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The end of Day One in Fairbanks was pretty sweet. The first few lectures were kind of dry and I was a little excited to get out of that lecture room during the break. But at the break, I started up a conversation with a new UAA professor who interestingly enough just moved up from Moscow, Idaho. It's a small world! She got her Ph.D at the UofI and just got hired on at UAA last August and will actually be going to Moscow this weekend to get married by Coeur d'Alene. She was a pretty nice lady and I ended up chatting with her more by the end of the night.
I saw a few more people I knew then took off to the Housing Building down the road to check in. The halls are kind of ghetto, remind me a little of a prison, and I am very glad I never had to live here. My room is long and narrow with shelves on the walls that can be moved around but are bolted in certain areas, a desk that hits into the door, a wardrobe, and a small dresser for some things. Kind of bland and very
white, but it was okay diggs for a couple nights. I got all settled, checked out the communal bathroom, and then headed back over to the Reichardt Building to listen to more lectures. I was kind of excited to see even more UAS people and Dan (one of my favorite Anthro professors) even gave a talk. Then during the meetings, this girl came up to me and said, "Hey, I think I met you last year." It was the UAF Grad student I had a beer with last year. She was pretty cool!
After the lectures were over, I went back to my room, hopped in the shower then met my friend, Yoko, downstairs to catch the shuttle to dinner. Dinner was extremely nice as I sat at a table with all Juneau people. Dan sat and we chatted about MSU, his research, caving, and his wife whom he absolutely adores. He is such a nice guy! And since I'm now a grad student, gave me his numbers so we can meet and grab coffee and he's going to give me some advice before I head off to Lansing in August. At the table was also another anthro professor
of mine, Erica Hill. Hehe...She always surprises me! Then I met Kelly who does a lot of funding for UAS and knows my name because she's worked a lot with Dave. She was really sweet and really excited to meet me! =) She got her Masters in Divinity and Religious Studies in a Cultural Context and is hoping to go back and get her Ph.D soon, but is actually running the Arboretum in Juneau right now. And the rest of the table composed of me, Yoko, and the British guest speaker who enlightened us with details about life in Surrey. After a great meal (including cheesecake and coffee) and good company, I was exhausted and headed home. I ended the night with a nice chat and then passed out from exhaustion.
The next morning, I went over to the Reichardt Building and grabbed some breakfast. There I ran into Jennifer, Dave's former post-doc who just had a baby. She told me she just applied for a job with Kim, my MSU professor, and if she gets it, may be working in the lab too with me at MSU. Sweet!! =) I don't know her very well, but she's pretty
cool and it would be nice to have a familiar face around. After a nice breakfast, I went up to Julia and asked her about driving to Denali. Her advice -- "Be cautious of the moose, and tourists making dumb decisions while photographing the moose." Isn't that the norm in Alaska during the summer: beware of dumb tourists? Nevertheless, she told me to have fun playing tourist and so I took off. I packed my bag with lots of water, iced tea, a jacket, some paper, my journal, my camera, and my keys and headed off.
The first stop was at the UAF bookstore to get a tshirt. I ended up with a shirt with a large duck, the logo for the Institute of Arctic Biology. Yes -- that's authentically Fairbanks-ish! Caught a cab, headed to the airport, and picked up my rental car -- a beautiful bright red Chevy. My little Focus would have a heart attack if it knew I've spent the last two days having a love affair with a bright red Chevy Cobalt. We'll just keep that a secret. I felt a little guilty as I passed a Ford and fired up the Chevy...seems almost
a sin, but "when in Fairbanks..." The Chevy and I headed down the road, the first destination - The North Pole to see Santa.
Yes, you read that right. Just about 15-20 minutes from the airport was North Pole, Alaska, and the authentic Santa Claus's House, open all year long to inspire Christmas every day! 😊 It was very nice and I had fun looking around for something to take home. I ended up with a generic shirt, a keychain, and two postcards. I also took one shot of the 50-foot Santa before getting back in the Chevy and heading down the road. About 15 minutes later, I was on Highway 3, heading Southwest to Denali National Park. It was a gorgeous view the entire way and the area got my hills and more abstract the closer I got to the Alaskan Range. The Chevy also drove like a dream, like it was just flying across the road and going 65mph was nothing to this new car. I will probably never spend the money to get a brand new car like this one, but it was nice to drive for a bit. As I approached Denali, about 120 miles
later, Julia's advice came into play. Two large moose stood on the side of the road, munching away at the tundra plants. They ignored me as I stopped, rolled down the window, and snapped some shots before continuing on my way. Then about another mile down the road, another moose walked across the road a little in front of me, its long legs making large strides. It had to be taller than the car as it slowly walked off into the brush.
I drove through the tourist stop areas and saw a bunch of Princess buses as I got closer to the park. It was gorgeous as the base of the mountains and a gorgeous view as I turned right and headed into the Denali Park. After stopping to get my ticket (which no one ever checked), I drove to Mile 15, as far as a private vehicle can go, and just enjoying the wildlife. My first encounter was with a small snowshoe hare. It couldn't decide whether or not it wanted to cross the road with me there, so I just watched it. As I did, a tour bus came up and stopped to watch it also. Then
the driver opened the window and whispered, "There are bears in the River" before continuing on her tour with all of her tourists. I smiled, said thanks, and headed down the road, weaving in between the large mountains, going about 30 mph with the windows down and just looking for any wildlife I could find. A few miles up the road (and sadly at the end where I had to turn around), I hit the Savage River and spotted the giant bears the bus driver had mentioned.
They were HUGE! No that's an understatement. They were like tanks. They were pretty far away from me and even with my camera on full zoom, I barely caught them out, but watching them from that distance, you could just tell how large they were. Bigger than most of the trees and probably as tall as a car and half its width, they loomed in the river, feeding among the silt on a small island in the middle. A couple were a much darker brown color while one was more of a light, dusty brown. Not sure what causes this difference, but I just watched from the roadside as they moved about.
I think if I were to encounter one of them on a trail at a much closer distance, I would just fall down and start crying, not knowing what else to do. They were so big and kind of puts all of those little black bears in Juneau to shame! After watching them for a bit, I headed down the road to the turn around point, saw another hare, then headed back towards the entrance. It took about 30-45 minutes to drive in to the turn around point and I didn't have cell service most of the way so it was just me, the fellow traffic every now and then, and the wildlife. I turned around and slowly headed back, making my way back to the entrance. It was about an hour and a half, almost two hours I spent in the park and as I pulled out, I wished I had more time and could stay to do the bus trips. But the shortest one was 6.5 hours long and I had to get back to Fairbanks.
As I pulled out, I looked over and saw the Era Helicopters by the riverside. It was a gorgeous spot and
made me think of Mel so I snapped a shot and then snapped a picture of the Era base before making my way back through the tourist area and towards Fairbanks. It was another 130 miles back to town and most of it was spent snapping shots of the vast tundra at different scenic byways, singing loudly to the radio, listening to an interview with the lead singer of GreenDay in which he described what his acid trips had been like, looking at the fire in the distance causing some issues with the road, and thinking about all I had seen. About 30 or 40 miles out of Denali, this car zoomed past me at about 75-80mph and just barely missed hitting a large gray wolf as it ran across the road. I stopped and watched him for a minute, but he only paused briefly on the side of the road before taking off into the bush, not enough time to snap a picture. By the time I got back near Fairbanks, it was around 4:40 so I couldn't go back to the housing yet and the EPSCoR lectures for the day had just ended. Instead, I got out my
map I picked up at the airport and headed over to Large Animal Research Station (LARS) run by UAF. Along the way, I saw some penned caribou on the roadside at the UAF Experimental Animal Farm, not sure if I really wanted to go there. When I got to LARS, I was surprised to see it was open and chatted with the gift shop lady about Muskox fur before going out to snap some pictures.
Muskox (Ovibos moschatus) are arctic mammals related to sheep and goats. They have long horns (both sexes) and are known for emitting a strong musky odor. Vicki had told me a little about them but it was my first time actually seeing them! They had two out where I could see and both seemed a little camera shy. So I just snapped a few pictures and left them alone. Apparently the research station has caribou, reindeer, and muskox and most are used by graduate students to do genetics and behavior research. The muskox wool is also extremely valuable, but given its rarity, is also extremely expensive! I didn't stay long since by that time, it was almost 5. I headed back to my room
and got online for a bit before heading to meet Yoko.
At 6:30, we met up at the UA Museum of the North, a small but impressive museum with collections of native artifacts, wildlife, dinosaur bones, weaved baskets, castes of woolly mammoth bones, lots of shells and gemstones, stuffed bears and foxes and seals and more, a huge bowhead whale bone and a small gray whale backbone, some Native canoes, old fish traps, and so much more. Even though it's just one giant room with displays (excluding the art exhibit upstairs and the amphitheater), it was extremely impressive what the museum had gathered. The building design was also very gorgeous and apparently internationally recognized. We wandered around for an hour and I got excited looking at all of the marine life artifacts, taking shots of the salmon display and the collection of shells. We also learned about the Northern Lights and the Japanese American concentration camp in the Pribilofs when Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. It was very neat and to end our tour, Yoko told me about the Japanese artist, Michio Hoshino, whose photos line the outside walls in the hallway. He was an avid traveler and extremely fond
of Alaska. After getting his degree in Japan, he spent some time with an Eskimo village then lived a long time in Alaska. He took some amazing shots of the entire state, wrote some inspirational worlds about the wildlife, and was world renowned. In 1996 at roughly the age of 40, he was dragged from his tent and killed by a brown bear while on assignment in Russia. A sad end and an additional reason why I'm not fond of bears, but beautiful photography.
After the museum, I grabbed some food then headed back to my room and was extremely excited to be home for the night. I got into my pajamas, Skyped a bit, watched a show, and ended up passing out while on the phone, still not sure if I ever ended the conversation, how I hung up the phone or put my computer on the floor, and a little sad to feel disoriented. When I woke up at 3a.m., I just had this panicked distraught feeling, but hope I ended the conversation in a good way. We'll find out later I guess! I had to wet my hair at 3a.m. because I was so hot and
then tried to sleep again. At 7:15 when my mp3 player alarm went off, I was exhausted and didn't want to get up. But I did, packed a little, came and ate breakfast, and am just finishing up the days lectures. It's about time though for me to pack my stuff and head over to check out of my room at 10a.m. and head to the airport. It's been a lot of fun and I'm a little sad to leave Fairbanks because the EPSCoR people are so nice, but I'm so excited to be going home to Juneau and my friends!! =) Hope I get to see Mt. McKinley from the plane on the way South.
One final note that is kind of sad. I went by and said thank you to Julia for all of the support from EPSCoR and she told me that the program will probably disappear. Since the grant funding is up, her, Pips, and Peter are all out of the job and can apply again this year or try again next but it's not certain it will return. It's kind of sad since they are such awesome people and she just looked totally heartbroken.
What's worse is that the three of them didn't get to have any input on the updating of the grant even though they have first hand experience. It's also sad because this may be my future -- a long line of grant funded jobs where you never know if you'll have employment the next year. Nevertheless, I told her thank you and that I'd write up a thing about how the grant has helped me get into graduate school. Hope it helps.
Well, about ready to board the plane now. Signing off from Fairbanks...
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