St. Lazaria Island is a nesting bird colony about 20 miles southwest of Sitka, just south of Kruzof Island, and within Sitka’s borough limits. Its Tlingit name is Kanasz’ee.
The island, named in 1809 by the Russian navigator Ivan Vasiliev, was established as a bird refuge in 1909, received official wilderness designation from Congress in 1970, and was added as a sub-unit to the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge in 1980.
It’s a popular day boat trip for visitors, but only permitted scientists are allowed to walk on the island, since almost every square foot of its 65 acres contains underground burrows for nesting birds. Thousands of petrels, murres, puffins, auklets, gulls, eagles, falcons and oystercatchers are among the birds populating the island. The only trees on the island are Sitka spruce.
