Cordova City Guide – Attractions

If the sky is clear and you can round up a group of six people, the folks here will fire up the vintage chairlift to take you to the top of Mount Eyak. You'll have a spectacular view of Orca Inlet and miles beyond. Plus, you'll get to sit where Clark Gable and Marilyn Monroe once sat. This very same chairlift hoisted famous authors and movie stars such as Ernest Hemingway, Groucho Marx, Lucille Ball, and John Wayne to the top of the mountains in Sun Valley, Idaho, from 1936 to 1969. It's been in Cordova since 1974.

This independent, nonprofit research facility, housed down on the docks, is funded in part with settlement money from the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill. The work of the center focuses on the complex ecosystem of the Sound. Tours are available during business hours upon request.

The bridge and glacier are 52 miles out of town, on the old Copper River Road. Impressive and close, the 300-foot wall of ice sits across the Copper River. Thunderous calving of ice off the glacier echoes from the steel beams of the bent bridge, which buckled during the 1964 earthquake. You can still walk across the bridge. To get there, call Copper River Northwest Tours, hitch a ride, take a taxi, or rent a car.

A rich, diverse ecosystem and breeding ground for myriad waterfowl, the Copper River flows 250 miles through the Chugach Mountains to the Sound. It is a strong, turbulent river that produces highly prized red salmon. Because of the firm, meaty flesh and layer of belly fat, these salmon rank as the state's most delicious wild salmon. The Forest Service maintains about 37 miles of trails on the delta and a dozen wilderness public-use cabins. The annual Copper River Delta Shorebird Festival draws hundreds of birdwatchers around the first of May to watch millions of migrating birds. Call the Audubon Society (907/424-7260) for information.

Held the first week of February, the festival is a weeklong celebration and features a parade led by the guest of honor, a 100-foot ice worm. Some say the ice worm is only a mythological character. But what do they know? The true story is ice worms really do exist. As fanciful homework for the festival, read Robert Service's poem Ballad of the Ice Worm Cocktail.