Peril Strait or Háat Ishkáak is a strait

Strait

A strait or straits is a narrow, typically navigable channel of water that connects two larger, navigable bodies of water. It most commonly refers to a channel of water that lies between two land masses, but it may also refer to a navigable channel through a body of water that is otherwise not...

 in the Alexander Archipelago

Alexander Archipelago

The Alexander Archipelago is a long archipelago, or group of islands, of North America off the southeastern coast of Alaska. It contains about 1,100 islands, which are the tops of the submerged coastal mountains that rise steeply from the Pacific Ocean. Deep channels and fjords separate the...

 in southeastern Alaska

Alaska

Alaska is the largest state in the United States by area. It is situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent, with Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia further west across the Bering Strait...

. It is between Chichagof Island

Chichagof Island

Chichagof Island, or Shee Kaax, is an island in the Alexander Archipelago of the Alaska Panhandle. At long and wide, it has a land area of , making it the fifth largest island in the United States and the 109th largest island in the world. It's coastline measures 742 miles. There was a 2000...

 to its north and Baranof Island

Baranof Island

Baranof Island, also sometimes called Baranov Island, Shee or Sitka Island, is an island in the northern Alexander Archipelago in the Alaska Panhandle, in Alaska. The name Baranof was given in 1805 by Imperial Russian Navy captain U. F. Lisianski to honor Alexander Andreyevich Baranov...

 and Catherine Island

Catherine Island (Alaska)

Catherine Island is an island in the Alexander Archipelago of southeastern Alaska, USA. It is part of the City and Borough of Sitka and lies just off the northeast corner of Baranof Island, separated from it by Portage Arm. The U.S. Forest Service named Catherine Island in 1935 after Catherine I of...

 to its south. The strait is 80 km (49.7 mi) long and reaches from Salisbury Sound

Salisbury Sound

Salisbury Sound is a sound between the north shore of Kruzof Island and the southwestern end of Chichagof Island in the Alexander Archipelago in Southeast Alaska...

 on the west to the Chatham Strait

Chatham Strait

Chatham Strait, or Shee ya xhaak in the Tlingit language, is a narrow passage of the Alexander Archipelago in the southeastern region of the U.S. state of Alaska. It separates Chichagof Island and Baranof Island to its west from Admiralty Island and Kuiu Island on its east.It is long and extends...

 on the east. It is entirely within the limits of the City and Borough of Sitka

Sitka City and Borough, Alaska

The City and Borough of Sitka, originally called New Archangel under Russian Rule, is a unified city-borough located on Baranof Island and the southern half of Chichagof Island in the Alexander Archipelago of the Pacific Ocean , in the U.S...

.

Name

When a Tlingit canoe party was going through the tide was going against them and they had to stop and camp there until the tide was right to go through. Háat means tide, Ishkáak means to sit down; eel'é is also referred to where the tide goes in and out really fast.

The strait was named Proliv Pogibshy by Russians because of a fatal incident during a fur seal

Fur seal

Fur seals are any of nine species of pinnipeds in the Otariidae family. One species, the northern fur seal inhabits the North Pacific, while seven species in the Arctocephalus genus are found primarily in the Southern hemisphere...

 hunting expedition led by Alexander Baranof in 1799. According to V. F. Lisianski, Baranof employed Native Aleut hunters, ate poisonous

Paralytic shellfish poisoning

Paralytic shellfish poisoning is one of the four recognized syndromes of shellfish poisoning, which share some common features and are primarily associated with bivalve mollusks . These shellfish are filter feeders and, therefore, accumulate toxins produced by microscopic algae, such as...

 shellfish

Shellfish

Shellfish is a culinary and fisheries term for exoskeleton-bearing aquatic invertebrates used as food, including various species of molluscs, crustaceans, and echinoderms. Although most kinds of shellfish are harvested from saltwater environments, some kinds are found only in freshwater...

 from the strait, which resulted in approximately one hundred and fifty deaths. Beyond the strait are the points Poison Cove and Deadman's Reach, also named for the incident. Peril Strait is the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey translation of Proliv Pogibshiy.

Tides

As the strait runs between two large bodies of water (Chatham Strait and Salisbury Sound/Pacific Ocean

Pacific Ocean

The Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth's oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic in the north to the Southern Ocean in the south, bounded by Asia and Australia in the west, and the Americas in the east.At 165.2 million square kilometres in area, this largest division of the World...

), the tidal currents at Sergius and Kakul Narrows pose a danger to large vessels navigating the body of water. With the exception of its fast ferries, the Alaska Marine Highway System only runs its mainline vessels through Peril Strait at slack tide

Slack water

Slack water, which used to be known as 'The stand of the tide', is a short period in a body of tidal water either side of high water or low water essentially when the water is completely unstressed, and therefore with no rise or fall of the tide and no movement either way in the tidal stream, and...

.

Navigation

On May 10, 2004, the AMHS vessel M/V LeConte

M/V LeConte

M/V LeConte is a feeder vessel for the Alaska Marine Highway System, built in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin in 1973 and commissioned in 1974 by Alaska's ferry system...

 grounded on Cozian Reef

Cozian Reef

Cozian Reef or Nikolas Rock is located just above the northern tip of Baranof Island in Peril Strait which is in the Panhandle of the U.S. state of Alaska....

 in Peril Strait. There were no major injuries, and after an extensive salvage

Marine salvage

Marine salvage is the process of rescuing a ship, its cargo, or other property from peril. Salvage encompasses rescue towing, refloating a sunken or grounded vessel, or patching or repairing a ship...

 process, the LeConte was escorted to Ketchikan

Ketchikan, Alaska

Ketchikan is a city in Ketchikan Gateway Borough, Alaska, United States, the southeasternmost sizable city in that state. With an estimated population of 7,368 in 2010 within the city limits, it is the fifth most populous city in the state....

 for successful repairs. The cause of the grounding was determined to be operator error, not tidal currents.

The Fairway Island Light

Fairway Island Light

The Fairway Island Lighthouse is a lighthouse located on the eastern entrance to Peril Strait, Alaska.It is located on a small islet that lies between the southeastern end of Chichagof Island and northern Catherine Island, within the limits of Sitka City and Borough.-History:Fairway Island...

, located on the eastern entrance to Peril Strait, was an important aid-to-navigation in the early 20th century.