Bay of Pillars, Kuiu Island

Bay of Pillars, Kuiu Island

by | Jan 9, 2023

Bay of Pillars is on the west coast of Kuiu Island and 1.5 miles (2.4 km) across between Point Sullivan to the north and Point Ellis to the south, about 52 miles (84 km) southeast of Sitka and 52 miles (84 km) west-southwest of Petersburg, Alaska. In 1883, William H. Dall of the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey published the local descriptive name that refers to the abundance of obstructing rocky islands and reefs.

In 1890, the Astoria & Alaska Packing Company built a cannery on the southern shore of Bay of Pillars about 4 miles (6.5 km) northeast from Point Ellis. This cannery was burned in 1892 and the site and remaining buildings were purchased by Jack Mantle who operated a saltery in each of the Pillar Bay arms. The principal streams in this vicinity fished for commercial purposes were Kwatahein Creek, Kutlaku Creek, Pillar Bay Stream in Rowan Bay, and Kuiu Stream (or Alecks Stream) in Tebenkof Bay.

Bay of Pillars is in the Kuiu Wilderness, part of a preserve protecting old-growth temperate rainforests, coastal estuaries, and subalpine meadows. A rustic camping shelter was built in 1997 near the Bay of Pillars’ shoreline. The area is a popular destination for sea kayaking with several portages available during bad weather conditions. Read more here and here. Explore more of Bay of Pillars here:

About the background graphic

This ‘warming stripe’ graphic is a visual representation of the change in global temperature from 1850 (top) to 2022 (bottom). Each stripe represents the average global temperature for one year. The average temperature from 1971-2000 is set as the boundary between blue and red. The color scale goes from -0.7°C to +0.7°C. The data are from the UK Met Office HadCRUT4.6 dataset. 

Credit: Professor Ed Hawkins (University of Reading). Click here for more information about the #warmingstripes.

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