Seldovia on Memorial Day Weekend, 1975

Four of us stayed at the end of the Homer Spit in Land’s End bunkhouse Friday night while awaiting our Memorial holiday adventure to Seldovia. Two guys from Kodiak joined Dan and I on the excursion. Roger was an old friend of Dan. The other’s name has escaped me. The three had purchased property in Seldovia, and wanted to walk over and inspect their new acquisition. They had bought about 25 acres on the Slough near town. Each had a two acre lot on the water, and the rest of the property, laying adjacent to the lots and climbing to the top of a hill behind, was held jointly by the three. So we had a two part objective. The other - to retrieve our fishing gear from Yukon Island, where we had stashed it a week earlier

This time out the waves were not so big, the wind not so calm. Calm seas usually occur in early morning or late evening. In between, as the day bores on, the sun warms the air, and starts it to moving. High winds and high tides go together. We were in a high tide cycle that weekend, and higher winds were definitely with us - choppy seas rocked the boat as we rounded the Spit and headed for Yukon Island. A gentle morning breeze pushed two and three foots waves at us, a little spray portended heavier stuff to come.

The four of us, big deckhands, quickly hustled the gear off Yukon, and directed the skiff into the Eldred Passage, running parallel to and just off the island‘s shore. We decide to stop for a break, though it escapes me as to why. Maybe it was for lunch, maybe we wanted to do some clamming, or maybe the weather was picking up. I no longer remember, but we put to shore on either Yukon or Hesketh.

We spent a couple hours on the island. The first thing we discovered was that none of us had thought to bring food. There wasn’t a candy bar between us, and we were all prepared to dine. Nothing! Dan had brought some old frozen fish to use as bait. Roger and his buddy stuck pieces on the end of a stick and tried roasting them over the campfire; can’t remember if any were consumed; don’t recall any accolades about the seafood cuisine.

Dan and I retrieved our fishing poles and used an old fish to try an catch a fresh one. No fish, but we were flabbergasted to land a small King Crab. Its legs probably measured a two feet span. We broke the leg joints into pieces small enough to fit into a like-sized pan, and suspended it over the fire. There was enough to provide four modest meals. No butter! I did not know King Crab were in the bay, and never heard of anyone catching them before or after.

Entrance to Seldovia Bay

We made it to Seldovia without further incident, but I can’t tell much about that visit as memories of it have merged with hundreds of later ones. We probably ate at the Seldovia Lodge. We did slept on Dan’s land, on bare ground, with sleeping bags laid on plastic sheeting with other piece draped over us - tent like. In the morning we probably returned for breakfast at the Seldovia Lodge and then set sail for home.

Seldovai Boat Harbour

The passage out of Seldovia Bay proved easy. We rounded Seldovia Point, Barber Point, passed McDonald Spit, and tacked into the Eldred Passage without much trouble. When we came to the end of Yukon Island and started across the open bay, the boat began to ship water. Wind knocked the top off waves and sent a continual spray into the boat. Within a short interval there was several inches of salt water sloshing around in the bottom. I grabbed a coffee can we used for bailing and started scooping water over the side. Two buckets of clams sat in the bilge, and before long the two Kodiak guys dumped the clams to the side and started bailing. We were able to keep up but decided the wiser move would be to turn back, find shelter, and wait out the wind for a few hours.

Crab boats in Seldovia Harbour

Dan directed the skiff onto the leeward side of a small peninsula projecting into the bay. It lay almost due south and about four miles off the tip of the Homer Spit. We beached the boat, water logged, and clothes soaked through, but happy to be on dry land. Roger built a fire, while the rest of us finished bailing the boat, and restoring the clams to their buckets.

The peninsula was narrow, jutting out a hundred yards from the mainland. A homestead sat at the junction of land with smoke flowing from its chimney. Before long three or four left the cabin and headed out the peninsula toward us. The men arrived well armed. They carried rifles and at least two had holstered revolvers strapped to their side. They wanted to know our intention. Why were we camping on private property?

We apologized for trespassing, and explained our dilemma; that we were returning from Seldovia and thought it prudent to wait out a dangerous sea. We told them we were four harmless seafarers temporarily cast upon their shore - two teachers and two Alaska Fish and Game biologist taking refuge from the storm. They accepted our explanation and withdrew. A short time later they sent am unarmed emissary to invite us to share their Memorial Day dinner. We thanked them for their gracious invitation and ask when they should expect our presence.

We four tidied up as much as possible (combed out hair), and preceded, single file, down the path to the house. After introductions to maybe a dozen people, adults and children, we were all seated at a very long table to share a pleasant dinner - fried chicken wings being the main entrée. The unusual offering was pickled kelp, that tasted like…pickles.

Before leaving we had a chance to return their gracious hospitality. Upon stepping from the house we noticed the owner was in the act of removing debris from a nearby area, and were told the place use to be a fox farm. Fox farms were found all over the Bay in the 1930s and 40s - a major industry of the region. The fox cages had to be wired on all sides, including the bottom, to keep them from digging out. Now they wanted to put in a garden but found that old chicken fencing lay beneath the ground and was matted in the sod, nearly impossible to dig out.

We took long coils of rope, laced them through the fencing at strategic points and harnessed them to two teams of pullers. Like plow horses, we strained against the buried obstacle, broke it loose, and rolled the ancient fencing out of its shallow grave. Half hour later we were walking single file back down the path to the boat and heading toward Homer over a moderate sea.

At Bay with Lawyers, My First Exploration of Kachemak Bay

Most of my adventures on Kachemak Bay were shared with friend and fellow teacher, Dan Wilson. The first episode occurred in 1973 when a gaggle of lawyers hired a boat to carry them across the Bay to Hesketh Island. Dan finagled a ride, and we joined the legal group aboard a WWII vintage Landing Craft, one similar to the those seen in films landing Marines on hostile beaches. This one was probably designed to carry heavy equipment as there was space in the well to easily accommodate the fifty people along with their gear - enough for a weekend camp out.

Landing Ship similar to what the Lawyers hired

The craft left the boat harbor early Saturday morning, rounded the tip of the Homer Spit and set a southwest bearing. We were presented with a calm sea under a cloudless sky, and that placid experience made us more confident when we later ventured onto the bay ourselves. We were both more neophyte than old salt. Dan was from Texas, and I grew up in Indiana. The only thing the two states have in common with the ocean is flatness. Once you’ve experienced days of calm seas, when the boat drifts aimlessly with a gentle roll, can you appreciate a revisit to the flatlands, and feel the same rolling sensation induced by the prairie visage.

Sixty Foot Rock

The boat crossed the open water and eased into the Eldred Passage, a sheltered channel between the southern shore and the island chain made up of Sixty Foot Rock, Cohen, Yukon, and Hesketh islands. We sailed past them and turned into the western shore of Hesketh. After ten miles and sixty minutes the craft pulled onto its beach. The bow gate dropped and the legal team disembarked, lugging packs and ice coolers up the graveled beach and into the woods. Dan and I chose a less populated site to make camp.


Elephant Rock, Between Yukon and Hesketh Islands

We spent two nights on the island. I remember only a few events during the outing. That first night the lawyers had a bond fire to which they invited Dan and me. I don’t recall how Dan happened to find out about the excursion, but we felt a bit like intruders. The only person I recognized was the wife of one of the lawyers. She had done her student teaching at West High. The rest were strangers. So, here we were, a couple of nerdy biology teachers, out numbered twenty to one, and surrounded by a gang of litigating lawyers who probably knew little more about the life around them than we did about the law. Dan and I didn’t wish to bore them by expounding on local fauna and flora, and we were unfamiliar with the vocabulary of their arcane language so we kept a respectful silence while sipping the wine they offered.

A typical Scene on Kachemak Bay

There was a low tide, a clam tide, the next day and many of us wandered onto the exposed sea floor. I had taken my little Kodak along, was snapping a number of pictures, but set it down on a rock, not thinking to retrieve the camera until after fifteen feet of water covered it. I found it sitting on the same rock at the next low tide, decided it was ruined and figured the to invest in a new one. There are no photos to record the Hesketh adventure, and several subsequent outings, as I didn’t get around to replacing it for a couple years.


I don’t know the size of Hesketh Island, but would guess its foot print covers over a hundred acres. Members soon diffused over the islands expanse exploring coves and beaches. Until that time, our presence on the island was probably unknown, but the owner was in residence, and soon showed up in the attorney’s camp. I didn’t hear all the specifics, but it seems the lawyers had neglected to seek permission to camp on private property. Maybe they had relied on the boat’s skipper to place them on a nice camping spot and he had pulled a fast one.


The owner might have requested a camping fee, but graciously declined that alternative. He could have ordered us off the island, but swimming was our only option. He may have had an impulse to sue, but that probably did not seem prudent as he was standing in a nest of lawyers. I understand he let them know he did not much appreciate the invasion of his privacy, and made a point of not inviting them back.
THE END