Mile 1310 - Cape St. Elias

Cape St. Elias is a dramatic coastal landmark. Northbound cruise ships are usually off here at dawn. The lighthouse is now automated.

Built in 1915, the remote site presented major challenges so the work crew made 190 thousand bricks from cement and the beach sand and gravel!

This was a lonely and austere posting for any lighthouse crew stationed here. The Coast Guard had to make a special trip to the remote site in 1962 to remove one of the crew who had become deranged and had begun to threaten his mates. And just a year earlier one of the crew, complaining of claustrophobia, took off in a skiff rowing to clear his mind and was never seen again.

Cape St. Elias Lighthouse was automated in 1974, but is still occasionally visited by visitors organised by the Cape St. Elias Lightkeepers Association.

Like most of the area's islands, it is a major seabird nesting site.

As you can see, the lighthouse is dwarfed by the pinnacle rock to its west. In good weather, a light plane can land on the sandy spit on the left, between the island and the pinnacle.

An excellent website for this and other lightghouses is www.lighthousefriends.com/light.asp?ID=830