North To Alaska

North to Alaska

We’ve decided it is time to tackle that Bucket List.  First on the list is to experience Alaska.  We wanted to see some of the interior and that meant flying onto Anchorage and venturing out from there.  So here is our story:

Our illustrious guide, Tracy Wimmer, was waiting for us at the Marriott hotel in Anchorage. There we met the other thirty-two passengers on this great adventure.  This is the second Insight Tour we have taken, the first was to Italy about eight years ago.    

We climbed aboard our motor coach and spent the first day getting acquainted and doing a bit of sightseeing around Anchorage. Anchorage isn’t a very large town, the population is about 290,000 people.  There are a few large hotels to accommodate the summer tourists, and of course there are small shops with everything Alaska.  You can get rain-deer dogs or plain old beef dogs from the street vender in front of City Hall.  We opted for beef, we aren’t that adventuresome yet.  Monty did have reindeer sausage for breakfast one morning and he announced it was horrible.  

Lake Hood is just outside Anchorage  and we were amazed to see hundreds of small float planes pulled up to the private docks just like boats.  People rent dock space and simply fly into town, and on the water with their float planes, and park.  Each dock space has a bit of grass and we even saw a couple of lawn chairs and a BBQ grill sitting next to the plane.  

There aren’t a lot of roads in Alaska so flying becomes the default mode of transportation.  Oftentimes kids learn to fly before they learn to drive.  Tracy has friends who live about an hour and a half outside of town, instead of driving they simply hop in their plane and make the fifteen  minute trip into town. 

here’s our trip plan

The planes are using floats this time of year but in the winter folks just  pull the planes up out of the water and put skis on them for the winter and land on the frozen lakes and rivers.  This time of year many of the planes had big tundra tires for landing up above tree line.  

The Alaska Native Heritage Center is a beautiful building housing art, artifacts, and demonstrations from the Native American culture.  There were several vendors there selling their handcrafts and we enjoyed walking around the grounds seeing the various displays.  It was encouraging to see so many young people participating in the activities, from native dances to athletic feats of high jumping to tag the goal.   They also acted as docents in the outbuildings to tell stories about the special purpose of each building. We had a special treat when Marge, one of the elders, spent time with us telling about the old ways and many

stories about growing up in the villages. There are 230 remote villages of Native people in Alaska, each speaks a different dialect of their native language. Villages range in size from one hundred to a thousand people.  When school age children were rounded up and sent to government school in the 19th century they were forbidden to speak their native language but they couldn’t speak English either.  They couldn’t communicate with each other  because the dialects were so different.  Little by little they learned from each other and made friends.

Marge, the elder

She told about how the Dine people there in Alaska are associated with the Dine in Northern Arizona.  They speak some of the same language.  We’ll have to investigate that further.  

Marge showed us lovely coats she has  made from rabbit, fox, moose and bear.  These garments are works of art.  She also demonstrated ice cream she made from various berries and yogurt.  The original recipe called or whale blubber and bear fat.  Luckily for us she has adapted the recipe to leave those things out.  

An interesting fact we learned from Marge was when Russia sold Alaska to the United States for seven million dollars, it was with the stipulation that the United States would provide free health care and education to the native people. The United States still does that.  

We drove through the fertile Matanuska Valley to a small farm to see how they raise produce. They have a lot of sunlight with the long days and are very successful growing lovely produce.  They do have a bit of an issue with the moose though.  If they get into the garden they can eat a whole row of carrots in no time at all.  This farm was part of a land grant to the great grandfathers of the family in the 1800’s.  During that time the government enlisted farmers from Wisconsin and Minnesota who were used to dealing with cold weather to come and farm in Alaska.  

We got back on the coach for the drive up to Talkeetna, a small town, just a wide spot in the road actually, but there is a beautiful lodge where we stayed.  The lobby was typical of a mountain lodge with huge timbers and rustic rocking chairs and leather couches.  One distinctly different addition was the glass enclosed eleven foot tall grizzly bear.  This guy was huge.

11 foot tall grizzly

Our room looked out on the snow capped mountains and in the morning when we threw open the curtains, there was Denali in all its glory.  What a magnificent mountain, the sky was cobalt with a few fluffy white clouds and the mountain was there on center stage.  One of the things Alaska tours don’t mention is that only 30 percent of the people who travel to Alaska get to see the mountain.  Most of the time it is shrouded in clouds or fog.  The mountain is so tall it has its own weather system. We consider ourselves very lucky.  Denali is magnificent.  You might know this mountain as, Mt. McKinley named in 1896 for a presidential candidate. But the mountain has always been known to the native people at Denali, it  wasn’t officially changed until 2015.

We didn’t have too much time to bask in the glory though, today was  a full day starting off with a jet boat ride up the river to visit a tracker’s cabin.  The jet boat was bigger than the one we took upriver in Oregon a few years ago.  That one was a sports car of jet boats. This one was more of a passenger jet, it was enclosed with glass and big enough to hold about thirty of us.  

Something that makes these adventures fun is the young people that lead the activities.  Jesse was in charge of driving the boat and Sarah was our guide for what to look for, she spotted the bald eagle before we did and made sure we all got to see it.  When it was time to disembark the boat Sarah put a twelve gauge shotgun across her shoulder and we headed out to see the trapper

Trappers sled

cabin.  That gave us pause for thought,  she didn’t expect to run into anything on the trail since there were quite a few of us inthe group, but better safe than sorry.  The cabin, if you can call it that, was really small and dark with sod on the roof to help

trappers cabin with sod roof

insulate it.  There was a cache about 20 feet in the air where the trapper kept his food, no sense providing lunch for  the bears.  We were amazed as Jesse told us he came to Alaska twenty years ago and staked out a plot of land way up river from where we were stopped.  He built an eight by eight cabin without windows to get him through the first winter and then built a larger cabin with windows for his homestead.  There are few roads in Alaska and he takes a boat  or snowmobile down the river to town, gets in his truck and goes to Anchorage for  groceries.  Gives a whole new meaning to run to the store. We loved this jet boat ride and the tour.

Next on the agenda was a hike, we were a bit skeptical about this activity.  We used to hike a lot but it was fifteen years ago, now we just  saunter over to the park and walk the dog.  But then again, we are only in Alaska once and I thought we ought to give it

Hannah pointing out berries

a try. Hannah was our guide for this hike and she was absolutely delightful.  She had trekking poles for us and off we went into the forest.  We were the old folks on this hike but we kept up and made it back to the van.  

Luckily, Hannah was a naturalist and was eager to show us every berry in the forest.  Thus we got to stop every once in a while.  She was really excited to show us the various berries available for picking.  ‘Hey you gotta try these berries, they taste just like snow peas. Oh, these are great, just like watermelon.  Now look at these, see how they look just like the first ones we saw.  Don’t ever eat these, just seven or eight will kill a grown man. Oh, and don’t ever touch this plant see the tiny barbs, you’ll be picking them out of your skin for days and if the sun shines on your arm where the barbs are it will blister.  Needless to say we listened carefully and decided it was best to keep our hands to ourselves and for goodness sake don’t eat the berries.   

We were surprised there weren’t many mosquitos in the dense vegetation.  Hannah explained if the temps are negative 32 degrees for several weeks in the winter the mosquitos are killed off for the summer.   She said last summer was miserable, it didn’t stay cold enough in the winter and the mosquito population was hungry in the summer.  That summer they also had fifty-two days where no one saw Denali because of the clouds and rain. Timing is everything and apparently our Bucket List trip was pretty good timing.  

Hannah showed us what looked like a path in the forest that she thought was a new side trail.  So last winter she followed it only to discover a young black bear asleep in a hollow tree.  Apparently it is a new bear path, she just backed away quietly.    

When we talked about the negative 32 degrees being something we just can’t fathom she said it wasn’t so bad, she doesn’t have pipes in her house so she doesn’t have to worry about them freezing.  Think that over, she has no running water in her house. I’m thinking taking a hike to the outhouse in the winter in Alaska is definitely not something on our bucket list.  This is not surprising though, we met four or five people who live off the grid and there are hundreds more.   

We left Talkeetna the next morning to board the train to Denali.  The train was very nice and the domed cars felt like open air

Talkeetna Lodge over looking flowers to mountains

without the wind! The dining car was just like the old movies,  with tables set with linen tablecloths and vases of flowers. This was a four hour ride through Denali park to the lodge where we spent two nights. We were definitely spoiled with the Talkeetna lodge, the Denali lodge wasn’t anything special but it is only open for four months out of the year so I guess it is hardly worth investing a lot into it.  The lounge and restaurant were nice and the food was good.  We love National Parks visitors centers and this one lived up to our expectations. 

We had the opportunity to hear from a climber who climbed Denali and wanted to share  his experience with us.  Jimmy Hendrix, no, not the one with the guitar, gave us an emotional talk about The Mountain.  He and a friend climbed it when they were in their early twenties.  What an experience it was, winds up to two hundred miles an hour, and temps that were negative 40 degrees.  A storm that kept them in a small pup tent for seven days while it blew continuously  They built snow walls around the tent to keep it from blowing away.   He told about laying in the tent listening to the avalanches tumbling down the mountain.. Hoping one of them wasn’t going to take out their tent and bury them. It was a grueling three weeks of climbing.  

On the last leg to the summit, it required stopping for two deep breaths, then taking one step forward.  Remember Denali is 20,000 feet tall, not a lot of oxygen up there, and it is only 200 miles from the Arctic circle. It was amazing to hear what they went through to actually make it to the top but more  importantly it was such an emotional experience for him.  He and his buddy are still best friends.  This is another person who lives off the grid out in the outback of Alaska.

Cindy our wilderness guide

We took a twenty mile wilderness bus tour with a lady that you might think of as typical of Alaska.  Cindy was very

Greg and Monty

knowledgeable about Alaska and the flora and fauna.  I can’t even begin to describe how she loved everything about Alaska.  About half way in the trip we stopped and a young man from the Athabaskan tribe got on the bus to share some of his experience living in his remote village.  He was quite a character and very enjoyable.  We noticed that the natives we heard from all used American names, this guy was  Greg, and he referred to his mom and aunts as Mary and Lilly.  The elder in the Heritage center was Marge, I think they do that because it would be too much of a tongue twister for them to try to explain their ‘real’ names to us. 

There was open time for people on our tour group to participate in different activities, one family went Zip lining, another took a fixed wing plane to see Denali up close and personal.  Some others took a helicopter up the mountain and rode on a dog sled. We felt we had plenty to do without the extras so we were good. 

When we left Denali Park we headed over to Girdwood to the Happy Trails Kennel. Martin Buser is one of the most famous Iditarod mushers.  He ran the Iditarod and finished 39 times; winning 4 times.  It was a great visit with a movie about the race and then meeting some of the dogs and of course playing with some puppies.  We had lunch there, no it wasn’t kibble but delicious chicken salad. 

Shawn, also an Iditarod runner showed us all about the dogs and how they dress them to participate in the race.

Each dog has booties to put on every morning and sleeves that slide over their front legs, to keep the snow from balling up on   their legs, plus the harness for pulling and then a coat to keep them warm.  This is no easy task since everything is times sixteen dogs.   Shawn explained the work the musher must do to keep his dogs healthy and in good shape during the race.  They put straw down every night for the dogs to sleep on and also cook them a hot meal every night. 

Martin Buser Monty and Me

The race starts with sixteen dogs, there are no replacements, if a dog is sick or injured that dog rides in the sled until they get to a checkpoint and is removed and sent home.  There are vets at each checkpoint and the musher is required to keep a notebook about the dogs health to make sure the vet  sees to it.  

Race is about 11 days from Anchorage to Nome

Usually a team finishes with ten dogs.  There is not one lead dog but every dog has an opportunity to lead, it  takes a lot of knowledge for the lead dog to recognize the trail markers and to keep everyone running.  He gets a break when they rotate and he just has to pull.

On the coach again we are heading to the Alyeska lodge, a beautiful ski resort.  On the way we passed some huge mud flats, the tide was out and as far as you could see there was just gray sticky looking mud.  Tracy said people are warned not to walk out on the mud flats  but last year a boy went out there and they couldn’t rescue him before the tide came in.  what a tragedy. 

We’ve been looking for wildlife along the way at every stop but I guess it isn’t too likely to spot a moose or bear hanging out on the road or on the train tracks so we haven’t seen anything yet.  All that ended at breakfast when a huge moose came down to drink at the pond in front of the restaurant windows of the lodge.  What a magnificent creature.  Everyone was happy to see

moose stopped for drink

him.  

love this from train

This is another one of those perfect sunny, clear blue sky days.  We were pretty excited about that since it was our last day and we were cruising on a  large catamaran on Prince William Sound to see some of the twenty six glaciers that surround the bay.  It was such a beautiful day we spent a lot of time out on the deck and indeed we heard the glacier snapping and cracking and all of a sudden big pieces of ice fell into the sea.  There were several otters just floating around on their backs enjoying the sunny day and some porpoises that swam along beside the catamaran.  We passed a huge rock with about fifty sea lions lounging around and another ledge that housed hundreds of birds.

one of twenty six glaciers

The catamaran is based in the small town of Whittier.  Whittier is an interesting place for a couple of reasons.  First of all  to get to  Whittier there is a narrow two and a half mile tunnel, the traffic is held one way to wait for the train and then each direction goes in turn. As you approach the tunnel there are cars lined up in both directions waiting for their turn. Secondly everyone who lives in Whittier lives in the same building.  Yep, there is just one large building that looks like a high school and everyone lives in that facility.  

We made it through the tunnel in time but did stop to see a bear catching fish along the Sound.  He wasn’t a very big bear but there was a lot of excitement on the coach. 

 It was indeed a  wonderful way to end this Alaskan trip.     

Denali

Denali from our window