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I have updated my public albums again. Not only have I added Week 6, but I also included The Golden Days Parade in Fairbanks. Hope I'm not overloading you guys...

28 July What is that?

We drove further east on the Edgerton Highway to Chitina and then toward McCarthy. At the end of that road (it really is the end of the road) is a restored copper mine. However, from Chitina to McCarthy (60 miles) the road is gravel and dirt. That is no problem for the Ford 4X4, but the smoke from a fire south of McCarthy definitely was a problem. The best I can relate it to is driving in heavy fog. With other traffic on the road, kicking up dust, and with no guard rails for lateral guidance, I was too busy driving to view any of the scenery that was obscured by the smoke. We turned off onto a side road, drove a couple of miles on a dirt lane and ate lunch beside a large plywood sign that warned of “orcs, goblins and locals”. Lunch consumed, and with visions of Deliverance in my mind, we retraced our path to the gravel road and returned to the campground.

On the way back, we stopped at the Copper River to view some fish wheels in action. Well, not exactly. The wheels were turning, but the salmon are not yet up this far in the river. I stopped to talk to one of the men tending a wheel/trap and he said 40-50 thousand salmon are expected to swim past here in the next twenty-four hours. Interesting as it was, we decided we wouldn't wait for the fish to arrive. My initial impression about the fish wheel was it's likeness to a hoop net – at least in purpose and function, although the hoop net is far less complicated. I asked about that and the reason of the fish wheel instead of hoop net is ridiculously simple. Hoop nets are not legal.

OK. The picture is a field of yak. I don't have any details about them.

Edgerton Hwy

Sunday, 26th July, we departed Eielson AFB, south of Fairbanks, about 0900. This was scheduled to be a short day and it was. The wind was terrible, buffeting the rig whenever we drove through a pass between the mountains. Generally, our route was south along the Tanana River. I have heard much about this river, but, on actually seeing it, I am underwhelmed. It resembles the delta regions we see in our larger Southern rivers, except the water is gray instead of brown. Fallen trees (all of the coniferous variety) litter the river and riverbed. Although the Tanana is in some places nearly a mile wide, when it is this wide, it is quite shallow. When it is narrow, it is a roaring torrent.

As we approached Delta Junction (our destination for the night), we stopped at Rika's, a restored roadhouse from the early days of the Richardson Highway. The Richardson is older than the AlCan; it runs from Valdez to Fairbanks. Rika was a Swedish lady, who ran the roadhouse from the 1920s to late in the 1940s. Her operation was nearly a total self-sustaining enterprise. She raised chickens, goats, sheep, cattle (both steers for beef and cows for milk) and had a huge garden for vegetables. Today, there is a restaurant (it is still a roadhouse), camping and a gift shop. Having already done our gifts-for-grandkids bit, I was a trifle bored with yet another gift shop. Well, this was not your usual gift shop. They had furs. Not the raw furs, dreadfully overpriced and poorly tanned, that we have seen elsewhere. These were finished furs – coats of many different styles, jackets, wraps, hats and boots. Hanging on the wall, somewhat apart from the remainder of the stock, was a Beaver Jacket. It was marked as a Clearance/Sale item. At my urging, Brenda slipped it on. Considering her not overly long proportions, we were surprised that it fit perfectly. I suspect the length of the arms of the jacket made it “unfitting” for most potential customers. That really is the last souvenir we are going to buy.

We drove a few miles further to camp. Bergstad's campground is on the road to Tok. We took a slight detour to get here. The Alaska Camping book said they had full hook ups, but “frequently no one is around to check you in”. I was curious about that...and, no, I wasn't planning on stiffing the management for my camping fee. We pulled into the campground and I found my way to the office. The first door, clearly marked “Office”, led to an enclosed porch with a sign directing me down the hall to a second door. In the hallway was the biggest house cat I have ever seen. He had to be 25 pounds. I did not stop to scratch his ears, just in case he did not like his ears scratched. At the far end of the hall, after knocking and being invited in, I was in the office/kitchen/sitting room/bedroom. A white-haired, elderly lady, seated in an overstuffed chair, greeted me and took my $15 for one night of camping with full hookups. For those of you who don't camp, that is about half-priced. Her companion dog – I think he is an Australian Shepard – never took his eyes off me. He wasn't threatening in any way, but then, neither was I. A bed was off to her left, about six feet from her chair. A small kitchen nook was directly behind her, likewise about 6-8 feet. The area to her right was filled with old magazines, bundles of “stuff”, and various pieces of old furniture stacked willy nilly atop one another. There was no unpleasant odor as one might expect from such a scene. Very curious. You, indeed, do see strange things in the Land of the Midnight Sun.

Leaving Fairbanks

We are heading South in the morning. I don't know when I'll get on the Internet again.

Fairbanks has been a great place to visit. I touched on some things in the previous post. In addition, we have been up close and personal with the famous Alaskan Pipeline. Having actually been in and on the territory through which it was built, makes the engineering even more spectacular. There is a really good "Theme Park" here, called Pioneer Park. It is educational, as well as entertaining. The only amusement ride is a "Choo Choo Train", which we dutifully used to circle the park two times. I did spy a pond with two hen Mallards and offspring. Frankly, I did not immediately recognize the Mallards! The typical blue feathers were not clearly visible, the bill was more grey than yellow, and they were swimming so wing colors were not shown. In defense of my failure to immediately ID them, summer feathers are different from the plumage we see in the winter in Louisiana. I took pictures of them and later was sure of the ID by use of Sibley's book. By the way, Brenda and I have greatly expanded our "bird list" while on this trip. Yesterday, we saw three Varied Thrushes.

North Pole, Alaska, is between Fairbanks and Eielson. We stopped to get the appropriate photographs. In side a gift shop, to get a souvenir Christmas ornament, I even got a picture of Brenda on Santa's lap. The grand kids will be envious.

We are headed for Delta Junction (on the Alaskan Highway), then on toward Valdez via the Richardson Highway, with an intermediate stop on the Edgerton Highway to see a copper mine. We'll be in Valdez by the 30th, at which time I should be able to again connect to the "Net.

Pictures for Week 5

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Tuesday, 21 July, we visited the Museum at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks. Wow! What an impressive display of artifacts! The building itself was impressive from an architectural point of view, but that is another subject matter. The museum displays show Alaska from pre-historic times up to the present petroleum and tourist industries. There were skeletal remains of Mammoths and Mastodons – I had no idea of the difference in size, but look at the lower jaw bones...

By the way, those long curled things in the background are Mastodon ivory.

The hunting, whaling and fishing techniques of the original Alaska inhabitants were well covered. I guess you could call whaling a type of fishing, but it is more like hunting...from a boat. The boats were frames of wood over which animal skins were stretched. Can you imagine going onto the open sea in a seal skin canoe? And, then, chasing after several tons of mammal with the intent of sticking spears into him? Then, waiting around for him to bleed out and die, so you could cut him up? I don't think I am ready to sign up for that adventure. The museum had lots and lots of displays and pictures of whaling, including a video. It was fascinating.
Fishing was a huge part of the subsistence equation. Lots of techniques were displayed, but none showed a proper fly rod, reel or a Caddis fly. These folks fished on a commercial scale. Wooden fish traps – obvious progenitors of the hoop nets seen in Louisiana – were used to capture spawning salmon. The one shown is about 8 feet long.

We spent several hours in the Museum and only left when we were saturated and couldn't absorb any more. One last comment about the museum: There was a special summer display concerning the Polar Bear. Global warming, in the opinion of the curator who set up the photographic display, is endangering the Polar Bear. Also, in his opinion, the warming is the result of humans burning fossil fuels. All the little placards, posted beside the absolutely wonderful photographs of the bears, continued the assault on humans for our wasteful and wanton habits. Being somewhat unrepressed in stating my own opinion on the subject, Brenda, in the interest of proper museum decorum, eventually forbade me from reading any more placards. After I quit reading those silly cards, I really enjoyed looking at the Polar Bear pictures.

We had ripe blueberries at Byers Lake. But, my goodness, they were nothing compared to the raspberries. These fellas came off bushes within 50 feet of our camper. They were bathed in half 'n half and consumed immediately after this picture was taken.

Eielson Air Force Base

On Monday, 20 July, we had a pleasant drive from Tatlanika to Eielson Air Force Base (Fairbanks). When we left the Nenana River, the sky was a full overcast, which cleared as we drove north. However, the overcast was replaced by smoke. There are several fires burning in the area through which we traveled. We didn't actually see any of the fire, but the smoke was impressive. You could smell it inside the truck, even with the windows rolled up.

The devastation of a fire up here is hard to imagine. This land is permafrost. The Spruce trees (dominant species) are root-pruned by the action of the permafrost. They are thin and spindly; not nearly as tall and full as the trees further south. At a traffic turn-out, I was chatting with an Army E-5, touring on his motorcycle, southbound on our highway. He is home on a mid-tour leave from the sandbox. He came to Alaska on orders and liked it so much has re-upped to stay here. He and his wife live in North Pole, Alaska (only a few miles from Eielson). He said he was digging in his yard/garden and the frozen ground was a bit less than two feet from the surface. You can imagine what that does for tree roots. Annual growth is much slower than that to which we are accustomed. Furthermore, the process of decay is much delayed. There are no termites, no ants, and very little fungus activity. Most of the year everything is frozen. Old burn sites are still clearly visible as a burn as much as ten years later! Like I said, it is hard to imagine the devastation.

The FamCamp at Eielson is way below par for FamCamps. They had a flood a year or two ago, and it appears they have not yet put things back in order. The registration office was ruined. Registration now is by means of an “Iron Ranger” – a lock box on an iron post. You are on your honor to fill in the registration data correctly and to pay the proper amount. Some of the interior roads are still closed, which means those campsites are no longer available. Regardless, it is a very pleasant bucolic environment. Brenda found abundant wild raspberry bushes covered with ripe berries. The only problem of significance at the camp is the showers have no hot water! I am too old to need a cold shower. We can, of course, shower in the 5th wheel. But with a six gallon hot water tank, one must be very careful, while showering, about not singing the second verse of any songs. When the hot water runs out, my voice becomes decidedly tenor.