Sentinel Island

Sentinel Island Lighthouse guards the entrance to Favorite Channel, linking Lynn Canal to Juneau's Auke Bay. The original wood-frame complex included a keeper's house with an attached light tower and outbuildings, including a wharf and boathouse. On August 5, 1910, the passenger steamship Princess May ran hard aground on Sentinel Island's northern reef; everyone aboard was rescued, but the vessel remained stranded for a month until tides rose high enough to float her free. Because wooden buildings were difficult to maintain in the rainforest climate of Southeast Alaska, many early lighthouses were replaced with reinforced-concrete structures, and in 1935 an Art Deco concrete lighthouse was built near Sentinel Island's earlier buildings. That lighthouse still stands, while the original building burned in 1971 after the station was automated and keepers were no longer needed there.

Juneau, Alaska · United States