St. Paul Island, Alaska

I discovered there wasn't much information on the web about birding trips to St. Paul Island while planning my June '97 trip to the Pribilofs. I made this page to provide a bit more for birders contemplating a trip there. The Pribilof Islands of Alaska are a small cluster of four islands located about 250 mile north of the Aleutian Chain and are known for their rich bird life and fur seals.

St. Paul Island Tours offers package deals to visit the island with a choice of different lengths. They have a page on the web with trip prices and provide excellent guides as part of the package. Note that what is advertised as a "three-day/two-night trip" provides only about 48 hours on the island, although it does span three different days. Most people found the two-night trip to be about the right length of time. I might have stayed longer, but the price for each extra day seemed unnecessarily high. A couple sharing a room is charged $300 per additional night! If you get stuck on the island for a few extra days because the airport is fogged in, be prepared to pay $66/person for additional nights in the hotel, plus whatever costs might be incurred by changes to your other travels around Alaska. I looked into arranging for airfare and hotel separately to save money, but found that the cost of the two-night tour package was cheaper than purchasing airfare alone. The native-owned TDX Corporation owns most of the island and has a monopoly on everything. The short tourist season and the lack of competition reduce incentive for TDX to make general improvements to the facilities, but there are signs of improvement.

Take warm clothing including hat and gloves. The summer temperature is often about 40 degrees Fahrenheit, and with an average wind velocity of 18 miles per hour, the wind chill can be pretty serious. You won't need sunglasses; the island is generally covered by low thick clouds.

Like many towns in rural Alaska, St. Paul has a gravel airport. This is a part of the exciting Alaska experience. The Aleutians and Pribilofs was previously serviced by Reeve Aleutian Airways flying older Lockheed Electra aircraft. They had a very good safety record.

St. George Island in the Pribilofs has higher cliffs and more nesting birds than St. Paul, but no more species. It was my uninformed opinion that arranging for a flight over to St. George is probably not worth the cost and hassle, but several readers of this web page think otherwise. Click here to read a few comments from other people about St. George.

Mountains of Alaska King Crab pots were stored on the island awaiting the crabbing season. Some of the town can be seen in the background. The people there, about 1000 Alaska native Aleutes, were friendly and receptive to our visit.

The King Eider Hotel, owned by the TDX Corporation, is the only hotel on St. Paul. Despite its run-down appearance, the inside is not too bad. My room had a built-in vanity and a new Sealy mattress on the bed. Showers were located in community bathrooms down the hall. Unfortunately the hotel is located next door to the local tavern, and on Friday night the drunks were very noisy.

The hotel served a free breakfast buffet. Lunch and dinner were at the only restaurant on the island which was at the airport. The food there was pretty good.

We used the tour bus pictured in front of the hotel to get around to the birding hot-spots. The guides and hotel staff were all wonderful. I highly recommend the trip.

A proud beachmaster awaits the arrival of female fur seals. We saw many hundreds of these, but only a few females had arrived by the time we left on June 21, 1997.

There is a huge herd of reindeer on the island, but we saw them only once. Apparently they were sort of in hiding because the natives had recently captured them to harvest their antlers.

The 100 foot high cliffs around the island are where most of the birds are nesting. Arctic foxes were often seen below the cliff hoping for some ill-placed nest full of eggs or chicks to drop down for dinner.

Lupine and other wild flowers were prolific. Weyerhauser had no need for a branch office there. The only three trees on the island were planted and did not look too healthy.

Horned Puffins were everywhere, and they made great subjects for photography. Don't visit without your camera, a telephoto lens, and plenty of high-speed film.

Tufted Puffins

Parakeet Auklet...

A spotting scope on the tour bus provided everyone with an opportunity to view birds up close. Several people also brought one along giving us a chance to compare different brands. The Swarofski AT-80 with 45 degree offset eye-piece was a clear favorite.

The Least Auklets were so small that they looked like chicks until they flew.

Red-faced Cormorants are hard to find anywhere else in North American except the islands of Alaska. They were beautiful.

A curious Thick-billed Murre watched me as I watched it. I added 18 species of birds to my life-list during the short trip to the Pribilofs.

St. Paul is 14 miles long and eight miles wide, with 45 miles of shoreline. The scale key in this map is difficult to read, but the upper bar is divided into three one-mile increments; the lower bar is three kilometers long.

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