We went to bed at seven last night and didn’t get up till after nine this morning. Maybe the rest will help us get over our colds. This morning we have been moving is slow motion. This evening we went over to the Center for about an hour. Tomorrow is the summer solstice. One significance of this event is: The Arctic Circle is the southern most latitude (66 degrees & 30 minutes) where the sun doesn’t set at summer solstice or rise at winter solstice.
06/21/93
There were quite a few drop-in tourists at the Center today. Some were coming up north for the Solstice (to watch the sun go around in circles). This has been a cool day with the temperature staying at about 60 and an overcast sky.
06/22/93
We worked about 10 hours today. Sandy went to Fairbanks last evening so Marian, Rick & I kept the Center. There were a number of drop in guests during the day and a nice group for the evening presentation. Several of the guest were from Europe and there was a group from the University of Alaska. Joe, one of the National Park volunteers, was sent out into the wilds to do some back country work. Of the three organizations,
Today I enhanced the statistical database programs that I developed on the Macintosh for tracking our tourist/presentations at the center. I don’t know if they will use it in the future but I sure am having fun developing & enhancing it. We will probably generate more paper & data output this summer than in all summers past. Today I put in some graphing capabilities and expanded numerical outputs. (ho hum)
06/23/93
We were pretty busy today with our guests. Also today I started the development of a new database for the NPS to keep track of people going into Gates of the Arctic National Park. As I probably have already said, the only way to get into this park is by foot, airplane or by boat. There are no established trails in the park or campgrounds. Anyone going into GANP is on his own and better have some wilderness survival skills and a topographic map. Else the output may not equal the input.
Marian, Rick and I went over to the Redneck Bar after closing the Center this evening. The rednecks of “Hillbilly Heaven” on route #1 are sophisticated compared with those who frequent the Coldfoot bar. It is, however, the only place in town if you want to go somewhere. I guess it broadens ones outlook on life to meet and talk with all types of people.
06/24/93
We had another 10 hour day at the Center. There were a number of interesting drop-in’s during the day and a group of 37 from a Princess tour bus for the evening presentation. Marian gave the presentation this evening and did a very good job as usual.
Marian made some good homemade bread today. We ate almost a loaf of it for supper this evening. We have been having Tabouli salad which is made from Tabouli mix, olive oil, water and chopped tomato. This is a traditional Middle Eastern Salad made from bulgier wheat.
In between talking with guests I get a lot of computer work in here during the day. With three Mac’s running simultaneously I just swivel from keyboard to keyboard with my various work/play projects.
We are sitting here this evening making up a food need list for our next food replenishment which will be sometime early July. To say the least we are eating well even though we don’t make any money at this job (the USF&W furnishes us with our food).
We have talked with a number of people visiting the Arctic who have expressed interest in getting into volunteer work. Most don’t know where to start. We were that way when we first got interested.
06/25/93
Marian & I had the Center to ourselves today. There were a number of interesting people who dropped in during the day and a large crowd for the evening presentation. At least 18 states were represented by our evening guests. We are getting pretty use to making the evening presentation now and feel very comfortable at answering questions. The questions that tourists usually ask are similar from group to group. Every once in a while some wise guy has an “off the wall” new question that we have to think up an answer for.
It is 11pm now and we are getting ready to eat our second supper. I guess all of this hard work makes us hungry. Ha . .
06/26/93
Not too much to report for the day. Again we had the Center to ourselves today. There were many drop-in’s during the day and about 11 for evening presentation. It rained most of the morning and was pretty cool. We kept the wood stove burning at the Center most of the day. The campground is pretty full tonight. There must be 20 or more campers here. We see most of the folks that are here at one time or another. Most find their way over to the Center and look around.
Tomorrow is dump day. We will have to get things secured down so nothing will break when the trailer is pulled to the dump station. I am sure that I will have to go over at least one or more times tomorrow morning to remind them that they are suppose to dump the trailer (Coldfoot time you know).
I made up a Coldfoot brochure on my computer today using the Pagemaker desktop publishing software and Canvas drawing software. I have to think of something to keep the three Mac’s busy during the day.
06/27/93
The morning was cold and rainy. We kept the stove going all day at the Center. This was dump morning, rather more accurately dump afternoon. We waited around until ten and no one showed up. I went over to remind Coldfoot Services that they were suppose to be over this morning and they said “Oh we forgot”. Then about noon I went back and reminded them again. Finally at about 12:30 someone showed up. As I have said before we are on “Coldfoot Time” or it could be called “Whenever we get around to it Time”. There is NO need to keep my watch synchronized with WWV (National Bureau of Standards Time) here in Coldfoot.
We have had a smooth day at the Center with only about 15 drop-in’s. There was a small tour bus in and several persons from RV’s in for the evening presentation. Today we talked with Cheryl & Debbie on the phone which is a real high point for us to hear from them. We had a nice chat with Ryan while talking with Debbie. Kyle was across the street getting his hair cut so we didn’t get to talk with him today.
Today I couldn’t think of any improvements to make to any of the database programs. This either means that they do all that I want them to do or that I am not thinking far enough ahead in anticipating new capabilities that should be included. Probably the latter.
06/28/93
We cleaned up the Center today since there was quite a bit of mud from the rain yesterday. Marian painted the main entrance ramp into the Center. This ramp gets a lot of people traffic and scuffing of shoes. It looks nice now; job well done. Of course after she finished painting it, Lupin the NPS dog, walked across it and left his paw prints for destiny. Lupin belongs to Rick.
We sent Tom a FAX for our food replenishment. He will visit the Center sometime next week and bring the food when he comes. We don’t eat extravagantly but we eat pretty well.
Last night at the evening presentation the IR remote control went wacky and quit working altogether during the show. I replaced it with the tried and proven wire/push-button and continued the program with no other problems.
There were a number of drop in guests at the center during the day today. We had a full house this evening for the presentation. Standing room only. Even with the cool weather here it got warm in the Center since we don’t have much fresh air available other than the windows. We keep them open during the presentation but with the shades drawn.
There is a white dog Sheba which belongs to one of the long term trailer residents here in our park. Sheba comes over to our door every time she sees that we are in the trailer and wants something to eat. We have been feeding her some so I guess she knows where she can get a handout.
Sandy returned from Fairbanks today. Tomorrow Rick will depart for a ten day trek into the wilds of Gates of the Arctic. Joe, the other NPS volunteer, is already in the Gates on a hike. I think that we will pass on this opportunity.
It is almost midnight now and we just completed our supper. Since we are over the summer solstice the days should slowly start getting shorter. However I think that it will be sometime late August before we start seeing sunsets & sunrises.
Since we can’t pickup any radio stations and there are no newspapers here we don’t keep up with the world events other than tourists telling us things. Sandy brought a paper back from Fairbanks so Marian is reading it now. I guess if something major like another world war occurred we would probably get wind of it. But the normal events don’t carry too much weight in anyone's mind here. The only think for certain here is that the sun doesn’t set. Time is just one big continuum....
06/29/93
Nothing noteworthy to report today. Just a quiet day at the Center. Very few drop-in's today and there was only one small tourbus for the evening presentation. Marian baked a delicious cake today and we had it in celebration of Sandy’s birthday.
We have had over 1 inch of rain during the past three days which is a bit unusual for this area. Today was somewhat warmer and we didn’t have to keep our stove burning. Clayton, one of the BLM fellows from Fairbanks, loaned us a few of his tapes and his dubbing tape recorder. We now have a new selection of tapes to listen to. We could almost predict which song was going to play from our other tapes since we had listened to them so much.
06/30/93
We got up early this morning (at 0800) and went hiking with Sandy. It was an enjoyable morning. This afternoon and evening we were at the Center. After our evening presentation Marian and I went over to the Redneck bar for awhile then afterwards did some 4 wheeling up the Slate Creek trail. We returned at about 11:30pm and had to wash the cakes of mud off the truck before it got too crusty. The sun is still shining on the mountains. In the valleys you don’t see the sun but it is bright outside. Tomorrow sometime we may go pan for Gold on Slate Creek. I guess before we do our Gold panning we have to do a laundry in the morning. Got to get the priorities straight you know.
We are off for the next four days so we will have to think of things to do to occupy our time. Since we don’t have any particular plans right now I guess we will have to see what turns up. In Utah we could go on driving trips on our days off but here there really are no towns to go to and we are not too keen on doing too much overnight camping around this area. The closest town is Fairbanks which is an 8 hour drive down the Dalton. We don’t want to have a close encounter with a Bear and there are so many Mosquitoes that you would get eaten up if we did some overnight camping around here. If we can borrow the BLM truck we probably will explore some back mining roads. Since we have 5000 miles to go to get back to VA we don’t want to risk taking our truck up too many of these back 4x4 roads.
07/01/93
We got up late this morning after staying up late last night. This afternoon Marian and I tried our luck at Gold Panning on the South Fork of the Koyukuk River which is about 20 miles down the Dalton towards Fairbanks. I wouldn’t want to have to rely on our Gold finds to buy lunch. We found a few flakes after panning for about two hours. Well at least we can say we have panned for Gold in Alaska. We probably will go out again tomorrow and try another spot. I think that the definition of our Gold panning might be termed “recreational vs. serious”. We had on our mosquito vests soaked with deet to keep the mosquitoes from eating us up. This evening we went over to the Center for a while to see what was going on. There was a big group in for the presentation. Ninety tourists were on the busses that came in today and about 70 attended the presentation. The room only comfortably seats 50 so it was crowded with standing room only. This evening I have been working on the computer and Marian has been reading. I found another bug with one of the commercial programs that I frequently use here so I sent in a zinger to the software company. This is the second problem I have found with this package. I wish that they could get it right since this is the third revision of their program. I hesitated to send in a letter with my Coldfoot address for fear that all future mail to me will be sent here vs. home. I did it anyway.
It is after midnight now and it has started raining again and the temperature has dropped somewhat. It will be a good night for sleeping when we finally decide to go to bed. We are having to let our dinner settle since we ate so much at supper. Tonight we went over for the buffet at the Coldfoot Cafe. They put on a pretty big spread for the bus tourists.
07/02/93
No news today. This was a day off for us and we just stuck around the trailer. Marian read books and I worked on the computer.
07/03/93
Another just hang around the trailer day. We are off duty through the 6th of July. You might remember a few days back I said that I couldn’t think of anything to improve my databases. Well I have been working on them most of the day with major additions. I have spent several hours working on an instruction manual for the databases. That’s what started most of the additions & revisions. Marian did a laundry today and read books. This afternoon we took a short drive up the Dalton to look at an area where the NPS is putting in a campsite. I guess that they are expecting more tourists coming up the Dalton in the coming years. We had to get one of our propane tanks refilled today. It has been so cool at night that the heater is on quite a bit. Tomorrow is dump day again. I told Coldfoot Services that I wanted it dumped before noon. Well we will see what happens tomorrow. We had a big rain last night. I checked the official rain gauge at the Center today and we had almost an inch. That makes 7 inches within the last 3 months.
07/04/93
Only one reminder was required to Coldfoot Services today; they are getting better.
As you probably have guessed there wasn’t much in the way of celebrations here in Coldfoot on the 4th. A bunch of miners got together near the river and had some sort of celebration but we thought it probably wouldn’t be a good idea to go. They shot off some fireworks in the form of dynamite.
Early in the afternoon Marian & I drove up the Dalton about 75 miles and did some walking out in the tundra fields. We enjoyed the walk & collected some very pretty wild flowers for our trailer table.
The 4th was Sandy’s birthday so Marian and the next door neighbor cooked up a good meal and invited Sandy over to celebrate her birthday. Sandy was on duty so she had to return to the Center however the next door neighbors stayed for a good while and visited.
We go back on duty tomorrow for the next ten days.
07/05/93
This was a good mail day. We received two letters from Cheryl, one from Jane & Bruce, one from Patty and one from Charlie Brown (from my old office). Also it was great to talk with Cheryl on the phone. She called us and we talked for almost a half hour.
This was our first day back at the center since our days off. Marian gave the presentation tonight to a group of Princess tour bus folks. After the presentation Sandy, Marian & I went over to the bar so that Sandy could collect her birthday beer from the bartender. While there we talked with Dave the gold miner and Marian bought a gold nugget from him. One of these days we will go over to his gold claim and do a little prospecting ourselves.
07/06/93
This has been a very slow day with only 15 drop-in’s and no tour bus passengers. We did enjoy talking to the ones that did come in. It has been raining most of the day and cool. We had a nice surprise today when Debbie called. It sure was nice to talk with her.
Tom Edgerton & Phil from Fairbanks will be coming in for a visit this Thursday. Besides being nice to see both of them we are also looking forward to a replenishment of the grub. We are getting pretty low on the variety of things to eat.
Tomorrow should pick up with our visitors since we will have a bus in for tomorrow’s presentation.
I checked the computer for sunset and sunrise and it said that we will be getting sunsets/sunrises starting on the 12/13th. It is still light all of the time so maybe we will start seeing a little change before too long. I failed to mention that there is only one hour separating sunset from sunrise on the 12th and of course you don’t get darkness at sunset. Well so much for the 12th.
07/07/93
Marian & I opened the Center at noon today and ran off a copy of our log for Fred & Eloise Marquardt. I tried to consolidate the logs somewhat better for our permanent record. I don’t know about this place. The precipitation here in Northern Alaska is suppose to be an average of 11 inches per year. Since keeping records at the Center starting on 23 April we have had 8 inches of rain to date. This years rain and last years snow may set records. This past winter there was 10 feet of snow here in Coldfoot.
It’s now ten thirty PM and we just got in from the Center. This has been another pretty slow day although there was a tourbus in for the presentation this evening. A bunch of “not so young” folks were on the bus. We passed around some qiviut for them to feel and when the bag returned there was less than when it started. I guess that they liked the feel of it. By the way qiviut is the second layer of “wool/hair” on a muskox. The muskox has a long (3 feet or so) outer layer of hair and the inner layer is a file wool like hair called qiviut. Since the muskox must winter in the barren coastal region of the Arctic plains it has these two layers of protection against the -40 to -60 degree weather.
As we look out our window the clouds are hanging low over the mountains this evening and there is a ridge of fog over Slate Creek. We feel a little awkward telling the tourists how dry this area is with all of the rain. It sure is a different environment from our last years work in the deserts of Utah.
For the next four days Marian & I may have the Center to ourselves. Sandy, the BLM person, will be off and the two NPS fellows are still in the Gates of the Arctic Natl. Park somewhere. If we don’t see or hear from them soon we will start to wonder if a bear may have had a meal or they got lost.
07/08/93
Well finally a beautiful day in Coldfoot. We have had sunshine all day and a mild temperature. Although we still have a little food left for the most part it’s all gone. Tom E. arrived from Fairbanks late this afternoon with our replenishment which wasn’t a bit too soon.
The phone rang and I answered, Coldfoot Visitor Center - Jim Speaking -. It was Cheryl's voice at the other end. It is always nice to hear from our daughters. Cheryl & Fred are going to stay at the house this weekend and just wanted to know if it was OK to run the air conditioner. Of course we said sure. Apparently it is getting pretty warm in the DC area now.
Our drop in's have been slow today. Seems like this isn’t the week for Arctic tourists. This evening we had a small group from the Northern Alaska Tour group and some drop in's for the presentation.
Tom, Marian & I went over to the Coldfoot bar after the presentation and socialized some. A little later Sandy, Rick & Joe came in. Rick & Joe had returned from their 10 day hike into the Gates. We were glad to see that they made it back safely.
Since we have been low on food and Tom brought in our replenishment all Marian & I could think of was getting back to the trailer and have a good meal and that is exactly what we did at midnight. Since we don’t make any money we thought that we would make it up with eating so we are sending in a new order with Tom on his return to Fairbanks tomorrow.
My computer tells me that we are having sunsets but here it is midnight and the sun is out in full force. Well computers don’t lie so I guess it must be an optical illusion that we are seeing. I am sorry I must stop writing so that I can use both hands for eating. By now....
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