Bar Hunting in Alaska : From Fishing Village to Mining Camp to Metropolis, Local Watering Holes Capture State’s ‘Work Hard, Play Hard’ Tradition

He was big and bold and bearded, and he smelled like effluent from a fish cannery.

He wore high rubber boots over patched overalls, and a plaid flannel shirt that stretched tight across his barrel chest. Bloodshot eyes glared out from beneath his cap--a navy-blue tuque--that covered his long, brown hair. He sauntered into the saloon, ordered a brew, pulled up a barrel beside me and launched into a vociferous soliloquy on environmental politics.

He was, in short, an Alaskan. And like many Alaskans, whose reputation for toughness in an often-harsh climate is well-deserved, the local bar was his social center.

My new acquaintance on this occasion was a fisherman just in from a cold, rainy week of halibut fishing on Kachemak Bay and the Cook Inlet. His refuge was the Salty Dawg, which occupies a ramshackle lighthouse opposite a bald-eagle feeding ground near the end of the three-mile-long Homer Spit, at the tip of the Kenai Peninsula.

Built in 1897, the Salty Dawg has weathered nearly a century of catastrophic storms, tidal waves and earthquakes, some of them much larger than Los Angeles’ recent 6.6-magnitude tremor (a devastating 1964 quake measured 8.4). It has been a school, a post office, a grocery store, a railroad station, a coal-mining office and an oil-company headquarters. Today the Dawg is a sometimes-rowdy saloon with a sawdust floor, initials carved into its counters and tables, and flags, life buoys and T-shirts hanging from its ceilings and walls. When it’s too stormy out to launch a boat, some fishermen and workers from nearby canneries are here when the door opens at 11 a.m.--and stay until it closes 18 hours later.

The Salty Dawg is not unique in its ambience. There are similar watering holes throughout the 49th state--not just in old lighthouses, perhaps, but in equally atmospheric settings. Skagway’s Red Onion, for instance, is lodged in what was once a brothel. And the Howling Dog, 11 miles north of Fairbanks near the Arctic Circle, is right on the edge of the tundra.

Instead of a fisherman, your company there might be a North Slope oil worker escaping the permafrost, a logger who has been thinning the old-growth cedar forests of the Panhandle, or a hard-bitten miner with a lode on his mind. For that matter, especially in Anchorage, Alaska’s Fresno-size metropolis, it could be a spiffed-up office worker out for a night on the town.

Alaska’s natural beauty has few parallels on this earth. The same can be said of its half-million people. They work hard to earn a living from an unforgiving land, and when the work is over, they traditionally play hard. There may be no better place to strike up a conversation than in their local saloons.

Beer drinkers rave about Alaskan Beer, brewed in Juneau (and best enjoyed at that city’s Red Dog Saloon). The Alaskan Brewing Co. was established only in 1986, but already its Alaskan Amber has twice been voted the most popular beer at the annual Great American Beer Festival in Colorado. There’s also an Alaskan Pale Ale (“a northern light”).

Saloon food varies widely, though it’s always pretty basic. You won’t find oyster bars here. Some bars serve up nothing more appetizing than peanuts and pretzels (or, in the case of Anchorage’s Fly by Night Club, Spam); others, like the Malemute Saloon near Fairbanks, go whole hog with reindeer stew or other wild-game dishes. The Red Dog is adjoined by an atmospheric restaurant, The Cook House; no meals are served in the bar, but steaks and seafood are 10 steps away. More typically, Alaskan bar menus feature burgers or burritos, pizza or deli-style sandwiches.

Liberal state licensing laws permit bars, restaurants, liquor stores and other licensed establishments to operate from 8 a.m. to 5 a.m., seven days a week. Anchorage, Juneau and many other towns have passed local ordinances that have reduced open hours, typically to 2 a.m.

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During the past 10 years, while researching and revising a guidebook to the state, I have made many visits to Alaska hotels, restaurants, tourist attractions and, yes, drinking establishments. Here, then, are some of my favorite places, chosen for their uniquely Alaskan spirit. These are all full bars, serving a full range of spirits along with beer and wine. With one exception, they are local hangouts, but places where tourists are welcomed as well. The exception is the Malemute Saloon, which I’ve included because it so successfully re-creates a turn-of-the-century gold-rush flavor.

* Bird House Bar, Indian. A victim of the massive 1964 earthquake, this collapsing log shanty, half-buried in sod 27 miles southeast of downtown Anchorage near the hamlet of Indian, has nevertheless managed to stay in business. A giant wooden bird’s head, painted blue, faces the highway; it is half as high as the wall from which it protrudes. The interior is, in a word, bizarre. Everything slants in different directions: floors, walls, bar, you name it. Conventional wisdom is that you’ve had too much to drink when things begin to look normal! The walls are covered with business cards, photos and expired driver’s licenses, and the bartender may insist that you cannot go until you leave something of yours behind.

* Chilkoot Charlie’s, Anchorage. Chilkoot Charlie is a sort of Alaskan Paul Bunyan. This mythic character once, for instance, staved off starvation on an ice floe by eating the tail of a polar bear and giving the bear the bone to chew on. According to legend, that’s why the modern polar bear has only a stump for a tail. His name is now carried by Anchorage’s most stereotypically “Alaskan” bar--with sawdust floors, padded tree-stump stools and gold-rush-era decor. At opposite ends of “Koot’s,” as the club is known, are two stages for live music: One serves up high-decibel rock for dancing nightly; the other features mainly country and Alaskan “bush ballad” singers. Between them are three bars, a snack counter that serves burritos and pizzas, and an enclosed courtyard with horseshoe and barbecue pits.

* Fly by Night Club, Anchorage. The whimsical owner of this enigmatic nightspot, a jazz musician who calls himself Mr. White Keys, keeps his tongue planted firmly in cheek. The nightly entertainment schedule at his club features slapstick revues like “The Whale Fat Follies,” performances by top local rock and jazz bands, and various special events, from ‘50s parties to lingerie shows. The menu is limited to Spam hors d’oeuvres--half-price with champagne by the glass, free with Dom Perignon. White Keys’ own jazz band is called the Spamtones, and the club’s phone number is 279-SPAM. The Fly by Night closes after Christmas until April. Cover charge for the “follies” is $10; otherwise, entry is free except when major touring acts appear.

* Howling Dog Saloon, Fox. Fairbanks’ most popular bar isn’t even in Fairbanks--it’s 11 miles north on the edge of the tundra, en route to the Arctic Circle. As the northernmost bar in this listing (most Alaskan native communities, which predominate in northern Alaska, have banned the sale of alcohol), it’s the best place to enjoy the midnight sun of midsummer, far from the city lights. Throughout June and July, the volleyball court in the Howling Dog’s back yard is in use all night long. This rustic establishment is packed to the rafters most nights, and especially Thursday through Saturday, when a neighborhood band plays home-grown rock ‘n’ roll.

* Kito’s Kave, Petersburg. A noisy anomaly in an otherwise quiet Scandinavian enclave on the Inside Passage, Kito’s is lodged in a nondescript red building at a decidedly un-Norwegian intersection named for a Chinese (Sing Lee Alley) and a native Tlingit (Chief John Lott Street). Hard by the small-boat harbor, it draws fishermen who enjoy live rock music . . . and fishermen’s wives, especially when the Chippendale male dancers are in town.

* Malemute Saloon, Ester. Made famous by the Robert Service ballad, “The Shooting of Dan McGrew,” the Malemute looks like a converted barn with classic swinging doors and a sawdust floor. Tables are mere boards on kegs; a sign at the bar urges patrons to “Please use spittoon.” Reindeer stew and other dishes are served dinner-show guests who pay $14.95 to see re-enactments of Service’s narrative poems on stage to the tune of ragtime music. (The show is $5 without dinner.) Open summers only, the Malemute is located at the Ester Gold Camp, a restored 1890s miners’ settlement at the end of a dirt road, eight miles west of Fairbanks.

* Red Dog Saloon, Juneau. Among the old firearms behind the bar is a gun that Wyatt Earp supposedly deposited on his way to the gold fields in the 1890s . . . and never reclaimed. Overhead, amid other marine memorabilia autographed by ships’ crews, is a flag from the infamous Exxon Valdez; management swears it’s the banner the ill-fated tanker was flying when it ran aground in Prince William Sound in 1989. Indeed, the decor of the venerable Red Dog--one of the first places cruise-ship passengers see when they alight in the state capital--reflects a century of Alaskan whimsy and history. Though it has changed location several times, this friendly saloon still boasts decor straight out of a taxidermist’s shop. But the argonauts of yesteryear didn’t have a bustling souvenir shop or the adjoining Cook House restaurant, which re-creates a turn-of-the-century mining camp atmosphere. (The menu offers what may be the state’s biggest hamburger: two pounds, served on a pizza-size bun with two pounds of French fries on the side for $13.95.)

* Red Onion Saloon, Skagway. Many moons have passed since this former brothel served its customers more than drinks, but cutouts of scantily clad young women still peer through the red-lit upstairs windows, overlooking what was once the main route to the Klondike Gold Rush; monogrammed garters are the best-selling souvenir. The Red Onion has live jazz frequently, honky-tonk piano and jukebox always, and dancing wherever patrons find floor space. It serves huge deli-style sandwiches at lunch, too. Like many other establishments in tourism-oriented Skagway, the Red Onion closes for the winter.

GUIDEBOOK

Alaskan Saloons

All area codes are 907:

Bird House Bar, Mile 26.5 Seward Highway, Indian; no phone.

Chilkoot Charlie’s, 2435 Spenard Road, Anchorage; tel. 272-1010.

Fly by Night Club, 3300 Spenard Road, Anchorage; tel. 279-7726.

Howling Dog Saloon, Mile 11.5 Steese Highway, Fox; tel. 457-8780.

Kito’s Kave, Sing Lee Alley and Chief John Lott Street, Petersburg; tel. 772-3207.

Malemute Saloon, Ester Gold Camp, Ester; tel. 479-2500.

Red Dog Saloon, 278 S. Franklin St., Juneau; tel. 463-3777.

Red Onion Saloon, Broadway and Second Avenue, Skagway; tel. 983-2222.

Salty Dawg, Spit Road, Homer; no phone.