July 16 – 18th – Thorne Bay

Haida Influenced Totem

Being watched through the trees

Wolf Totem in Kaasan

What a great stop this Bay was. Mike, Gayle and myself had stopped here 4 years ago on our way to Wrangell and at that time, we were only one of two boats at the state docks. We had found it amazing that there were no other boats there. This time, the docks were full with boats of all shapes and sizes, we found the store and we found a car rental (at the local bed and breakfast). Prince of Wales Island (where Thorne Bay is) has the most drivable roads in all of Southeast Alaska. We were able to rent a Crew Cab Pick up truck and with Mike and Dave & Penny on their motorbikes, we headed off to see what there was to see. Had we driven our boats around to the outside it would have been considerably more mileage and fuel than the way we ended up seeing the island.
Our first stop was Craig. Craig is about a 35 mile drive from Thorne Bay and has all the facilities and stores for a nice day stop. We had brunch at a cute café called “Annie & Betty’s” and did some shopping in the plaza around the restaurant. Dave was able to get a new prop for his dinghy (Oh I forgot to mention that Santa Ana doggie beach has some big rocks that Dave found), we bought more food and booze and some souvenirs to fill up the back of the pick up truck. Craig is the largest city on Prince of Wales with canneries, logging interests and tourist attractions. The largest being the Totems at Klawock.
We encounter lots of deer on the highway to Craig so hunting must be right up there on the list of things to do. Most people in Craig drive pick up trucks, so we blend right in with our rental truck with the exception being that we do not have 2 large rifles in a gun rack in the truck!
We stopped at the Klawock totems and see the Haida influence on the carvings. Most of these totems are fairly new and brightly painted. Our next stop is Kassan. The gravel road from the highway is about 18-20 miles in and we did okay in the truck, but we are sure that the three motorcyclist were hurting. We arrive in Kassan and lo and behold, who do we see at the docks in Kassan but the boat that we saw in Santa Ana, IMB. We parked at the cultural center (Library) where Wayne stayed behind to check his emails and the rest of us walked into the forest to see the totems. The setting on these totems is magnificient. They are placed in amongst the tall spruce and cedar trees with a longhouse facing the beach. We had been told by the people in Craig that this was not a sight to be missed, they are so correct. These are the best totems we have seen to date. We later read that these totems and longhouse were moved here from the old sight of Kassan thus making them around 65 years old. The town of Kassan is negligible with about 10 homes on the beach all of which are for sale. We certainly hope that when this place becomes a ghost town, that the totems stay preserved.
A 6 mile ride back to Thorne Bay and a stop at the worlds largest Log Grappler for a group photo. The next day CJ and Mike go out fishing while we catch up on groceries, email etc. Dave talks Wayne and Cathy into taking his motorbike back to Kassan so that Wayne could see the totems. They are gone most of the day. Little did we know the mini adventure they were to go through. Turns out that the gravel road was just too much for Daves rear bike tire, on the way out of Kassan and about a mile short of the Highway on the gravel road, Wayne and Cathy end up with a flat rear tire. They walked the bike out to the highway and Cathy does a nice wave to the first truck she sees and the two ladies stop and take them back to Thorne Bay to get the tire repaired. The ladies were both bank managers and were on a “Visit the accounts Day” – turns out that the tire repair shop is one of their accounts, so arrangements were made for the tire to be repaired ahead of all other repairs…….”It’s not what you know….but who you know? Everyone on this island is so nice, they wave at you when you are walking, if they are walking, they talk to you, we certainly rate this place as being the friendliest place!
CJ flies out at 7:00 am Friday morning (in a grumpy mood) and we head to Naha Bay.