San Juan Bay Cabin

San Juan Bay Cabin offers a remote, scenic setting on Montague Island in the Chugach National Forest in southcentral Alaska, with fishing, wildlife viewing, hunting and beachcombing at hand. Access to the cabin is by wheel plane at low tide from Cordova or Seward. Visitors are responsible for their own travel arrangements and safety. The cabin is about a mile south of San Juan Creek, so it's a bit of a hike to get to the fishing, but the creek has good runs of coho and pink salmon and Dolly Varden from mid-July through mid-August. Hunters can take advantage of a long season on the island and in the surrounding national forest — bear in spring and fall, deer from late summer through late fall. The sandy landing beach, located a half-mile from the cabin, is a good place for beachcombers to search for glass Japanese fishing floats and other sea-borne treasures. The 14x16-ft rustic cabin can sleep up to six people on wooden bunkbeds without mattresses, and is equipped with a table, wood stove, oil stove, a rainwater catchment barrel, axe, saw, splitting maul and an outdoor pit toilet. The site is also equipped with an accessible ramp. There is no running water or electricity: bring your own water, food, #1 stove oil, sleeping bags and pads, cook stoves, matches, cut firewood, cooking gear and utensils, a lantern or flashlight, toilet paper, first aid kit and garbage bags. Visitors should be aware that some of the land on Montague Island is owned by the Chugach Alaska Corporation, and access to these lands requires permission from the corporation. The area was extensively roaded and logged by the corporation from 1994 to 1998. Montague Island lies in the Gulf of Alaska at the entrance to Prince William Sound. The cabin is located at the edge of a large grassy clearing near a dense spruce forest, with low forested hills rising from the surrounding area and muskeg openings dotting the landscape. This part of the island uplifted about 35 feet as a result of a 1964 earthquake; when the area lifted, the bay drained, and it is now a meadow with the creek running through it, where a new-growth Sitka spruce forest is coming in. Wildlife near the cabin abounds, including migratory waterfowl, Sitka black-tail deer and brown bear.