(Photo by Shelby Herbert/KFSK)
Five Finger Island Lighthouse has helped mariners navigate Frederick Sound for over a century. But now, it also serves an educational purpose. Every summer, the remote lighthouse draws in scores of visitors who want to learn more about the unique history and ecology of Five Finger Island.
Shelby Herbert jumped on a boat to the lighthouse this fall to shine a light on some of its new features.
Five Finger Lighthouse Society director Jeff Erickson was skiffing a group of volunteers to Five Finger Island. He pilots his boat away from Petersburg’s South Harbor, and into the thick mist hanging over the Frederick Sound.
It’s a long way out to the island — which is located about halfway to Juneau. The trip takes a couple hours on calm seas. Jeff’s boat rumbled on and on over the glassy surface of the water. There wasn’t much to look at — the mountains were blanketed in fog. But that gray monotony didn’t last forever.
That’s because, almost out of nowhere, Erickson had to cut the engine — even though the island was nowhere in sight.
He was braking for a pod of whales. The passengers poked their heads outside the cabin to marvel at them.
Not long after, the lighthouse comes into focus. Erickson anchors next to a sheer cliff and we start unloading gear for the people staying at the lighthouse – the keepers — crates of food, amenities, and pieces of what is to become their new heating system.
Lighthouse keepers Briana and Don Drury came out to meet us. They’re married — both, from Oklahoma. They were both still working remotely, using Starlink to connect with the outside world. They’re also here working on the lighthouse, itself.
“There is a lot of work that needs to be done around here,” said Briana. “Tons of projects — we’ve been working on the solar array, and the batteries, water pumps, and tracing down electrical issues… And just general cleaning.”
Today, the lighthouse’s beacon is automated by the U.S. Coast Guard. So, Briana and Don don’t actually have to be around to keep it lit. But the keepers — and a group of volunteers from Petersburg — are working hard to keep the structure intact and ready for visitors.
(Photo by Shelby Herbert/KFSK)
Briana and Don said that this gig offers a nice escape from the frustrations of day-to-day life. But there’s still plenty to do out here — and plenty of chores.
Among Don and Briana’s least favorites: managing all their waste. It all has to go out on a boat from the Five Finger Lighthouse Society, which only stops by every couple weeks. However, Briana said, for the experience they’re getting, it’s all worth it — down to the last ounce of trash.
“I mean, I think it’s the most beautiful place on the planet,” said Briana. “So, when the board said they needed lighthouse keepers for three weeks at the end of the season, we said, ‘Absolutely!'”
Another one of their duties was to greet visitors who occasionally come in off the cruise ships and show them around.
“We’re new to the job,” said Briana. “So we actually haven’t had visitors come ashore yet, except you! But yeah, showing visitors around… Giving them the history, asking them to help support because it’s a nonprofit. So, if we don’t have the money to fix something, it doesn’t get fixed.”
Briana said it takes a unique type of person to step up for the job.
“If you enjoy solitude, and if you enjoy whale watching and MacGyvering, this is the job for you,” said Briana.
The Drurys can tolerate cobbling together complicated mechanical equipment, but the real draw for them is the environment. The waters around the lighthouse are teeming with marine life —and whales are the star of the show here.
The best place to whale-watch is from the island’s helipad. We climbed the wooden scaffolding, where we find Don chatting up a pod of humpbacks in the distance.
“Remember Moby Dick!” Don called out to them.
Briana said the helipad isn’t just the best place to see the whales — it’s also the best place to hear them.
“You can just kind of close your eyes and hear these just massive animals making these just kind of primal, primordial sounds,” said Briana. “In the evening, they start bellowing and making these really deep rumbling sounds that you feel almost more than you hear.”
Despite all the natural beauty around her, Briana admitted that, after a while, the spot feels a little eerie. Author Sue Henry wrote a murder mystery novel about it: Murder at Five Finger Light. Unlike the characters in Henry’s novel, visitors probably won’t stumble upon a hidden corpse on the premises. But they might find some hidden treasure. There’s a geocache tucked into a hollowed out tree next to a steep cliff.
“It’s one of the more difficult ones to get to if people are trying to follow the coordinates,” said Briana. “We’ve heard stories of people trying to land here and scramble up this cliff. They’re just following the GPS coordinates and not actually looking around the island for where to anchor!”
Briana led the way back to the lighthouse, picking handfuls of thimbleberries as she passed them by. It was a sweet end to the day, especially for the volunteers who, after a lot of sweat — and maybe even a few tears of frustration — successfully installed a new boiler.
The fruit of their labor, funded by community donations and a Rasmussen grant, means that the structure has a more reliable heat source that will protect it from humidity and mold. Jeff Erickson said the upgrade means a lot for the future of the Five Finger Lighthouse.
“What was accomplished today — we finally got our heating system,” said Erickson. “The boilers are hooked up, and we got heat in the lighthouse, which was a big accomplishment. It’s never been hooked up. So, it’s a really exciting day for us.”
For most of the winter, the lighthouse sits empty. But that could change soon. Erickson said the new heating system could allow them to keep their keepers longer into the fall and start the season earlier in the spring. And that means more opportunities for them to share its haunting beauty and hidden treasures with the outside world.
