Day 61 & 62 - Valdez, AK

The original town of Valdez existed at this site from 1898 to 1967. This was Mile "0" of Alaska's first highway, the Richardson Highway. The Richardson was originally built by the U.S. Army soldiers of Fort Liscum in 1899. It became a major transportation route for supplies and people travelling between coastal Valdez and northern communities. The population of Valdez in the early 1960's was between 600-700 people. Old Town Valdez thrived because of its shipping and transportation industries. Valdez may have disappeared like many gold-rush era boomtowns if the highway had not been built.

In the 1950's and 1960's this was a very busy town. Freshly loaded with crates and containers from the steamships docked at the waterfront, trucks were bound for military bases, communities, roadside lodges, and numerous other stops.

In 1964 the largest earthquake in North America struck Alaska devastating Valdez. Thirty two people were standing on the dock either helping or watching the unloading of the SS Chena.  All 32 died as the dock collapsed into the ocean. No one was ever found. Afterwards the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers condemned the town site. All the people living in the town were given two years to pick up the pieces and move four miles down the road to a newly created town. By 1967 new Valdez became home for the residence. 

Old Valdez today, or whats left of it. I had a guided tour around the old town. It had such an eerie feeling the fog didn't help.

The Village Morgue Bar was used in the 1920's as the title indicates the village morgue. Bodies would be stored during the winter in the building until graves could be dug in the spring. It then became a bar with a bass, piano, and saxophone band.

Before the earthquake - Village Morgue Bar

After - Village Morgue Bar Site

Valdez City Dock Site

Abandoned Fork Lift from Earthquake Days

The Solomon Gulch Hatchery was completed in February 1983 to ensure sufficient numbers of salmon return each year. The facility is licensed to incubate, rear, and release 230 million pink salmon and 2 million coho.

A fish weir is a structure that is designed to catch or restrict fish movement upstream. Fish below the weir are adult pink and coho returning to the hatchery to complete their life cycle by spawning and dying. These fish were spawned, hatched, and released from this hatchery.

The purpose of the weir is to direct the fish into the hatchery system to be artificially spawned. The fish are restricted from swimming further up Solomon Creek as the spawning and rearing area is not large enough to support the high numbers of fish the hatchery produces. 

The fish ladder has 29 steps each slightly higher than the last, with slots that allow the fish to pass through. Upon making it to the outdoor raceways, they gather with others to make the final push into the spawning building.

Fish Ladder

Outdoor Raceways

Fish waiting to climb the ladder

Easy meal for sea lions

Thousands waiting to spawn

Another sea lion scouting an easy meal

Solomon Gulch Falls

There is a plethora of things to see and do in Valdez. Simply, the beauty can be breathtaking.

Tankers awaiting their valuable cargo

Braided river no bears here

Competitors getting ready for the carving contest

Paddlers coming from Valdez Glacier
All the icebergs are from the glacier
The water was really, really, cold

After seeing all that salmon I decided that we needed a feast of red or sockeye salmon for supper. I did it on the grill, it turned out amazingly good. This was given to us earlier on in our trip.