Homer

At the southern end of the Sterling Highway lies the city of Homer, at the base of a narrow spit that juts 4 mi into beautiful Kachemak Bay. Glaciers and snowcapped mountains form a dramatic backdrop across the bay.

Founded in the late 1800s as a gold-prospecting camp, this community was later used as a coal-mining headquarters. (Chunks of coal are still common along local beaches; they wash into the bay from nearby slopes where the coal seams are exposed.) Today the town of Homer is an eclectic community filled with tacky tourist paraphernalia, commercial-fishing facilities—including boats, canneries, and repair yards—and a thriving group of local artists, sculptors, actors, and writers. Much of the commercial fishing centers on halibut, and the popular Homer Jackpot Halibut Derby is often won by enormous fish weighing more than 300 pounds. The local architecture includes everything from dwellings that are little more than assemblages of driftwood, flotsam, and jetsam to steel commercial buildings and magnificent homes on the hillside overlooking the surrounding bay, mountains, forests, and glaciers. In addition to highway and air access, Homer also has regular ferry service to Seldovia and Kodiak Island.