An hour’s drive from Anchorage is a Cold War relic buried in the woods. It’s a useful pilgrimage as it lays bare the primal nature of war. Covered in graffiti and riddled with bullet holes, it stands as a monument to an aspect of war we cannot deny: that when we wage war, be it hot or cold, we all lose. And even the mightiest concrete-clad nuclear bunker, though reinforced to survive nuclear blasts, cannot withstand the onslaught of time and generations of keggers and drunken target practice.
Follow signs to S. Knik Goose Bay Road out of Wasilla or put 16000 S Knik Goose Bay Rd, Wasilla, AK 99654 into your GPS. If you do not have a 4×4 or off-road suitable vehicle, park at the airstrip at the end of S. Knik Goose Bay Road and backtrack 500 ft to Cameo Rd. A further quarter mile down this road you will encounter your first bunker. Follow this road further for other bunkers of various sizes in different stages of disrepair.
Construction on eight of these sites began in 1958, this Knik Arm site being the last operational one, finally abandoned in 1979. The radar station and barracks are gone, but the launching pads are still visible, as are the iron tracks the missiles followed out of the bunkers. This missile station stood at high alert for months during the Cuban Missile Crisis, its rockets assembled and trained on the sky. Soldiers of C Battery, 1st Battalion, 43rd Air Defense Artillery, were on high alert.
Come equipped to shoot your own post-apocalyptic zombie movie, you’ll not find a better setting. Wear sturdy boots, as this is an active part spot, with construction debris mixed with broken bottles. The paths in between are like any nature trail. From the airport to the abandoned site is about 2 miles round trip, but it can be driven with a four-wheel-drive vehicle.