Alaska or Bust: Revisited: Cantwell, AK/Anchorage, AK Part 1 (7/1/2017)

Day 18
1964, the Plan: Whitehorse to Rancheria, YT.
1964, the Actuality: On Monday, August 3, the Explorer Scouts were still in Cantwell, AK, which was a town of Natives. The scouts played several baseball games with the locals.

1964: Explorer Scouts and leaders/chaperones in Cantwell, AK, with moose antlers they acquired from locals

Saturday, July 1, 2017
Betsey H was our bed 'n' breakfast host and chauffeur for sightseeing in Anchorage today.
Anchorage is Alaska's largest and most populous city. In 1915, the United States government approved building the Alaska Railroad and named Ship Creek Landing as a construction base. As the headquarters of the railroad, the tent city grew until a town was mapped out on higher ground. Anchorage was incorporated in 1920. As well as a railroad hub, the city became the center of air transportation, and continued to grow with the influx of the military during World War II. The oil industry became the primary economy in the 1950s when oil was discovered in Cook Inlet, and later in 1968 when found in Prudhoe Bay.

Pioneer School House (1915) was built by the newly formed Anchorage
Women's Club, using railroad company materials, when still a tent city

In 1984, Kent's parents visited Anchorage, AK, arriving by motorcoach and dining at the rooftop restaurant at the Hilton Hotel. They had a morning city tour that included the Museum and Earthquake Park. The afternoon tour took them to the Alyeska ski lift (now a tramway), Portage Glacier, and to see the Kenai Mountains. They had dinner at the Downtown Deli (closed in 2011) and the next day they flew to Seattle.

The Anchorage Hilton Hotel (1971)
no longer has rooftop dining

Ship Creek Viewing Platform at the historic site of the Tanaina fish camps

The king salmon migration had just ended, and we perhaps saw one of the first of the silver salmon migration.

Just downstream is a marker designating the limit
from which you are allowed to fish;
apparently fishing too close to dams, weirs,
and fish ladders is just not sporting

It was too hard to see anything in the Ship Creek fish ladder

Alaska Railroad Depot (1942, designed by William A Manley
in Moderne style, enlarged in 1948)

Eisenhower Alaska Statehood Monument (1990)

One of the Earthquake houses that survived the 1964 Good Friday
Earthquake, while the neighboring property slid away

A statue of Captain James Cook (1978)
in Resolution Park; he explored the area
now called Cook Inlet in his search for the
Northwest Passage in 1778

Captain Cook's view of Cook Inlet, and the Sleeping Lady (the white-capped mountain ridge) (KSS)

Oscar Anderson's House (1915) in Elderberry Park;
Anderson claimed to be the 18th person to arrive at the tent city,
with interests in meat packing, coal production, air transportation,
and newspaper publishing; now a museum with tours by appointment

Hotel Captain Hook (1965, 1st tower) was built
immediately after the 1964 Good Friday Earthquake
by Walter J Hickel (twice governor of Alaska),
while others were hesitant to build

Holy Family Cathedral (1946-1948) survived the
1964 Good Friday Earthquake

Boney Courthouse (1973), the Alaska State Courthouse
is said to be haunted by former Chief Justice George Frank Boney;
the building is the District and Magistrate Court

Nesbett Courthouse (1996, designed by the firm McCool Carson Green)
was named for Buell A Nesbett, the first Chief Justice of the
Alaska Supreme Court; the building is Superior Court

4th Avenue Theater in the Lathrop Building (1941-1947, designed
by B Marcus Priteca and Augustine A Porreca in Art Deco style);
its future is uncertain although the interior includes significant murals

The highly recommended Cabin Fever Gifts
store has T-shirts designed by Ray Troll,
with clever fishy puns

A VW Beetle Orca , apparently owned by Dick and Joanne Keller
from Spenard/Anchorage, and made by Tim McKittrick

Historic Anchorage Log Cabin Visitor Information Center

Federal Building (1939-1941, designed by Gilbert Stanley Underwood
in 1930s Modern style) was the first concrete building in Anchorage
and is now partially the Alaska Public Lands Information Center

You can't miss Grizzly's Gifts

Betsey and Tamiko with The Bear and Raven
(2000, by Hugh McPeck); rubbing
the bear's tummy will bring good luck (KSS)

Anchorage Market and Festival, Alaska's largest open-air market,
is open every weekend in the summer

Tamiko with the Alaska Territorial Guard
Monument, depicting one of the 6,000+
volunteers who patrolled the northern shores
of Alaska and took part in the Battle for Attu (KSS)

4th Avenue Marketplace was a mall with craft shops that are now
empty, but still has photographs of the damage in Anchorage from
the 1964 Good Friday Earthquake, and the Alaska Veterans Museum;
we were looking for the Fred Machetanz prints - none

Wendler Building (1915) and /Club 25 (1948),
a popular café and bar for women only

Racing in the Footsteps of a Legend (1989,
by Jacque and Mary Regat), dedicated to all mushers
and their heroic dogs, signifying 4th Avenue in Anchorage
as the ceremonial start of the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race
(a Roadside America attraction)

A view down 4th Avenue behind the sled dog statue

Whaling Wall #54: Alaska's Marine Life (1994, by Robert Wyland)

Anchorage Museum (1968) at Rasmuson Center (2010) is the
largest museum in Alaska and is undergoing a change in exhibition space

We were able to see the Anchorage Museum for free, because it was the first weekend of the month when Bank of America account holders get a free pass.
Our quest to find Fred Machetanz prints was thwarted once again, when we found the Art of the North was preparing to move to a new space.

The Imaginarium Discovery Center for children
was also going through a change

A few kid-friendly activities were still in action

The flagship exhibit of the Museum is the Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center, where the Smithsonian Institution has loaned indigenous Alaska artifacts to their place of origin, allowing study and research by Alaska Native elders and scholars. More than 600 objects were on display in a darkened hall, the better to protect the items that are on loan since 1994.