Alaska’s capital is small by population but massive in nature

There are no roads leading to Alaska’s capital, leaving just three ways to reach this northwestern Brigadoon by boat, plane or being born here. And you may wish you were born in Juneau because this is, by far, the most visually striking state capital in the US.

Located along the Inside Passage, Juneau is too beautiful, its culture and history too rich, to get cynical about its popularity with the cruisers. By land mass, it is the largest state capital in the nation, its tall peaks remain snow-capped well into summer, seaplanes buzz overhead, local residents include bears, mountain goats and whales. With its remote location and a terrain that’s worlds away from a typical American town experience, it feels like you need a passport. What you need, though, is an insulated rain jacket.

The whole region surrounding Juneau is located inside the incredibly biodiverse Tongass National Forest, the world’s largest intact temperate rainforest. Juneau has around 230 rainy days a year, with June being the sunniest with about 50% wet days.

“It does rain a lot here,” admits Nathan Hickok, a local heavy equipment operator who’s lived in Juneau his whole life, “but one sunny day makes all the wet and cold days totally worth it.”

Juneau is off the beaten track, to say the least. But fortune favors the bold who make it this far. With average summer temperature that peaks in the low 60s, this town on the edge of real wilderness draws in those who love communing with nature and wildlife, unique American history and seafood.

Au naturel

Mendenhall Glacier, which looks like a light blue frozen tsunami rolling through the valley, is remarkably accessible. You can easily see it from the main road north of town, aptly named Glacier Highway. You can hike close to it, dogsled on it, glide into its lake on a boat, kayak or raft, or take a helicopter tour that lands on it.

Like so much of Juneau, it can get crowded in summer and is more peaceful in the spring and fall (and inhospitable in the winter). But the sooner you have this experience the better as it’s quickly receding due to the climate crisis. In fact, as of just last year, it no longer touches the lake it feeds into.

Of Juneau’s more than 1.5 million annual visitors, more than 90% take their first epic glimpse of this town from the deck of a massive cruise ship. Tides of summer cruise ship passengers wash up on its shores, leaving souvenir shops and fleets of excursion busses in their wake. But this year, for the first time, the city is capping the number of people who can disembark to 16,000 on most days, about half the size of Juneau’s population, from a peak estimate of 21,000 souls.

Less accessible and crowded as Mendenhall Glacier but just as dramatic, is the Tracy Arm Fjord, with ice cliffs, waterfalls and the Dawes Glacier. Any boat tour going through it, mainly run by True Alaskan Tours, takes the better part of a day and requires advance booking.

The other big local attraction is the humpback whales growing to about the size of a city bus. In Juneau they graze on krill and other fish in the waters off of Auke Bay after breeding in Hawaii in the winter, a 6,000-mile roundtrip swim. Long summer days – more than 18 hours in June – mean long feeding hours too.

While busloads of cruisers were being herded like sheep around Statter Harbor during a visit in June, the very reasonably priced and family-owned Juneau Whale Tours made a stealthy extraction of its small group of about a dozen passengers (including this writer), quickly pushing off while bigger groups were still in the parking lot, calling roll. Their custom 50-foot-long catamaran features a wraparound deck for paparazzi action.

On this two-hour excursion in early June, whale-watchers lucked out with dry weather and “muggings” (as close encounters of the whale-ish kind are called) by a humpback and pack of orcas.

The orca pack of 10, which surfaced in impressive synchronization, represents such a rare sighting that Captain T.J. Miller asked the passengers not to mention them on social media lest they create an expectation by other groups.

Humpbacks, spotted by 20-foot-high spouts, are the guaranteed stars of the show, breaching and diving in massive tail-waving fashion.

Juneau’s attractions get undeniably busy in high season, but according to Hickok, local nature trails provide a great way to avoid the crowds. “The Alaskan experiences here are endless. There are enough trails here that my wife and I couldn’t get to all of them in the summer if we tried.”

Just as accessible, yet far less visited than Mendenhall Glacier, is Gold Creek Flume Trail. “Hike the flume,” as locals suggest, referring to this easy walking escape above the downtown streets. A boardwalk runs along the spot where a water wheel and generator gave the town its first electric power plant in 1893.

It’s now an Instagram-worthy boardwalk that leads to a waterfall before looping back to town. It’s not unheard of to see a black bear or mountain goat up there as well. With some of the boardwalk being restored, a temporary detour leads into a small trail through fiddlehead ferns and tall, moss-draped spruce and other evergreens, snaking alongside the rapids of Gold Creek. You may get slightly more than you bargained for in the detour, but you’ll emerge from the adventure unscathed if a little muddy . The city hopes to reopen the full trail by August.

Walking back into town, you might easily pass the white, columned governor’s mansion, located on an ordinary residential street. It may remind you of a famous “Saturday Night Live” portrayal of a certain former Alaska governor and the comically false detail that she could “see Russia from my house!”

A little farther out of town, the historic national Perseverance Trail crosses bridges, skirts old mine ruins, and offers stunning rainforest canyon views.

In the north part of town, the Mendenhall Basin Trail runs along the back of the airport (including a water landing strip for floatplanes), and along the beautiful valley, punctuated with far off mountains. On one Sunday morning in June there were only a handful of other visitors enjoying the space until a pack of about a dozen showed up, everyone with cameras. What appeared to be a cruise ship excursion was actually the Juneau chapter of the Audubon Society. This trail skirts the Mendenhall Wetlands Refuge, a prime birding location with 250 species of migratory and resident birds, including large numbers of sandpipers and Canada geese .

One popular attraction has been closed since April, following an accident that injured two employees. When in operation, the Goldbelt Tramway makes a near vertical leap of 1,800 feet from the cruise ship dock up Mount Roberts. There’s no reopen date yet. You can still climb Roberts, though, via a vigorous 4.5-mile trail.

Mine yer own business

There’s gold in them thar hills as well. In fact, Juneau, named after Canadian prospector Joe Juneau, probably wouldn’t exist as a town without the gold rush that began in 1880. That’s when Chief Cowee of the Auk Tlingits led prospectors Juneau and Richard Harris to a stream teeming with gold.

In the decades that followed, the town (briefly called Harrisburgh) became home to some of the largest gold mining operations in the world.

Channeling “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom,” you don a hard hat for the first part of the tour inside the ol’ AJ Mine and Gastineau Mill. Although the tour traverses a tiny fraction of the 160 miles of mining tunnel in the local mountains, you’re in there long enough to appreciate the cold, damp, loud and dangerous conditions of the industry in its prime.

One of the guides, Brad — who was born in the Alaska Territory, a year before statehood was approved by Congress in 1959 — reminds visitors that mining isn’t dead, either. While extracting the gold that still lies in AJ Mine has become unprofitable, other nearby mines continue to drill for precious metals. Mining provides well-paying careers that are safer (remote mining from a computer terminal is now a thing) than when they placed sticks of dynamite in the walls by candlelight.

Outside the mine, the tour becomes less engaging. Extraction methods are detailed, followed by panning for your own flecks of the gold stuff, the latter perhaps fun for kids. For more of the fascinating history, head to the compact Juneau-Douglas City Museum in town.

It’s easy to find the mustard yellow building in compact, walkable Juneau. Out front flies a 49-star American flag. Inside, the tour begins with a high-quality 25-minute documentary and primer on the exhibits that follow, which include old mining gear and a plane’s-eye-view of the valley as a 3-D topographical map. You learn that the sale of Alaska from Russia to the US in 1867 meant little to the local Tlingit community whose own land rights went ignored, and that due to the gold rush, Juneau had electricity and telephones before most of the United States.

Next to the museum is the State Capitol building, and in front of it stands a statue of William Henry Seward. It was erected in 2017, on the 150th anniversary of the purchase of Alaska from Russia, derided by some as “Seward’s Folly.” But the discovery of the first significant gold strike – here in Juneau, only 13 years after the sale – gave Secretary of State Seward, who negotiated the deal, the last laugh.

A few blocks from the Juneau museum is the Alaska Museum, with large displays illuminating the lives of the original peoples, decoding ceremonies, clothing and masks. Curious pop culture artifacts include a once-popular gold prospecting boardgame that starts in Seattle and ends in San Francisco, with Alaska in between. Visitors also learn that the Pacific Princess cruise ship toured the Inside Passage before reaching stardom as the real cruise ship seen on the hit 1970s TV show “The Love Boat.”

Saloons, seafood and spruce donuts

The Red Dog Saloon is something of a museum piece as well, flirting as it does at the edge of nostalgia and kitsch. Lines sometime form out the swinging saloon doors for the privilege of eatin’ ‘n’ drinkin’ on sawdust-covered floors under taxidermy and wagon wheel lights.

Gunslinger Wyatt Earp’s gun, which legend says was left behind from his visit in 1900, is displayed above the bar. A suspenders-wearing piano player cranks out George M. Cohan tunes while cruise ship patrons throw back the signature shot: the Duck Fart, a sweet concoction of Bailey’s, Kahlúa and Crown Royal. There are three rules to drinking a Duck Fart, says a server in a red, old West dress: no sippin’, no sharin’ and no stirrin’, just “quack, quack and knock that shit back.” It’s hokey but jovial. Unsurprisingly, you exit the saloon through the gift shop.

You may also want to brave the perpetual line at Jellyfish Donuts (247 S. Franklin St.) for the freshest version of the pastry you’ve ever had. They are individually made-to-order so every donut is warm and gooey, a tiny, edible pillow collapsing in on its own hole. Options range from traditional to the inventive, such as the Alaskan Spruce with real, perhaps edible, spruce needles with green, maple-tasting glaze, and a savory salmon donut.

Another popular spot is Deckhand Dave’s Fish Tacos, open seasonally in a festive outdoor food truck space that’s covered from the rain and warmed by firepits. Across the street from Dave’s, the Devil’s Club Brewing Co. is the anti-Red Dog Saloon. You don’t have to be a member of the “club” to enjoy its craft selection of IPA and sandwiches in a modern, chill, uncrowded space.

Tracy’s King Crab Shack, with two popular informal locations — and no longer the actual shack it was less than 20 years ago — is where the masses line up for the impossibly long Alaskan king crab legs, served with warm butter and doughy rolls.

But Captain Miller from the whale tour recommended The Hangar on the Wharf, which serves the same crab legs on its full menu, with fewer crowds and stunning views from its windows. Behind the bar is an IMAX-film scene of otherworldly proportions: A massive stern of a cruise ship next to the snow-peaked mountains across the Gastineau Channel, under big sky.

A series of hand drawn postcards illustrating local activities are sold inside the charming Rainy Retreat Books (13 Seward St.), including one depicting the traditional Russian dumplings and Sriracha sauce of Pel’Meni (2 Marine Way). The tiny spot is located down by the water, across from a pair of tall totem poles. Those waiting patiently for the only thing they sell — warming bowls of beef or potato dumplings — were a more local crowd than inside the neighboring fish and chip shop. When served with “everything,” the dish includes curry powder, sour cream, hot sauce and a slice of marble bread.

Up by the airport, it seems relatively few outsiders have discovered the warm and welcoming Donna’s Restaurant. Old photos of Juneau streets are framed on the walls, ignored by diners in green booths focused on hearty breakfasts of omelets, pancakes, reindeer sausage and bottomless cups of coffee.

More gold nuggets

There’s no shortage of shops downtown, selling proof you’ve made it this far in your travels, including art galleries and jewelry stores. If a tattoo is more your kind of souvenir, they have a couple of those as well.

Since most visitors are cruise passengers and arrive in Juneau in the room where they’ll sleep, the hotel options for land lubbers are limited. Downtown, the Four Points by Sheraton has great views and the Alaskan Hotel & Bar recreates that pioneer vibe. On the north end of town, Grandma’s Feather Bed, a Best Western property (and a John Denver song), is as cute and comfortable as it sounds. The Victorian-style inn offers well-appointed suites, with full breakfast included. You can even walk to the airport from there, but the free shuttle will take you.

The main road that connects downtown and the airport neighborhood is Egan Drive. Rental cars are pricey but between hotel vans and Ubers you can get around without one. The city bus (#3 and #4), as big as an adult humpback whale, if you recall, runs the 9 miles between the north and south parts. The #8 bus stops 1.5 miles away from the Mendenhall Glacier Visitor Center. It only costs $2 one-way, and takes about 15 minutes more than a car. You may notice a PSA inside the busses reminding residents not to leave garbage outside, in order to keep their bear neighbors wild.

A couple of those bears are taxidermied inside the wee Juneau International Airport, with its five gates and seaplane base. Its commercial options, primarily on Alaska Airlines, include Anchorage and Seattle, about 90 minutes and two hours away, respectively. And you won’t find, anywhere, a friendlier, more good-natured TSA staff than those at JNU.

It’s a small consolation for leaving such a stunning, inspiring and welcoming town.

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