Life on Alaska’s WILD West Coast! A Vanishing Frontier? Sailing the Gulf of Alaska

Tucked away on the wild edge of Alaska, where the rainforest meets the sea, lies a place almost lost in time. A village with no roads, no vehicles, a secret harbor carved into the edge of the world. We're on our way there, leaving the ice-filled bays behind, sailing offshore along the rugged coast of Alaska, where a vast expanse of Pacific Ocean meets the wild edge of North America. Here, nature writes its story in powerful waves, deep fjords, and endless mist. For centuries, the Gulf of Alaska has shaped the lives of those who call this coastline home. From the indigenous peoples who first fished its shores, to modern mariners who still brave its unpredictable waters. Seeking refuge in the remote indentations scattered along this coastline. Notorious for ragged weather and heavy waves, fierce storms churn the seas, creating some of the most turbulent waters on earth. Warm currents from the south collide with cold arctic flows, fueling powerful storms and rich marine ecosystems. Leaving the icy waters of the glaciers behind, we're making our way through narrow straits and miles of untouched coastline, towards a tiny village on the edge of the map. It's been a while since we felt the roll of ocean swell, pretty well since Hecate Strait. So before we entered Alaska, we have been in the Inside Passage, cruising up the fjords and inlets, heading to glaciers, and that's all on the protected inside waters of the Inside Passage and the mainland Alaska. We're really excited for the next leg of the trip because we're going to be out on the west coast, sailing down amongst the archipelagos and remote coves of the outside passage. Still mountainous, but really picturesque west coast vibes. Super, super excited. Excited to sail. We haven't sailed that much the last week. Looking forward to that. The past few months, we've navigated the far-reaching fjords of the Inside Passage, sailing deeper into the untamed north. From quiet coves to towering glaciers, we've made our way to 59 degrees north, chasing wilderness, wildlife, and the kind of adventure you only find out here. This coast is about as wild as it gets. Now we're turning our bows south, back towards our home waters of Canada. We're out here in Cross Sound. This is the first big open Pacific swell that reaches into the north of Alaska here. To our right, to the north, is the Gulf of Alaska, which is pretty crazy. Prince William Sound is really the next stop if you go that way. But we're going to hang a left and sadly go south because we've got to go back home for the winter. So we're going to take a left here, head down Linskinski Channel, and we're going to head down to Pelican, see if they've got a better supplied grocery store, which I imagine they will because they're a much bigger town. Living off-grid for a while, our provisions have dwindled. The last of the fresh food gone, piles of salt-stained clothes waiting for a wash, and the idea of a hot shower feels almost mythical. We love this. So fun. We're craving some delicious land comforts, a safe place to tie up, dry out, and sit down to a warm meal we don't have to cook on our small boat. Cheers. With the wind now dead and the wet setting in heavy, we decide to divert course to Elfin Cove, a place to rest and reset before the next stretch of open water calls us onward. I like these dock boats. It's just a dock with an outboard. I could get a smart boat. With a fuel tank on it. With a fuel tank on it. Such a sweet little boardwalk town. This boardwalk is like built along the rock wall and it's just sort of like in and out of the trees and you can see the boats going by. There's only like 47 people I think that live here all year round so it's not a busy place but it's really really cute. It reminds me so much of a cove down in the Broughtons called Telegraph Cove. A lot of you might have been there before. Very very similar vibe. There's lots of fishing boats and fishing lodges and they're all traversing this very narrow channel to get out to the west coast. Super protected back here like if you needed to ride out a storm or something, bomb proof. Approaching Elfin Cove the entrance is so narrow you almost miss it but a small channel reveals a hidden pocket cradled in the forest. A secret haven at the edge of the world. The back harbour is super protected from the westerly winds and waves that slam this coast. You could tuck away here for a lifetime safe from the storms that ravage outside. Yeah this place reminds me so much of like any of those little towns along the BC coast that were just like little maritime towns. Everything's built up on pilings sticking out over the rocks. There's boardwalks everywhere similar to like you know the Ocean Falls, the Butte Dales and it actually reminds me a lot of Guilford and Echo Bay where we spent a little bit of time two summers ago. Like many of Alaska's small coastal towns to live here is to enjoy a simpler existence. One where happiness is measured by the size of the daily catch. The boardwalk winds like a wooden ribbon along the shoreline connecting weathered homes and fishing lodges. The heart of the community used to primarily be a fishing community and there'd be like 50 to 60 boats back here in this small cove but it's definitely changing and now it's primarily fishing lodges which is interesting. So I don't know if that has to do with like the decline of the fishing industry or what's happening there but. Long before Charts marked its name these protected waters were home to the Tlingit people. Skilled mariners and stewards of the land. It wasn't until the 1930s that Elfin Cove began to take shape as a colonial settlement. In the early days it was little more than a remote outpost. A haven for pioneers, fishermen and those drawn to solitude. As the salmon runs flourished so did the community. Commercial fishing became the heartbeat of the cove with boats coming and going hauling and catches that sustained families and livelihoods for generations. This small village pulsed with life with a store, post office, small school and neighbors who knew each other by name. It really seems like Elfin Cove has undergone like a real transformation in the last like decade or so with the the changes in like commercial fishing and it seems that like most of the people who lived here full-time and the fishermen have kind of like slowly declined. There's not as many like commercial fishing boats, the school is closed down and in the place where commercial fishing used to be it now seems that like a lot of fishing lodges have moved in and it's primarily changed to like a tourism-based model and economy so there's less residents who live here full-time now and more people who just kind of come in transiently so it'll be interesting to see how the community changes over the next years. Today Elfin Cove remains one of Alaska's last true boardwalk villages. In the summer it comes alive with sport fishing lodges and visiting anglers but in the quiet months of the off-season the mist rolls in and the cove returns to silence. For folks here this is safe refuge not just from the wind and weather but from the rush of the busy world outside. This is the laundry room and it is probably the cheapest laundry that we've found up and down the coast so far which is pretty amazing. One dollar for a dryer. Isn't that incredible? That happens nowhere but pretty good job. It's for the fishermen and also three dollars for a 10-minute shower like what the heck. That's wild. Hot shower too. We were pretty excited to start the day with a hot shower and they even have a little coffee shop here. This is just the cutest little place. There's a little cafe here which I wasn't expecting. I guess it's just a startup coffee shop. Got to get ourselves a little cappuccino which is pretty novel out here in the west coast. There's not a lot going on so yeah having a little coffee waking up a little bit and enjoying the views. With all land luxuries thoroughly enjoyed it was time to think about getting a move on. Well guys it's time to get going because while Stealthfin Cove is a really cool place to visit there isn't exactly a whole lot to get here. We bought diesel, we bought some eggs and some bagels but the grocery store doesn't really have like the quantity of groceries that we actually are looking for because we've been out now on the boat for like three weeks since we left Juno. So we're gonna get out of here, we're gonna get off the dock and we're gonna head down to the community of Pelican which is just down the way down to Skinski Inlet and I can't say that properly so let's just move on. But it's another cool town, it's another boardwalk town but it's significantly bigger here than Elfin Cove so hopefully their grocery store is more provisioned and we're actually kind of in need of electricity because it has been so gray that our batteries are like down like 30% so we're going to recharge the boat before we head out again so that we can keep working, keep making videos and keep charging everything up. So if you've enjoyed this video thus far subscribe, hit the like button and we'll see you down in Pelican. In true Alaskan fashion it was bucketing rain when we set out for open waters. The rain was heavy at first but then eased to offer some momentary reprieve. We readied you into sails in hopes of catching a westerly breeze. Well we are back out on the west coast. We're out here in Cross Sound and we've kind of just come out from Elfin Cove but we're going to take a left here head down the Skinski Channel and we're going to head down to Pelican see if they've got a better supplied grocery store which I imagine they will because they're a much bigger town. So yeah it's just a couple of miles down this inlet hopefully the wind will continue to funnel down and we'll be able to just ghost along downwind at two and a half three knots or something fun like that. We rigged up a preventer line which stops the boat from crash jibing but the wind proved pretty light. Next we tried pulling out the headsail in an attempt to keep wind in our sails. Well failed attempt at sailing here this afternoon. Tried everything in our arsenal besides spinnaker but I don't even think there's enough wind for the spinnaker. It's a shame. So back with the iron horse. Okay yep back to the iron sail, the metal sail. It's a bit rolly out here. We're pretty low on provisions but we did have some ham which is amazing and cheese and we've got some ham cheese veggie scramble with bagels from Elfin Cone. Nice it's amazing I haven't had eggs in ages. Yeah oh yeah we have eggs too which is huge. They're like a staple for us. We're sailing again folks we just rolled the sails out and although the wind is very light it is so much nicer not having the engine on. The peacefulness, the tranquility, the rolling steady swell of the Pacific Ocean. It's lovely. Well we've rounded the point and we are now heading up the inlet between Yacobi and Chukagoth, Chicago. I have no idea if I'm saying those place names right but yeah we were met with headwinds which is interesting because there was sort of a westerly wind just out there and now I guess we're getting more localized winds off the mountains. It's going to be slow going up this inlet. It's also raining now, typical Alaskan weather. It's the beginning of August here in Alaska and I think it's pretty well the start of the fall or rainy season up here so I think we're going to be looking at rain every single day for the next little while which makes the going a bit tough because we're pretty exposed uh in our cockpit. I really envy people that have pilot houses, you've made a good choice. We're going to try to keep pushing up this inlet under sail. We're going to get to know the coast of these islands really really well because we'll probably have to do like 20 tacks before we reach Pelican but honestly that is so much better than motoring. We'll take it. Beautiful coastline out here, very very moody, mountainous, really really pretty. And so the game of traveling in a crazy zigzag of lines begins. Traveler down, grab leeward and steer you winter slowly through the wind. The sail's locked, the old working jib is released, winching quickly to trim the sail so as not to lose precious ground. The boat regains momentum, we sail to the other side of the channel and repeat over and over again. We're going to tack shortly and then we'll go out and imagine we'll end up turning back on the inlet as we approach the other side and then we'll just keep on doing that until we get somewhere. If you're too slow the sail flogs in the wind, the boat loses speed and you drift sideways. Uinta handles this maneuver pretty well but timing is key especially in stronger winds or swell. It's not just a change of direction, it's a rhythm, a dance with the wind that propels us forward. It's perseverance against everything that's trying to push you back. These inlet winds are so interesting, it's always really entertaining when you're sailing upwind inside the inlet because you always think that the wind's just going to funnel straight down but a lot of the time it's so shifty and weird with the contours and the inlet where the wind comes from that you actually end up curving your tacks. You come around and your tack just slowly ends up in this big arc until you're going dead down the inlet and then you get to the edge and then you tack down and go out and then it slowly curves around and then you're going straight up the inlet again. We're doing four or four and a half knots going upwind, fairly smooth flat seas, making good progress and the wind comes and goes and the rain comes and goes all in all it's pretty bloody good. And that's sailing for you, a full day of strenuous activity in the rain trying to get somewhere to buy a handful of groceries. This is a delicious soup, now made a lentil soup and it is absolutely amazing. It's just like hot and so tasty. I don't even know what she put in it but it's like spicy and gingery tomatoey and just has everything that you want on a cold wet day. The wind died and we stopped sailing upwind and we just moored the last couple of miles into Pelican and we're just arriving in you know next half a mile or so so should be exciting to go check it out. In the morning we woke to a clear sunny day, a rare gift here in coastal Alaska. The boat quiet, the water calm and the light catching on the mountains like something out of a painting. We wandered up from the docks following the boardwalk into town hoping to explore, stretch our legs and hopefully restock our very empty fridge and cooler. What you doing? Just filling out the registration here, it's a self-registration system so fill out your stuff put it money in the thing and drop it off at the office. Like Elfin Cove, Pelican is a pretty and quirky little place, the kind of town that feels like it belongs in another century. No roads, no traffic lights but the locals get around just fine. Folks here in Pelican aren't looking for hustle or speed, they're happy to be a little removed. To live life at a different pace with the mountains at their backs and the ocean at their front door. I am absolutely gobsmacked by this vista, it is so beautiful here in Pelican. Really really cool town, all boardwalk, little houses on pilings, just really really old school. This is reminding me of like any old Scandinavian town or something you'd see in Newfoundland. It's really really beautiful, we've got the first sunny day that we've had in weeks so we're out for a walk, stretching the legs, grabbing a coffee and gonna hit up the store. You always gotta check they're not cracked. Pretty impressed by the quality of the produce for such a remote town, like lettuce, snap peas, looks super fresh. Really nice to have green things again, we haven't had green things in a while. They have a well-stocked grocery store here, much better than the grocery store in Elfin Cove, so if you are in the neck of the woods and you need to get a few bits and pieces, coming to Pelican, definitely the way to go. Feels a little bit cheaper as well. The town is super cute, I really love the boardwalks and all the buildings on pilings, just reminds me of like the way that I imagine all the places in the coast being like, you know, the Butte Dales and Namu and all the other cannery towns and the industry towns and the Ocean Falls of BC. They all would have looked something like this during the heyday, so it's really neat to actually see a community that still is functioning as a community, still has an industry and is still going about their regular business the way they always have. These are the communities shaped by the sea, carved by the elements and held together by a shared love of a place that most will never find on a map. Thanks so much for watching guys, we hope you enjoyed this one. Super excited to take you along next week. We have a very special place that we want to go check out called White Sulphur Hot Springs. I've heard that it's one of the most amazing hot springs on the coast. This has got to be one of the most amazing places we have ever been. There's like a sliding glass door that opens up with an amazing view out into the bay. Definitely the nicest bathhouse we've ever been in. I cannot believe this exists just like out in the woods. But getting to this incredible destination proves to be a little challenging. It's a bit of a tricky passage, it looks pretty cumbersome on the charts. Lots and lots of rocks to pilot around. Basically kind of looks like a place you wouldn't want to enter. Hopefully this passage goes well without any drama and we can pilot around these rocks safely. Join us for all that and more in the next one. We'll see you then. Cheers!