It was a dreary, damp, rainy weekend here in the Great Land, and you’ll see that reflected in this week’s video clip. That’s not uncommon this type of year, though, and the sun always comes out again in time; this time, it looks like it will do so on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, we all like an adult beverage now and then, especially when trapped indoors by dreary weather. Even without bad weather, who doesn’t like a good snort every now and then? I do – but I haven’t yet visited Alaska’s oldest bar. It’s on the bucket list.
Despite humble beginnings, the Imperial Bar in Juneau holds the title of being Alaska’s oldest bar.
It looks a little different today than when it first opened over 130 years ago.
“It started in 1891 as a bar,” bar manager Shelly Hurt explained. “But when Prohibition came around, they closed the bar down.
“They had a beer tent that they served during the Gold Rush days.”
Many colorful characters have walked through the bar doors over the years.
It’s rumored that the “Birdman of Alcatraz,” famous for trying to escape the prison, was once a bartender at the Imperial.
At one point, there was a brothel upstairs from the bar, run by the infamous Madame Mattie Silks.
“If she didn’t like you, she’d push you into a hatch and you’d go down the [Gastineau Channel],” Hurt said.
Alaska was a rough place back in the day. It’s a little more civilized today – a little more. Juneau, we should note, is a great place to have a famous drinking establishment, as it is not only the state capital, which would be enough to drive Carrie Nation to drink, but it’s also a popular vacation destination.
And aside from the Imperial Bar, there are many other great watering holes, such as the Chicken Saloon and the Salty Dawg in Homer. Our favorite happens to have not only adult comestibles but also the best food between Anchorage and Fairbanks, that being the Sheep Creek Lodge at mile marker 88 on the Parks Highway.
Alaska Man score: 5 moose nuggets. Because, well, booze.
See Also: Which Beer Is Most Popular in Your State? We Have the Answer.
Next, if you want to see salmon-eating bears from a safe distance (which I really recommend doing), Alaska’s Anan Wildlife Observatory is making that easier to do.
One of Southeast Alaska’s most prolific pink salmon rivers, known for attracting copious numbers of bears, wildlife photographers and tourists, may soon add a new category of visitor to its ranks: citizen scientists from across the globe.
This summer, Anan Creek and the surrounding Anan Wildlife Observatory will be outfitted with a new and expanded array of web cameras installed by Wrangell High School students in partnership with the U.S. Forest Service and a multimedia producer of real-time nature videos.
The cameras — four mounted on land and focused on bears and one underwater to track salmon — will allow anyone with internet access to watch these creatures feast, cavort, fight, and spawn at one of Alaska’s prime wildlife-viewing spots.
That’s cool, because who doesn’t love bears – from a safe distance? That is, of course, the appropriate way to view bears, especially when they are feeding.
Alaska Man score: 5 moose nuggets. All we need now is for the Fat Bear contest to start up, and our summer bear-viewing is complete.
See Also: Alaska Man Monday - Moose Buggies and Fat Bears
Now then, a rainy walk-around of something new:
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