Anchorage – one of the northernmost cities on earth!
27 May 2024
We’re coming to the end of the Alaskan part of our trip, so we took the opportunity to drive into Anchorage today. Just 45 minutes’ drive from Girdwood where we are staying, Anchorage is Alaska’s largest city. It seemed quite spread out and was very quiet as it’s Memorial Day, and easy to drive around as the roads are numbered one way and alphabetical the other! It was also a little grey and bleak, so not the sort of weather for wandering around. Our first stop was the Anchorage Museum which was awesome. It has the largest and longest loan made by the Smithsonian Institution and the Living Our Cultures exhibition has more than 600 Alaska Native cultural heritage pieces. So many wonderful exhibits, photographs and videos which gave us a real insight of life in Alaska – incredible exhibits showing how parkas, boots and gloves were made from tanned fish and deer skin, which is both waterproof and windproof, jewellery from porcupine quills and even little dolls fashioned from fish skins too. We learnt how the Native Alaskans prepare for winter by smoking and drying around 200 fish, and there was an exhibition on honouring salmon culture and how salmon as a resource has nourished communities both physically and spiritually for thousands of years.
We enjoyed a wonderful couple of hours in there before we headed off to Simon and Seafort’s Bar and Saloon, an Anchorage landmark, for a hearty lunch overlooking the bay of Knik Anchorage. A drive around town followed with a stop at Captain James Cook’s Monument and his third voyage on “Resolution” to find a north-west passage from the Pacific to the Atlantic. He surveyed the coast of Northwest America and Alaska but failed to find the passage to the Atlantic and turned south from the Bering Strait and sailed to the Sandwich Isles, which we know as the Hawaiian islands. Our final stop was at Walmart, yes, the total opposite of the engaging and formative morning we had had up until then, but it was very enjoyable, nonetheless.
It's legal here!
Geoff and I have unfortunately come down with the dreaded lurgi so after some tasty home-made pizzas at Cathy and Mikes, an early night was in store for us.
Tuesday 28 May
Our last day here today and time to reflect on what an amazing two weeks we have had. There’s no denying it, Alaska is absolutely stunning, and we have been very fortunate to have experienced so many different towns and aspects of this wonderful State. You might be surprised to know it is the largest state in the USA, 665,400 miles - the same size as Texas, California and Montana put together and it is16% of the size of the USA. The State flower of Alaska is the Alpine Forget-Me-Not – and we certainly won’t!
