Living in Alaska - Life in the Last Frontier

A few days ago, Rod Boyce from the Fairbanks Daily News-miner emailed me, and asked me if I objected to this blog being featured in the newspaper. Of course I didn’t object; in fact I was quite honored to have been asked!

Today, in Section C - the “Our Town Plus” section - there is a photo of me and Sedona (the one that Steve took of us up on Murphy Dome) with an excerpt from my blog. The link to my blog is also included. Since this morning, I’ve been periodically checking the stat reports to see if there’s been an increase in traffic - and there has been.

So, if you came here by way of the News-miner, I’d like to welcome you. I hope you enjoy my writing and photographs, and will continue to stop by. My husband and I are soon approaching our sixth anniversary living in Alaska. While 6 years is only a drop in the bucket when compared to a large majority of the population, I believe that the love we have for Alaska is just as strong.

I have been privileged to meet many wonderful people since our arrival. I have never lived in a more friendly and welcoming community, and this is one of the reasons we decided to make our home here when my husband’s military service was complete.

New readers:
My writing here is about the day to day life of living in Interior Alaska. I don’t profess to be profound in my writing, and I rarely write about anything controversial or political.  There are plenty of writers out there who do a good job of that already. Instead, my focus is on my family (to include my furkids), our travels, local activities and events, and the beauty that surrounds us.

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The wildflowers are starting to bloom all over the state. Along the Richardson Highway, we have sweet pea and lupine growing. I saw goldenrod sprouting on Fort Wainwright yesterday. In my yard, I’ve got high-bush cranberries blooming, as well as one lone salmonberry. I don’t know where that came from, as it’s all by itself - unless I can thank the many birds who visited my yards this spring.

This past week was rather dismal. With overcast skies and morning temps in the low 40s, I felt like we were back in April. I also worried about our new lawn, as there was no germination whatsoever by day 8. However, my wildlflower garden in the rear of the yard had been showing tiny sprigs of green for several days, so that gave me a ray of hope for the rest of the yard.

Yesterday, we were back to sunshine and warm temps (70s), and by yesterday evening, I saw tiny green shoots in parts of the yard! Yes! This morning, there were even more. With 24 hours of daylight, and 21+ hours of sunshine, things grow very quickly here. I’ve often said you can see things grow before your very eyes. It would be a good time to try out some time lapse photography - if I had the equipment to do so.

Here are some photos I took around the outside of our house:

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On Sunday, Lisa and I took another scenic drive. This time our travels took us up the Steese Hwy to Davidson Ditch, and then into the White Mountain Rec Area and Ophir Campground. The drive was spectacular as always, despite partly cloudy skies. In fact, the overcast skies made the colors pop even more vividly. There is so much green now, and we love it!

In the higher elevations along U.S. Creek Road, an abundance of alpine flowers bloomed and waved in the breeze. We saw mountain avens, alp lilies, alpine azalea, and an amazing variety of moss and lichen.  There are several places to stop for scenic views, and one in particular overlooks layers and layers of rolling hills that go off into the distance for as far as the eye can see.

The only blight on the landscape are the large pockets of dead spruce and birch, a result of the 2004 Boundary Fire. The 2004 Alaska fire season was the worst on record in terms of area burned by wildfires. The Boundary Fire destroyed more than 6,600,000 acres, and consisted of approximately 700 different fires.  It was a terrible summer that year.

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