Burnett Inlet is a narrow, estuarine fjord that extends about 9 miles (15 km) north from Clarence Strait into the southwest coast of Etolin Island, roughly 63 miles (101 km) northwest of Ketchikan and 25 miles (40 km) south-southwest of Wrangell, Alaska. In 1886, Lieutenant Commander Albert S. Snow of the US Navy on the US Coast and Geodetic Survey ship Carlile P. Patterson named the inlet in honor of Lieutenant J.C. Burnett. Clarence Strait is a 126‑mile (203‑km) water passage between Dixon Entrance to the south and Sumner Strait to the north in the Alexander Archipelago of Southeast Alaska. Etolin Island lies southwest of Wrangell Island, between Prince of Wales Island to the west and the Alaska mainland to the east. The island measures about 30 miles (48 km) in length and 10 to 22 miles (16–35 km) in width, with a land area of 216,979 acres (87,808 ha). Originally named Duke of York Island, it was renamed after the Alaska Purchase in 1867 in honor of Adolf Etolin, governor of the Russian-America colonies from 1840 to 1845. Burnett Lake, located on Etolin Island at an elevation of 212 feet (65 m), has an outlet stream about 0.5 miles (0.8 km) long that drains into the eastern shore roughly 4 miles (6.4 km) south of the head of Burnett Inlet. The geology of southeast Alaska from the middle Jurassic through the Eocene was shaped by the accretion of successive tectonic terranes along North America’s western edge. The Coast Mountains Batholith was emplaced from the Late Cretaceous to the Eocene. In the Late Eocene—about 43 million years ago—the convergence and subduction of the Pacific Plate beneath the North American Plate gave way to the current strike-slip motion. After a lull in igneous activity about 35 million years ago, magma intruded, forming a belt of igneous rock that cuts across the terrane boundaries. This belt is exposed in Burnett Inlet as granite, flanked to the north and south by gabbro-diorite.

The mouth of the Stikine River and the area around Wrangell lay at the heart of Tlingit territory claimed by the Shtax’héen Kwáan, a powerful and warlike people renowned for their ferocity. Their lands and waters extended farther than those of any other Tlingit tribe, encompassing rich salmon streams, lakes, and parts of Etolin Island, as well as territory shared with the Xook’eidí, Kaach.ádi, and Teeyhittaan clans. Traditionally, the dominant Tlingit clan controlled fishing rights over individual salmon streams, with prized sockeye runs hosting summer camps and smokehouses near spawning sites. The Shtax’héen Kwáan likely maintained the longest continuous contact with Euro‑Americans aside from the Sitka tribe. In 1792, Spanish explorer Lieutenant Jacinto Caamaño sailed the frigate Aránzazu while exploring the region. The following year, Lieutenant James Johnstone—an officer on George Vancouver’s 1791–95 expedition aboard HMS Discovery—charted the southwest and east coasts of Etolin Island, not realizing it was an island. In 1833, the Russian-American Company established a garrison at Wrangell, known as Redoubt St. Dionysius, to secure the fur trade with the Stikine Tlingits. In 1840, the Russian garrison was transferred to the Hudson’s Bay Company under a treaty between Russia and Britain. Following the Alaska Purchase in 1867, the post later became Fort Wrangell and then the town of Wrangell, attracting settlers, Euro‑American gold seekers, fur trappers, and traders. The advent of salmon processors and the proliferation of canneries in southeast Alaska quickly disrupted traditional Tlingit control of salmon streams. In 1889, Congress enacted the Alaska Salmon Fisheries Act in response to declining stocks, banning dams, barricades, and other obstructions—including traditional Tlingit traps and weirs. In 1924, the White Act prohibited stationary weirs and traps in tidal river mouths, paving the way for commercial fisheries to supplant traditional practices. These measures reshaped the regional economy and remarkably altered indigenous practices. The legacy of these shifts is clearly evident in today’s salmon fisheries and cultural memory, underscoring the profound impact of Euro‑American contact on Tlingit life.

Alaska’s salmon hatchery program emerged in response to historically low salmon abundance in the early 1970s. In 1972, voters amended the state constitution to restore and maintain the fishing economy by exempting the ‘no exclusive right of fishery’ clause. This change permitted limited entry to state fisheries and allowed broodstock and cost-recovery harvest for hatcheries. In 1973–74, the salmon harvest totaled just 22 million fish. In 1974, the legislature expanded the program by authorizing private nonprofit operators. Between 1969 and 1983, the state built 18 hatcheries, initially operated by the Department of Fish and Game. By the mid-1970s, private nonprofits began constructing hatcheries, and in 1988 an act allowed state facilities to be run by hatchery corporations. Today, all state-owned commercial hatcheries are managed by private operators. Favorable environmental conditions, limited fishing effort, abundance-based harvest management, habitat improvements, and hatchery production gradually boosted catches. Between 2008 and 2018, annual commercial harvests averaged 177 million fish—an 800% increase from the early 1970s. The Burnett Inlet Hatchery was built by Alaska Aquaculture Company to produce chum salmon but went bankrupt in the mid-1990s. In 1995, the Southern Southeast Regional Aquaculture Association took over. Initially funded by local commercial fishermen, the hatchery now relies on a cost-recovery fishery and has been retrofitted to produce sockeye, coho, and chum salmon. Hatchery chum runs in Southeast Alaska grew from 800 fish in 1977 to over 13 million in 2006, accounting for 71% of the region’s commercial common property harvest. Concerns remain that mixing hatchery and wild salmon may reduce wild fitness. In 1975, hatcheries began coded wire tagging chum salmon, but only about 1% are tagged because of cost and labor. Coded data show rare straying more than five miles from the release site. Thermal marking—now standard—marks entire production at lower cost, and recoveries indicate 28% stray more than five miles away. Read more here and here. Explore more of Burnett Inlet and Etolin Island here: