Things to Do in King Salmon & Naknek

Run jointly by the Park Service, Fish & Wildlife Service, and the two boroughs. Exhibits on wildlife, geology, and 9,000 years of history here, park films, maps, and bear-canister checkout. Free, and walkable from the terminal. Half an hour is plenty.Hours change by season — call 907-246-3305 before you count on it

Free museum in the A.R. Davey general merchandise building, a 1930s false-front boomtown storefront that was once the store, post office, jail, meat shop, and fur trading post all at once. Exhibits on Native heritage and the salmon fishery.Summer hours Wednesday–Saturday, noon to 4. Winter by appointment

A small wooden chapel, built in 1886 and enlarged in 1914, on the first parcel of land ever recorded in Naknek. It's been on the National Register of Historic Places since 1980. You view it from outside — it's a short stop, and it's on my tour.

During the season this is the most alive thing in the borough and it costs nothing. Boats running, tenders loading, canneries going around the clock, setnetters working the beach. Naknek's population of about 600 swells to several thousand when the fish are in.

The first cannery on the Naknek River opened in 1890, and by 1900 there were around a dozen in Bristol Bay. The Diamond NN across the river ran roughly 120 seasons and was once the largest salmon cannery in Alaska, with segregated bunkhouses for Italian, Croatian, Scandinavian, Chinese, Japanese, Filipino, Mexican, and Alaska Native crews. It's private property now with no public access, so you hear the story from the Naknek side.

Fish & Wildlife headquarters for two refuges that run down the peninsula. Staff can talk through wildlife viewing and access. The refuges themselves are floatplane country, not a drive.

The bears on the falls that everyone has seen a picture of. Katmai holds about 2,200 brown bears and charges no entrance fee. July puts the most bears on the river; September bears are fatter and calmer on spawned-out salmon. Full-service season at Brooks Camp runs June 1 to September 17.

There's no road. A floatplane from King Salmon takes about 25 minutes. The water taxi is the cheaper way: a van from King Salmon to the Lake Camp boat launch, then about 45 minutes across Naknek Lake, $205 one way. Either way it's your whole day.

Fish and Game calls the Naknek the most heavily fished sport river in southwest Alaska. Kings run early June through July, sockeye peak around the Fourth of July, silvers are best in the first three weeks of August, and rainbows run big year-round. Rainbow trout are catch-and-release June 8 through October 31. Most of it needs a boat, so book a guide.

Katmai allows picking berries for your own use, no permit needed. Late summer into fall is the window. Ask a local where to go — everyone has a spot and most will tell you a version of the truth.

June 21 gives King Salmon about 18 and a half hours of daylight, and mid-July still runs over 17. An evening tour is in full daylight, and you can fish until you can't stand up.

Not in June or July — the sky never gets dark enough. Aurora season starts in late August, and the usual window is about 11 at night to 1 in the morning. That's the same stretch when the bears are at their fattest, which makes the end of the season the underrated half.

Four days of parade, salmon filleting contest, fish fry, fun run, and bazaar. It's been running for four decades and it's the best weekend of the summer to see the town as itself.

Fireworks, picnics, and a parade, in the middle of the busiest fishing weeks of the year.