Around the pier at Icy Strait Point

Icy Strait Point is one of those places in Alaska that was historically just a salmon canning factory, but now is one of the favorite stopping points for cruise ships sailing down the coast of Alaska and along the Inland Passage. It is clear that the local authorities and businesspeople have invested strongly to make this very small place welcoming to cruise ship passengers and the latest investment is a high-speed cable car where modern gondola type cabins whisk you rapidly (if a little expensively) to the mountain-top to enjoy magnificent views of the surrounding ocean and mountain ranges.

But this story is nothing about that (although a future story will be). Before taking this ride to the top, I was captivated by the scene around the canning factory, which is now a museum and, you guessed it, a gift shop for tourists. The tide was quite low and so all the barnacles were exposed around the part of the wooden piling supports for the pier. Apparently, that is actually a thing! There really is a barnacle zone on wooden structures standing in the ocean as the conditions allow the barnacles and mollusks to live in the wet area between high and low tides.

The day was quite cold and cloudy and so I thought I was missing the nice blue reflection of a sky, and so I decided to try a black and white rendition of these posts and reflections. I still quite like the greenish tint of the water in this bay, but this monochrome version would make a very nice piece of abstract wall art, I think:

Just along the coastline, I came across two old and abandoned fishing boats that had been dragged onto the shore at some time in the past and just left there to rot (and also attract the tourists!)

I decided to see what sort of artistic images I could create here. The first was a close up of the name of the closest boat, the Interim. Strange name for a boat – was it just the boat that a fisherman used whilst he saved up for the white boat behind? And then what happened to the business? As far as I know, Salmon fishing is still a profitable business in Alaska.

Even after all this these brass letters are still bright and shiny – just the letter E has had an accident along the way. I love the texture of the worn and faded wood here. I guess it must have been varnished at some point?

The old cabin was also intriguing – you can imagine the captain looking out into the storms off the Alaskan coast and I converted it to black and white to give more of that feeling of a storm:

The white boat, which was painted rather than varnished, was larger than our Interim ship and maybe in a bit better condition:

Perhaps my imaginings about this being the second ship of our historic captain are correct after all!

You can find all my prints from Icy Strait Point which is near the small town of Hoonah in Alaska in my online Portfolio at Pictorem with free shipping in North America. If you live elsewhere and are interested in my prints, please get in touch!

This series of articles about the ports on the Viking Alaska Cruise continues with the mountaintop aspects of Icy Strait Point in this article.