Cordova sits at the end of the road — which is to say, off it entirely. No highway connects it to the rest of Alaska; you arrive by ferry across Prince William Sound or by floatplane, the way people always have. The town wraps around a small-boat harbor on Orca Inlet, under Eyak Mountain and beside Lake Eyak, in a temperate rainforest that takes on something like a hundred and sixty inches of rain a year. Beyond it spread the Copper River Delta — one of the great shorebird stopovers on the continent — and the glaciers, and the Sound.
People were here long before the copper. The Eyak made the Copper River Delta and this corner of Prince William Sound their home, fishing the same runs that feed the town today and trading along the coast between their Tlingit and Alutiiq neighbors. The first cannery opened on Orca Inlet in 1889 — before the railroad, before the town — proof that the fish came first and have stayed longest. Cordova’s deepest story is not copper but salmon, and the people who have always known it.
Why People Visit Cordova
Cordova rewards travelers who want the real, working edge of Alaska: a fishing fleet at the dock, glaciers and a great river delta within reach, world-class birding and salmon, and a town you have to make an effort to reach. Bring rain gear and time.
