June 6, 2026 Anchorage, Alaska Day 2

The hotel room was equipped with a remote controlled light blocking shade which was a good thing, as the official sunrise was 4:28 a.m. The temperature at 8 a.m. was 13°C, with a light breeze and sunny skies. However, the weather forecast which includes Denali National Park, for the next four days is cloudy with showers and high temperatures of 15° or 16°C. Today’s high temperature in Anchorage was predicted to be 19°C, it reached 20°C.

The included breakfast was laid out in a room adjacent to the dining area. There are two coffee machine for 24 hour fresh coffee on a counter in the the dining room. Inside the buffet room was an assortment of bread, muffins and warm cinnamon buns. A station to make your own waffles. On another counter on hot plates were casseroles containing pork sausages, ham slices, seasoned potato cubes, mini stuffed omelettes and meat patties. There was a sectional of cereals and a mini fridge with assorted yogurts. There was a bowl of apples and bananas. This was one of the best breakfast assortments we have seen for hotel included breakfasts. Breakfast was available from 6:30 to 9:30.

We decided to find the nearby Cuddy Family Midtown Park, less than a 15 minute walk away. It was an urban park, with a large children’s play structure, next to the Upper Inlet Dena’ina pond named Ch’atanaltsegh. It means where the Nudlagi, coho salmon, spawn. The salmon no longer come to that part of the Fish Creek watershed, which is part of Alaska’s largest wetland system. Now the water flows in underground culverts throughout the city.

Basking in the sun on the grassy shore of the pond were Mallard ducks. More Mallard ducks were in the water plus a few Canada Geese and some gulls. There was a good view of the Chugach Mountains. On a path in the park we met a woman and her dog and she pointed to a moose across a gully munching on tree leaves. It was difficult to see it. There were posters throughout the park warning not to disturb a moose or her calf.

Along this morning’s route there were trees with white flowers in full bloom, giving off a faint fragrance.

We walked over to the United States Postal Service depot to buy some stamps, but they were out of international stamps. We can probably buy some stamps tomorrow in Denali National Park at a gift shop. (We bought international stamps at a stationary store in January in New Zealand.)

We were five minutes away from Walmart so we wandered over there, to look at the grocery section to see Alaskan grocery prices. Some of the prices were the same numbers as at home, but these were in American dollars. The shipping costs would be higher than southern Canada. The walk back from Walmart was about 15 minutes.

We had coffees in the hotel lobby then repacked and called Lyft to reserve a driver to take us to the tour hotel in downtown Anchorage. We arrived at the downtown hotel just after noon and were directed to the Holland America land tour meeting room. We were given our Welcome package and met our tour director, Zelzen Guzman. She was explaining the Welcome Package to a couple and a group of six were waiting before our turn. We have a schedule for the next 10 days and were reminded that our luggages needs to be in the hall by 6 a.m tomorrow morning. The luggage will be picked up and transported to the Denali hotel by truck. We will be with the group on the McKinley Explorer train which should arrive in the Denali townsite around 5 p.m. tomorrow. We left our luggage at the hotel’s bell hop station since the hotel checkin was at 4 p.m.

We headed out to explore Anchorage’s downtown and see if we could buy stamps. The post office at the 5th Avenue Mall was closed on Saturdays and the gift shop where we found out that information only had stamps for mailing within the states. Then we were off to find a way to the shore side walk called Tony Knowles Coastal Trail that our Lyft driver has recommended. During our wander we saw several of the Anchorage red Trolley Tours trolleys.

At the Resolution Park viewpoint, which was a point of interest on the Trolley Tours circuit, we had a magnificent view of Mount Susitina. which we saw as yesterday’s plane approached the airport runway. There was a statue of Captain James Cook who anchored nearby on his ship Resolution on June 1, 1778 on his third voyage when he was looking for a northern passage from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic Ocean. In a bottle Cook placed a document claiming the land for the King of England with some coins, he then sealed it and buried at nearby Point Possession.

We still had not found a route down to the Tony Knowles Coastal Trail but turned onto A street that gently sloped toward Cook Inlet. We were side tracked by the sign “Wild Scoop handmade Alaskan ice cream”. We ordered one scoop each - Rock on the wild side, which was chocolate ice cream, barley walnut brownies and oats streusel and Caribou Tracks which was sweet almond base with sweet caribou macarons.

We returned to the sloping street and came to a white three storey building, The American Railroad, which includes the railway station from which we will be departing on the McKinley Explorer for Denali National Park tomorrow. Across the street from it was a monument erected on November 27, 1952 with a vintage Alaska Railroad steam engine.

Across several sets of rail tracks was the brick Alaska Railroad Corporation building. The Alaska Railroad construction began in 1915 when Anchorage was mainly a tent city of workers. The Anchorage harbour was shallow and the ocean going ships had to transfer their cargo to barges that carried the goods to shore for distribution to Alaska towns along the rail line. The railway from Seward to Fairbanks was completed on June 25, 1923 when American president Warren Harding tapped the golden spike joining the northern and southern sections. He was the first American president to visit Alaska.

Alaska was purchased from the Russian Empire in 1867 for $7.2 million in 1867 (equivalent to $132 million today) Few Russians remained in Alaska. The Klondike Gold Rush brought a new population to the area.

In 1961, two years after Alaska gained statehood, as the 49th state, Anchorage’s new port was completed.

On the hill above the railroad property is the Eisenhower Alaska Statehood Monument.

We were only a five minute walk back to the hotel. We returned to the Holland America room to get our room key from Zelzen and our luggage was sent up to the room in a few minutes. Our downtown room was much smaller than our midtown hotel room and the bathroom was tiny compared to the accessible bathroom at the other hotel. The hotel had a restaurant, so there was no fresh complimentary coffee, although we had a Cuisinart mini coffee brewer with ground coffee packages and tea in the room.

We walked two short blocks to 49th State Brewing restaurant for dinner. The restaurant was recommended by two ladies from Dallas that we met this morning and Zelzen’s dining recommendations. It was lively and full of customers. Since yesterday’s restaurant portions were so large, we decided to share Kachemak Bay Alaskan Halibut in beer batter with seasoned brewpub fries and coleslaw for the same price as last night’s entrées. Things are smaller downtown. The fish was delicious. Larry tried the Nitro McCarthy Stout. We decided to return to “Wild Scoop” ice cream and try two other flavours. There was a band playing and the other container on the lot was a take out location for 49 State Brewing.

We walked back to the hotel detouring to see the restaurant we had chosen for breakfast only to discover that it opened on Sunday morning at 9 a.m., which was too late for us.

Total steps today 21,484 over ten kilometres.