Alaska

Deep Arctic

Barrow, Alaska. The coolest town in the United States. Literally. Nothing will prepare you for the culture shock that Barrow is - thousands of years of tradition colliding with the modern U.S. government system. As our Alaska Airlines plane circled around for landing, we were all treated to the icy vista of the Arctic Ocean below. In July. As we stepped out of the plane, we were taken aback by a gust of 40-degree air blowing from the tundra. After all, it was 85 degrees in Fairbanks - just 90 minutes ago.

Barrow is not a destination for major tour companies operating in Alaska - it’s mostly for  adventurous souls and small groups/couples traveling on their own.

You might think that this place would at least be somehow similar to the other cities, such as Anchorage or Fairbanks - but it’s not. It looks more like the sci-fi settler colony LV-426 in James Cameron’s “Aliens”.

Harsh, cold, winterized, disorienting. There are no paved roads, since they are all covered in snow and ice for most of the year anyway.  The roads are covered in mud during the summer when it rains, or host tons of dust when it’s dry. Don’t count on strolling around and just happening upon a Starbucks - not that kind of place. Built for survival and not luxury, things are better than in 1972, however. There is a sewer system, running water, cable TV and “internets” - all the conveniences that most people are used to, albeit in the surreal context of the Arctic Ocean.

So how is it seeing the sun not go down at midnight? It’s weird. My hotel room in particular was facing west, which meant  the sun was bursting through the window in the middle of the night. But, what, you say - didn’t the window have blinds? Well, yeah, but it looked like someone had used them for target practice with an AK-47 - the thing was full of holes.

It was a clear and sunny night when I arrived in Barrow. The first thing I did was grab my camera and hit the streets. This town is a photographer’s paradise. Tons of junk everywhere, cast in gentle sunset light.

While the coveted yellow light usually lasts only a few minutes everywhere else on the planet, here in the Arctic Circle it lasts for hours, which makes taking pictures a pure thrill. That, of course, if the night is sunny, which the next one wasn’t.

I woke up to dense fog the next morning, and it refused to go away. But, it was 4th of July, so I had to “document” it. How is it celebrated in the Arctic anyway?

The locals line up the city’s emergency vehicles, as well as many cars supplied by local businesses. The cars put on everything that can make noise or blink, and the column moves through town. Children greet the column with plastic bags, which baffles visitors a bit. The plastic bags are for candy, and it is hurled out of cars and onto the streets. After the whole thing is over, the roads are still covered in candy that nobody wants anymore.

Since my time in Barrow was very limited, I decided to not let the rest of the day go by, so I treked along one of the roads leading out of town, into the arctic tundra. To my surprise, the fog turned out to be a shoreline phenomenon, which dissipated right outside of town. Here in the tundra, it was frigid and clear. Great success!

There are no trees in the tundra, so migrating birds have no choice but to nest on the ground. This makes it a bird-watcher’s heaven. A lot of birds have a special tactic against arctic foxes, where they will fly out of their nests and make it look like they are nesting somewhere else. Foxes usually buy that. Some birds get fairly aggressive and do consecutive air raids right over your head. This is the time to keep your camera ready and in-focus:

“Stay off my property”

One thing that was a bit disappointing about the tundra was the extent of litter over it, right outside of town at least. Perhaps not as obvious during winter, but once the snow melts, it looks more like a landfill. Well, it’s definitely not “pristine”. Not littering is not encouraged, let alone enforced. This upsets the bird-watchers who come here, since shiny carton boxes far away beg for some attention along with the birds. Even the town itself is a place of abandoned junk throughout. No one cares to clean it up, so the city offers free cleanups.

The fog refused to go away on my second day in Barrow as well, so I just ended up walking around town with my camera (still, a lot of fun).

Most houses in Barrow are fairly small light wooden boxes. Some even have sleds underneath, so they can be moved from place to place during winter. The founding permafrost makes construction here extremely difficult. There are only a few buildings in Barrow that stand out because of that: the high school complex is massive, the glass-and-metal Wells Fargo looks like it was airlifted from Seattle and just plonked where it could. Or maybe that’s what happened.  Construction of the Alaska Airlines terminal was an award-winning engineering feat - the building had to be assembled and shipped in pieces. The two-months-a-year construction window didn’t help much either.

A large portion of Barrow’s population depends on subsistence hunting, at sea or inland. It’s common for many households to own a snowmobile and an ATV, which are ideal for winters and summers, respectively.

Hunters generally hop on a snowmobile and depart the settlement in winter, but what happens if the machine stalls, and it’s 20 below with 20-knot winds? Search and rescue is a big part of life here. It’s very easy to get in trouble, especially for visitors who don’t take this harsh place seriously. The local Search & Rescue greets you with their smug slogan: “Search & Rescue - We Don’t Want Your Business.”

Indeed, just eyeballing the rescue missions for the last few months, Barrow graces the list pretty much every month. Not to mention the State of Alaska in general.

A personal locator beacon is a must-have little gadget for anyone on the North Slope - if you get stuck far away from town - a few satellites up above are the only ones listening.

Personal Locator Beacon - “Come with me if you want to live”

As a curious fact: the predecessor to current PLB’s originated here, in Alaska, after a plane carrying two Congressman  crashed on its way to Juneau in 1972. It triggered one of the largest search and rescue operations in history, unsuccessfully. The current generation of PLB’s are a fairly recent invention, and can/should be owned by anyone in the lower 48 who has a thing for wilderness. The system was first tested in Alaska and went into “wide release” in 1990’s for the rest us.

My stay in Barrow was over. As a usual occurrence, our plane was delayed on the way out because of bad weather, but not enough to make me miss my connection to Juneau in Anchorage. As our flight approached Anchorage, the Alaska Airlines 747 descended and corrected its course a bit. And then, in a spectacular fashion, the plane flew right over the highest peak in North America - the summit of Mt. Denali.

The Interior and Fairbanks

In Talkeetna, I boarded an Alaska Railroad train for the second leg of my trip – on to Fairbanks, past the Denali National Park. The trip from Talkeetna takes 8 hours, through increasingly sub-arctic vegetation, and the Alaska Range gracing the windows of passenger cars.

Traveling along the rail road can give you the false impression that people live everywhere in the interior - the immediate area seen from the train is often sprinkled with small towns and occasional lonely houses. Don’t be fooled, though - it’s only because the railroad is here, and the only highway around runs nearby as well. Very few people want to intentionally cut themselves from any lines to civilization. Beyond the railroad, it’s Nothingness.

Stay in these Denali Park lodges and pay through the nose

The noisy families got off in Denali National Park, and the quieter and more mature audiences continued on north, in an almost empty train:

Mnt. Denali can be seen about 20% of the year. This was one of the 20 percent. The entire trip was blessed with the weather that was actually getting better. It got so much better, in fact, that we could see the massive mountain all the way near Fairbanks. Indeed, on a good day, the highest peak in North America can be seen from hundreds of miles away.

When it comes to traveling Alaska Railroad, you can spend more money riding Gold Star class (equivalent to First Class), but I found coach perfectly acceptable. Perhaps because with very few people, I could move around, sit wherever I wanted to, get the best seat in the dome car, or stand in between the cars and take in the views. There is a snack car and a restaurant on-board, and since I pretty much lived on this train for one day, I got both lunch and dinner there. For me, of course, traveling the rail was a means to an end – I needed to get to the next major airport.

Gold Star has its perks - a better food menu, and everyone gets their own glass dome window. Gold Star cars also have open-air balconies on the upper level. All this comes at a co$t.

Fairbanks - outskirts of the Arctic Cirlce. July 2nd. 9PM. Hot as a crotch. It’s bad enough that the sun does not even think of going down this late in the evening, it is actually clear, dry and hot, pushing the day’s temperature to 80F. Well, dragon poop, I am not traveling into the Arctic for *this* crap! This is not a fluke of weather. Fairbanks is in the part of the interior that experiences some of the most extreme temperature fluctuations on Earth. It can hit -60F in winter, and +90F in summer – a 150 degree difference.

The owner of the place where I was staying before my flight to Barrow picked me up at the rail depot. She told me - as she was turning the AC on in her car - “this is why I live here, it gets so hot that you forget about the cold winter.” Ironically, the only time I had to wear my short-sleeved t-shirt is in the Arctic.

Fairbanks is a very modern college town, with some of the most advanced scientific research taking place at the local University of Alaska campus (UAF). I had a full day ahead of me, trying to see the campus, get back to the hotel, get to the airport, go through the always fun airport nonsense, fly to Barrow, get to the hotel in Barrow, and finally find something to eat in Barrow.

One thing that I hate when traveling to new places is arriving there in total darkness. It’s totally disorienting – you just don’t know where the heck you are and what’s around you until the next morning. No such problem in Alaska this time of year. You look at the watch and think – “Oh, it’s 8PM. The sunset is at around 12AM. I got time before it, well, doesn’t get dark anyway.”

Falling asleep in Fairbanks near a major road is nearly impossible – students with their motorcycles and souped up cars raise hell into the late hours of the night, where “night” is a relative term. The fact that it was bright out well after midnight didn’t help either. I was glad I had to put up with this for just one night, and I was sufficiently tired by the 8-hour rail trip to get some shuteye.

Fairbanks - spread out and hot

I woke up the next morning to my first of the three days and nights that would never see the sun go down. The concept of “night” was now completely gone. Night is the new day. The next “day” was even hotter in Fairbanks, with temperatures crossing 85 degrees. Fairbanks, with its surrounding green-ish hills, and dry hot weather, sometimes just feels like LA. Including the kind of a bus system:

You don’t want me to ride the bus. I get it.

After walking a few long blocks under the scorching sun, trying to find a bus stop, and then figuring out the bus system with the barely readable schedule, I decided I was not going to put up with 45 minute to 1 hour service gaps, so I grabbed a cab to the University campus.

Foreground - Geophysical Institute (research of Aurora Borealis, permafrost, etc). Background - Arctic Research Center (climate change research)

Since the campus is a spit away from the Arctic Circle line, it’s a place of fascinating studies of everything Arctic - Aurora Borealis, animals and plants in the Arctic, housing design in extreme cold, geophysics, health in the Arctic, and climate change. The latter has its own building which is only a few years old (built by U.S. and Japan in 1999, it’s the International Arctic Research Center).

From the elevation that the campus is on, I could see the Alaska Range and mount Denali, incredibly enough:

Denali is to to left (and seen much better in real life, even from 200 miles away)

Fairbanks is known as the “Gateway to the Arctic”. But I didn’t want the gate. Open the gate, yo. I want to go the Arctic. I wanted to go to a place where there is only one weather forecast – cold as a bastard. Thanks to Alaska Airlines mileage plan, my trip to Barrow was on the house….

Talkeetna

I boarded an Alaska Railroad train to the own of Talkeetna, which is about 4 hours away from the Denali National Park entrance.

Why Talkeetna and not Denali?

Denali is a fully booked and overpriced destination. It’s possible to camp out in the park itself, but I am not a camper, I am alone, and I don’t own or want to haul any camping gear. Color me lazy. Prices for the lodges there are i.n.s.a.n.e, and nothing was available one month in advance anyway.

Talkeetna, on the other hand, borders the park itself, with its airport serving the Denali base camp, for the few who are crazy enough to climb it. Staying here is multiple times cheaper compared to Denali, with great glacier landing flights and boat tours, weather permitting.  I was able to rent a whole house, with four bedrooms, for an average price of a motel.

My Talkeetna digs

Talkeetna is a tiny town, with only a few hundred people living here (and less in winter). This place almost forces you to ignore any schedules or plans – it’s just that laid back. Most roads are unpaved, which locals prowl in their “Arctic Cat” alternate terrain vehicles.

There is one store that’s kind of a grocery store, but that does not mean there is a lack of places to get food at. In fact, almost every joint along Main Street is some kind of a food establishment, with some open until midnight. At the end of June, that’s approximately the sunset time. Princess Tours has a lodge near Talkeetna, so there is no lack of cruise ship tourists in this town either.

This is also a prime spot for Mount McKinley viewing, which I will refer to by its real name - Denali (official name in Alaska). I actually did not know this - that there are some beautiful viewing spots right near the town. In Denali National Park, there are only a few places from which you can see the mountain, if it’s not obscured by clouds, which is 75% of the time. I also didn’t know that I was going to see Mount Denali in more spectacular ways, without even expecting it…

While my arrival date did not see a lot of promising weather, the next morning was gorgeous, so I booked a Talkeetna Air Taxi glacier landing flight right away.

The weather here changes in an instant. I’ve heard of how unpredictable the Denali area weather is, but now I know first hand. Even IF you are in Talkeetna, and you book a flight two hours in advance, you can’t expect the weather to stay the same for more than that. Clouds or overcast seem to come in and out every time you look out the window.

Glacier landings, and extreme altitude rescues were pioneered here – in Talkeetna – by Don Sheldon, who started Talkeetna Air Service. Thanks to him, we can all experience a glacier landing, and Denali climbers can be actually flown to the base camp, instead of spending weeks hauling gear to it. Everyone here knows who Don Sheldon is. The town of Talkeetna may still exist because of him.

The airport is a 10-15 minute walk from downtown. I strolled over, signed in, and went to the waiting deck behind the front office. Here you can choose a pair of snow shoes to pull over you boots, and wait for your friendly pilot to pick you up. Our friendly pilot was Tom, who gave us the mandatory safety lecture and packed us into the small DeHavilland Beaver plane.

On the 2+ hour flight, you first fly over some remote cabins, surrounded by intensely lush green terrain, with alpine lakes, and an occasional moose on the loose, grazing down below. Then, the flight crosses into Denali National Park, and now you are in for some of the most incredible Nordic views in the world. Gigantic glaciers with enormous crevasses, or some of the highest peaks and deepest gorges in North America.  On this particular day, we were incredibly lucky to see the actual summit of Denali. Any day that you can see the Mountain is a good day.

Not every flight is a glacier landing flight, since the weather can change before the plane can even get there. We were very lucky however, yet again. The landing site was where Don Sheldon used to land all the time. He built a cabin for himself nearby (you can clearly see it before the landing), which is available for rent for almost free, but you need to arrange delivery of all supplies by plane – no fresh towels or room service there.

It was actually hot on the glacier surface. Why. Why. First of all, the surrounding range completely shielded this area off from any kind of wind, so it was very calm. Secondly, the snow reflects most of the sun rays hitting it, so you are basically standing on a mirror, with heat coming from above and below you. Therefore, if you are dressed up for winter - hot. See?

Before we left the glacier, we did the mandatory Stupid Glacier Trick, where we would all let out a short loud holler and listen to the multiple echoes bouncing in the Alaska Range….

We landed back in Talkeetna, and I spent the next day very busy doing nothing, enjoying the second straight day of great weather, eating and sipping on beer at the local open-air joints.

It’s 11:20 pm - try falling asleep like that

Next: I spend two days traveling deep into the Arctic Circle.