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Published: November 27th 2005
Denali #1
A momma grizzly bear, only 6 feet away.Hi everyone!
Another blog from AK.
Since the last one, we have been journeying around the main bit of Alaska. Landed in Fairbanks and drove straight to Denali National Park for a tour. The only way to see the park is either on foot or on a tour bus. The tour was great. We had a good driver who was quite humourous, and we saw stacks of wildlife....dall sheep, ptarmigans, snowshoe hare, and grizzlies! A momma bear and her three cubs walked straight by my window. An awe inspiring experience.
We then drove down to Talkeetna for a flight over Mt. McKinley. When we got up the next day though, the mountain was too clouded in so our flight was cancelled. It didn't matter though as our flight to Fairbanks went straight past the big mountain. It was poking straight through some very high cloud cover.
With nothing left to do, we drove back to Fairbanks and spent some time at the Chena Hot Springs. It has a few pools which are all heated to about 35 degs Celcius from spring water. It was very nice and warm and eased up Dad's aches and pains.
The
Denali #2
Dall Sheep, a sort of mountain goat. next thing on the list was to fly to Barrow, the northernmost town in North America. There are no roads to Barrow, so you have to fly. The plane Alaska Air uses is a half cargo, half passenger cabin Boeing 737. When we got off the plane, Barrow welcomed us with a 35mph wind and 0-degrees celcius. Bit of a rude shock. With the wind chill factor, it was about -10 degs celcius. I was silly enough to go take a 2 mile walk in that weather. It was fine to start with, but when it rained, it rained ice. Plus all the streets are made of dirt, so your boots and jeans tend to be covered in mud. We saw the Inupiat Heritage Centre which has stacks of info and displays on the Inupiat native peoples of the North Slope of Alaska and about how they survive here and the importance and regulation of whaling that happens here twice a year. Unfortunately, the fall whaling season doesn't start for another few weeks so we didn't have an opportunity to see that.
We took a tour out to Point Barrow, the northernmost point in all North America. The tour
Denali #3
Ptarmigan, Alaska's state bird. It actually changes it's plumage to match the season. Here you can see a mix of it's summer (brown) & winter (white) feathers. was in a Hummer which was good fun to ride around in. Despite how huge those things are, there's next to no room as the V10 engine juts into the front of the cabin. No polar bears to be seen out on the point as the ice pack is still out to sea some ways.
We also fulfilled our mission of the holiday. On the Saturday night we went out to dinner at Pepe's, the northernmost Mexican restaurant in the world. I had a really nice plate of enchiladas. Couldn't enjoy it with a Corona though as Barrow, being a native community, is a dry community. You can have alcohol freighted in by air for your own personal use but it cannot be sold in the town.
Once we were done with Barrow, we flew back south to Fairbanks, hired a car and set back on the road again. But that's for another blog.
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