King Cove is a small community on the Alaska Peninsula, partially situated on a spit separating King Cove Bay and King Cove Lagoon, located approximately 189 miles (304 km) west-northwest of Dutch Harbor and 18 miles (29 km) southeast of Cold Bay, Alaska. King Cove Bay spans 15 miles (24 km) and lies between Cold Bay and Belkofski Bay. The village was named for its founder and was originally referred to as “King’s Cove” by the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries in 1888.

King Cove has a school, a medical clinic, and a post office established in 1914. King Cove’s economy depends almost completely on the year-round commercial fishing and seafood processing industries. The village hosts a cannery recently operated by Peter Pan Seafoods but is now shuttered. This plant, with origins dating back to the early 1900s, boasted the largest salmon canning capacity in Alaska. All five species of salmon were once abundant in the waters near King Cove. In addition, the cannery processed King crab, bairdi and opilio tanner crab, pollock, cod, halibut, and black cod mostly caught in the Bering Sea and the Gulf of Alaska.

The community is served by the Alaska Marine Highway, a state-operated ferry service connecting villages on the Alaska Peninsula and the Aleutian Islands to the road network in Homer. The King Cove Road is a proposed gravel road intended to connect the community of King Cove to the all-weather airport in Cold Bay, ostensibly for emergency medical access. The project has faced legal and environmental challenges due to concerns about its impact on the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge. A partially completed road between King Cove and Cold Bay awaits funding for completion with a projected cost of about $80 million. An earlier project connected the villages with a road and hovercraft but was abandoned due to high maintenance costs. Read more here and here. Explore more of King Cove and the Alaska Peninsula here: