Haines

About Haines

Haines is the quietest of the major Lynn Canal ports, a small working town of about 2,500 residents on a peninsula between the Chilkat and Chilkoot rivers. Because few large ships call here, the downtown feels genuinely lived-in — the Hammer Museum, Sheldon Museum, and Fort Seward's restored parade grounds are all walkable from the cruise dock. The signature excursion is a float trip on the Chilkat River through the Bald Eagle Preserve, where up to 3,000 eagles congregate on a late-run salmon feed in autumn and several hundred are resident year-round. Haines is also the staging point for bear-viewing flights to the Chilkoot River weir during pink-salmon season.

• Haines is one of the only communities in Southeast Alaska accessible by road — the Haines Highway connects it to the Alaska Highway system and the rest of North America, unlike most neighboring towns.
• Every autumn, up to 3,000 to 4,000 bald eagles congregate along the Chilkat River near Haines to feed on late-run salmon, making it one of the largest gatherings of bald eagles in the world.
• Fort William H. Seward, established in 1903 as the first permanent U.S. Army post in Alaska, stands in Haines and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
• The surrounding Chilkat Bald Eagle Preserve covers 48,000 acres of river bottomland specifically set aside to protect the eagle gathering habitat.
• Haines Borough's population of about 2,082 is spread across a dramatic landscape flanked by the Chilkat and Chilkoot inlets, with the Takshanuk and Chilkat mountain ranges rising on either side.