Alaska’s ports each carry their own rhythm. Juneau sits between mountains and sea, a capital with no road in or out, where trails lead to the Mendenhall Glacier and whales surface in the channel. Skagway feels like a preserved frontier town, its wooden boardwalks echoing the old Klondike gold rush and the White Pass railway climbing into the mountains beyond. Ketchikan is all steep streets, fishing boats and some of the world’s finest totem poles, shaped by deep-rooted Indigenous carving traditions. Sitka brings a different blend again, with Russian and Native histories meeting in a city wrapped in rainforest and volcanic peaks. Glacier Bay National Park ties them all together, a protected wilderness of fjords and creaking ice where the ship becomes the viewpoint and the landscape does the talking.