Windham is a settlement that historically supported mining operations along Spruce Creek at the head of Windham Bay, about 63 miles (102 km) southeast of Juneau and 57 miles (92 km) north-northwest of Petersburg, Alaska. Windham Bay was named after Point Windham, located at the bay entrance on the eastern shore of Stephens Passage. The point was discovered by Lieutenant Joseph Whidbey in 1794 and named by Captain George Vancouver, probably for William Windham, who served as Britain’s Secretary of War at the time. Spruce Creek rises from a snowfield on the northeast flank of Peak 4330 and flows generally west for 3.5 miles (5.6 km) to the head of Windham Bay. The bay is about 8 miles (13 km) long and 1.5 miles (2.4 km) wide at its entrance, narrowing rapidly to a channel about 700 feet (213 m) wide that connects with a deep inner basin ending at an extensive tidal flat and salt marsh formed by Spruce Creek. The creek’s headwaters are underlain by sedimentary and minor volcanic rocks formed from the Permian to the Cretaceous period (about 300 million to 66 million years ago), subsequently metamorphosed by a magmatic intrusion represented today by the Coast plutonic complex. The bedrock at the Spruce Creek headwaters is the same band of gold-bearing schist and shale exposed on the south side of Endicott Arm at Sanford Cove.

The eastern shore of Stephens Passage south of Holkham Bay is the traditional territory of the Tlingit Kéex’ Kwáan, who now inhabit the village of Kake on Kupreanof Island. The Kake tribe historically controlled trade routes around Kuiu and Kupreanof islands and defended their territory against rival groups. The Russian-American Company established a trading post at Sitka in 1799 and again in 1804, after which the Kake people were visited by maritime fur traders seeking sea otter. Gold was known in the region during the Russian period, but no mining occurred until after the Alaska Purchase in 1867, when prospectors disappointed in British Columbia’s Cassiar gold district discovered gold placers at Windham Bay and Powers Creek. Between 1870 and 1871, the first gold produced in Alaska was extracted from these placers. In 1888 the Spruce Creek Mining Company made the first extensive development, acquiring the two lower basins of Spruce Creek. The company built a hydraulic pipeline to bring water from higher elevations to sluice the streambed gravel, but after two years of limited success the operation ceased. In 1900 the Windham Bay Gold Mining Company was formed to develop gold-bearing ore in ledges 0.75 miles (1.2 km) from the bay on the south slopes of Spruce Creek. The prospect comprised nine claims known as the Red Wing group, the ore body being a series of quartz veins in slate. By 1906 the mining camp of Windham consisted of a dozen houses along the waterfront on the north side of the inner bay.

Chuck River flows into the inner basin of Windham Bay from the south, forming a gravel-filled valley about 1 mile (1.6 km) wide and 14 miles (23 km) long. The gravel bed averages 5 feet (1.5 m) deep and was hydraulically sluiced from the historic Chuck Mining Camp until the 1920s. About 8 miles (13 km) up the valley, at an elevation of 600 feet (183 m), the Golden River Mining Company staked another group of claims. Several miners were employed in the summer of 1903 to drive a 300-foot (91 m) tunnel to divert the river and expose the gravel bed for sluicing. Work continued through 1904 and 1905 but was never profitable. In 1990 Congress established the Chuck River Wilderness within Tongass National Forest, covering 74,506 acres (30,152 ha) to protect old-growth forest and the Chuck River riparian corridor, a major producer of pink salmon. Black bears, wolves, and mountain goats inhabit the forested mountains. The wilderness is adjacent to the Tracy Arm Fords Terror Wilderness. Read more here and here. Explore more of Windham and Windham Bay here: