Juneau

Juneau sits on salt water, but this is not a place to swim. The inside waters of Southeast Alaska stay at roughly 10-13°C even in midsummer, and the shoreline is mostly gravel, rock and tidal flats under steep forest. Sandy Beach on Douglas Island and Eagle Beach out the road are pleasant for a walk, a fire or watching eagles at low tide, and locals with a hardy streak do the odd plunge. Anyone who wants to swim will be using an indoor pool.

The reason to eat here is the seafood. Wild king and sockeye salmon, halibut, Dungeness and king crab and spot prawns come off local boats in summer, and the best of it is served simply, in fish-and-chips shacks by the harbour, at outdoor salmon bakes and on a short list of serious restaurants downtown. Alaskan beer is part of the picture too, with a long-established local brewery and a few taprooms.

Beyond that the range is narrow. In summer the waterfront fills with places geared to cruise passengers, and in winter several of them close. There is no real street food, café culture is modest, and a few days cover most of what the town offers.

For a small town, Juneau has a few things worth real time. The Alaska State Museum gives a strong overview of the state's Native cultures, Russian period and gold rush, and the Sealaska Heritage Institute's Walter Soboleff Building focuses on Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian art, with carved panels and totem poles around downtown. The onion-domed St. Nicholas Russian Orthodox Church, the modest State Capitol and the Governor's Mansion fill out a short walk.

The remains of the gold-mining era, including the old Treadwell mine ruins on Douglas Island and the Last Chance Mining Museum in Gold Creek, add character. It is a day or two of sightseeing; nobody plans a trip around it.

Going out in Juneau means a few old-style saloons and brewpubs on and around South Franklin Street, with sawdust floors and gold-rush décor, plus a couple of bars where legislators and fishermen drink in winter. Summer evenings can be cheerful once the day's ships have left, but there are no clubs to speak of and most places wind down well before late. It suits a beer after a long day outdoors, not a night out.

This is the reason to come. Mendenhall Glacier pours off the Juneau Icefield about 20km from downtown, with trails to its face and its waterfall, and black bears fishing for salmon at Steep Creek in late summer. Helicopters land on the icefield for glacier walks and dog-sledding, the Mount Roberts Tramway lifts walkers from the cruise docks into alpine meadows, and trails such as Perseverance, Mount Juneau and West Glacier start almost from town.

On the water, humpback whales feed in Auke Bay and Stephens Passage through the summer, bald eagles are everywhere, and boat trips run into the ice-choked fjord of Tracy Arm. Kayaking, fishing and floatplane flights over the Coast Mountains are all easy to arrange. The trade-off is weather: this is temperate rainforest with well over 1,500mm of rain a year, so pack proper waterproofs.

Juneau has no road to anywhere else, so other towns are reached by small plane or ferry. The gold-rush town of Skagway, with its restored false-fronted main street and the White Pass railway, and the quieter town of Haines are short flights away, or a long day on the water. Otherwise the outings from Juneau are into glaciers, fjords and wildlife country rather than to other places, and those are the real excursions here.

Older children tend to love Juneau: whales breaching from a boat, bears in the creek at the glacier, the tram up Mount Roberts and the salmon ladder and touch tanks at the Macaulay hatchery. The town is small and safe and the people are relaxed. What it lacks is anything made for children in bad weather, and bad weather is common. Downtown pavements are crowded on big ship days, and many of the best experiences are long or pricey tours that suit school-age children better than toddlers.

Downtown is compact and easy on foot, with the docks, museums, Capitol and tramway all within a short walk, though the streets climb steeply up the hillside. Beyond that, things string out along one long road north. A local bus runs to the Mendenhall Valley and Auke Bay but stops some way short of the glacier, so most visitors use tour shuttles, taxis or a hire car. Getting in and out means a plane or a ferry, since there is no road connection to the rest of the continent.

Downtown shopping is shaped by the cruise ships: blocks of jewellery stores, fur and souvenir shops along South Franklin Street that close up for winter. The worthwhile buys are Tlingit and Haida carving, prints and weaving, found at the Sealaska Heritage shop and a few galleries, plus smoked salmon and outdoor rain gear. It is a short browse, not a reason to come.

Juneau is an expensive place to stay. Almost everything is shipped or flown in, so food and drink cost well above mainland American norms, and the limited hotel stock is in heavy demand during the summer season. The bigger expense is the outdoors: whale-watching trips, glacier helicopter landings and floatplane flights are what most visitors come for, and they add up quickly. Free trails and the local bus soften it a little.

For a town this size the arts are surprisingly active, though much of it happens when visitors are few. A long-established professional theatre company across the channel in Douglas stages a full season, and a community symphony plays through the winter. The free Alaska Folk Festival each spring fills town with musicians, and the biennial Celebration gathering brings Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian dance groups together in large numbers. A summer visitor will mostly find Native dance performances and the odd concert.

There is no spa or bathing tradition here. Wellness amounts to a few small day spas, hotel treatments and the public swimming pools locals use through the long wet winter. The slower pleasures are the quiet ones: rainforest walks, the hush away from the docks once the day's ships have sailed. On a busy summer day downtown is crowded and anything but restful.