Cape Spencer

Cape Spencer lighthouse stands on a barren, isolated rock at the entrance to Cross Sound, where the sheltered Inside Passage meets the open Gulf of Alaska. The original lighthouse still stands as a single-story, reinforced concrete building that housed both machinery and keepers, with the light tower rising above its flat roof. Cape Spencer keepers rarely left the rock. Occasionally, calm seas let them take a small skiff into Pelican, 20 miles away, to get their mail and pick up special groceries. One day, when rough water prevented a trip into Pelican, a keeper with a hankering for lemon pie baked one without lemons, using brass polish because, as he explained, it had a high citrus content, and there were no objections from those who shared the pie. One year, as Christmas approached, a keeper took the skiff to the mainland to cut a tree, but on the return trip the outboard motor failed, and skiff and keeper were last seen as the strong Cross Sound current carried them into the North Pacific's fog. Cape Spencer's original lens is at the Alaska State Museum in Juneau. The site is managed by Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve. The light was first lit on Dec. 11, 1925, used a third-order Fresnel lens, and was automated in 1974.

Juneau, Alaska · United States