Simply said, Whittier, Alaska is unlike any other town to which we’ve been. It’s one of those places that leaves you speechless at the beauty of its surroundings but also scratching your head at its strangeness. Unless arriving via cruise or ferry on the Alaska Marine Highway, a trip to Whittier begins with an adventure in itself—a drive through a one-way, 2.5-mile tunnel, where the roadbed is railroad tracks! Once through the tunnel, Whittier comes into view, tucked between picturesque glaciers and mountains that line Passage Canal. However, it isn’t what you’d expect of a typical, waterfront town. Whittier feels more like an industrial cityscape—with a railyard, dilapidated military buildings and WWII-era Begich Towers, where most of the town’s 200 or so residents live.
