Sealaska selected 11 acres in Redoubt Bay, under a provision of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act – 14 (h)(1)c – which allows regional Native corporations to apply for title to historical places and cemetery sites across the state.

Sealaska made the Redoubt selection in 1975, but the formal conveyance took decades.

To the surprise of many, the Sitka Tribe supported Sealaska’s selection. The two organizations signed a management agreement in 2013 spelling out how they would work together, once the transfer was complete.

That’s now happened, and the Tribe’s CEO Lisa Gassman said Sealaska would be back this summer to expand that original agreement.

“They need to acknowledge that the lands that they own under traditional Lingít law, the Kiks.ádi were the true owners of Kunaa and therefore they believe that tribal citizens should be the direct beneficiaries of this land,”said Gassman. “What they have talked about is ensuring that fishing still happens out there. They understand – and that’s why they got this land – was because it was fishing had historically happened out there.”

And fishing is still happening at Redoubt. For over twenty years, the Forest Service has fertilized Redoubt Lake, producing a run of sockeye salmon that typically reaches the tens – and sometimes hundreds – of thousands. Scores of Sitkans take the 17-mile skiff ride to dipnet in Redoubt Falls (and now to set seine nets). Tribal Council member Steve Johnson said the Tribe and Sealaska had to be clear that fishing will continue unimpeded.

“We know that Redoubt is a very important subsistence area to a lot of us,” said Johnson. “And I mean so much food goes into so many freezers in this town from that area, and so we want to make sure that we’re transparent in our dealings with it, and that access and things will be preserved.”

Although continued federal funding for lake fertilization is a question mark, council members assured the assembly that the Forest Service would continue to have an easement to install and operate the weir at the top of the falls. Additionally, council member Lillian Feldpausch noted that Sealaska and the Tribe would keep policies in place, particularly the prohibition against dogs on shore.

Other issues discussed by the Tribal Council and Sitka Assembly:

1. Update on Katlian Ave. sidewalks and the demolition of Daginaa Hit (CBS and STA will cost-share the demolition.
2. Preservation of 203 Kaagwaantaan St.
3. Review of STA’s local legislative priorities.
   • Transfer ownership of old airplane float and submerged lands to Tribe for building expansion.
   • Incorporate AK Native Knowledge Network curriculum into Sitka Schools.
   • Continued cooperative work on housing.
   • 204 Siginaka Way traffic safety (move Eliason Harbor traffic below STA’s parking lot).
   • Improve municipal infrastructure in Sitka Indian Village.
   • STA input on proprosed Lincoln St. improvements.

Urban Bears

The rule about dogs at Redoubt is meant to protect pets against harmful interactions with bears, which are abundant at Redoubt. And they’re abundant back in Sitka as well, and much more active earlier in the season than in past years.

Council member Martha Moses expressed her continued frustration at the wide disparity between the relatively small fines paid by residents cited by the Sitka Police Department for leaving garbage out, and the $320 citations handed down by troopers for illegally feeding wildlife.

Tribal chair Yeidikook’áa said she felt privilege was involved, as many residents simply did not have a garage, or adequate freezer space, to store garbage until collection day.

One bear has already been killed by the Alaska Department of Fish & Game this year in Sitka. The recent record of 14 kills in Sitka was set in 2021. Council member Lillian Feldpausch felt 2025 was off to a bad start.

“When the bear is breaking down a shed, a garage, and if their garbage is secure, what’s next?” she asked. “The house? It’s going to be a bad year. It just feels like a bad bear year.” 

Feldpausch said she respected bears, “but I think we need to be a little more aggressive.”

Council member Lesa Way thought a 24/7 bear-proof dumpster at the transfer station would aid residents like her who want to be responsible about garbage after work hours.

“It would be so nice to have just a dumpster out in front that at five o’clock or at seven o’clock at night, when I’m done (with work) and I’ve got to get rid of garbage, that I could just take it up there,” said Way.

Sitka municipal administrator John Leach liked Way’s idea. He said that the city was already experimenting with bear-proof dumpsters.

“We heard great things about the system they put in place at the Trooper Academy, and that’s why we’re trying the dumpster thing,” said Leach. “We had a couple of those dumpsters available in the harbor system – the roll-off units – so we’re keeping those in a centralized location that hopefully gets the garbage away from the homes. And if the bears try to get into the dumpsters, they’re not going to be able to get into those dumpsters. And we’ll pick those up once a week.”

Leach said staff would monitor the new dumpsters throughout the season, to determine if they are something the city should adopt in the future.

In a year with many concerns over salmon abundance in Alaska, the sockeye run at Redoubt Lake near Sitka could be recordbreaking

Subsistence managers on July 7 doubled the traditional harvest limit in order to stem the tide of the massive return which, if unchecked, could far exceed the carrying capacity of the lake.

Note: The Forest Service is doing a recapture study of Redoubt sockeye. If you happen to catch a sockeye with a clipped adipose fin – the little fin between the dorsal fin and the tail – please give the Sitka Ranger District a call and let them know at 907-747-6671.

To participate in the federal subsistence fishery at Redoubt Lake, you must obtain a permit at the Sitka Ranger District Office. Learn more by calling 907-747-6671.

Many Sitkans choose to fish under the state subsistence permit, which can be obtained at the local Alaska Department of Fish & Game office, located on the first floor of the City-State Building at 304 Lake Street. 907-747-6688.

There have been reports of other sockeye runs around the state doing well this season, but Redoubt Lake is a different animal: The lake is fertilized every year by the US Forest Service to support the wild run of sockeye. It’s like fertilizing a garden, and feeding the microorganisms that juvenile sockeye eat. That likely makes it an outlier compared to other runs, but no less of a mystery.

“It’s possible that it’s an anomaly because of that enhancement,” said Rob Cross, who manages subsistence on the Tongass. “But, I really don’t have an easy explanation for it.”

Redoubt Lake is about a 15-mile skiff ride south of Sitka. Surrounded by towering mountains, it resembles an ocean fjord, which it may have been at one time. Its surface is only nine feet above sea level. Much of the lake is below sea level, and is actually saltwater, capped by a lens of freshwater. Given its size, Redoubt Lake’s sockeye run was not particularly strong. So, in1984, the Forest Service stepped in.

“And that was because of concerns of low nutrient levels,” Cross said, ” and that those low levels were potentially restricting juvenile sockeye salmon productivity.”

Managers now aim to have 7,000-25,000 sockeye return to the lake, primarily in July. This year, the first dozen reds came through the weir on June 15, and they have not stopped. As of July 9, 30,000 fish had entered the lake, already 5,000 fish more than ideal. At this rate, there’s a possibility that escapement could hit an unprecedented high of 100,000, and that – although it sounds counterintuitive – is not a good thing.

“In this system like many other systems, we see a point of diminishing returns,” said Cross. “So past large run sizes, generally around 50,000 or more fish have often resulted in a reduced return of the offspring of that spawning generation. And that’s due to carrying capacity factors within the system, like available spawning habitat or food availability for offspring.”

Sockeye swim up the falls in summertime, past the subsistence dipnets and the sport flies and the resident brown bears constantly patrolling the weir, and into the 9-mile long lake. Spawning happens later in the fall, however, and that’s where the bottleneck occurs. Most of these sockeye are crowding into the inlet stream at the eastern end of the lake, digging out “redds,” or small depressions in the gravel where females deposit eggs.

“So we get something called redd super imposition, where essentially fish are kind of fighting for spawning gravel,” Cross explained.

That, plus reduced food availability for the juvenile fish after they hatch, Cross says, are why excessively large parent runs produce small runs of offspring.

There are two overlapping subsistence fisheries at Redoubt. On July 1, the limit in the state subsistence fishery – by far the more popular – was increased to 25 sockeye per day, with a hundred-fish annual limit. Effective July 7, however, the US Forest Service doubled down, and raised the federal subsistence limit to 50 fish per day, with no annual limit, in the lake’s freshwater drainage, which extends over the falls to the mean high tide line. 

On July 9, the Department of Fish & Game opened Redoubt Bay to commercial seining for four days.

All in an effort to catch more fish now at Redoubt Lake, so that more can be caught in the future.

Update 7-14-23: This story was revised from its original version to draw a clearer distinction between the federal and state subsistence fisheries at Redoubt Lake.

Despite a slow start, the Redoubt Lake sockeye fishery is on its way toward another good season. US Forest Service biologist Chris Leeseberg, who manages the program, says he expects over 40,000 fish to pass through the weir before the end of August. Redoubt Lake has been fertilized by the Forest Service since 1982. Leeseberg discusses the lake’s unusual characteristics (the bottom two-thirds are salt water!) and the biology of sockeye with KCAW’s Robert Woolsey.

Luna, Kevin Knox’s border collie. Naming a geological feature after a pet is a bit of a longshot — unless the name is already in common use, which Knox believes it is. The Sitka Historic Preservation Commission has agreed to write a letter supporting Knox’s application. “The fact that the lake was created on the same day that the eponymous dog died is also significant,” said commission secretary James Poulson. (Kevin Knox photo)

The first casualty of modern landslide activity around Sitka was not one of the three men tragically lost in the devastating slides of 2015.

Rather, it was a ten-year old border collie named Luna, who died two years earlier when a massive slide wiped out a Forest Service cabin at the headwaters of Redoubt Lake.

Luna’s former owner now hopes to officially name the small lake created by slide in honor of his longtime friend, and there’s a chance he’ll succeed.

Downloadable audio.

There’s no way to sugarcoat this: Kevin Knox is lucky to be alive. He and his then-girlfriend Maggie Gallin were camped in the Redoubt cabin in May of 2013 and had just come ashore from a morning’s fishing in the cabin skiff, when the mountain slope above the cabin gave way.

The couple — and Luna — fled down the beach, but the slide still caught them and pushed them under the surface of Redoubt Lake.

“The noise that the slide was making was incredible,” says Knox of the catastrophic rock failure in the slope above Redoubt cabin. Although made of boulders rather than mud, the dam that formed Luna Lake may eventually fail, according to Sitka District Ranger Perry Edwards. “The outflow has formed a small waterfall called a ‘head cut’,” he explains, “that could move upstream.” This photo was taken by Knox the day after the slide when he first returned to search for Luna. (Kevin Knox photo)

“The noise that the slide was making was incredible,” Knox said. “You could feel the ground moving underneath you and everything. And for Maggie and I to come out of the water underneath all these trees and to make our way to shore, we thought for sure that Luna would be there somewhere.”

Unlike other more recent slides in Sitka — which have behaved like rivers of mud — the Redoubt slide was a catastrophic rock failure. That Knox and Gallin made it out is hard to believe. The odds, says Knox, would have favored Luna.

“In so many ways it’s hard to fathom why she wouldn’t have escaped it,” Knox said, “because literally as we’re running down the beach trying to get away from the slide coming down, she was jumping up and nipping at my sleeve. It’s kind of a game that we sometimes would play. She would run by your side and leap up and kind of grab your sleeve a little bit — just kind of telling you that she’s there, that she’s keeping up, and you’re not really all that fast or whatever.”

Knox and Gallin were rescued by a floatplane pilot, who flew them back the next day to search for Luna. Over the course of about a month, Knox says he returned to Redoubt to comb the shoreline for Luna, sometimes with the help of the Forest Service fish techs who worked at the salmon weir — who had already begun to refer to the 1-acre lake that had formed above the slide as “Luna Lake.”

That may be the single-most important factor in whether “Luna Lake” ever makes it on a map.

“The community, the people who use and visit the area, recognize and use the name that’s being proposed,” said Joan Antonson, Alaska’s state historian. Antonson is the program manager for place name petitions headed to the Alaska Historical Commission.

Antonson says losing a loved one — human or pet — or even a significant achievement, is not enough to win a place name.

“There were these unfortunate accidents, like a plane crash where someone was killed — or first ascents of a mountain — and they are not reason enough to put a name on a place,” Antonson said.

Kevin Knox is circulating a petition to demonstrate that “Luna Lake” has support among Sitkans. One of 98 signers so far, Joe S., wrote, “I worked out at the fish weir for years and around the time the landslide happened. I was the first one on the scene after Kevin and Maggie had been picked up and i searched for Luna and land and all throughout the slide. I also found the destroyed cabin and was able to get a lot of gear back to them. Such a incredible thing to have happen. Lake Luna is a beautiful name and will be forever a reminder of what happened there.”

Public comments on the application can be emailed to dnr.oha@alaska.gov, or sent by U.S. Mail to Joan Antonson, Alaska State Historian, 550 W. 7^th Ave., #1310, Anchorage, AK 99501

Antonson refers to Luna Lake as a “commemorative application,” which can’t even begin until five years after the subject you’re commemorating has died. She says this discourages people who are applying as an emotional response. And then the application process itself can take a year, as documents move from local government, to the state historical commission, and finally to the US Board on Geographic Names — which can overrule state recommendations. That also discourages applicants.

Kevin Knox with Luna and Redoubt cabin, prior to the slide. “Maggie and I do not feel entitled to name this new geological feature,” Knox says, “but it’s a part of our healing.” He’s seeking the permission and support of Sitka Tlingit to pursue the naming application. (Maggie Gallin photo)

Knox is not discouraged. Luna saw him through the sudden death of his father in 2005 and loss of his first wife to cancer in 2009. In the five years since surviving the slide, he and Maggie have married and had a child. There is a missing piece in this miracle and her name is Luna. That a small lake was created on the day she died seems a natural legacy.

“Naming after Luna was just a piece of a puzzle, I guess,” Knox said, “for Maggie and I, and a part of our healing.”

Knox has reached out to the Tlingit community in Sitka, to discuss the idea, and to avoid imposing a name on a geographic feature inappropriately. He’s open to the possibility of calling it Gaat Luna Lake, to recognize the cultural importance of the sockeye salmon — or gaat — that spawn there. There’s also the possibility that Luna Lake might not be permanent, as the outflow stream erodes the dam created by the slide. Knox is fine with that. “No geographic feature is permanent in the end,” he says.

The Alaska Historical Commission will meet to consider Knox’s proposal in mid-January.

Tom Wallo dip netting at Redoubt Falls over the weekend. Wallo and his partners netted 11 red salmon on Saturday (7-13-13) during a day of subsistence fishing.

The US Forest Service, which manages the weir at Redoubt, reports almost 22,000 fish have returned to freshwater so far, and the run is not expected to peak for another week or two. Biologists project that the total run this year could reach 80,000.

Two commercial seine openings have been held, and more are likely.

Listen to iFriendly audio.

Chris Leeseberg is the district wildlife biologist in Sitka. He oversees the Redoubt lake fertilization project.

Redoubt Lake is an unusual body of water.

“The top one-third of the lake is freshwater, and the bottom two-thirds are saltwater.”

This happens because saltwater is denser than freshwater. The technical term for a lake like Redoubt is “meromictic.” In some meromictic systems, the different layers of water might mix at times, but not so at Redoubt.

The freshwater lens at the top of the lake supports the reproductive cycle of the sockeye. The bottom of the lake is a sort of no man’s land.

“They come back. They spawn. They die. Their carcasses provide these great nutrients. Well, we’re losing a lot of that to the bottom of the lake. It gets into this anoxic saltwater environment, and we lose it.”

As a result, the Redoubt Lake sockeye system is deceptively small, given the overall size of the lake. Leeseberg says the optimum capacity for Redoubt is from 7,000 to 25,000 returning fish. Anything more does not really contribute to larger runs.

So this year, with a projected return of 80,000 fish, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game has already held two commercial seine openings. Leeseberg says commercial fisheries are written in to the sockeye management plan created by the state, the Forest Service, and other stakeholders over ten years ago.

“When we get a year like this we have options to open up more fish for subsitence fishermen, and potentially commercial fisheries as well.”

The subsistence bag limit has also been raised this year to 25 fish per day, or 100 per household for the season.

Additionally, the Forest Service has for the second year in a row issued an emergency order banning dogs from coming ashore within a half-mile of the falls. The six Forest Service employees working on the weir have established a strict bear hazing protocol. Loose dogs upset that discipline, and can antagonize bears.

Leeseberg says the weir crew has, over the course of several years, trained the Redoubt bear population to respect air horns.

“So when you’re out there dipnetting or fishing, it’s one of two things: A crew coming to the weir. We notify the bears that we’re coming to the weir with air horns. It is our time to be on the weir. We’re trying to be the dominant species out there at that point. I don’t want my crew out there working with bears five or ten yards away. And if we’re on the weir and a bear does pop out, we blow air horns and shoot them in the rump with a rubber slug, and blow the air horns again. And that usually does the trick.”

And the trick for fishermen, says Leeseberg, is to take advantage of this pattern.

“Bring an air horn with you. These bears see an air horn and they get scared, because they associate it with a rubber slug to the rump, which is not very pleasant.”
One wild card in the Redoubt formula this year is the massive landslide in May, which blocked the inlet stream — prime spawning ground for sockeye.

A 55-acre lake has formed behind the slide. Leeseberg says this is not necessarily bad news for fish. He says the downed old-growth timber resembles a huge beaver dam.

“There’s a lot of fear from people who really don’t understand how fish migrate that beaver dams can create migration barriers. In a lot of cases that’s not true. In fact, beaver dams can create great fish habitat, and fish will find their way through, even big fish. And I think that’s going to be the case with this slide.”

A Forest Service team will conduct surveys of spawning activity in the lake, to confirm this idea.

Leeseberg says state wildlife troopers have been more active at Redoubt than in past years, and several people have already been cited for failing to obtain their free subsistence permits at the local ADF&G office. He also doesn’t think fishermen need to be overly competitive looking for good spots on the falls. Leeseberg says he’s no expert dipnetter by any means, but there are so many fish around that he’s managed to get a few anyway.

The former site of the Redoubt Lake Cabin, photographed a day after it was destroyed in a landslide on May 12, 2013. (Kevin Knox photo)

Two people are safe after a massive landslide destroyed the cabin they were camping in Sunday morning (5-12-13) near Sitka.

An air taxi pilot rescued the pair from a debris field estimated to be 20 feet deep. All their belongings were buried in the slide. Their dog remains missing.

Listen to iFriendly audio.

Kevin Knox, 41, and his girlfriend Maggie Gallin, 28, were staying at Redoubt Lake, a popular Forest Service recreation cabin about 15 miles southeast of Sitka.

The cabin is located at the head of the valley, and is surrounded by steep mountain slopes and rocky cliffs that climb 4,000 feet above the surface of the lake.
Knox says the mountainside behind the cabin was showing signs of instability the previous evening.

“There’d been a lot of rock activity from this slide that was off back behind the cabin, all night on Saturday night. I was just kind of watching it. It was just small rocks kind of tumbling off and making a lot of racket.”

The Redoubt Cabin was located at the north end of the lake, about 15 miles southeast of Sitka.

The next morning, Knox and Gallin went out on the lake in the rowboat provided by the Forest Service, to do a little fishing. The mountainside came down as they returned to shore at about 11 AM.

“We had just tied the boat up and Maggie was in the cabin, and it just let loose — a huge piece off of the side of the mountain. I yelled for Maggie to run, to get out of the cabin. We started running down the beach.”

Redoubt Lake is a glacier-carved fjord. It’s just a few feet above sea level. What passes for a beach there is a narrow strip of pebbles. Knox and Gallin did not have much room to make their escape as old growth timber, mud, and rock began to press down the valley.

“We were running along the lakeshore and got thrown into the water, trees kind of toppling on top of us. We both popped up three or four feet from each other. Then we got our wits about us and just tried to hunker down.”

Kevin Knox and his Border Collie, Luna, at the Redoubt Lake Cabin site before the slide. Luna possibly escaped with Knox and Gallin, but remains missing. (Maggie Gallin photo)

Knox and Gallin were soaked to the skin. The cabin — and all their belongings — were under a debris field Knox thinks is about 20 feet deep. They wrung out clothes and tried to shelter as best they could until their scheduled pick up three hours later.

They also spent time calling for Luna, Knox’s ten-year-old Border Collie.

“She was in between Maggie and I as we were running down the beach. I think she thought it was a little bit of a game because I was shouting, Run run!, Go! and she jumped up and nipped at my sleeve. So I know she was right there. I kept laying in bed last night thinking, How did we get through it, and she didn’t?”

The couple flew back to look for Luna on Monday morning, but there was no sign of her. Because of the instability of the slide area, the pilot chose not not to land the float plane. The slide originated 600 feet up the mountainside and is about 200 yards wide. The lake’s inlet stream — Knox says — is beginning to carve a new channel through the debris field.

Knox is grateful to Harris Air, and pilot Mark Hackett in particular, for putting his plane down and looking for them on Sunday in marginal conditions. Knox says he signalled Hackett by waving his bright yellow raincoat.

The Southeast regional Native corporation says it should take over an 11-acre site including Redoubt Falls and parts of a nearby lake and bay.

Sheldon Jackson’s trustees have made claim to 160 acres in the area, including the land Sealaska seeks. The corporation’s answer to that claim was filed Tuesday with the federal Bureau of Land Management.

The claim says the land sought by Sealaska included the traditional Tlingit fishing village of Kunáa, historically owned by the Kiks.adi Clan.

Jaleen Araujo is Sealaska’s general counsel.

“We believe it’s pretty clear that Native ownership and use and occupancy was established first. And we understand there may have been some Russian use. But we still believe we have a very strong claim to Native historical use and will continue to pursue that claim,” she says.

Sealaska plans to turn site management over to the Sitka Tribe of Alaska, if it wins its claim.

Sheldon Jackson’s trustees say they can trace ownership from around the time Russia sold Alaska to the United States. Their filings also say Redoubt once housed a small Russian town.

The corporation says those claims are for long-gone buildings, not the land, which is now part of the Tongass National Forest. And it says Russian historians traced the Tlingit town to before colonial times.

Sealaska also says the Russians paid a form of rent to use the Redoubt area. In addition, it says Russian law strictly prohibited colonists from appropriating Tlingit-owned property.

Read and hear about Sheldon Jackson College’s claim of the Redoubt area.