No Place Like Homer

The Sterling Highway finally gets to where it’s going. And it’s not Sterling. It’s Homer.

The highway sweeps down a hill along the bay, bypassing the older part of town, and runs on to the Homer Spit.

Waves crash against the spit. Seagulls and eagles rise and fall. The wind blows.

It’s another great summer day in Homer, Alaska, and all you’ve got to do is sit back and enjoy it.

What to Do in Homer

Homer mixes civic pride with an appreciation for art, culture and the great outdoors.

After a day of clam digging, exploring tidal pools, fishing, walking the beaches, or scouting for eagles in and around Homer or up the coast, you can spend an evening at a swank place in town.

There are several very fine restaurants, art galleries, and often there are local cultural activities.

Beyond its tourism aspect, Homer also functions as a fishing town and a major port for the Kenai Peninsula.

Only in Homer: You Can Fish in the Fishing Hole in the Homer Spit

If you haven’t gotten a salmon yet on your trip to Alaska, grab your pole and head for the Homer Fishing Hole at the end of the Homer Spit.

NOTE: In the fishing regulations, this hole is called the Nick Dudiak Fishing Lagoon.

The Homer Spit

The ocean dashes onto the rocks of the 5-mile long Homer Spit.

A good bike trail along the road lets you enjoy the views of old boat yards and homes along the spit where local people have embedded large spruce trees upside-down in the sand.

Bald eagles come to roost on the bare tree roots.

The spit ends at a ferry dock and has places for visitors to camp in the warm summer breeze.

Many businesses have booths on the spit, where you can contract just about any activity, from bear viewing to fishing to air charters.

Go to Homer for the Halibut

When people go to Homer to fish, they’re most likely to fish for halibut.

While there, enter the Homer Jackpot Halibut Derby.

The Oregon man who won the jackpot last summer took home $48,504 for pulling in a 310 lb. halibut. (The runner-up got a 308 lb. halibut, and $1,000.)

Come to the Shorebird Festival

This is a good spot for finding shorebirds in May.

There’s a 3-day Kachemak Bay Shorebird Festival with speakers, workshops, bird walks and field trips to view birds.

You can view sandpipers, yellowlegs, dowitchers, terns, cormorants, murrelets, snipe, tattlers and wigeons.

Contact the Homer Chamber for more information.

+ Related: Birding in Denali National Park

Tidal Range Creates Biologically Rich Area

This photo shows the Islands and Oceans Visitor Center, where you can learn more about the biological diversity of Homer and the area of Alaska that surrounds it.

Kachemak Bay, in which Homer is located, has the second largest tides in the world. An average tide here is 15 feet.

The difference between a very high tide and a very low tide is 28 feet.

This creates strong tidal currents. You have to be careful when securing your boat.

The large tidal range brings nutrients into the Kachemak Bay estuary. Outgoing tides pull freshwater sediments from the land, and incoming tides push in nutrients from the ocean.

This makes a highly productive intertidal area with salt marshes and many species of marine life.

The bay’s estuary is the largest estuary research reserve in America.

You can get tide books at stores across Alaska.

The Pratt Museum

This Homer museum has information about the 6 Native cultures of the area. There’s also plenty about the sea, fishing, wildlife and Homer history.

See the collection of 150 local plants in the extensive gardens outside.

Behind the Pratt Museum, there’s the Harrington Cabin. It was home to a series of people arriving in Homer over the years.

One of the problems of moving to rural Alaska, even today, is that there is often a shortage of housing. Stand outside the cabin and listen to actual audio narrations by long-time local residents, recalling their arrival and the time they spent in the Harrington Cabin.