Anchorage Travel Guide

The Alaska Native Heritage Center in northeast Anchorage is a living museum and cultural center dedicated to sharing and sustaining the cultures of Alaska's Native peoples. The campus brings together the heritage of Alaska's eleven major Native groups through traditional village dwellings, craft demonstrations, dance performances, and interactive exhibits. Visitors experience the lifeways and spiritual worlds of the Aleut, Athabascan, Yup'ik, Inupiaq, Tlingit, Haida, and other peoples. The center serves as a vital educational hub and a marketplace for Native artists to demonstrate and sell traditional work, making it the premier place to understand Alaska Native history and contemporary vitality.

The Captain Cook Monument stands along the shores of Cook Inlet near Anchorage, Alaska, dedicated to commemorating the renowned British explorer Captain James Cook. In 1778, during his third Pacific voyage, Cook sailed into these waters and named the inlet Turnagain Arm, as the fierce tides forced him to turn back once more. The monument is surrounded by the magnificent Chugach Mountains and the dramatic tidal landscape of Cook Inlet, where visitors can observe wildlife including bald eagles, seals, and whales. The site is also an important place to learn about Alaska's exploration history and indigenous cultures, with the nearby Alaska Native Heritage Center showcasing traditional artifacts and arts of the Athabascan, Aleut, and Inupiat peoples.

Turnagain Arm is a narrow inlet of Cook Inlet south of Anchorage, named for Captain Cook's 1778 voyage when he was forced to "turn again" in search of the Northwest Passage. This roughly 70-kilometer waterway is embraced by the Chugach Mountains and the Kenai Peninsula, and the Seward Highway along its shore is one of America's most scenic drives. The arm is famous for one of the world's most extreme tidal ranges, exceeding 10 meters, and for bore tides that send walls of water several meters high rushing up the channel. Beluga whales, sea otters, sea lions and brown bears can be seen along the shore, with Baldy Mountain and glacier-clad peaks forming a dramatic backdrop. Numerous pullouts and trails line the highway, including Beluga Point for whale watching and the Alyeska Resort tram for panoramic views. It is the most accessible gateway to wild Alaska.

The Anchorage Museum is Alaska's largest museum and cultural center, known for blending Indigenous art, polar science and contemporary exhibitions. It holds exquisite work and totems of the Inupiat and Aleut peoples alongside interactive science galleries on Arctic ecology, glaciers and climate change. An attached polar lab explains the natural laws of this frozen land. As a window into Alaska, it places vast wilderness beside living culture, making it an ideal indoor for polar discovery on rainy or cold days.