My husband and I are fortunate to have a rustic cabin in Pelican, Alaska where we spend as much time as possible fishing and just hanging out. In Maine, where I come from, we’d call it camp.
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| Our get-away cabin in Pelican, Alaska |
The main cabin consists of a 12' x 16' room with a bed, closet, table, oil stove for heating, propane cook stove, kitchen sink, cabinet, and new this year, a propane refrigerator with a small freezer compartment. On a wall behind the heater are heavy wooden pegs where wet clothes and gear hang to dry. The front porch acts as an entryway, bunkhouse, and workshop. A large plexiglass window separates the main cabin from the porch, and a picture window on the porch overlooks the cove. The view includes three small islands, Whiskey Flats to the north, and mountains with patches of snow on Chichagof Island across Lisianski Inlet.
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| The view from the cabin never gets old. |
The cabin also has a deck made from a section of the old Pelican Creek bridge and is our favorite spot for morning coffee and happy hour. The amazing view from the deck looks across the inlet to the West Chichagof-Yakobi Wilderness. Thank goodness that local citizens suggested that this area would be a good place to preserve, and in 1980 it was designated as a federal wilderness area. This nearly pristine environment serves as a backdrop for us to watch all of the animal shows that play out in front of us. We are close enough to town that at low tide we can easily walk. Otherwise, we take the skiff, canoe, or hike through the woods.
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Pelican is a town on Chichagof Island in
Southeast, Alaska. |
Pelican lies in Lisianski Inlet about halfway between Cross Sound and Lisianski River, and the whole area is one of the most beautiful places we have ever seen. Lisianski Inlet and its bordering steep rocky mountains and tall spruce trees are home to abundant wildlife. The white heads of bald eagles make them easy to spot on their perches overlooking the inlet. A murder of crows cackle on the island across from us. A winter wren in the trees surrounding the cabin sings an early morning melody. Herons, seagulls, and ducks wade in the tide on the mudflats. A kingfisher hunts from a piling. Sea lions snort a greeting from the water and keep a curious eye on us before disappearing again under the sea. Salmon jump, sometimes skip — once, twice, three times — across the water’s surface. Playful sea otters float and preen in rafts then dive when we get too close. The stealth river otter quietly trots across the shore rocks before vanishing into a secret and dark den. Pods of orcas feed and travel past our skiff while we fish. A single humpback breaches in Cross Sound while we bob for hours, jigging for halibut.
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| Super low tides reveal remarkable sea creatures. |
Low tide reveals a treasure trove of sea stars, urchins, sea cucumbers, and hermit crabs. Smacks and smacks of moon jellyfish, Aurelia aurita — a white, translucent jellyfish you sometimes see hundreds and hundreds -- perhaps thousands -- of at a time, flow together with the current past our skiff.
The brown bears of Chichagof Island roam the beaches — and sometimes the town dump and boardwalk. Unfortunately, some encounters with humans have had a bad ending for the bear, as described in this Juneau Empire article from July 3, 2019.
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| A good day of fishing. |
The Pelican area may have been first visited by Russian explorers in the 1700s followed later by hunters, trappers, and miners. However, it was in the late 1930s when commercial fishermen first began building the processing plant because it was “closest to the fish and fishing grounds.” It also had an easily accessible freshwater supply that was used to generate electricity to power freezers and make ice to keep all those fish cold. Fishing is still the main attraction in Pelican. The harbor is full of commercial power and hand trollers, long-liners, and sport fishing charter boats. The harbor usually has lots of transient boats including the occasional pleasure cruiser, sailboat, or yacht that ties up for a few days, weeks, or months at a time. This year we met Robin and Jim aboard the M.V. Adventurer. They celebrated the Fourth of July and shared travel stories with us.
Spending time at the cabin is a break from the day-to-day routines of our home life in Juneau, but sometimes it is also serious business. We’re here to catch fish. Our goal is to put enough halibut in the freezer so we can eat it at least once a week. Yakobi Fisheries now does all of our processing and freezing which is much easier than when we had to keep the fish on ice ourselves. Before Yakobi we fished at the end of our trip, so we only needed to keep the fish on ice for a few days before going home. Now we can fish any day and drop off our filleted halibut any time. Yakobi portions, vacuum seals, and flash freezes it. We pick it up on our way out of town.
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| How do you like my butt? |
People also sport fish for king salmon, pinks, and cohos in the inlet while various species of rockfish and lingcod are also popular.
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| Rockfish make good tacos! |
Flyfishermen utilize the many creeks, streams, and shorelines in the area to fish for Dolly Varden, cutthroat trout, and sometimes steelhead. Sometimes you even see schools of pelagic rockfish like the dark or dusky rockfish which readily take a fly.
If you are in town during the days before a commercial fish opening, you see the village come to life. Commercial fishermen work hard to put finishing touches on their boats and have all their gear in working order. The scow and tenders load up with ice and supplies and head out to take their spot close to the fishing grounds where fishermen bring their catch to quickly offload and get back to the business of fishing. The processing plant gears up and young adults move into the bunkhouse where they will live while working at Yakobi Fisheries.
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| Yakobi Fisheries is a family-operated business in Pelican. |
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| The dock at Yakobi Fisheries |
The harbor is almost overflowing, and the talk of the town is all about the fish. We happened to be in town one year during a purse seine opening in the inlet. That was the year we ran out to the mouth of the inlet and fished for halibut for about five hours straight. We don’t usually go that far out in the skiff, but the water was as calm as a Maine lake on a hot summer’s day. On our run out we counted 30 purse seiners in the inlet. In the best areas, the boats line up and take turns setting their nets, usually starting right at the regulatory boundary line. Purse seiners work together with their seine or power skiff to deploy the net in an attempt to encircle large numbers of pink salmon. The big boat uses a winch to pull most of the net and purse line in until the fish are crowded and can be dipped up and put into the vessel's holds.
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| A purse seiner awaits the opening in Lisianski Inlet. |
The seiners can have quite an impact on the number of fish in the inlet, harvesting thousands of fish a day. Before a purse seine opening the pinks are numerous and can be seen jumping out of the water like popcorn while the day after the seine opening, complete stillness on the water. Hopefully, in the days after an opening, the pinks will start jumping again as fresh fish move into the inlet, but usually not in the same numbers as before the
seiners arrived.
Between commercial openings, the inlet can be uncannily quiet. While fishing near Miner Island, we might see a single skiff or bigger boat running to town, into the Lisianski Straight which leads to the outer coast, or out the inlet toward Cross Sound. Some days we go for hours and hours on the water without a single sight or sound from another human being.
We love Pelican because it is peaceful and quiet, but it is not silent. After spending a few days here, my sense of hearing sharpens, and I automatically tune in to what’s happening around me from the sounds I hear. The sound of floatplanes is something to expect throughout the day. Alaska Seaplanes has a regular daily schedule of flights to Pelican. When I hear a floatplane arriving, I know the weather is clear. Quiet skies usually mean fog or poor visibility in Lisianski Inlet or somewhere between Pelican and Juneau. The sound of our aluminum skiff bouncing up and down, slapping the water on its mooring, tells me the wind is blowing. Occasionally, we hear the sound of a helicopter. “That’s Coast Guard,” Roger would say of its distinctive deep wop-wop-wop, and we hope it’s just a training exercise. Sometimes, I close my eyes and hear the splash of a fish jumping or the snort of a sea lion, easy to mistake for the blow of a whale. From the deck chair, I listen to hummingbirds buzzing overhead as they fiercely guard and chase each other from the feeder. I hear water running in the intermittent stream next to the cabin after a rain. I hear a dog barking on the beach. And when I hear heavy raindrops falling on the metal roof of the cabin, I decide to stay in bed a while longer. Walking on the boardwalk in town, I have become conditioned to the boardwalk shaking and the sound of a four-wheeler approaching from behind and instinctively step to the right to let it pass.
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| Step aside for four-wheelers on the Pelican boardwalk. |
The residents of Pelican have that Alaskan pioneer spirit of hard work and perseverance. They are open and friendly to visitors. The approximately 60 year-around residents have created a vibrant community complete with a community center, K-12 school, public library with wifi, and a city-run harbor with shower and laundry facilities.
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| A hot shower is a treat when living off the grid. |
Pelican puts on a traditional Fourth of July celebration (see Robin's blog and photos), including a boardwalk parade with floats created by the groups and businesses in town. I overheard someone on the 4th saying, “Wow, Pelican is a happening place.” When you see everyone — residents, visitors, summer residents, fishermen and crew, lodge workers, fishing guides and their clients, fish processing plant workers — together on the boardwalk at the same time, you see a diverse and active community.
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| The Lisianski Cafe is the place for good food and good company in Pelican. |
The entrepreneurship of business owners in town has undoubtedly contributed to the “happening” of Pelican. A local family revived a portion of the defunct fish processing facility and established Yakobi Fisheries. They supply fresh and frozen Alaskan seafood “from the ocean to your plate.” The town is home to several fishing lodges for charter trips of all types and sizes. Cedar Rock Gallery displays and sells local artwork, and the wonderful Lisianski Inlet Cafe serves breakfast and lunch and operates a small gift shop. The Pelican Inn sells dry good groceries, serves pizza until 8 pm., and with 24-hour notice, invites the public to join the lodge guests for dinner. Alaska Seaplanes has an office in Pelican with several employees from town. SEARHC operates a health care center.
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| The library is a popular spot. |
There’s a community church, a United States Post Office, and a surprisingly well-stocked marine supply store. A few places in Pelican offer overnight lodging, such as J&S Lodging, which offers hotel-style guest rooms right on the boardwalk, some with kitchenettes. The town operates a bunkhouse with a basic level of accommodation where you share the bathroom and bring your own sleeping bag. If you're looking for a place to stay, just call the town office and ask around.
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| The MV LeConte in Pelican. |
Getting to Pelican — and getting home again — is an adventure by itself and can only be done by boat or plane. Pelican is a boardwalk community with no roads. The Alaska Marine Highway System (AMHS) had offered ferry service to Pelican twice a month in the summer and once a month (or less) in the winter. The ferry was generally reliable; however, more recently, the ferry schedule has been disrupted because of maintenance or state budget cuts. In July 2019, a labor union strike caused the AMHS to shut down all ferry service indefinitely. We had to make different plans to return to Juneau, and we ended up flying back with Alaska Seaplanes. As of November 2019, the M.V. LeConte, the ferry that usually travels to Pelican, will be having maintenance and repairs done and no ferry service to Pelican is scheduled until April 2020.
Flying is a good ride on a good day, about one hour of flight time with scenic views. However, flying can be bumpy on a windy day or delayed by weather for hours or days at a time. It’s good to have a back-up plan when traveling to and from Pelican. Give yourself extra time on both ends, if possible. Some of our friends who travel to Pelican regularly have bought bigger boats, so they can come and go from Juneau on their own schedules.
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| The view from the cabin is different every day. |
When we’re relaxing at the cabin or doing chores, we turn the radio on to Raven Radio, KCAW out of Sitka. We listen to national and local news and enjoy the eclectic music shows hosted by local radio hosts in Sitka -- Music for Amphibians is a Sunday morning favorite. Raven Radio does a good job promoting community events and interviewing guests about whatever special occasion happens to be going on that particular week. I especially enjoy the Sitka history segment. In addition to listening to the radio, Roger and I both enjoy reading. I welcome rainy days and use them for an excuse to lounge and read all day. It feels so decadent.
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| Looking back toward town from up the inlet. |
To prep for a visit to Pelican, I recommend A Long Trek Home by Erin McKittrick. The story is about Erin and her husband Hig, who traveled 4,000 miles by foot, skis, and paddle from Seattle to the Aleutian Islands. They go through Glacier Bay, which is a little North of Pelican on the other side of Cross Sound. This story gives you a sense of Pelican and Southeast Alaska as a whole. The other book I recommend is the screwball crime comedy, Cold Storage, by John Straley of Sitka, Alaska. It gives you a little sense of people who live in a small fictional village, not unlike Pelican. Of course, Pelican is the perfect writer’s or artist’s retreat. The distractions here are of an inspirational kind.
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| On some days, Pelican feels so far away from the rest of the world. |
Our cabin in Pelican is not for everyone. The remoteness and isolation that is one person’s paradise is another person’s misery. Day after day of sunshine and warm weather is a welcome summer forecast for most people. In Pelican, however, sunshine and blue skies mean the westerlies are blowing. The wind from the west creates white caps on the water and makes for uncomfortable, bumpy skiff rides every time we go fishing or to town. At the cabin, I forget about my hair, makeup, or showering every day. Every outfit includes a hoodie and a pair of Xtratuf boots. Rain and fog can settle in for days, if not weeks. Mildew, moss, and slime grow on every surface outside (and some inside.) We usually stay at the cabin for two weeks at a time.
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| Everything we need for two weeks. |
All our gear and food have to be shuffled several times from store to home to ferry (or plane) to skiff to shore to the deck, and finally to inside the cabin, all by hand. We usually have 10 or more pieces (totes, coolers, dry bags, gear/equipment for boat or cabin.) The cabin sits on a steep shoreline of slick, uneven, and sometimes loose rocks. We’re lucky if it’s high tide when we arrive. The final question for guests considering a visit to our cabin is the bucket test. Yes, we have what’s known in Alaska as a honey bucket. We also have a compost toilet.
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To borrow a phrase from the old Rose's Bar & Grill, come on over
and let's have a party! (You can keep your pants on!) |
If an outdoor, rustic lifestyle sends you running for the nearest all-inclusive hotel, then our cabin in Pelican isn’t for you. Luckily for you, there are places in town that might better suit your preferences. For us, the hard work is worth it.
All year, we look forward to that moment when we sit on the deck, put our feet up, and watch the sun slowly set while a bald eagle cries from across the cove, “Welcome to Pelican!”
(Many thanks to my husband Roger for his contributions and edits to this article.)
