Anchorage Daily News

POINT BAKER

POPULATION: 16 (2007)

LOCATION: On the northern tip of Prince of Wales Island, 142 miles south of Juneau and 50 miles west of Wrangell.

DESCRIPTION: A small fishing community where some of the residents, most of them hand-trollers, hold commercial fishing permits. Those who are wholly or partly Alaska Native are less than 9 percent of the population. Subsistence and recreational food sources include deer, salmon, halibut, shrimp and crab. Children are home-schooled through correspondence courses. During the April 2000 U.S. Census, nearly half of the 23 homes were vacant. Point Baker is accessible by float plane, helicopter, barge and skiff.

HISTORY: Capt. George Vancouver named Point Baker in 1793 after the second lieutenant on his ship "The Discovery." The first floating fish packer arrived in 1919, and fish buying continued until the 1930s when the U.S. Forest Service opened the area for homesites. During the 1920s and '30s, as many as 100 tents lined the harbor, occupied by hand-trollers. The first store was built in 1941, and a post office opened in 1942. In 1955, Point Baker was withdrawn from the Tongass National Forest. A floating dock was built by the state in 1961; larger docks replaced it in 1968.

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