Reflections on Alaska

Our Alaska Expedition was not one of our usual vacations. We tend to favor cities over parks, older over newer, and food over exercise. But we really wanted to visit Anchorage to see the Roes, Doreen wanted to take a long vacation, and it is always good to get out of Houston in the summer.

So the trip was planned, and was very well enjoyed. The Roes were a joy to visit, the weather cooperated to an extent that we felt very, very, lucky, and we experienced things that we have never seen  before.

There is an old saying about Alaska, usually in reference to the fact that there are many more single men than women in the state: The Odds are Good, but the Goods are Odd.

And you could see that. There is a fiercely independent streak in most "non-expat" Alaskans, or people who have moved up there on their own. They value their ability to carry guns in public, to park where they want to, to "take" their annual moose, to snag their salmon, and to fish for their halibut.

At the same time, they like to cash their annual Permanent Fund checks, take much more money in Federal funds than they pay in taxes, and try to live off public lands as if they were their own. (The Mining Law of 1872 and rules about sustenance livers help)

In places like Talkeetna, where "hippies" showed up in the 60s and have been integrated into the community alongside the outdoorsmen, the fugitives, and the fishermen, you get a good feel that the locals (ALL the locals) are using their unique situation to make money off the tourists (like us). But we felt no resentment from the folks who were taking our money - unlike places such as Colorado where Texans are roundly resented.

Overall, the service industry is in bad shape in Alaska, I believe because there are many options for people to do other kinds of work. That means that in Seward, they don't eat sandwiches "per se", and in Anchorage you can (and do!) wait up to two hours to get a pizza. Granted, a very good pizza (Moose's Tooth) but it is a pizza none the less.

So I would say that this Expedition was a great success. We were never bored, we never wanted to be somewhere else, and in all honesty, we were not ready to come home.

And you can't get a better definition of a good vacation than that.

Ambling around Fairbanks, then back to Anchorage via Denali (and a moose!)

There is a park in downtown Fairbanks called Pioneer Park, formerly known as AlaskaLand. I think they gave up the better name.

It has about 20 little dioramas of old frontier Alaska towns. They are fantastic!

The last one was completed in 2011, as the creator has gone to his great reward. One can only hope that some young Fairbanksian will pick up his X-Acto knife and continue the tradition.

The rest of the park was almost as fantastic.

They moved a bunch of buildings from other parts of Fairbanks. Most of these buildings were no doubt slated for demolition.

You see that little sign on the brown building there?

This is what it says:

A large number of the cabins that were saved had been brothels. Not sure if that is because the city wanted to knock down all the old brothels, there were a lot of old brothels, or in people's minds all old buildings were brothels.

Even this old Alaskan Mining Museum had a plaque on it that said it used to be a brothel.

They also had one of the old paddle wheeler boats that plied the Yukon from the Arctic Ocean all the way to Fairbanks. That, too was fantastic. They were wood fueled, and only stopped in the 1950s. An old open fire high pressure steam engine. (100% Torque at 0 RPM!!!) that was running into the 50s!

On our way back to Anchorage, we stopped again at Denali National Park.

We saw a moose!

and another moose.

and then we saw snow on the mountain. It was the first snow of the year, on August 10th. Looks like a long winter

I love this igloo. It was built as a hotel, but never occupied.

Outside of the National Park, we came across a cute little creek named for Doreen:

 It  was very pretty.

and she is very troublesome.

Next stop, Seattle!

The Arctic Circle

Doreen indulges me.

That is probably no surprise to anyone reading this.

As we (she) were (was) planning this trip, I mentioned that I would like to get north of the Arctic Circle (66° 33' 45.9" North Latitude) for no other reason than I would like to get north of the Arctic Circle. (If we had some ham we could make a ham sandwich if only we had some bread)

So she found an outfit that will fly you into Coldfoot (good name) and then you drive up to Wiseman for a little Arctic Circle Tour.

The company contracted local fliers to get us up there, and they used little Piper Navajos:

They are dual engine planes, but everything felt just a little bit less secure than the K2/Rust operations.

For example, our headsets were only one way:

which meant that the pilot could talk to us, but we couldn't talk to him

He said that if we needed to tell him something, just "pass it up the plane"

Hmmm

There are a lot of private planes in Fairbanks. General Aviation, they call it:

We did fly over our VRBO house as we took off:

There was a lot of smoke because of all the forest fires in Alaska. But you could still see the Yukon River through the haze:

Here we are with our pilot. One of the things that really gave us comfort was the fact that all these Alaskan Bush Pilots had so much experience flying up there. In spite of the fact that this Navajo felt as if it was held together with spit and bailing wire, we believed our pilot, with his years of experience of flying in the Alaskan bush would take care of us.

Until, on our way back to Fairbanks, our pilot (below) mentioned that he is an ex-747 pilot who was forced to retire a couple of years ago, but wasn't done flying. So he moved to Alaska and learned to be a bush pilot. Two years ago. Yipes!

Then, on the way back, they forgot to engage a little slider lock (that looked as if it has been purchased at Home Depot) that kept the door closed.

I latched it.

This is what I think of when I think of an Alaskan Bush Plane:

The Alyeska Pipeline goes right through Cold Foot. Cold Foot is named that because back in the early 20th century, there was a gold find very close to here. about 1,000 miners had stampeded up from Fairbanks to Slate Creek (the town's original name) get their claims in. Winter set in, and they were all trapped in Slate Creek until spring. That spring, 900 of them returned to Fairbanks. They all got cold feet. True story.

This is an example of a typical miner/trapper cabin up in Wiseman (about a half hour drive from Cold Foot.

 When we arrived in Wiseman, we were greeted by Jack Reakoff, a true subsistence liver. There are only 13 permanent residents in Wiseman, and he, his wife, and his three year old baby are three of them. He makes his living by trapping, maybe a little gold panning (but I don't think so) and giving very entertaining talks to tour groups like ours. He moved to Wiseman in 1971 (!) when he was 13 years old. (he is my age) and has been there ever since. Laconic and funny, he had a great talk about the animals, the weather, the Northern Lights, and his life in Wiseman. When Doreen asked him hwo he talked his wife into moved to Wiseman, he just sort of looked down, looked around, and with a shrug implied, "Who wouldn't, if you could be here with me?"

 He takes his moose every year for meat, grows in a little garden, and generally makes a go of it all alone (with his family, of course). Read John McPhee's book Coming Into the Country for insight into this life.

Jack's wife painted this sign, which is, of course, an SP magnet.

There was a lot of old mining equipment on the ground.

That cannon looking thing is a hydraulic mining monitor (or sometimes called a giant) which strips the land of all overburden. A horribly destructive way to collect gold. Gold, which is a mostly useless metal for industrial purposes. Me and Keynes.

This is the Koyukuk River, that runs between Wiseman and Coldfoot.

A long way from Oshkosh.

Cold Foot is sort of depressing

But they do have a Post Office.

We got back to Fairbanks in one piece, and noticed a little airplane graveyard there.

It was a very fun day.

Fairbanks State Fair

Josienne, Jared, and the two nippers drove up to Fairbanks to join us for the weekend.

Luckily for us, the State Fair was on, and within walking distance from the VRBO!

It was Alaska Mining Day at the fair, so we all got hardhats:

 Which we all loved. And Julius wanted to try out the machine guns:

And, of course, the Ferris Wheel. They sort of got stuck on the Ferris Wheel because the carney running the thing didn't know how to make it stop. Jared had to go and find the carney boss to get them off. I love carnivals!

The vegetables were all on parade:

and there was gold panning. I had some color, but not enough to break out the D9

And pigs! (Goats, chickens, geese, and more, too. But for some reason I only have photos of the pigs)

You can see how excited J&J are. This is because this was at the START of the ride, not the END!

Fairbanks

Fairbanks is Alaska's Second City, but by a long shot. Anchorage has about 300,000 folks, Fairbanks about 30,000. It is easy to get around in, and even has two different four lane roads!

A panorama coming into town:

I love antler arches. I believe that the biggest one is the world is in Afton, WY. But you take what you can get

 you can see how excited I am:

Fairbanks was a jumping off point to bring Lend/Lease material to Russia, and they have a monument to that:

and of course, being Alaska, they have CABBAGES BIGGER THAN YOUR HEAD!

I put my hat in it for scale. That is one big cabbage.

Just down the street from the VRBO we rented was Creamer's Field, and old dairy (that was run by a family named Creamer! That is an aptonym if I have ever heard one) that is now a migrating bird refuge.

There were plenty of Sandhill Cranes and Canada Geese when we were there:

As well as a Beaver Lodge:

in a beautiful little pond.

 More on the Roes visit and the State Fair soon!