Sitka Lighthouse is privately owned and located at the northwestern end of Galankin Island in Sitka Sound, approximately 43 miles (69 km) southwest of Angoon and 1 mile (1.6 km) south-southwest of Sitka, Alaska. Galankin Island lies between the Beardslee Islands to the west and the Ball Islets to the east. The lighthouse was constructed in 1983 by Burgess Bauder, a local veterinarian, who spent 18 months hauling building materials and constructing it on the high point of the one-acre (0.4 ha) private island. It is registered with the U.S. Coast Guard as an active aid to navigation. The surrounding islands are part of a rock formation known as Sitka graywacke—a sequence of thin-bedded and massive sandstones that originally formed as turbidites in a deep ocean trench. These rocks were partially metamorphosed and uplifted when the Chugach terrane accreted to the west coast of North America.

Galankin Island, measuring 0.8 miles (1.3 km) in length, was initially named “Ostrov Peschanyy,” meaning “Sandy Island,” in 1809 by Russian navigator Ivan Vasiliev. In 1850, Captain Mikhail D. Tebenkov of the Imperial Russian Navy renamed it “Ostrov Galankin,” deriving the name from “galanka,” which means “brick stove.” In 1880, Captain Lester A. Beardslee of the U.S. Navy, commanding the USS Jamestown, renamed the island “Thompson Island” in honor of Richard W. Thompson, Secretary of the Navy under President Rutherford B. Hayes from 1877 to 1880. In 1883, William H. Dall of the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey named the Galankin Islands, a larger group that includes Bamdoroshni, Galankin, and Whale Islands, along with many smaller surrounding islands. These include the Gilmore Islands, the McClellan Group, the Ball Islets, the Beardslee Islands, and Sheep, Katz, Rockwell, Breast, and Kutkan Islands. The Ball Islets, named in 1879 after Colonel Mottrom D. Ball, the Collector of Customs at Sitka, form the eastern part of the Galankin Group. Ball was notable for presiding over the HMS Osprey Incident.

The first lighthouse in Alaska began operation in Sitka in 1834 when the Russian-American Company placed a small whale-oil lantern in the cupola atop Baranof’s Castle. Following the Alaska Purchase in 1867, George Davidson of the U.S. Coastal Survey conducted an extensive survey and recommended building two lighthouses in Sitka. Although Congress did not act on Davidson’s report, the federal Lighthouse Board continued to assess navigational hazards in Alaska. They primarily relied on buoys and other non-lit markers left by the Russians. Jurisdiction over the Sitka light was transferred to the Lighthouse Board, with a lone keeper maintaining it for 40 cents per day. Baranof’s Castle burned down in 1894, and the light was never replaced. Read more here and here. Explore more of the Sitka Lighthouse and Galankin Islands here: