Once a center of coal mining activity, Chickaloon is today a popular staging area for a variety of outdoor adventures ranging from sport fishing and glacier trekking to whitewater rafting and ice climbing. The turn-around is due to its location; the community of 249 residents at Mile 76 of the Glenn Highway is surrounded by the Talkeetna Mountains and the Chugach Mountains and flanked by the mighty Matanuska River.
Travelers and outdoor enthusiasts pass through Chickaloon on their way to such places as King Mountain State Recreation Site, a popular camping and fishing destination on the banks of the Matanuska River within a mile of the village. Further west is Matanuska Glacier, a 24-mile-long river of ice where outfitters take visitors for treks across the frozen surface or rig them up with crampons and ice axes for an afternoon of ice climbing.
Perhaps the most popular activity in Chickaloon is whitewater rafting on Matanuska River. Guides lead parties of rafters down the river’s famous Lion Head, a stretch of Class III-IV whitewater that often includes a stop to explore the foot of Matanuska Glacier.
Chickaloon is the staging area for a number of outfits that run river rafts, ranging from easy, scenic floats to whitewater adventure. Several companies also provide guided glacier hikes and fishing opportunities abound in the many nearby rivers and lakes.
Originally the area was a center of trade by Athabascan Indians who brought copper, sheep, and goats from the north to swap for salmon, beluga, and fur seals from tribes from the south. In 1898 an army exploration party located a vein of high quality coal near the Chickaloon River. The isolated Chickaloon deposits were not mined until the winter of 1913-1914 when an Alaskan freighter named Jack Dalton used the frozen Matanuska River to haul a shipment of test coal from the area. The next year the U.S. Navy sponsored a coal mining effort in the drainage and as is the case with so many other Alaska mining towns, Chickaloon grew quickly and almost as quickly declined. By 1925, the Navy halted coal mining and in 1958 the area was opened to homesteaders.