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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 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 likely to fish for halibut, or many types of salmon in Kachemak Bay.
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 Come
to the Shorebird Festival
This is a good spot for finding shorebirds in May.
There’s 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.
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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. |
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How
far is HOMER from Anchorage?
226 miles.
The "end of the road," Homer is a favorite with many Alaskans. It has a breezy, open setting, surrounded
by beautiful Kachemak Bay.
The Homer Spit, an improbable piece of land that extends out into the water, brings home Alaska’s relative
isolation and its location on the north Pacific. |
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Homer: A Town Built On Coal
There’s coal along the shores of Kachemak Bay.
Russian explorers noticed it by the mid-1800’s. Gold miners, including Homer Pennock, first came to the
region in 1896. Soon, a 7-mile long commercial railroad was built out to the end of Homer Spit.
Coal
was the area’s most lucrative export, and the spit became an industrial
region. But, by the 1930’s, the buildings on the spit had either been
torn down or burned up in a lingering coal fire. The spit itself had to
be buttressed heavily after the 1964 quake.
When you’re in Homer, you’ll see the spit’s railroad tracks are gone. But 400 million tons
of coal are still in the ground. |
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Homer Chamber of Commerce
Homer business directory, photo gallery, weather, and events, including
the annual Shorebird Festival and the Halibut Derby.
City of Homer
Provides useful general information about Homer. Be sure to check out the nice photo gallery. |
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