(Photo by Olivia Schmidt/KFSK)
At the intersection of Frederick Sound and Stephens Passage is an island chain. Known as the Five Finger Islands, the southernmost member is the home of the first manned lighthouse in Alaska. The light itself has been automated for 40 years, since 1984, but volunteer keepers stay at the marine outpost from April through September, offering tours and hosting research groups.
KFSK’s Olivia Schmidt traveled out to Five Finger Lighthouse to interview Don and Briana Drury, the final keepers of the 2024 season. They had been there six weeks, and were eager to share their experiences, and what has been accomplished at the lighthouse over the summer.
Don: It was non stop projects.
Briana: The roofs of both the carpenter’s shed and the boat shed were done before we got out here. The solar array was put out this spring. We got here August 1st and the things that we’ve worked on – We did a lot of trail maintenance and building up the trail where we had some accidents with visitors who fell. Oh, we built a research station. When we first got out here, there were whale researchers and six of them. So eight people, it was kind of a full house and they had a lot of equipment they needed to have set up all the time, their hydrophones and their computers and be able to work on stuff and trying to do that here at the dining room table where we all needed to eat, or where we needed to run tour groups through, was just a bit much, so…
Don: Once we realized that it just wasn’t going to work trying to share all that space, we took the space below, cleaned it out and built some proper benches for them to put their equipment up on. And got them a table down there so that they had a dedicated workspace and some lighting and a proper little sign that said Five Finger lighthouse whale research lab.
Briana: And that gives the lighthouse the opportunity if that particular group or any group of researchers wants to come back, now there’s a space for that to happen.
While you were here, what was the visitor turnout like?
Briana: We’ve had just over 200 individual guests, not counting the guides. The word has really gotten out. The local boats know we’re here, their guests look forward to coming. They’ve typically told them about the eagle’s nest and the lighthouse, and so they’re very excited to come ashore. In August, we were getting two boats a day that we would coordinate.
Don: It worked out really well with the mom and pop style, smaller cruise ships that have maybe 20 passengers or something. We have a real good symbiotic relationship with them – they have an exclusive adventure that they can offer to their people that you can’t get on like the big cruise ships, and it’s the appropriate size audience that we can actually bring and give tours of the lighthouse.
So, what was the most challenging part of being here?
Briana: I think when we first got out here, because there were six researchers, that was the height of the tour season, there was sometimes three boats a day we were trying to accommodate, work on a project that required dry weather — it was overwhelming.
Don: Yes, it was a problem of organization, to order tasks properly and get people in the right spaces properly. That’s really all.
On the flip side of that, what was your favorite part of being here in the summer?
Briana: The wildlife.
Don: Yeah, it’s the whales. The last three weeks, that’s the best time when the whales are really feeding. They’re just all around us. A few days ago we had 60 or 80 whales out here. And they just line up, they form this conga line, and they work their way along an underwater ridge between us and Akusha Island. It’s absolutely glorious, the amount of sea mammals that we have here, sea lions and whales, we’ve got the sea otters, and it’s just so much going on.
What advice would you give keepers, in the coming years, to make their transition to this experience as smooth as possible?
Don: I think the most important thing that we’ve looked at is safety. Because there’s obviously nobody to help you here if you get hurt. And especially bringing these tour groups ashore, we’ve had to be really careful with the way we organize that, the way we direct people around, even so much as walking them up to the cupola. So if I could give any advice to keepers, it would be to pay very close attention to the groups of people that you bring ashore, how you disembark them, how you move them around the property, how you accompany them up and down the cupola, and the speed at which you do it.
Briana: Yeah, and not try to rush it – just being aware and observant. When we bring groups up, I typically start talking there on the boat deck. Just to get a sense of, you know, are people already sort of swaying back and forth? Are they breathing hard? Because everybody else is so excited by the whales that they forgot that grandma gets tired easy, which is completely understandable when you’re just overwhelmed by all of the fun and exciting new things out here. But at the end of the day, you’re on a remote island where, best case scenario, you’ve 25 minutes for the chopper to even get here, and then another 25 minutes back, and that’s assuming the weather’s suitable. So you really do have to always think safety first.
