#5 - Anchorage

Cook Inlet, where Anchorage is located, has the second largest tide changes in the country. High tide and low tide vary by more than 30 feet! 

I arrived at the Anchorage train depot at 10:30 p.m., and as it was still light outside I walked the mile to the closest hostel. The downtown hostel is not the only hostel in Anchorage, nor the nicest, but it is the most convenient for those who are on foot. I was assigned to a room with three very nice Japanese ladies, one who, like me, was traveling alone. She had already been in Anchorage for five days and had been traveling all over Canada. By the time she returns to Japan later this year, she will have been traveling on her own for 10 months! 

Downtown Anchorage is about a six block area that is quite pretty. Hanging pots of flowers and colorful flower beds are everywhere. Daytime temperatures were in the 50's and 60's and it was rainy and/or cloudy the whole time I was there. 

Anchorage is the place to shop for souvenirs. There are dozens of outlet stores in the downtown area with incredible prices on t-shirts, sweat shirts, jackets, hats and ulu knives. One store even offers post cards at just five cents each! 

The highlight of my Anchorage stay was my visit to the Alaska Native Heritage Center, a new showcase for Alaska's native peoples--the Athabascan, Yup'ik and Cup'ik Eskimos, the Iupiaq and St. Lawrence Island Yuptik Eskimos, and the Aleut, Alutiiq, Eyak, Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian Indians. The Center has Village sites for each of these cultures and each site has natives sharing some of their traditional values, stories and lifestyles. 

Inside the Welcome House is the Gathering Place where storytelling, dancing and musical performances take place. There is also a Hall of Cultures, which presents cultural exhibits and natives demonstrating their arts and crafts. The Yuptik Eskimos from St. Lawrence Island, just miles from Russia, were the featured performers. It was a very interesting day in spite of the rain. 

My last day in Anchorage was spent at the mall. My intent was to go to the library and send off some emails, but the library was closed. So, I went to a movie. I found that riding around town on the city bus is a good way to get a cheap tour of the city. 

In retrospect, I should have spent my last day traveling by train to Wittier and the Portage Glacier, but at that point I had plans for all my alotted TravelPass days. I should have gone anyway, as my last day in Anchorage was pretty wasted. As it turned out, I ended up with unused travel days. But as I was in the early days of my trip and didn't have a crystal ball . . . 

The day I decided to leave Anchorage I walked to the train station only to find gazillions of people milling about. Seems that all the tours decided to leave that day, too. The train was full. Only the second time all summer, I was told, that that had happened. Reservations are not usually needed even in the height of summer tourism. Especially if you are traveling alone. It turns out that that was the only time my entire trip that I was not able to get where I wanted because of overbooking. Scheduling was a different problem, however. (See the section on Fairbanks.) 

I seldom made reservations ahead of time as I wanted to be free to stay as long as I wanted in each place I visited, and this was no exception. So, I was faced with staying another day in Anchorage or finding alternate transportation. I was anxious to see more of Alaska, so, even though my train fare was covered by the AlaskaPass, I paid an additional $35 for a shuttle bus to Talkeetna.