Meyers Chuck City Dock

Meyers Chuck is one of the most memorable stops on the Inside Passage — a near-landlocked cove tucked behind a rocky maze on Cleveland Peninsula that opens into a snug harbor after a dogleg entrance that looks like a dead end until the last moment. The community of about eight year-round residents has no roads, no cars, and no grid power. What it does have is a solid state float managed by the City and Borough of Wrangell, a post office that doubles as the social center of town, and Cassy Peavey.

The public float sits on the east side of the cove alongside local fishing boats and whatever cruising traffic has made the run from Ketchikan (about 35 nautical miles southeast) or down from Wrangell. Moorage is free — the City and Borough of Wrangell does not collect fees. Tie up, find the bulletin board at the top of the dock. A brand-new 400-foot float was installed by Pool Engineering in September 2025 (replacing the original 60-year-old structure, funded via a $1.09M state grant and borough match).

At the top of the dock there is a welcome sign directing arriving boaters to contact Cassy Peavey (she and her husband Steve, a commercial fisherman, are among the handful of year-round residents) — the town’s postmistress, longtime resident of more than 50 years, and the person behind the most talked-about provisioning stop in Southeast Alaska. Text or call her the evening before you arrive, and she will bake cinnamon rolls overnight and deliver them to your boat by aluminum skiff at 7:00–7:30am. Cranberry, plain, walnut, and pecan varieties have been documented across a decade of cruising accounts; she also delivers oatmeal cookies. Text is the current preferred method. Her number, (907) 946-8308, is posted at the dock.

Services at the dock are otherwise minimal by design. There is no fuel — the nearest diesel and gasoline are back in Ketchikan or up in Wrangell. Shore power is not available; the community runs on diesel generators and solar, and there are no pedestal hookups on the float. No pump-out. Fresh water comes from a gravity-fed pipeline residents built from a lake about a mile away in the 1980s — ask locally whether it extends to the float. Cell service is non-existent despite a visible AT&T tower in the village. VHF 16 is the standard hailing channel.

Ashore there is a small community art gallery (seasonal, sometimes closed), a shared community shed stocked with free DVDs, books, and emergency gear, and walking paths through old-growth rainforest to a wild, driftwood-strewn beach on Clarence Strait with excellent tide pools. A floatplane delivers the mail once a week from Ketchikan; when it arrives the whole town tends to appear. Residents have been known to share home-grown lettuce, fresh eggs from a nearby boat, and invitations to community gatherings.

The approach from Clarence Strait requires attention: a reef extends south from Misery Island and another from Meyers Island, with rocks fringing the north side of the entrance channel. The harbor itself is near-landlocked and offers exceptional protection from virtually every direction. An anchorage in the northeast arm suits boats that prefer to swing on the hook; the float accommodates those who want to stay plugged into the community.