Anchoring in Anchorage

Our trip to the 49th U.S. state began in Anchorage. As we approached via air it just kept getting prettier and prettier. Soaring Rocky Mountains, brilliant fjords, massive fields of deep snow and, what I assume were, glacial slopes tumbling down to waterways. It has to be the most beautiful flight we’ve ever taken. And the mountains are incredible. So so many, encircling everything. I’ve lived in mountain states most of my life. There’s nothing like Alaska.

Like the main character in Kristin Hannah’s Great Alone, I “wasn’t prepared for the wild, spectacular beauty…. The otherworldly, magical vast expanse. The incomparable landscape of soaring, glacier-filled white mountains that ran the length of the horizon.”

With Denali, North America’s highest peak, in view to our right, we banked out over Anchorage, across Fire Island deep over the Cook Inlet before turning back to make our approach and smooth landing at Ted Stevens International Airport.

We had only one day in Anchorage. We wandered up to the 49th State Brewery for lunch and some World Cup then over to the Anchorage Museum while we awaited the readiness of our room.

The Anchorage Museum. An eclectic mix of modern art and sculpture, history and native tribal artifacts of the Tlingit, Athabaskan and Yup’ik people (and more), the highlights for us were the Alaska History exhibit and the art collection.

On display at the Anchorage Museum

It ain’t cheap, at least during high season, at $25 a pop but we felt good about supporting the local economy with our visit.

Art at the Anchorage Museum

After some downtime, we wandered over to Delaney Park (which was a firebreak in early Anchorage and then the first airstrip. It was also a spot where golfers liked to drive their golf balls, whilst an airstrip, which was unpopular with the pilots, understandably) where the great smelling odors of food were spilling out of the herd of food trucks assembled for the Juneteenth celebration. Then we discovered the Coastal Trail (an eleven-mile coastline hugging bike path and walking trail which runs from Kincaid Park to 2nd Avenue) before heading over to Crush Wine Bistro for a delicious dinner.

Along the Tony Knowles Coastal Trail in Anchorage

History of Anchorage. Anchorage was founded in 1915 as a tent city. When the Alaska railway between Seward and Fairbanks was approved, it was decided to build a town on this site to facilitate the unloading of materials to build the railroad near Ship Creek on the Cook Inlet. It was at this site that Captain James Cook first encountered local native people while scouting for the Northwest Passage. Before the Russians sold Alaska to the United States in 1867 for $7.2 million (roughly 2 cents per acre) in a deal brokered by Secretary of State William Seward (a deal known derogatorily as “Seward’s folly”) the Russians surveyed the Anchorage area searching for gold, coal and other minerals. The gold rush and fur trade brought more people to Alaska, but it was the railroad, and associated jobs, that really opened up the last frontier to European descendants in America.

On Good Friday in 1964, a 9.2 magnitude earthquake (the largest ever recorded in North America) struck just outside Anchorage. Fortunately, because of people being out of school, work and away for the holiday, despite whole neighborhoods falling into the water, only 7 people were killed in Anchorage (115 across Alaska).

Today, 48% of Alaska’s population lives in the Anchorage area and its main airport helps Alaska rank between 3rd and 6th annually for international cargo moved worldwide.

From Anchorage, we hauled up the anchor and headed off to Denali National Park. We had planned to try to do the park on our own, but June is high, high season (“500 in and 500 out every day”, the bellhop at our hotel, the Captain Cook, told me) making it prohibitively expensive around cruise entry and exit dates without a package so we elected to take our pre-cruise add-on to see the park and parts of interior Alaska.

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