Kanga Bay is located south of Sitka, and has a lot to offer. For us, it was a great home base for the Sitka Salmon Derby!
We had some incredible sunsets, and it was large enough for a group of us to stay. We had a great time, and caught some fish in the process.
To read about some of the other cabins we’ve visited, and the experiences check out the Cabins page.
Getting There
The Kanga Bay cabin is located about 12 miles south of Sitka. The cabin is only accessible by boat or float plane and depending on conditions, it will take ~40 minutes to reach the cabin by boat, or 10 minutes by plane. You can hire a local water taxi company or Alaska Seaplanes for drop off and pickup.
If you’re taking a boat, there is a mooring buoy out front that can be used to tie up. Buoy use is first come first serve, it is not included in the cabin reservation.
Price
There is no difference between the peak and the non-peak price for the Kanga Bay Cabin. Every night throughout the year is $50.
You can reserve the cabin through Recreation.gov.
The Cabin
The Kanga Bay Cabin is a two story cabin with room to sleep up to 6 people. The lower level has a single bunk above a double bunk, and the upper area is open as a floor.
The cabin also has a small deck in front of the cabin with a great view overlooking the bay. There is also a firepit off to the side of the deck that provides a great place to hang out, cook dinner, or roast some marshmellows! While we didn’t bring a bag on this trip, we definitely had a great time making s’mores at Samsing Cove.
The cabin was originally built in 1998, and thanks to the work of the Sitka Conservation Society, the National Forest Foundation, and other groups and volunteers, the cabin was restored in 2021. You can read more about the work they did here.
Inside, you’ll find a comfortable amount of counter space for cooking and storage. During colder visits, you’ll also enjoy the wood stove. As always, the wood shed may or may not have wood available. Luckily on our visit, it was very full.
Our Trip to the kanga bay cabin
This trip had one purpose…fish the Sitka Salmon Derby, everything else was secondary. While we weren’t taking it too seriously, the stakes did feel a bit higher – there was a chance to win.
We were competing in the 66th Sitka Salmon Derby an event that first began in 1956. The derby is comprised of five fishing days, broken up over two weekends. The first is usually Memorial day weekend, with 3 days of fishing, with the next weekend as the finished two days.
Fish are submitted each day within a determined time period, and there are multiple prizes awarded. The main categories are largest fish, and highest overall poundage. Most people are chasing the largest fish because that could be anyone. It only takes one big fish on one day to win, the total poundage award however, is a little more serious.
To win total pounds requires fishing hard all five days, turning in the maximum allowed fish (which was three for this year), and having both be big fish. Most people are out of the running before it starts because they aren’t able to fish every day.
Memorial Day weekend proved to be productive for my friend Brian, and after the first three days he was in 3rd place. We had fished hard, definitely burned some fuel, and lucked out on some new spots.
It also felt like a David vs. Goliath situation. Brian was fishing in a boat that paled in comparison to the charter boats worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. He also didn’t grow up there, or work in charter fishing, or have generational knowledge. But he was holding his own.
This all meant that the second weekend mattered. Brian had a chance to win (which if you knew us when we first showed up in Alaska you would be shocked). He was focused and dialed in. Of course we were there to have fun…but there was a job to get done also.
Some of the group headed down earlier on Friday, the rest of us showed up that evening. As we pulled into the bay we heard a chainsaw going, which meant there should be a good fire already (or everyone was getting murdered).
That night discussion focused on the plan for tomorrow. Where to go, what to try, when tides are, on and on. There were also multiple drinks, so as the night went on, the plans kept improving.
We were all up early to make sure we made it to check in right when it began then it was off to the fishing grounds. It was a little bit of a run to where we wanted to fish, which meant more time for the anticipation to grow.
I wish I remember more details of the fishing…but to be totally honest I don’t. I remember having a great time, spending a lot of time laughing, and having some great radio chatter with other boats.
I do know we got into some fish, had some hot times followed by long stretches of slow times, but overall it was decent…not great, and not terrible. Brian was able to limit out, but the fish weren’t as large as he had hoped.
We returned to the weigh in station, which was located at a boat anchored in a bay nearby with a very patriotic name…like “The Freedom”, and was covered in Trump stickers (or maybe a flag flying) with some other 2nd amendment stickers. It looked like something that would be featured on The Colbert Report.
Back to the fishing, we had a solid showing but it wasn’t great. The chances of pulling off a win were lower than when the day started, but there was still a chance.
We had a fresh King Salmon that we filleted on the beach that night and had for dinner. We only had olive oil with salt and pepper…and just that cooked over the open fire was delicious.
Brian wanted to be out early the next day due to the tides…I mean early early. Even with that plan in mind I believe we were up until after midnight retelling stories from the day, and other days, and making sure that we had less beers to bring back to town than we brought.
Somehow he was out at the time he planned and was actually back to the cabin by the time the rest of us were starting to get up – which was still early. I wish there was a storybook ending, but in this case that just didn’t happen…and it almost makes me feel bad about what happened later.
It was time to pack up and leave the Kanga Bay Cabin, but that didn’t mean we were done fishing. One last day to see what we could do. Even though everyone was exhausted and ready to get home, we had to see what could happen.
Our group had two boats, and were were fishing near each other, and somehow magic struck our boat. We decided to take a shallow pass in an area we had tried before…and the rod doubled over.
Almost immediately it was clear we had hooked a big fish…like a really big fish. At first, we thought maybe it was foul hooked with how strong it was. After quite the battle, and a very impressive net job, the fish was landed and it was hard to believe how big it was.
Although we knew it was big, we weren’t sure just how big. It wasn’t until Brian’s boat came over and put a 16lb fish next to it that we realized how big it really was. It was pretty incredible, our day was already made.
We took a bit to celebrate and let our adrenaline decrease a bit. Excitement and morale were hight, this could be the one that gets us in contention for largest fish!
That fish almost gave us reason to call it a day and head back to Sitka, go out on top. Instead we decided we might as well give it one more pass. It didn’t take long before we hooked into another big fish! Another amazing fight, and another monster brought onboard…it was unbelievable.
These were the two largest fish we’d seen, and they were landed within about 20 minutes of each other. That was all we needed, it was time to go see how big they actually were and celebrate in town.
Back in Sitka we pulled up to the weigh in station, wondering the whole way back how big they actually were. Could they win the derby? Were we overestimating how big they were? We were trying to underestimate so we wouldn’t be disappointed at weigh in? I think we discussed all those options and more.
We tied up to the dock, and proudly pulled the fish out of the hold into the tote. The volunteers at the weigh station were genuinely impressed, which gave us a sense of validation that they were actually big fish, not just our imagination over-exaggerating.
As they pulled the biggest fish out the person handling the fish asked how big third place was…then let us know we were .2 lbs behind putting it at 30.5 lbs. We weren’t expecting to win, but I know I had hoped maybe we would. Either way, it was a monster.
After it was all said and done, that fish took 5th place overall. And the second fish we caught that day took 7th…pretty impressive. And even though Brian didn’t capture the top spot for overall pounds, he still took 3rd which was incredib
As I write this the next Salmon Derby is gearing up to start. This one will be tough to beat.