Portage

Portage is a ghost town situated along Turnagain Arm in Alaska, roughly 47 miles southeast of downtown Anchorage. The 1964 Alaska earthquake proved catastrophic for the settlement: the ground dropped approximately six feet, leaving most of the town below high tide level and rendering it uninhabitable.

What visitors find today is a haunting landscape rather than a townsite. A few ruined building shells survive, and a striking 'ghost forest' of standing dead trees marks where saltwater flooded the root systems and killed the timber. The railroad and road junction that now occupy the area are essentially all that replaced the former community.

Portage rewards photographers and curious travelers drawn to eerie, historically significant scenery, but expectations should be set accordingly — there is no restored townsite, no interpretive main street, only quiet ruins set against a dramatic backdrop.