Our Juneau logo carries Alaska's distressed bear above "Est. 1959," the year of statehood — the shared retro emblem of our Alaska places, drawn in worn black-and-white like an old cannery crate stamp. The bear is the through-line that links Juneau to every other Alaska town we make; what makes this one Juneau is everything around it — the roadless capital, Kowee's creek, the drowned mine, and the ice.
The land was never empty. The A'akw Kwáan — the "Small Lake People" of the Tlingit — and the T'aaḵu Kwáan of the Taku have lived along this channel for millennia, fishing Auke Bay and the salmon streams, naming every water: the flats at Gold Creek were Dzántik'i Héeni, "river where the flounders gather." Captain George Vancouver charted Gastineau Channel in 1794 and sailed on; for most of another century the channel stayed Tlingit water under a thin Russian claim, sold unseen to the United States in 1867.
Why People Visit Juneau Alaska
Juneau is the capital of Alaska as a civic destination and a wilderness port in one — the only U.S. state capital with no road access, the 1931 Capitol, a walk-to glacier, whales in the channel, and gold-rush ruins on the mountainside. People come by ship and plane for the ice and the whales, and find a small stubborn capital that likes being hard to reach.
