Juneau Extended Driving Tour Self-Guided Audio Tour

About this tour

Most people drive Juneau's road system in under an hour and never realize they passed a vanished town, a sunken ship that took an entire community with it, and an island that gave up 3.2 million ounces of gold before the sea swallowed it whole. This tour rides shotgun with you from the heart of the capital out to the edges of the road, turning a routine drive into the story of how this improbable city came to be. You'll stand at the foot of an icefield — the fifth-largest in the Western Hemisphere — and learn what it's quietly doing to the land beneath you. You'll hear how a four-hundred-dollar bet built the largest gold mine on earth, and how nine hundred stamps pounded ore around the clock until the day the ocean rushed in. You'll meet the Áakʼw Ḵwáan, who read this coastline for centuries before anyone called it Alaska, and Ernest Gruening, whose words turned a territory into a state. There's the ghost town at Amalga, the wreck of the Princess Sophia off Vanderbilt Reef, the tideflats built from crushed rock, and a wolf, a dog, and a senator who each, in their way, became part of the place. Every mile has a story. This tour makes sure you don't drive past a single one.

Stops on this tour

1. 1The Ground We Drive On
2. 2The Tongass
3. 3Salmon Creek (the world's first of its kind)
4. 4Field of ?
5. 5Turn toward the Glacier
6. 6Dairy in the Valley
7. 7The Invisible River of Air
8. 8The Little Ice Age
9. 9The Meltwater
10. 10The Buried Forest
11. 11The Valley is Younger Than it Looks
12. 12Turn Right onto Egan Drive
13. 13Brotherhood Bridge
14. 14Auke Bay
15. 15Lena Beach
16. 16Shrine Turnoff
17. 17The Shrine of St. Therese
18. 18Arboretum on the Left
19. 19The Jensen-Olson Arboretum
20. 20The Ghost Town of Amalga
21. 21Rivers of Ice
22. 22Eagle Beach & State Parks
23. 23Eagle Beach Turnoff
24. 24Princess Sophia
25. 25The Lynn Canal
26. 26Amalaga Turnoff
27. 27The Statehood Manifesto
28. 28Tee Harbor
29. 29The Marine Highway
30. 30The Bush Pilots
31. 31The Wetlands (Food Web)
32. 32Right Turn Ahead
33. 33Macaulay Hatchery
34. 34Salmon Creek Powerhouse
35. 35The Tides of Gastineau
36. 36Douglas Turnoff
37. 37Crossing the Channel
38. 38The $400 Bet (Treadwell)
39. 39Sandy Beach Turn
40. 40The Tidelands of Tailings
41. 41The 1917 Cave-In
42. 42The Rock Dump

Route map