HOPE, Alaska − Fifty miles from the nearest gas station, where the dirt road dead-ends at the old gold mining claims, bluegrass music drifted into the night.
Dressed in mosquito-net shirts customized with purple fringe, four women performing as the Sitka Roses were singing, plucking banjos and dancing in front of the Seaview Cafe as a small crowd in lawn chairs sipped beers . The seemingly endless sunset gleamed off the snowcapped peaks behind.
“The first time I saw this place I thought it might be the most romantic town in the universe,” said band member Kat Moore, 42, during a break in performances. “It’s just quaint and historic and there’s beautiful mountains all around … and amazing nature everywhere.”
Long past 10 p.m. the sun still hung in the sky. A day after summer solstice, the daylight lasted almost 20 hours. As the twangs and strums from musicians lifted into the sky, visitors rolled into town with campers and pickups, rattling VW buses and Subarus equipped for camping. They swell the town’s official population of 130 people into more than 1,000 on some weekends.