Anan Bay gets new cabin

Anan Bay has a new recreation cabin.

The A-frame cabin from last century was replaced with a brand new 15x17 foot cabin constructed from Alaska yellow cedar, harvested from the Tongass National Forest. 

A crew of carpenters assembled the logs, which were sent Ketchikan, into a cabin during the winter of 2012.

Once spring arrived a work crew headed out on a tug and barge to start site work at Anan Bay. They moved the old A-frame cabin, intact, to their barge. They also felled three hazard trees with creative use of the tugboat and expert sawyering. Pre-molded bell shaped footings were installed as well and the site was ready for its new cabin.

On May 23, 2012, the new Alaska yellow cedar cabin was unloaded from its barge and pulled, inch by inch, with cables and pulleys and a mini-excavator, up the slope to its permanent location.

The cabin will provide overnight accommodations for visitors who come to enjoy outstanding bear viewing at the Anan Wildlife Observatory.

Anan is one of the most popular destinations in the Wrangell Ranger District, with nearly 3,000 visitors coming to the site each year to watch both brown and black bears feeding on one of the largest pink salmon runs in the area.

The Anan Bay cabin is one of the most sought after summer cabins on the district, offering unparalleled access to wildlife viewing in the early and late hours when bear activity often picks up.

The old Anan Bay cabin was designed in 1964 and was designated in the contract as to be demolished and properly disposed of. Rather than demolish it, however, Ketchikan Ready Mix chose to keep the cabin intact and placed it on the owner’s property near Ketchikan. The cabin will enjoy a second life, and five tons of lumber, plywood, doors, glass, bolts, and nails were saved from a landfill ever after.

This cabin was replaced as part of the Regional Sustainable Recreation Cabin Program. The program started in 2007 with a mission to provide a sustainable cabin program that would maintain cabins to standard, prevent accumulation of deferred maintenance, and maximize life of public investments. The existing cabin program of 200+ cabins at that time did not appear sustainable.

A side benefit of the program was that local mills were given an opportunity to use timber harvested from the Tongass to develop a marketable product—log cabins—and local businesses and contractors were given an economic stimulus in the form of potential jobs and material purchases. This all occurred as the effects of the termination of the 50-year pulp mill contracts was being felt by Southeast Alaska.

The Anan Bay cabin replacement project was submitted as a capital investment project in 2005 and funded through the Recreation Site Improvement project in 2009. RSI funds came from a portion of Land and Water Conservation Fund receipts deposited over many years that was made available to the agency to reduce deferred maintenance at high priority fee sites.