Things to do at Icy Strait Point

Jennie shares her thoughts about the best things to do at Icy Strait Point - a unique cruise port in Alaska near the village of Hoonah

Join the Alaska Planning Club on Patreon and ask me anything!

Sign up for Jennie's email list (and get the free packing list)

Jennie's digital workshops and planners (save 10% with code: podcast)

Follow Jennie on Instagram

Transcript

 📍 Welcome to the Alaska Uncovered Podcast with me, your host, Jennie Thwing Flaming, my occasional co-host and full-time husband, Jay, and I bring you accurate, helpful, and entertaining information about Alaska Travel and life in Alaska. Hey everyone. Before today's episode, I want to take a moment to thank our Patreon supporters. Patreon it is so wonderful answering your questions every week, and Jay and I are so grateful for your financial support that makes this podcast possible. If you want to join them, , I'll put the link in the show notes. It's $9 a month, and you can ask me questions anytime. , And,, then I answer them every week, and it's so fun. So if you would like that kind of support with planning your trip, or you just wanna support the podcast, join them at patreon.com/alaskauncovered. Enjoy the show Hey, everybody. Today, we are talking about Icy Strait Point. So this is a very unique cruise port in southeast Alaska. I'll talk more about what it is and what I wanna share with you in a moment. But just to set the stage, so I visited Icy Strait Point in May. I was not on a cruise. I did a trip over there from Juneau, and I've wanted to go there for a long time. But the reason I did it right now is because I think many of you know that I am writing a book. It is the Moon Guide to Alaska Cruise Ports, and it won't be published until October 2027. But this is the year, in 2026, that I'm doing the research and all of the writing. And Icy Strait Point is one of four places included in the book that I had not been to. And so therefore, it was one of the ones that I wanted to visit. So I went there in May. I also visited Klawock, which was really wonderful. I loved going there. I'm not going to talk about it in this episode because we already have an episode about Klawock, and in my email newsletter and in the planning club, I talked a little bit about my visit. I wanted to focus on Icy Strait Point today because it's such a popular cruise port that many people visit, and we don't have any episodes about it yet. But if you want to hear more about Klawock with Mary Edenshaw, who ha- her family has been in Klawock for many generations, , that episode was last year, and it was March 5th, 2025, episode number 108. So if you want to learn more about Klawock, definitely go back and listen to that episode 'cause it was a really fun one. Okay, so Icy Strait Point. So let's start with where it is and what it is. So Icy Strait Point is a private cruise port. It is Alaska Native-owned and operated by the Huna Totem Corporation, and it is near but not in the village of Hoonah. So Hoonah is about a mile and a half away from the cruise port, and that is part of the reason why it's such a unique location. So I wanted to share just a little bit about, why it's unique, what you can do there, So I think the first thing you should know is that because it's not In a town, like for example Juneau, Ketchikan, um, Skagway, Haines, um, where the cruise ship dock is right downtown, it means things are different, right? There's not, like, a road right by the cruise ship terminal. There's not a, a town with stores and restaurants to walk into. Um, you can visit the v- village of Hoonah, and I will talk about that in a minute. Um, but it's not, like, right there like it is, um, in some other cruise ports. So that's one thing to know. The other thing, and there are, of course, ups and downs to that, um, because this, even though it's in a historic cannery, everything that's there for sort of visitor experiences has been built in the last about 20 years or so. So that's kind of interesting. , There are plenty of tours, but there aren't, like, lots of people there at the dock to sort of get you on tours., You can book tours once you get there. I'd recommend booking them on the ship. So one thing that's kind of unique about Icy Strait Point is that all the tours that are operated within the port are gonna be the same price whether you buy them on the ship or on shore. If you want to go through a tour operator that's not affiliated with the cruise port, there are definitely, some companies, um, that do, things like whale watching and bear viewing, , and other cool adventures, fishing, that kind of stuff. So, um, definitely, uh, definitely consider that it's gonna, it's just gonna be, what's gonna be convenient is to book through the port because of the way that it's set up. So that is a little bit different from other locations in Alaska. Okay. No matter how you do it, whether you book it through Icy Strait Point or whether you book it through someone else, whale watching in Icy Strait Point is incredible. So you've probably heard me say Juneau has the best whale watching in the world, and I stand behind that. Um, but Icy Strait Point is just as good, right? It's the same kind of general area, and these are pl- you know, whale watching along the North Pacific Coast is good, very good. I think one thing that's different from, say, Hawaii or Mexico is that the whales are feeding, so they're showing kind of different behaviors and that kind of thing. So whale watching in this location is incredible, and I will say that if you book it there, you know, you can go basically right from the cruise ship almost directly onto the whale watching boat, which is quite unique. And especially if you have any mobility limitations, I would really encourage you to do it that way. That's a big advantage of, of being in this location. Anyway, so whale watching I would say is a must-do unless you are also going to Juneau and you are doing it in Juneau. Even then, I would consider doing it twice. This is an amazing place to do it. There are also kayaking tours that you can do where you have a good chance of seeing whales as well. Beautiful scenery. So if you're looking for something more active, definitely do that. I think another thing that I'm gonna call out specifically for, for Icy Strait Point that I got to do is ride the gondola up to the top of the mountain. Definitely if it's a clear day, the view up there is just incredible. And then you can also do the ZipRider, which is, like, this epic zip line that it's really quite amazing how high and how far it goes over the rainforest. I'm not into zip lining, so I declined that opportunity, but if you are, you should definitely do it. It's super cool, and everyone who was there who was doing it was like, "That was the most amazing thing ever." Um, so definitely recommend the zip lining. They have an Alaska Native culture presentation that's really good. It's called Alaska Native Voices, and you can get tickets for that either on the ship or on shore. They do a great job of, of storytelling and, it really was wonderful. There's also, if you're into food, they have- , a food and cooking kind of experience and you actually get to cook your own fish. So that is also really fun. So those are some highlights I'd recommend. There's also a beautiful trail that goes between the two cruise ship docks and around the whole port area to the historic cannery. There is a gorgeous orca statue. There is a beautiful beach. All of that to walk around, you can just do that on your own. Doesn't cost anything. You could just sit on the beach and check out the view or just be there. I did that for quite a while. It was pretty cool. Um, so that I would really recommend. And if you want to go into the village of Hoonah, which I wanna really encourage you to do, you'll have a really different experience from the cruise port. It's not a place, the village is not a place in general that's oriented around visitors, but it is very welcoming to visitors. And there is a trail called the Veterans Seawalk, um, that is a mile and a half long. It goes into the village, and it's paved, it's flat, it's beautiful, it's along the water. Alaska, I'm not sure if we've talked about this on the podcast before, but Alaska has more veterans per capita than any other state, and Hoonah has more veterans per capita than anywhere else in Alaska. And so they have, , a memorial in the village as well for veterans. The Seawalk has two beautiful poles that are carved by local master carvers, one to represent Raven Warriors and one to represent Eagle Warriors. It's really beautiful, and the trail is beautiful. And it's a really great experience. Even if you just walk a short distance on the trail, if you're not up for walking all the way to the village, or rolling, you could totally do this in a wheelchair. You can get out and see, get a view back towards the historic cannery, which is pretty cool. There's also a shuttle that's $10, um, that you can take either one way or round trip into the village. So that's another option. You could walk one way and then, um, take the shuttle the other way, or the other way around, however you wanna do it. So- That's something I'd really recommend. And then as far as food goes,, if you like Bloody Marys, so I, I will confess that I do not care for Bloody Marys, but if you do, you've gotta go to The Crab House and have the Crabby Bloody Mary. It's, like, kind of an epic signature thing. It's got this in- like wacky garnish that has this giant crab leg coming out of it. I really enjoy... I mean, I do love crab, and so I had lunch there. And, um, they have Dungeness crab, which is really cool. People, when they think of Alaska, they think of king crab, but this area has a super local Dungeness crab, which is what we also have in Washington, and locals will tell you that it's the best. So Anyway, um, get some crab. If, if you don't like crab, then I would skip The Crab House, obviously. I mean, they do have other things, but it's really a place for crab. They have a couple other restaurants that have, um, I didn't eat at them because I wanted to have the crab. They have burgers and pizza and things like that. So I'd recommend those as well. And then in town, there is The Fisherman's Daughter, which is this wonderful little local spot with all local seafood. There's also Icy Strait Brewing, which is a taproom. You can also get Icy Strait Brewing, um, beer in the port as well. So yeah, those are a few, uh, things that I would recommend about Icy Strait Point. Like I said, it's very unique and unusual, um, because it is a privately-owned cruise port. So is Klawock, but Klawock was, is a very different experience. Um, they do a really good job of managing people, so even if there's two big ships in, it doesn't feel crowded. There's lots of place for people to spread out, lots of things to do, lots of ways to learn about Alaska Native culture, lots of ways to learn about the fishing industry., There's a small museum about the cannery and about what happened with fishing, um, in that location. So anyway, um, I really enjoyed visiting, and I thought that it was also a particularly good cruise port for folks with limited mobility because, um, you know, kind of everything was built to be a cruise port. Um, there are some things that you don't have to navigate when you're in a town, you know, like, like traffic, for example . Um, and so I thought that was really cool. They have, um, they also have, in addition to the gondola that you pay for to go up the mountain, they also have a gondola that goes, that's free, that goes between the two docks. And so that is a way to kind of, it's about half a mile, so,, if you're not able to or you just don't want to walk that distance, you can ride in the free gondola. The gondolas are totally barrier-free. So I thought that was a particularly strong thing. I also thought all the open space,, to be able to walk around on the beach and on the walkway, and honestly, the, the Veterans Sea Walk was probably the highlight of my trip. But I'm a walker. I like to check out local trails. I really wanted to get to visit the village. So, um- 📍 Those are, yeah, those are my suggestions and my reflections on visiting Icy Strait Point. Thank you so much for listening, and see you next week