Hazy Islands Wilderness

The Hazy Islands Wilderness, a subunit of the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge, Gulf of Alaska Unit, is managed by the Fish and Wildlife Service. This is Alaska's smallest Wilderness area. Far offshore, beaten by wind and wave, Big Hazy Island and her four smaller sisters stick out of the frigid sea, providing predator-free nesting areas for large populations of common murres, pigeon guillemots, glaucous-winged gulls, horned puffins, and tufted puffins. Brandt's cormorants nest here, one of only two islands they inhabit in Alaska. Remote, without anchorages or campsites, beaten by frequent storms under high winds, the rocks called Hazy Islands are seldom seen, and human visitation is discouraged to protect the birds and the humans. The Wilderness receives 73.5 inches of precipitation each year; summer temperatures average in the low 50s and 60s (Fahrenheit) and in the low 20s and 30s in winter.