Harbour

Yakutat Harbor

Name: Yakutat Harbor
Address: Yakutat, US

2.9Yakutat, United StatesAlaska

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Type: Harbour

City and Borough harbour on Monti Bay, in the south-east Alaska community of Yakutat, used by the local fishing fleet and by yachts crossing the Gulf of Alaska.

Guide

Approach and anchoring

Enter Yakutat Bay between Ocean Cape and Point Manby, then steer south into Monti Bay. The harbour lies on the north side of Monti Bay, north of the cannery. Call Yakutat Harbor on VHF 16. Approach is straightforward in daylight but pacific swell wraps round Ocean Cape in westerly weather.

Practical

Roughly 80 berths on six main floats, with a launch ramp, grid and seaplane float at the end of the central float. Shore power and fresh water on the floats, fuel berth with marine diesel and petrol in the harbour. Transient moorage available. Harbour office phone +1 907 410 7306.

Ashore

The Yakutat Tlingit Tribe runs a smokehouse and cultural centre in town, half a mile from the harbour. The Situk River, one of the most productive steelhead rivers on the Pacific coast, is fifteen miles south by the airport road. Cannon Beach and the surf break west of Ocean Cape draw a small year-round surf community.

History

The Yakutat Tlingit have lived on this stretch of coast for at least a thousand years, with the early village of Diyaguna'et established between 800 and 1500 years ago. The Russian-American Company built a fort at Yakutat in the 1790s and was driven out by the Tlingit in 1805. Hubbard Glacier, sixty miles up the bay, is North America's largest tidewater glacier and twice dammed Russell Fjord, in 1986 and 2002.