Alaskan Community Information: Where Are the Roads?

Most of the citizens of Alaska are smart enough to know that if they want to get anywhere they should fly. That is also why so many of them are pilots. However, many people from the lower forty-eight states are not pilots and for some reason they (that includes me) find it necessary, even against the best advice of others, to drive when they explore.

Are There Interstate Highways in Alaska?

All places are supposed to have roads and those roads connect all places in between. Well that is not so in Alaska. You can fly into large airports in Anchorage and Fairbanks (smaller). Now the following are roads, but I do not think they are interstate highways. From Anchorage, you can drive as far south as Seward and Homer. Go east and loop around south to Valdez. There are two main roads from Anchorage to Fairbanks. Finally, a road comes up from the south and down from the north toward Whitehorse, Canada. There are a few rough side roads and the road from Fairbanks to Prudhoe Bay is primarily a trucking route. Those are the main roads. Check a map if you do not believe me. Oh, but then there are the ice roads. That is a whole story in itself.

How Do You Get to Cities without Roads?

They may run some system of ferries in the lower part of the state, but I think most travel is by air. Now I am just going to make note of places marked in dark print on my map. "How to Speak Alaskan" edited by Mike Doogan will provide some information about these cities.

Alaska's Cities with No Roads Leading into Them

On the southeastern coast, that hangs down below the rest of the state, are Ketchikan, Petersburg, Sitka, and the capital - Juneau. It might be a problem to take a day trip down to the capital! "Ketchican gets more than twenty feet of precipitation per year...Today it is a fishing and timber center, and tourism stop." Petersburg did not make the book. Sitka was "built by Russians in 1804...Alaska's capital remained there until 1904." "Today, Juneau is southeast Alaska's largest city...Its economy depends on government employment."

Now out in the southwestern Pacific Ocean there is Kodiak (I think mostly bears live there) and way on out at the end of a string of islands in the Pacific Ocean is Unalaska. Mr. Doogan did not have anything to say about Unalaska, but he did list Kodiak. "The island is Alaska's largest and is home to huge brown bears. The city of more than six thousand, (was) founded in 1792..."

On the west, cost is Bethel, Nome, and Kotzebue. The northern most city with no road is Barrow. Bethel is "The biggest city in southwestern Alaska, the area that is home to most of the state's Yupik. ... Today, Bethel is a regional government and transportation hub..." Nome "is today a commercial and transportation hub of northwest Alaska." Kotzebue "got its start in 1897 as a reindeer station." Barrow is "The principal city of the Inupiat (Eskimos of the North Slope)." Today it "is both a government services headquarters and a whaling center."

Where are the Toilets?

I do not think for a moment that these places need roads bulldozed in their direction. It was just a curiosity to me. One of many, because I really did grow up in the modern world with modern conveniences even though most people called me county. This is the real boonies darling.

I have traveled parts of these roads. Though they may not look it, they do cover great distances. The distances seem even greater because there is nothing (yes, the scenery is beautiful)......but a bathroom would be nice....between places. I'll just take a final word from "How to Speak Alaskan" edited by Mike Doogan (www.EpicenterPress.com).........."Anchorage...is the most urban place in the state but, as the locals say, Alaska is close by."