Wildlife & Wild Lands
Sitka is a great destination for travelers interested in a genuine outdoor experience. Design your tour company around Sitka's wildlife and scenic resources. Abundant populations of brown bears, Sitka black-tailed deer, humpback whales, seals, sea otters, sea lions, bald eagles, ravens, herons, swans, and many species of water fowl, including the tufted puffin, are within easy viewing range from Sitka.
St. Lazaria National Wildlife Refuge
St. Lazaria Island (Kanasx'ee in Tlingit) is a national wildlife refuge and a nesting site for over half a million birds including tufted puffins, petrels, rhinoceros auklets, Pigeon guillemots, and common murres. On the way to the island, about 15 miles from Sitka, you have a good opportunity to see large rafts of sea otters, humpback whales, bald eagles, seals and sea lions.
An extensive network of well-maintained trails provides intimate access to the Tongass National Forest.
Sitka would be a great location for a wilderness survival and guide training company. On land and at sea, Sitka has some pretty challenging outdoor features. From rock cliffs for climbing to wind swept remote beaches and dense forest habitat. You can even hike to the top of Sitka's dormant volcano, Mt. Edgecumbe.
Sitka's has some of the best cold-water diving in the Pacific Northwest, but we lack a dive shop. This would be an enjoyable business venture for a dive enthusiast. The business owner could coordinate with cruise ship visits and local fishing lodges to create recreational dive tours. In addition to recreational divers, we have commercial seafood diver's too. Sea otters are not the only ones interested in our abundant seafood, including: scallops, crab, geoduck clams, abalone, urchins, and sea cucumbers.
Check out this video on the Tongass National Forest:
