Afognak Wilderness Lodge is an extraordinarily unique experience. So why did I give it only three stars? I wanted to give it five stars and I wanted to give it one star so I gave it the average. Let me tell you why. The lodge is unlike anywhere the writer of this review has ever been before. The experience is truly one of a kind. It is owned and operated by a single family. The sons and daughter who have lived there all of their lives and are now in their early-mid thirties (but are also all well traveled) are incomparable guides; they don’t provide canned explanations like on your usual tourist boat, but instead help guide your activities based on the weather each day. The matriarch, unfortunately, appears to have a bit of a character flaw that can seriously damage your experience.

The Lodge is located in Afognak Island State Park. (Take a look at a map of the Kodiak Archipelago; Afognak is the small island north east of Kodiak.) The patriarch of the family homesteaded the property some 40 years ago and they have been developing it as a family home and guest lodge ever since. To give you a bit of the flavor of the place let me share a few random facts. The lodge generates its own electricity with diesel generators. The water source is ground water runoff which they filter and treat with ultraviolet light (pretty standard treatment), but it is brown from dissolved substances from the ground (tannins I presume). Everything the lodge uses, from toilet paper to bottled water, is brought there by sea plane. The gasoline and diesel storage tanks (for running the boats and generators) are replenished quarterly. The property consists of the original family home and three cabins built Lincoln log style out of trees felled on the property. There is also a three story building built from lumber milled on the property (yes they built their own lumber mill) with bedrooms and living spaces for staff and family members. There are also sundry other buildings including a green house, boat house, sauna, and generator shelter. There is a dock in front of the compound where your sea plane will drop you off and the family keeps four boats for guest excursions.

The guest cabins are two bedrooms with a small living area and a bathroom each. We were “rooming” with a father and his son. I was not big on the idea of sharing but our roomies were so discrete we wouldn’t have hardly known they were there, if they hadn’t introduced themselves. I hope we were almost as courteous.

We arrived on Sunday August 5th at about 9:00 am. We were greeted on the dock by the family, existing guests, and some staff members (picture the arrival of “the plane, the plane” on fantasy island). We dropped off our bag in our room and almost immediately were in a boat off for our day’s adventure. But let me digress back to our sea plane ride from Kodiak to Afognak. We took off from Kodiak in sunshine, but we were quickly under a low cloud cover in a light fog. We were flying below the fog until it became to dense to see much of anything. Our pilot ascended to 1500 feet and we were in a clear space between the ground fog and a high cloud cover. The pilot told us that Afognak was reporting zero visibility and a zero ceiling, but perhaps we could find somewhere nearby to land and could be picked up by boat. Fifteen minutes or so later, the pilot reported that Afognak was clearing, so we came down through the fog cover and were able to land. I haven’t yet figured out how the pilot knew we were over water when we came through the fog cover—all I could see was dense fog below us. But we landed safely and happily.

Back to our adventure on Afognak—Dana, one of the homesteader’s daughters, took my wife and I, and a father-son duo (our roomies) off in an open boat which I believe was a Boston Whaler. We went salt water fishing for Silver Salmon in a bay at the base of a small stream. We caught a couple of fish but weren’t having much luck overall. So Dana took us to a brackish stream where Pink Salmon were schooling in abundance. But before we began “snagging the Pinks,” we beached the boat and hiked a few hundred yards along a waterfall for some bear viewing. We were overwhelmed. Just yards away from us were a couple of Grizzly sows and five cubs. I have posted a few pictures of the bears we saw. After a half hour or so of watching the bears we went back down the water fall and snagged Pinks for the rest of the day. For those who may not be fish lingo savvy, snagging is exactly what it sounds like. You put a large four pronged hook on the end of your line and cast out to snag the fish. When they are swimming in large schools, it is surprisingly easy. We were doing catch and release so I don’t know how many in total were snagged, but it was easily several multiples of ten (mostly by our roommates who were experienced fishermen, but we both caught a few).

That first night, one of our fellow lodge guests brought Alaskan crab legs which the staff prepared for everyone. These were the best crab legs by far that I have ever eaten.

The next morning after a full breakfast served family style in the family home, we were back in the boat with Dana. We wanted to try bottom fishing for Cod and Halibut so we headed out to sea in relatively calm waters. Twenty minutes out, the wind and waves picked up dramatically. Our host headed back in to the calm of the bays around Afognak. We puttered around the shoreline trying to spot deer. (One of the guests with us had a deer license and was hoping to bag a deer on the trip.) We never saw a deer but we saw puffins, and sea otters. We worked our way over to “bear cove” and hiked up the waterfall again. There were even more bears. We saw two boars and several sows with their cubs. I lost count of all the bears we saw. We hiked a little further up the waterfall and ran into three fish and game volunteers who were out inspecting the fish ladders. (Personally I don’t see why we need to help the fish where we haven’t altered the natural waterway, but I digress to much.) We spent the afternoon snagging Pinks until we were all just tired and ready to head home. That evening we had a King Salmon that had been caught the day before.

The next day out we were with one of the homesteader’s sons, Luke. We were in a larger boat with a small cabin. We tried bottom fishing again, but as soon as we turned off the engine, my wife started feeling a bit seasick, so Luke took us fishing for “Silvers.” We went to yet another secluded bay. This time, though, we tied our boat up to the shore, hiked up a trail a couple of hundred yards to a fresh water lake. There the family had strategically hidden a small open boat. We motored to the other end of the glass like lake, while a couple of bald eagles soared over us. We beached the boat on a small island to stash our lunch and my wife who was still feeling a little squeamish from the rocking boat decided to stay ashore. She explored the small island, laid in the sun, and fished a little from shore. The three of us in the boat all caught several Silvers and a few Sockeyes. That night for dinner we had fried chicken a nice break from all fish all the time.

So what could possibly be wrong with this idyllic picture? Nothing, absolutely nothing. But I suggested to my wife that she confirm one more time with the matriarch our departure plans the next day. We had already confirmed in four emails and on the day of our arrival, but something was still unsettling me. It may have been the matriarch’s response when we confirmed our departure plans on the day of our arrival: “oh, so you’re the ones.”

Let me explain. Our purpose in going to Alaska was to attend my wife’s family reunion in Homer, Alaska starting on the evening of Wednesday August 8, 2007. Our trip to Afognak was simply an add on we had done to round out the trip and see a little more of Alaska. We explained all of this when we were discussing the trip with Mrs. Randall, ten months ahead of time. She recommended that we fly to Kodiak, spend our first night there, then the next morning take the float plane charter to Afognak. She then recommended that we take a float plane charter from Afognak directly to Homer the evening of August 8, 2007. That way we would get four full days of activities. Her recommendation was perfect.

We made the arrangements with Mrs. Randall and paid for them ten months ahead of time. But things changed for Mrs. Randall in the mean time. She overbooked her lodge and one of her guides/children had to head back to college the evening before we left. Moreover, she had a couple coming into Afognak from Kodiak the MORNING of August 8, 2007. If only she could get us to take the morning charter to Kodiak instead of the evening charter to Homer, not only would she get rid of a couple of guests early, she would only have to pay one roundtrip sea plane charter from Kodiak to Afognak and back, instead of a one way charter for the arriving couple and a one way charter for us to Homer, thus she would pocket an extra few hundred dollars.

Without telling us she simply booked us on the morning charter to Kodiak, instead of the evening charter to Homer. Kodiak is an island! She made no allowance for how we were to get from Kodiak to Homer, or even where we might stay in Kodiak if traveling proved impossible. Once we were off her island, those would be our problems. It wasn’t until we pressed her several times the evening before we were supposed to leave that she finally fessed up, but in doing so tried to blame us for a mix up. We quickly killed the blame game by pointing out that we had brought copies of all the emails and by reminding her of her comment two nights earlier “Oh, so you’re the ones.” She then adopted the confused approach with a story about how there was another couple that changed their plans and she must have gotten us mixed up. Turns out, though that she had a file for each guest, including one for us with all of our emails and a final bill that she had written up since our arrival that quoted the fare for a one way charter to Homer (the charter to Homer was a couple hundred dollars more than the one way charter to Kodiak). In the end the truth was self evident. At that late date, she was unable to book the charter directly to Homer (at least she claimed that she was unable to do so). At our insistence, Mrs. Randall was able to book a milk run flying from Afognak to Kodiak to Anchorage to Homer, thus we were able to spend a day of our vacation touring the airports of Alaska instead of the wildlife.

With that kind of chicanery, while we wanted to give Afognak five stars, we really should have given it one. We gave it three stars because Dana and the “boys” who work their tails off guiding the guests did such a wonderful job.