Seldovia: The Boardwalk Town the Highway Killed Before the Earthquake Could

This is the only episode of Drive-Thru Towns where you actually cannot drive through the town. There is no road to Seldovia. To get here, you have to cross Kachemak Bay by boat or drop out of the sky by floatplane, arriving in a community that has been defined by its isolation since 1787.

In this episode, host Andrew Wilcox explores the "herring bay" that was once the bustling commercial heart of the region. We tell the story of the lost Seldovia boardwalk—a wooden main street suspended above the tides—and how it was "killed" twice: first by the arrival of the Sterling Highway in neighboring Homer, and finally by the catastrophic 1964 Good Friday Earthquake.

We also look at how Seldovia lives on in the popular imagination as the fictional town of "Kaneq" in Kristin Hannah’s The Great Alone, and why the real-life residents still choose the "island that isn't an island" long after the herring and the original boardwalk have vanished.

If you enjoyed this journey to a town beyond the pavement, please follow the show on Spotify to catch our next stop.

• Instagram: @50statefamily

• LinkedIn: Andrew Wilcox

• Email: wilcoxlegal@gmail.com

• Host: Andrew Wilcox

• Theme Music: A special thanks to Chloe Jones for the fluid, atmospheric score. Hear more of her work at chloejonesmusic.co.uk.

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