Although Anchorage sits on the shores of Alaska's Turnagain Arm, everyday life is dominated more by the Chugach Mountains on the horizon and a casual, practical-minded "live and let live" vibe.Once a gritty railroad town centered around Ship Creek, which runs straight through downtown, Anchorage has blossomed into Alaska's closest thing to an urban metropolis. Here, denizens of the downtown business district circulate next to bustling weekend markets and eager attendees line up at the city's three-stage performing arts center, all while recreational fishermen pull salmon out of the water. In Anchorage, Carhartts and jeans hold court right next to evening gowns and tuxedos at the city's finest events.Massive tracts of green space and a hearty trail system make for a seamless transition from Anchorage proper to the Anchorage municipality, or borough (the Alaskan equivalent of a county). All told, the municipality measures over 2,000 square miles — larger than the state of Rhode Island — and contains exactly the sort of glaciers, wilderness, and wildlife that people dream of when they hear the word "Alaska."You could easily spend a week here without running out of things to do; it's so much more than a stopover after a cruise or on your way to Denali National Park.
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