Sights in Alaska
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Fort Abercrombie State Historical Park
This military fort and its pair of 8in guns were built by the US Army during WWII for a Japanese invasion that never came. In the end, Kodiak's lousy weather, not the army's superior firepower, kept the Japanese bombers away from the island. The fort is now a 186-acre state historical park, sitting majestically on the cliffs above scenic Monashka Bay. Between the guns is Ready Ammunition Bunker, which stored 400 rounds of ammunition during the war. Today it contains the small Kodiak Military History Museum.
Just as interesting as the gun emplacements are the tidal pools found along the park's rocky shorelines, where an afternoon of searching for sea creatures can be spent…
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Pillar Mountain
From the top of this 1270ft mountain behind the city you'll have excellent views of the surrounding mountains, ocean, beaches and islands. One side seems to plunge straight down to the harbor below, and the other overlooks the green interior of Kodiak Island. Pick up the bumpy dirt road to the top by walking or driving north up Thorsheim Ave and turning left on Maple Ave, which runs into Pillar Mountain Rd.
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Kodiak Fisheries Research Center
Opened in 1998 to house the fisheries research being conducted by various agencies, it has an interesting lobby that includes displays, touch tanks and a large aquarium.
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Alutiiq Museum & Archaeological Repository
Preserving the 7500-year heritage of Kodiak's indigenous Alutiiq people is the Alutiiq Museum & Archaeological Repository. The exhibits display one of the largest collections of Alutiiq artifacts in the state, ranging from a kayaker in his waterproof parka of seal gut to a 19th-century spruce-root hat. Take time to explore 'Sharing Words,' an intriguing interactive computer program that uses village elders to teach Alutiiq words and songs in an attempt to save the indigenous language.
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Museum of the North
Museum of the North at the University of Alaska rivals the Anchorage Museum of History & Art as the state's most impressive cultural center. A $42 million expansion added a Alaska Native art gallery and a sound-and-light theatre that features the northern lights. But the most popular exhibit is still Blue Babe, a 36,000-year-old bison found preserved in the permafrost.
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Bear Creek Winery
Wineries are scarcer than vineyards in Alaska, but this impressive family-run operation bottles some fine berry-based wines, plus fireweed mead and rhubarb vino. It conducts tours and tastings daily in the summer and sells its product on-site.
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St Herman Harbor
A great place to look for sea lions, which often use the Dog Bay Breakwall as a haulout, while eagles are usually perched in the trees onshore.
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Kodiak National Wildlife Refuge
This 2812-sq-mile preserve, which covers the southern two-thirds of Kodiak Island, all of Ban and Uganik Islands and a small section of Afognak Island, is the chief stronghold of the Alaska brown bear. An estimated 2300 bears reside in the refuge and the surrounding area, which is known worldwide for brown-bear hunting and to a lesser degree for salmon and steelhead fishing.
Birdlife is plentiful: more than 200 species have been recorded, and there are 600 breeding pairs of eagles that nest within the refuge. Flowing out of the steep fjords and deep glacial valleys and into the sea are 117 salmon-bearing streams that account for 65% of the total commercial salmon harvest …
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Trans-Alaska Pipeline Terminal
Across the inlet from town, Valdez' ever-pumping heart once welcomed visitors, but since September 11, 2001, stricter security protocols have closed it to the public. From the end of Dayville Rd you can still get a peek at the facility, including the storage tanks holding nine million barrels of oil apiece. But heed the dire warnings: plenty of septuagenarian RVers have been pulled over and interrogated for getting too close.
Those truly interested in the terminal can learn more about it at Prince William Sound Community College, which for a fee offers a pipeline exhibit and thrice-daily 'video tour', featuring great photography and a narrative that amounts to little mor…
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Mt McKinley
Encompassing both the north and south flanks of the Alaska Range, 237 miles from Anchorage and about half that distance from Fairbanks, Denali National Park is an immense subarctic wilderness centered on Mt McKinley - North America's highest peak and an overwhelming sight when caught on a clear day. At 20,320ft, the peak of this massif is almost 4 miles high, but what makes it stunning is that it rises from an elevation of just 2000ft.
From Park Rd, you'll see 18,000ft of rock, snow and glacier reaching for the sky. In contrast, Mt Everest, the world's highest mountain at 29,028ft, rises only 11,000ft from the lofty Tibetan Plateau.
Mt McKinley is not visible from the park…
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Kennicott
In 1900 miners 'Tarantula Jack' Smith and Clarence Warner reconnoitered Kennicott Glacier's east side until they arrived at a creek and found traces of copper. They named the creek Bonanza, and was it ever - the entire mountainside turned out to hold some of the richest copper deposits ever uncovered. In the Lower 48, mines were digging up ore that contained 2% copper. Here, the veins would average almost 13%, while some contained as much as 70%.
Eventually, a group of investors bought the existing stakes and formed the Kennecott Copper Corporation, named when a clerical worker misspelled Kennicott (which is why, nowadays, the town is spelled with an 'e' while the river, …
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Kuskulana River Bridge
At Mile 17 of McCarthy Rd sits the one-lane, 525ft-long Kuskulana River Bridge, long known as 'the biggest thrill on the road to McCarthy.' Built in 1910, this historic railroad span is a vertigo-inducing 238ft above the bottom of the gorge. Though the state has added guard rails and new planks and thus taken some of the thrill out of the crossing, the view of the steep-sided canyon and rushing river from the bridge is awesome, and well worth the time to park at one end and walk back across it.
After rattling through another 43 miles of scrubby brush and thick forest - with few good mountain vistas and not many diversions en route - the road ends at the Kennicott River. I…
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Homer Spit
- Homer, USA
- Sights › Waterfront
This long needle of land - a 4½-mile sand bar stretching into Kachemak Bay - is viewed by some folks as the most fun place in Alaska. Others wish another earthquake would come along and sink the thing. The Spit throbs all summer with tourist masses in unimaginable density, gobbling fish-and-chips, quaffing specialty coffees, getting chair massages, buying alpaca sweaters, arranging bear-watching trips, watching theatrical performances, and - oh yeah - going fishing in search of 300lb halibut.
The hub of all this activity is the small-boat harbor, one of the best facilities in Southcentral Alaska and home to more than 700 boats. Close by is the Seafarer's Memorial, which…
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Alaska Chilkat Bald Eagle Preserve
In 1982 the state reserved 48,000 acres along the Chilkat, Klehini and Tsirku Rivers to protect the largest known gathering of bald eagles in the world. Each year from October to February, more than 4000 eagles congregate here to feed on spawning salmon. They come because an upwelling of warm water prevents the river from freezing, thus encouraging the late salmon run. It's a remarkable sight - hundreds of birds sitting in the bare trees lining the river, often six or more birds to a branch.
The eagles can be seen from the Haines Hwy, where turnouts allow motorists to park and view the birds. The best view is between Mile 18 and Mile 22, where you'll find telescopes, inte…
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Exit Glacier
The marquee attraction of Kenai Fjords National Park and one of Alaska's most accessible glaciers, Exit Glacier was named by explorers crossing the Harding Ice Field who found the glacier a suitable way to 'exit' the ice and mountains. Now 3 miles long, it's believed the river of ice once extended all the way to Seward.
From the Exit Glacier Nature Center, the Outwash Plain Trail is an easy half-mile walk to the glacier's alluvial plain - a flat expanse of pulverized silt and gravel, cut through by braids of grey meltwater. The Overlook Loop Trail departs the first loop and climbs steeply to an overlook at the side of the glacier before returning; don't skip the short spu…
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Chitina
The end of Edgerton Hwy is 10 miles beyond Liberty Falls State Recreation Site, at little Chitina, the last place you can purchase gas. There's a grocery store here too, and a café, an art gallery and a ranger station. Backpackers can camp along the 3-mile road south to O'Brien Creek or beside Town Lake.
At Chitina, the McCarthy Rd begins, auspiciously enough, by passing through a single-lane notch blasted through a granite outcrop. From here 60 miles eastward you'll be tracing the abandoned Copper River & Northwest Railroad bed that was used to transport copper from the mines to Cordova. Though your around US$40-a-day rental car can usually travel this stretch during th…
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Golden Sands Beach
A very interesting afternoon can be spent at Nome's Golden Sands Beach , stretching a mile east of town along Front St. At the height of summer a few local children may be seen playing in the 45°F water, and on Memorial Day (in May), more than 100 masochistic residents plunge into the ice-choked waters for the annual Polar Bear Swim.
Usually more numerous than swimmers here are gold prospectors, as the beach is open to recreational mining. Miners will set up camp along the shore and work the sands throughout the summer. The serious miners rig their sluice and dredging equipment on a small pontoon boat and anchor it 100yd offshore to suck up the more productive sand along…
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Stan Price State Wildlife Sanctuary
Named for an Alaskan woodsman who lived on a float house here for almost 40 years. The sanctuary includes an area that has been closed to hunting since the mid-1930s, and due largely to the former presence of Price and his visitors, the bears here have become used to humans. The bears are most abundant in July and August, when the salmon are running.
Most visitors to Pack Creek are day-trippers who arrive and depart on floatplanes. Upon arrival, all visitors are met by a ranger who explains the rules. You must leave all food in a cache provided near the south sand spit. You may not leave the viewing sand spit to get closer to the bears, although you may use a small observ…
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Kennicott
In 1900, miners discovered the rich Kennicott copper deposit and built 315km (196mi) of railroad through wilderness to take the ore out. For 30 years, the mining town worked around the clock but, in 1938, management shut it down, giving workers two hours to catch the last train out. Despite pilferage, Kennicott is a remarkably preserved piece of mining history.
The mill towers above the surrounding buildings and still has tram cables leading up to the mountain mines. The rest of the buildings, including bunkhouses, workers cottages, the train depot and power plant, perch high above Kennicott Glacier. Strewn among these structures are countless antique mining relics such a…
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Fairbanks Ice Museum
Certainly the most bemusing sight in the city's downtown - and by far the best place to chill out - is the Fairbanks Ice Museum . This hour-long experience takes place in the historic, musty-smelling Lacey Street Theater, which you'll likely have largely to yourself. First comes the screening of the film Freeze Frame, which employs dramatic editing to chronicle the World Ice Art Championships, an ice-sculpting contest held in Fairbanks each March.
Then the lights come up to reveal an array of life-sized crystalline carvings ringing the theatre. They're all stereotypical Alaskan scenes - howling huskies and bears wrestling salmon - and some are slightly melted or broken. I…
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Alaska Native Heritage Center
Experiencing Alaska Native culture first hand in the Bush is logistically complicated and expensive. Instead, come to this 11-hectare (26-acre) center and see how humans survived, and thrived, before central heating.
The main building houses exhibits on traditional arts and sciences. It also features various performances. Among them, the staccato Alaghanak song, lost for 50 years - the center collected bits and pieces of the traditional song from different tribal elders and reconstructed it. Outside, examples of typical structures from the Aleut, Yupik, Tlingit and other tribes are arranged around a picturesque lake. Guides explain the ancient architects' cunning technolo…
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Admiralty Island National Monument
The Admiralty Island National Monument has 3641 sq km (1406 sq mi) of designated wilderness, featuring eagles, humpback whales, harbor seals, porpoises, sea lions and bears - the best bear-viewing area in Southeast Alaska is at Pack Creek, on the eastern side of the island. Angoon is the starting point for the adventurous canoe trips the area is famous for.
Admiralty is a rugged island, with mountains that rise to 1417m (4650ft) and a cover of tundra and even permanent ice fields.
You can fly in for a stay at a USFS cabin, spend time kayaking Seymour Inlet and Mitchell Bay, or arrange a bear-watching trip to Pack Creek. The most unusual adventure on the island is the Cros…
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Chichagof Island's Western Shoreline
Chichagof Island's Western Shoreline is one of Southeast Alaska's best blue-water destinations for experienced kayakers.
Unfortunately, the trip often requires other transportation, because few paddlers have the experience necessary to paddle the open ocean around Khaz Peninsula (which forms a barrier between Kruzof Island's north end and Slocum Arm, the south end of the West Chichagof-Yakobi Wilderness). Either rent a folding kayak and then book a floatplane or hire a water-taxi service to take you there.
The arm is the southern end of a series of straits, coves and protected waterways that shield paddlers from the ocean's swells and extend over 30 miles north to Lisiansk…
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McCarthy
Most local services are in the hamlet of McCarthy, an erstwhile ghost town so funky and cool you'll want to haunt the place yourself. Facing the Kennicott Glacier's terminal moraine and just a stone's throw from the river, the tiny community is a car-free idyll, where the handful of gravel roads wind past rotting cabins and lovingly restored boomtown-era buildings.
Alas, in the past few years the place has been 'discovered,' but the summer population still hits only about 200, and just a quarter stick it out for the winter.
Once you've crossed the Kennicott River on the footbridge, follow the road across another footbridge and about half a mile further to the unstaffed McC…
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Iditarod Trail Headquarters
Near Wasilla, Knik boasts a rich sled-dog history, since it's the home of many Alaskan mushers and checkpoint 4 on the route. For more information about this uniquely Alaskan race, stop in at Iditarod Trail Headquarters. The log-cabin museum's most unusual exhibit is Togo, the famous sled dog that led his team across trackless Norton Sound to deliver serum to diphtheria-threatened Nome in 1925 - a journey that gave rise to today's Iditarod.
He's been stuffed and is now on display. Outside, you can get a short sled-dog ride (around US$10, from 09:00 to 17:00) on a wheeled dogsled. The Iditarod, a famous 1100-mile dogsled race to Nome, begins in Anchorage - but only for the…
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