This is part 3 of a 3 part Travel log to Alaska. After this part, the next chapters will reflect experiences while at our destination in Coldfoot, Alaska.
05/22/93
This has been an interesting day. The Taylor highway intersects with the ALCAN near Tok. This highway has a packed dirt/gravel surface as did the “Top of the World highway”. The road was in very good condition to Chicken with only a few soft spots now and then. The distance from our hotel to Chicken was about 70 miles and we arrived in Chicken shortly before noon. Since I have been telling you the town size throughout this log I don’t want to short change Chicken. Chicken has a population of 23 with one family accounting for about 30% of the total. There is one general store and a few shacks. The store keeper said that he had a nice house so although we didn’t see it I guess there is also at least one “nice house” in town. We made our way to the BLM field station which is only a mile or so from the store. The BLM facility is located in a pretty spot and had a number of nice buildings. I am sure that they are the best buildings in Chicken. Marian & I might consider spending a summer at this field site. The main disadvantage is that there appears to be no indoor johns or showers in any of the buildings. There is running water in the main cabin & probably some of the other buildings. Since the field site hadn’t yet opened for the season we were not able to actually go inside individual buildings. So we had to peer through the windows. There appears to be a complete kitchen in the main cabin, a bedroom, living room, office & other smaller rooms. They have a nice boat house, generator shed, a house trailer, work sheds & mosquitoes at the site. If we did decide to come back to Tok for a BLM volunteer assignment next year I think that we would be on the river at least every two weeks for several days. Since BLM has such a large and varied responsibility in this area I am sure that there would be quite a few other things for us to do. BLM maintains several recreation areas & has the responsibility for monitoring the forty-mile and other designated “wild & scenic” rivers. I don’t think that our river running responsibility would be limited to the forty-mile river. Well we have plenty of time to think about this as a possible place for our next years volunteer work. Oh yes, Kathy invited us to spend a few days in Tok on our return trip and join her in a float trip down one of the rivers. We may take her up on this offer.
Since we were not too far from the “Top of the World Highway” we decided to continue on from Chicken. The road was rough for the rest of our trip to a wide spot called Boundary which is about 5 miles from the Yukon Territory. It is sure not hard to guess why they call this the “Top of the World Highway”. Having the opportunity to see the sights made it worth the rough & dusty drive. There are working gold mines & stakes all along the route. We stopped to talk with a couple of prospectors. Apparently they are still getting enough gold out of the area to make it worthwhile for a person who doesn’t expect to strike it rich. Back in Chicken, however, the store owner said that one mine extracted 500 ounces of gold last year. I don’t know how many tons of gravel they had to sift through or dredge to get that amount. Our total round-trip today was about 250 miles (all on packed dirt/gravel dusty roads). After returning from the trip we washed the truck and cleaned the dust off ourselves then went to dinner. A restaurant down the street has a salmon bake each evening so we decided gave that a try. We actually had a combo of king salmon, halibut & reindeer sausage in addition to a nice salad bar and of course baked beans. When we get to town that has a cloths store we may have to stop and buy new cloths. We have been eating ourselves silly since we started the trip.
Well tomorrow will be our last day on the road for this segment of our trip. It’s hard to believe that we are almost there since we have been on the road for so many days. It is only a little over two hundred miles from Tok to Fairbanks. It will be nice to settle in at one place for a few days. Of course after Fairbanks we still have a day on the Dalton Highway (Haul Road) before reaching Coldfoot. I think that we will have a week in Fairbanks before leaving for Coldfoot.
05/23/93
Today was a sleep-in day so we didn’t get underway until after ten. The ALCAN highway officially ends at Delta Junction and the road continuing to Fairbanks is called the Richardson Highway. Both the ALCAN and Richardson were in great condition. Up the road from Delta Junction at the Fur Shack one can get their picture taken with Ethel, wearing her famous Arctic fur bikini. We passed up this opportunity. Outside Delta Junction we got our first view of the Alaska pipeline as it passed over the Tanana river. Before reaching Fairbanks we stopped at the North Pole and visited Santa’s house. Of course we sent cards to the Kyle, Ryan & Stefan. We arrived in Fairbanks at about three o’clock and checked into the Westmark hotel. The U.S. Fish & Wildlife had made reservations for us and are picking up the tab for our stay in Fairbanks. Things appear to be more expensive here in Fairbanks than in other towns. Our hotel room is $95.00/night. The Federal Building/Courthouse is only a couple of blocks from our hotel so we can walk to work while we are here. Of course we wanted to see downtown Fairbanks so we took a driving tour around town. Downtown Fairbanks is only a few blocks from our hotel. Downtown Fairbanks is located on the south side of the Chena River and most of the quick food places and malls are on the north side of the river.
Fairbanks was established in 1903/04 as a mining community and named for Sen. Charles Fairbanks from Indiana (later the vice president under Theodore Roosevelt). Fairbanks is the 2nd largest city in the state with a population of a little over 77,000.
We logged 4626 miles in reaching Fairbanks and have about 250 more miles to go before we reach Coldfoot. The weather is perfect here in Fairbanks with clear sky's and a daytime temperature in the low 70’s. At this time of the year sunset is at about midnight and sunrise about three in the morning.
05/24/93
Todays the day. We went into the U.S. Fish & Wildlife (USF&W) office today and met with Tom Edgerton who we will be our boss. Tom is a very nice person and I am sure that we will enjoy working with him. Most of today was spent with administrative matters such as filling out government forms, getting our per diem allotment, meeting people and such. We also went over to the Bureau of Land Management Office across town to meet with Sandy who is the seasonal BLM person assigned to Coldfoot. We learned that there will also be a volunteer from the National Park Service with us at Coldfoot. A funny thing happened to the trailer we are to stay in at Coldfoot. It was hauled back to Fairbanks by mistake last week. BLM was scheduled to pick up a house trailer in Coldfoot and bring it to Fairbanks. Well they hauled our trailer back instead of the one they were suppose to. Tom checked on this today and found that BLM took it back (we think). This trailer wasn’t conditioned for travel so we hope that it will make the round trip with all of the things inside more or less in tact. I guess we will find out when we arrive and open the door.
Marian, Tom & I will head up to Coldfoot Friday. Sandy, the BLM seasonal, is going up tomorrow. Tom will only be in Coldfoot for a day to make some administrative arrangements. He will open an account at the Coldfoot Services so we can charge things we might need such as propane, repairs, an occasional meal at the restaurant, & etc. We plan on opening the Coldfoot Interagency Visitors Center on 1 June. Sandy told us that there was quite a bit of snow remaining in Coldfoot as of last week. Tomorrow we will go out shopping for a months supply of food, official cloths and other things for Coldfoot. Tomorrow night Tom invited us over to his house for dinner.
We will not get our bear and weapons training this week. USF&W will make arrangements to send a small plane to Coldfoot & pick us up around the 8th of June and bring us back to Fairbanks for the training. If the pilot has the time we hope to extend the return trip and fly over some other parts of the Arctic for indoctrination purposes. The National Parks Service will try to arrange a float trip down one of the designated “Wild & Scenic” rivers later on in the season. We are looking forward to both. We are very pleased with all we have seen and heard. . . .
05/25-26/93
As you may have guessed we are still in Fairbanks absorbing as much as possible about the Arctic Region of Alaska. Over the past two days the USF&W has shown us several videos on the far north including the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve (ANWR) which is one of several reserves in Alaska. The significance of the ANWR is that this is the specific reserve we will be providing most of interpretive presentation about while in Coldfoot. This reserve is located in the most northwest corner of Alaska and encompasses some 20 million acres of the most beautiful and fragile lands in the state. We have a lot to learn about the ANWR, Yukon Flats & Kanuti reserves in addition to the Gates of the Arctic National Park & the surrounding area. Today we spent quite a bit of time at the Public Lands Information Center here in Fairbanks. In addition to our studies & area familiarization we have been shopping for various items which will be needed in Coldfoot such as graphics supplies, trailer parts, hardware & such. Tomorrow we will complete our food shopping for our first month stay at Coldfoot.
We have an variety of projects in addition to our interpretive talks which we will work on in Coldfoot such as developing: “A handout on what to see in the area including a walking tour guide”, “Various information booklets”, “Photographing the flora, animals, and natural resources”, “Upgrades to the interpretive exhibits & slide presentation in the center”, “Physical improvements to the center”, and on & on.
Last night we had a very nice time and a great dinner at Tom & Kathy Edgerton’s home. One of the nice things about Fairbanks is that it is a short distance to just about any place in town. Tom and Kathy live about 4 miles out of downtown proper in a beautiful wooded area.
Yesterday we picked up some mosquito repellent jackets which are made of a mesh you soak in deet or similar chemicals. From what we have been told this protection is highly desirable when out of doors in the tundra. We also have mosquito rings to burn in the trailer when necessary. You know how gnats sometime swarm around you at a picnic? Well picture these gnats as being mosquitoes and you will have an idea of what it is like in tundra country. Coldfoot is at the junction of the Kuyukuk River & Slate Creek and surrounded by tundra. It is interesting that the Arctic area is considered a desert since the annual precipitation is only about 10 inches. Most moisture comes from the melting snow. We understand that Coldfoot got over 10 feet of snow this winter.
05/27/93
Tom showed us some slides today and we had some discussions on interpretive presentation techniques. We completed our shopping for Coldfoot supplies and finished our administrative requirements. Even though we are volunteers there is still paperwork involved. Our truck is packed to the top with those things we brought with us and our Coldfoot supplies. We are essentially at the end of the world when we reach Coldfoot and if we didn’t bring it we won’t be able to get it until we return to Fairbanks again. Bright and early tomorrow morning we will start the last leg of our journey. The drive to Coldfoot should take approximately eight hours.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment