Alaska · Cruise port guide
Icy Strait Point, Hoonah
A Tlingit-owned cruise destination built around a restored salmon cannery, next to Alaska’s largest Native village.
Port basics
Getting ashore
Ships dock
Berth to town
The cannery site is at the dock. Hoonah village is about 2 km along the shore — a walk, a shuttle or the gondola.
Time in port
Typically 8–10 hours
Cruise season
Calls May to September
Currency
US dollar
Language
English; Tlingit language and culture are central to the site
Time zone
Alaska Time (UTC−9, UTC−8 in summer)
Nearest airport
Hoonah (HNH) — About 5 km — a small regional strip, not a connection point
These are the patterns Icy Strait Point normally operates on. Berth assignments, tender arrangements and time in port vary by ship, line and day, and we confirm the specifics for your sailing once we know the dates.
About Icy Strait Point
Icy Strait Point is owned and run by Huna Totem Corporation, the Alaska Native corporation of the Huna Tlingit, and the money it makes stays with that community. That ownership is not incidental marketing — it shapes what is on offer, from the heritage walks to who guides the wildlife trips.
The site is built around a salmon cannery that opened in 1912 and closed in 1953, restored rather than replaced. The processing line is still in place as a museum, which is a more interesting anchor than the purpose-built beach compounds that fill this role elsewhere.
Icy Strait is one of the most reliable places in Alaska to see humpback whales. The water here is a summer feeding ground, and bubble-net feeding — a cooperative hunting behaviour seen in few places on earth — is regularly observed. For a group that wants one shared outing, this is the strongest wildlife bet on a standard itinerary.
Hoonah itself, about 2 km along the shore, is the largest Tlingit village in Alaska and an ordinary working community rather than an attraction. Visitors are welcome to walk in, and doing so is a noticeably different experience from the cannery site.
Going ashore in Icy Strait Point
Within reach on foot
- The restored 1912 salmon cannery, now a museum and shops
- The gondola between the landing, the cannery and the ridge
- Forest and shoreline trails directly from the site
- Hoonah village, Alaska’s largest Tlingit community
What the port is known for
- Whale watching in Icy Strait — among the most reliable in Alaska
- The ZipRider, one of the longest zip lines in the world
- Brown bear searches in the Spasski River valley
- Tlingit cultural performances and guided heritage walks
How ships berth here
Two docks now serve the site — the Wilderness Landing and the original pier — so ships berth rather than tender, which was not true before 2020. A gondola connects the landing areas with the cannery and the village side.
Access and mobility
Purpose-built and largely step-free, with gondolas rather than stairs between levels — one of the easier Alaska port days for limited mobility. The forest trails are packed gravel and mostly level.
Weather and when ships call
Cool and wet, 13–18°C in summer. Sheltered by Chichagof Island, so calmer water than Sitka, but rain is frequent and the forest stays damp.
Cruise season
Calls May to September
Typical itinerary length
Icy Strait Point usually appears on 7 nights Alaska itineraries. May – September.
Ports often paired with Icy Strait Point
Itineraries that call here usually call at these too, so it is worth reading them together when you are comparing weeks.
Juneau
A state capital with no roads in or out, backed by an icefield, with a glacier twenty minutes from the berth and a tramway leaving from the dock.
Skagway
A Klondike gold-rush town of about a thousand people at the head of a fjord, with a narrow-gauge railway climbing to the White Pass summit.
Sitka
The former capital of Russian America, facing the open Pacific, with an onion-domed cathedral and a totem park in coastal rainforest.
Ketchikan
The first Alaskan town northbound, built on pilings over the water, with the largest collection of standing totem poles in the world.
Explore further
Alaska cruises
The Inside Passage and Gulf of Alaska — glaciers, small former gold-rush towns and the shortest cruise season of any major region.
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Bringing a group to Icy Strait Point?
We hold five cabins or more together as a single block, quote it once, and let each household book and pay separately. Tell us roughly when and how many.