Your hosts are long time Alaskans, Roger & Arlene Cowles.  These two are some of the most adventurous people you'll probably ever meet in your lifetime.  They met in a most unusual place... Utqiagvik formally named Barrow, AK.  About a year later they were married and started a family.  In 1998, Roger took a hike after work and stumbled upon a couple of rundown old gold miner's cabins just off of the Seward Highway.  He noticed a blown down For Sale sign by the fence, and with peaked interest he called the handwritten number.  Learning that this was a budding new business and the cabins had just been listed on the National Register of Historic Places, he put money down on the property that very evening without even consulting his wife!  They were soon the new owners of Indian Valley Mine & Gifts, a National Historic Site.  Roger moved his young family into a one-room dry cabin and began doing what he knows best, building.  Over the next 20 plus years, Roger restored the historic site back to its golden glory and into a thriving tourist business.  Then be began landscaping 11 acres of the original mining claim into a park-like area for special events.  Plus, he finished building a three story log home with the idea of operating a bed & breakfast and the couple did so, successfully for 12 years.  Now they are concentrating their efforts as an Outdoor Tented  Event Venue for weddings and other specialty groups.

Indian Valley Mine & Gifts, Turnagain View Lodge, and the Outdoor Wedding Venue are exclusively owned and operated by the Cowles family.  It's an excellent location for entertaining your lower 48 family & friends that come North to visit Alaska.   Walk around the old gold mining equipment, look in the museum, and get your hands wet learning the techniques of gold panning.

Mile 104 Seward Highway

27301 Seward Highway

Indian, Alaska 99540