Village sights in North America
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A
Acoma Pueblo
Native American mesa-top village, 16 miles south of I-40. Price includes photography permit, museum entrance and ¾ mile walking tour.
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Minto
At Mile 110 is the paved 11-mile road to the small Athabascan village of Minto, population 207, which isn't known for welcoming strangers.
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B
Philadelphia's Magic Garden
A hidden gem worth seeking out is Philadelphia's Magic Garden, a mystical, art-filled pocket of land that's the passion of mosaic muralist Isaiah Zager.
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C
Sing Lee Alley
Heading south, Harbor Way passes Middle Boat Harbor and turns into Sing Lee Alley. This was the center of old Petersburg, and much of the street is built on pilings over Hammer Slough.
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Circle
Circle is an Alaska-Native village on the banks of the broad Yukon River. Before the Dalton Hwy opened it was the northernmost point you could drive to - as a large sign in the center of town still proclaims.
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False Pass
For most visitors the Aleutians is limited to two stops aboard the Alaska Marine Highway's MV Tustumena; your first stop in the Aleutians is False Pass, a small fishing village with a population of 62 on the tip of Unimak Island, looking across a narrow passage at the Alaska Peninsula.
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Ochopee
Drive to the hamlet of Ochopee (population about four)…no…wait…turn around, you missed it! Then pull over and break out the cameras: Ochopee's claim to fame is the country's smallest post office. It's housed in a former toolshed and set against big park skies; a friendly postal worker patiently poses for snapshots.
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Livengood
Livengood, 2 miles east of the highway at Mile 71, has no services and is little more than a scattering of log shanties. Here, the Elliott Hwy swings west and in 2 miles, at the junction of the Dalton Hwy, pavement ends and the road becomes a rutted, rocky lane. Traffic evaporates and until Manley Hot Springs you may not see another vehicle.
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Wiseman
Those seeking a bed - or wanting an antidote to Coldfoot's culture of the quick-and-dirty - should push on to Wiseman (population 24), a century-old log-cabin village accessible via a short dirt spur road at Mile 189. The only authentic town on the Dalton, Wiseman occupies an enviable spot, overhung by peaks and fronting the Middle Fork of the Koyukuk River.
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D
Thornton Park
Fashionable Thornton Park borders Lake Eola to the north, and is a perfect example of urban vitality. Remodeled cracker bungalows line its narrow brick streets, and giant Spanish oaks weave their gnarly branches into natural green canopies. The Washington St district is a popular thoroughfare for café lounging and window browsing at antiques and funky craft boutiques. It's also popular with the gay crowd for putting down roots.
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Oak Bluffs Cottages
In 1835, a Methodist association began holding revival meetings in Oak Bluffs, and the congregation camped in tents. As meetings grew, participants pitched tents on wooden platforms, which evolved into some 300 small cottages. These were adorned with bold colours and whimsical ornamental woodwork in a style known as Carpenter Gothic and make quite a sight today .
For a glimpse of the community's history visit the Cottage Museum at 1 Trinity Park.
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E
Creek Street
Departing from Stedman St is Creek Street, a boardwalk built over Ketchikan Creek on pilings - a photographer's delight. This was Ketchikan's famed red-light district until prostitution became illegal in 1954. During Creek St's heyday, it supported up to 30 brothels and became known as the only place in Alaska where 'the fishermen and the fish went upstream to spawn'.
The house with bright red trim is Dolly's House, the parlor of the city's most famous madam, Dolly Arthur. Now it's a museum dedicated to this notorious era.
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Deadhorse
You'll know the coast draws near when the weather turns dire. Even in summer, wind, fog and bitter cold are de rigueur at the Arctic Ocean. The gloom sets the mood for your arrival at the dystopia of Deadhorse, the world's northernmost anticlimax. Centered around Lake Colleen, this is no town - nobody lives here permanently - but a sad expanse of aluminum-clad warehouses, machinery-laden lots and workmen counting the moments until they return south.
Don't even think about camping: the tundra is a quagmire and the gravel pads are plied by speeding pickups.
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F
Plimoth Plantation
The Plimoth Plantation, a mile or so south of Plymouth Rock, authentically recreates the Pilgrims’ 1627 settlement. Everything in the village – costumes, implements, vocabulary, artistry, recipes and crops – has been painstakingly researched and remade. Hobbamock’s (Wampanoag) Homesite replicates the life of a Native American community in the area at the same time.
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Coldfoot
From Gobbler's Knob (Mile 132) northward, the pyramids of the Brooks Range begin to dominate the scene. In the next 50 miles you'll cross several grayling-rich streams, including Prospect Creek, which, in January 1971, experienced America's lowest-ever temperature, -80°F. Then, at Mile 175, in a mountain-rimmed hollow, you'll arrive in Coldfoot. Originally named Slate Creek, the area was first settled by miners in 1898.
When a group of greenhorns got 'cold feet' at the thought of wintering in the district they headed south, and the community was renamed accordingly. It was a ghost town by 1912, but its moniker, at least, was revived in 1981, when Iditarod musher Dick…
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Manley Hot Springs Town
The town of Manley Hot Springs may be one of the loveliest discoveries you'll make in Alaska. At the end of a long, lonely road, here's a gem of a town, full of friendly folks, well-kept log homes and luxuriant gardens. Located between Hot Springs Slough and the Tanana River, the community was first homesteaded in 1902 by JF Karshner, just as the US Army Signal Corps arrived to put in a telegraph station.
A few years later, as the place boomed with miners from the nearby Eureka and Tofty districts, Frank Manley arrived and built a four-story hotel. Most of the miners are gone now, but Manley's name - and the spirit of an earlier era - remains. In modern times the town has…
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