Okay, so why is the capital of Alaska in such a hard-to-reach spot? Is it simply because it’s “closer” the lower 48?
I visited Juneau a few years ago during an Inside Passage cruise. Nice little town. The State Capitol building itself is just a big brick cube (a former department store or warehouse, IIRC), so not too impressive on the aesthetics side, but I liked the town itself.
Is the glacier near Juneau retreating, due to global climate change (or whatever)? Might that make building a road more cost-effective in the next 20-50 years?
Interestingly, the Taku Glacier, which is the main one blocking the most feasible route in, is the only glacier in the Juneau Ice Field that is advancing rather than retreating.
With increased warming this situation might not persist, but it doesn’t look like the Taku will be getting out of the way too soon.
I visited Juneau back in 1975. Impressive setting, with steep mountains directly behind the city. I arrived by ferry, but I understand the airport is a bit scary.
YES!!
Did they build a bridge to Honolulu when I wasn’t looking?
The capital shifted over the years since the Russians owned it, basically following the money. Before Juneau, it was Sitka, an equally inaccessible island in Southeast Alaska. With the discovery of gold in Juneau, there was a population boom and much political interest. The capital was moved there, but the boom died quickly.
There have been attempts over the years to move the capital to a more accessible area such as Anchorage, Fairbanks, or more recently, the Matanuska Valley area. It comes up in elections every so often, but there is never enough money to accomplish it. As is typical up here, people are quick to ask for things, but don’t want to pony up the money for it. It’s a most tiresome trait. And of course Juneau vigorously fights any move, as their economy and real estate market would take a big hit.
The argument for moving it is that it would make the legislators more available to voters, which is a laugh since this is one of the more apathetic constituencies I’ve ever seen, and the legislature pretty much ignores them anyway. People routinely get elected with 15% of the population voting. So there really is no valid argument for moving things around and spending all that money, other than developers and land speculators salivating at the thought.
Since the federal deficit doesn’t matter, i vote a bill to build a road to Juneau-doesn’t matter if only a hanful of people ever use it, its pork! haven’t we learned that nobody in congress cares about the future/ while we are at it-let’s build the Bering straights Bridge!
To expand on Chefguy’s post, back in the old days most of the people in Alaska lived in SE. And nothing in SE is accessable by road, it’s all islands and mountains and glaciers. So transport was by boat. That Juneau was technically on the mainland instead of on an island didn’t make much difference, since there were no roads to any of these towns in the SE. At one point Sitka was the largest town in Alaska. So the territorial capitol was in SE and with statehood the state capitol.
However, since then Anchorage and the Anchorage area has increased in population dramatically, nowadays about half the people in Alaska live in or near Anchorage. Except nobody outside of Anchorage wants the capitol to be in Anchorage, too much concentration of power, it would be like New York City being capitol of New York State and screwing upstate New York.
If someone were to rationally pick a spot for the capitol today Willow would make sense…central, near the population center but not in it. But of course it would cost money, and the political culture of Alaska is that we piss money away on all sorts of things, except things that make sense. See, we’re rugged frontiersmen, and we demand our fair share of Federal tax dollars and oil royalties and bribe money.
The other thing that’s hard for people outside Alaska to remember is that no matter where the state capitol is it would be inaccessable to most people. It’s a 10 hour drive from Fairbanks to Anchorage, and there are plenty of villages and towns that don’t connect to the road network at all. It’s not like building a road to Juneau would magically make it accessable, it would still be much easier to fly there from outside SE or take the ferry from SE. Juneau is 500 miles from Anchorage. Moving the capitol to a few hours outside Anchorage would make sense but it would cost money.
:smack: How right you are!
brewha, but Honolulu is accessible by car from other towns on Oahu. Conan couldn’t say Juneau is the only city you can’t drive to, because there are many of those, in Alaska and even in the lower 48.
Lemur866:
Is this really a problem, in practical terms? Can anyone tell me if Colorado, Georgia or Massachusetts (just the three biggest examples) have suffered from having their capitals located in Denver, Atlanta and Boston respectively?
Coming Into The Country by John McPhee has an excellent account of the Willow discussions, plus giving a pretty accurate sense of the history and lifestyle of the state. A most excellent read.
During the time I lived in Alaska (76-82) the main idea was to keep the politicians in Juneau, as far away from regular folks as possible. Something about the smell…
True, but not from other towns that are in the state of Hawaii but are on a different island, like Maui.
But, you can access Juneau from other cities in the state of AK - Lemon Creek and Douglas shown up on the map.
My point is that you can drive from some cities in AK to Juneau, but not from others.
You can drive from some cities in Hawaii to Honolulu, but not from others.
Yeah, its a frivioulus nitpick, but I still don’t agree with the statement.
No nitpick is frivolous! 
Douglas appears to be across a channel from Juneau. Mapquest has directions from Lemon Creek to Juneau, but it’s only 5.75 miles, which makes me think Lemon Creek could be considered a suburb.
Slight hijack, but are there good movies anyone could recommend where the action takes place in Alaska?
We would actually prefer Adak.
Intelligently Designed: If you mean mainstream films, then no. There is old archive footage that was taken by Fred Machetanz and others, but it’s not generally available to the public. There is a good film about Alaska becoming a state, but again I don’t know if it’s available for the public to purchase. There is another one about the building of the pipeline that I’m pretty sure can be purchased.
Regrettably, 99.9% of all movies made about Alaska were filmed somewhere else, usually in the Pacific Northwest or in western Canada, which is virtually the same landscape as Southeast Alaska, and most of them are either wildly inaccurate or hopelessly romantic.
Insomnia is set in Alaska, but as **Chefguy ** says it was mostly filmed in British Columbia. The opening sequence, however, was partly filmed on the Columbia Glacier near Valdez.
Speaking as someone from downstate Illinois, it would make a pretty big difference to all of rural Illinois if Chicago became the capital. BIG.
The population of Anchorage is skewed because like Juneau the area is large.
In fact in the 70s the voters of Alaska voted to make Willow the new capital. But the legislature of Alaska refused to fund the move. Now with computers it’s pretty pointless to move anything.
The area of Juneau is larger than that of Rhode Island, Delaware, or Connecticut, and almost as large as Connecticut and Rhode Island combined. So even though it is now the second largest city after Anchorage it’s land area is 3,255 sq miles of which 2,715 is land and the rest water.
The only other recent capital change was in the 60s when the Florida legislature just missed voting to move the capital from Tallahassee to Orlando.
Interesting! So Douglas is not an administrative entity itself, but really just part of Juneau?