Juneau
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40 free Juneau trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Juneau is a state capital like no other: wedged between steep peaks and the sea, cut off from the continent's highways, and bigger on the map than some entire states. It began as a gold camp in 1880 and still wears that history in its street names, mine ruins and saloons. This quiz covers the facts people most often look up about Alaska's capital: how the city got its name, why the seat of government ended up here, the ice and wildlife on its doorstep, the landmarks downtown, and the athletes, actors and activists who called it home. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so you learn the story behind each fact. It suits visitors planning a cruise stop, Alaskans testing their local knowledge, and anyone who enjoys geography and history trivia.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Patsy Ann, a deaf dog who met nearly every ship docking in 1930s Juneau, was which breed?
Bull terrier
Bull terrier Patsy Ann was named Official Greeter of Juneau by the mayor in 1934, and a bronze statue of her now overlooks the arriving cruise ships.
Q 02For April Fools' Day 2016, Juneau was temporarily renamed after which Mattel card game?
UNO
UNO took over the city's name for a day to promote new wild cards, and Mattel donated $15,000 to the Juneau Community Foundation in thanks.
Q 03No road links Juneau to the rest of North America, so how do cars and trucks reach the city?
By ferry or barge
By ferry or barge is the only way to bring a vehicle in, because steep mountains and an icefield the size of Rhode Island block every overland route.
Q 04Which family lost five sons in 1942 when the cruiser USS Juneau was torpedoed off Guadalcanal?
The Sullivans
The Sullivans, five brothers from Waterloo, Iowa, had enlisted on condition that they serve together; 687 men died when the ship went down.
Q 05Which town was Alaska's seat of government until Congress ordered the move to Juneau, completed in 1906?
Sitka
Sitka had faded as the fur trade declined while gold made Juneau boom, so a 1900 federal law told the government to pack up and move.
Q 06Juneau's Alaska State Capitol, opened in 1931 as a federal office building, lacks which statehouse feature?
A dome
A dome was never part of the plan because the building went up as the Federal and Territorial Building, with a courthouse and a post office inside.
Q 07Juneau's city limits cover more area than Rhode Island and which other U.S. state?
Delaware
Delaware would fit inside Juneau's 3,255 square miles, a sprawl created in 1970 when the city merged with neighbouring Douglas and the surrounding borough.
Q 08Juneau's Red Dog Saloon displays a gun said to have been left behind by which lawman bound for Nome?
Wyatt Earp
Wyatt Earp is said to have checked the gun and never claimed it; the saloon, founded in the mining era, is recognised as Juneau's oldest man-made tourist attraction.
Q 09Juneau is the only U.S. state capital that borders another country, meeting which part of Canada?
British Columbia
British Columbia begins at the borough's eastern edge, yet nobody drives there: an icefield separates Juneau from Atlin, the town on the Canadian side.
Q 10Which glacier, about 12 miles from downtown Juneau, shares its name with the valley, lake and river below it?
Mendenhall
Mendenhall Glacier flows about 13 miles down from the Juneau Icefield, and the lake at its foot is young: it formed in the 20th century as the ice melted back.
Q 11Joe Juneau, the gold prospector whose name Alaska's capital carries, came from which Canadian province?
Quebec
Quebec-born Joe Juneau won the naming rights at an 1881 miners' meeting, where his name took 47 of the 72 votes cast.
Q 12Joe Juneau, namesake of Alaska's capital, was a relative of the fur trader who helped found which Midwestern city?
Milwaukee
Milwaukee grew partly from Juneautown, the settlement fur trader Solomon Juneau laid out east of the Milwaukee River before becoming the city's first mayor.
Q 13Which Irish-born prospector struck gold beside Joe Juneau in 1880 and saw the new camp briefly bear his name?
Richard Harris
Richard Harris lost out when the miners voted on a permanent name in 1881: Harrisburg drew only 21 of the 72 votes.
Q 21Which NBA forward and 2008 Olympic gold medallist grew up in Juneau, winning back-to-back state titles there?
Carlos Boozer
Carlos Boozer moved to Juneau from Washington, D.C., as a child and led the Juneau-Douglas Crimson Bears before starring at Duke.
Q 22Which Juneau-born actor played Reggie Mantle in Riverdale before a Golden Globe nomination for May December?
Charles Melton
Charles Melton, born in Juneau in 1991, took over the role in the show's second season and later acted opposite Natalie Portman and Julianne Moore.
Q 23Which Tlingit activist's testimony in Juneau helped pass Alaska's 1945 Anti-Discrimination Act and put her on a $1 coin?
Elizabeth Peratrovich
Q 14Joe Juneau died in 1899 in which Klondike gold rush town, where he owned a small restaurant?
Dawson
Dawson City was the last stop for a man who spent gold as fast as he mined it; his body was brought back and buried in Juneau's Evergreen Cemetery in 1903.
Q 15Juneau lies within which national forest, the largest in the United States at nearly 17 million acres?
Tongass
Tongass National Forest covers most of Southeast Alaska, an area larger than ten U.S. states, and holds Earth's largest remaining temperate rainforest.
Q 16Which narrow waterway separates downtown Juneau from Douglas Island, reached by the Juneau-Douglas Bridge?
Gastineau Channel
Gastineau Channel is slowly filling with glacial silt, so north of the bridge only small craft can get through, and only at high tide.
Q 17Which mountain do visitors ride up on a six-minute aerial tram from Juneau's cruise ship docks?
Mount Roberts
Mount Roberts rises straight from the waterfront, and the tram, running since 1996, lifts riders from just above sea level to about 1,800 feet.
Q 18Which Douglas Island operation near Juneau, once the world's largest hard rock gold mine, caved in during 1917?
Treadwell
Treadwell employed over 2,000 people until seawater leaked into tunnels dug below sea level; the only casualties were a dozen horses and one mule.
Q 19Part of Juneau's borough lies on which island, known to the Tlingit as the Fortress of the Bears?
Admiralty
Admiralty Island holds an estimated 1,600 brown bears, more than the entire lower 48 states, and they outnumber its human residents nearly three to one.
Q 20Alaskans voted in 1976 to move the state capital from Juneau to which small town, then refused to fund it?
Willow
Willow won 53% of that vote, but in 1982 Alaskans balked at a price tag of roughly $2.9 billion and the capital stayed put.
Elizabeth Peratrovich spoke last at the hearing, and the law was signed in February 1945, nearly twenty years before the federal Civil Rights Act.
Q 24Janet Gardner, born in Juneau in 1962, became lead singer of which all-female glam metal band in 1983?
Vixen
Vixen, sometimes called the female Bon Jovi, scored two Top 40 singles between 1988 and 1990 with Gardner out front.
Q 25Celebration, held in Juneau every two years, honours the cultures of the Tlingit, the Tsimshian and which other people?
Haida
Haida, Tlingit and Tsimshian dancers have gathered since 1982 for an event that began as a way to pass cultural knowledge on to children.
Q 26Juneau's Empty Chair Memorial recalls a seat left at a 1942 graduation for an interned student who held which honour?
Valedictorian
Valedictorian John Tanaka was sent away a month before the ceremony, so classmates left a chair empty for him and for the other Japanese families taken from Juneau.
Q 27Juneau's St. Nicholas Church, built in the 1890s for hundreds of Tlingit converts, follows which Christian tradition?
Russian Orthodox
Russian Orthodox worship arrived without Russian colonists, who never settled here: Tlingit leaders arranged for a priest themselves, and about 700 people followed them into the church.
Q 28Which U.S. president, the first to visit Alaska, was hosted at Juneau's Governor's Mansion in 1923?
Warren Harding
Warren Harding was hosted by Scott Bone, a territorial governor he had appointed himself, in a mansion completed just eleven years earlier.
Q 29Which naturalist, a champion of Yosemite, explored near Juneau in 1879 and named a glacier there for the Auk people?
John Muir
John Muir called it Auke Glacier, but the name did not stick: in the 1890s the ice was renamed for the head of the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey.
Q 30Tahku, a life-size bronze sculpture in Juneau with a fountain that mimics streaming water, depicts which animal?
A humpback whale
A humpback whale is shown mid-breach, 25 feet tall and weighing 6.5 tons, and the fountain replays the splash every thirty minutes.