Homer was reshaped, literally, by the sea floor. The 1964 Great Alaska Earthquake — the most powerful ever recorded in North America — dropped the Homer Spit several feet, flooding parts of it and forcing the town to rebuild the harbor and the road that run its length today. As with so much of Alaska, the response was practical and stubborn: Homer rebuilt the Spit better, and went back to fishing. The shape of the modern town owes as much to that rebuilding as to anything Pennock ever planned.
Long before any road reached the bay, Kachemak Bay was home to the Sugpiaq (Alutiiq) and Dena'ina peoples, who fished its rich waters and lived along its shores for generations. The bay's name itself comes down from that long history, and its abundance — salmon, halibut, shellfish, and seabirds — is the same abundance that would later give Homer its living. An honest account of the town begins with the people who read these waters first. Archaeologists even named an entire ancient culture — the Kachemak tradition — for the bay, a measure of how deep the human story here runs.
Why People Visit Homer
Homer offers Alaska at its most scenic and approachable — a working fishing port and arts town on one of the most beautiful bays in the state. Visitors come for the halibut charters, the Spit, and the wildlife and water excursions, and stay for the galleries, beaches, and unhurried end-of-the-road feel. From the harbor docks to the mountains across the bay, it rewards a slow few days. It is wild, creative, and welcoming in every season on Kachemak Bay.
