Beluga Slough is formed by Bishops Beach and is the tidal estuary of a historical stream called Palmer Creek that drained a watershed on the southern flank of Diamond Ridge on the northern shore of Kachemak Bay in the community of Homer, about 121 miles (195 km) southwest of Anchorage and 15 miles (24 km) north-northeast of Seldovia, Alaska. Originally called Duck Lake in 1899, it was renamed Beluga Lake in 1904 on a map by Ralph W. Stone published by the US Geological Survey. The slough is surrounded by salt marshes and partially enclosed by a beach ridge composed of sediments eroded from steep bluffs to the northwest and transported across the mouth by alongshore waves forced by north-west winds in Cook Inlet. During winter, when freshwater discharge is minimal and wave energy maximal, the beach ridge often builds to completely enclose the slough, so that in spring a freshwater lake forms behind it. The lake persists until water pressure causes an outburst flood; thereafter, tidal flushing maintains an open channel. The tidal slough historically extended north-east from Bishops Beach for over a mile (1.6 km), with a vast wetland extending another mile from the head of tide. At high tide, the lower portion was navigable by small boats, which led to Homer’s early development.

Coal was discovered in the area in the late 1890s and exported from Coal Point at the end of Homer Spit, where the settlement of Homer was first established. Both the town and spit were named for Homer Pennock, a promoter and reputedly a con man who took a group of gold-seekers to Cook Inlet in 1896. The spit had no fresh water and was particularly inhospitable in winter. Early settlers preferred the mainland for agriculture and raising livestock, and Beluga Slough was used to land boats at high tide, where a community was established on the north shore at present-day Old Town. In 1899 the Cook Inlet Coal Fields Company built a railway from the coal mines to Bishops Beach, across the tidal channel and along Homer Spit to a deep-water wharf. The company surveyed an alternate route across Beluga Slough but never built it. In 1900 James Wickersham was appointed territorial judge of Alaska. Based in Eagle, he traveled extensively throughout the territory, and after visiting Kachemak Bay he envisioned a large city and future state capital. In 1938 the Homer Civic League made the first attempt to build a primitive road and bridge across Beluga Slough for easier access to the spit and an airstrip. In 1941 the Alaska Road Commission constructed a permanent causeway with a tide gate across the estuary of Palmer Creek, effectively blocking tidal exchange and creating Beluga Lake, which is now used exclusively as a floatplane base. During the second world war the Civil Aeronautics Authority constructed a long runway at Homer airstrip using beach gravel excavated from Munson Point so that fighter planes could refuel en route to the Aleutian Islands.

Judge Wickersham and four companions made one of the first summit attempts on Denali (then called Mount McKinley) in 1903. He became Alaska’s delegate to the US House of Representatives in 1909 and was instrumental in passing the Organic Act of 1912, which granted Alaska territorial status. He visited Kachemak Bay often and lobbied for the area to become a military logistical center for lower Cook Inlet. In 1921 he tried to interest the secretary of the navy, Josephus Daniels, and the secretary of the interior, Albert Fall, in building a major North Pacific naval base at Kachemak Bay. He wanted them to withdraw Homer Spit and some lands on the north shore and lay out a townsite, selling enough lots to pay for the necessary surveying. Secretary Daniels preferred locating a base in Hawaii instead, which led to the eventual construction of Pearl Harbor. Wickersham also tried to interest his New York friends in buying the Alaska Railroad and using Homer as a rail terminal, but this would have required building 150 miles (241 km) of additional track, and they declined. Wickersham eventually bought two parcels of land on Kachemak Bay from the homesteads of John F. Mullen and J.H. Lamb with military land warrants but never lived there. Read more here and here. Explore more of Beluga Slough and Bishops Beach here: