Where are we going today? The usual question, often the answer is ill defined. It is not that we do not have a plan, we do. It is simply that experience has taught us to keep the plan loose. Weather conditions, what the wildlife is doing, what we want to do. The plan can change.
Sunset while we are under way, a few miles yet to go for our anchorageBad weather in Chatham strait? There is little pleasure to be found in pounding our way through six foot seas. Perhaps we will spend the day looking for bear in the arms of Tenakee inlet. With flexibility we can maximize the adventure with less stress.
Thus the plan is kept very general. There are some constraints, this year we have an entry permit for Glacier Bay National Park which specifies an entry date. Of course we do have to be back in Juneau in time to make the flight home. Beyond that? Just a general idea of where we plan to go and where we will stop.
The evening often sees my father and I with charts spread across the table and on the screen, planning the details of the next day and identifying a possible anchorage or two. We plan with a fair amount of experience, we have come to know these waters a bit. We plan with a backup in mind, we know that conditions will change, or we might linger when the whales or fish cooperate. Point Adolphus? How long do we want to watch whales. Funter Bay? Been there a few times… I can do that anchorage in the dark if need be.
Where are we going this year? I know… Perhaps here or there. We will just have to see. It has never failed to be fun.
A catch of halibut at Knudsen Cove Marina, Ketchikan, July 1999There are fish, there are other fish… then there are halibut. Tales are told about halibut, tales of injured fishermen… tales of sunken boats… tales that could be true. These are big fish, powerful fish, and like any other respectable sea monster they come from the deep.
Just getting the line down to them in their dark depths is a chore. Hauling them up from three hundred feet down is a bigger chore. But this is the challenge of the fisherman.
These are fish you don’t bring on deck until they are well and truly dead. Some will shoot them, but we just use a harpoon. Even then the fight is not over, but for some strange reason of halibut neurology a solid whack at the base of the tail will end it.
Summer in Alaska the local flora explodes extravagantly. Taking advantage if the long days and short growing season the plants grown and bloom with a richness not often seen further south. A walk along a trail in the Alaskan forests and meadows offers plenty of opportunities to use a camera to capture the scene. Something I hope to be doing, stopping and photographing the flowers…
An extravagant bloom of a wildflower, Alaska, 4 July 2004
The Alaskan rain forest is as rich in life as any tropical rain forest. A vibrant palette of life is visible wherever you look. Water in plenty means that everything grows, at least during the summer. All the plants seem to be in a rush to accomplish the tasks of life before winter comes again.
A detail of rich foliage under the trees in Elfin Cove, Alaska
No good fish tale is without peril, and this is a good tale. We were retrieving our crab pots across the channel from Ketchikan. There was a gale bearing down with those terrible words coming from the Coast Guard on marine radio “Small Craft Advisory, repeat Small Craft Advisory”.
Repairing an alternator belt on the Amber DawnNo problem. Just get our pots and scoot back to harbor. A couple of hours tops! It is a beautiful Ketchikan day in advance of the storm. Beautiful for Ketchikan, which as any local knows means pouring rain. It had been pouring all week, more rain than I had seen in a long time. The rain had not stopped the fishing and we had done quite well. It had been a trouble free fishing trip, ’til now.
This is when our alternator belt broke.
We were in trouble.
Well, maybe not that much trouble. We were in a nice safe anchorage and the worst probable fate was that we would be anchored ten miles from civilization eating crab for two days… In the rain.
Dan, as always was prepared for anything and had spare belts on board. With a little digging under the seats and other odd compartments we locate the tools and spares needed. An hour of breaking knuckles on pulleys should have us heading home. Of course the Amber Dawn’s engine is just under a cover in the middle of the open rear deck. We just have to do this job… In the rain.
A kludged alternator allowing a belt of the wrong size to workNot quite so easy… Of course the belt that broke is the rear-most of the three, so two others must come off, to get at those the heat exchanger must be lifted out of the way. We get the new belt in place and tighten it up… and find it is the wrong size belt, too long by a couple inches. Again we are left floating… In the rain.
A little yankee ingenuity was needed, this consists of about twenty minutes of four men chewing ideas and telling each other what won’t work. Eventually I have an idea that does not get an immediate negative from the assembled wisdom. We look at each other… “That might work”.
The parts to make it work are found; a bolt, a nut, and a three-eights open end wrench. A bracket is fashioned, using the wrench as a spacer to hold the alternator away from its mount. Start the engine… The belt holds, the alternator turns and we are under way home… In the rain.
Salmon fishing is real work, baiting the lines, setting up and dropping the downriggers, constant vigilance as you troll up and down the shore. Kelp and other flotsam gets fouled in the lines, the hooks need re-baiting often, up and down again with the downriggers with their heavy lead balls.
Halibut fishing is more my style, find a likely place, drop the anchor, drop in the pole, sit back and crack a drink and enjoy the scenery while you wait for the fish to bite. Given the choice of eating halibut or salmon I will take the halibut! Nothing against salmon, it is pretty good, just that halibut is better.
Poles in the water while fishing for halibut in Holkham Bay beneath Sumdum Glacier, Alaska
A black bear swimming Clover Pass near Ketchikan, AlaskaUh… Dan… That log in the water has ears.
I had the binoculars and just happened to glance at the object in the water, just as Dan had changed course to avoid it. Logs are a regular navigation hazard in these waters, everyone keeps a sharp lookout ahead.
It can’t be… it is… it’s a bear.
But this channel has got to be a mile wide!
It was, we used the GPS and navigation computer to check, 1.1 miles across, assuming a straight course. We watched that bear swim the last 50 yards and climb out of the water. That was one exhausted black bear.
The plan is to catch halibut. This involves sending heavy hooked and baited line to the bottom, weighted with a heavy lead ball. When bottom is felt the line is brought back up a few feet to hang just above the seabed waiting for halibut to take the bait. There are a number of other fish that inhabit the bottom and will also go for the bait. Some of these fish are desirable catches, pacific cod, rockfish or golden eye are all good eating.
There are a couple you don’t want, starry flounder or the sculpins! Flounder are not much of a problem, but the sculpins are something else entirely. We caught a couple of these really ugly fish that day. All mouth and head, big eyes and no body, all spines and teeth. Not easy to get off the line, the hook is in that impressive mouth!
A sculpin (Hemitripterus bolini?) hooked on halibut gear in Holkham Bay
It is a quiet place today, a favorite anchorage near Juneau for local sportsman and boaters, rimmed with a dozen homes and cabins. Funter Bay is a convenient place to stop and spend the night for anyone coming into or out of Juneau and Auke Bay. No surprise that we found ourselves using this safe anchorage no less than four times over two weeks. As I have come to find, it is more than a convenient harbor, it is also a very interesting place…
At the beginning of the 20th century, Funter Bay was home to a large cannery and mining operations. Photos from 1900 to 1930 show a bay alive with activity, with substantial buildings supporting the mine and cannery, a post office, church and everything else one would expect in a thriving community. The area has quite a history with tales of industry and tragedy. The stories are a vignette of Alaskan history that typifies the lives of those who came to this place generations ago.
Even with a quick exploration of the area, signs of the past are scattered about to catch an observant eye and inquisitive mind. Pilings on the shoreline, unnatural objects along the beach. Going ashore and poking about soon reveals that the forest conceals even more evidence that this bay looked much different in the past.
Barges used by the Thlinket Packing Co. of Funter Bay decaying in the woods.Just behind the treeline of Coot Cove are four barges, well built working vessels now decaying in the woods. the decks are collapsing and spruce trees grow through the frames. Remains of a skid ramp and heavy cables secured to large tree stumps show how they came to rest here well above the tideline. Two large motors and winch gear are rusting away on the uppermost barge.
On the northern shore of Coot Cove there is the wreckage of a substantial vessel. At low tide a large engine betrays the wreck. On a previous visit I had motored around the engine with our launch, taking a few photographs of a large four cylinder diesel engine protruding from the water. This year was the first time I had had an opportunity to examine the wreckage more closely, low tide had completely exposed the wreck to examination. I could walk where I had previously floated.
Update 25Feb2015: Received an email from a historian at the Alaska Department of Natural Resources. They believe the wreck is the Anna Helen, a tugboat that burned from a gasoline explosion caused by an engine backfire on October 22, 1928.
Update 1May2015: Found a great website by Gabe Emerson who grew up in Funter Bay. He has done some research on the various wrecks, posting the information to his blog. His guess is the tugboat Morzhovoi, an 84 foot diesel vessel owned at one time by the Thlinket Cannery. He also notes that the Anna Baron sank near Swanson Harbor.
Remains of a tugboat on the shore of Funter Bay, possibly the cannery tender Anna BarronA closer examination of the wreck tells much about the vessel and how she met her end. Charred timbers and piles of metal fittings in the bilge shows she burned to the waterline, most likely ending up on the beach as she burned.
Given the winch gear, the large engine and the size of the vessel it is clear that this was some sort of tugboat, equipped to handle barges similar to those found nearby in the woods. She was also extravagantly equipped with electrical gear, several generators, motors and heavy wiring feature among the wreckage. There are also more mundane items, a metal sink and silverware testify to a comfortable existence for the crew. A radiator shows that she was heated, a nice feature in Alaskan waters.
In an attempt to learn more about the tug I did a little research. It did not take long to find more information on Funter Bay. Historical photos in several online archives featured images of the “Thlinket Packing Co.”, with photos of a large cannery and associated fish-traps. “Thlinket” is obviously an alternate spelling used at the time to refer to the local Tlingit people native to the region. Other photos show a Tlingit village in Funter Bay and note that they also worked in the cannery.
The cannery tender Anna Baron moving barges of fish in Funter Bay, image by Case and Draper, Aug 2, 1907, from the Alaska State Library Historical CollectionThe historical photos came with a surprise… Images of a tugboat working as a cannery tender, moving barges of salmon from the fish-traps to the cannery. The tug, the Anna Barron, looks to be an exact match for the wreckage found on the north shore of Coot Cove. One particular photo shows the vessel with two barge loads of fish, close to where we had anchored for the night, a few hundred yards from the current location of the wreckage.
Based on the photos I tentatively ID the wreck as the Anna Barron. A vessel of the right size, type and in the correct historical context. If this is the Anna Barron, she lies just across the cove from the barges that she spent decades shuttling to and from the fish-traps along Chatham Strait and Admiralty Island. One has to wonder about her story… How did she end up burned and sunk in the bay? An accident? Deliberately burned when she was too worn to be used or sold?
There is a problem in identifying the wreckage as the Anna Barron… The engine mounted to the hull is produced by a company that was started in 1916, yet the Anna Barron is shown in 1907 photographs. It is possible the engine now in the wreck is not her original engine, but was a refit somewhere during her working life. A refit is not out of the question. A 1907 photo identifiers the Anna as a steamer, typical propulsion for a vessel at the turn of the century. It may have been desirable to refit the tug for diesel with the increased power and reduced maintenance costs offered by the then new technology.
No evidence in hand to prove the case. It may be that the vessel wrecked in Coot Cove is simply some other boat. There is a second candidate, the Barron F., a 75ft cannery tender. Information with this vessel also specifies a different engine, and seventy five feet appears to be somewhat longer than the wreck on the beach.
The barges in the woods are almost certainly those seen in the photographs. They are an exact match in size, shape, construction, including the posts on the decks used to contain the cargo of fish. A reasonable guess is that they were pulled up on the shore for protection from the elements through the winter, ready for next year’s salmon season. A season that never came with the closing of the cannery. They lie forgotten and decaying where they were left.
Funter Bay was gradually abandoned, the mines and cannery closed. The area never becoming a thriving settlement like nearby Juneau or Hoonah. With the land in private hands, is was not added to the holdings of the U.S Forest Service or an Indian corporation. The bay is now dotted with private homes and vacation cabins. As one of the best anchorages near Juneau there are usually a dozen or so boats swaying at anchor each night during the summer season. You have to look a little to see the signs of a rich history, but they are there and fun to explore.
