive of Yakutat’s Fish Train
One attraction is the fish train. Actually, the fish train has not run since 1969, but some stretches of track remain as does a single locomotive, coal car, and freight car. In its day, beginning in 1903, it ran 11 miles to the bank of Johnson Slough off the Situk River with a short spur to Lost River, delivering boats, supplies, and crews and returning loaded with bright salmon.
Hubbard Glacier at the head of Disenchantment Bay, near Yakutat
Yakutat’s most famous attraction is the surging Hubbard Glacier, the largest tidal glacier in Alaska, located about 28 miles north of town at the very head of Yakutat Bay. This massive sea of ice flows down from the heart of the Fairweather Range to meet the sea precisely at the point that separates Disenchantment Bay from Russell Fiord. During periods of retreat the 6-mile-long face of the glacier leaves open a narrow passage that allows exchange of waters between the two through a turbulent narrows. When the glacier surges it blocks off Russell Fiord, trapping seals, porpoises, and whatever else may have been inside the large inlet. When the fiord is blocked for a period of months the water level rises due to ice melt and inflow from numerous small streams. Geological indications are that at some time in pre-history the fiord backed up to the point that it overflowed the low pass to the south and flooded what is now the Situk River valley. Such a thing nearly occurred in 1986 before the glacial blockage broke after four months and the fiord drained to equilibrium with the sea. A briefer event occurred in 2002.
“Bergy bits” (small icebergs) in Yakutat Bay
By all accounts the narrows are too dangerous for passage by boat. Furthermore, in concert with its lesser brethren Turner Glacier and Haeneke Glacier, the Hubbard disgorges massive quantities of brash ice and bergs into the upper part of Disenchantment Bay, making boat passage impossible much beyond Point Latouche most of the time. The greatest volume of ice tends to stay on the west side of upper Yakutat Bay.