Keku Strait

Keku Strait ran between Kuiu and Kupreanof islands in the island country of southeastern Alaska. It connected the waters of Frederick Sound with the approaches to Sumner Strait, through channels broken by islands, reefs and tidal shallows. This was country of the Kake Tlingit, whose permanent villages stood on both large islands and whose claims extended around the northern Kuiu shore. Seasonal fishing places formed part of the same maritime landscape.

Near the northern end, a traditional summer camp occupied the shore later used for the Kake cannery. There people caught and preserved salmon; shellfish and seaweed were gathered along the rocky beach. Such places linked residence with the seasonal work that supplied stored food. Foreign surveying added another layer of names in the late eighteenth century. In 1793 Vancouver gave the name Conclusion Island to an island in the southern part of Keku Strait, marking the end of that season's work. His charting entered waters already used and named by local people, whose villages and fishing grounds gave the passage an older human geography.