Perched on the ridge of the Don Sheldon Amphitheater of Denali’s breathtaking Ruth Glacier, in Alaska, and reachable only by air, Sheldon Chalet is famous as the world’s most remote hotel.

Alaska’s Denali National Park stretches six million acres and is a shelter for grizzly bears, caribou, moose, wolves and other wildlife. It’s one of the most beautiful places you can visit in the United States, but also one of the most inaccessible. For example, the Don Sheldon Amphitheater, a glacial valley situated at an elevation of 6,000 feet (1,829 meters), was once only accessible by ski-equipped plane, but after the completion of the luxurious Sheldon Chalet, private helicopter rides also became an option.

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Betsy, a 3-year-old cow that escaped six months ago, during the annual rodeo in Anchorage, Alaska, has been roaming the outskirts of the city ever since, despite her owner’s best efforts to capture her.

Betsy the cow slipped out of her pen amid the bustle of the annual Anchorage rodeo last year, and headed right for Far North Bicentennial Park, a 4,000-acre forest on the outskirts of the Alaskan city. Cowboys saddled their horses and went after Betsy as soon as they noticed she was gone, but it was too late. She made it to the forest and she’s been enjoying her freedom for the last six months, despite her owner’s attempts to catch her.

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The majestic bald eagle is the national bird of the United States, but most Americans are lucky to see one first-hand during their lifetimes. Unless they live in the town of Unalaska, Alaska, where bald eagles are as common as pigeons are in other human settlements.

Unalaska is home to around 4,700 people who have to share their space with over 600 beautiful bald eagles. It looks and sounds like something out of a fairytale, but it turns out that sharing your home with territorial predators also has its downsides. For one thing, you’re more likely to get attacked by a bald eagle in Unalaska than anywhere else in the US, and locals constantly have to keep an eye out for the birds, especially when going near their nests. They apparently hate it when people get too close.

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The Alaskan wilderness is home to many natural wonders but also an unusual man-made structure that appears to have jumped right out of the pages of a Dr. Seuss book. Located over 130 kilometers away from Anchorage city, the quirky 185-ft edifice known as Goose Creek Tower looks like a bunch of houses built on top of each other. 

This strange tourist attraction was built after a forest fire created a natural clearing among the trees, midway between Willow and Talkeetna. This particular spot apparently offers a beautiful view of Denali – North America’s highest mountain peak – and it’s this detail that explains, at least in part, the strange design of Goose Creek Tower. It started off as a single-storey house, but as the forest started growing back after the fire, owner Phil Weidner began adding additional floors just so he could enjoy the picturesque view from the windows, over the canopy. The completed structure is so reminiscent of the illustrated Dr. Seuss stories by Theodore LeSieg, that locals fondly refer to it as the ‘Dr. Seuss House’.

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Turns out Santa Claus is real, and he actually lives in North Pole! Don’t get too excited though – North Pole is a suburb in Fairbanks, Alaska, and Santa Claus is the legal name of one of its residents, although he definitely looks the part.

At North Pole, the atmosphere is festive all year. The streets are always decorated in holiday spirit, the light posts look like candy canes and the streets have names like ‘Snowman Lane’ and ‘St. Nicholas Drive’. So it’s only befitting to have a ‘Santa Claus’ live there. According to his Facebook page, Claus is “the only man legally named Santa Claus ever to live in North Pole, Alaska.”

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While many cafés and bars choose to display their patrons’ praise on sticky notes or paper napkins, a watering hole in Homer, Alaska, has every last inch of its walls and ceiling covered with dollar bills signed by its satisfied customers. Because of its quirky interiors, Salty Dawg Saloon is in fact a cherished landmark of Homer Spit – a 4.5-mile piece of land jutting out from Homer on the southern tip of the Kenai Peninsula, into Kachemak Bay.

There is no shortage of bars in the town of Homer, but locals prefer driving all the way to the Spit and into Homer Boat Harbor, just to visit the peculiar Salty Dawg. Some of the patrons who visit the bar don’t even drink alcohol, but the place is so famous for its money plastered interior that many tourists just stop by to see it for themselves.

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Most of the 200-odd residents of the Alaskan town of Whittier all live in the same 14-story condominium – Begich Towers – located on the edge of town. The former Army barracks is often described as a ‘vertical town’ with walls so thin that keeping secrets is simply out of the question.

Apart from residential apartments, the one-of-a-kind settlement also houses a police station, a health clinic, a convenience store, a laundromat, and a church in the basement. It really is inconceivable how missionaries, bartenders, city council members, policemen, and even drug dealers can co-exist in the same building, share the same facilities, and ride in the same elevator.

As eccentric as this living arrangement sounds, it really does seem to work out for the residents of Whittier, mainly because of its size and the weather conditions. The town is rather inaccessible – you can only get there by sea, or take a long, one-lane tunnel through the mountains, which only runs one way at any given time. At night, the tunnel is closed completely.

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