Juneau

The Gastineau Channel was a fishing place of the Auke and Taku Tlingit for thousands of years; the Tlingit name for the town is Dzántik'i Héeni, the 'base of the flounder's river'. In 1880 a Sitka mining engineer, George Pilz, offered a reward to any local Native who could lead him to gold, and sent the prospectors Joe Juneau and Richard Harris to Gold Creek. They found nuggets 'as large as peas and beans', marked out a town site in October 1880, and a mining camp grew up — the first new settlement founded after the United States bought Alaska. After being called Rockwell and Harrisburg, it took the name Juneau in December 1881.

Gold made the city. The Treadwell mine across the channel on Douglas Island became the largest hard-rock gold mine in the world, and the Alaska-Juneau and Alaska-Gastineau mines worked the mountains behind town. In 1890 about 700 Tlingit joined the Russian Orthodox Church, and St Nicholas Church followed. In 1906 the territorial government moved from Sitka to Juneau, and between the wars it was Alaska's largest city. The Federal and Territorial Building, now the Capitol, opened in 1931. During the Second World War more than 50 Japanese residents were sent to internment camps, remembered today by the Empty Chair Memorial.

Statehood in 1959 brought growth in government. In 1970 Juneau merged with Douglas and the surrounding borough, creating one of the largest municipalities in the country by area. Alaskans voted in the 1970s to move the capital closer to Anchorage, but later votes in 1984 and 1996 rejected a move and Juneau remains the capital. Cruise tourism grew from about 230,000 passengers in 1990 to nearly 1.7 million in 2025.

Juneau is a social centre for the Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian of Southeast Alaska. The Tlingit names of places are in common use — Auke Bay is Áak'w, the Mendenhall Glacier Áak'w T'áak Sít' — and Celebration, a gathering of dance and art first held in 1982, fills the city with clan regalia every second June. A totem pole carved by the Tlingit artist Amos Wallace stands outside the city museum.

For a small city, the arts scene is busy. Perseverance Theatre is Alaska's largest professional theatre, an art house cinema shows independent and foreign films, and every April the Alaska Folk Festival gives a week of free concerts in which each act plays a short set. Juneau Jazz & Classics is another annual music festival.

Life is also outdoors and close to the weather. Residents hike the mountains behind town, ski at the city-owned Eaglecrest area on Douglas Island and skate at the Treadwell rink beside the old mine.

The 2020 census counted about 32,000 people in the City and Borough of Juneau, the third most populous city in Alaska and the least densely populated state capital. The Mendenhall Valley, not downtown, is the borough's largest populated area.

Government is the main employer — state, federal and city offices, the hospital, the harbours and the University of Alaska Southeast — followed by tourism, mining and fishing. In summer, 16,000 or more cruise passengers arrive on many days between May and September, and downtown shops, tours and flightseeing companies work at full stretch; in winter many of those businesses close.

Being off the road system shapes routines: cars and trucks arrive by barge or ferry, and leaving town means a flight or a boat. In recent summers the glacial outburst floods from Suicide Basin above the Mendenhall Glacier have become a recurring worry for valley residents. The 2024 flood was declared a disaster, and in 2025 a temporary levee along the Mendenhall River held back record water levels with little damage.

Seafood comes first. King crab legs, crab cakes, halibut and salmon appear on many menus downtown, from crab shacks near the docks to sit-down restaurants, and halibut turns up in tacos and fajitas as well as fish and chips. Charter fishing for salmon and halibut is one of the most popular summer activities.

Beer is a source of local pride. The Alaskan Brewing Company, founded in Juneau in 1986, was the first brewery in Alaska after Prohibition and grew into one of the larger craft breweries in the country; its tasting room is in Lemon Creek, and the city has smaller breweries too.

As across Alaska, wild foods matter: many residents use the salmon season to put part of the household's food by, fishing for subsistence as well as sport. Downtown also has cafés and coffee houses, and the Mendenhall Valley and Auke Bay have the everyday restaurants where most residents eat, from diners to Thai cooking.