Port Walter
Encyclopedia
Port Walter is located on the southeastern side of Baranof Island
in Sitka City and Borough, Alaska
. It is made up of two parts: Little Port Walter and Big Port Walter.
Little Port Walter was the home of a herring
saltery
during the turn on the century and the ruins can still be seen. Little Port Walter had a small community at one time but has been replaced by a research station that studies the life cycles of several species of Salmon
. There is a staff of 3–15 state and federal employees running the research station year-round. There is a dock, and the harbor itself is a safe anchorage.
Little Port Walter receives an average annual precipitation of over 225 inches (5.7 m)
and as such is the wettest permanent settlement in the United States and among the wettest in the world with lengthy climate records. As many as seventy-eight days per year see over 1 inches (25.4 mm) of rain and/or snowfall per year, whilst in October 1974 69.23 inches (1.76 m) of rain fell and in January 1985 61.67 inches (1.57 m). The record daily rainfall was 14.84 inches (376.9 mm) on 6 December, 1964. The driest month was February 1989 with 0.63 inches (16 mm), whilst the hottest day on record was 12 August of 1990 with 88 °F (31 °C) and the coldest 19 Janaury of 1981 with 0 °F (-17.8 °C) overnight. The heaviest snowfall in a month was 94.2 inches (2.4 m) in December 2001.
Baranof Island
Baranof Island, also sometimes called Baranov Island, Shee or Sitka Island, is an island in the northern Alexander Archipelago in the Alaska Panhandle, in Alaska. The name Baranof was given in 1805 by Imperial Russian Navy captain U. F. Lisianski to honor Alexander Andreyevich Baranov...
in Sitka City and Borough, Alaska
Alaska
Alaska is the largest state in the United States by area. It is situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent, with Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia further west across the Bering Strait...
. It is made up of two parts: Little Port Walter and Big Port Walter.
Little Port Walter was the home of a herring
Herring
Herring is an oily fish of the genus Clupea, found in the shallow, temperate waters of the North Pacific and the North Atlantic oceans, including the Baltic Sea. Three species of Clupea are recognized. The main taxa, the Atlantic herring and the Pacific herring may each be divided into subspecies...
saltery
Saltery
A saltery was a place where people could either go to have their food salted or get salted food when refrigeration was not an option in earlier times, like the medieval era....
during the turn on the century and the ruins can still be seen. Little Port Walter had a small community at one time but has been replaced by a research station that studies the life cycles of several species of Salmon
Salmon
Salmon is the common name for several species of fish in the family Salmonidae. Several other fish in the same family are called trout; the difference is often said to be that salmon migrate and trout are resident, but this distinction does not strictly hold true...
. There is a staff of 3–15 state and federal employees running the research station year-round. There is a dock, and the harbor itself is a safe anchorage.
Little Port Walter receives an average annual precipitation of over 225 inches (5.7 m)
and as such is the wettest permanent settlement in the United States and among the wettest in the world with lengthy climate records. As many as seventy-eight days per year see over 1 inches (25.4 mm) of rain and/or snowfall per year, whilst in October 1974 69.23 inches (1.76 m) of rain fell and in January 1985 61.67 inches (1.57 m). The record daily rainfall was 14.84 inches (376.9 mm) on 6 December, 1964. The driest month was February 1989 with 0.63 inches (16 mm), whilst the hottest day on record was 12 August of 1990 with 88 °F (31 °C) and the coldest 19 Janaury of 1981 with 0 °F (-17.8 °C) overnight. The heaviest snowfall in a month was 94.2 inches (2.4 m) in December 2001.