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Juneau is the capital of Alaska, but it is like no other of the US state capitals. Juneau has only 30,000 inhabitants and it is so remote that you can only sail and fly to get there. The surroundings consist of Alaska’s breathtaking mountain and fjord landscape.
The town of Juneau was established in 1880 as a future gold digger town. Some land was reserved for a camp after a gold find, and Juneau grew in the following years. From the first decades you can still see some of the beautiful buildings in late Victorian style, which constituted shops, homes, etc.
The modern Juneau benefits from tourism, which not least comes with the many cruise ships that frequently dock at the city’s berths. From here the experiences start almost immediately, because the historic Juneau is just a few steps from the ships. So do experiences in the beautiful scenery; eg a trip to the top of Mount Roberts.
When in Juneau, you can experience bears, eagles, glaciers, mountains, dog sleds, whales and more. A few things are easily reached, such as the Mendenhall Glacier, while others require more transportation. There is a great selection of offers with boats, seaplanes and helicopters for all the places where you get to almost untouched nature.
The Juneau Downtown Historic District is the designation for Juneau’s interesting, old downtown. The area runs along South Franklin Street from the cruise terminal in the south to Second Street in the north. It also includes Second and Front Streets to Main Street. The area was the center of Juneau’s development from the gold mining era’s founding in 1880.
In the Juneau Downtown Historic District, there are some fine buildings such as the late-Victorian Alaska Steam Laundry from 1901, which was built during the time when Juneau transitioned from being a mining camp to becoming a cosmopolitan city, which the year before had become the capital of the territory of Alaska. The Valentine Building from 1904-1912 is another example. The building was constructed as a store, and it is architecturally typical of Alaska at this time.
St Nicholas Russian Orthodox Church with the Russian name Церковь Святого Николая was built in 1894. It was not built by Russian settlers, but rather it was a result of the Orthodox faith of local tlingit leaders.
The Taku leader Anathahash had been baptized in the Orthodox Church in Sitka in 1890 and he came back to Juneau with the priest Vladimir Donskoi. Donskoi baptized many in the following period, and according to tradition, many had had the same dream about St. Nicholas, and this caused even more to be baptized in the Russian Orthodox faith.
Knowing of the large congregation in Juneau, the Russian Church sent blueprints for a new church and 200 silver rubles to finance the construction of the church in Juneau, which stands today in a beautiful Russian-colonial style. Church interiors were also sent from Russia, and from there originates e.g. the icon wall, which can still be seen in the church today.
Mount Roberts is a 1,164 meter high mountain located just south of downtown Juneau. You can get up the mountain to a height of about 550 meters in a 6-minute cable car ride with the Goldbelt Tram, and from here the views of Juneau and the city’s surroundings are amazing.
In addition to the great view, you can also visit the Mount Roberts Nature Center from the top of the cable car ride. Here you can get information about Mount Roberts and suggestions for various hikes you can do from the center. There are i.a. Mount Roberts Trail, and you can also choose to go down to Juneau if you want to enjoy nature on the forested hillsides.
The Alaska State Capitol is the seat of the Alaska Legislature. The building opened as a federal administration building in 1931 after two years of construction, and became the capitol when Alaska became a US state in 1959. Construction was partially funded by the US Congress in Washington, while other funds were raised from Juneau residents.
In the Capitol building, Alaska’s governor and lieutenant governor have offices, and here Alaska’s two chambers of the political system meet. They continue to do so despite several proposals to move the state capital to, for example, a place in the Cook Inlet region, where the much bigger city of Anchorage is.
The Juneau-Douglas Bridge was opened in 1980. It is 189 meters long and crosses the strait Gastineau Channel. The bridge thereby connects Juneau to the east with Douglas to the west.
There was another bridge over the Gastineau Channel before the opening of the current bridge. It was opened in 1935, and before that people rowed or sailed in larger boats to cross the current waters.
Chicken Ridge is a residential neighborhood from Juneau’s earlier days. Since the beginning of the 1900s, it has been one of the city’s finest areas. The name Chicken Ridge is believed to come from the grouse that were originally found in large numbers around this area.
In the Chicken Ridge Historic District, you can see many beautiful and interesting buildings from this period, for example the House of Wickersham museum, which was built in 1899 by Frank Hammond. The politician James Wickersham bought the house in 1928 and lived here until his death in 1939. Wickersham was an influential citizen who represented Alaska in the US Congress, and who had a great influence on some of the most important political decisions for the development of Alaska at the time.
The Juneau Douglas Museum is an interesting city museum where, through films and a number of objects and themed exhibitions, you get a good impression of the development and cultural history of Juneau and the neighboring city of Douglas.
The museum is also the historic site where Alaska held the official ceremony to join as the 49th state of the United States. It happened on July 4, 1959, when Stars & Stripes with 40 stars went to the top for the first time in the new state right here.
Alaska Marine Highway is a piece of interesting transportation history. You can’t drive to Juneau by road from anywhere else in the US or Canada, so the city is dependent on sea and air transport. The same is the case for many other cities in Alaska, and to that end Alaska Marine Highways ships sail as if on a highway with passengers, cars and cargo.
The Alaska Marine Highway connects more than 30 cities and ports from Bellingham in the state of Washington in the south to Alaska’s Dutch Harbor in the northwest. The main line connects Alaska with the rest of the continental United States, and in many places there are smaller ferry routes that ferry passengers to the main line to Bellingham. In Juneau, you can see the ships from the Alaska Marine Highway in the harbor, and you can sail from here to several surrounding cities.
Alaska State Museum is a cultural history museum, where you can not least experience the indigenous cultures of the state of Alaska. Thus, there are exhibitions about the Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian tribes from the Pacific Northwest and also about, for example, Inuit from the north and Aleutian peoples such as the Unangax.
A visit to the museum is therefore a good way to be introduced to historical and current cultures in Alaska, and through the permanent and changing exhibitions you gain an understanding of life in the region, which over time has naturally been influenced by nature and the climate.
The University of Alaska Southeast is a public university that was founded in 1972. The main campus is located in Juneau, while there are other campuses in the nearby cities of Sitka and Ketchikan.
The University of Alaska Southeast is one of three universities in the public university system of Alaska. The others are the University of Alaska Anchorage and the University of Alaska Fairbanks. In comparison to other US states, Alaska’s university system is relatively small, but here there are special fields such as geology, atmospheric science and wildlife biology.
Mendenhall Glacier is a 20 kilometer long glacier located about 19 kilometers from downtown Juneau. The glacier is one of the offshoots of the Juneau Icefield, and compared to most other glaciers, access to Mendenhall Glacier is very easy.
Transportation from Juneau is easy as well and once you arrive you can walk the area and there are excellent views of the glacial lake at the end of Mendenhall Glacier and to the glacier from the Mendenhall Glacier Visitor Center.
Juneau is a great starting point for whale watching. At the right times of the year, you can e.g. see humpback whales and killer whales in the waters and these are unforgettable sights. There are many different tour boats to choose from.
On the whale safaris from Juneau, you can often also see quite a few other animals in the sea and in the air as well. Seals and sea lions can often be seen along the coasts, and you should also keep an eye out for the many eagles in the area.
Tracy Arm Fjord is one of the many beautiful places in the nature around Juneau. Tracy Arm Fjord is one of the most popular to sail to. The fjord is located about 70 kilometers south of Juneau. Glaciers calve in the fjord, where during the season larger and smaller pieces of ice float around between the beautiful, surrounding landscape.
The fjord is part of the natural area Tracy Arm-Ford’s Terror Wilderness, which consists of Tracy Arm Fjord and Endicott Arm Fjord, both of which were glacial valleys during the last ice age. If you sail to the inner part of Tracy Arm Fjord, you can see the North Sawyer and South Sawyer glaciers, and on the way there you can keep an eye out for the area’s wildlife, which includes bears, mountain goats and harbor seals.
Admiralty Island is an interesting place to visit after a short flight or boat ride from Juneau. The island is densely populated with brown bears, and it is therefore a good place to see the bears that Alaska is so famous for, and also many other animals such as seals, sea lions and eagles.
Admiralty Island is just over 4,200 square kilometers in size, making it the USA’s seventh largest island. Only about 600 people live on the island, and there are about three times as many bears here. Historically, there has been a whaling station on the island, and today there is, among other things, a silver mine here.
2 Marine Way
9105 Mendenhall Mall Road
8745 Glacier Highway
South Franklin Street, Second Street, Main Street
Goldbelt Tram
490 South Franklin Street
goldbelttram.com
Dog Sledding Summer Camp
Mendenhall Glacier
6000 Glacier Spur Road
Off the Juneau lies the Straits Gastineau Channel, and it was used as a fishing area by several local Native American tribes long before the arrival of the Europeans. At our Indian Point today, there was a settlement and a burial ground.
The first European country to formally establish itself in Alaska was Russia, which established a colony here in the period 1784-1867. The Russians traded in great style with local tribes. They traded and colonized much of Alaska, but not the area around Juneau.
The first European to arrive was Joseph Whidbey of the British Royal Navy. Whidbey was on George Vancouver’s expedition 1791-1795. On board HMS Discovery, he saw the ice-filled Gastineau Channel in the summer of 1794, but considered that it could not be sailed.
It took many years before Juneau settled. In the mid-1800s, gold fever broke out in California, and many settlers and knights moved to the American west coast. When the gold finds were ringing in California, many were looking for happiness along the coast to look for other gold deposits.
In 1880, George Pilz, a Sitka mining director, pledged a reward to any chief who could lead Pilz to new discoveries. It gave way when Chief Kowee came up with some ore which was interesting enough for a closer examination of the site. Twice Joe Juneau and Richard were sent to Gold Creek, and they found gold pieces the size of peas and beans.
After that it went strong, and on October 18, 1880, two emissaries marked an area of 160 acres where an upcoming mine camp was to be established. Already after a year, so many had arrived at the camp that it had become a smaller city, and it was the first city to be established in the region following the US acquisition of Alaska from Russia.
Initially, the settlement was known as Rockwell, and then it was named Harrisburg after Richard Harris, who had helped to find gold in 1880. On December 14, 72 people at a miner’s meeting decided to name the place Juneau after Joe Juneau.
The Russian Orthodox Church had been helping Tlingite people elsewhere in Alaska since the early 1800s, where they had also held worship services and translated scriptures into Native American languages. An Orthodox priest was invited to Juneau, and about 700 people converted to the Orthodox faith, led by Chief Yees Gaanaalx.
After the Orthodox conversion, the city’s Russian Orthodox Church was erected in 1894. It was one of many wooden buildings erected in Juneau in the decades around 1900, with the city’s appearance changing from its inception camp to a city with built main streets, residential neighborhoods and so on.
Alaska were not yet a US state, but the territory was obviously to be administered. In the years 1910-1912 a governor’s palace was built in Juneau, where the governor of Alaska was given residence and seat. It was from this building that Warren G. Harding in 1923 as the first American president to speak in Alaska.
In 1911, the US Congress in Washington granted funds for the construction of a government building in the territory of Alaska. However, this did not happen immediately, partly because the World War I delayed the project and partly proved difficult to acquire the necessary land.
Some of the city’s citizens joined in with donations, and in the late 1920s construction could begin. On February 14, 1931, the building was inaugurated as The Federal and Territorial Building and then used for various government and administrative purposes.
President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed The Alaska Statehood Act on July 7, 1958, and with it the territory of Alaska became a United States state with effect from January 3, 1959. The state became the number 49 in the United States.
Juneau became the capital despite the city being by far the largest in the state. The two largest urban areas in Alaska are Anchorage and Fairbanks, and since 1959 it has been proposed many times to relocate the capital. Most proposals deal with a move to somewhere between Anchorage and Fairbanks so as not to distort the relationship between the two cities. Several times a relocation has been put to the vote, but each time the proposal has been dropped, which is why Juneau remains Alaska’s capital.
The population of Juneau increased significantly after the city became the capital. Some state administration came to town, and it provided growth for newcomers. New growth occurred in the late 1970s when the state’s oil economy boomed with improved economy and new jobs.
Growth slowed sharply in the 1980s, with Juneau improving its infrastructure with the new bridge between Juneau and Douglas. Since then, population projections show that Juneau growth will be low for some years.
Tourism and, in particular, cruise ships have ensured Juneau’s development in recent decades. From more than 200,000 cruise guests in 1990, the number of visitors in the city rounded up 1,000,000 from the seaside in 2006. This has given many jobs in the season, which of course are affecting the economy of the city and its citizens.
Overview of Juneau
Juneau is the capital of Alaska, but it is like no other of the US state capitals. Juneau has only 30,000 inhabitants and it is so remote that you can only sail and fly to get there. The surroundings consist of Alaska’s breathtaking mountain and fjord landscape.
The town of Juneau was established in 1880 as a future gold digger town. Some land was reserved for a camp after a gold find, and the town grew in the following years. From the first decades you can still see some of the beautiful buildings in late Victorian style, which constituted shops, homes, etc.
About the upcoming Juneau travel guide
About the travel guide
The Juneau travel guide gives you an overview of the sights and activities of the American city. Read about top sights and other sights, and get a tour guide with tour suggestions and detailed descriptions of all the city’s most important churches, monuments, mansions, museums, etc.
Juneau is waiting for you, and at vamados.com you can also find cheap flights and great deals on hotels for your trip. You just select your travel dates and then you get flight and accommodation suggestions in and around the city.
Read more about Juneau and the USA
Buy the travel guide
Click the “Add to Cart” button to purchase the travel guide. After that you will come to the payment, where you enter the purchase and payment information. Upon payment of the travel guide, you will immediately receive a receipt with a link to download your purchase. You can download the travel guide immediately or use the download link in the email later.
Use the travel guide
When you buy the travel guide to Juneau you get the book online so you can have it on your phone, tablet or computer – and of course you can choose to print it. Use the maps and tour suggestions and you will have a good and content-rich journey.
State Capitol • Great Whales • Russian Church • Marine Highway
Overview of Juneau
Juneau is the capital of Alaska, but it is like no other of the US state capitals. Juneau has only 30,000 inhabitants and it is so remote that you can only sail and fly to get there. The surroundings consist of Alaska’s breathtaking mountain and fjord landscape.
The town of Juneau was established in 1880 as a future gold digger town. Some land was reserved for a camp after a gold find, and the town grew in the following years. From the first decades you can still see some of the beautiful buildings in late Victorian style, which constituted shops, homes, etc.
About the upcoming Juneau travel guide
About the travel guide
The Juneau travel guide gives you an overview of the sights and activities of the American city. Read about top sights and other sights, and get a tour guide with tour suggestions and detailed descriptions of all the city’s most important churches, monuments, mansions, museums, etc.
Juneau is waiting for you, and at vamados.com you can also find cheap flights and great deals on hotels for your trip. You just select your travel dates and then you get flight and accommodation suggestions in and around the city.
Read more about Juneau and the USA
Buy the travel guide
Click the “Add to Cart” button to purchase the travel guide. After that you will come to the payment, where you enter the purchase and payment information. Upon payment of the travel guide, you will immediately receive a receipt with a link to download your purchase. You can download the travel guide immediately or use the download link in the email later.
Use the travel guide
When you buy the travel guide to Juneau you get the book online so you can have it on your phone, tablet or computer – and of course you can choose to print it. Use the maps and tour suggestions and you will have a good and content-rich journey.
The Juneau-Douglas Bridge was opened in 1980. It is 189 meters long and crosses the strait Gastineau Channel. The bridge thereby connects Juneau to the east with Douglas to the west.
There was another bridge over the Gastineau Channel before the opening of the current bridge. It was opened in 1935, and before that people rowed or sailed in larger boats to cross the current waters.
Chicken Ridge is a residential neighborhood from Juneau’s earlier days. Since the beginning of the 1900s, it has been one of the city’s finest areas. The name Chicken Ridge is believed to come from the grouse that were originally found in large numbers around this area.
In the Chicken Ridge Historic District, you can see many beautiful and interesting buildings from this period, for example the House of Wickersham museum, which was built in 1899 by Frank Hammond. The politician James Wickersham bought the house in 1928 and lived here until his death in 1939. Wickersham was an influential citizen who represented Alaska in the US Congress, and who had a great influence on some of the most important political decisions for the development of Alaska at the time.
The Juneau Douglas Museum is an interesting city museum where, through films and a number of objects and themed exhibitions, you get a good impression of the development and cultural history of Juneau and the neighboring city of Douglas.
The museum is also the historic site where Alaska held the official ceremony to join as the 49th state of the United States. It happened on July 4, 1959, when Stars & Stripes with 40 stars went to the top for the first time in the new state right here.
Alaska Marine Highway is a piece of interesting transportation history. You can’t drive to Juneau by road from anywhere else in the US or Canada, so the city is dependent on sea and air transport. The same is the case for many other cities in Alaska, and to that end Alaska Marine Highways ships sail as if on a highway with passengers, cars and cargo.
The Alaska Marine Highway connects more than 30 cities and ports from Bellingham in the state of Washington in the south to Alaska’s Dutch Harbor in the northwest. The main line connects Alaska with the rest of the continental United States, and in many places there are smaller ferry routes that ferry passengers to the main line to Bellingham. In Juneau, you can see the ships from the Alaska Marine Highway in the harbor, and you can sail from here to several surrounding cities.
Alaska State Museum is a cultural history museum, where you can not least experience the indigenous cultures of the state of Alaska. Thus, there are exhibitions about the Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian tribes from the Pacific Northwest and also about, for example, Inuit from the north and Aleutian peoples such as the Unangax.
A visit to the museum is therefore a good way to be introduced to historical and current cultures in Alaska, and through the permanent and changing exhibitions you gain an understanding of life in the region, which over time has naturally been influenced by nature and the climate.
The University of Alaska Southeast is a public university that was founded in 1972. The main campus is located in Juneau, while there are other campuses in the nearby cities of Sitka and Ketchikan.
The University of Alaska Southeast is one of three universities in the public university system of Alaska. The others are the University of Alaska Anchorage and the University of Alaska Fairbanks. In comparison to other US states, Alaska’s university system is relatively small, but here there are special fields such as geology, atmospheric science and wildlife biology.
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