Information on the Towns, Sights, Rivers, Wildlife and Adventures Found in the Great Land of Alaska

Anan Creek is internationally known as one of the most productive Pink salmon streams in North America, making it by default a unmatched location for viewing both Black and Brown bears. Anan Creek is located on the north shore of the Cleveland Peninsula, just south of Wrangell Island and north of Ketchikan. Wrangell resident Bonnie Demerjian has authored Anan: Stream of Living Water, an exhaustive chronicle of the stream and its denizens. The account displays Bonnie’s depth of local knowledge and understanding of the complex relationships that exist between human visitors, feeding bears and spawning salmon meeting together at the creek.

ANAN – Stream of Living Water

Demerjian paints a descriptive view of the region’s natural history and geology. Using photographs taken by Ivan Simonek, she describes the plant and animal species found in the Anan watershed. There is extensive discussion of the Pink salmon life cycle and development of commercial fishing in the area. Explorer George Vancouver noted Anan Bay in 1793, and there has been aboriginal use of the Creek’s natural plenty since the beginning of human occupation in Southeast Alaska some 10,000 years ago. A great sidebar and continued discussion in the text relates to the Tlingit Cycle of Food and the methods used to capture the salmon. Later industrial fishing endangered the resident Pink salmon population and would prove a driving issue in establishing Alaska Statehood. Read More »