Blue Heron Bed & Breakfast at Glacier Bay


A Little About Your Hosts

Charlie's Mother, Mary, was raised in Alaska over eighty years ago and was the daughter of an itinerant school teacher who taught in Bush Alaska. Life was rugged and her mother was expected to provide medical care and communications with the outside world as well as teaching the 3 R's. Mary has had a fascinating life in remote villages and because of this, grew up to be extremely well read. She excels as a sensitive wildlife artist and makes a prize winning rhubarb pie! She loves her summer visits to Glacier Bay and a reunion with family.

Hosts Deb & Charlie

Charlie was born and raised in Moose Pass and learned how to live off the land from his parents. He has built several log homes and most recently, our octagonal cedar home. An avid outdoorsman, Charlie enjoyed his working stints at Denali National Park and on various fish weirs in Southeast Alaska. After attending college in Fairbanks, Charlie relocated to Southeast Alaska where he became enamored with gardening and learning the ways of the sea with his first small handtroller. What followed for twenty years was the operation of a small Mom & Pop crab fishery with his wife and best friend, Deb.

Deb grew up in the Adirondack foothills, went to college in Boulder at CU, and moved to Alaska as a young woman. She had always had a dream about returning to the land and learning canning and putting food up while she built a homestead. She lived on Kupreanof Is. for several years and traveled by kayak to resupply her stock of food or to work in Petersburg. Learning of a job in her field, Deb moved to Juneau where she taught ESL (English as a Second Language) for the University of Alaska/JDCC and wrote grants for various education programs.

A "sense of place" became a strong pull for both Deb and Charlie, and they moved to Gustavus and their respective homesteads within the same week. Life was very simple back then in a town with no electricity, 10 miles of roads and cutoff from access to the outside world. There was no ferry or regular jet service so it was a good place to develop the skills of self-sufficiency and an even stronger connection with the wilderness. More than 25 years have passed and they still love their small community way of life and proximity to things wild. Both love having a large garden, fishing and boating, photography, travel and caring for their homestead. Visitors 'come as strangers and often feel they are leaving as friends'!