Living in Alaska - Life in the Last Frontier

***Warning: ANOTHER Photo Heavy Blog Post***

When I ended my last entry, France and I were back in Fairbanks, after spending an awesome long weekend in Palmer/Anchorage enjoying the Iditarod festivities. (If you missed that entry, you can find it here)

I am so glad we came home when we did because later that night the snow began falling, and it didn’t let up for some time. I wouldn’t have wanted to drive 300 miles in that mess.

DAY 6: UAF MUSEUM OF THE NORTH

We had an easy morning, and after breakfast, we all went to the museum. I visited last summer, but Steve hasn’t been there in several years. It was a good day for indoor entertainment, as the snow was still falling heavily and the roads were starting to develop some slick spots.

It was quiet at the museum. We spent a little more than an hour there. France found a very nice Native mask in the museum store to take home and add to her collection of artist-made items from her travels around the country and the world.

The snow continued to fall. We came home to what seemed like blizzard conditions. A little while after we got home, we went out with Raven to play in the snow. France decided she wanted to make a snow angel. She discovered that it’s easy to fall back into the snow, and very difficult - if not impossible - to get up again. It exhausted her. It’s a sobering lesson to learn, and she said she can understand how people can just lay down in the middle of winter, go to sleep, and never wake up.

Here’s a short video clip of France’s adventure in snow angel making:

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**WARNING: PHOTO HEAVY**

I have been working on photos pretty much non-stop since France flew home yesterday morning. I can’t believe how many photos I took - more than a THOUSAND! Because I have so many photos, I have to break down the events and activities of her visit into two or more entries. I am not yet through with editing/resizing, so part two might not be for a day or so! Please bear with me!

AURORA WELCOMES FRANCE

When people visit Alaska in winter, one of the most popular things on their wish list is to see the northern lights. I encourage folks to visit in March, as it is not only a good time to see the lights, but is also a month with quite a bit going on activity-wise.

The temperature can vary in March. Over the years, I’ve experienced March temperatures in the 40s (the ice art melted before the festival was over) and temperatures in the -30s (our septic system froze up). While France was here, we saw highs near 30F for the Iditarod Re-Start in Willow, as well as lows at -20F while out photographing the aurora here in North Pole. When packing for a trip to AK in March, it’s layers, layers, layers!

France flew on Leap Day. She arrived after midnight on March 1st. Two hours before we were due to pick her up, the aurora appeared in the sky. I was so excited, and hoped that they would still be dancing overhead when her plane landed. How cool would it be if she saw them from the plane too?! (She didn’t have a window seat, but said that she heard passengers talking about them)

I took these three photos just before we had to go to the airport:

On the way back to our house, we could see the aurora dancing overhead from the truck. As we turned into our neighborhood, Steve turned off his headlights so we could see them more clearly. They were fading by that time, but France was still very excited that they were dancing above - welcoming her to Alaska. We considered going out later to photograph them, but it was very cold, and everyone was tired.

DAY ONE: Creamers Field, Ice Park, Festival of Native Arts

We had a lazy morning, as we had all gone to bed very late. We woke to bright sunshine and gorgeous blue skies, but it was cold at 0F. I took France out for a drive around town, pointing out some of the things I’ve photographed, and local places I’ve blogged about. It was really neat that she recognized them from images I’ve posted here in my blog or online at my Facebook page.

At Creamers Field, there were skijorers using the trails. We took a short walk to the footbridge and then around the farmhouse and barn. By the time we got back to my car, both of us had frozen faces.

Next, we drove over to the Ice Park to buy our season passes. The season pass comes with a commemorative pin and I thought France would like that. We planned to go several times while she was in town, so the season pass was the best deal for us.

The Ice Park moved this year, and I was curious about the new location, and how it would compare to the old park. The new park property is much more open. I’m not sure I like that, personally. At the old park, the multi-block sculptures were built along several treed rows and you walked up and down each row viewing them. The trees helped to block the sun from melting the art too quickly. This year, the multi-block sculptures are backed up against trees on the perimeter of the property. Between each sculpture there are ugly trailers (used to block the sun?). Certainly not the natural beauty of trees. However, since it is the first year, and a new property, they are probably still in the *figuring things out* stage. Hopefully next year they will have a better setup.

The day we went by to pick up our season passes, the multi-block sculptures weren’t even started on yet, and the single block pieces were still under construction. These sculptures are in a pretty treed area at one end of the park. It was like walking through a magic forest, and I really liked that a lot. We stopped to watch the artists work and admired their talent and creativity. I explained to France that the sculptures would be lit up at night with colored lights, and how pretty it is to see them lit that way. We looked forward to coming back with Steve the following weekend.

We had dinner with Steve before he had to go off to work (night shift), and then France and I drove up to UAF for the Festival of Native Arts. We watched several groups dance, listened to the Young Native Fiddlers play, and then wandered the tables admiring native arts and crafts. France bought a small drum head with a painting of an owl on it that she really liked.

When we left the university, I could see a small band of green on the horizon. We were going to go in search of the aurora, but it was a little windy in addition to being cold, and a glass of wine in a warm house sounded much more appealing to both of us. Besides, we had a long drive to Palmer ahead of us on Friday.

I took this photo of France at the children’s part of the Ice Park on Thursday:

Here are more photos I took over the course of our day:

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The aurora has been very active over the last week. So much so that I was burning the candle at both ends. I finally had to just make myself go to bed at a decent hour the last couple of nights to catch up on all the sleep I’ve been losing! But the last few days haven’t only been about the aurora.

Last Thursday, I met up with a friend at Chena Lakes. Linda had some questions about her camera and photographing the aurora, so I helped her with her settings. I had Raven with me and was going to take her for a walk while there, but then I invited Linda to join us for a drive into the park, as it had been quite some time since Linda had been there last.

We drove down to River Park first, and while we were on the access road, I saw Linda stop her truck in my rear view mirror. I turned around and went back to her, to see what she had spotted, and was delighted to discover a cow moose and calf in the birch trees. Good eyes, Linda!

The afternoon sun was low in the sky and the lighting was perfect. The cow and calf spooked when both our vehicles stopped on the road, and they ran deeper into the trees. Before they ran too far off, we both managed to capture photos of them.

The photo below is my favorite image from the moose sighting. Several people have told me it reminds them of a Bev Doolittle painting (particularly her Woodland Encounter piece and her Three More for Breakfast painting), and that was my first thought when I downloaded it too. Of course it’s not really anything like what she has painted, but the combination of the tall birch and the brown of the moose made me think of her art.

Here’s another one I like. You can just barely see the calf standing next to mama, closest to the camera. The calf looks very small, and we were both surprised that s/he survived the winter. I imagine she had a sibling at birth, as most cows give birth to twins.

We drove over to Lake Park to see what was going on over there. The ice shacks are out on the frozen lake, but no one was fishing. I took several frames and merged them into this pano:

We took a quick loop near the beach and then met on top of the levee to take some photos of the Alaska Range as the sun was heading down:

EARLY EVENING AURORA - SATURDAY, February 18

I started seeing folks posting about the aurora being out a little before 7pm on Saturday night. I have only seen the aurora that early once or twice before. The sky wasn’t even dark yet, and was still a rich cobalt blue. I stepped out into my driveway, and gorgeous curtains of chartreuse and pinkish purple were waving in the sky above my house. The colors were so pretty against the blue early evening sky - like something out of an artist’s paint box. I took these a little after 7pm:

I was super excited at the early show and decided to drive over to Nordale Road to claim a spot at the pull out right away. Steve warned me that the traffic over there was going to be very heavy (which means lots of headlights) as it was shift change up at Fort Knox Mine and a lot of employees use Nordale Road if they live in North Pole. He sure was right. I was annoyed by the traffic and lights, but still managed to capture some decent images in the not-yet dark sky.

It didn’t take long before others started showing up at the pull out. Soon, there wasn’t anyplace left to park. It was like a drive-in theater over there. Only instead of a movie, it was a light show from the heavens.

There’s an understood courtesy that many aurora shooters follow. Before you turn into a pull-off, you dim your lights to only your parking lights so you don’t ruin everyone’s photos by lighting up the entire area. Obviously there weren’t too many experienced shooters out there. Everything from high beams to moose lights illuminated the parking area - ruining many an image and causing an audible groan to go up from those of us already set up. It was quite frustrating at times.

However, I didn’t let it ruin my night. The aurora was gorgeous with all shades of purple and pink, and even deep red, mixed in with the green and yellow and bluish-green. I took hundreds of photos.

The highlight of the evening though, was when the Poker Flat Research Range, which is located 30 miles north of Fairbanks, launched a rocket to collect aurora data! So many people saw it, as we were already out photographing the lights. It was so cool!

Here’s the image I caught of the rocket going up. You can see the rocket’s path through the aurora below:

Here are a few of my favorites:

The aurora bands were dancing across the sky when headlights lit up the trees at the edge of the parking area:

I love the red in this one and the way the trees are silhouetted:

You can see three satellites in this photo. At the top there are two (one is bright and to the left of it, is a dimmer one) and there is one at the bottom just to the right of my watermark that is pretty dim) This photo was taken by shooting straight up.

Nature’s Drive-in. Just find a spot and watch the show:

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