Cannery Creek is the site of a salmon hatchery on the eastern shore of Unakwik Inlet in Prince William Sound and the Chugach National Forest, approximately 42 miles (68 km) northeast of Whittier and 41 miles (66 km) west-southwest of Valdez, Alaska. The creek is named after a salmon cannery built in the early 1900s by the Unakwik Packing Company, later leased to Pacific American Fisheries of Bellingham, Washington. The name does not appear on local maps or charts. Unakwik Inlet is a fjord extending south from the terminus of Meares Glacier for about 22 miles (35 km) to the northern coast of Prince William Sound. The Alutiiq name for the inlet was reported as “Unaguig Inlet” in 1898 by Captain Edwin F. Glenn of the U.S. Army. The current spelling was provided in 1910 by Ulysses S. Grant and Daniel F. Higgins of the U.S. Geological Survey. Northern Prince William Sound is part of the Southern Margin Composite terrane, dominated by two major geological formations: the Valdez Group from the Late Cretaceous and the Orca Group from the Paleocene and Eocene epochs. The Valdez Group is part of the Mesozoic accretionary complex known as the Chugach terrane, which extends 1,367 miles (2,200 km) along Alaska’s coastal margin from Baranof Island in Southeast Alaska to Sanak Island in the Aleutians. The Orca Group belongs to another accretionary complex from the Paleogene period, called the Prince William terrane, which spans northern Prince William Sound. Both groups are similar, consisting mainly of graywacke, siltstone, and shale. The Contact Fault, roughly aligned with Miners Creek, Miners Lake, and running through Miners Bay about 4 miles (6 km) north of Cannery Creek, marks the boundary between them. Valdez Group rocks lie north of the Contact Fault, while Orca Group rocks are found to the south. Underlying Cannery Creek are Orca Group turbidites with alternating layers of sandstone, siltstone, and shale, likely deposited in a mid-section of a deep-sea depositional fan. The surficial unconsolidated sediments covering the bedrock are primarily Holocene glacial moraine and outwash deposits.

The heavily glaciated north coast of Prince William Sound experienced repeated ice advances during the Neoglacial Period. Despite this hostile environment, humans have inhabited the area for thousands of years. The earliest known occupation is based on archaeological excavations at a prehistoric village site called Uqciuvit, located at the northern end of Esther Passage in Port Wells, about 16 miles (26 km) west of Unakwik Inlet. This village was inhabited between approximately 4,400 and 3,300 years ago. Little is known about these pre-Neoglacial people, except that they hunted sea mammals, used red ochre, and were familiar with slate grinding. Historically, Prince William Sound was occupied by eight geographic groups of Chugach or Alutiiq Sugpiat people. Although these groups shared the same language and culture, each was politically independent, with its own leader and principal village. The Kiniklik people, one of the original Chugach tribes, likely made contact with Europeans in 1790 when Spanish explorer Salvador Fidalgo reportedly visited Unakwik Fjord. In 1794, Lieutenant Joseph Whidbey of the Vancouver Expedition sailed into the bay and found its upper part blocked by ice. He noted the noise from ice falling off the glacier front. In 1905, Grant and Higgins visited the bay, returning in 1909 to document Meares Glacier. In 1956, Frederica de Laguna inventoried the Chugach settlements of Prince William Sound based on surveys from 1930 and 1933. She described a prehistoric Kiniklik village in Unakwik Inlet on the west shore near the fjord’s mouth. The main historical village, called Kiniklik, was located at the end of the peninsula separating Unakwik Inlet from Eaglek Bay to the west. It was already abandoned by 1930.

The Cannery Creek Hatchery was built in 1978 by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game as part of a fisheries rehabilitation and enhancement program for pink and chum salmon. In 1988, the State of Alaska contracted the Prince William Sound Aquaculture Corporation to operate and manage the hatchery. The chum program was discontinued in 1990 due to the cold lake water temperatures during winter. The hatchery currently produces 187 million pink salmon fry annually, generating an average return of approximately 6 million adult pink salmon. Pacific salmon are noted for their ability to return to natal streams to spawn. This homing behavior isolates populations and often leads to adaptations to specific watershed conditions. However, homing is not perfect, and some wild fish stray into non-natal spawning areas. Natural straying in salmon populations can be adaptive, enabling expansion into new habitats and supplementing populations with low genetic diversity. However, the straying of hatchery-reared salmon can disrupt wild populations. Hybridization between hatchery and wild salmon may reduce the adaptive fitness of wild populations. A 2013 study by the Alaska Sustainable Salmon Fund Project and the Alaska Department of Fish and Game indicated that streams throughout Prince William Sound contain more than 10% hatchery pink salmon. This level exceeds the proposed threshold of 2%–10%, complicating wild salmon escapement goals and potentially harming the productivity, genetic diversity, and fitness of wild salmon in the region. Read more here and here. Explore more of Cannery Creek and Unakwik Inlet here: