The 7 Wonders of Anchorage

People have put such compendiums together for centuries, with a couple of recent examples drawing world attention. But we haven't found one that includes even a single wonder in Anchorage. That's a shocking omission, considering that this city encompasses 2,000 square miles.

Or maybe not. After all, Anchorage may be big (the size of Delaware, give or take a few parking lots), but we're wild, right? Mighty mountains, rivers, glaciers, volcanoes, grizzly bears -- that sort of thing.

The "Seven Wonders" designation traditionally refers to things made by human beings. Herodotus, the Greek historian who came up with the notion, didn't include the Nile in his catalog of wonders; he included the Pyramids.

So we got to thinking: What are the Wonders of Anchorage?

For the sake of convenience, we limited our search to the Bowl -- everything east of Cook Inlet, west of the Chugach front ridges, south of the weigh station on the Glenn Highway and north of the weigh station on the Seward Highway.

Here's what we came up with:

1 The Arctic Valley Star (in season)

Surpassing the puny "Hollywood" sign by an exponential factor, this electric sculpture of 325 50-watt bulbs suspended above the alpine tundra on poles set in concrete fills the area of a football field. Incongruously illuminating an otherwise empty wilderness on the side of Mount Gordon Lyon, the Star brightens spirits each winter, an emblem of hope plainly visible to everyone in the vicinity: citizens, commuters and incoming enemy aircraft.

2 The FedEx Maintenance Hangar

Looming above the flat expanse of Ted Stevens' airport, the eight-story-high jumbo jet barn with a footprint of 80,000 square feet and a volume of 6,583,500 cubic feet -- four times bigger than City Hall -- dominates Postmark Drive and symbolizes, in a suitably enormous way, not just Alaska's marriage to commercial aviation, but Anchorage's big dog status in the field of intercontinental cargo transport. With nearly 6 billion pounds of freight crossing our tarmac every year, we're still the International Air Crossroads of the World. People may not want to come here, but stuff sure does.

3 Chilkoot Charlie's

Though other dens of iniquity have mostly disappeared from Spenard, the most famous bar in a city once renowned for its bar culture continues to thrive. Sawdust floors, no-glass margaritas and loud, rowdy patrons are only part of the lore surrounding this gin joint where they "cheat the other guy and pass the savings on to you." Local do-it-yourselfers are even more impressed by the meticulous replication of the old Bird House saloon, incorporated into the Chilkoot campus, in which no square corner can be detected.

4 The SportsDome at ChangePoint

If Koots recalls the wonder of sins, this church-backed bubble reflects the wonder of virtues -- religious, athletic and entrepreneurial. Looking like a huge, never-melting snow dump, it rivals the view of Mount McKinley as seen from the Minnesota-Raspberry cloverleaf. Just as Denali is the biggest mountain in North America, so the SportsDome is reported to be the largest fully inflatable structure in North America, housing the only 400-meter enclosed track on the continent within its 174,290 square feet (almost four acres). Now if they can just get it open.

5 The Snow-Eating Locomotive

A relic from Alaska's past, now parked at the Potter Section House, this enormous rotary snowplow's mighty metal maw, painted bright red, looks like something from a science fiction movie. It brings to mind mythic blizzards of yore and rugged railroaders struggling against epic cold and avalanches to deliver necessities like grub, gold, mail, medicine and hootch in the first half of the last century. 6 Snowzilla (in season)

While not the world's largest snowman, this home-built titan has become the most famous pile of snow in the world over the past few years. Gawkers and international television crews have clogged the narrow streets of Airport Heights to view the leviathan who displays a personality on a par with his girth. With some neighbors complaining, there's no certainty that this wonder will return; like Frosty, Snowzilla could vanish forever with only the vague promise to "be back again someday." Or a wily promoter might stage a match between the Colossus of Columbine Street and the ferocious Snow-Eating Locomotive (above, No. 5).

7 Um. We're out of ideas

Christmas lights, an inflatable tent, a seedy nightclub, a snowman... None of this is likely to wake Herodotus from the dead.

So help us out, readers. Send your nominations for the city's Seventh Wonder. Remember the rules: it must be in the Anchorage Bowl and it must be built by humans, not a natural phenomenon like moose or mud flats.

CHOOSE: Pick the seventh wonder. Join the discussion, vote on these seven wonders and send photos of your favorite Anchorage wonder.