Lynn Canal

Geographical location

The Lynn Canal is a 100 km long, 5-15 km wide strait in the southeast of the U.S. state of Alaska.

The Lynn Canal is located in the Alexander Archipelago on the northern end of the Inside Passage and extends from the southern tip of the Chilkat Peninsula in the north, where it is in Chilkat Inlet and Chilkoot Inlet splits to Chatham Strait and Icy Strait in the southwest. Southeast branch Favorite Channel and Channel from Saginaw to Stephens Passage. In the east also branches off the side bay Berners Bay.

The bay was named in 1794 by George Vancouver after his birthplace of King's Lynn. With a depth of up to about 600 meters of the Lynn Canal is the deepest fjord in North America.

The Lynn Canal is an important water route connecting Skagway and Haines connects Juneau. During the Gold Rush of the Klondike River end of the 19th century, the Canal was used by the gold miners on their way to Skagway and Dyea, from where they would travel to the White or Chilkoot Pass into the interior. After the gold rush and the commissioning of the White Pass and Yukon Railway freight was transported from the Yukon on the Lynn Canal to the south. However, the volume of cargo left in the 1980s after the throttling of the mining activity. Today, the majority of ferry traffic on the Canal from the Alaska Marine Highway System is handled.