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Day 3: Tripping on the Alaska Marine Ferry to the Aleutian Islands
Chignik and Sand Point
Grey clouds hung low, obscuring the massive Alaska Range to our north as the Tustumena ferry steamed ahead. Thankfully, we had been spared the roiling seas and sharp winds that can spring up in the Shelikof Strait, even forcing the ferry to miss its scheduled stops because of impossibly bad weather.
We chugged into Chignik on schedule just before noon.
Only ninety-one people, more than half of them native Onangax and Alutiiq, live year-round in this small city. Most people would call the place a village, certainly not even a town. The settlement hugs a narrow strip of flat land, with mountains rising just outside the back doors of its sagging houses.
For the past 100 years, Chignik has gotten its economic steam from a fish processing plant on the edge of town. The cannery provides work and. provide services for work for many of the residents.
Nearly twenty-five percent of Chignik’s residents came to the dock to greet the Tustumena, the women carrying children in their arms. As we lined up to get off the ferry to explore this remote…
