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Homer is one of the largest cities on the Kenai Peninsula with over 5,000 residents. The city has various nicknames, and one of them is ‘the end of the road’, because Homer is at the end of the Sterling Highway, which is also the only way to and from the city, if you don’t count the ferries on the Alaska Marine Highway. In Homer, there are many visitors during the season, including must see the isthmus of Homer Spit, which is over seven kilometers long.
Homer’s history started in the 1890s, when coal was found in the area. The Cook Inlet Coal Fields Company established a small town to be able to mine coal here, and in the town the company established, among other things, harbor facilities and a railway. The town also attracted gold miners and Homer Pennock came here in 1896 and built housing for his team of 50 men on the isthmus, and he had the town named after him.
Today, it is no longer coal mines or gold rushes that Homer makes a living from. On the other hand, it is tourism and fishing, where Homer is not least known for salmon and halibut fishing. The city also calls itself the ‘halibut fishing capital of the world’, and there is plenty to experience in the city.
Homer’s old town is located around the southern part of Main St, but after destruction in 1964 due to the great earthquake that hit Alaska, this part was almost abandoned for many years. In recent years, the area has been renovated again, and from here you can also enjoy the view from Bishop’s Beach. North of the old town is Homer’s downtown, which spreads around the street Pioneer Avenue. This is also where you can visit the Pratt Museum & Park, where you can learn much more about the Kachemak Bay area people, culture and nature.
From downtown you can walk towards the Homer Spit, and on the way is Beluga Lake, which serves as Homer’s seaplane airport. From here, Homer Spit Road goes the long way towards the tip of Homer Spit, where you can see the town’s large marina, and where there are many eateries and cafes around the marina, the fishing and the ferries from the site.
It is also here on Homer Spit that you can visit the Salty Dawg Saloon, which is one of the town’s landmarks. The Salty Dawg Saloon is today a saloon, but the place’s cabin dates from 1897 and was thereby one of Homer’s first cabins. The cabin was moved to its current location in 1949 and the saloon opened in 1957.
Homer Spit is a 7 km long isthmus that starts from the town of Homer. This is where much of the town’s tourist life takes place, because the tang is home to the town’s active harbor with fishing and tour boats. It is also here that you find a number of restaurants and shops, and you can, among other things, see sea eagles and other birds along the trip to the harbor at the end of the isthmus.
Homer Spit was developed from 1899 when the Cook Inlet Coal Fields Company built a railway from coal deposits along the inlet to shipping at the end of the isthmus. The railway is history, and today there is a road leading to the port. In several places along it there are areas for campers, and there is also easy access to salmon fishing in season from the tang.
The Salty Dawg Saloon is one of the most famous places on the Homer Spit. The original Salty Dawg was built as one of the earliest cabins in Homer in 1897. The cabin was purchased in the 1940s by Chuck Abbott, and in 1949 Abbott moved the cabin to the Homer Spit. In 1957, the shack opened as the Salty Dawg Saloon.
Today, there is also a tower that is part of the landmark Salty Dawg Saloon, and it is an experience to enter the saloon, which is a popular bar. Here you sit surrounded by thousands of dollar bills that are signed and hung up by the saloon’s guests over the years. The tradition started when a guest once hung up a dollar bill to pay for a later guest’s drink when he showed up.
The Pratt Museum is an interesting cultural and natural history museum for Homer and the Kachemak Bay area. The museum dates back to the formation of the Homer Society of Natural History in 1965, where the starting point was local artist Sam Pratt’s collection of effects.
The museum has various exhibitions. The main exhibition focuses on the historical and current cultures that have been around Kachemak Bay. There are i.a. themes about the original population and about the settlers who built many homesteads in the 1930s and 1940s. You can also learn more about the fishing that forms the economic basis for the towns around the bay.
Pioneer Avenue is Homer’s modern main street, as opposed to Main Street, which was the main street in historic Homer. Along the streets are a number of Homer’s shops, and here you will also find the city’s town hall.
At the corner of Pioneer Avenue and Main Street you can notice the Homer Theatre. It is a small and charming cinema that shows the latest films from Hollywood and is known for its good popcorn. It is an experience to take a trip to the cinema during a visit to the city.
Today, Pioneer Avenue is the main street in Homer, but before the 1964 earthquake that hit Homer and Alaska, the town center was closer to the water along Main Street. The earthquake caused parts of the then-city to slide into Kachemak Bay, showing just how vulnerable Homer was.
After the earthquake, the city’s activity moved away from the bay, and the former center was virtually abandoned. In the 1980s, however, a group of artists moved to the district, and they created activity from the preserved building, which had previously housed the Inlet Trading Post business. More places came to be, and today Old Town in Homer is a pleasant place to stroll along Main Street, E Bunnell Avenue and to Bishop’s Beach.
This is a nature center where you can learn a lot more about the wildlife around Homer and Kachemak Bay. You can see some interesting exhibits and get good advice on seeing wildlife around Homer or on tour boats.
From the nature center you can also go for walks to the wetlands at Bishop’s Beach close to the centre. You come through wooded areas where you can often see moose, but otherwise you go to the beach to look for e.g. whales, otters and sea lions.
When in Homer, you can see Kachemak Bay and the surrounding mountains from the Homer Spit. You can also take the short trip up to the Skyline Drive Overlook, which provides a panoramic view of the city and the area.
From the Skyline Drive Overlook, you can thus see most of the city of Homer, historic Homer at Bishop’s Beach and the entire Homer Spit, which juts out 7 km into Kachemak Bay. You can also see large parts of the bay and the range of mountains on the opposite shore.
The town of Homer is also called ‘The End of the Road’, but after taking Sterling Highway all the way to Homer, one can continue on East End Road to the real end of the road in this part of Alaska. After being the city’s main thoroughfare as Pioneer Avenue, East End Road continues through built-up areas before exiting the city into beautiful countryside.
From several locations, one can enjoy panoramic views across Kachemak Bay to mountains and glaciers on the opposite side of the long bay. If you drive far enough, the asphalt stops, and the dirt roads at the end continue to the three Russian villages of Voznesenka, Kachemak Selo and Razdolna. The communities are Old Believers, and you can see the small onion-domed church in Voznesenka.
The town of Seldovia is isolated on the opposite side of Kachemak Bay from Homer. This means that you have to fly or sail here, and it is possible by ferry and tour boats from Homer. About 300 people live in Seldovia, and the town is like entering a world of its own compared to Homer.
Here you can easily walk to everything, and in Seldovia there are beautiful old houses on stilts along the water. You can also visit shops, galleries and restaurants in the cozy town, where you can also see the Russian Orthodox Saint Nicholas Church from 1891. There are also various hiking trails from which you can enjoy nature. The most popular is the Otterbahn Trail, which connects Seldovia to Outside Beach.
Kachemak Bay is a 64 km long bay that empties into Cook Inlet. The bay has high biological activity, where the sea pushes nutrients into the water of the bay, and this provides an abundance of fish, birds, otters, seals, porpoises and whales all year round.
From Homer you can go on several different trips where you can experience the marine life in Kachemak Bay. Some of the tours are combined with visits to Seldovia, local oyster farms, Gull Island, Halibut Cove and other exciting places that show the diversity around the bay.
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