Things To Do in Juneau

Attractions Beyond Walking Distance

Mendenhall Glacier Transport (tel. 907/789-5460; www.mightygreattrips.com) leads a 2 1/2-hour town and Mendenhall Glacier tour for $30, or you can ride its "Blue Glacier Express" bus for $16. Generally, it runs every half-hour both directions, from the waterfront visitor center to the glacier and back, daily 9am to 6pm in summer.

Otherwise, take a rented car or, for vigorous people, bike 24 miles out to the Mendenhall Glacier and back. I've listed these sites by distance from downtown, with directions starting from there.

What to See & Do "Out the Road"

On sunny summer weekends, Juneau families get in the car and drive "out the road" (northwest along the Glacier Hwy., as it's officially known). The views of island-stippled water from the paved two-lane highway are worth the trip, and there are also several good places to stop. To use this road guide, set your trip odometer to zero at the ferry dock (which is 14 miles from downtown Juneau).

The Auke Village Recreation Area is a mile beyond the ferry dock and is a good place for picnics and beach walks. Less than a mile farther is a Forest Service campground.

The Shrine of St. Thérèse (tel. 907/780-6112; www.shrineofsainttherese.org), 9 miles beyond the ferry dock (23 miles from downtown), rests on a tiny island reached by a foot-trail causeway. The wonderfully simple chapel of rounded beach stones, circled by markers of the 15 stations of the cross, stands peaceful and mysterious amid trees, rock, water, and the cries of the raven and eagle. Sunday liturgy services are held from June to September at 1:30pm. The shrine is part of a large retreat maintained by the Juneau Catholic Diocese, which includes a log lodge on the shore facing the island, as well as several cabins for rent as lodgings. The shrine's island is a good vantage from which to look upon Lynn Canal for marine mammals or, at low tide, to go tide pooling among the rocks. The website covers the shrine's history and gives information on the facilities, as well as a labyrinth, a columbarium, gardens, and trails at the shrine.

Eagle Beach, 14 miles beyond the ferry dock, makes a good picnic area in nice weather, when you can walk among the tall beach grass or out on the sandy tidal flats, watch the eagles, or go north along the beach to look for fossils in the rock outcroppings.

The road turns to gravel, then comes to Point Bridget State Park, 24 miles beyond the ferry dock (tel. 907/465-4563; www.alaskastateparks.org, click on "Individual Parks"). A flat 3.5-mile path leads through forest, meadow, and marsh to the shore, where you may see sea lions and possibly humpback whales. Three public-use cabins rent for $35 or $45 a night, depending on the season. The road ends 26 miles from the ferry dock at pretty Echo Cove.

The shops near the dock cater primarily to cruise-ship passengers. After around 500 summer port calls, many close their doors. The year-round community and more local shops tend to be farther up the hill. If you're looking for authentic Alaska Native arts and crafts, be warned that counterfeiting is widespread.

Juneau Artists Gallery, in the Senate Building, at 175 S. Franklin (tel. 907/586-9891; www.juneauartistsgallery.com), is staffed by a co-op of local artists and shows only the members' work: paintings, etchings, photography, jewelry, fabrics, ceramics, and other media. Much of it is good and inexpensive, and the way it is displayed creates a panorama of artistic visions.

Juneau's Rie Muñoz is one of Alaskans' favorite artists for her simple, graphic, generally cheerful watercolors of coastal Alaskan communities and Native people, among other subjects. Her prints, silk screens, note cards, and the like are shown downtown at the Decker Gallery, 233 S. Franklin (tel. 907/463-5536), and in the Mendenhall Valley at the Rie Muñoz Gallery, 2101 Jordan Ave., across from the Nugget Mall (tel. 800/247-3151 or 907/789-7449; www.riemunoz.com), where you'll also find her original watercolors and stained glass.

For gifts, try Annie Kaill's fine arts and crafts gallery, at 244 Front St. It's a little out of the cruise-ship shopping area and gets business from locals. The shop has a rich, homey feeling, with local work at various price levels. The long-established Ad Lib, 231 S. Franklin St., is also a fun little shop.

Hearthside Books (www.hearthsidebooks.com) is a cubbyhole of a bookstore at the corner of Franklin and Front streets but has a good selection for its size, especially of Alaskan books and maps. (A larger branch, with a good toy department, is in the Mendenhall Valley's Nugget Mall, 8745 Glacier Hwy., a 5-min. walk from the airport.) If you're at the airport in need of reading matter, you also may want to check out Amazing Bookstore, in the Airport Shopping Center, 9131 Glacier Hwy. (www.friendsjpl.org/bookstore). Operated by the public library, its large used book selection is mostly priced at $1.

The most unexpected shop in Juneau is the Observatory, at 299 N. Franklin St. (tel. 907/586-9676; www.observatorybooks.com). This browser's paradise specializes in rare maps and books about Alaska, with a large collection of antique engravings. Among the items I've seen here were huge charts drawn by the first 18th-century explorers to trace Alaska's coastline. To get the full effect, you must strike up a conversation with the shop's owner, Dee Longenbaugh. She is a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and member of the Antiquarian Booksellers Association. One question will start a fascinating tour of Alaska history.

The Urban Eskimo, at 217 Seward St. (tel. 907/796-3626; www.urbaneskimo.com), also specializes in history, focusing on the gold-rush era with photographs, books, and ephemera, and carrying regional art and antiques.

Bill Spear sells his own brightly colored enamel pins and zipper pulls from his studio, hidden upstairs at 174 S. Franklin (tel. 907/586-2209; www.wmspear.com). Alaskans collect the vividly executed fish, birds, airplanes, dinosaurs, vegetables, and many other witty, provocative, and beautiful pins, which cost from $5 to $20 each.

Taku Store, 550 S. Franklin, across the parking lot from the tram station (tel. 800/582-5122 or 907/463-3474; www.takustore.com), is worth a stop if you're nearby, even if you're not in the market for the pricey seafood in the case: It's interesting to watch workers fillet, smoke, and pack salmon through large windows, and to read the explanatory signs about what they're doing. They'll ship fish anywhere in the U.S.

Alaska Travel Adventures has offered its Gold Creek Salmon Bake (tel. 800/323-5757 or 907/789-0052) for more than 30 years. It's touristy, yes, but fun, with marshmallow roasting, music, and other entertainment -- great for families (I'd avoid it in the rain, however.) The cost is $42 for adults, $28 for children. They come and get you and return you to your hotel.

For more substantial performances, try to catch a show by Juneau's Perseverance Theatre, Alaska's largest professional theater. The winter season, starting in September and lasting until early June, includes Alaska's best cutting-edge drama, including serious homegrown work. Paula Vogel was here when she wrote How I Learned to Drive, which later won the Pulitzer Prize. Summer offerings are limited to youth theater and workshops. To find out what's playing, contact the theater's office at 914 3rd St., Douglas (tel. 907/364-2421), or check the website at www.perseverancetheatre.org.

A political scandal or two put a damper on some of the infamous legislative partying that once occurred in Juneau, far away from home districts, but good places to go out drinking and dancing still exist. The Red Dog Saloon, 278 S. Franklin St., is the town's most famous bar, with a sawdust-strewn floor, a slightly contrived but nonetheless infectious frontier atmosphere, and walls covered with Alaska memorabilia. Locals hang across the street, at the Alaskan Bar, 167 S. Franklin, which occupies an authentic gold-rush hotel with a two-story Victorian barroom. Boisterous parties and music go on there all year. The Hangar is the place for beer drinkers. They have a big-screen TV and live music Friday and Saturday nights, as well as pool and darts.