Blogs from Alaska, United States, North America - page 278

Alaska - One Month My travel career all started on the 2nd of September 2002, I left Heathrow airport and, 25 hours and 3 flights later, arrived in Anchorage. The views from the windows for the final 2 hours of the flight were amazing, you could see glaciers and the shape of the land as we flew over beautiful snow-capped mountains. After a couple of days in Anchorage to acclimatise we headed north to Denali National Park, and after some bear-procedure training we set off into our allocated 50 square mile area and we went “Into The Wild”. We spent 4 days hiking around this area, following a river up into the mountains and back again. We saw 6 bears, 5 from a distance and one I saw up close and personal. It was at the ... read more

12 June -- well, today we expect to arrive at the Grand Teton National Park. In the last few days, We encountered our first rainstorm as we neared Kansas City, and - yes - the small pass-through window into the camper leaks in spite of the pounds of caulk Tom used before we left. We’ll see how bad it gets before we caulk the whole window. We’ve found that credit card companies are becoming incredibly cautious about fraud. Bear in mind that we called our CC company before we left TN, telling them that we’d be on the road to Alaska for 3 months. We had an accident with Tom’s new laptop (lemonade doesn’t mix well with electronics) and bought a new laptop in Kansas City. That caused our CC company to block the card, which ... read more

When the Wien Alaska Airlines Fairchild F-27 touched down at Kotzebue airport, we were officially north of the Arctic Circle. The 1962 Alaska trip included a four day visit to Nome, Kotzebue and Barrow. I must say that I do not recall much about Nome. But Kotzebiue was by far the most interesting stop. Valene had been doing field work for her doctorate in Anthropology among the Inupiaq (Inuit) of Kotzebue. She knew many of the townsfolk personally. The indigenous people of Kotzebue are related to and speak a language similar to that spoken by the Inuit of Canada and Greenland. The houses of Kotzebue were rustic in 1962. Buildings were constructed of timber, plywood sheets, corrugated metal, tar paper and sometimes finished lumber. Whatever material could be sourced. (Construction in Barrow was similar, often employing ... read more

After calling at Wrangell and Sitka, Mañana II docked at Warm Springs Bay. Warm Springs Bay is on the opposite side of Baranof Island from Sitka. It would be called "off the grid" today. The accommodations were rustic wooden bunkhouses dating back to who knows when. There was no electricity. At night, we lit kerosene lamps for illumination. The facilities were out back. I felt like I had stepped into the 1961 film North to Alaska, about the Alaska Gold Rush era. A definite pioneer felt permeated the settlement. There were warm springs here for bathing, but we did not go in them. There was a day of trail hiking to Baranof Lake and exploring the wilderness. I fished for the first time in the Baranof River. Another adventure!... read more