Alaska: June 26

The Salty Dawg Saloon in Homer deftly shoulders its dual responsibility as the local’s bar and one of Alaska’s more infamous tourist stops. I feel welcome as I walk in gawking and fingering my camera’s shutter button, but at the same time, I also feel like I’d better leave the local’s table and the pool table alone. Look but do not bother. Appreciate but do not stay too long.


Locals and tourists are instantly recognizable and categorized. Tourists wear sandals; fishermen who work the spit day in and day out wear rubber boots and overalls still smeared with halibut guts from the day’s catch. The fishermen are smarter. It is a rainy, salty, muddy land in which clothing choices are more esteemed if they are practical. Forget Chacos and North Face. If it’s warm and waterproof, you’re as hip as you need to be.


Josh and I walk to the bar. He orders a locally brewed Homer stout. I order Alaskan White, a wheat ale brewed in the Last Frontier. We find a spot in the corner, sit down, and watch the bar fill up as the hour grows late.


The fish stories grow louder and larger. Laughter rolls through the saloon in swells like the waves crashing onto the shore of Kachemak Bay. The beer in our bottles eventually becomes just a few drops clinging to the bottom. It is time to go, but before we do, we have one more task to make the experience complete.


Sometime in the Salty Dawg’s history, someone wrote their name on a dollar bill and pinned it to the wall. Now, some odd years later, nearly every inch of wall and ceiling is covered with thousands upon thousands of bills representing visitors from hundreds of places. Minnesota, Montana, Florida. Anchorage, Boston, Seattle.


Wyoming. Go Cowpokes. Josh and Hannah.

Josh outside the Salty Dawg.

Me inside the Salty Dawg.