Alaska Travel

At Mile 98.7, a side road heads north to this interesting town. It was a miners supply center in 1901, and later a riverboat station and a railroad-construction headquarters. Since the 1950s, Mt McKinley mountaineers have made Talkeetna their staging post, and today the town is the most interesting along the George Parks Hwy by far. The Talkeetna/Denali Visitors Center (907-733-2688, 800-660-2688; www.talkeetnadenali.com; George Parks Hwy; 7am-8pm) has information about the area.

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The superscenic but severely lonely Steese Hwy follows an old miners’ trail 162 miles from Fairbanks to the Athabascan village of Circle, on the Yukon River. This hilly and winding road is paved for the first 53 miles, and then has a good gravel base to the mining settlement of Central. In the final 30 miles it narrows and becomes considerably rougher and more twisty. While an interesting drive, the route’s main attraction - Circle Hot Springs - was closed at the time of research. If it doesn’t reopen, this trip may not be worth the trouble; inquire at the Log Cabin Visitor Information Center in Fairbanks.

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The Southeast is as close as Alaska comes to continental USA, but most of it is inaccessible by road. It’s possible to fly to the panhandle for a quick visit, but a better option if you can spare a week or two is to cruise the Inside Passage, a waterway made up of thousands of islands, glacier-filled fjords and a mountainous coastline. You can jump on a state ferry and stop at a handful of ports for hiking, kayaking and whale-watching.

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Southcentral Alaska is where Alaskans and travelers alike come to play. There are mountains, glaciers, good fishing, great hiking and kayaking and lots of campgrounds to stay at. Even better, there are roads between towns and other regions of the state, making Southcentral Alaska one of the most accessible places to visit.

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Soldotna, at the junction of the Sterling and Kenai Spur Hwys, would be just another ugly, overcommercialized roadside-service center, interchangeable with a zillion other American towns, save for one fact: a river runs through it, filled to bursting with the biggest salmon on the planet. Indeed, the world’s largest sport-caught king salmon was reeled in right here - a 97.2lb behemoth, hooked by local resident Les Anderson in 1985. Biologists believe genetics and the fact that Kenai River salmon often spend an extra year at sea account for their gargantuan size. A trophy salmon elsewhere in Alaska is a 50lb fish, while here, anglers don’t get too excited until a king salmon tops 75lbs. Most experts agree it’s only a matter of time before the first 100lb king is landed. Until that day, and probably long after it, fast-growing Soldotna will be the most fish-crazy place in Alaska.

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The northern terminus of the Alaska Marine Highway, Skagway was a gold-rush town infamous for its lawlessness. In 1887 the population was two; 10 years later it was Alaska’s largest city, with 20, 000 residents. Today, Skagway survives entirely on tourism and gets packed when a handful of cruise ships pull in and thousands passengers converge on the town as if the Klondike gold rush was still on.

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Russians established Southeast Alaska’s first nonindigenous settlement here in 1799, and the town flourished on fur. Today Sitka sees itself as both the cultural center of the Southeast and its most beautiful city, because it’s the only one facing the Pacific Ocean.

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Starting at the corner of Gambell St and 10th Ave in Anchorage, Seward Hwy parallels the Alaska Railroad south 127 miles to Seward. Expect lots of traffic, a frightening percentage of which involves folks who have (1) never seen a Dall sheep before and (2) never driven an RV before; it’s a frustrating and sometimes deadly combination. Mile markers measure the distance from Seward.

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This scenic town is flanked by rugged mountains and overlooks Resurrection Bay. Founded in 1903 as an ice-free port at the southern end of the Alaska Railroad, Seward prospered as the beginning of the gold-rush trail to Nome and was later devastated by the 1964 Good Friday earthquake.

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If the tourist-thronged towns of the Kenai Peninsula have left you frazzled, catch a boat to Seldovia, on the south side of Kachemak Bay and in a world of its own. Living up to the nickname ‘City of Secluded Charm, ‘ the community has managed to retain much of its old Alaskan character, and can be a restful (and inexpensive) day, or overnight, trip from Homer.

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