by Stan Chladek
Expedition Members: Ron Monkman, Richard Kocher and Stan Chladek.
June-July 2004
In June of 1741 Vitus Bering, the Danish explorer in the service of the Russian Imperial Navy sailed from Kamchatka southwest and subsequently west to discover Alaska, making landfall between the mouth of Copper River and Cape Suckling. After turning east to discover Kodiak Island he later landed at a group of mountainous islands off the coast of Alaska Peninsula. The crewman of the ship Saint Peter, named Shumagin, became very sick and was taken to shore with hope that his heath would improve. He died a day later, apparently from scurvy, and was buried at the narrow isthmus between the ocean shore and an inland lake, on the island which is known today as Nagai Island. This archipelago of 22 islands, located near the tip of the Alaskan Peninsula (about 280 miles east of Dutch Harbor on the Unalaska Island) was named Shumagin Islands in his honor. He was the first in a long list of Russians who died during their more then 120-year occupation of Russian America.
Like the Aleutian Islands toward the west, the Shumagins were originally inhabited by Aleuts. Their lives were totally based on using kayaks, baidarkas, for hunting sea mammals and fishing, since the treeless islands provided very little subsistence. In pre-Russian times, there were probably twelve native villages on six main islands (Unga, Popoff, Korovin, Simeonoff, Chernobura and Nagai). As the times passed, the villages dwindled, partly due to losses from civil strife, partly due to Russians, but mostly due to ravages from Kodiak Islanders (Koniags), who launched long distance kayaking forays from their home far northeast. In the twentieth century there were only two settlements left and after the village of Unga was abandoned in the sixties, only one settlement exists today, Sand Point, inhabited by both native and white population.
Studying the charts of the Islands indicated that all the ingredients of an interesting sea kayak trip should be there: remote islands with exposed coasts and steep topography, and long lines of cliffs intercepted with infrequent beaches. We could expect some protected areas in large bays, and most often we would be exposed to the swells of the open North Pacific. We anticipated similar weather as on my last expedition to the Aleutian Islands: that means wind, fog and rain and more wind. We thought that perhaps conditions could be a little milder, since charts did not indicate too many tidal currents. In fact, the tides were relatively small (only about 8’ in spring). As it turned out, the weather was indeed similar as at the Aleutians, with the famous williwaws (katabatic winds) viciously blowing quite often and quite suddenly. The Pacific beaches turned out to be more gradual then those on the Bering Sea, thus enabling us to get good surf rides and much easier landings and launchings. Also, there were more protected bays. However, the frequency of rain and fog even exceeded our rather pessimistic expectations!
We were hoping to ship our 3-piece sectional fiberglass kayaks by airplane, as we had done in the past. Our hopes were dashed by Northwest Airline’s insistence that they would not take our kayaks since they were fiberglass. Thus we shipped our boats from Seattle to Sand Point, Alaska by barge. We flew to Sand Point with a small commercial plane from Anchorage. The transportation arrangements worked very well and when we arrived at the tiny town of Sand Point (which has a long airstrip, a vestige from World War II), the kayaks were already there comfortably sitting in the harbor warehouse. After the necessary preparation, re-packing, and after obtaining some local information we changed our trip plan. The original plan was to cross from Sand Point to “Outer Islands” as Nagai, Konjui, etc., and come back after 2-3 weeks. Now, in town, we heard that Unga, the biggest island of the archipelago, and closest to mainland Alaska has a very interesting coastline and is definitely worth visiting. We decided to circumnavigate it. Its perimeter is only 60-70 miles long, so we figured it should take 4-5 days, so we could still accomplish the second trip to outer islands.
The town of Sand Point is quite small, but has a large fishing harbor, two fish processing plants, one bar, one store, 3 restaurants (closed most of the time) and a tiny Russian Orthodox church. I noticed that most of the time there was either a bald eagle or large raven sitting on the cross on the top of church steeple. The occupation of the most of population is fishing; huge containers of processed fish are being sent west to Dutch Harbor on the way to Japan. The Japanese must like the Alaskan salmon. The most conspicuous objects in the town were signs: at the wharf there was a sign, “Do not feed sea lions”; elsewhere in the town there were signs, “Tsunami escape route” and in the front of the tavern the sign said, ”Leave your weapons outside”.
In the inevitable overcast we started with a short crossing to the northeast shore of Unga Island. Korovin Island on the northeast and Alaska Mainland on the north came soon into the view as we turned west and continued along the cliffy coast of Unga, crossing the large expanse of Zachary Bay. Soon, we reached the Unga Spit, with long sandy beaches and miniscule surf. We landed and stayed overnight. It was a pleasant camp with a great view of the mountains on the Alaska Peninsula. The twin snow-covered cones of huge Pavlov and Pavlov Sister Volcanoes glistened in the evening light. The Pavlov Volcano is over 8,600 feet high and is located on the narrow spit of land dividing Pacific from Bering Sea.
As we were eating breakfast in the gray morning, we noticed a squall line moving from the east across the Unga Strait. I expected the storm to hit us momentarily, and since we were already packed, we quickly changed to dry suits and waited. Since only rain came and not very strong wind, we took off and followed the coast south. We were in the lee of the high island, following the west coast, and we would not be hit by this storm until we reached the exposed east coast. That storm would rage for six days. As we later realized, most of the wet weather at Shumagin comes from east; western winds are usually dry. The beaches of Unga Spit changed to cliffs, with many rocks in the water, some of which were occupied by seals and cormorants. Soon, we noticed huge trunks of petrified trees littering the beaches and sticking out of water close to shore. This is the famous Unga Petrified forest; for many miles these trees turned to stones were visible from our kayaks. Near Bay View Point, where we landed for the next camp, the beach was littered with the pieces of petrified wood. Bay View Point is a conspicuous landmark, a huge volcanic plug with hexagonal columns of basalt. It’s mesa-like top was a refuge for Aleuts during their wars in pre-Russian area.
The next paddling section had to be longer, about 26 miles, until we would reach the first possible campsite at Acheridin Bay, on the east side of the southernmost point of the island. Paddling was quite easy along the lee coast, with high cliffs on our left, open Pacific on the right. The rain stopped and partially lifted in the afternoon, allowing us a view of distant islands on the west. We met a profusion of seals in a small rock-rimmed lagoon near Sombrero Point (who had the fantasy to name the serrated rocks like a Mexican hat?), and observed a whale blowing and travelling somewhere to the open ocean.
We stopped for a lunch of couple granola bars in kayaks in lee of a high cliff, since we were sometimes hit by gusts of wind coming down from cliffs. Later in the afternoon, just before we reached, Acheridin Point, the southernmost point of Unga Island, we met a fishing boat with John Galvin and his helper on board. They gave us a generous portion of salmon fillet for dinner. Baked on fire, it broke the monotony of freeze-dried food. Still on relatively quiet water we rounded the point formed by bizarre window rocks, to come to the expected full brunt of northeast gale. Just after rounding the point there were several rocky islands fully occupied by grunting sea lions, perhaps some sixty of them. We paddled between the sea lion rocks, looking at them from pretty close up and were happy that they did not jump at us. The next 6 miles or so was hard work into strong wind in sizable waves. Finally, we arrived at the beach of broad, unprotected Acheridin Bay and landed through the surf broken up by numerous sea stacks. Ron excelled in building a shelter from driftwood, to protect us from the cold wind and drizzle, so we could sit around the fire in relative comfort. The sun showed up for about 3 minutes, revealing fantastic scenery of cliffs and stacks, and after it rained again. Next day was probably worst weather on the trip, with very strong wind and rain; so we hunkered down in our bara-bara (Aleutian for native house) and hoping for better weather next day.
The weather improved only marginally, before it got worse again. Morning found us to breaking out through big surf, funneling down between stacks. It was like being hit with sledgehammer under an icy shower. We paddled 6 miles east across an open bay, straight into the wind and rain. I was slow, making the mistake of wearing my storm cag over my dry suit. The baggy extra layer over my dry suit acted like a sail, and it slowed me down considerably. When we finally reached the cliffs on the other side of the bay, we had to deal with a strong downdraft coming over the cliffs. Once we came out of the bay large ocean waves hit us. The waves were quite big, but the seas were negotiable, except frequent huge ocean boomers, evidently formed over submerged rocks, located sometimes quite far into the open sea. These boomers, some 20 feet high were collapsing with a thunderous roar. They forced us to paddle far out to the open sea and then laboriously paddle back into the wind toward the cliffs. As a rule, seas around practically any exposed point on Unga Island are very shallow and prone to the formation of these huge monsters, even if the ground swell is relatively small. Once we came close to the next point, a strong katabatic wind coming from the U-shaped valley hit us with vengeance. This experience was just like the Aleutians three years ago!
After rounding a point with a huge rock window in it, we decided to call it a day and paddled into the deep bay, moving just inch by inch straight into strong wind. The slopes of the mountains above us were bright yellow with brownish pinnacles, just like Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone! As we paddled toward the distant rocky beach, we disturbed a snoozing sea otter. After what seemed like an eternity, we landed in a protected cove and built the camp on grass protected by high slope and big rocks. Walking around the shore we spotted more sea otters, river otter, fox and several seals, who took breaks on the rocks at low water. On this trip we saw so many sea otters, and later some from really close distance.
Next day was not much better, although the wind seemed to be a bit weaker, at least in the moment when we started from the bay. Everything changed when we arrived at the next point, again zig-zagging between huge boomers, having poor visibility, but the wind at the moment was in our backs. As I was in the lead, I arrived at a chute between two big rocks not far from the coastal cliffs. I was sitting there and carefully scouting the terrain in the front of me, no big boomers arriving there. Once I passed through the chute, the wind suddenly changed direction by 180° and hit me really hard. As I battled the large waves and headwind, a rogue boomer hit me on starboard, it was huge, a house size. I instinctively braced into it, but to no avail. I was maytagged, flipping over several times, hitting rocks with my hands, shoulders and head, pulled out of kayak by sinister forces. My kayak and I were not too gently deposited on some sharp rocks, not too far from shore. Ron and Richard were lucky; when they saw my antics they backed-up from the chute and managed to land in a relatively quiet lagoon hidden by rock piles. That was the place, where I finally ended up; I pumped the kayak out, got into it and we paddled out again. The wind was now a full gale, it was apparent that we could not make any progress into it. So we turned back to the same camp as the previous night after paddling for barely 1.5 miles. I hardly paid much attention to the blood dripping on the kayak deck from the wounds on my hands from my beating against sharp rocks during my rendezvous with the Unga boomer. As it turned out, these scratches became to be a major problem for me a several days later.
By the evening the weather seemed to improve and next morning was sunny and quiet. What a change! In minutes our camp looked like a garage sale, as we spread out our soaked gear to dry. The paddling went very well along the one of the most spectacular sections of coast I have ever seen anywhere. After rounding the Unga Cape the rock formations, including stacks, caves, towers, you name it, took on a most bizarre appearance resembling a world from fantasy films. Since the swell was minimal, it was quite easy to go into the caves, surf through the tunnels of shapes and sizes of huge gothic cathedral windows and play hide and seek with numerous sea otters.We stopped on a rocky beach, which we called Waterfall Beach, for a snack and to examine about half dozen waterfalls.
We soon arrived at the wide mouth of Delarouf Bay, named for the Greek skipper of a Russian boat in the 18th century. The village of Unga was located in this bay; today it is ghost town. On the north periphery of the bay is located Cross Island with its mesa-like top. This island with precipitous cliffs was a refuge for Aleuts in war with Kodiak islanders (Koniags) in about 1835. Koniags arrived in their baidarkas and surrounded the island, but were unable to scale its cliffs, since the Aleuts, defending their women and children, were repelling them with rocks and hot water. Today, Cross Island is a “Paradise of Birds”; birds occupy every possible ledge on the island’s cliffs and surrounding stacks, with their nests stacked above each other. When we were approaching the island, clouds of birds were flying over us and descending onto the water. Many of them were puffins, appearing in huge rafts bouncing on the swells. Behind the island is a bay with steep cliffs, riddled with sea caves and tunnels. I run through one of the chasms on a big tidal swell, which carry me just past the Aleutian burial cave high above the sea. The cave was discovered late in the 19th century and it contained several skeletons and many priceless artifacts, now in museums in Washington and France.
A short paddle brought us the beach where are ruins of the Unga village, inhabited till 60th of the last century. We landed on a curving black sand beach with a creek running through it. It could be easily imagined that in the times past by, there were baidarka racks standing on the grassy banks behind the beach, with kayaks ready to be launched. There were numerous wooden houses in various stages of dilapidation, including a large church and assorted machinery sitting on grassy banks. Behind the school building were fenced burial grounds with several headstones and wooden orthodox crosses. In the late evening, as it did not get dark till past midnight, we were sitting on the bluff overlooking a large bay and observing sea otters frolicking below us in the golden sunset. Next to us was a lonely Sitka spruce, probably planted by Russians long time ago. Under the tree was a grave of young girl, who died in 1916. It came to my mind that her parents wanted to give her the same view of the ocean as the Aleutian hunters had, buried generations before in the caves overlooking ocean. The Unga village was beautiful, haunting place, even though the mosquitoes had a bloody feast on us this evening.
Next morning, after a short rain, the sun came up again and we had an easy paddle all the way to Sand Point after about a 7-mile crossing between Unga and Popoff Islands. As we passed the small Egg Island, we saw several big sea lion bulls sitting in the rocks high above the water. It was a boy’s affair; there were only bulls sitting royally on their thrones and surveying the territory. They seemed to maintain a certain pecking order, the biggest bull was sitting on highest rock like a king scanning his territory. He must have been a veteran of many fights with his chest scarred all over.
It became obvious that due to our delays on the southeast coast of Unga, we were running out of time to make a second trip to outer islands on our own power. We were lucky to hitch a ride with Ben Moebeck on his fishing boat Lady Mary, who took us and our kayaks on 5-hour ride all the way to the southernmost point of Nagai Island, Mountain Point. The Mountain Point is an impressive headland of light-colored cliffs. We launched our kayaks just behind it. It was late evening and in a stiff wind we paddled 5 miles to Saddler’s Mistake, a narrow isthmus which almost separates the island in two. Nagai Island has four of these low necks, thus from the distance it appears as several islands with high mountains. It was a windy evening, but we were able to hide our tents in the hollows between sand dunes. On the beach Ron again excelled building a wind breaking wall from driftwood logs. Next day we had nice weather with light wind. We passed the light-colored cliffs, perhaps not as dramatic as on Unga Island, interrupted by several bays. In one of the bays was a large lake close to the shore, where Shumagin is reportedly buried. In the afternoon, it became almost hot.
I was having problems with my right hand, on it were several broken blisters and numerous deep scratches from my brush with Unga Island rocks. These evidently became infected and last three miles of paddling into the East Bight were getting really painful. I sat down on the beach with my swollen hand, covered by abscess and noticed a red line following the vein from the wrist toward the elbow. It did not look very good. Since we were 60 miles from civilization and only way to get there was by kayak, I figured that a little surgery is due. The Swiss Army Knife seemed to be too dull to cut well through my wounds, so I used a safety pin dipped into iodine to open the abscess and clean up the flesh from grains of sand. Then I put antibiotic ointment over the wounds, took a large dose of Cipro antibiotic and went to sleep for 12 hours. I felt much better next morning, the swelling, fever and red line were gone. Ron bandaged my hand as well as he could, covered it by tape and by midmorning we were back in kayaks happily covering 16 miles in dense fog.
Wind picked up again, then it dropped, and sun came up in the afternoon as we approached a huge cloverleaf shaped Northeast Bight, the last possible landing before the Cape Wedge, which is the northernmost point of Nagai Island, located 10 miles further. In the evening sea otters were performing quite a few tricks next to our beach. A mother was carrying her baby on piggyback, coming back and forth and playing with it in the water. The next morning there was dense fog again and quiet seas. We could barely see the high cliffs, as we paddled along for about 10 miles when we attained the northernmost point of the Island, Cape Wedge. Next came a 6 to 7-mile crossing to the small Andronica Island. We had to be a bit careful with our direction taken from the compass reading, as the wind picked-up and we were paddling in 5 to 6-foot seas with barely any visibility. In just under two hours the curtain of fog opened up and we were right on target heading for the beach on the north side of Andronica Island. Sun was shining and the stop on the beach was pleasant, but the break which we took was perhaps a bit too long. The veil of fog started to move toward us as we began the four miles crossing to Korovin Island. Soon we were in soap again. Wind picked up quickly and we were soon battling irregular waves, evidently the reflections from the still invisible island’s cliffs. In addition, it was getting quite dark and the breakers and rocks were barely visible. Cliffs of Cape Devine finally showed up and we rounded it on rather rough seas and decided to surf to the large bay on our right. It was quite a long ride on following seas with a good landing on a gently sloping beach in sizable surf. Again, the weather was getting worse with a gale blowing and fog drifting from the sea. I got up at night to secure the tent with a few more stakes. We woke up to a stormy morning with practically no visibility. This turned out to be another beach day, with a plenty of opportunity to explore our surroundings. There was a lagoon full of birds just behind the beach. A long beach was bordered by cliffs from conglomerate rocks with several caves and bluffs with cascading waterfalls. Next day turned out to be marginally better, so we were able to get out of the bay without any difficulties. We rounded another cape with some wave action and a lot of kelp, met some sea lions, and paddled to the next bay with a nice beach. By that time the storm spent itself and fog lifted up. Hidden between the grass-covered dunes there were remains of another Aleutian village, abandoned more then 100 years ago. From the top of dunes there was a great view across the whole island to its north shore. The island had one of these narrow “necks” with a large lagoon in it.
The final 4.5 miles crossing to Popoff Island was uneventful, just a bit of wind and unbelievable, sunshine! We arrived at the smallish High Island, just off the east end of Popoff Island and observed a group of about 20 young sea lions performing antics around and under our kayaks. They swam around, dived, surfaced, did back-flips, somersaults and were having evidently good time, without any indications being scared by us. This performance could have gone forever, sea lions did not show any signs of being tired of us!
A short paddle brought us to Pirate Cove on Popoff Island with a nice beach and water warm enough for a short swim. On the shore there was a dilapidated log cabin and huge store of logs, evidently remains of a sawmill. The slope of the point above the cove was covered by a carpet of wildflowers and the top of the cliff offered a fine view of the sea. We saw several islands and a huge fog bank extending west of us. In fact, we were able to catch the radio weather report from Sand Point - forecast was not exactly optimistic – the fog bank was extending from Kodiak Island all the way to the middle of the Aleutian Chain, perhaps some 700 miles long.
We were awakened by chirping of young bald eagles, who were sitting on the piling in the bay; we called them “Alaskan Roosters”. The morning brought us even thicker fog, but there was no wind and it was warm enough to paddle just in T-shirts. The sea was pretty quiet and as we cut across a big bay, past Danger Point and after 6 miles paddling in dense fog by compass reading, we arrived to a point, where at the big fishing boat, Ray Mar Houston found its last rest. It foundered in 1975 and had a huge gaping hole on its starboard site, we could paddle into it. Sun peaked out through the clouds and we came on shore in Sand Point in the early afternoon.
I was having problems with my right hand, on it were several broken blisters and numerous deep scratches from my brush with Unga Island rocks. These evidently became infected and last three miles of paddling into the East Bight were getting really painful. I sat down on the beach with my swollen hand, covered by abscess and noticed a red line following the vein from the wrist toward the elbow. It did not look very good. Since we were 60 miles from civilization and only way to get there was by kayak, I figured that a little surgery is due. The Swiss Army Knife seemed to be too dull to cut well through my wounds, so I used a safety pin dipped into iodine to open the abscess and clean up the flesh from grains of sand. Then I put antibiotic ointment over the wounds, took a large dose of Cipro antibiotic and went to sleep for 12 hours. I felt much better next morning, the swelling, fever and red line were gone. Ron bandaged my hand as well as he could, covered it by tape and by midmorning we were back in kayaks happily covering 16 miles in dense fog.
Wind picked up again, then it dropped, and sun came up in the afternoon as we approached a huge cloverleaf shaped Northeast Bight, the last possible landing before the Cape Wedge, which is the northernmost point of Nagai Island, located 10 miles further. In the evening sea otters were performing quite a few tricks next to our beach. A mother was carrying her baby on piggyback, coming back and forth and playing with it in the water. The next morning there was dense fog again and quiet seas. We could barely see the high cliffs, as we paddled along for about 10 miles when we attained the northernmost point of the Island, Cape Wedge. Next came a 6 to 7-mile crossing to the small Andronica Island. We had to be a bit careful with our direction taken from the compass reading, as the wind picked-up and we were paddling in 5 to 6-foot seas with barely any visibility. In just under two hours the curtain of fog opened up and we were right on target heading for the beach on the north side of Andronica Island. Sun was shining and the stop on the beach was pleasant, but the break which we took was perhaps a bit too long. The veil of fog started to move toward us as we began the four miles crossing to Korovin Island. Soon we were in soap again. Wind picked up quickly and we were soon battling irregular waves, evidently the reflections from the still invisible island’s cliffs. In addition, it was getting quite dark and the breakers and rocks were barely visible. Cliffs of Cape Devine finally showed up and we rounded it on rather rough seas and decided to surf to the large bay on our right. It was quite a long ride on following seas with a good landing on a gently sloping beach in sizable surf. Again, the weather was getting worse with a gale blowing and fog drifting from the sea. I got up at night to secure the tent with a few more stakes. We woke up to a stormy morning with practically no visibility. This turned out to be another beach day, with a plenty of opportunity to explore our surroundings. There was a lagoon full of birds just behind the beach. A long beach was bordered by cliffs from conglomerate rocks with several caves and bluffs with cascading waterfalls. Next day turned out to be marginally better, so we were able to get out of the bay without any difficulties. We rounded another cape with some wave action and a lot of kelp, met some sea lions, and paddled to the next bay with a nice beach. By that time the storm spent itself and fog lifted up. Hidden between the grass-covered dunes there were remains of another Aleutian village, abandoned more then 100 years ago. From the top of dunes there was a great view across the whole island to its north shore. The island had one of these narrow “necks” with a large lagoon in it.
The good weather did not last long, the rain and fog arrived later in the day and the five-day forecast called for more less the same with wind coming from east. Well, it was the same story again, and it was probably time to pack up. Three years ago, when I paddled along the Unalaska Island, we had 12 major storms in 21 days, and we had the sun for a few brief moments. Last year, when I rounded the Kenai Peninsula, we had only two days without rain during the two week- long trip. I definitely have luck for good kayaking weather.