Jack Bonney: The first thing
that really strikes you about Anchorage – it’s the mountains, it’s the greenery. You
realize that you’re in Alaska, that you’re in a very wild place. I’ve never lived in a
place that was so perfectly balanced between the natural world and the built human environment.
My favorite introduction to Anchorage is a walk down the Coastal Trail from
downtown Anchorage along the coast of Cook Inlet down to a place called Kincaid Park.
You have to get out into the Chugach Mountains – if you hike, if you bike, if you kayak, if you
just want to get out and see something from a high elevation. You have to go down to Turnagain Arm
and see the bore tide. We actually get a wave that runs on the tides that’s so big you can surf it.
Well, I think Alaska always inspires tall tales, and there’s some reason to it. You can run with
the reindeer during Anchorage Fur Rendezvous, Jet Ski to a glacier in Prince William Sound.
If you’re here in the summer, you’ve got to come during Summer Solstice. From sunrise to sunset,
it’s about 22 hours of daylight. If summer shines, then winter sparkles.
We have the Iditarod Trail sled dog race. Trips by car or by rail are a really great
way to get around. The Denali Star Train runs almost every day of the summer,
going north from Anchorage to Fairbanks with stops at Denali National Park and Talkeetna on the way.
For places that are beyond the reach of road and rail, we have more pilots and more planes per
capita than any place else in the country. So, getting around using small aircraft,
float planes and helicopters is a very special way to see how amazing the landscapes can be.
Alaska Native Culture isn’t a single culture. There are many different traditions. It’s worth
stopping at the Anchorage Museum and the Alaska Native Heritage Center. These two institutions
do an exceptional job explaining the history and the cultures that make Alaska special.
There are black and brown bears and eagles and moose and beluga whales.
They all live in Anchorage, where our residents aren’t just people.
Kory Eberhardt: Sometimes you can step outside and just see
a little white wisp. Other times, the whole sky just lights up. The great thing about Fairbanks
is you can see the northern lights as soon as mid-August all the way until mid- to late April.
Fairbanks is a wonderful town that has large town amenities but also a small-town feel.
And just minutes away, you can drive out and explore Alaska’s wilderness.
One of my favorite things to do is float down the Chena River on a canoe, and if you don’t
feel very comfortable in a canoe, you can always take one of our sternwheelers up the river on
either a dinner cruise or a summer cruise. Angel Rocks is a really special place. It’s
a short drive away from downtown Fairbanks. It’s a beautiful hiking
trail that’s about a 3-mile loop, but you get some great elevations and good scenery.
Just outside of Fairbanks, there’s a place called Chena Hot Springs. There’s an outdoor hot spring;
it can be 0 degrees outside, and you can be in 100-degree water.
In the interior of Alaska, we have a lot of wildlife. We have moose,
caribou, bears. Denali National Park is a great place to go and see all of them.
In Fairbanks, there’s a lot of good places to try out gold panning. You’re going to try
to pan for gold where gold was first found in the interior.
In our community, we have a lot of different influences from around the world. I really like
and enjoy the Alaskan Native culture that we have. On the University of Alaska Fairbanks campus,
they have the Museum of the North. It touches on Native culture, art, climate, animals.
Dog-mushing is where you take a sled, and you harness up a few dogs. It’s amazing
to see or try in person, and it’s really impressive how much the dogs love to run.
Seeing ice art in Fairbanks is a really easy thing to do. You can go right downtown to the
Ice Museum. Even if it’s 75, 80 degrees out, they have ice carvings inside.
Just a short, 20-minute drive out of the city center and it
feels like you’re in the middle of nowhere. No mailboxes. No electrical
lines. “Off-the-grid” really means something in Fairbanks.