Entry No. 7 — the Anchorage file — filed under: ghost town
Portage Ghost Town (the town the 1964 quake sank)
“dropped 8 to 10 feet in under five minutes”
Once a busy rail-and-road junction, Portage dropped 8 to 10 feet in under five minutes during the 1964 magnitude 9.2 Good Friday earthquake — putting it below high tide. Residents abandoned it rather than rebuild. What's left is a scatter of structural ruins and a drowned 'ghost forest' of salt-killed trees, slowly being reclaimed.
The move: Drive the Seward Highway south, park near the old townsite/ghost forest, and wander the skeletal trees and home-site remains at low tide — a moody, end-of-the-world photo walk with a 9.2-earthquake story behind every ruined foundation.
📍 Before you go Drive the Seward Highway roughly 47 miles south of Anchorage, down the Turnagain Arm corridor toward the Portage Lake and Whittier cutoff. There's no formal townsite sign; watch the flats between the road and the water for the silvery stand of dead trees and pull off at one of the gravel turnouts. Go at low tide if you want to walk among the ruins, and stay near solid ground: Turnagain Arm's glacial-silt mudflats can trap you and the tide returns fast, so don't venture far out. Snow buries most of it in winter, making late spring through fall the practical window. Pair it with the nearby Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center or a run up Portage Glacier Road to the Begich Boggs Visitor Center and Portage Lake.
- 📍 Turnagain Arm (Seward Highway corridor)
- 💸 Free
- ⚡ Up for anything
- 🌗 Outdoors
Plan a visit & invite your people →
Further reading: Wikipedia · thealaskalife.com
last checked: 2026-06-06