DESTINATION : ANCHORAGE
36 HOURS IN ANCHORAGE, ALASKA
WELCOME TO ALASKA
My North American adventure continued.
I had flown from Seattle with Alaska Airlines to Anchorage, the largest city in Alaska. Even being on the right side of the continent the flight time was just under four hours. Flying over the North Pacific Ocean and Gulf of Alaska took me north and as far west as I had ever been.
Anchorage was to be the start point for my organised touring in Alaska, but as with my trip to Seattle I was adding on an extra day. Always handy to have spare time in case of delays with all of the flying in the USA.
Especially good to have time to explore the city.
I had 36 hours to get to know Anchorage.
Whether you are visiting for a city break, a cruise port of call, or like me on an Alaskan adventure, these are some of the things to see and do in Destination Anchorage!
CAPTAIN COOK
I checked into the Captain Cook hotel in Anchorage, where I had an 8th floor room, which overlooked the Cook Inlet with views of Mount Susitna.
Like most people I had heard of the voyages of Captain James Cook, the legendary 18th century explorer. But I largely knew of his journeys to Australia, New Zealand and the South Pacific.
So it was a bit of a learning experience that he was also one of the first European explorers to visit the Pacific Coast of Alaska, on his third and last voyage, aboard his ship HMS Resolution.
In fact Anchorage derives its name from Anchor Point, named by Cook as the place where HMS Resolution was anchored.
Many other local geographic features were also named by Cook as he mapped the Alaskan coastline, whilst searching for a North West passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific. These of course included the Cook Inlet which I was looking out over from my hotel room.
Captain Cook’s planned destination may not have been Anchorage, but he left his mark there and he is remembered with a statue and all the places that bear his name.
FIRST IMPRESSIONS
After settling into the hotel there was plenty of afternoon left to go out and get my first impressions of Anchorage.
The central area of the city is set out in a grid pattern, with horizontally numbered avenues and vertical streets labelled with letters.
I was starting my walk at the hotel on West 5th Avenue in the block between I and K street. There is no J street, apparently because the letters I and J look too similar when handwritten.
Straight away I was struck by the scenery of Anchorage. The long straight avenues channelled your eyes to the wall of mountains that surrounded the city in a snow peaked backdrop. Breathtaking from the start.
I walked a few more streets down to the coast to get a better look at the Cook Inlet and the views across the water.
Here I found a seafront path and spent the next hour and a half walking along the waterfront. Views of the Cook Inlet, beaches, ships, industry, to my left. To my right the mountains and city views.
All around locals were playing, cycling or walking. Clearly the outdoors are part of the Anchorage lifestyle.
Eventually I came to a point where the paths looped back into the city and I got to see local homes and open parks. There is plenty of space here.
FOOD AND DRINK
During my stay in America so far I had managed to eat quite a lot of fried food. I knew that was not sustainable for the entire length of my adventure.
So for lunch I opted for a chicken Caesar salad. That would be healthy. It was delicious, but the portion size, in typical US style, was huge!
The hotel restaurant was good though, so I mostly ate there for the rest of my stay.
In the evening the bar was cosy. Like Seattle the area has a lot of local microbreweries and so the hotel, which also acted as a bar for the locals, served local craft beers.
Well it would be rude not to try a few.
Its an American thing to eat at the bar too. As a solo traveller asking for a table for one you almost always get offered the “counter” first.
As it happened this was also a really good way to be sociable as I found myself chatting to people either side of me, some of whom just came for drinks. Others were eating like me. The fact I was on my own became irrelevant.
I stayed for more beers to round off my first day in Anchorage!
Reindeer
On day two I found myself out exploring, with lunchtime approaching and a handy hot dog cart nearby.
Along with German Bratwurst, Polish sausage and beef hot dogs they had their own variation.
Alaskan reindeer sausage. Its something of a local speciality.
It wasn’t something I had ever tried before, and as it turned out it wouldn’t be the last time I would try reindeer meat on this trip. But hey I was feeling adventurous!
They offered a mild and hot version. I chose mild, I wasn’t that adventurous. As it turned out that was quite spicy too. I’m not sure if reindeer meat is naturally spicy or if its the way it is prepared.
In any case it was tasty and I very much enjoyed my reindeer hot dog.
TROLLEY TOUR OF ANCHORAGE
A great way to see the wider areas surrounding Anchorage is on a trolley bus tour.
This picked up at the tourist information office, outside the historic city hall in the centre of Anchorage.
The route took us through the town and back down along the waterfront. Much easier on the legs and not only do you see more of Anchorage, but you get commentary about each destination on the itinerary.
So we trundled past the railroad buildings learning how that helped the city grow. By Resolution Park with its statue of Captain Cook. Out past a lagoon filled with seaplanes floating on the water.
And on round the outskirts of the city before returning downtown, hearing stories along the way.
EARTHQUAKES
Earthquake Park
Alaska sits on the Pacific Ring of Fire, where the North American and Pacific continental plates meet.
That means among other things that earthquakes are a fact of life in Alaska.
However on 27th March 1964, Good Friday that year, Alaska was hit by a 9.2 magnitude earthquake. It was the second largest ever recorded in the World since the invention of seismological equipment.
It also lasted over 4 and a half minutes!
There was large scale destruction in Anchorage and the surrounding areas, although most of the hundred and thirty or so fatalities were due to tsunamis after the earthquake.
Our trolley tour paused in the car park next to Earthquake Park. An area affected by this earthquake and later preserved as a park.
From the bus we looked several feet down into the park, with its rolling humps, that looked like a quite cool mountain bike trail, to hear more of the story.
Except in 1964, prior to the quake, the car park would have been on the same level as the ground next to it. The land just dropped on that day, as it did in many places around Anchorage.
And when the Earth was shaking the ground was liquefied, so when it stopped the ripples from the shockwaves were preserved in the ground. Mountain bike ramps were just a side effect!
Such an innocuous looking stop was possibly the most fascinating part of the whole of Anchorage.
Its also a story I wouldn’t have learned without the great onboard commentary. That’s one of the reasons I like to arrange a proper tour on holiday as well as exploring on my own.
2018 Earthquake
One of the locals, that first night in the hotel bar, was an older gent who lived not far from the hotel.
He had a heart condition and wore some kind of monitor that pinged data back to a healthcare provider in Texas.
On 30th November 2018 they got an alert that he was having unusual heart readings, so called him to check everything was okay.
Not quite! A magnitude 7.1 earthquake had struck 10 miles north of Anchorage. It was felt as far north as the Alaskan town of Fairbanks, but he told me that his shock was noted in his heart readings sent to Texas!
Thankfully everyone survived this quake, although many people got new crockery for Christmas that year as their old stuff wasn’t so lucky!
People were still talking about this as I visited in May 2019, although in fairness for many the 1964 quake still felt like a recent memory.
These earthquakes left an imprint on the people as well as the land.
ANCHORAGE MUSEUM
Most destinations have some sort of museum representing local culture and Anchorage is no exception.
The trolley tour dropped us back in the centre of town and it was a ten minute walk to the Anchorage Museum.
I went for a look, but ended up spending the rest of the afternoon there.
First Peoples
Captain Cook may have put Alaska on the map for Europeans in the 18th Century, but the First Peoples of this area had been there 5,000 years before him.
The museum had excellent exhibits on First Peoples cultures. I read about the Inupiaq, Yup’ik and Cup’ik peoples. These aren’t long dead peoples, but still surviving, fighting to keep their culture alive in a modern World that has not always respected them.
The museum showed tools, costumes, ceremonial gear. Essentials in the lifestyle of these different cultures.
If you are going to visit a destination you should learn about its people and Anchorage Museum made that easy.
Art and Science
The museum had a science section, which I enjoyed more than the dedicated Science Museum on my visit to Seattle just days earlier.
I love an art gallery too, as you know. No Old Masters here. The art was created or inspired by indigenous people.
Or it reflected the lifestyles of the people who built the state, like a painting of Alaskan fishermen. Lifestyles I would hear more of as my journey continued into Alaska.
And some art just reflected the mountains. They do dominate the landscape. You can see them from the Museum windows as much as everywhere else in the city.
ANCHORAGE AS A DESTINATION
Anchorage was one of those cities I had heard about, but never really thought I would ever visit.
You could say that about Alaska as a whole I guess.
So when the opportunity came I had to make sure I saw the place in case it was a once in a lifetime opportunity.
That remains to be seen, but I am extremely glad I have visited Anchorage at least once.
A day and a half was plenty. I can’t say I was left wanting more, but I would go back.
The lifestyle of the locals looks lovely, but there are challenges living in such a remote part of the World too.
If you get the opportunity to visit, whether as part of a wider tour of Alaska or even just as a cruise ship port of call then take it.
It is worth the visit just to see those beautiful mountains. Those views are probably the abiding memory I have kept from my visit to Destination: Anchorage.
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