Trip Report: Paddling Annette, Duke and Gravina Islands

 Been a long time since I've posted here.  But I've been having conversations with friends recently about what a shame it is that folks are no longer blogging their trip reports and everything is posted on Facebook and YouTube these days.  Those platforms are great but it feels like the old fashioned blog format can be a better way of communicating essential information about outdoor trips, so I'm going to experiment again with posting a few trip reports.  

Trip Theory and Plan

This last summer--2025--I completed a roughly two week paddling trip around Annette, Duke and Gravina Islands.  I was joined (or maybe I joined) two friends.  Jason is a glaciologist who I've done eight or ten long trips with over the years, plus many shorter trips.  Megan is a mathematician who I've often paddled with in the past but we've never done any longer trips.  But both are very experienced paddlers with long outdoor resumés and both are reliable paddling partners.  

Megan on Day 1 next to a legacy of Alaska's logging past

I've been interested in spending more time paddling in the area near Annette Island since my Inside Passage trip in 2017.  I also spent about a week on Annette around 2014 doing a research project and enjoyed the community, though I didn't have a kayak with me and it was winter time so I didn't do any paddling.  

The Annette Island Indian Preserve has historically been the only lower-48-style Native reservation in Alaska, though that may be changing as several Alaska Native tribes have evidently successfully gone through the process of putting land into trust with the Department of the Interior.  Folks on Annette and living in it's town, Metlakatla, Alaska, are Tshimshian, and lovely folks--helpful and friendly.  Tsimshian folks are originally from the Skeena River region in Canada, and there is another community called Metlakatla in B.C.  The Annette landscape is also beautiful and Annette and Duke are areas with some protected paddling and some areas exposed to open ocean, so a good place to work on my comfort level in bigger ocean swell.  Though unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately?) the weather during our trip was too good to have much swell.  

Jason, in camp our second to last night.  He didn't sleep here.

We also hoped to add Duke Island, to the South, if we had enough time and the weather was good enough.  And Jason was interested in looping in Gravina Island, which--though I was grumpy about it at the time--turned out to be a beautiful and very interesting paddle.  Gravina is the island on which the Ketchikan airport is located so we had all been on Gravina but none of us had spent much time there or had been far from the airport.  

Logistics 

We hopped on the Alaska Marine Highway Ferry from Juneau to Ketchikan on July 15.  The trip to Ketchikan is a long one and we arrived mid-day on the 16th.  Some friends from the University who work in Ketchikan met us at the ferry terminal and helped us move our boats to a boat ramp a few miles South of downtown Ketchikan and the community of Saxman.  Logistically, launching at the ferry terminal is possible but difficult with a riprap shoreline.  We spent about two weeks paddling, then returned to our put-in and a friend and work colleague helped shuttle us back to the ferry terminal on the 26th.  We spent a night in a hotel across the street from the ferry terminal, then returned on the Ferry to Juneau, leaving early on the 27th.  Though we carried enough food for two weeks, a resupply in the Metlakatla town site is possible and we stopped for sodas and ice cream several days into the trip.

We weren't sure what rules, if any, existed for outsiders like us camping on the Annette shoreline so we did our best to camp outside the Annette Island Reserve.  When that wasn't possible, we did our best to keep our presence from disturbing anyone and we avoided fishing and fires in the preserve.

Route and Schedule

We paddled South with a tailwind for the first day.  Jason and Megan had an easier time handling the choppy water--my kayak tends to get buried in short, steep waves (likely my technique could use some work as well).  But we made good progress crossing to Annette and working our way Southeast down the Annette shoreline.  We paddled South of Bold Island and through the strait between Annette and Ham Island (cleverly named because it looks a bit like a leg of ham).  We weren't carrying much water at the trip and the weather had been relatively dry so we stopped to fill up our water bags and bottles at a small waterfall on the Annette side, inside Ham I.  We then camped on the SE end of Ham which at the time we believed was outside the Annette I. Preserve but may have been inside.  In any event, we saw no locals here (or at any time on the trip except for our visit to Metlakatla town.)

Our first night we had some challenges with midges.  These turned out to be an annoyance for the first several days of trip. 

Western Red Cedar.  Perhaps the grandest of Alaska's trees, its range
is limited to Southern Southeast Alaska, well South of Juneau. 
Exciting to see it here.

 

Day 2, July 17, we continued SW along the Annette shoreline, crossing to Duke between Cat and Dog Island.  We considered paddling North again to Mary Island to see the lighthouse there, but decided to continue South to Duke through Grave Passage, taking advantage of the calm and dry weather we were having.   That night we camped on Duke, just North of Flag Point.  Bugs were worse though we were able to cook and eat on a rocky point nearby so avoided the worst of the midges at meal time.  We continued our paddle around Duke on the 18th, camping near Mount Lazaro, near the Southern tip of Duke.  

Our pretty but buggy Duke Island camp on the 17th.

A highlight of the 19th was a paddle through the Percy Islands, named after "Hotspur" Henry Percy, made famous by Shakespeare's Henry the IV part I.  One of our Ketchikan friends had recommended them as a stop, a cluster of tiny islands joined by narrow, shallow channels that dry at low tide.  A beautiful and worthwhile segment.  

We lunched there and continued back to Annette Island, making the crossing with a growing tailwind that, though gentle by Dixon Entrance standards made for the choppiest conditions so far.  Continuing up the shoreline, we noted World War II-era ruins and stopping to examine a cove with several floating fish traps (legal on Annette but now illegal--since statehood--in Alaska waters outside the reservation).  This day of many attractions also included a stop in Metlakatla town where we chatted with several local families and walked over to the local grocery store for ice cream and sodas.  The previous several days we had struggled with biting midges that left us bumpy and welted--which became especially obvious after removing our drysuits for a walk to the supermarket.  The locals took our appearance in stride, however, and we had a lovely if short visit in town.  After finishing our drinks and ice cream bars we pushed off, paddling up the Annette shoreline and through what appeared to be a gillnet opener in tribal waters.  

Five days in we had already paddled what I imagined--after accounting for bad weather that never materialized--might take us twice as long.  Jason was interested in continuing across to Gravina Island and circumnavigating.  His estimate gave us plenty of time to do the fifty mile circumnavigation, especially considering the excellent weather which was forecast to continue for the next several days.  So on the 20th we crossed over to Gravina, working Southwest towards Dall Head (at the Soutern tip of the island) points back towards Annette Island.  Weather on the 20th was warm and calm, and the morning of the 21st, breaking camp in Bostwick Inlet, we woke to fog on the water which burned off as the day warmed.  

Strong Northerly winds were forecast for the 21st in Clarence Strait, on the west side of Gravina.  Nichols Passage, on the East side, was relatively sheltered and we had an easy paddle to Dall Head before turning into a strong head wind.  A network of intricate, sheltered channels allowed us to continue our progress North for a mile or two after turning the corner but before long the channels ran out and any further progress would be slow and painful, into 25 or 30 knot winds and short, steep chop.  We chose to stop for a long break in the early afternoon, hoping that the wind would settle in a few hours so that we could continue on without too much additional pain.  Our bet paid off and after spending several hours lounging on a shaded beach we were able to push on to Nehanta Bay where we camped for the night.  

Our afternoon break spot on July 21

 

On the 22nd, we continued North along the Clarence Strait side of Gravina.  We expected another day of strong Northerlies but the winds never really materialized and instead we had calm, settled weather with a bit of overcast and some sprinkles in the afternoon, this was (amazingly) the first overcast weather of the trip.  We made good progress but at the end of the day found ourselves approaching a heavily logged area with clear cuts down to the waterline.  This is a bit unusual; logging in Southeast Alaska was commonplace through the mid-1990s and clear cuts aren't unusual but typically logging operations left a buffer zone--usually a few hundred yards wide--near the shoreline so it's often possible to be camping near a past logging operation and not know it (or at least pretend not to know it).  In this case, our camping options were curtailed for several miles on account of clear cuts so we stopped in the last spot we could find, a small islet near Grant Cove.  We were able to find some flat spots to set up tents after climbing an embankment above the beach (and since I was sleeping in a hammock, flat ground wasn't as important for me as for Jason and Megan).  

Camp on the 23rd

At Jason's urging, we headed out on the 24th with the intention of crossing the Tongass Narrows to Betton and the Tatoosh Islands.  Jason had heard they were quite beautiful and with another day of good weather (amazing!) we found a camp spot on the Southwest corner of Betton Island, then paddled around Betton and explored the interesting channels and cliffs of the Tatoosh group.  We saw a number of tour groups from Ketchikan-based cruise ship excursions including a guided paddling group and several tour groups on inflatable rafts.  The side trip was worth the effort despite my initial reservations!  A beautiful spot to paddle.  

On the 25th, our final full day of kayaking, we paddled South into the Tongass Narrows.  I had identified a possible lunch stop on the way, as we were paddling along the Ketchikan road system, but we weren't able to identify a possible pull-out location so continued South, passing through several small boat harbors and eventually crossing to Pennock Island.  We stopped in several locations looking for a camp spot but struggled to find a location with enough flat ground for Jason and Megan's tents so continued on nearly to the Southeastern tip of the island where we found a pretty cove with hollow log (see the picture of Jason, above).  I hung my hammock just above the beach and Jason and Megan identified comfy flat ground for tenting.   

Our final paddling day was the 26th, we rounded the Southern tip of Pennock Island and returned to our put-in where we were met by friends who took us to the ferry terminal.  Our ferry wasn't scheduled to leave until the following morning so we spent the night at a hotel conveniently located across the street from the ferry, boarding early on the morning of the 27th and returning to Juneau the following day.  

Overall, fantastic trip with absolutely incredible weather.  

Highlights included the Percy Islands, the southern tip of Gravina and the Tatoosh group.  Duke Island was beautiful but we would have benefitted from windier weather to drive the bugs away.  Logistics were a bit complicated but launching and landing from the rip rap near the ferry terminal would be possible, lengthening the trip but simplifying in-town transport.  

I dealt with a number of gear malfunctions on the trip including a damaged cockpit coaming and a chipped greenland paddle.  I was able to make repairs with few problems, evidently my gear repair kit is functional (though now well used!). It may be time to replace some of my aging gear, including dry bags and my now-aging plywood kayak.  

I would absolutely do this trip again, and would in fact like to return to Ketchikan to spend more time exploring several of the areas we passed through.