Tag: Chichagof Mine

The Chichagof Mine

“I said the old mining camp would be nothing but trouble but we still went there. It took five days to find the mine, what happened afterwards will stay with me for the rest of my life. Then it turns out Dave knew about the rumours all along…” Henry

So we finally left Elfin Cove to head for Sitka. The route first took us east along the tide driven Lisianski Straits to the Pacific Ocean shoreline of Chichagof Island, then we laid a course southwards through the stunning outside passage – taking us between countless small islands that protected us from the worst of the long Pacific swells breaking along the outer coastline. The route, often used by Alaskan fishermen, afforded a number of secluded anchorages that we could use to day-sail our way south. It is difficult to find words to describe to you this spectacular journey, this part of Alaska that appears in no tourist guide or cruise itinerary yet must easily rank as one of the most scenic passages we’ve made since leaving the Mediterranean twelve years ago…

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Sänna Sitka

THE WILDERNESS THAT IS CHICHAGOF

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“If you do go there, and I really don’t think you should, if you do find the old mine and perhaps the young girl in the ragged white dress, if she begs you to take her with you, keep walking. Don’t listen or turn to look back, just keep walking…

That’s all I’m gonna tell you about that.”

Chichagof Island in southeast Alaska is huge, the second largest island in US territory. It’s a remote and wild place in a wilderness that is itself spectacular and largely unexplored; all of these mountainous islands create the fabled Inside Passage, the sheltered thousand-mile sea route stretching southwards from the Glacier Bay National Park and Skagway in the north to beautiful Vancouver and mighty Seattle in the south. Together with close-by Baranoff Island, almost impenetrable Admiralty Island, the more sedate Prince of Wales Island and numerous other islands, a small sailing vessel like Sänna could spend years exploring this region using the countless anchorages and remote fishing harbours hiding amongst the Sounds, fast flowing Straits and deep fjords.

Rugged Hoonah is much the largest settlement on Chichagof but not the remotest. There’s the infamous whiskey-watering-hole of Pelican… which is incredibly difficult to reach, the small hippie community of Elfin Cove and the rusting remains of the Chichagof Gold Mine, a ghostly camp hidden in the mists which many in Hoonah beg you not to visit, to not go there for a very good reason…

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Port Frederick, Hoonah