Thomas Bay (Kushtaka)

OVERVIEW

Thomas Bay, in the Tongass National Forest near Wrangell and Petersburg, is remembered in Tlingit history as a place of loss after a landslide around 1750 destroyed a village there; it is also one of the places most closely associated with the Kushtaka, or land-otter people, a being described across generations of Tlingit and Tsimshian oral tradition.

REPORTED ACTIVITY

In Tlingit teaching, the Kushtaka is a shape-shifting being, part otter and part human, said to be capable of appearing in the form of a lost or drowned relative to lead travelers astray near water. The best-known non-Native account is prospector Harry Colp's manuscript "The Strangest Story Ever Told," describing an encounter near Thomas Bay in the early 1900s and published decades later. These stories remain part of a living oral tradition for Southeast Alaska Native communities rather than a settled historical claim, and are presented here as such.

VISITING

Thomas Bay is remote wilderness reachable by boat or floatplane from Wrangell or Petersburg.