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Cross Sound lies at the northernmost entrance of Alaska’s Inside Passage, a
thousand-mile maze of rocky mountainous islands, interspersed with
hundreds of miles of deep glacier-carved saltwater fiords, bays, and
channels. The islands of southeast Alaska are drained by
thousands of small streams, while larger rivers drain the snow-covered
mountains of the mainland.
The cold clear waters of these streams support runs of Pacific
salmon. In the late summer and fall, these streams swarm with
spawning adult salmon. In the spring, the offspring of these
salmon migrate downstream to feed, first in the shallow protected
estuaries, and then in the open ocean.
These salmon runs supported Alaska natives for thousands of years. On
a commercial scale, salmon fishing took hold in southeast Alaska in the
late 1880’s, with the development of canning. By the early 20th
century, a commercial fishing fleet was harvesting salmon runs
migrating through Cross Sound.
A small fish-buying station was established in the 1930’s in Elfin
Cove, on the north shore of Chichagof Island, and it was not long
before a fishing community grew up around the buying station. Soon
Elfin Cove had a thriving fishing fleet, supported by a general store,
a fuel dock, and other businesses. A large salmon cannery operated in
nearby Port Althorp. Elfin Cove was served by a post office and by
seaplane services. As families settled there, a school was built. In
the 1980’s the community built an electric power system, a water
system, and a library.
As they do for other commodities, markets for salmon ebb and flow like
the tides. There are good years and not-so-good years for the Cross
Sound fishing fleet. Yet 70 years after its founding, Elfin Cove
remains a home base for a commercial fishing fleet. Attracted by the
fishing, as well as by the natural beauty of Cross Sound, fishermen and
their families converge on Elfin Cove every spring, to make their
livelihoods at sea. |