Gakona Lodge & Trading Post: Alaska's Old Roadhouse and Its Pipe-Smoking Ghost

Gakona Lodge & Trading Post stands at Mile 2 of the Tok Cutoff, where the Gakona River meets the Copper River, about four hours’ drive northeast of Anchorage. It grew up around Doyle’s Roadhouse, a 1904 stop on the trails between Valdez, Eagle and Fairbanks, and its main log lodge dates to the late 1920s. The whole complex is on the National Register of Historic Places as the Gakona Historic District, and it bills itself as the oldest continuously operating roadhouse in Alaska.

It is a summer place, open from June 1 to Labor Day, with ten rooms in the lodge, a handful of cabins, the Carriage House Restaurant and the Trapper’s Den tavern. Its ghost stories are quiet ones: footsteps when nobody else is around, and the smell of pipe or tobacco smoke drifting through rooms where no one is smoking. For more road-trip stays, see our guide to haunted hotels in Alaska.

The ghosts of Gakona Lodge

The pipe-smoking prankster of Room 5

The oldest written version of the Gakona ghost comes from the Anchorage Daily News in the mid-1990s, which described the lodge’s resident ghost as a pipe-smoking gentleman prankster who occasionally inhabits Room 5. Guests in that room, and elsewhere in the lodge, have reported the smell of pipe smoke when nobody is smoking, small things moved or out of place, and the feeling of not being alone.

Nobody has put a name to him. A roadhouse that has sheltered miners, trappers, freighters, soldiers and travelers since 1904 has no shortage of candidates, and the lodge’s own history page does not mention a ghost at all.

Footsteps in the lodge

The other common report is footsteps. Guests describe hearing someone walking in the halls or overhead when the rest of the lodge is empty or asleep. The lodge is honest that it has uneven floors and creaky doors, which is part of the charm of a building nearly a century old, so skeptics have an easy answer. Guests who have heard the steps tend to say they sounded like someone in heavy boots.

Tobacco smoke with no smoker

The smell of tobacco is the detail that keeps this story going. People report a sudden waft of pipe or cigarette smoke in a room or hallway, strong enough to look for the source, and then nothing. In a lodge where for decades miners and trappers would have sat by the stove with their pipes, it is easy to see why the story has stuck.

The most haunted rooms and places to look

• Room 5: Where the pipe-smoking gentleman prankster is said to appear.
• The lodge halls: Where guests hear footsteps when nobody is about.
• The Trapper's Den: The 1942 tavern, serving Alaskan beer. A good place to ask the staff for stories.

History of Gakona Lodge & Trading Post

James Doyle homesteaded 160 acres at Gakona in 1902 and in 1904 built a log roadhouse where the Valdez to Eagle and Valdez to Fairbanks trails met. It became an essential stop, with a post office, a stagecoach station and a blacksmith. Three buildings from those years still stand: the ice house, a storage shed and a horse barn from 1910.

In 1906 a new section of the Valdez to Fairbanks trail bypassed Gakona, and traffic dropped. The roadhouse became a trading post for trappers, prospectors and the Ahtna people of the Copper River, and the owners farmed more than 60 acres. In the 1910s and early 1920s it passed through several hands, including the Slate Creek Placer Mining Company.

Norwegian-born Arne Sundt, who managed for the mining company, bought the property around 1926 and, as the highway was rebuilt, put up the two-story log lodge, with nine guest rooms, a bunk room in the attic, a general store and a post office. Sources date it anywhere from 1926 to 1929. He also built a carriage and wagon shop, the owner’s house and two small cabins. In 1942 the Army built a garage for road equipment, and the Trapper’s Den bar opened the same year.

Henra Sundt ran the lodge until 1976, when she sold it to the Strang family. The complex was listed on the National Register of Historic Places as the Gakona Historic District on February 2, 2001, with eleven contributing buildings from 1904 to 1942. The lodge added two new riverside cabins in 2024.

Tips for a haunted stay

• The lodge is only open from June 1 to Labor Day. Book early for the salmon runs.
• Ask for Room 5 when you book, and ask whether it has a private or shared bathroom.
• Look at the rafting or salmon fishing packages on the Gulkana River, which include your room.
• Gakona is about four hours from Anchorage on the Glenn Highway. Fill up with fuel in Glennallen.
• Break the drive with a night at the Historic Anchorage Hotel before or after.

More haunted hotels nearby

• Historic Anchorage Hotel: Alaska’s best-known haunted hotel, about four hours away
• Haunted hotels in Alaska: Every haunted hotel in the state
• Haunted places in Alaska: More of the state’s ghost stories
• Haunted hotels in Alaska

Sources

Facts on this page are checked against the hotel’s own website, historic records and news coverage. Ghost stories are reported as guests, staff and local historians tell them. Read how we rate haunted hotels.

• Gakona Lodge: About
• Wikipedia: Gakona Historic District
• Wikipedia: Gakona, Alaska
• Sketches of Alaska: From Doyle's Roadhouse to Gakona Lodge

Booking links on this page are affiliate links. If you book through them we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.