For several years following the acquisition of Alaska in 1867, the vast majority of vessels made their way between Seattle and Juneau by following a twisting route through the myriad of islands that parallel this stretch of the northwest coast. By remaining “inside” the islands, the captains and passengers could enjoy a safer and smoother journey than that experienced “outside” the islands in the open North Pacific.

Cape Decision Lighthouse Photograph courtesy U.S. Coast Guard

As vessels’ girths increased through the years, alternate routes through the strait passages had to be used. In particular, some ships were unable to transit Wrangell Narrows and were forced to make a detour around Cape Decision. To follow this lengthier route, Captains sailing north now follow Sumner Strait to its end at Cape Decision, where they are briefly exposed to the full fury of the ocean before entering Chatham Strait.

Passenger vessels were not the only ones transiting the waters near Cape Decision. Fishermen were also passing by the cape to reach the open “outside” waters near Cape Ommaney in search of more lucrative catches. Several fishing communities, like Port Alexander on the eastern side of Baranof Island, along with the supporting salmon canneries, herring salteries, and reduction plants, soon dotted the shores of Sumner and Chatam Straits. During most of the 1930s, Port Alexander was home to the largest salmon trolling fleet in Alaska. Although its wintertime population dwindled to around one hundred, during the summer fishing season the city swelled to over a thousand inhabitants.

The first attempt to light these waters was an acetylene lantern placed on the Spanish Islands, just off the southern end of Kuiu Island. The lantern, however, proved ineffective, and in 1929, Congress appropriated $59,400 for a lighthouse. Inclement weather and delays in obtaining additional funding pushed the completion date of the Cape Decision Lighthouse out to March 15, 1932. By that time, $158,000 had been spent on the project.

The concrete lighthouse features a central, square tower rising to a height of seventy-five feet, with a one-story structure wrapped about its base. The lighthouse provided quarters for three keepers and also housed generators for the light and fog signal. A Class A radio beacon was placed on the rocks just seaward of the lighthouse.

H. O. Essig was stationed at Cape Decision from 1943 to 1946. One perk that came with the remote assignment was three full months of leave after a year at the station. Still, that was not enough incentive for most men to sign up for more than a single year at the lighthouse. Essig “thoroughly enjoyed both the experience and the place,” but realized that “it requires a certain breed of cat to handle it.” The men were expected to operate the station with a minimum amount of supervision, and at least during Essig’s stay, things ran quite smoothly.

Essig recalls that before one relief keeper was sent to the lighthouse from the Coast Guard base in Ketchikan, the chaplain’s office called him in and warned that “everything gets lit but the light” out at Cape Decision. Essig does admit that when the crew learned of V-E day, two of them took a ride aboard the mail boat to Port Alexander to procure some …uh…well…. “lemonade.” Oh, and there was that time when rough seas forced them to land a twenty-case shipment of beer eight miles from the station, but they needed something to help ease the boredom and loneliness of life at Cape Decision.

On September 1, 1974, the last live-in crew left the lighthouse, being replaced by a reliable diesel generator. The station was later converted to solar power to further reduce the maintenance work required during the regular Coast Guard visits. During one such checkup visit, performed on October 11, 1989 by an Aids to Navigation Team from Sitka, disaster was just barely avoided.

Cape Decision Lighthouse Lens

Rather than haul trash away from the site, it was typically placed in 55-gallon barrels and burned. The team retrieved two such barrels from the boathouse that day, placed them outside on the wooden walkway, and filled them with debris. “I added the customary one gallon of diesel to each barrel to ensure complete combustion of the trash,” said MK1 Ron Conklin. Conklin then accompanied the two other Coast Guardsmen to the lighthouse, gave them work assignments, then picked up a fire extinguisher and headed back to the boathouse to tend the fire.

As Conklin reached the helicopter pad, he noticed thick black smoke emanating from beneath the boardwalk near the boathouse. It wasn’t immediately clear if the pier was on fire, or if the thick smoke from the barrels was simply swirling down through the pier. After discharging the 30-pound extinguisher into the two barrels, Conklin discovered, much to his alarm, that the pier was indeed ablaze.

Conklin sprinted back to the lighthouse yelling “Fire!, Fire!”. With additional extinguishers in hand, the three-man crew scampered back to the boathouse and attempted unsuccessfully to subdue the flames. Realizing that the fire could spread to surrounding structures, Conklin broadcasted a mayday call to the Coast Guard. The men then formed a bucket brigade to transport water to the fire from the station’s cistern, located thirty feet away. Help finally arrived in the form of a helicopter from Sitka and the buoy tender Woodrush.

As the helicopter was approaching to land, the fuel inside the boathouse exploded sending a tremor along the pier. Portable firefighting equipment was off-loaded from the helicopter after it was able to safely land, and the Coast Guardsmen had the fire under control in about four hours. Although the exact cause of the fire was listed as ""unknown,"" it is most likely that either the diesel leaking from the barrels or airborne embers ignited the pier. The boathouse and a good section of the pier and catwalk to the helicopter were destroyed in the blaze.

Stewardship of the Cape Decision lighthouse was awarded to the Cape Decision Lighthouse Society in 1997. This grass-roots organization is dedicated to preserving the lighthouse for public recreation. In 2005, the fire damage to the pier was still clearly evident, but building supplies were on-site for the necessary repair work. The remoteness of the station prevents many visitors from reaching the lighthouse, but there is a piece of the lighthouse – its third-order Fresnel lens - preserved at the more readily accessible Clausen Museum in Petersburg, a port-of-call for some of the smaller cruise ships.

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References

1. Lighthouses and Other Aids to Navigation in Alaskan History, U.S. Coast Guard.
2. Northern Lights: Tales of Alaska's Lighthouses and Their Keepers, Shannon Lowry, 1992.