Chatham is a historic salmon cannery and village on the west shore of Sitkoh Bay on Chichagof Island in the Alexander Archipelago of Southeast Alaska, about 58 miles (93 km) south-southwest of Juneau and 13 miles (21 km) west of Angoon, Alaska. The village was named after Chatham Strait, which Captain George­ Vancouver named in 1794 for the English statesman William Pitt, the Earl of Chatham. Sitkoh Bay is 1 mile (1.6 km) wide and extends northwest for about 8 miles (13 km) into Chichagof Island from Chatham Strait, between Point Hayes to the east and Point Craven to the west. The name “Sitkoh” comes from the Tlingit language, meaning “among the glaciers,” and was first published by the US Coast and Geodetic Survey in 1883. Peril Strait separates the rocks of the Alexander terrane to the northeast from the Wrangellia and Chugach terranes to the southwest. Sitkoh Bay is separated from Peril Strait by the Moore Mountains, formed in the Early Cretaceous by a magma intrusion that resulted in a diorite pluton. This magma intruded the Alexander terrane, which on the southern shore of Sitkoh Bay consists mainly of Early Paleozoic sedimentary rocks, including limestone, graywacke, mudstone, and shale. The magma intrusion heated and metamorphosed the limestone, resulting in marble and other metamorphic rocks, such as hornfels, slate, phyllite, schist, amphibolite, and gneiss. During the late Wisconsin glaciation, approximately 26,000 to 13,000 years ago, an ice sheet covered extensive areas of the Canadian and Alaskan Cordillera. This ice sheet consisted of interconnected val­ley and piedmont glaciers and ice caps. Glaciers flowed from the western margin of the Cordilleran ice sheet to the Pacific Ocean and were joined by local glaciers from higher elevations on Admiralty, Baranof, Chichagof, and Prince of Wales Islands. This massive volume of ice was channeled into deep troughs, forming present-day fjords like Sitkoh Bay and Chatham Strait. The outlet glacier in Chatham Strait excavated a trough 12 miles (20 km) wide and 1,150 feet (350 m) deep, extending to the continental shelf‘s edge. The valley glacier in Sitkoh Bay left a low pass, enabling a portage trail to Tenakee Inlet in the north.

Sitkoh Bay held historical significance for the Tlingit people and was once claimed by the Ganaxadi clan of the Raven moiety, who had their main village at Angoon. According to oral tradition, the oldest part of Angoon, at the village’s southern end, was originally occupied by the Ganaxadi. When the ancestors of the Deisheetaan clan arrived, they, along with representatives from other clans, likely settled farther north. The Ganaxadi eventually relocated from Angoon, transferring their territorial rights to the Deisheetaan, including Sitkoh Bay. This area features a productive sockeye salmon stream approximately 5 miles (8 km) northwest of Point Craven. The stream flows east for about 4 miles (6 km) from Sitkoh Lake, which is 2 miles (3.2 km) long, 0.5 miles (0.8 km) wide, and situated at an elevation of 190 feet (58 m). A Ganaxadi village, known as Sit’qo or possibly Sit’xoo, was once located on a terraced knoll just south of the river’s mouth. Numerous petroglyphs are carved at the southeastern edge of the knoll on the bedrock and fallen slabs. A petroglyph is reputed to signify the transfer of a stream from the Ganaxadi to the Deisheetaan, which occurred before the arrival of the Russians in Alaska. When some Sitka Tlingit fled the Russians to Sitkoh Bay, the Angoon Deisheetaan allowed them to establish a settlement and granted them fishing rights. In 1890, a crew fishing for the Redoubt Cannery in Sitka entered Sitkoh Bay, forcibly taking over fishing in the most productive streams, backed by the US military. In 1900, a salmon cannery was built in Sitkoh Bay under an agreement with the Deisheetaan, allowing the clan to nominally retain ownership and control of the village and bay. The Deisheetaan and others from Angoon and Sitka worked for the cannery and maintained seasonal subsistence activities there until it closed in 1974. Angoon and some Sitka residents still fish in Sitkoh Bay for chinook salmon in the spring and sockeye salmon in July. Each year, 25–60% of Angoon residents report using Sitkoh Bay for subsistence fishing.

The Sitkoh Bay cannery was constructed in 1900 by August Buschmann of the Chatham Straits Packing Company. August was the son of Peter Thams Buschmann, a Norwegian immigrant who organized several canning companies and built at least five canneries. Since 1900, Norwegians have become well-established in the Pacific Northwest fishing industry as entrepreneurs, notably as managers of packing companies and owners of salmon salteries and canneries. Several of Buschmann’s five sons, all born in Norway, were highly active in the salmon industry. At age 20, August was sent to Sitkoh Bay to build a new cannery. That same year, the company packed about 60,000 cases, each containing 48 one-pound cans of salmon. The plant was sited at Sitkoh Bay because the company’s cannery at Petersburg, about 100 miles (161 km) away, received most of its fish from Chatham Strait, as there were practically no salmon around Petersburg that year. Although 1900 was expected to be a peak year for salmon in Chatham Strait, the run was disappointing. In the fall of 1900 and spring of 1901, Peter Buschmann sold three canneries and two salteries to the Pacific Packing & Navigation Company, which was acquiring facilities along the coast of Alaska and Puget Sound. The Sitkoh Bay cannery became known as the Chatham Cannery, featuring a post office from 1906 to 1963. It employed many Angoon Tlingit, with worker cabins scattered along the shoreline. Workers could buy winter supplies at reduced prices from the cannery store at the end of the fishing season. In 1904, the Pacific Packing & Navigation Company sold the cannery to George T. Myers, who then sold it to the New England Fish Company in 1929. This company operated the facility until 1974. The area around Sitkoh Lake was heavily logged from 1969 to 1974, with additional logging in the 1970s. Clear-cutting effects remain visible, and a network of logging roads surrounds the bay. Despite a 1978 fire that destroyed the main canning building, many cannery facilities, including much of the Alaska Native workers’ village, remain intact. Investors have since purchased the site, and a caretaker resides there year-round. Read more here and here. Explore more of Chatham and Sitkoh Bay here: