Alaska's Southeast Coast

The view from Valdez, Alaska, the terminus of the Alaska Pipeline, with oil tankers waiting to be filled.

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When we were in Alaska this fall (2025), we dabbled with the coast, spending a few days in Valdez, Anchorage, and Seward early, and then Haines at the end of our trip before taking the Alaska Ferry south past Juneau, Sitka, Petersburg, Wrangell, and Ketchikan. The ferry stopped just long enough at Sitka and Ketchikan for us to stretch our legs (and wallets) for an hour or so. We barely touched Alaska’s 6,640 miles of coastline, and we didn’t stay anywhere long enough for more than a superficial glimpse of life in the small coastal towns. But from the perspective of someone coming from the arid Southwest, to live on Alaska’s southeast coast, you must be hardy, oblivious to rain, and tolerant of cruise ships disgorging so many passengers that they sometimes equal or outnumber the residents of the towns where they stop.

Maybe thanks to the weather, the southeast coast is gorgeous. Mountains march to the edge of the sea, and massive tidal glaciers flow into the ocean. Deep conifer forests crowd rocky shorelines where sea lions lounge. Braided rivers bring glacial silt to the fiords, and bears pluck salmon from the water, tearing off the choice meat before abandoning one and grabbing another. Fishing boats of all sizes, laden with the complicated tangle of nets and floats and ropes and booms needed to make a living catching salmon, cod, and halibut, are packed along piers in the harbors. In the evenings, fishermen lug twelve-packs of cheap beer to their boats to share with their mates. On shore, restaurants serve fish and chips, souvenir stores offer everything from t-shirts to Russian tchotskies, and groceries stock Dramamine in racks beside the check-out line. 

And it rains and rains. Seward, on the Kenai Peninsula, gets five to six feet of rain and eighty inches of snow in an average year. Farther south, Ketchikan, the “Rain Capital of Alaska,” gets thirteen feet of rain a year, the majority during the long dark winter. And if you live there, you can’t just drive to a sunnier place. Most of these towns are not accessible by road. Instead, residents must float or fly to escape. I don’t think I could manage, even with solace of the scenery. 

The day before we left Haines, I met a woman who had moved there two years before from Wilson, Wyoming, where I lived in the 1980s. In fact, she'd lived for decades just up the road from me there, though I don’t think we’d met. When I asked her why she’d moved to Haines, she lamented that, “It’s getting too hot in Jackson in the summer.” I don’t think of Wyoming as being a hot spot, but slow-motion climate migration is happening, and maybe cool and rainy beats hot and dry in the long run. 

Not surprisingly, it was stormy during our trip through the Inside Passage until we left Alaska and re-entered Canada, where the skies finally cleared. Until then, we mostly stayed inside, reading, eating, and scanning the shore through rain-streaked windows for bald eagles or the ocean for whales and orcas. On arrival in Bellingham, the Pacific Northwest, usually a rainy respite from the desert for us, was dry and sunny.

The Lowe River just before entering the Prince William Sound at Valdez on a typically cloudy day.

A fishing boat in the harbor at Valdez.

Complex (to me) piles of gear on fishing boats in Valdez Harbor.

Fireweed along the shore at Valdez.

The Columbia Glacier in retreat from Columbia Bay. We took a boat tour from Valdez to see the glacier.

Ice in Columbia Bay.

Thompson Lake, where we camped just outside of Valdez on our way to Anchorage.

Robin Moore and Ellen descending from Near Point in the Chugach Front Range back into Anchorage.

Seward, Alaska, on the Kenai Peninsula, where we spent a few rainy days.

The view of Resurrection Bay from the Lost Lake Trail above Seward. We enjoyed a rare clear day while on an overnight backpack to Lost Lake but hiked out as the next storm gathered.

Coastal mountains east of Seward viewed from the Lost Lake Trail on our hike out.

Ellen hiking towards Seward from Lost Lake.

The Bamboo Room in Haines. I imagine that bars are popular places during the long dark coastal winters. We had lunch in the adjoining restaurant, owned by the same family for generations. 

Raingear at the ready on a fishing boat in the Haines harbor.

The harbormaster's house above the Haines Harbor.

We missed the peak grizzly bear feed along the Chilcoot River at Haines, but this mother and her four cubs entertained us while we camped at a state park just upstream from here.

The view from inside the Alaska Ferry. I think the poor guy in the yellow jacket was faced with standing in the rain and wind to watch for floating logs as the boat traversed a relatively narrow passage.

A totem pole in Ketchikan.

Our friends, Terry and Bruce, and Ellen, on our last day on the ferry after it finally emerged from the clouds near Vancouver Island.