The water works just as hard. Humpback whales feed the length of Stephens Passage and Auke Bay — summer whale watching here is close to a guarantee — the Macaulay Salmon Hatchery walks visitors through the run, and bald eagles crowd the channel like gulls. Downtown, the Mount Roberts Tramway climbs from the cruise docks to the alpine, Perseverance Trail follows the old mining road up Gold Creek, the Red Dog Saloon pours under sawdust and swinging doors, and Eaglecrest — the city's own ski area on Douglas Island — turns the capital into a ski town every winter.
Juneau today is a capital of about thirty-two thousand that hosts well over a million cruise visitors a summer, a government town and a Tlingit cultural center at once — every two years, Celebration fills the streets with Tlingit, Haida, and Tsimshian dance in one of the largest Native gatherings in Alaska. The borough sprawls over three thousand square miles of ice, forest, and channel; the town itself is a few steep blocks you can walk in an afternoon.
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.
