Hazy Islands Wilderness

The Hazy Islands Wilderness now contains a total of 32 acres and is managed by the Fish & Wildlife Service's Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge. All of the Wilderness is in the state of Alaska. In 1970 the Hazy Islands Wilderness became part of the now over 110 million acre National Wilderness Preservation System.

The former Hazy Islands National Wildlife Refuge, established in 1912, was designated Wilderness in 1970 and incorporated as a subunit into the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge, Gulf of Alaska Unit, in 1980. Far offshore, beaten by wind and wave, Big Hazy Island and her four smaller sisters stick out of the frigid sea, providing predator-free nesting areas for large populations of common murres, pigeon guillemots, glaucous-winged gulls, horned puffins, and tufted puffins. Brandt's cormorants nest here, one of only two islands they inhabit in Alaska.

Remote, without anchorages or campsites, beaten by frequent storms under high winds, the rocks called Hazy Islands are seldom seen and human visitation is discouraged to protect the birds and the humans. This is Alaska's smallest Wilderness area.

A journey to the far-flung lands of the Hazy Islands Wilderness within the Alaska Maritime Refuge almost always involves a boat. Tour boats, ferries, planes , cruise ships or your own boat can transport you to parts of the refuge. No refuge lands are accessible from the road system. Homer and Seward are the only road accessible communities near the refuge. All other communities in and near the refuge are accessible by scheduled air service and some such as Sitka, Seldovia, Kodiak, Chignik, Sand Point, King Cove, Cold Bay, False Pass, Akutan and Unalaska also have ferry service.

For those not ready to set sail, the Alaska Islands & Ocean Visitor Center and Refuge headquarters at 95 Sterling Highway # 1, Homer, Alaska, can be reached by vehicle and scheduled aircraft from Anchorage (225 miles). The Center takes you on a dramatic journey through the refuge's past and present . . . surrounds you with the sights, sounds - and even the smells of a seabird colony . . . and invites you to follow biologists as their research ship sails to remote islands each year.