Valdez

History

The port of Valdez was named in 1790 by the Spanish explorer Salvador Fidalgo after the Spanish naval officer Antonio Valdés y Fernández Bazán. In 1790, within the framework of the expeditions of Spain in the Pacific Northwest, under the direction of Juan Vicente de Güemes, 2nd Count of Revillagigedo, then viceroy of New Spain, Salvador Fidalgo was sent to San Lorenzo de Nootka where they founded the Fort of Saint Michael (Nutka). On May 5, 1790, Fidalgo sailed with the San Carlos de Nutka towards Prince William Sound and Cook Inlet, off the coast of Alaska. A few weeks later, he anchored off present-day Cordova, Alaska. The expedition found no signs of a Russian presence and traded with natives in the area. On June 3 they disembarked on the coast of present-day Orca Inlet. In a solemn ceremony, Fidalgo erected a large wooden cross and reaffirmed Spanish sovereignty over the territory, naming it "Puerto Córdova." Fidalgo continued along the Alaskan coast, until he reached Point Gravina on June 10, where he celebrated another act of reaffirmation of Spanish sovereignty. On June 15, they discovered a port, which they named Puerto Valdés, in honor of Antonio Valdés y Fernández Bazán, then "Secretary of State of the Universal Office of the Navy and the Indies", a position equivalent to Minister for the affairs of the Spanish Navy and the four Spanish Viceroyalties of the Americas, including the Captaincy General of the Philippines. In the 1790s Nootka Conventions, which followed the Nootka crisis, Spain granted Great Britain access rights to the Pacific Northwest. It did not establish the boundary with Spanish California, nor did it cede Spanish rights in the area. In 1819, Spain relinquished any remaining claim to territory north of the 42nd parallel to the United…

Geography

Valdez is located at . According to the United States Census Bureau, Valdez has a total area of , of which is land. , comprising 19.88%, is water. Valdez is located near the head of a deep fjord in the Prince William Sound in Alaska. It is surrounded by the Chugach Mountains, which are heavily glaciated. Nearby Shoup Glacier, which feeds Shoup Bay, served as a source of ice for residents of the town at the turn of the 20th century. Valdez is the northernmost port in North America that is ice-free year-round. The northernmost point of the coastal Pacific temperate rain forest is in Valdez, on Blueberry Hill. The only road access is via the Richardson Highway, which traverses Thompson Pass and Keystone Canyon to end at Valdez. Despite the presence of temperate rainforest, Valdez under the Köppen climate classification has a subarctic climate (Dfc): its winters, though much warmer than most climates of this type, are not sufficiently mild, as those of, say, Ketchikan, Kodiak, or even nearby Cordova are, to fit into the oceanic or subpolar oceanic climate category. According to the Weather Channel and NOAA, Valdez is the snowiest city in the United States, with an average of over per year. There have been more than of snow in five separate months (not all in the same year).

Race & ethnicity

Most-observed species

• Bald Eagle

  Haliaeetus leucocephalus (Linnaeus, 1766) · Aves
  582
• American Crow

  Corvus brachyrhynchos C.L.Brehm, 1822 · Aves
  517
• Glaucous-winged Gull

  Larus glaucescens J.F.Naumann, 1840 · Aves
  389
• Short-billed Gull

  Larus brachyrhynchus Richardson, 1831 · Aves
  361
• Black-legged Kittiwake

  Rissa tridactyla (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  359
• Arctic Tern

  Sterna paradisaea Pontoppidan, 1763 · Aves
  283
• Black Oystercatcher

  Haematopus bachmani Audubon, 1838 · Aves
  227
• Common Raven

  Corvus corax Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  198

Most recent

• M 2.7 — 2026-09-24
  35 km N of Valdez, Alaska
• M 2.7 — 2026-09-16
  43 km S of Glacier View, Alaska
• M 2.5 — 2026-09-16
  46 km NNW of Valdez, Alaska
• M 3.5 — 2026-09-12
  21 km NE of Valdez, Alaska
• M 2.8 — 2026-09-09
  16 km SSE of Kenny Lake, Alaska
• M 2.8 — 2026-09-07
  46 km N of Valdez, Alaska