Cordova Bay is a bay in the

Alexander Archipelago The Alexander Archipelago (russian: Архипелаг Александра) is a long archipelago (group of islands) in North America lying off the southeastern coast of Alaska. It contains about 1,100 islands, the tops of submerged coastal m ...

of southeast

Alaska Alaska ( ; russian: Аляска, Alyaska; ale, Alax̂sxax̂; ; ems, Alas'kaaq; Yup'ik: ''Alaskaq''; tli, Anáaski) is a state located in the Western United States on the northwest extremity of North America. A semi-exclave of the U.S., ...

. It opens onto

Dixon Entrance The Dixon Entrance (french: Entrée Dixon) is a strait about long and wide in the Pacific Ocean at the Canada–United States border, between the U.S. state of Alaska and the province of British Columbia in Canada. The Dixon Entrance is part of t ...

to the south, between

Cape Muzon Cape Muzon is a cape located in the Alexander Archipelago of the U.S. state of Alaska. It is the southernmost point of Dall Island and the headland marking the northwestern extremity of the Dixon Entrance. The boundary line separating Alaska from C ...

Dall Island Dall Island is an island in the Alexander Archipelago off the southeast coast of Alaska, just west of Prince of Wales Island and north of Canadian waters. Its peak elevation is above sea level. Its land area is , making it the 28th largest isl ...

and Point Marsh (a group of small islets just off Prince of Wales Island). The name Puerto Cordova y Cordova was given by the Spanish explorer Lieutenant Don

Jacinto Caamaño Jacinto Caamaño Moraleja (1759–September 8, 1829 Guayaquil) was the leader of the last great Spanish exploration of Alaska (then Russian America) and the Coast of British Columbia. He was a Knight of the Military Order of Calatrava. Early life ...

in 1792, in honor of Admiral

Luis de Córdova y Córdova Admiral Luis de Córdova y Córdova (8 February 1706 – 29 July 1796) was a Spanish admiral. He is best known for his command of the Spanish fleet during the Anglo-Spanish War. His best remembered actions were the capture of two merchant conv ...

. The name was published by

George Vancouver Captain George Vancouver (22 June 1757 – 10 May 1798) was a British Royal Navy officer best known for his 1791–1795 expedition, which explored and charted North America's northwestern Pacific Coast regions, including the coasts of what a ...

in 1798. Cordova Bay is bordered on the west by Dall Island,

Long Island Long Island is a densely populated island in the southeastern region of the U.S. state of New York (state), New York, part of the New York metropolitan area. With over 8 million people, Long Island is the most populous island in the United Sta ...

, Tlevak Strait, and Sukkwan Island, and on the east by Prince of Wales Island. Cordova Bay extends north and west from its mouth to Lime Point, where it connects with Hetta Inlet. The Coast Survey lists the length as about from a point between the SE corner of Long Island and Dewey Rocks to Lime Point and an average width of about from Ship Islands to Lime Point. Hetta Inlet extends a further north, and then turns east for about . Gould Island almost closes the inlet shortly after it turns east, above this point the inlet is accessible only to small craft. Portage Bay is the portion of the inlet above Gould Island; a portage road (Sulzer Portage) connects it with Cholmondelay Sound. Cordova1

The Coast Survey does not consider Tlevak Strait (between Sukkwan Island and Dall Island), Hetta Inlet, or

Kaigani Strait Kaigani Strait (also, Kaigahnee, Kaigan, Kaijani) is a waterway in the U.S. state of Alaska, the southern part of the strait between Long Island and Dall Island. The Alaska Native name, as reported by Etolin is 1833, is Kalgan. Kaigani is the na ...

(between Long Island and Dall Island) to be parts of Cordova Bay, but the Geographic Dictionary of Alaska (1906) included the latter two, and also Sukkwan Strait (north of Sukkwan Island), as parts of the bay. In 2006, the US Supreme Court ruled against a petition by Alaska that would have declared all these waters, including Tlevak Strait, parts of a juridical Cordova Bay. If this petition had been successful it would have put all these waters under state control, rather than the current mix of state and federal jurisdiction. Cordova Bay and Tlevak Strait provide a sheltered route to

Bucareli Bay Bucareli Bay is a bay in the Alexander Archipelago, in the southeastern part of the U.S. state of Alaska. It is located off the western coast of Prince of Wales Island, between Baker Island and Suemez Island. To the east it connects to various wat ...

and other points on the west coast of Prince of Wales Island. The Coast Guard has estimated that 150 commercial fishing vessels use this route each week during the summer. The shores of Cordova Bay are a mix of federal land belonging to the

Tongass National Forest The Tongass National Forest () in Southeast Alaska is the largest U.S. National Forest at . Most of its area is temperate rain forest and is remote enough to be home to many species of endangered and rare flora and fauna. The Tongass, which i ...

, private land (mostly owned by

Alaska Native Corporations The Alaska Native Regional Corporations were established in 1971 when the United States Congress passed the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA) which settled land and financial claims made by the Alaska Natives and provided for the establ ...

), and a small amount of state-owned land. Much of the eastern shore of the bay is part of the

South Prince of Wales Wilderness The South Prince of Wales Wilderness is a wilderness area on Prince of Wales Island, Alaska, protecting 90,968 acres of undeveloped Pacific temperate rainforest, much of which is old-growth. Managed by the United States Forest Service as part of t ...

within the National Forest. The shoreline of the northeast part of the bay, around and between Hetta and Klakas inlets, is steep and rocky. South of Hunter Bay, the Prince of Wales shoreline is more gentle, rising to low rolling hills dotted with lakes. The other three large islands have a mixture of mountainous terrain and hills, with low-lying land at some places along the shore. The small city of

Hydaburg Hydaburg ( ) (''Higdáa G̱ándlaay'' in Haida) is a first-class city in the Prince of Wales-Hyder Census Area, in the U.S. state of Alaska. The population was 382 at the 2000 census and 376 as of the 2010 census. The name "Hydaburg" ref ...

is situated on the north shore of Sukkwan Strait. It is connected to the Prince-of-Wales road system and provides the only public road access to the bay. It has a harbor and a seaplane base. Hydaburg was formed in 1911 by consolidation of the three

Haida Haida may refer to: Places * Haida, an old name for Nový Bor * Haida Gwaii, meaning "Islands of the People", formerly called the Queen Charlotte Islands * Haida Islands, a different archipelago near Bella Bella, British Columbia Ships * , a 1 ...

villages on Cordova Bay. These villages were Howkan on the west coast of Long Island, Sukkwan at the northern end of Sukkwan Island, and Klinkwan on Prince of Wales Island at the mouth of Hunter Bay. Mining, saltery, and cannery villages on Hetta Inlet, now all abandoned, were Copper City, Hetta, Coppermount, and Sulzer. There were also canneries on Hunter Bay and on Rose Inlet (off of Tlevek Strait).

References

* Alaska Department of Commerce, Division of community and regional affairs. Alaska Community Database
Hydaburg
* Alaska Department of Natural Resources
Prince of Wales Island Area Plan Amendment (Inclusion of the Southwest Prince of Wales Island Area)
Maps 4-7 show land ownership around Cordova Bay. * Baker, Marcus (1906
"Geographic dictionary of Alaska, ed 2"
''United States Geological Survey Bulletin 299'' * Office of Coast Survey, NOAA (2010) Chapter 6 - Coast Pilot 8 - Edition 3
West Coast of Prince of Wales Island
* Le Cornu, Adrian (1996
"Haida"
in Frederick E. Hoxie, ed. ''Encyclopedia of North American Indians'' pp 227–228. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt , * Rey-Tejerina, Arsenio

Sectio

A lecture given at the Cordova Museum in summer of 1990, the bicentennial of the naming of the community. Reprinted at Explore North. * United States Geological Survey Geographic Names Identification System
Feature Detail Report for: Cordova Bay
* 546 US_(2006) Alaska v United States 128 Original
Decree entered January 23, 2006Report of the Special Master March 2004
* US Coast and Geodetic Survey (1917) United States coast pilot: Alaska. Dixon Entrance to Yakutat Bay, Part
Cordova Bay
p 95 ff. * US Forest Servic
interactive Prince of Wales Recreation Map
Brown areas are private land, light green is national forest, dark green is wilderness. * van den Brink, J.H. (1974
''The Haida Indians: cultural change mainly between 1876-1970''
Brill Archive. pp 226–228.

External links

US Geological Survey 1908 report including mining (mostly copper) at several sites on Hetta Inlet.
* Bufvers, John (1967
History of Mines and prospects, Ketchikan district, prior to 1952
State of Alaska, Department of Natural Resources, Division of Mines and Minerals. (John Bufvers was a miner and prospector in Alaska 1913–1938. The manuscript was written in 1952 and was published by the Alaska DNR for its historical and mineralogical value. The Hetta Inlet mines are covered on pp 22–25)

Biographical sketch of

William Sulzer William Sulzer (March 18, 1863 – November 6, 1941) was an American lawyer and politician, nicknamed Plain Bill Sulzer. He was the 39th Governor of New York and a long-serving congressman from the same state. Sulzer was the first, and to date ...

, developer of the Jumbo copper mine and namesake of the former village of Sulzer, on Hetta Inlet.
Coppermount, photograph showing boats and smelter and/or cannery.
(Description on the Alaska Digital Archives website says this is a cannery, but University of Washington sit

says it is a smelter. The center building looks a lot like another photograph showing the Coppermount smelter and tramway :File:Coppermount.JPG; the other buildings are not identified. The smelter operated 1900–1907. The Hetta Packing Company opened a cannery at Coppermount in 1921. * :File:Hetta Lake Hatchery.JPG
Klinkwan 1892

Sukkwan

Sulzer, 1910

South Prince of Wales Wilderness

{{Authority control Alexander Archipelago Bays of Prince of Wales–Hyder Census Area, Alaska Bays of Alaska

See also

References

External links