Cliff Falls is the outlet for Cliff Lake, located at the head of Deep Cove, approximately 1.1 miles (1.8 km) west of Patterson Point, about 41 miles (66 km) south-southeast of Sitka, and 17.5 miles (28 km) north-northwest of Port Armstrong, Alaska. Deep Cove is an embayment on the east coast of Baranof Island, and named in 1929 by the U.S. Forest Service. At the fjord’s head is the site of a historical herring saltery, reportedly operated by the Baranof Packing Company until around 1921. This location offered the only sheltered anchorage in Deep Cove, allowing vessels to anchor in 20 to 25 fathoms (36–45 m) where the fjord is otherwise too deep.

Pacific herring are ecologically important forage fish in the North Pacific ecosystem. For millennia, Alaska Natives have fished herring as part of their seasonal subsistence rounds. Since the late 1880s, herring have been subject to intense commercial fishing, and local communities claim that historical populations were larger and spawning areas more numerous. According to traditional knowledge, Deep Cove once had a spawning population of herring that is now extinct.

Herring were overfished by the early 1900s, leading to both local and regional impacts on spawning populations. By the time Alaska achieved statehood in 1959 and a modern fisheries management regime was established in the 1960s, many isolated herring populations in Southeast Alaska had disappeared. Today, herring stocks remain in a depleted status, representing only a fraction of their historical abundance and distribution. Read more here and here. Explore more of Cliff Falls and Deep Cove here: