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Anchorage Alaska Hotels

Anchorage Alaska offers a wide range of hotel accomodations from the deluxe, all service, suite style hotel to the more economy oriented hotel. We invite you to visit the hotel offerings on this page.

Visiting Anchorage

Anchorage hotels are the perfect base camp for visitors looking to spot a variety of wildlife in surrrounding state and national parkland which provides plenty of opportunities to see Alaska wildlife in their natural settings. Or an Anchorage hotel can serve as your jumping off place for the fishing trip of a lifetime into the Alaskan bush. Wild moose and the occasional bear can be seen downtown, however most wildlife, including dall sheep are seen are short drive out of town.

In the city, your first stop from your hotel should be the Anchorage Museum of History and Art , 121 W Seventh Ave (summer Sun-Fri 9am-9pm, Sat 9am-6pm; rest of year Tues-Sat 10am-6pm, Sun 1-5pm; $6.50), an excellent overview of the state and its history told through intricate dioramas, alongside beautiful examples of carved ivory and basketware.

The rest of the downtown sites are equally intriguing: The Imaginarium , 737 W Fifth Ave (daily: June to early Sept 10am-6pm; early Sept to May Mon-Sat 10am-6pm, Sun noon-5pm; $5), has hands-on displays telling you all about glaciers, the Northern Lights, polar bears and the private life of the dopey-looking moose; the period-furnished 1915 Oscar Anderson House Museum , 420 M St (June to mid-Sept Tues-Sat 11am-4pm ; $3), illustrates early Anchorage life; and the Alaska Experience Center , Sixth Avenue and G street (summer daily 9am-9pm; $10), presents forty minutes of Alaska's best scenery, shot from choppers and beamed onto a 180° wraparound screen, and the admission price includes a film of the devastating 1964 Good Friday earthquake that leveled much of downtown - 9.2 on the Richter scale and North America's strongest-ever quake.

Alaska History and Demographics

Alaska was once a part of Russia. As Alaska’s largest city, Anchorage has a rich history, dating back to 3,000 B.C. when the first settlers arrived in the area. Native archaeological sites have been carbon dated at around 11,000 years old with the first natives having arrived via the Beringer land bridge which at one time connected Alaska and Russia. In the mid 1700s, the first Europeans arrived - Russian traders and trappers - converting many natives to the Russian Orthodox Church. The 1770s brought the British in search of the elusive Northwest Passage and Captain James Cook explored the waterway that now borders Anchorage, Cook Inlet. But, the Russians laid claim to present-day Alaska and during the 1800s Russian traders and explorers roamed the area. Russia’s financial woes forced it to sell Alaska to the U.S. in 1867 for two cents an acre. And then came the infamous Gold Rush. The rest, as the saying goes, is history.

Anchorage, Alaska, has a population of about 275,000, or 42 percent of the state’s population. The Municipality of Anchorage encompasses almost 2,000 square miles which equals the size of the state of Delaware. Located at the base of the Chugach Mountains along the coast of the Cook Inlet in South-central Alaska, Anchorage is as far north as Helsinki, Finland, and nearly as west as Honolulu, Hawaii. Despite inevitable visions of snowbound igloos, in actual fact, Anchorage has a temperate, maritime climate. Protected by the Chugach Mountains and warmed by Japanese currents of the Pacific Ocean, summer temperatures reach the high 70s. Low humidity ensures a surprisingly comfortable climate. Whether you plan to arrive by air, land, or sea, Anchorage’s central location makes all options convenient. The Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport is only six miles from downtown Anchorage and has more than 240 daily arrivals with most major US airlines serving. To get an idea of Anchorage’s global location, flight time from Seattle is three hours; eight hours from Zurich; eight hours from New York and 8 1/2 hours from Seoul. Lake Hood is the world’s largest and busiest seaplane base with more than 800 take-offs and landings on a peak summer day. Merrill Field, one of the nation’s busiest general aviation airports, records more than 230,000 takeoffs and landings annually.

The Alaska Highway (and the Alcan Hwy) links Alaska and the contiguous United States, and is fully paved and offers year-round services. Anchorage is almost 2,500 miles from Seattle and 4,650 miles from New York City. Whether you plan to arrive by car, bus or R.V., the journey to Anchorage is an adventure in and of itself. Please Note: Entering Alaska by road means travelers must clear Canadian customs. For information on regulations, contact Canada Customs, Excise & Taxation at (506) 636-5064 or visit their Web site at www.ccra-adrc.gc.ca/. Several cruise lines offer excursions along the famed Inside Passage from May through September yearly, docking in Anchorage or nearby Seward. The Alaska Marine Highway, the state’s ferry system, runs year-round. For further information, call: (800) 642-0066. Anchorage likes to boast that it had a symphony before paved roads and with its rich history. Anchorage not only has its own local stars and Opera Company but it also attracts artists of international renown, from Broadway shows, dance troupes, musicians, comedians and many other acts.

ALASKA FACTS:

Admitted to Statehood: January 3, 1959

Capital: Juneau

Nicknames: Great land and Last Frontier

Motto: "North to the Future"

Bird: Willow Ptarmigan

Fish: King Salmon

Flower: forget me not

Gem: Jade

Tree: Sitka Spruce

Song: "Alaska's Flag"

Alaska has 6,640 miles of coastline and, including islands, has 33,904 miles of shoreline.

Origin of Name: Russian version of an Aleutian word, Alakahak, for "peninsula," "great lands," or "land that is not an island"

The U.S. bought Alaska from Russia in October 1867 for 7.2 million dollars, or two cents per acre. Many Americans thought this was a waste of money and called Alaska "Seward’s Folly," after Secretary of State William H. Seward who arranged the purchase.

Alaska longest river, the Yukon, runs about 2,300 Miles, 1,400 in Alaska and 900 in Canada.
There are more than 3,000 rivers in Alaska and over 3 million lakes.
The largest, Lake Iliamna, encompasses over 1,000 square miles.

Each year Alaska has approximately 5,000 earthquakes, including 1,000 that measure above 3.5 on the Richter scale. Of the ten strongest earthquakes ever recorded in the world, three have occurred in Alaska.

Of the nation's 20 highest mountains, 17 are in Alaska. Mount McKinley ( 20,320 feet ) in the Alaska Range
is the highest in North America.

The National Park Service oversees more than 50 million acres of Alaska land. Six million-acre
Denali National Park and Preserve is its most visited.

The Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, know
as the Last Great Race on Earth, attracts mushers worldwide for the Anchorage to Nome trek, about 1,100 miles.

Alaska Extremes: the coldest day ever recorded: minus 80 degree's F at Prospect Creek Camp, Jan.23, 1971.The hottest day: 100 degree's F at Fort Yukon, June 27, 1915. The deepest single snowfall ever recorded in Alaska: 62 inches, Thompson Pass, Dec. 7, 1955.

Alaska has more than 5,000 glaciers covering 100,000 square miles. There are more active glaciers and ice fields in Alaska than in the rest of the inhabited world. The largest glacier is the Malaspina at 850 square miles. Five percent of the state, or 29,000 square miles, is covered by glaciers.

Alaska boasts the northernmost (Point Barrow), the easternmost (Semisopochnoi Island in the Aleutians), and the westernmost (Little Diomede Island) points in the United States. This is possible because Alaska straddles the international dateline.

On March 27, 1964, North America’s strongest recorded earthquake, magnitude 9.2 on the Richter scale, rocked central Alaska.

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