Papke's Landing is a public float dock on Wrangell Narrows, roughly 10 miles south of Petersburg on Mitkof Island's Mitkof Highway. A 300-foot trestle connects a 100-foot float to shore — a vital link for lodges, subsistence users, and residents accessing remote homes across the narrows on Kupreanof Island.
Papke's Landing — also known locally as the Scow Bay float — sits at mile 10 of the Mitkof Highway on the eastern shore of Wrangell Narrows, where tidal currents from both ends of the narrows converge at high water. The dock predates modern Alaska infrastructure: the US Forest Service built the original structure before World War II to handle lumber storage and transport, and it has served this remote stretch of Mitkof Island ever since.
The facility is a public access point, not a full-service marina. What's here is a 100-foot float connected to a timber dock and steel gangway by a 300-foot pedestrian trestle — enough to tie up a skiff or a modest-sized vessel and step ashore onto a half-acre gravel parking area with a small boat launch ramp. There is no fuel dock, no shore power, no potable water hookup, and no pump-out. What it offers is access: to the rich fishing grounds of Frederick Sound, to Wrangell Narrows, and to the scattered homes and lodges on Kupreanof Island that have no road connection.
The users who know this float best are Petersburg fishing lodge operators who launch clients here, commercial and sport fishermen who prefer it over the congested downtown harbor, and subsistence hunters who range into the country along Mitkof's southern road corridor. Deer season brings a steady stream of skiffs; summer brings trollers working the narrows and Frederick Sound.
Condition is the honest caveat here. The float has been in steady decline for decades — Alaska DOT reports wooden sections rotted through, the ramp seasonally repositioned by hand by community volunteers, and the whole structure rated as unlikely to remain safely usable without significant investment. As of the mid-2020s the Petersburg Borough was actively pursuing state tidelands ownership and federal grant funding to redesign and reconstruct the facility entirely, with replacement cost estimates ranging from under $500,000 for the float alone to $1.2 million for a full dock-and-float rebuild.
For transient boaters passing through Wrangell Narrows, Papke's Landing offers a convenient interim stop or drop-off point — though it is not a destination marina. Shelter is limited; the narrows are exposed to tidal flow and the float sits in open tidal water. Petersburg's full-service harbor infrastructure lies 10 miles north. Plan accordingly.
Fuel and shore power available at Scow Bay / Papke’s Landing.
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