Port of St Paul
Cruising and Travel

The Port of St. Paul is a small community of brightly-colored wooden homes with dark roofs. There is a church, a small hospital, a hotel, and a machine shop in the Port of St. Paul. Weekly mail and passenger service to and from Anchorage through Cold Bay or Dutch Harbor is available as weather permits.

The Port of St. Paul has an Arctic maritime climate where it is cool and temperatures do not vary greatly throughout the year. Average temperatures range from °-7;C (19°F) to 10°C; (51°F). Especially during the summer, heavy fog is common. The Port of St. Paul gets about 25 inches of rain per year and about 56 inches of snow.

Some 700 tourists visit the Port of St. Paul each year, primarily to see the incredible diversity of wildlife on the island. As many as 248 species of birds have been observed on St. Paul Island. During the spring, they include some species from Siberia.

The northern fur seal rookeries are a popular sight. In May, the male seals come to establish their territories and prepare for the females to arrive. From June through October, the rookeries are closed to the public. After October, there are two blinds where the seals can be observed.

Several miles to the southwest on Otter Island, harbor seals breed, but they frequent the shores off St. Paul Island as well. Sometimes, stellar seals can be seen off the Port of St. Paul shores, but they normally gather at Walrus Island about 16 kilometers (10 miles) to the northeast. Visitors may also get to see Orcas, Grey whales, and walrus offshore, although these occasions are rare. Introduced to the island in 1911, a big herd of reindeer (from domesticated Russian breeds) populate the island as well.

The blue fox, an Arctic fox subspecies, is native to St. Paul Island. As the years have passed, the fox have come to prefer the Port of St. Paul garbage, fishing docks, and seafood processing plants to catching wild prey. Pups (called kits) sometimes hide under storage containers where fishermen offer scraps. The blue fox inhabit the edges of the fur seal rookeries, and the two species seem to coexist peacefully.

During the spring, the Port of St. Paul and surrounding area becomes a showplace for beautiful wildflowers that sprinkle the tundra with bright colors. Over 100 species of wildflowers welcome the coming summer.

Travelers who want to visit the Port of St. Paul by sea can find cruises by searching for "St. Paul" on the Cruise Compete website.

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