July 30 Day 29, Denali to Fairbanks, AK

UAF Museum of the North

Salmon Wheel Model

We had rain and fog for almost the entire 132 miles to Fairbanks. We shopped and then spent the afternoon at very modern Museum of the North on the campus of UAF (University of Alaska at Fairbanks). The museum was packed with visitors from bus tours and motorhomes. We watched a movie on the Aurora Borealis which claimed that the Aurora makes no noise. This was much to Mavis disgust who heard the noise it makes all the time in her backyard in Athens, ON.  The museum is extremely well done and combines art with history and even wooly mammoth bones.  We saw a 3 scoop salmon wheel in the Chilkat River northwest of Haines and had wondered what it was. The little model explains it all.

Bronze Bear in Art Gallery

Native Art

 

 

 

 

 

In the post for Day 1 I mentioned the Japanese invasion on the islands of Attu and Kiska at the end of the Aleutian chain. The museum has an entire section devoted to this experience. In preparation for the war, all 126 Alaskan citizens of Japanese descent were rounded up and shipped to internment camps in Idaho. Another 94 Japanese born in Japan but resident in Alaska were separated from their families, locked up in Fort Richardson, and then shipped to New Mexico. In addition to the Japanese internments just about anyone living on all the Aleutian islands were evacuated for 3 years to an abandoned herring cannery on Admiralty Island as well as other locations in Southeast Alaska. Many of the Aleuts homes were burned due to fear of the potential Japanese invaders taking them over. Some 42 Aleuts were captured when the Japanese occupied Attu Island and spent the war in Japan as POWs.  Tomorrow we will stay in Fairbanks, see a movie, tour a garden at UAF, and prepare for the long drive home.

July 29 Day 28, Denali National Park

It was hard to get to sleep thinking about our campsite’s location high above the river and located on the Denali fault.  In the event of an earthquake the entire RV Park would slide into the river. Fortunately we awoke without incident and headed to the National Park for the Toklat River 6 hour bus tour into the wilderness. The bus looked like a school bus but was quite comfortable.  The driver was very good with lots of commentary until we got to the one lane gravel road section in the rain. In a few minutes the windows were covered with mud. It rained off and on all day and at each stop the driver would clean the windows. Denali wilderness is beautiful with enormous tundra covered valleys carved by glaciers containing braided rivers. We weren’t disappointed by the wild life viewing. We saw grizzly bears, caribou, and dall sheep. We even watched a coyote chasing a pair of caribou. The bus driver dropped us off at the Sled Dog Kennels where we watched a demonstration. Dog sleds are used in the winter to patrol the park due to the law requiring vast areas of the park to remain wilderness.  Mt McKinley was hidden by cloud the entire day. Tonight we are at the Riley Creek Campground in the Park.

Dog Sled Demonstration

Coyote Chasing Caribou

Brown Grizzlies Eating Blueberries

July 28 Day 27, Wasilla, AK to Denali National Park

Mt. McKinley, 20,320 ft

The recommended dump site H&H Café had gone out of business, but we stopped for diesel at Trapper Creek and their dump was only $5. We set a record for 5 days with no dump. I also had breakfast at Trapper Creek.

Mt. McKinley is the highest mountain in North America and due to cloud cover is only visible 30-40% of the time in summer. We lucked out and had a good view twice this morning. Then it clouded over and we didn’t see the mountain again. We checked in to the Denali Riverside $38 RV Park at noon and did a $21 laundry using their 3 machines. They have to use a diesel generator to provide power to the campground so the high prices are excusable. The site is high above the Nenana River. With laundry out of the way we drove to the park and registered for a $11 campsite at the park tomorrow night. We also signed up for a 6 hour bus ride into the park starting at 9:30AM. We toured the Visitor Center which is very impressive and new in 2005. The movie they show, Heartbeats of Denali was so good I bought the DVD.

Tourist Traps Outside Park Entrance

Visitor Center Exhibits

July 27 Day 26, Whittier, AK to Wasilla, AK

A trip to Alaska would not be complete without a visit to Sarah Palin’s home town. I even got to the Wasilla Rotary Club. Not a word was spoken about Sarah by anyone we met today. Wasilla is a modern city looking just about like any other modern American city. The historic downtown is only a few buildings. Wasilla does have the largest Walmart Superstore we have ever seen. I saw a whole department devoted to selling cloth from bolts, sewing machines, etc. People here must make their own clothes as everything is so expensive.

 

Alaska Museum of Transportation & Industry

Stuff

Our next stop after Rotary was the Alaska Museum of Transportation and Industry.  It looked just like our basement with lots of planes, trains, and automobiles scattered about. The car was a 1940’s Nash Ambassador. The sign said it had been restored and donated to the museum. There was a 1917 wooden caboose built for the Alaska Railway. It held a crew of 5 with food for 5 days (see photo of interior). Tonight we are in a campground 50 miles north of Wasilla that has power, a single water hose, but no dump. The dump is 4 miles north and costs $15. Our Verizon Mifi provides email service but is times out on website access.

Alaska Railroad 1917 Caboose Interior

Restored Nash Ambassador

July 26 Day 25, Seward to Whittier, AK

11:00PM in Seward

Night at 11:00PM in Seward looks like the photo taken from the View. In Fairbanks it will apparently be much lighter at night according to Al & Nancy from a View/Navion like ours who came to visit last evening.

 

 

Begich,Boggs Visitor Center

Today we drove to the Williwaw Campsite in the Chugach National Forest along the Whittier highway. We arrived at noon and there were lots of empty sites. After lunch we hiked the “Trail of Blue Ice” 3 miles past 3 glaciers to the National Forest Service’s Begich,Boggs visitor center. The exhibits and film shown on a huge screen were first class. At the end of the film the screen opens up and you view the glaciers through a large window wall.

 

2.5 mile tunnel to Whittier

After walking back to the campsite I decided we should visit Whittier. This town was built during WWII as a port to bring military supplies into Alaska. This required a 2.5 mile railway tunnel through a mountain to get to the town. Someone figured out you could share the track with a road, so in 1976 a road was built. The tunnel is one way and switches direction once an hour. It is the longest highway tunnel in North America and costs $12 for a round trip. It was the most exciting thing we did today. Whittier itself is just a large boat yard with little to write home about.

14 Story Begich Towers

July 25 Day 24, Anchorage to Seward, AK

Cook Inlet in the rain & fog

Today we drove 130 miles in the rain and fog to arrive at our destination, Seward. Some 34 miles are right beside Cook Inlet with spectacular views we were unable to see. Tomorrow we start our return trip to Nashville. It will take longer, 36 days, because there are no ferries to ride and we will spend some time in St Paul with the grandkids.

Seward is at the northern end of a large fjord carved by glaciers. The water is 960 ft deep.  It appears quite prosperous and has a city owned campground on the beach with 300 campsites. Ours is right on the beach but has no services. First time this trip.

Oceania's Regatta

Echinoderms: Basket Star in front of a Feather Star

The Oceania cruise ship, Regatta, was in port. It carries 684 passengers.  They didn’t overrun the town because it has many stores and it’s a long walk from the dock to the historical downtown and the Alaska Sea Life Center (aquarium). We had a much shorter walk to town and enjoyed the Sea Life Center, although there were very few mammals. I had hoped to see some sea otters. We visited the 1916 restored hotel the Van Gilder which has its original bar in the sitting room on the front. There are 26 rooms.  It looks like a fun place to stay. Mavis was impressed with the flowers here which all bloom at the same time since the season is so short.

Van Gilder Hotel

July 24 Day 23, Glacier View to Anchorage, AK

Mud flats before the face

Tour route on Google Earth

I checked the sky at 2:00AM this morning and it was light enough to walk around in the park. The plan for today was to take a jet boat tour up the Matanuska River to the face of its glacier.  Unfortunately when we got to the tour office, they had to cancel the boat trip as the water level in the river was too low to navigate. We settled for a 3 hour, 1.9 mile walking tour instead. We had to get outfitted in hard hats and crampons. The crampons are ¾ inch spikes you strap to your boots to give traction on the ice. The tour company, Mica, supplies the gear. It’s a good thing as a  pair costs as much as the tour for the two of us. Tour guide, Elisa, was excellent and conducts 2 tours per day. She spends the summer in a tent behind the office and winters in New Zealand conducting tours there.  Elisa taught us how to climb and descend wearing the crampons. The first part of the face is like a muddy bad lands. It is the area where the melting is almost complete. It is very dirty but you are actually walking on ice. As you proceed the ice has less dirt and is full of crevasses. The melting rivulets create “moulins” in the crevasses which are very dangerous if you should happen to fall into one. Basically you get stuck and gradually slide further down in a narrowing tube until you suffocate. Not a pleasant way to go. All in all it was great exercise, very spectacular to see, and something everyone should do once in their lifetime. Tonight we are in Anchorage, a city just like every other in America, except for the high cost of everything. Tomorrow we head for Seward.

Two of 8 tourers

Tour Guide Elisa

July 23 Day 22, Tok to Glacier View

Sue Jean & Danny Lee

Last night the entertainment at the Sourdough RV Park was Danny Lee and Sue Jean from Texas. They sing “tribute” Willie Nelson and Johnny Cash songs for hours working for a free campsite and food.  They were really quite good. We could hear them clearly from our campsite. There was also a sourdough pancake toss into a bucket for a free breakfast.  I thought it was good marketing as they only made it easy for the kids to win. The kids would then take their parents who would pay $11.95 each for breakfast. However, after the contest they said winners could pick a grab box instead of the free breakfast. All the winners took that option and got trinkets such as t-shirts and then probably didn’t bother with breakfast at all.  Today the road to Anchorage was good except for two areas of road repair.

Matanuska Glacier (top) & River

Tonight we are at the Grand View Café – RV Park. We had a magnificent pizza for dinner. It was half Italian (for me) and half Groovy Guy (for Mavis). Tomorrow we hope to take the jet boat tour up the Matanuska River to the Matanuska glacier.  We took a short hike from our campsite to get the photo of the river and glacier.

July 22 Day 21, Destruction Bay, YT to Tok, AK

Mavis photo of Whistler Swan family near Beaver Creek

I learned all about repairing pot holes and frost heaves in roads today. Stone chips are laid down to fill the holes and dips. A roller packs the chips down, then a layer of oil is added. Finally a cover of more stone chips are added which stays in place for several days until that layer is brushed off. How did we learn all this?  Flag men/women stop all the traffic in one direction and have lots of time to talk if you are first to get stopped. Then a pilot car arrives and guides the convoy the 5-10 miles that are being worked. The worst stretch of all was the last 5 miles in Canada that were not being repaired at all. Entering Alaska there was a beautiful brand new asphalt paved road. It was glorious until after 10 miles the US road was just as bad as the Canadian. We went 236 miles mostly at 40-50 mph. The hundreds of signs warning of each section being repaired warn of “gravel patches” or “loose gravel” rather than “stone chip patches”.  When the work is all finished, it starts over again next spring. It’s job security for the road crews. Tonight we are at the Sourdough Campground in Tok. There is a flap jack throwing contest at 7:00PM with free breakfast as the prize. There is also some kind of entertainment later as well. Someone told me that Tok was originally Tokyo but was abreviated during WWII.

Alaska Pilot Car

Rest Stop

July 21 Day 20, Haines, AK to Destruction Bay

Kluane Lake, YT from Cottonwood RV Park

Last evening I attended a lecture on glaciers. A glacier has to move and get at least 200 ft of snow annually. Glaciers cut the bays called “canals” as in Lynn Canal. They are not canals at all but rather fjords carved by long gone glaciers and have dead ends unlike canals. The sun finally came out last night and we got some spectacular photos. One photo shows a group of Amish women/girls sitting on a storage box on the aft deck and playing harmonicas.

Watching the sunset on Lynne Canal

 

Last night we had our second accident of the trip  (first was losing 2 hubcaps). We had the View side door open touching a camping trailer close beside us on the vehicle deck of the ferry. It was the only way to get in. The driver of the camping trailer, without permission from the ferry crew,decided to move ahead and caught the door on his trailer bending our door hinge. The ferry took full responsibility for the damage because their deck hand wasn’t doing his job, which is to make sure all is clear before allowing a vehicle to move ahead. Tonight I made a temporary fix by removing the hinge and hammering it out straight.

 

Today we went through parts of Alaska, BC. The Yukon Territories (YT). We drove about 200 miles to a beautiful wild campsite, Cottonwood RV Park, beside Kluane Lake. It is so remote they have to use their own generator to provide electricity to the campsites. It runs from 4PM to 11AM.  There is no trash collection. You have to carry your own trash with you. The owner is very nice, helped me with the bent hinge, and told me about the grizzly bear he talked to this morning. He said the bear was well behaved and went off up the mountain.

Campsite at Cottonwood RV Park

South end, Kluane Lake