Wedged between the two arms of Cook Inlet and the imposing Chugach Mountains,
ANCHORAGE
is home to over forty percent of Alaska's population, and serves as the transportation center for the whole state. This sprawling city on the edge of one of the world's great wildernesses often gets a bad press from those who live elsewhere in Alaska - derided as being "just half an hour from Alaska" - but it has its attractions, and with its beautiful setting can make a pleasant one- or two-day stopover.
By the time Captain James Cook came up what is now Cook Inlet in 1778, in search of a Northwest Passage to the Atlantic, Russian fur trappers had already started to settle the area, trading copper and iron for fish and furs with the Native Americans. Though Cook was sure that the inlet was not the Passage, he sent boats out in a southeasterly direction to investigate. When they were forced to turn back by the severe tides, Cook named this gloriously scenic stretch
Turnagain Arm
.
Anchorage itself began life in 1915 as a tent city for construction workers on the Alaska Railroad. During the 1930s, hopefuls fleeing the Depression came pouring in from the Lower 48, and World War II - and the construction of the Alaska Highway - further boosted the city's size and importance. The opening of the airport established Anchorage - equidistant between New York and Tokyo - as the "Crossroads of the World," and statehood in 1959 brought in yet more optimistic adventurers
The City
Travelers eager to rush off into the "real" Alaska tend to overlook cosmopolitan Anchorage - a blend of old and new, urban blight and rural parks - but there is plenty to see, and it's worth spending some time here experiencing big-city Alaska....
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