Gulf of Alaska

Water type: Bay
Connection to the ocean: Pacific Ocean
Continent: North America
Climate: Subpolar

Bays

Largest tributaries

Salmoniformes - Salmons and Trouts

Lamniformes - Mackerel sharks

Scorpaeniformes - Mail-cheeked fishes

Squaliformes - Sleeper and dogfish sharks

Acipenseriformes - Sturgeons and Paddlefish

Gadiformes - Cods

Notacanthiformes - Spiny eels

Saccopharyngiformes - Swallowers and Gulpers

Alepocephaliformes - Slickheads and tubeshoulders

Pleuronectiformes - Flatfishes

Clupeiformes - Herrings

Trachiniformes - Weeverfishes

Batrachoidiformes - Toadfishes

The Gulf of Alaska is an arm of the Pacific Ocean defined by the curve of the southern coast of Alaska, stretching from the Alaska Peninsula and Kodiak Island in the west to the Alexander Archipelago in the east, where Glacier Bay and the Inside Passage are found.

The Gulf shoreline is a combination of forest, mountain and a number of tidewater glaciers. Alaska\’s largest glaciers, the Malaspina Glacier and Bering Glacier, spill out onto the coastal line along the Gulf of Alaska. The coast is heavily indented with Cook Inlet and Prince William Sound, the two largest connected bodies of water. It includes Yakutat Bay and Cross Sound. Lituya Bay (a fjord north of Cross Sound, and south of Mount Fairweather) is the site of the largest recorded tsunami in history. It serves as a sheltered anchorage for fishing boats.