Peril Strait
strait in the Alexander Archipelago in Alaska
Peril Strait or Shee Káx’ is a strait in the Alexander Archipelago in southeastern Alaska. It is between Chichagof Island to its north and Baranof Island and Catherine Island to its south. The strait is 80 km (50 mi) long and reaches from Salisbury Sound on the west to the Chatham Strait on the east. It is entirely within the limits of the City and Borough of Sitka.
Name
Shee Káx’ comes from “Shee” which is the original name of Baranof Island. Káx’ is “above”, a locative description.
The strait was named Proliv Pogibshy by Russians because of a fatal incident during a fur seal hunting expedition led by Alexander Baranof in 1799. According to V. F. Lisianski, Baranof employed Native Aleut hunters, ate poisonous shellfish 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.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 15, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q3045384. The first chronological checks are 1799.
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This entry incorporates text from “Peril Strait” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.