Juneau Offers a Foodie’s Paradise Amid Alaska’s Cloistered Capital City
The city of Juneau, Alaska’s capital, may be the most cloistered town in America. Conceived as a port for gold mining in the 1880s, the small enclave of Russian and American newcomers, plus the natives of the region, was built upon the sands along Gastineau Channel between the new town and Douglas Island — a foothold of modernity in the primeval of the Inside Passage.
A can-do spirit and a fierce self-reliance are needed to live in Juneau, a city that, due to nearby topography, is entirely cut off by land from the rest of the state — impossible to reach by road, even by the Jack Kerouacs of the world. Thus, the only way in or out is via boat or airplane.