Talkeetna

We rolled into Talkeetna on a gravel spur road off the Parks Highway and immediately understood why the town elected a cat as honorary mayor for twenty years — this is a place that takes its independence, and its sense of humor, seriously. Log cabins lean at gentle angles along a dirt-and-boardwalk main street, bush planes buzz low overhead ferrying climbers to Denali base camp, and somewhere a river is always audible. Lia called it the most charmingly unbothered town she’d ever visited, and by the second beer at the Fairview Inn, I agreed.

Denali views and bush pilots

Talkeetna sits at the confluence of the Talkeetna, Susitna, and Chulitna Rivers, and on a clear day Denali rises whole and staggering above the treeline, visible from the small riverside park at the end of Main Street. We watched a fixed-wing plane taxi down the gravel strip and lift off toward the Alaska Range, one of dozens of daily flightseeing and glacier-landing trips that leave from the town’s tiny airstrip. We didn’t fly ourselves that trip, but stood at the fence and watched climbers loading duffel bags stuffed with crampons and freeze-dried meals, headed for a mountain that kills a handful of people most seasons and still draws hundreds more.

Main Street’s log-cabin saloons

The historic district is barely three blocks, but every building has a story: the Fairview Inn has hosted President Harding and a century of climbers signing the guestbook before summit attempts; the Roadhouse serves cinnamon rolls the size of a dinner plate to a line that forms before sunrise. We spent an evening on the Fairview’s porch listening to a bluegrass duo while float planes landed on the river behind us, the light barely dimming even at eleven at night. It’s the kind of town where a stranger will hand you a fishing rod and just expect you to use it.

Getting There

Talkeetna is about two and a half hours north of Anchorage by car along the Parks Highway, or a scenic three-hour ride on the Alaska Railroad, which stops right in the middle of downtown. Most visitors fly into Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport and rent a car for the drive, timing it for a stop at the roadside viewpoints that catch Denali on a clear day.