Hoonah, Alaska Part 2 Icy Strait Cruise Port

Is Icy Strait Point on your Alaskan cruise itinerary? Read this post before you go. 

And read this post - 10 Father's Day Gift Ideas For The Traveling Dad - if you are taking this cruise with your dad and want to surprise him with a gift.

When we were in Hoonah the first time, during Part 1 of our back to back Alaskan cruise, we went whale watching and walked into the town of Hoonah. On our return here we knew we wanted to explore Icy Strait Point as we didn't see much of it when we were here just about a week ago.

Icy Strait Point is a cruise destination and is only open when a ship is in port. Then it is open to locals as well. There is so much to do that you could spend at least half a day here. It was a short walk down a pier from our cruise ship to get to here. The first thing you see is the Duck Point Smokehouse restaurant. 

I wanted to try their crab tater-tots but we wound up not stopping in on our way back to the ship like we thought we would. We did do a ton of other fun things. The first thing we did here, or I did, was take a peek in the gift shop. Soko waited for me by the firepit just outside the store. He wasn't the only hubby who had the same idea.

To Soko's surprise, I didn't buy anything. Our next stop was to the Transporter.

There are two docking ports at Icy Strait Point. You can hop into a gondola and it will transport you to the other port or you can take a 15 minute walk on the Nature Trail.

We took the gondola ride to get from Wilderness Landing, where our ship was, to Ocean Landing.

On the Ocean Landing side we found the Information & Tours building where you can book a number of excursions. I'm sure there must have been a number of people buying tickets for a ride on the world's largest Zip Rider. 

On this side, we found a gift shop that I did look in but again didn't buy anything which again surprised Soko and even surprised myself.

That was all there was on this side to see so we took the Nature Trail back to the Wilderness Landing side. 

We came across this warning sign. "Stay calm" and "Don't run" was the advice this sign gives you when you see a bear. I was pretty sure that I would not be able to stay calm and not run. Luckily, we didn't have to find out how we would react to seeing a bear.

We saw our ship behind some trees. We left the trail and headed toward it.

We landed up on the beach where we read we would find a tide pool. 

We explored the tide pool very slowly, cautiously and carefully. The rocks were not that easy to walk on and we definitely didn't want to hurt any of the creatures on them.

We had never seen a tide pool before. We concluded that it is one of nature's most unique and amazing sights and one we were thankful that we got to experience.

Then we headed to the boardwalk and past The Cookhouse Restaurant where they serve fresh local seafood among other things. We might have stopped in here for their famous Alaskan halibut & chips if we didn't just finish having a late and huge breakfast at the ship's buffet.

At the end of the boardwalk we found the cannery museum. Icy Strait Point was built as a salmon cannery in the early 1900's and was one until 1953. In 2001 it became the tourist attraction it is today.

You learn about the process of changing from fresh salmon to canned. I bought a can of salmon on our first trip here.

Good To Know: If you buy canned salmon, do not try to take it on the plane in your carry on. It will be confiscated like mine was. Put it in your checked-in suitcase.

Just behind the museum you can find a venue for performances featuring Tlingit dancers. You can book an excursion with your cruise line to see the show which we didn't do but once we were here we wished we had.

Another thing I wanted to do was buy and eat some of these donuts. I had read about them while I was researching things to do in Hoonah. Both times we were here the line to buy donuts was very long and slow moving. We did stand on the line for them twice and left the line twice.

Behind the donut kiosk we found the ticket booth that you can buy tickets for the bus that takes you into downtown Hoonah if you don't want to walk the mile and a half to town. The cost of a round trip ticket was $5 in May of 2024. We went into town on our first trip here so we didn't need to go this time.

After checking out everything Icy Strait Point had to offer, we headed back to the ship.We saw an orca,  on our first visit, at this port. We took one last look before we boarded the ship but it was very quiet in the waters of Port Frederick and Icy Strait. 

This was the only picture of a whale we got this time!

We spent half a day at Icy Strait Point and were very entertained and we wound up not even spending a penny here. Although I would have loved to have bought some donuts. Oh well. That gives us an excuse to come back!

Read about our first visit to Hoonah here.

Hoonah, Alaska

Have you been to Alaska? Was Hoonah one of your favorite cities? Did you visit Icy Strait Point? We would love to hear all about your trip!