What's Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's hometown like?

Were you surprised at the choice of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as John McCain’s presumptive running mate on the GOP ticket? Some in Wasilla, her hometown where she served as mayor, had an inkling.

“Rumors were floating around that she was getting vetted, and she’s a very attractive candidate,” said Casey Reynolds, the former economic development planner for the town of about 6,800 people who was helping handle the flood of phone calls coming into City Hall.

So what’s there to see and do in Wasilla, a 45-minute drive from Anchorage? The city this week launched a new website in time for its political close-up.

Well, the City Hall looks more like a big comfy home than a drab municipal building (of course, it’s pictured in summer).

But the town’s real claim to fame is being the historic headquarters of the annual Iditerod dog-sled race, whose start of the 1,150-mile route moved about 60 miles north when the town grew, Reynolds said. This log cabin-style structure is full of memorabilia and souvenirs of the race.

At Hatcher Pass in the Talkeetna Mountains, you can hike in summer and snowboard in winter. There’s also a historic mine here, Independence Mine, which gives a glimpse of what life was like during the Gold Rush era.

I’m sure we’ll hear more about this Alaskan berg as the campaign revs up.
– Mary Forgione, Los Angeles Times staff writer

[Photo: Wasilla, Alaska, from www.cityofwasilla.com]

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This entry was posted on Friday, August 29, 2008 at 11:23 am by Mary Forgione and is filed under Alaska, Celebrity. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.