Lynn Canal is an

inlet An inlet is a typically long and narrow indentation of a shoreline such as a small arm, cove, bay, sound, fjord, lagoon or marsh, that leads to an enclosed larger body of water such as a lake, estuary, gulf or marginal sea. Overview In ...

(not an artificial

canal Canals or artificial waterways are waterways or engineered channels built for drainage management (e.g. flood control and irrigation) or for conveyancing water transport vehicles (e.g. water taxi). They carry free, calm surface ...

) into the mainland of southeast

Alaska Alaska ( ) is a non-contiguous U.S. state on the northwest extremity of North America. Part of the Western United States region, it is one of the two non-contiguous U.S. states, alongside Hawaii. Alaska is also considered to be the north ...

. Lynn Canal runs about from the inlets of the Chilkat River south to Chatham Strait and Stephens Passage. At over in depth, Lynn Canal is the deepest

fjord In physical geography, a fjord (also spelled fiord in New Zealand English; ) is a long, narrow sea inlet with steep sides or cliffs, created by a glacier. Fjords exist on the coasts of Antarctica, the Arctic, and surrounding landmasses of the n ...

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere, Northern and Western Hemisphere, Western hemispheres. North America is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South Ameri ...

(outside

Greenland Greenland is an autonomous territory in the Danish Realm, Kingdom of Denmark. It is by far the largest geographically of three constituent parts of the kingdom; the other two are metropolitan Denmark and the Faroe Islands. Citizens of Greenlan ...

) and one of the deepest and longest in the world. The northern portion of the canal braids into the respective Chilkat, Chilkoot, and Taiya Inlets. The Tlingit are the indigenous people of the Lynn Canal's shores and waterways. The inlet was explored for the Royal Navy by

Joseph Whidbey Joseph Whidbey Fellow of the Royal Society, FRS (1757 – 9 October 1833) was a member of the Royal Navy who served on the Vancouver Expedition 1791–95, and later achieved renown as a naval engineer. He is notable for having been the first Eu ...

in 1794 and named by

George Vancouver Captain (Royal Navy), Captain George Vancouver (; 22 June 1757 – 10 May 1798) was a Royal Navy officer and explorer best known for leading the Vancouver Expedition, which explored and charted North America's northwestern West Coast of the Uni ...

for his birthplace,

King's Lynn King's Lynn, known until 1537 as Bishop's Lynn and colloquially as Lynn, is a port and market town in the borough of King's Lynn and West Norfolk in the county of Norfolk, England. It is north-east of Peterborough, north-north-east of Cambridg ...

Norfolk Norfolk ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in England, located in East Anglia and officially part of the East of England region. It borders Lincolnshire and The Wash to the north-west, the North Sea to the north and eas ...

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

. Lynn Canal was frequently visited by maritime fur traders from at least 1800. The ''

Atahualpa Atahualpa (), also Atawallpa or Ataw Wallpa ( Quechua) ( 150226 July 1533), was the last effective Inca emperor, reigning from April 1532 until his capture and execution in July of the following year, as part of the Spanish conquest of the In ...

'' visited in 1801 and its log mentions an earlier trading visit by an unidentified ship. In April 1811 the American maritime fur trader Samuel Hill, captain of ''

Otter Otters are carnivorous mammals in the subfamily Lutrinae. The 13 extant otter species are all semiaquatic, aquatic, or marine. Lutrinae is a branch of the Mustelidae family, which includes weasels, badgers, mink, and wolverines, among ...

'', battled the Chilkat Tlingit in the Chilkat Inlet of Lynn Canal. Two of Hill's crew were killed, including his second mate and journal keeper Richard Kemp, his

boatswain A boatswain ( , ), bo's'n, bos'n, or bosun, also known as a deck boss, or a qualified member of the deck department, or the third hand on a fishing vessel, is the most senior Naval rating, rate of the deck department and is responsible for the ...

. Six more were wounded. According to Captain Hill, the Tlingit suffered 40 killed, including 13 chiefs. Hill blamed both his first mate and the Tlingit, but he was notoriously violent and frequently attacked indigenous people unprovoked. For several years after the 1811 battle fewer trade ships visited. By 1821 it was again a regular trading site, with visits by ships such as the ''Mentor'' in 1821.

Transportation

Lynn Canal's location as a penetrating waterway into the interior connects Skagway and Haines, Alaska, to Juneau and the rest of the Inside Passage thus making it a major route for shipping,

cruise ship Cruise ships are large passenger ships used mainly for vacationing. Unlike ocean liners, which are used for transport, cruise ships typically embark on round-trip voyages to various ports of call, where passengers may go on Tourism, tours k ...

s, and

ferries A ferry is a boat or ship that transports passengers, and occasionally vehicles and cargo, across a body of water. A small passenger ferry with multiple stops, like those in Venice, Italy, is sometimes referred to as a water taxi or water bus. ...

. During the Klondike Gold Rush it was a major route to the boom towns of Skagway and Dyea and thence to the Klondike gold fields. The worst maritime disaster in the history of the Pacific Northwest occurred in Lynn Canal during October 1918, when SS ''Princess Sophia'', steaming southbound from Skagway, grounded on the Vanderbilt Reef and later sank, with the loss of all 343 passengers and crew. After the gold rush and the creation of the White Pass and Yukon Route railroad, ore and other freight from the

Yukon Territory Yukon () is a territory of Canada, bordering British Columbia to the south, the Northwest Territories to the east, the Beaufort Sea to the north, and the U.S. state of Alaska to the west. It is Canada’s westernmost territory and the smallest ...

was transported on the railroad to Skagway and its deepwater port and then shipped through Lynn Canal. However, in the 1970s and 1980s the freight subsided as mining activity curtailed in the interior and today very little freight is actually shipped in the Lynn Canal. Currently, transportation in the canal is provided by

Alaska Marine Highway The Alaska Marine Highway (AMH) or the Alaska Marine Highway System (AMHS) is a ferry service operated by the U.S. state of Alaska. It has its headquarters in Ketchikan, Alaska. The Alaska Marine Highway System operates along the south-central ...

ferries. There are also several other entrepreneurial

water taxi A water taxi or a water bus is a boat used to provide public transport, public or private transport, usually, but not always, in an Urban area, urban environment. Service may be scheduled with multiple stops, operating in a simil ...

s and ferries available, but the AMHS is far and away the most frequently used. A project of uncertain future is the Lynn Canal Highway. Because of Lynn Canal′s high use, the

United States Coast Guard The United States Coast Guard (USCG) is the maritime security, search and rescue, and Admiralty law, law enforcement military branch, service branch of the armed forces of the United States. It is one of the country's eight Uniformed services ...

installed several lighthouses in the early 20th century including Eldred Rock Light, Sentinel Island Light, and Point Sherman Light. Historically, Lynn Canal proved to be a waterway involved in the Alaska boundary dispute, over the strip of land running down the Pacific coast between British Columbia and Alaska. Of particular value was the fact that Lynn Canal provided access to the Yukon, where gold was found in 1896. The dispute was fought between the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

, which then controlled Canada's foreign relations, and the United States, and finally settled in 1903 by arbitration. The arbitrators ruled that the canal was part of Alaska, not British Columbia.Paul Kennedy, '' The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers'' (1987) p 251

References

Alaska Fjordlines, Inc. is a wildlife day trip through the Lynn Canal. https://web.archive.org/web/20110203103152/http://www.alaskafjordlines.com/index.php Cranny, Michael, and Garvin Moles. Counter Points: Exploring Canadian Issues. 2001. Toronto : Pearson Education Canada Inc, 2001. Print.

External links

* {{Coord, 58, 41, 31, N, 135, 05, 51, W, display=title, source:dewiki_scale:2000000 Fjords of Alaska Historic American Landscapes Survey in Alaska Bodies of water of Haines Borough, Alaska Bodies of water of Juneau, Alaska Tlingit