Spanish ships charted these waters first: in 1790 the explorer Salvador Fidalgo named the port for Antonio Valdes y Basan, a Spanish naval minister. Long before that, the Chugach (Sugpiaq) and Ahtna peoples knew this coast as a trade crossroads at the edge of the Sound. The town itself was born of gold — founded in 1898 as a port of entry for prospectors bound for the Klondike, who climbed the brutal Valdez Glacier Trail toward the Interior. It was "Copper City" before it was Valdez, and it incorporated in 1901.
As the gold rush faded, Valdez became a supply port and transport hub. In 1919 the Richardson Highway — Alaska's first road — linked it to Fairbanks, and the deep, ice-free harbor kept the town working year round: it is the northernmost ice-free port in North America. The mountains that wall it in catch staggering snow, and the Sound beyond it fills with calving ice.
Why People Visit Valdez, AK
People come to Valdez for the scale of it — tidewater glaciers calving into the Sound, peaks straight off the harbor, and snow measured in feet. It is a gold-rush town turned glacier port, the Little Switzerland of Alaska, rugged and beautiful and welcoming at the end of the road from Anchorage.
