DESCRIPTION: Colorful pictorial poster map of Seward, Alaska, drawn by Paul and Sandi Nadon and published by New Sensations in 1985. The sheet presents the harbor town of Seward on Resurrection Bay as a busy cartoon landscape, with streets, businesses, and waterfront activity rendered in bright hand drawn vignettes rather than formal cartography. A large vertical Seward banner along the left margin, smiling sun over the Kenai Mountains, and playful notes in the margins firmly place the map in the late twentieth century tourist boom along the Alaska coast.
Within the town grid the artists label motels, cafes, shops, churches, and civic buildings, while the surrounding hills show wildlife, waterfalls, and campgrounds. The harbor is packed with cruise boats, fishing vessels, sailboats, and float planes coming and going from Resurrection Bay, all keyed to short text panels that highlight local attractions such as the Silver Salmon Derby. A puffin shaped compass rose, orcas, sea otters, and seabirds enliven the water, and humorous scenes on land convey the easygoing character of Seward as a working port and visitor destination.
More than a simple street plan, the poster functions as an illustrated directory of mid-1980s Seward, preserving the look of its downtown businesses, harbor facilities, and tourist culture at a particular moment in time. The map should appeal to collectors of Alaska ephemera, pictorial map posters, and American roadside tourism, it is an engaging wall piece that rewards close inspection, with dozens of local references and comic details scattered across the sheet.
Seward, Alaska was founded in 1903 as the southern terminus of the Alaska Central Railway and quickly developed into one of the most important ice free ports in the state, serving as a primary gateway to the interior long before Anchorage rose to prominence. Named for U.S. Secretary of State William H. Seward, whose 1867 purchase of Alaska opened the region to American settlement, the town prospered through rail construction, fishing, and maritime trade, later becoming a key supply port during World War II. Despite a devastating 1964 earthquake and tsunami that destroyed much of its waterfront, Seward rebuilt and transformed into a center for tourism, outdoor recreation, and marine research, anchored by Resurrection Bay, the Alaska SeaLife Center, and its role as a starting point for travel into Kenai Fjords National Park.
PUBLICATION DATE: 1985
GEOGRAPHIC AREA: United States
BODY OF WATER: Resurrection Bay, Gulf of Alaska
CONDITION: Good.
Glossy finish. Rolled.
COLORING: Process color.
ENGRAVER:
SIZE:
" x
"
ITEM PHYSICAL LOCATION:
PRICE: $325
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