Cordova Sights

  1. Cordova Museum

    Adjacent to the Cordova Library, the Cordova Museum is a small, grassroots collection worth inspecting. Displays cover local marine life, relics from the town's early history and from the nearby Kennecott mine, Russian artifacts and a three-seater bidarka (kayak) made from spruce pine and 12 sealskins.

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  2. Ilanka Cultural Center

    The excellent Ilanka Cultural Center, operated by local Eyaks, has a small but high-quality collection of Alaska Native art from all over the state. Especially cool are the swans'-feet pouches, sewn with bear hair and used for toting tobacco. Upstairs, don't miss the intact killer-whale skeleton - one of only five in the world - with flippers that could give you quite a slap.

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  3. Prime Select Seafoods

    Every summer, Cordova's population swells with youths hoping to make a mint canning salmon on 30-hour shifts. Whether you're curious about the effects of sleep deprivation on adventurous teenagers or just want to see how some of the finest salmon in the world is processed, ask at the chamber of commerce about canneries offering tours. You can watch your own catch get processed at Prime Select Seafoods, a smaller-scale operation that packs salmon and ships it to your home.

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  4. Prince William Sound Science Center

    The dockside Prince William Sound Science Center has a few interpretive panels outside that, among other things, will help you untangle the fisherfolk's strange lingo, which is laced with words like 'openers,' 'IFQs' and 'sternpickers.' Inside there's not much for visitors save for an impressively enormous gray-whale skull suspended from the ceiling.

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  5. Small-Boat Harbor

    In Cordova, the standard greeting among locals is 'Been fishing?' Unsurprisingly, the harbor is the community's heart, humming throughout the season as fishers frantically try to meet their quota before the runs are closed. The fishing fleet is composed primarily of seiners and gillnetters, with the method used by the fishers determining the species of salmon they pursue. The former primarily target pink salmon, while the latter, generally one-person operations, go for kings and reds early in the season and silvers later on.

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