JUNE 4, 2022 – HOONAH

Hoonah is a very charming yet somewhat rough and tumble fishing town. It caters to the cruise ships as well so it does have some gift shops and such, but mostly pretty basic services. It is very picturesque with the backdrop of the surrounding snowy peaks, and a variety of fishing boats packing the harbor. It is yet another warm morning in Hoonah, and today we pick up our rental car that we had arranged for previously. We were supposed to go on a Halibut charter this morning, but we heard they weren’t catching anything, and we had some other issues that interfered as well. Anyway, after giving the boat a thorough bath to rid it of all the salt from the journey up Chatham, and doing some inside housecleaning as well, John and I set off to walk the half mile to Icy Strait Lodge. When we were planning this trip I was trying to find activities in each port so had inquired about bear viewing. Upon talking to the lady that runs Icy Strait Lodge she informed me that the cruise ships do a bear viewing excursion that costs $169, but she said “they are everywhere right now, don’t waste your money, just drive around the back roads” so that was the reason for the rental car. Otherwise Hoonah is a very small landlocked town with nowhere to go except some gravel and dirt logging roads. We drove down to the cruise ship terminal where they’ve rehabilitated an old cannery into a cute destination, supposedly with shops, restaurants, and activities but there were no cruise ships today so everything was pretty much buttoned up, and we didn’t even get out of the car. We drove back to town, grabbed my camera and binoculars which I had forgotten, and grabbed some lunch at the “Fisherman’s Daughter” which was excellent! Highly recommend to our fellow boaters venturing into town. We then drove out to a place where we were told a large sow had been seen this week and other bears, so we were hoping for multiple sightings. We were finally rewarded with a brief sighting of what we believe is the big sow they were talking about because her head was absolutely enormous. We found her sitting in a patch of sedge grass at the edge of the water and watched her for a bit before she apparently picked up our scent, got up and made her way back to the woods, but wait….there was a fleeting glimpse of a brown fur ball near her also moving to the forest! She was a Mama Bear with a cub. Good thing we weren’t closer and outside our car, they live up to their reputation and are the most fierce and dangerous of all. One other thing we did discover (again for our boating friends following us to Hoonah) is that there is crab here, even though we’ve seen sea otters in Icy Straits, so that is encouraging. Just outside the harbor to the southwest there is a bay we found littered with crab pots! I didn’t have time to go throw pots down, but I want to hear your reports.

With not much else to see or do we made our way back to the boat and I spent the afternoon cooking – a quiche and a vat of corn chowder, for which I first grill the corn on the BBQ. By then the wind began to pick up and I had trouble keeping it lit, but managed to get my cooking done and also made a huge mess in the galley. That evening, we contemplated going back to the Icy Strait Lodge for dinner but by then the rain finally arrived – our first rain in nearly 2 weeks!!! – so we opted instead for burgers in-house and a cozy night inside.

The menu at "The Fisherman's Daughter" - highly recommend to our boating friends
I had rockfish burger and J had halibut tacos. Ginger Lemonade was outstanding!