Juneau Weather
Juneau's weather isn't as bad as you've probably heard. It does stop raining sometimes, and not just to snow: we do get sunshine here, sometimes for days on end. We're nestled into a series of cracks in the mountains, so we can't see the sunrise or sunsets, which makes our short winter days (less than 61/2 hours on the winter solstice) even shorter. The usual thick overcast makes for short, dim, grey winter days.
The good news is that the overcast does break up, the frequent rain is usually a light mist that takes a while to get you damp, the snow doesn't build up for long before the rain returns to melt it, the winter is never very cold, and often quite warm, the summers are usually cool and never hot, and the mountains and the ocean are beautiful, and almost make up for the weather. In the summer, they more than make up for it! When we get a week or so of sunshine, everything is incredibly beautiful.
Links to interesting things around and about Juneau.
General Stuff
Our local newspaper is The Juneau Empire. Unfortunately, it's not as local as it used to be: it's now part of a chain, Morris Communications. We also have a free weekly, with the same owners: The Capital City Weekly. We also have several radio stations. I'm only going to list the public radio station and one other.
TravelJuneau.com has information on getting here and accomodations, et cetera. Juneau.com has current events, links to local things, and so on. Juneauphotos.com posts a new photo of Juneau every day.
A pdf visitor's map of downtown Juneau.
The City has maps on the web, as does Frommer's. The Alaska Volcano Observatory has maps of Alaskan Earthquakes. The State's Department of Community and Economic Development has a map of the Juneau area. There aren't any roads shown on that map because there aren't any roads!
History
The Alaska State Museum has a large collection of Native, Russian and recent artifacts from around the state. If you get here, you need to see it.
The Juneau-Douglas City Museum has artifacts from the gold mining era in Juneau and Douglas. Well worth a stop.
The Alaska Historical Society isn't specific to Juneau, but it's a great starting place for Alaskan history.
Books
The Observatory Bookstore is a wonderful place with a wonderful proprietor. It's a used book store, specializing in Alaskana and old maps. They're downtown, on the corner of Second and North Franklin.
The Friends of the Library runs The Amazing Bookstore. Folks take their discarded books there, and the store sells them. Proceeds go to the library. There is a lot of trash there, and the occasional treasure. The trash sells for 25¢ each, and the treasures are quite reasonably priced.
The Capital City Libraries have a web page with an online catalog search for books and journals. This includes the UAS and the State libraries, so there are fairly good resources for education and social science journals (at UAS) and Alaskana (at the State Library). The UAS journal collection also has some biology journals, and a smattering of journals in other areas. The UAS collection is tilted away from the physical sciences. UAS also has access to JSTOR, so older editions of good journals in a number of fields are available there. The Juneau Public Libraries have about 124,000 items, mostly general interest reading materials. The UAS library has has 131,538 books and 522 serials, and the State library has about 110,000 items, not counting their microfiche.
Boats
There is some boatbuilding going on in Juneau. Fritz Funk's page lists many of the boats built in Juneau.
The Zeiger family has built several boats in or near Juneau. Mark Zeiger has built a Bolger Martha Jane, the Selkie. Dave Zeiger has designed and built (in Tenake Springs) the Luna, very similar to Bolger's AS29. Dave Zeiger has designed an interesting little pocket cruiser which looks easy to build, and safe and practical in our cold waters. You can see his Triloboat on his website. He entered the design in the fifth Duckworks design contest, and you can find his Zeiger Triloboat on their site.
The Juneau Rowing Club ... rows. They have a single rowing shell that members can use.
The Juneau Yacht Club has, among other things, sailing classes for kids.
Pictures of Juneau
Juneau is a beautiful place, especially if you like mountains and sea, in shades of grey and forest green. There are webcams that let you see what it's like outside here, right now, and there are some shots of things in and around Juneau.Juneau Webcams
View of downtown Juneau, from Douglas IslandJeffus and Williams' Tee Harbor webcam. Tee Harbor is about 15 miles out the road, North of town.
View of the cruise ship dock, from the Downtown Library.
View of downtown, from the Downtown Library.
The Federal Aviation Administration has a number of weather cams around the state, including three at Lena Loop, which I recommend. Scroll down and click on one of the Lena Loop cameras.
Photos of Juneau
The State has a library of photos, including photos of Juneau, which you can download and look at freely. If you want to use them in your own work, you'll have to read the licenses.
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