Every year on Memorial Day weekend, the community of Seldovia holds a human powered fishing derby. 2026 is the 18th year of the event. Participants in the derby must use a craft that is solely human powered such as kayaks, rowboats, canoes or paddle boards. The current coordinator is Amelia Pollack, owner of Alaska Freediver in Seldovia. The shop rents or sells gear to people for snorkel tours or spear fishing. The human powered fishing derby was originally started by Pollock’s father, Tim Dylan, and Pollock provided some details on what the event entails:
“The premise behind it is just to get folks out on the water and enjoy the quiet serene Soldovia Bay while fishing, and hopefully they can bring home dinner and get something to eat, and it's really turned into a big event for our little community,” Pollock said.
The event will provide prizes for the biggest halibut, the biggest king salmon, biggest black rock fish, biggest gray cod and a smallest grey cod category for the youth.
“If you catch a fish in one of those biggest categories, you get your name put in the hat for a grand prize boat, and so from year to year that boat differs, some years it's a wooden rowboat, some years it's a three person kayak this year it’s an on top pedal drive kayak…Entrants come from all over the state, and I guess some come out of state too. There's definitely a core group of Seldovians that have been doing it all 18 years. Some kids have grown up doing the derby.”
There is a $40 entrance fee for the derby and the fee goes towards the cost of the prize vessel and logistics of running the derby. Sign-up is in person at Alaska Freediver on Main Street in Seldovia starting on May 20th. A complete list of rules will be available at the sign-up. The grand prize boat drawing will be held on Sunday at the Gateway Pavillion in Seldovia at 3 PM.
Pollock provided details on other upcoming summer events in Seldovia:
“As far as Seldovia goes, there's the Summer Solstice Music Festival over Solstice weekend, a huge Fourth of July event that’s going to be the full weekend this year (Friday, Saturday, Sunday) and the town triples in size over that weekend. There's a Songs on the Slough event where folks go out on again, boats, kayaks, paddle boards, rowboats, and the amphitheater is actually the slough, the water there, so they bring in bands to perform waterside. And then there's Seldovia Fly In: an airplane event. There are also a couple of races, a bike race, a foot race, and some other concerts throughout the summer.”
She also shared transportation options on how to travel to Seldovia from Homer:
“…there are a couple of different options. You can fly with Smoky Bay Air, you can take the Seldovia Bay ferry directly into Seldovia, and that's about a 45 minute ride, and that's the passenger ferry. You can also take the state ferry that runs three days a week, or the option that a lot of locals use is a water taxi, like Mako’s Water taxi, or Ashore, or Cold Water, and that would bring you into Jakolof Bay, and then you'd get probably a taxi ride to town.”
Reporting from Homer, this is Emilie Springer.
