Dillingham Travel Guide

In the summer there is normally something going on down at the Kanakanak Beach. Subsistence fishing nets line the beach, so you might see locals catching salmon to "put up" for the winter. People picnic down at the beach. You'd need 4x4 to go too far down the beach, but it isn't that far to walk. In the evening some people even just go for walks down there.

On the bluff behind the Kanakank Hospital the cliff is starting to give way and some people have found recently exposed unmarked gravesites. The graves came from years ago during big cannery boom when an epedimic hit and a handful of unidentified Asian workers passed away. I was always glad I was not the person to discover the bones sticking out of the cliff, I'd get spooked out.

This small restaurant in the PAF Boat Yard near the small boat harbor and downtown Dillingham has a great Chinese buffet most days for lunch and some days for dinner. They do not do the Dim Sum thing that is part of this category on VT. They have standard American fare like burgers fries, and from time to time I heard they do Mexican, but I never wanted to try that so always ate the Chinese buffet.

You can't make reservations, it's first come, first serve. It gets really crowded in the summer time when all the fisherman are in town, and normally crowded during lunch. It's a family-operated business so if they are out of town or under the weather or fishing, the place is closed. Call ahead if you don’t have transportation.

When you enter the restaurant you'll pass the coolers where you can just grab your own pop on way to the table. I took this picture one day just having fun with camera, my friends thought I was a little nuts but I like it.

Favorite Dish: One time I tried a steak for dinner because they had a special and it was GOOD! One of the best steaks I've had in a restaurant ever. That was under $20 too if I remember right, so it was cheaper than steak house in Anchorage.

Once a year the local chapter of Ducks Unlimited puts on a fancy dinner and auction to benefit the organization. It's a popular event. The tickets run something like $50. The dinner is great! The company is good.

Dress Code: People dress up for this one. Normally at the Willow Tree anything goes.

The locals try to shop in Anchorage. Our complaint is the prices. A bag of goceries could cost $50 and last only a couple days. I have friends who won't even walk into the local stores, they buy everything outside of Dillingham and freight it in.

Many commercial fisherman "grub up" in Anchorage before hitting the Bay each summer.

What to buy: Stuff that is on sale is sometimes a good price, so some of us pay attention and shop around even here. There are normally "barge" sales and those items are cheaper. So rather than offend any store owner I chose to use a Boyer Alaska Barge Line (BABL) container as a demonstration of where to shop. Somone filled in an "E", and made this container BABE.

What to pay: 75-100% more than Anchorage - which is pretty average for the United States when it comes to cost of feeding a family. But, the good side of the higher cost of living is when you go to the store there are probably only 2-3 people in front of you in line!

In early July 2002, one of my coworker's boys was driving out the "Lake Road" and saw two cubs. The mother (sow) found them right about the same time...

That is a bear bite on the Subaru's windshield.