The Red Dog Saloon

We had lunch at the Red Dog Saloon. When we were planning the cruise and deciding what excursions to do when we were in port, our focus in Juneau was the Mendenhall Glacier. We overheard a fellow passenger talking about the Red Dog Saloon as we were disembarking. It sounded interesting so we decided to take a look.

Located close to the cruise ship harbour, the Red Dog purports to be from the gold rush era. The inside is decorated in the rustic style, including wagon wheel chandeliers and lots of wood. The waitresses wear red and black, scandalous clothes that would have been their underwear when the Red Dog was serving gold rush clientel. There’s sawdust on the floor and a honkeytonk piano player to entertain.

The menu items were all named after places in Alaska and included a smoked salmon dip (really good) and reindeer sausage (a bit dry). A fun place to have lunch, whether it’s authentic or not!

St Nicholas Russian Orthodox Church

The church is located high on the hill in a residential area. It was under restoration when we were there and wasn’t open, so we could only see the outside. There was a Russian Orthodox Church in Ketchikan too, and it seemed odd that both towns had them. Turns out that many in the native population were converted to the Russian Orthodox faith in the nineteenth century because the services were conducted in their native language, something other faiths refused to do.

Walking back from the church was much easier than going to it, as it was downhill this time. We wandered back to the ship by a different route than the one we’d taken to get to the church, once again passing the shrouded State Capitol and the cute little Art Deco Stewart Building. Finished off the day with some shopping, then back to the ship to cool off in the pool and rest our sore feet!