Blind Slough is a roughly 4-mile (6.5 km) estuary that forms the lower reach of the Blind River, which flows northwest across Mitkof Island to Wrangell Narrows, about 24 miles (39 km) northwest of Wrangell and 12 miles (19 km) south of Petersburg, Alaska. Lieutenant Commander Henry E. Nichols of the U.S. Navy named the river in 1891. It had previously been called “Blind Passage”, in the mistaken belief that it cut clear across Mitkof Island, linking Wrangell Narrows to Sumner Strait.

At the head of the slough sits a 2 MW hydroelectric plant that has supplied electricity since the 1920s; construction began in 1921, and the plant was fully operational by 1925. A steel penstock carries water more than 1,200 feet down from Crystal Lake to the powerhouse. After generating power, the water is either piped directly to the Crystal Lake Hatchery or returned to Crystal Creek, which eventually empties into Blind Slough. The plant supplies about 20% of the electricity used by Petersburg Municipal Power and Light.

The Crystal Lake Hatchery is operated by the Southern Southeast Regional Aquaculture Association (SSRAA), a nonprofit whose mission is “to enhance and rehabilitate salmon production in southern Southeast Alaska to the optimum social and economic benefit of salmon users”. The aquaculture association runs six hatcheries in the region (Burnett Inlet, Crystal Lake, Deer Mountain, Klawock River, Neets Bay, Whitman Lake), raising salmon before releasing them into the wild. The state built the Crystal Lake facility in 1971-72; it remains owned by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game‘s Sport Fish Division, while SSRAA has operated it under contract since 2000, following a cooperative arrangement dating to 1986. It remains one of the region’s oldest hatcheries still in operation. Read more here and here. Explore more of Blind Slough and Mitkof Island here: