Other Fun Activities in Yakutat-
Sightseeing, Wildlife Viewing,
Floating the Situk River, and
A Walk Along the Beach

Wildlife Viewing
Like much of Southeastern Alaska, Yakutat boasts a very healthy brown bear and eagle population. Bald eagles are just about everywhere and so are the bears. If you don't see a bear on your first day, just go to the surprisingly well organized landfill and park at the "fish pit" where the lodges dump fish skeletons. The bears will just ignore you and keep on eating - just don't get too close.

Floating the Situk River
You can also rent a drift boat and float the Situk River. This was the only bad day of our trip, mostly because we did not ask the right questions.

At its lower end, the Situk is a typical costal river -wide and slow moving. Thirteen miles upstream where the float begins, it is quite a different story. Here it looks more like an east coast trout stream - winding, with pools, log jams, exposed gravel bars, and lots of streamside shrubbery to get hung up in. Don't get me wrong, this is a beautiful fishing stream full of dolly varden and pink salmon for the first 10 miles of the float and Silvers the last 3 miles. It is just not the right place for novices to try their first independent river float.

At the time we floated it, the river was not terribly dangerous - at best a Class 1-2 river. Our expectation, however, was for a nice easy float down a reasonably open waterway not 10 hours of constant in and out of the boat freeing ourselves from log jams, streamside shrubs and gravel bars. That being said, some experienced river floaters had a very good time on the float.

A Walk on Cannon Beach
No trip to Yakutat would be complete without a visit to Cannon Beach. Where else in North America can you visit a beautiful wide beach that runs for as long as the eye can see and have it all to yourself. This must be what Florida was like 100 years ago - pristine beaches with sand dunes backing into a solid wall of pine forest and no condos!! There probably would be condos here if the water temperature were 30 degrees warmer and the sun shined a bit more often. Solitude does have its price.

While at Cannon beach check out the canon and tank that are reminders of how Yakutat got its airport and other infrastructure. During WW II, a senior military officer who preferred fishing to fighting convinced the Pentagon that the Japanese would invade North America at Yakutat. Convinced of the imminent danger to our shores, the military built a large all weather airport, barracks and other infrastructure to house the fishermen (oops, I mean troops) who would repel the invaders from the Land of the Rising Sun.

It turns out our fishing officer must have been clairvoyant. Nearly 50 years later I spotted one small band of Japanese spies dressed head to toe in Sage gear trying to pass as salmon fishermen. They probably found what our fishing officer already knew - the only way to get in and out of Yakutat is by boat or airplane. The high snow covered mountains that ring Yakutat prevent even the most ambitious invasionary force from launching an attack on the mainland.