Read Part 2 here: http://mindmorphemes.blogspot.com/2013/01/a-week-of-no-nights-part-2.html. :-)
Arrival at Fairbanks
We had a lovely drive from Denali to Fairbanks. The farther north you go in the summer, the closer you get to direct sunlight and so, our drive was sunny and bright, and the roads broad and scenic.
Once we reached Fairbanks and checked into our hotel which was rather crummy, we drove straight to the Visitor Center to figure out what to do. This is characteristic of our vacations. We do upfront planning only at the macro level, and then figure out what we want to do each day, and by the hour, once we get to the destination. So far it's worked out pretty well since it's a nice balance of planning and spontaneity, though I can see how it might not always work out.
We spent a long time at the visitor center. Honestly, there isn't that much to do at Fairbanks, unless you go to see the Northern Lights in winter, in which case there are many tours that start at Fairbanks. The only interesting activity in the summers is to take a trip up north to the Tundra. That was a very exciting idea for sure! But we were looking up several brochures with many different options, and since we hadn't booked in advance, the small set of possible options that would work out for us considering that we were with a little kid, were mostly sold out.
But luckily after being on the phone for a good couple of hours, we got on one tour with the North Alaskan Tour Company to fly past the Arctic Circle to visit a Tundra Village and get a tour of it by a villager. That was definitely very thrilling! We booked our tickets right away, for the next evening.
We had a nice dinner in downtown Fairbanks and went to bed.
The next day, after lunch we decided to visit North Pole City close to Fairbanks to kill time before our flight, since that was not until evening. North Pole City is this little town that is supposedly the abode of Santa Claus. They have a "Santa Claus house" there. It sounded fun. But let me tell ya, don't waste your time! It is nothing but commercialization. First of all, it is not close to the North Pole. It is even farther south from Fairbanks. And once you get there, all that there is is a little complex with a store that is called Santa Claus's house. It's full of Christmasy stuff- lights, ornaments, candy canes, truffles, chocolate, gifts, Santa hats, and a little nook where Santa Claus sits and you can go sit on his lap in the peak of summer.
Outside the store is a little fenced area with reindeer. I was surprised to see that reindeer actually look pretty wild, a little drowsy, and not very friendly. Agile or quick was the last thing they seemed. They looked like they were on substance actually, very unlike the cheery image of them that we conjure up based on Christmas songs and carols.
Crossing the Arctic Circle and the Visit to the Tundra
Once we got out of the Santa Claus house, we had just enough time to catch our flight. We were to board a little airplane from a hangar in Fairbanks. We made a quick pit-stop at our room to pack our bags with jackets, food and drinks, and headed to catch our plane.
It was a teeny plane. It seated 6 adults and our kid. The co-travelers were all very friendly and were well entertained by our son. :-) We set off into the air, and considering how small the plane was, it seemed like it would be a scary ride. We were going over several mountains (the Brooks Range) and the sun was hitting us directly. Luckily we had put on a lot of sunscreen. It was incredibly hot inside the plane. We were all literally roasting. We had headphones that we could put on to listen to the pilot if we were interested. The ride was extremely noisy, almost as if we were sitting right on the bare engine and flying.
Once we reached our maximum altitude, the heat got better, but the weather started to get whimsy. It was initially uncomfortable. The winds were strong, and we could see rain patches. But in a little while, as we started to look out, it started to feel surreal. All over we saw rain patches and rainbows. Once we even flew right through a rainbow, as we could see both sides of a perfect circle on either side of the plane! The mountains were gorgeous. And the thought that we were crossing the Arctic Circle brought butterflies to my stomach.
Close to the destination, you could look down and see the Trans Alaska Pipeline meandering around the land, in the midst of mountains. This in a place with extremely harsh climatic conditions in the winters. I thought of Ayn Rand and her references to this pipeline. I had read it in my teens, back in India, when I never could've imagined that I would actually get to see it some day. I had a strange surge of emotions. I felt the same admiration for the ability of human beings as Ayn Rand described. But at the same time I felt small, looking out at the overwhelming beauty of the universe...
After a nice ride, we landed in Coldfoot, which is the northernmost place in Alaska that has a hangar. When we got off we were welcomed by our tour guide, a tall skinny young cheery white guy probably in his twenties. He rode us form the hangar to Wiseman, the village we were going to visit. It was a nice ride on the Dalton Highway.
We all ate our food in the van, while listening to the stories from our tour guide. He said he loved it there, and had worked there the previous summer, and came back that year because of how much he enjoyed it. He also narrated this funny incident where he and his friend set off to go swim in the Arctic Ocean. They reached this town where they were driven by a native man who couldn't speak English. Using gestures, they somehow conveyed to him that they wanted to go take a dip. He drove them to the water, they had a nice swim and then came out yelling yoo-hoo, giving each other fives for having swum in the Arctic Ocean. The taxi driver gave them strange looks. It was not until later that they found out that they'd swum not in the Arctic Ocean, but in the Bering Sea!
In about a half hour we reached Wiseman, Alaska! Wiseman is located 75 miles north of the Arctic Circle in the Brooks Range. Winter temperatures in Wiseman are between -50 to -70 in January and February, with a total loss of sunlight between December 5 and January 9.
One of the first things we saw was the Post Office of Wiseman, Alaska. It is the Northern-most post office in the U.S! Here's a picture-
Once we got off, we started walking along with our group and the tour guide. I still couldn't believe that I was so close to the North Pole. I kept looking at the land and the sky to see if they felt any different. I even breathed deliberately to feel the air go into my lungs. As we walked, my oh my, we were all covered in a swam of mosquitoes! So, thus I made the unmistakable connection to the rest of planet earth. In a way it was comforting, and not so foreign any more! Our tour guide had some strong bug spray that he handed around to all of us. Of course, we took up the offer. For himself, he just carried one of those electric mosquito-catching racquets. He said that he decided if he used the bug spray on his job everyday, he'd turn green by the end of the summer. The whole time, he was swatting mosquitoes as he spoke, and we had a nice "pop, pop!" going in the background! As a side-note, the last I'd seen such racquets was in Chennai in 1998 or something!
We reached the house of the villager, Jack who was to show us around. Jack was a remarkable guy. A white man in his fifties, average height, dressed in jeans and a shirt, he looked lean and mean, and agile as an animal. He wore a necklace with beads and wolf teeth. He was very knowledgeable with a solid math and science understanding as was evident in his explanation of weather patterns and the 24 hour sunlight at this part of the earth in summers.
People in Wiseman are on a "subsistence living", being so far up north. We saw Jack's vegetable garden, which obviously he could have only in the short summers. His house was decorated with wolf skulls. Here's a picture of his garden and his house from the outside-
Notice the solar panels on the roof. This is how he stores up electricity for the winter months.
And oh! Are you surprised that they have cellphones there? This is the way it works- the regular cellular network doesn't cover areas so far north. So what they have are repeaters installed on top of the mountains, all around, that use microwaves to transmit signals back and forth to and from the regular network. Is that incredible or what?!
Jack took us inside his house and showed us around. It's a very small house, perhaps about 600 sq ft in all. Jack's refrigerator is basically underground, where he stores enormous supplies of milk, eggs and in the winters, potatoes and other vegetables. He told us about how they live, and how they hunt. It was all so fascinating. For instance, he said that the moose are too big to carry back all at once. So you have to chop them up and then carry them. Even so, it's not be possible to carry all of it at once, and if you just leave parts of it around, the wolves will get them. So you have to hide the parts that you can't carry and then go back for them. It's an actual dog-eat-dog world!
On the other side of his house, there were a ton of bones and moose antlers just lying around. I wish I had those iPhone pictures my husband took!
Another interesting little thing Jack said was that in the winters they let the snow that falls on the roof of their house collect, because otherwise, with how thin and cold the atmosphere gets, the whole house would rise up from the earth like a hot air balloon!
It's hard for us to fathom, but Jack said he really liked it there. He said he'd been to Hawaii once! I wanted to blurt out "And you came back here?!" but I didn't. He also said that his father went to South Africa many years back and he'd moved there for good. His mother went there and apparently "didn't like it there" and came back to Wiseman! She is 80 something and still lives in Wiseman. Jack makes sure she is active so she stays strong enough to sustain the winters.
Jack had many interesting pictures in his house, but I remember one particularly beautiful one. It was a picture of his wife looking out through a hole in her door to get a glimpse of the first sunlight that came in at the end of a winter. He said she battled severe depressions due to lack of Vitamin D and took a big dose of Vit D supplements everyday.
At the time we were there, they were expecting, though it was not Jack's first child. They must've had the baby by now!
I happened to find this article about Jack, and thought of sharing it. It includes a picture of him, if you're interested-
http://worldonabike.com/go-green/1000-americans-jack-reakoff-wiseman-alaska-about-oil-drilling-in-alaska/
The ride back to the hangar at Coldfoot was also filled with interesting stories. The guide told us about this man who had been spotted in Coldfoot just a few weeks before, riding a bicycle, dressed in a clown's costume. He had apparently started on bicycle from South America, and planned to travel all the way to the North Pole by bike. By the time we heard of him, looks like he had almost made it!
The whole experience has been truly an extraordinary one! By the end of it, I was not sure what amazed me more- nature or man.
We boarded the plane and got back to Fairbanks around 11 PM or so, but of course, it wasn't really dark. Check out my Arctic Circle crossing certificate :-)
Arrival at Fairbanks
We had a lovely drive from Denali to Fairbanks. The farther north you go in the summer, the closer you get to direct sunlight and so, our drive was sunny and bright, and the roads broad and scenic.
Once we reached Fairbanks and checked into our hotel which was rather crummy, we drove straight to the Visitor Center to figure out what to do. This is characteristic of our vacations. We do upfront planning only at the macro level, and then figure out what we want to do each day, and by the hour, once we get to the destination. So far it's worked out pretty well since it's a nice balance of planning and spontaneity, though I can see how it might not always work out.
We spent a long time at the visitor center. Honestly, there isn't that much to do at Fairbanks, unless you go to see the Northern Lights in winter, in which case there are many tours that start at Fairbanks. The only interesting activity in the summers is to take a trip up north to the Tundra. That was a very exciting idea for sure! But we were looking up several brochures with many different options, and since we hadn't booked in advance, the small set of possible options that would work out for us considering that we were with a little kid, were mostly sold out.
But luckily after being on the phone for a good couple of hours, we got on one tour with the North Alaskan Tour Company to fly past the Arctic Circle to visit a Tundra Village and get a tour of it by a villager. That was definitely very thrilling! We booked our tickets right away, for the next evening.
We had a nice dinner in downtown Fairbanks and went to bed.
City of North Pole
The next day, after lunch we decided to visit North Pole City close to Fairbanks to kill time before our flight, since that was not until evening. North Pole City is this little town that is supposedly the abode of Santa Claus. They have a "Santa Claus house" there. It sounded fun. But let me tell ya, don't waste your time! It is nothing but commercialization. First of all, it is not close to the North Pole. It is even farther south from Fairbanks. And once you get there, all that there is is a little complex with a store that is called Santa Claus's house. It's full of Christmasy stuff- lights, ornaments, candy canes, truffles, chocolate, gifts, Santa hats, and a little nook where Santa Claus sits and you can go sit on his lap in the peak of summer.Outside the store is a little fenced area with reindeer. I was surprised to see that reindeer actually look pretty wild, a little drowsy, and not very friendly. Agile or quick was the last thing they seemed. They looked like they were on substance actually, very unlike the cheery image of them that we conjure up based on Christmas songs and carols.
Crossing the Arctic Circle and the Visit to the Tundra
Once we got out of the Santa Claus house, we had just enough time to catch our flight. We were to board a little airplane from a hangar in Fairbanks. We made a quick pit-stop at our room to pack our bags with jackets, food and drinks, and headed to catch our plane.
It was a teeny plane. It seated 6 adults and our kid. The co-travelers were all very friendly and were well entertained by our son. :-) We set off into the air, and considering how small the plane was, it seemed like it would be a scary ride. We were going over several mountains (the Brooks Range) and the sun was hitting us directly. Luckily we had put on a lot of sunscreen. It was incredibly hot inside the plane. We were all literally roasting. We had headphones that we could put on to listen to the pilot if we were interested. The ride was extremely noisy, almost as if we were sitting right on the bare engine and flying.
Once we reached our maximum altitude, the heat got better, but the weather started to get whimsy. It was initially uncomfortable. The winds were strong, and we could see rain patches. But in a little while, as we started to look out, it started to feel surreal. All over we saw rain patches and rainbows. Once we even flew right through a rainbow, as we could see both sides of a perfect circle on either side of the plane! The mountains were gorgeous. And the thought that we were crossing the Arctic Circle brought butterflies to my stomach.
Rain and rainbow view from the flight
Close to the destination, you could look down and see the Trans Alaska Pipeline meandering around the land, in the midst of mountains. This in a place with extremely harsh climatic conditions in the winters. I thought of Ayn Rand and her references to this pipeline. I had read it in my teens, back in India, when I never could've imagined that I would actually get to see it some day. I had a strange surge of emotions. I felt the same admiration for the ability of human beings as Ayn Rand described. But at the same time I felt small, looking out at the overwhelming beauty of the universe...
After a nice ride, we landed in Coldfoot, which is the northernmost place in Alaska that has a hangar. When we got off we were welcomed by our tour guide, a tall skinny young cheery white guy probably in his twenties. He rode us form the hangar to Wiseman, the village we were going to visit. It was a nice ride on the Dalton Highway.
We all ate our food in the van, while listening to the stories from our tour guide. He said he loved it there, and had worked there the previous summer, and came back that year because of how much he enjoyed it. He also narrated this funny incident where he and his friend set off to go swim in the Arctic Ocean. They reached this town where they were driven by a native man who couldn't speak English. Using gestures, they somehow conveyed to him that they wanted to go take a dip. He drove them to the water, they had a nice swim and then came out yelling yoo-hoo, giving each other fives for having swum in the Arctic Ocean. The taxi driver gave them strange looks. It was not until later that they found out that they'd swum not in the Arctic Ocean, but in the Bering Sea!
In about a half hour we reached Wiseman, Alaska! Wiseman is located 75 miles north of the Arctic Circle in the Brooks Range. Winter temperatures in Wiseman are between -50 to -70 in January and February, with a total loss of sunlight between December 5 and January 9.
One of the first things we saw was the Post Office of Wiseman, Alaska. It is the Northern-most post office in the U.S! Here's a picture-
Once we got off, we started walking along with our group and the tour guide. I still couldn't believe that I was so close to the North Pole. I kept looking at the land and the sky to see if they felt any different. I even breathed deliberately to feel the air go into my lungs. As we walked, my oh my, we were all covered in a swam of mosquitoes! So, thus I made the unmistakable connection to the rest of planet earth. In a way it was comforting, and not so foreign any more! Our tour guide had some strong bug spray that he handed around to all of us. Of course, we took up the offer. For himself, he just carried one of those electric mosquito-catching racquets. He said that he decided if he used the bug spray on his job everyday, he'd turn green by the end of the summer. The whole time, he was swatting mosquitoes as he spoke, and we had a nice "pop, pop!" going in the background! As a side-note, the last I'd seen such racquets was in Chennai in 1998 or something!
We reached the house of the villager, Jack who was to show us around. Jack was a remarkable guy. A white man in his fifties, average height, dressed in jeans and a shirt, he looked lean and mean, and agile as an animal. He wore a necklace with beads and wolf teeth. He was very knowledgeable with a solid math and science understanding as was evident in his explanation of weather patterns and the 24 hour sunlight at this part of the earth in summers.
People in Wiseman are on a "subsistence living", being so far up north. We saw Jack's vegetable garden, which obviously he could have only in the short summers. His house was decorated with wolf skulls. Here's a picture of his garden and his house from the outside-
Notice the solar panels on the roof. This is how he stores up electricity for the winter months.
And oh! Are you surprised that they have cellphones there? This is the way it works- the regular cellular network doesn't cover areas so far north. So what they have are repeaters installed on top of the mountains, all around, that use microwaves to transmit signals back and forth to and from the regular network. Is that incredible or what?!
Jack took us inside his house and showed us around. It's a very small house, perhaps about 600 sq ft in all. Jack's refrigerator is basically underground, where he stores enormous supplies of milk, eggs and in the winters, potatoes and other vegetables. He told us about how they live, and how they hunt. It was all so fascinating. For instance, he said that the moose are too big to carry back all at once. So you have to chop them up and then carry them. Even so, it's not be possible to carry all of it at once, and if you just leave parts of it around, the wolves will get them. So you have to hide the parts that you can't carry and then go back for them. It's an actual dog-eat-dog world!
On the other side of his house, there were a ton of bones and moose antlers just lying around. I wish I had those iPhone pictures my husband took!
Another interesting little thing Jack said was that in the winters they let the snow that falls on the roof of their house collect, because otherwise, with how thin and cold the atmosphere gets, the whole house would rise up from the earth like a hot air balloon!
It's hard for us to fathom, but Jack said he really liked it there. He said he'd been to Hawaii once! I wanted to blurt out "And you came back here?!" but I didn't. He also said that his father went to South Africa many years back and he'd moved there for good. His mother went there and apparently "didn't like it there" and came back to Wiseman! She is 80 something and still lives in Wiseman. Jack makes sure she is active so she stays strong enough to sustain the winters.
Jack had many interesting pictures in his house, but I remember one particularly beautiful one. It was a picture of his wife looking out through a hole in her door to get a glimpse of the first sunlight that came in at the end of a winter. He said she battled severe depressions due to lack of Vitamin D and took a big dose of Vit D supplements everyday.
At the time we were there, they were expecting, though it was not Jack's first child. They must've had the baby by now!
I happened to find this article about Jack, and thought of sharing it. It includes a picture of him, if you're interested-
http://worldonabike.com/go-green/1000-americans-jack-reakoff-wiseman-alaska-about-oil-drilling-in-alaska/
The ride back to the hangar at Coldfoot was also filled with interesting stories. The guide told us about this man who had been spotted in Coldfoot just a few weeks before, riding a bicycle, dressed in a clown's costume. He had apparently started on bicycle from South America, and planned to travel all the way to the North Pole by bike. By the time we heard of him, looks like he had almost made it!
The whole experience has been truly an extraordinary one! By the end of it, I was not sure what amazed me more- nature or man.
We boarded the plane and got back to Fairbanks around 11 PM or so, but of course, it wasn't really dark. Check out my Arctic Circle crossing certificate :-)
In the next (and final post) of this series I'll write about our last day in Alaska and the travel back to Anchorage and out of there, to wrap up the travelogue. Indeed it'll be a trilogy in four parts! :-)
1 comment:
Finally got around to reading these. Wonderful!!
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