Pelican (Tlingit: K'udeis'x̱'e) is a small town in the northwestern part of Chichagof Island in Hoonah-Angoon Census Area in the U.S. state of Alaska.

Early hunters and trappers noticed the clearing in the woods and found iron and copper tools along with sunken graves.

In the late 1970s, Paul Corbin found what appears to be a spike from a Russian ship while digging a garbage pit a few hundred yards behind the Lodge.

A few years later Denny Corbin found a pair of eyeglasses while digging to enforce a coffer dam in the woods behind the lodge.

The eyeglasses had gold rims, blue glass, and diamond-shaped pieces of jade in each corner.

[10] This is the Lisianski Inlet Kalle (Charley) Raatikainen found when he started looking for a place to build a town.

Hoping to give better and faster service to the fishermen and buyers, he began looking for a place to build a cold storage plant close to the fishing grounds.

[10] Raatikainen found a harbor with deep water, land, and a large lake with a waterfall.

A. P. "Coho" Walder and his wife Martha arrived with their troller[10] and Raatikainen had one or two others with him when he brought in his fish scows.

One scow was put on the beach and became the mess house with worker quarters in the upper section.

Hjalmer Mork and Jack Ronning moved their air compressor and jackhammers up from their mine to clear rock from the cold storage site.

The steam schooner the SS Tongass arrived and dropped overboard tons of lumber and pilings in front of the town, despite Raatikainen's lack of funds.

Gus Savela, a Finn and Alaskan fish buyer with engineering experience, oversaw the building of the dam.

[10] With the sawmill that had arrived on the Tongass, the Paddock brothers built the wharf, fish house and started the boardwalk.

Work slowed in 1939, when the Navy began building a base on Japonski Island and outside jobs became available.

Even so, a post office under the name "Pelican" was established on November 27, 1939, with Bob DeArmond as first postmaster.

A sawmill was built and put into operation producing the lumber to build homes adding to the permanence of the town.

In the summer of 1940 things got livelier when A. R. Breuger of Wrangell brought his floating cannery to Pelican and moored it to the dock.

The Cape Cross Salmon Company organized by Larry Freeburn and Pros Ganty put canning machinery and a retort in the fish house, they made a pack of more than 17,000 cases.

Henry Roden, the former attorney general of Alaska who was helping Raatikainen raise money, finally had success when Norton Clapp agreed to participate in the project.

J. P. McNeil, who had been in charge of the Booth Fisheries cold storage at Sitka for many years, was hired as manager to oversee the installation of the refrigeration machinery.

The hydroelectric power plant was completed and a new office and store building were attached to the cold storage.