Haines cruise port guide

Alaska · from AlaskaThings, the offline iPhone guide

Where ships dock

All-aboard is in ship time. Check the daily programme and be back at the gangway 30 minutes early.

Top places near the pier

Walking times come from the app: straight-line distance plus 30% for streets, at an easy 4.5 km/h. Places further than an hour on foot show the distance instead.

1. 

   Fort William H. Seward

   4 min walk · Landmarks & History

   The white clapboard buildings of a 1904 Army post on the hill above the Haines dock — now homes, galleries, a distillery and the Alaska Indian Arts carving center.

2. Hammer Museum

   13 min walk · Museums & Galleries

   Two thousand hammers and the only museum devoted to them, on Main Street in Haines — sincere, strange, and genuinely good.

3. 

   Chilkoot Lake State Recreation Site

   11 mi / 18 km from the pier — taxi or shuttle · Wildlife & Bears

   A glacial lake 10 mi from Haines where bears fish the outlet weir in salmon season — one of the most reliable roadside brown-bear spots in Alaska.

4. 

   Alaska Chilkat Bald Eagle Preserve

   26 mi / 42 km from the pier — taxi or shuttle · Wildlife & Bears

   The Chilkat River flats 20 mi north of Haines where the world's largest gathering of bald eagles happens each autumn — and a few hundred live year-round along the highway.

More places within walking distance

Also in AlaskaThings, from its OpenStreetMap listings.

• Chilkat Bald Eagle Preserve · Parks & Nature · 5 min walk
• Fort Seward · Landmarks & History · 6 min walk
• Tlingit Park · Totems & Native Culture · 8 min walk
• Alaska Baskets · Museums & Galleries · 12 min walk
• Chilkat State Park Battery Point Trailhead · Parks & Nature · 13 min walk
• Ampersand AK · Museums & Galleries · 14 min walk
• Chilkoot State Park · Parks & Nature · 21 min walk

Getting around: what the app tells you

Book direct, not through the ship

The same whale boat, train or floatplane typically costs 30–60% less on the operator's own website than in the ship's excursion catalog. The ship's price buys one thing: the guarantee it will wait. In port towns this small, that's rarely worth the difference.

Check whose clock you're on

Ships often stay on Pacific time while Alaska runs an hour behind. Your phone switches; the ship's clocks don't. Set a manual alarm in ship time for all-aboard.

Ask for the return guarantee

Most Juneau whale-watch and glacier operators, and the White Pass railroad, promise to have you back before all-aboard or cover your way to the next port. If the operator offers it, the ship's markup buys nothing.

The jewelry strip is not local

The same chains fill the storefronts by the dock in every port and pay the cruise lines for the 'recommended store' map. Buy Native art at the heritage centers with the Silver Hand seal, and anything else a block or two back from the pier.

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Other AlaskaThings ports

Ketchikan · Juneau · Skagway · Sitka · Icy Strait Point · Seward · Whittier · Anchorage · Victoria, BC · Wrangell · Petersburg · Valdez · Klawock · Kodiak