Jupiter is In – Everyone is Out
Jupiter’s third visit to Craig aligns with Independence Weekend. Concerned about a crush of humanity arriving by boat for the acclaimed festivities, the crew contacts Harbormaster Hans who holds space for us along the transient float in North Cove Harbor. Thrilled to find moorage within this busy fishing port, Jupiter lands as directed behind an unengaged pilot boat, and the crew wonders “What me, worry?” as marina vacancies far outnumber vessels in port. The troller fleet is off fishing and recreational vessels are entirely missing.
Trolling is a low-volume, high-value fishery consisting of small boats, usually operated by families, that fish primarily for premium salmon using heavy stainless lines, with multiple lured hooks, and weighted by 60lb lead balls. They move through the water at about 3kts with long arms outspread. Each fish is individually hand-landed, unhooked, stunned, processed, and frozen in briney slush ice in an insulated hold beneath the deck. Craig has a relatively large fleet of around 20 trolling boats engaged in this sustainable fishery. Local sources tell us that the season is slow to start.
When you arrive at a place by boat you immediately become part of the scene, and within an hour most everyone in Craig knows there are “yachties” afoot. The center of town is a narrow isthmus of land separating North Cove and South Cove Harbors and East and West Craig. The crew sets off west to the Dockside Café serving good food with gossip gravy. Craig appears much the same as we had forgotten previously.
Folks are friendly and welcoming and will give you any answer for any question, and then elaborate.
3 July 2026
The Friday before Independence Day dawns at 4:30 a.m. making a cloudy, cold start that soon involves a pitiless nor’wester saying “So what?” to planned holiday festivities. This attitude neither deters nor delays the annual Kids Fishing Derby along the floats in Jupiter’s harbor. The crew, bundled in extravagant layers of foul weather gear, make way through families dressed in t-shirts and shorts reeling in slimy and spiny creatures, known and unknown, from the dockyard depths. All species are carefully measured, recorded, released and prizes are awarded to nearly everyone involved.
Next up: the greased pole contest where youngsters attempt to walk the length of a spruce sapling over 50º water in an attempt to grab a Key Largo pool float nailed to the end of a cantilevered tree. A “What, me worry?” enthusiasm for the cold challenge continues long after the event ends.
The wet day wraps up at dusk around 11:00 p.m. when rockets’ red glares disappear into a low virgal overcast.
4 July 2026
Craig’s mostly motorized parade honks its way along the east to west avenue between marinas attracting much of the population of Prince of Wales Island. Cars become trollers, pickups become floats featuring the ABCs of small towns: Agencies, Businesses and Churches. In a moment of shock and awe a logging truck appears carrying impossibly large logs cut from an ancient spruce trailered in from recent heli-logging operations.
Craig, Alaska invests a significant percentage of its annual budget on Fourth of July events, and the lavish dispensation proves well spent as hundreds of happy friends and families gather at the city ballpark for food, fun, games, general strutting, hooping, and hot-dog stuffing.
July 1775
Tlingit and Haida people have used these waters for millennia. It is still an indigenous maritime homeland—forested, canoe-connected, and used for fishing, hunting, travel, and seasonal harvesting—but it is no longer wholly beyond the horizon of European exploration. Spanish ships appear along the outer coast of Prince of Wales Island, and Spanish names that hold unto today are being attached to nearby waters, headlands and islands.
The town of Craig came much later — it began in the early 20th century as a fish saltery and cannery site established by Craig Millar, with substantial Haida involvement, and incorporated as a city in 1922. But every boat, like Jupiter, entering Craig from the ocean still transits waters sounded by Spanish crews 251 years ago.
The Spanish first charted and named the bay in 1775, performing formal acts of possession: erecting crosses, holding ceremonies, and burying documents to claim the territory for the Spanish Crown, but in a strategic error they sailed away leaving no one behind; no fort, mission or trading post was established. Although they returned in 1779 for a more thorough survey, their unsettled claim evaporated after the Nootka Conventions settled land disputes between Spain and England a decade later.
At the present location of contemporary Craig nothing and everything has changed during 250 years. The island and water prospects are evocative of previous civilizations where culture remains embedded, restored and shared through close contact and inter-marriage. Tides surge and retreat to the same lunar drumbeat, fishing remains fundamental. Explorers, visitors and tourists arrive and depart, each with impressions drawn carefully from hurried tangential contacts.
Marvelous pictures! Most of the 4th of July festivities here in Annapolis were cancelled due to the 102 degree weather with high humidity and the rain in the evening. Looks like you stayed cool!
We certainly did. It has been a cool and wet summer so far, but we are in a rainforest after all! Nobody was cancelling anything in Craig on account of the weather or anything else!