Living in Alaska - Life in the Last Frontier

Now that the weather is beautiful (we saw 40F yesterday!), it’s time to hit the road for some scenic drives and roadtrips.

Last week, I met up with two friends (Erika and Amanda) and we drove down to Nenana. Nenana is 60 miles south of Fairbanks on the Parks Highway.

Information taken from Wikipedia:

Nenana is in the western-most portion of Tanana Athabascan Indian territory. It was first known as Tortella, an interpretation of the Indian word “Toghotthele” (TOG-uh-TEE-lee), which means “mountain that parallels the river.” Early explorers such as Allen, Harper and Bates first entered the Tanana Valley in 1875 and 1885. However, the Tanana people were accustomed to contact with Europeans, due to trading journeys to the Village of Tanana, where Russians bartered Western goods for furs.

The discovery of gold in Fairbanks in 1902 brought intense activity to the region. A trading post/roadhouse was constructed in 1903 to supply river travelers and trade with Indians. St. Mark’s Episcopal mission and school was built a short distance upriver in 1905. Native children from other communities, such as Minto, attended school in Nenana. A post office opened in 1908. In 1915, construction of the Alaska Railroad doubled Nenana’s population. The community incorporated as a city in 1921.

The Railroad Depot was completed in 1923, when President Warren Harding drove the golden spike at the north end of the 700-foot-long Mears Memorial Bridge over the Tanana River. Nenana now had a transportation link to Fairbanks and Seward. According to local records, 5,000 residents lived in Nenana during this time. However, completion of the railroad was followed by an economic slump. The population in 1930 was recorded at 291.

In 1961, Clear Air Force Station was constructed 21 miles southwest, and many civilian contractors commuted from Nenana. A road was constructed south to Clear, but northbound vehicles were ferried across the Tanana River. In 1967 the community was devastated by one of the largest floods ever recorded in the valley. In 1968 a $6 million bridge was completed across the Tanana River, which gave the town a road link to Fairbanks and replaced the river ferry. The George Parks Highway was completed in 1971, and provided a shorter, direct route to Anchorage.

Residents of Nenana sponsor the Nenana Ice Classic, where entrants buy a ticket and pick the date and time to the closest minute in April or May when the winter ice on the Tanana River breaks. This lottery began in 1917 when a group of surveyors working for the Alaska Railroad whiled the time they spent waiting for the river to open and boats with supplies to reach them by forming a betting pool.

Each year a large striped tripod is placed on the frozen river. The winner is whoever comes closest to guessing when the ice beneath it will weaken to the point where it falls through to the water beneath. Interest in the pool continued and spread through Alaska. This lottery has paid out nearly $10 million in prize money, with the winning pool in recent years being near $300,000.

On the way to Nenana, we passed resting moose on two separate occasions. Unfortunately, there wasn’t a safe place to stop and pull over for photos. One moose was still in the same location on the way home several hours later.

Our first stop was at the cemetery just past downtown Nenana. I visited and wrote about this cemetery a couple of years ago, when my friend Lisa and I had visited. Many of the people buried here died during the Spanish Flu pandemic which lasted from 1918-1920. It’s always sad to see grave markers for little children, and there are several. Entire families were wiped out during that flu outbreak.

We drove back to Nenana and drove up and down the narrow streets, looking for interesting things to photograph. It was such a beautiful day. We thought we’d see more people out and about, but it was really quiet in town.

I took the gals to see the railroad bridge. It’s a huge structure standing high over the Tanana River. It spans 700 feet. Down at that end of town, we also came upon the Ramona - my friend Claude’s family barge. Claude was keeping a very interesting blog for some time, in which he shared his stories of life on the barge, but  hasn’t updated in some time. I do hope he will continue some day as his stories are so very interesting and informative. You can read a few stories at his blog. I am looking forward to finally meeting Claude - and his service dog Missy - on Saturday! My friend Kathee and I are driving down to Denali Park and plan to meet up with them at Monderosa on the way home.

We stopped to take some photos of the Tripod on the frozen Tanana River. Whoever guesses the correct date and time of the ice going out will win a nice sum of money! You can buy chances until April 5th. From there we visited St Mark’s Mission (I love this little log church)! Both Erika and Amanda enjoyed checking out the inside of the church with its stained glass windows, carved wood pews, bleached and beaded moosehide altar cloth, and hanging candle chandeliers.

We drove back to Fairbanks and decided to drive up to the top of Murphy Dome since we had some time before Erika had to be home when her kids got out of school. Neither gal had ever been up there. I haven’t been up there since last fall, and I hoped the road was in good shape. It was! In fact, we followed road graders both up and down.

We couldn’t walk very far as there is still quite a bit of snow on the snowmachine/four-wheeler trail. And the views weren’t as clear as they could be, but we could still see the White Mountains off in the distance. I only took a few photos up there.

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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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What a week I’ve had! Busy doesn’t even come close to describing what I’ve been up to. Portrait shoots, dancing (belly dance class has started up again), and the coveted Denali Road Lottery adventure have filled the days since I wrote last.  I’ll start with Denali and work my way back.

My friend Sabrina won the *golden ticket* to drive into Denali this past weekend. Her pass was for Monday, so she and Lori (who went with us) had to take off from work. I’m sure their bosses understood, as the Denali Road Lottery is quite the event for many people. Winning a pass is truly like winning the lottery.

To sum up what the Denali Road Lottery is: Every year during the summer, there is a time period when you can apply to win a pass into the park. This summer, it was the month of June. You have the entire month to apply, and there is an application fee of $10 per chance. There is only one chance per person, but you can apply for everyone in your family (to include kids), as long as you’re willing to part with $10 each.  I only apply for Steve and I, although I have thought about applying for my sons to better my odds of winning.  (Passes are transferable, but not permitted to be sold - however, you will see them advertised on Craigslist and other venues by folks who seem to make a habit out of applying for passes they never intend to use - frustrating!)

Names are pulled (not sure how they do the selecting) - a total of 1600. Four hundred cars a day - for four days (Fri-Mon) are permitted to drive into Denali Park; all the way to the end if they want. This allows you to stop when you want, get out when you want, spend as much time with wildlife as you want, etc. (Of course there are rules about getting too close to the animals, etc).

It’s 85 miles to Wonder Lake, and the road continues another 8-10 miles or so to Kantishna Backcountry Lodge. The lottery is a fantastic opportunity to explore the park at your own pace, and the autumn season is especially nice with the pretty foliage, rutting moose, and hungry bears.

Sabrina spent the night on Sunday, so that we could get up early on Monday morning. We met Lori at Fred Meyer on the north side of town, and then went to Sunrise Bagel for our morning pick-me-up. I estimated we’d be at the park by 8:30am and I was pretty accurate. We had our windshield placard and were on our way into the park quickly.

There was no view of Denali in the first 15 miles. That wasn’t a good sign, as the mountain (when *out*) is visible from about mile 6, and then several other places. So we resigned ourselves to the fact that we wouldn’t be seeing The Great One. Imagine our great surprise when we moved a little deeper into the park and Denali appeared in all her glory (with a few clouds here and there) to greet us! That, alone, made the drive worth it.

The weather, on the other hand, was lovely. While a bit breezy and chilly (40s and 50s), skies moved between partly sunny and mostly sunny throughout the day.

Wildlife spotted included dall sheep, grizzly bears, bull moose, caribou, ground squirrels, snowshoe hares, and a wolf. Photos, however don’t reflect all of these sightings as the wildlife was either at a distance, or moving too fast for us to get our cameras out and focused.  As the driver of the car, I was at a disadvantage. While Sabrina and Lori could bolt out of the car before I was even in Park, I had to worry about safely pulling off the road and then grabbing my camera. If Steve and I win next year, he can drive so I can at least hang out the window for some landscape shots!

I’m not complaining though, as I did manage to grab some good photos, and I thoroughly enjoyed the drive and the beautiful scenery. And just when we thought it was all over… we experienced one of the best sunsets EVER, on our drive back to Fairbanks.

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