Opinion: The Scenic View Signs of Scenic Turnagain Arm
By Dave Mc Cabe
Reprinted with permission from “Those Darn Peds”
Living in Anchorage we are mere minutes from one of the most scenic drives in the country. This is the Turnagain Arm portion of the Seward Highway. In a relatively short stretch of road there’s rugged mountains, glaciers, wildlife, and the marvels of one the largest tides on earth. The builders of the highway wanted to celebrate this beauty by adding turnouts so we could take it all in. Road signs were installed to indicate an upcoming scenic view. These signs themselves have become a subject of curiosity and amusement.
A few of the road signs are binoculars but most are simplified images of a camera. Like the largely-forgotten floppy disk representing the “save” function on a computer, the camera is generally recognized as the symbol for “scenic view stop.” The term for this object as a symbol that communicates a message is skeuomorph. Like the floppy disk, the camera is quickly becoming an anachronistic skeuomorph. It works for the time being since what else do we have? A simplified rendering of a cell phone? To many of us, this might just as well communicate dread.
Over the years odd quirks have turned up with these signs related to design, color and placement along this stretch of the Seward Highway. Observing the changes in the signs provides its own entertainment to help pass time on the drive.
We all know the sign for pedestrian crossing--a yellow background with a barrel-chested walking stick figure. Known as the walking man or the ped, this pictogram is mostly universally standardized. In contrast, the rendering of the camera as a scenic view sign has evolved over the years and on the Turnagain Arm section of the Seward Highway there is an interesting diversity of signs on display. Unlike the walking man ped, a standard was never settled on. What we see on the road probably reflects more the piecemeal nature of when the road was last worked on and a little bit of the evolution of the film camera itself.
Let me give a some background on how I became curious about these signs: Growing up as a kid in Anchorage one of my favorite weekend pastimes was to walk downtown and visit Stewart’s Photo Shop on 4th Avenue. Much to the consternation of Mrs. Stewart, I’d hang out at the back counter and gab for hours with the late legendary Bob Amos. (Bob should be remembered for introducing many an Anchorage youngster to photography. He taught photography at area high schools, Kings Lake Fine Arts Camp and in the old Community Schools.) It was thanks to Bob and my photography hobby that led me to notice the odd road signs of cameras while stuck in the car with the family driving to the Kenai on weekends.
This was the late-1970s and it was the golden age of the single lens reflex or SLR camera. Around this time the great Japanese camera brands coalesced their design concept around a largely-similar camera format. They all shared a basic look and profile which included the distinguishing feature of a classic SLR camera: the pyramidal-shaped viewfinder at the top of the camera known as the pentaprism. The Olympus OM-1 may have been at the forefront, but there were other classics: the Nikon FM, the Pentax K1000 and ME, and the Canon’s AE-1.
One interesting quirk of this stretch of highway is that the way these view signs are illustrated changes along the drive. There are three different types of signs:
1. The current sign is an extremely minimalist and drab camera I call the symmetrical SLR.
2. There are others where the camera lens is larger and set off center to the right, the asymmetrical SLR.
3. Finally there is what I call the stylized SLR, with more lines and detail. This last sign is the oldest of the collection. I get the sense that whoever created this last image really had a love of cameras. There’s more detail in the design. The proportions seem to convey that the artist knew what it felt like to hold one.
One interesting detail to this third type is the timer lever to the left of the lens. On the actual camera this was a lever that could be pushed down to set a mechanical timer. Set the camera on a tripod, push the timer lever down, click the shutter release and you have 10 or 15 seconds to run out to put yourself in the shot.
The lost sign: All of the current scenic view camera signs in Turnagain Arm are versions of an SLR. But, up until recently, there used to be a fourth sign based on a completely different type of camera. Sometime in 2021 this older fourth style disappeared. The lone remaining sign was modeled after cameras more common in the 1950s and ‘60s. The sign was a representation of a rangefinder camera. Rangefinders are distinct from SLRs in that the composition and focusing is done through view windows above the lens. The last rangefinder camera sign was on a curve in the road at Indian (mile 103.5). It went extinct when the road was widened. It was replaced with the rather dull symmetrical SLR sign. The old sign always brightened my drive returning to Anchorage. The retro touristy look was probably due to it actually being old, installed before all the others.
But wait! Not all hope is lost. On a recent side trip to Whittier, I discovered two of these older-style vestigial signs near Portage Lake. To an obsessive like myself, it’s almost worth the detour just to see them.
Blue or brown? One odd feature among all of the signs along Turnagain Arm is subtle and easy to miss. At one point the background color of the signs changes from brown to blue. It’s the reverse driving north, changing from blue to brown in the same area. This occurs driving south at mile 95.5 at the straightaway flats toward Girdwood. The signs remain blue for the remainder of the stretch of highway up into Turnagain Pass. What is going on here? What is the secret message?
My best guess is that it is meant to demarcate the boundary between the Chugach State Park and the Chugach National Forest. Brown signs are within State of Alaska land. Blue are federal. The remaining confusion to this explanation is that the National Forest boundary doesn’t start until well past Girdwood at Kern Creek where we are greeted with the classic "Chugach National Forest” sign.
I reached out to employees at the Alaska Department of Transportation about this question and was told that the signs differ based on the agency that requests them. It's not a definite answer but maybe this supports this theory.
Turn. Don't Turn! Driving south from Potter Marsh to just before you head up Turnagain Pass at Ingram Creek, there are a total 17 scenic view signs. Two of them are binoculars, 15 are cameras. Going in the other direction, northbound, there are 20: three binoculars and 17 cameras. The drive is that scenic! It’s a little bit odd that almost all of the pull-outs are on the ocean-side of the road yet there are more signs on the mountain side, inviting you to slow down and execute a potentially risky turn into oncoming traffic.
Two signs seem to really underscore how the old placement along the northbound mountain side of the road might no longer be suited for today’s higher speeds and increased traffic volume. These are both old and weather-beaten “stylized SLR”-types at miles 106 and 108.5. Both are placed just before blind curves where the road is marked with a solid double yellow line. Immediately after rounding the corner you see two large Do Not Turn (left) signs both facing you--one on each side of the road for extra visibility. One might call this strong road sign mixed messaging. This scenario never fails to give ironic amusement on the drive home and it happens not once but twice.
Please, please stop here. Another amusing sign is at the very end of the southbound stretch of the Arm at Ingram Creek. Underneath the camera symbol there is a redundant second arrow directing you to the pullout. It’s almost like the sign desperately wants you to stop since it is the last chance to take in the majesty of Turnagain Arm. Hey, this stop is really good! Here’s an extra arrow just so you don’t miss it. More likely it was a passive aggressive road worker who, in humor or frustration, followed instructions literally and added an additional arrow even though the sign already had one built in.
Next time you drive the Seward Highway remember to not stress the traffic. Enjoy the view and maybe now enjoy the colorful character of the highway’s scenic view signs.
