The military base built near Excursion Inlet during World War II was dismantled by 700 German POWs in 1945.
Story last updated at 9/8/2010 - 7:10 pm
During World War II, the Army constructed a large trans-shipment facility at Excursion Inlet near Gustavus. After little more than a year of use, the War Department declared the 630-acre site and its structures as "surplus." On October 26, 1944, the Pacific Division's engineer was assigned to disposal of the facility. This didn't happen immediately. For almost a year it was guarded by the military.
Who helped the Army dismantle the facility? Seven hundred German Prisoners of War, the first to be sent outside the continental United States, began the salvage work on July 15, 1945. Eighty-five percent of the usable trans-shipping terminal materials were saved by the Seattle Corps of Army Engineers. About twelve million board feet of lumber and $3.0 million of other critical materials were salvaged. I haven't found exactly when the POWs left Excursion Inlet, but it was sometime in December.
What happened at the salmon cannery during these war years? Pacific American Fisheries continued to make its annual pack of nearly 50,000 cases of salmon.
In November 1946, the government proposed bids for 115 acres of land and the 15 remaining structures along 2,200 feet of shore line. Many were skeletal structures. Apparently there were no takers. The land and structures were again offered for sale in February 1949. The Alaska Native Brotherhood and Sisterhood of Hoonah purchased one of the buildings for $2,200, dismantled it, and took it to Hoonah where it was re-erected as its meeting hall.
Then in 1948, the operating cannery of Astoria and Puget Sound Canning went up in flames and was declared a total loss. The government dock and two government warehouses survived, as well as the cannery's bunkhouses, repair yard, six oil storage tanks, a power plant and a carpenter shop.
After the fire, Pacific American Fisheries converted the NEVA, a surplus Landing Ship Tank (LST), into a freezer ship with a cannery aboard. Fish were processed aboard her in Excursion Inlet for the 1949 and 1950 season.
Alec Brindle Sr., of Wards Cove Packing Company, recently told me that in 1951, on-land canning resumed. Crews began construction of a new fish processing plant in one of the Army's warehouses and completed it that season. This facility was the last remote Southeast cannery to can salmon. Today, the plant processes frozen seafood.
Today, a visitor would not be able to tell a "secret" military base was there during World War II.
Pat Roppel, a 50-year resident of Southeast Alaska, is the author of numerous books about mining, fishing, and man's use of the land. She lives in Wrangell. She may be reached at patroppel@gmail.com.
