Port Frederick / Hoonah (Sail, Sea kayak)

Sailing up Port Frederick

Chichagof is merely the fifth-largest island in the United States, which in a state of superlatives merits few bragging rights. However, Chichagof does claim the densest grizzly bear population on earth. Combined with a paucity of road access, daunting bushwhacking, and remarkable waterfront docks and cabins, it makes for a fine boating destination. 

With the Pacific to the west, Icy Strait to the north, and Chatham Strait to the east, Chichagof is bounded by waters that can be extraordinarily violent. The tides surge up and down Icy Straits at a pace that will overwhelm sea kayaks and sailboats, and even reduce gas-powered fishing boats to a mile-per-hour crawl. Chatham Strait, which is really a continuation of Lynn Canal to the north, funnels arctic winds that howl down the fjord from up near Haines. Though Chichagof’s extremities may be inhospitable for many small craft, its bays offer more tranquil exploration. With frequent, inexpensive flight service to Hoonah, the many-fingered bay of Port Frederick can be an almost pastoral setting for liquid wilderness exploration.

Eight Fathom Bight

Hoonah’s very existence is a fascinating window into Alaska’s turbulent glacial history. In the early 1700s, Glacier Bay did not exist. Local Tlingit lived on a broad plain, near the toe of a massive piedmont glacier comprised of the Grand Pacific, Carroll, and Muir Glaciers. During the Little Ice Age, that glacier surged out into Icy Straits, obliterating the old Tlingit settlement and carving a deep trench as it advanced. The ice subsequently retreated back to its previous position, and that retreat has accelerated in the era of anthropogenic warming. Its brief surge, however, displaced the Tlingit, whose home valley was turned into a fjord. When the ice advanced, the Tlingit moved across Icy Strait to a site initially called Gaawt’ak.aan, meaning “village by the cliff.” Subsequently, residents renamed their home Xu.naa, which in its Anglicized form is Hoonah. The newer, current name means “where the north wind doesn’t blow.”

Beach near Eight Fathom Bight Cabin

The displaced Tlingit chose well for their new settlement. A large ridge protects Hoonah from north winds. The harbor of Port Frederick is protected by a spit and islands, reducing chop blown in by storms in Icy Strait. It can be a surreal experience to sail into Port Frederick, leaving a white-capped wind tunnel to enter a quiet, sun-kissed bay. With shelter on most sides, you may sail languidly south down Port Frederick, with plenty of time to think about whether the sail is luffing too much, or how few tacks it might take to travel the bay’s length without running into any islands.

Neka Hot Springs

Port Frederick also makes a fine sea kayaking destination when the weather is decent, since paddlers can find shelter in shallow coves and bays on the way toward the head of Port Frederick. Sea kayak rentals are available at hunaoutfitters.com. Of course, what is a tailwind on the way out may be a tedious headwind on the way back.

Canoe in Hoonah

It is roughly 16 miles from Hoonah to the head of Port Frederick, which is home to the palatial Eight-Fathom Bight public use cabin. Managed by the Forest Service, this elegant cabin overlooks the bay, with its expanses of beach. Sea asparagus on the tide line, and an overwhelming quantity of salmon berries should invite gourmands for late summer idylls. The cabin also is located at the end of a large, improbable trail. If you walk that dense, brush-lined corridor, in approximately 9 miles you will find a sign marking the turnoff to Neka Hot Springs. The walking to the hot springs, along an old road bed, is quite fast. It’s not a great time for meditation, however, but rather noise: The thick alders along the trail would conceal the most massive grizzlies. And, just by looking at the average griz-density on Chichagof, you’ll walk by approximately 27 of the beasts on your way to the hot tub (three per mile).

Like the roadbed trail that accesses it, Neka Hot Springs infrastructure is bizarre. Someone took the time to construct an exquisite wooden pool for the springs. If it is cold when you get there, walk upstream to the hot spring’s source: Most likely algae has grown over the intake that feeds the pool. Since it will take a while for the wooden pool to warm back up, bathing in the smaller rocky pool at the source of the hot springs is a reasonable option. Blueberries abound by the stream and the hot springs, as do labrador tea. Plan a whole day to walk out to the tub, soak for a while, and make your way back to Port Frederick, permitting plenty of time to pick berries in the sun-drenched portions of the trail that are favored by salmon berries.

Clearcuts old and new are the only detraction from a journey to Port Frederick. Fortunately, they become less frequent as paddlers or sailors make their way back up the bay from Hoonah. Upon landing, on the way to the hot springs, hikers pass through a wide variety of forests, from old-growth, cathedral-dwarfing groves to the weedy new growth bounded by alders. Chichagof Island is massive. The logging mirrors visitors’ superficial perception of the island: what we can see easily, from the water. When you walk through the new growth, get past it and encounter ancient groves, with streams flowing through them that have never been crossed by asphalt, they begin to suggest the mystery of an island that even most Alaskans haven’t begun to explore.