Dry Strait is a tidal channel of the Stikine Flats, part of the Stikine River delta separating Mitkof Island to the west from Dry Island to the east in the Stikine-LeConte Wilderness, about 21 miles (34 km) southeast of Petersburg and 11 miles (18 km) north-northwest of Wrangell, Alaska. The strait is named for being unnavigable at low tide, particularly the section between Mitkof Island and Little Dry Island. The river delta is a prograding accumulation of sediment deposited by the Stikine River. The Stikine River starts from glaciers in the Stikine Icefield of the Southeast Alaska and the Spatsizi Plateau in British Columbia and flows generally southwest for 379 miles (610 km), draining a watershed of 12,608,000 acres (5,102,277 ha). The Stikine River creates one of the few natural passages through the Coast Mountains, and for thousands of years it has been used as a trade route by indigenous peoples. The Pacific coastal part of the Stikine basin is the traditional lands of the Stikine band of Tlingit known as the Shtax’héen Kwáan.

The bedrock geology of Southeast Alaska consists of a complex of micro-terranes that were accreted onto North America during the late Mesozoic. These terranes are bounded by strike-slip faults and intruded by granitic plutons. The Stikine flows west cutting through the mountains to reach the Pacific, suggesting that the river developed prior to the uplift of the Coast Mountains. The ancestral Stikine River may be as much as 50 million years old, with the present uplift of the Coast Mountains starting about 7 million years ago. Several times during the Pleistocene, Southeast Alaska was covered by the Cordilleran Ice Sheet, which during the last glacial maximum between 21,000 and 17,000 years ago, reached the edge of the continental shelf. As the ice sheet retreated, glacial marine sediments were deposited that were later isostatically uplifted as much as 660 feet (200 m) above sea level. During the Holocene, bedrock was covered by a veneer of Neoglacial drift including glacial lacustrine and glaciomarine deposits, till, and outwash. Today, grass flats, tidal marshes, and shifting sandbars cover the delta area. The Stikine Delta is 16 miles (26 km) wide and encompasses over 27,000 acres (10,926 ha) of ecologically important freshwater and tidal wetlands within the Stikine-LeConte Wilderness Area.

The Stikine-LeConte Wilderness includes about 448,841 acres (181,640 ha) on the mainland 6 miles (10 km) west of Petersburg and 7 miles (11 km) north of Wrangell. The boundary extends from Frederick Sound on the west to the Alaska-Canada boundary on the east and includes the Stikine Flats, a critical habitat for migrating birds with an estimated 1 to 3 million shorebirds stopping here from late April through early May. Western Sandpiper is the most abundant species but at least 21 other shorebird species stop to feed on the Stikine Flats including Black-bellied Plover, American Golden Plover, Greater Yellowlegs, Red Knot, Solitary Sandpiper, Spotted Sandpiper, Whimbrel, Hudsonian Godwit, Least Sandpiper, Baird’s Sandpiper, Dunlin, Long-billed Dowitcher, and Common Snipe. The river also provides access to interior deciduous forest habitats where migratory songbirds breed. Species not usually seen near the coast can be found here, like Western Tanagers, Northern Water thrush, Warbling Vireo, and Black Swifts. Read more here and here. Explore more of Dry Strait and Stikine River here: