Yakutat was first settled by the Eyak people over a thousand years ago. A tribe from the Copper River area bought the land and later integrated into the Tlingit Tribe know as the Kwaashkikwaan, or the Humpback Salmon People. Yakutat is reported to mean “the place where the canoes rest.”

Yakutat stands alone along the Gulf of Alaska coast, facing the continent’s largest glacier across Yakutat Bay. The Hubbard Glacier’s face is over 5 miles across and 400 feet high. It is backed by Mt. St Elias and hundreds of miles of some of the most rugged mountains in the world.

The Yakutat sport fishing area stretches for Cape Fairweather to Cape Suckling along the gulf coast of Alaska a distance of approximately 275 miles.

A wide variety of sport fishing opportunities exist in the Yakutat area. All Five species of Pacific salmon are available in both fresh and salt water. Resident rainbow trout can be found in the area’s intricate lake, river and stream systems. The world famous Situk River is located here where some of the largest recorded Chinook salmon have been caught.

Yakutat Bay and the inner islands provide a wide variety of marine fish species such as halibut and salmon.  Yakutat Bay has the best halibut fishing in the world. The big flatfish are often found in 50-150 feet of water just 45 minutes from the dock. The best halibut fishing is from April through July and they can be caught even into September.