The lawyers—tell me why a hearse horse snickers hauling a lawyer’s bones.
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June 27: Still feeling crappy with this lovely Alaskan summertime cold, we seriously slept in (at Chez Cabelas, for the third night in a row). Once getting to a semi-functional state, I was determined to a) post our account of the trip out to the Pribilof Islands and b) figure out this damn Western Digital “My Passport” Ultra external hard drive so I could load photos onto it in a useable fashion. So taking my watermelon-sized, marshmallow-filled, dripping cranium over to next-door Target, where there was a Starbucks, I plopped myself down with about a gallon of coffee and amazingly, accomplished both tasks within mere hours.
By then it was 2:00 PM, and we had many chores to complete before we could (finally) leave Anchorage. Post Office, to mail a book back to my daughter-in-law, Alice Bird (her real name); Dump Station number 1, to dump tanks; Dump station number 2, to take on water and check everywhere we could think of where there might be a leak. Couldn’t find any. Tried to find an RV place that could check for leaks, but none could for several days. So we boogied at 5:00 PM, just in time to get crushed in bumper-to-bumper rush hour traffic for over ten miles, if you can believe it.
We finally made it to the small town of Willow, AK, about 70 miles north of Anchorage. We wanted to check a spot back in the woods where a forest fire had occurred last year, prime territory for foraging woodpeckers that like to move in and feed on the insects and larvae that show up in burn areas. Of course, when we arrived at 7:30 PM, it was still very daylight. On the dirt road in, we found a female spruce grouse and her six grouselets walking on the road’s edge. At the desired spot, I got out, all covered up to forestall an expected mosquito attack and within seconds, heard the distinctive chipping sound an American three-toed woodpecker makes when it flakes bark off a tree while searching for bugs and grubs. The bird then flew across the road right next to us, as if we had an appointment! A few moments later, a slightly larger black-backed woodpecker gave a loud pik and its whirring call and flew in next to us as well. What a sweep! The 3-toed was Gale’s 80th life bird of the trip, an amazing accomplishment. A mile down the road, we parked at a roadside pull-off facing beautiful Kashwitna Lake, where a pair of common loons floated serenely off a distant point. Perhaps tonight we’ll hear some yodeling, the most eerie and beautiful sound of the wilderness. Yielding to the call of the wild, at 10:30 PM I went outside to watch the sun slowly sliding into the northwest. The pair of loons has wandered over near me, silhouetted by the exquisite boreal light. They both have tucked in their beaks into dense flank feathers, drifting off into loon sleep to rest before their evening concert begins.
June 28: The goal today was to get to Fairbanks, about 300 miles distant. We had one major stop planned - a visit to Byers Lake Campground, part of Denali State Park. I wanted to find a small, bright red finch called a white-winged crossbill. These curious birds have very curved mandibles and maxillae which overlap and cross. This highly adaptive feature allows them to pry open the cones of coniferous trees and extract the seeds for food. After a bit of searching, we heard the highly metallic trill of a singing male and were able to locate it perched at the very top of a tall black spruce. Then onward to Fairbanks for the night.
June 29: Try to picture this scene in your minds. It is 10:30 PM. We are camped on the banks of the mighty Yukon River only 60 miles south of the Arctic Circle. The sun is shining brightly and has resisted traveling downhill for the past several hours. I believe it has made up its solar mind to simply circle the heavens and not take a break. Most amazingly, we have been driving with the air conditioning on! It is 80 degrees and is blazing hot. A coincident advantage of driving with the windows tightly shut is that the blood-sucking hordes just 1/8 of an inch away can’t get in. We stopped to admire a beautiful placid, water lily covered pond straight out of Monet. As we peered through the glass, the “mossies” peered right back in and we could hear them screaming for our blood. Hitchcock should have made a movie called, “The Mosquitos”.
Back to the day’s outset. We drove around Fairbanks in circles, attending to chores that needed to be performed before heading north on the Dalton Highway, also known as the Haul Road, which was built to service the mostly parallel running Alaska Oil Pipeline. The most important task was taking Albie to the RV doctor to fix the leaking sink. The good news: it wasn’t leaking after all - just an overflow valve working properly when there was too much pressure in the hot water line. We finally made it out of town around 5:00 PM, taking the Elliot Highway northwest to the inception of the Dalton. We made a few stops along the way before we really got going: a) fishing license for Sam, b) interpretive display for the pipeline, and c) filling our water jugs and tank from a natural high pressure roadside spring.
The Dalton turned out to be a bit rough to drive (so far), but with some paved sections. The most difficult part is dealing with all the truck traffic that services the oil fields at Prudhoe Bay. These 18-24-wheelers come whipping around corners and slamming down hills at breakneck speed, throwing clouds of dust AND ROCKS. All I can do is pull over as far as possible, put on my right turn signal to let them know I’m stopping for them to pass and hope they respond in kind by slowing down. Mostly they do, but the last thing we want out here, besides a flat tire, is a broken windshield or headlight.
At one point, a golden eagle soared and flapped past us, but the best bird was a northern hawk owl, angrily (as always) scowling at us from the top of a dead black spruce tree. Amazingly, despite its usual fierce appearance, the owl began singing a sweet monotone trilling.
Now if it would only cool off for the night...
June 30: It did cool off eventually, on this last night of slight sunsets, but not before the mosquitos that had snuck into Albie had their way with us. My back got chewed up, so I got up for a while to let the itching stop. I went back to bed, covering everything apparently except my finger tips, which then got bled well enough to make a leech envious. I got up again to let my hands stop itching. By now it was after 2:00 AM.
We spent our day traveling north on the Dalton, covering about 215 miles, including a celebratory stop as we crossed the Arctic Circle. Despite frequent downpours, it was mostly another hot sunny day in the north country. We tried birding, but the mosquitos seem to be getting more numerous, ferocious and aggressive the further north we go. Within moments of stepping outside, a cloud surrounds you, blanketing you and your clothes, so that when you jump back into the vehicle, a few dozen happy hitchhikers are already sharpening their probosci, ready for an indoor dining experience. We are moose without hair, bears without fur, caribou without clothing. I even broke out my fly rod when I saw a little side stream filled with small grayling. First cast - strike! Next cast, the mosquitos ran my ass out of there. I’m going to try again tomorrow, but with full armor.
In addition to breaching the Circle, we also crossed the Continental Divide, driving over Atigun Pass in the Brooks Mountain Range. At 4800’, this is the highest drivable pass in Alaska. Very steep, up and down. Trucks laboring up one side, flying down the other. Intense.
For the night, we pulled into this beautiful spot just off the road, facing a magnificent mountain, stark in its barren beauty, lit perfectly by the warm evening glow. The pipeline runs right in front of it, however, detracting somewhat from the scene. In fact, the presence of the pipeline as it almost continuously parallels the road reduces significantly, for me anyway, the feeling that I am in the middle of this truly immense wilderness. The constant flow of huge trucks doesn’t help, either.
July 1: We drove a whopping ten miles before a long stop at Toolik Lake, site of the Arctic Research Station of the University of Alaska. That wasn’t why we stopped, though. I was told there was a little creek that flowed into the lake that was full of arctic grayling. To try my hand at fly-casting for these northern members of the trout family, however, many steps had to first be taken. To begin, I had to don my head-to-toe anti-mosquito netting suit, including gloves, because the bugs were very, very bad. Then I had to open up the back of the RV, to get out my rubber boots and fly rod. This is bad because certain insects instantly fly in to join us. Next I had to select a dry fly and tie it to my leader. This is a formidable task for me at any time, since my aged close vision sucks, but with a headnet on, it was damn near impossible. I stood outside for ten minutes trying to accomplish this little job, watch mosquitos land on my hands while I was trying to thread an insanely thin and nearly invisible monofilament leader through a hook eye smaller than a quark on this tiny fly I had tied as a teenager over 50 years ago. It got so bad and frustrating (and I was losing so much blood) that I eventually left the rod outside, went back into the van after closing the door on my line, removed my headnet and finally succeeded in properly attaching my fly to the leader. Then I put my gloves back on and went fishing. I found the creek, found the fish and managed to attract four of them sufficiently to attach themselves to my little fly. I ultimately had a great time and don’t mind the need for a transfusion one bit.
On a nearby small bay at Toolik Lake we spotted a yellow-billed loon close to shore. With full netting, I set off with a camera instead of a fly rod this time. In perfect light, it surfaced from a dive once right in front of me, water droplets on its head, water dripping from its bright yellow beak, its ruby eye shining. What an image!
We continued north. Several Smith’s longspurs were at the road’s edge and at our lunchtime stop along the highway, a pair of eastern yellow wagtails repeatedly flew around us, perching periodically in the dense willows. Onward we went, over increasingly crappy road, until we hit 40 miles south of Deadhorse, the northernmost terminus of the Dalton Highway. There we found out what really horrendous road was like, as 36 miles of it were under construction, building it up higher over the wet tundra. There were sharp and big rocks, loose gravel, deep soft trenches where large trucks had plowed through the new surface. There were two lengthy waits for pilot cars to lead us through this morass. The worst part was that this section previously was among the best in the area for birding and the construction had completely screwed the pooch, so to speak. The marshes were being filled in or dug up and there were few birds around the road. We did see all three jaeger species fly by, but that was small compensation for not being able to enjoy what was a magnificent area for birding and nature. The bottom line here is OIL, as that is the entire purpose of this town and the 430 mile road we had just driven to get here. Whatever is necessary to keep it flowing rules the roost. More on Deadhorse and Prudhoe Bay tomorrow.
July 2: We signed up for an Arctic Ocean/oil fields tour for tomorrow morning, so we spent the day driving around Deadhorse’s limited road system, dodging trucks of all different sorts, getting stopped and checked by British Petroleum Security, photographing birds, etc. This place is huge! It takes a very large community to support all the oil drilling and pumping. According to our Milepost Guide, there are about a half dozen full time residents here and another 4-6,000 who live here part-time, all in pre-fab housing units and “hotels”. Everything is extremely insulated, even a cement truck we saw, to allow operation in temperatures that can go 70 below zero. Gale won’t get out of the RV, completely spooked by the giant mossies that swarm right outside the windows and get in every time I get out or open the window for a shot. We’ve gotten exceptionally good at killing them, however and I have perfected a left forearm smash against the driver’s side window. My anti-mosquito net jacket has its shortcomings, though. I discovered that since it fits so tightly around my neck, I got eight bites in one cluster there. Perhaps these little wretches have also learned how to drill for oil.
There are a lot of little ponds to explore, but many areas are strictly off limits to unauthorized vehicles. The oil workers look at us like we came from another planet. In one sense, we did.
There are loads of greater white-fronted geese here, mostly pairs with fuzzy little ones being herded along. One small pond held about 30 apparently non-breeding adults, some sort of bachelors’ club, I guess. There are also lots of Canada geese with goslings, glaucous gulls, tundra swans, red-necked phalaropes, vast numbers of northern pintails and all the jaegers. The highlight of the day was finding what we think were a pair of arctic loons. We need a true loony expert to check my photos to confirm if that is what they are or the very similar Pacific loons, which are much more common here. With bright sunshine all day and night, temps hit 55 during the day and then drop into the 30s at “night”.
July 3: This morning was our shuttle bus excursion to the Arctic Ocean, traveling through otherwise restricted oil field areas. It was nothing fancy, mostly hearing about how the oil operations work. I was surprised to learn that almost all of the drilling and pumping done at Prudhoe Bay is onshore - only a couple of big offshore rigs. The crude oil is extracted combined with water and natural gas. According to Maynard, our driver/guide, the water and gas are separated from the oil, then injected back into the underground fields. All the energy required to run the Deadhorse/Prudhoe operations comes from natural gas. We came to the end of the road, where a gravel bar had been built out into the sea, so we could walk out about 100 yards and admire the gray water. WE MADE IT! This is as far from Florida as we could possibly drive in North America. One intrepid fellow stripped to his skivvies, waded out and dove in for the ultimate polar “bare” experience. We did see a small group of Caribou running between the oil pipelines. After returning from this “adventure”, we headed out of Dodge, going south now on the Dalton.
Impressions of Deadhorse and Prudhoe Bay: interesting experience, glad we did it, but wouldn’t recommend it for many others. For birding, we were about 3-4 weeks too late for the best activity. You simply can’t be everywhere in the Arctic during the first two weeks of June. The scenery is stunning, from the amazing vastness of the tundra, the ruggedness of the Brooks Range and the sprawling boreal forest. The road itself is horrible. Wildlife is sparse, as is true for most of the north country, but a herd of about 3000 caribou passed right next to Deadhorse yesterday evening, which we just missed seeing. On the way south today, we saw a group of about 15 muskoxen on a distant slope. There are other large mammals around, but not frequently seen. If logic has any bearing, which it my not, why would they come near a busy, extremely dusty road and oil pipeline, when there hundreds of thousands square miles of ideal habitat with no human presence?
The fun part of the southbound ride was stopping near Pipeline Pump Station #4. We had been there a few days earlier and heard and saw a pair of eastern yellow wagtails flying around and calling. They were nearby again today, except now there were four birds. Mostly they fly around, just overhead, making multiple flight calls of tswee, tswee, tswee, flashing their long black tail with bright white outer tail feathers, in stark contrast to canary yellow underparts, but they would only land in the willows way over toward the pump station. So I slid down the embankment and started walking toward them. I figured if I could get in their wheelhouse, maybe they would perch close enough for a decent photo. So I did, and after about a half hour of chasing around in the moderately dense willows, they cooperated. Briefly, but well enough for some pictures. When I got back to the RV, an oil company security officer was waiting for me, wanting to know what a guy with a long telephoto lens, dressed in camo clothes, was doing next to “his” pump station. We had a nice chat about what I was doing. I explained to him that the photo he took of our front “license plate” was not an official plate, but a photo of our wandering albatross. You couldn’t read the rear plate since it was covered in mud, so I cleaned it off for him so he could properly complete his investigation and not get embarrassed when he showed the albatross plate around, having let an obvious terrorist get away.
We’re camped for the night in an exquisite high narrow valley just north of Atigun Pass in the Brooks Range. Could get cold tonight, if not dark!
July 4: Happy Independence Day to everyone! There are no fireworks here. It’s not for lack of patriotism, though. It just doesn’t get dark and setting off fireworks in the basement is not that good an idea. We started the day by wandering up and around a high tundra slope right next to our roadside campsite. I didn’t find any new birds, but did manage to get attacked by a pair of long-tailed jaegers. Apparently, they weren’t nesting - just having a little fun dive bombing the tourist. We continued up and over Atigun Pass, which is an extremely steep, relatively short climb on both sides. For five miles, no stopping is permitted, due to rock slides and snow avalanches.
Shortly after descending the pass, Gale spotted a northern hawk owl quite close to the road! It was mostly preening its feathers and trying to dry off from the cloudbursts we kept experiencing. Within a couple of miles, we spotted two more.
I tried fly-fishing for grayling at a couple of gorgeous rivers passing under the road, but had no luck with the fish. The fishing and casting were much fun, however!
We took a little detour to visit the historic village of Wiseman, Alaska, a small town founded by gold miners in 1905. For a while, it was a major hit, with the largest gold nuggets ever found coming out of the small nearby creeks. But then, of course, the gold played out. What’s left are eight full-time residents, including three home-schooled teenagers, a couple of B&B’s, a lot of moose and caribou antlers and a really nice gift shop, the Boreal Cafe’. The town celebrated July 4th yesterday with a big picnic for about 90 people and folks were still sitting around the tent and leftovers at noon today when we arrived. They gave us some of the best chili ever and a tour by “Clutch” Lounsbury of the small museum of mining and local history. “Clutch” was a state Hall of Fame hockey player in his day and he showed us photos of his grandmother also playing hockey 100 years ago! We needed to keep on keepin’ on, so we passed on the mooseburgers they kindly offered us and mosied on down the road. We stopped once again at the little village of Coldfoot to refuel, take on fresh water and wash some of the mud off Albie. In 20 miles, though, all that crud was back in spades. Diesel was $4.39/gal, down from $5.21 in Deadhorse.
Our night was pleasantly passed on top of Finger Mountain, an alpine area with a big pointy rock outcrop that aims toward Fairbanks, just like us.
July 5: Before breakfast, we walked about 3/4 mile across the tundra to Finger Rock. Surprisingly, the closer we got, the more it looked like a 30 foot tall crooked index finger. The walk was amazingly silent, especially compared to when we were there only four days previously, when tree and white-crowned sparrows were singing their hearts out. Spring and breeding season are fleeting things here in the far north. Arrive, claim a territory, find a mate, raise a family and get out before winter comes. All that can happen in a matter of weeks, and survival depends on rapid success in all those aspects of life in the arctic. We did notice a large doglike footprint in the trail mud, followed by scat composed mostly of hair. It certainly looked like a wolf had been using this path very recently!
We spent the remainder of the day driving back to Fairbanks. With frequent downpours, what had been bad road now turned into worse road that resembled chocolate pudding with potholes. First order of business in town - go to the superb Fairbanks library to connect to the internet for the first time in almost a week. It seems to me that with all the money that has been generated by the oil industry in Alaska over the past 40 years, every governmental service and facility should be the best in the nation. Next stop - a heavy duty RV wash. Not only was Albie completely cloaked with mud and could have been mistaken for a double chocolate Klondike Bar, but her undersides were covered with corrosive calcium chloride, which is used to keep the dust down on the Dalton Highway. I donned rubber boots and raincoat and kept pumping tokens into the spray machine until we found there was a vehicle under there after all.
The other problems we’ve had result from all the severe shaking and rattling from rough roads we’ve experienced. Many of the door latches have either flat out broken or stick so badly it takes two of us to get it open. A full door fell off. Shelves in the pantry collapsed. But with duct tape and a lot of bungee cords, we have managed to keep it all together and functioning more or less normally.
One other impression, since everything is relative. We previously thought of Fairbanks, Alaska as a far northern outpost in the frozen north. After three days driving south to get here, it doesn’t seem that north after all. Let’s hold onto that comfy thought and not bring to mind the -50˚ temps that can prevail here during the winter.
June 6: Today was a day of chillin’ and chores. Food shopping, laundry, general reorganization. We checked in early at our hotel and got caught up on internet stuff, photos, etc. Taking long hot showers for as long as we liked was definitely the best. We explored “old” Fairbanks a little this afternoon, wandering around the area of town along the Chena River, where Fairbanks was originally settled by miners and trappers. Virtually nothing of the original town still exists, due to expansion, fires, earthquakes and really bad weather. There are a couple of original log cabins still preserved, which demonstrate what a hard time the earliest residents had surviving in this largely inhospitable climate. I walked into a fur shop that displayed all sorts of skins and exquisite coats and clothing made from native animals. As I touched the coats, my memory flashed back over 60 years to my grandfather, Hyman Rappaport, who immigrated to to Yonkers, New York in 1911 from eastern Europe. He was a furrier and hand-crafted exquisite fur coats and stoles from mink, sable, fox, beaver, raccoon and probably others. As grubby little six-year old street urchins, my pals and I would zoom through the part of the store where all the furs were hanging on racks, running between the coats, touching the soft, luxurious furs with our dirty hands. Sensory stimuli for the memory is absolutely amazing! I told this story to the older gentleman who owned the shop, and he smiled wanly, thinking of the glory days of the furrier business. He told me that European Jews and Greeks were the master furriers of that time. Not many people with a conscience wear fur any more (although we have no problem eating beef or wearing leather), so the business is on its last legs. As we were leaving the shop, I noticed there was a barrel of fur scraps at the front. Another flashback. I learned to sew making “blankets” out of just such scraps in my grandfather’s store and fond memories and mental images magically appeared, previously long forgotten, of patiently working at his old bench sewing those fur remnants together. My new friend gave me a piece of incredibly soft beaver pelt to keep as a souvenir.
After dinner, we walked across the street to the exquisitely maintained city park that runs along the river, where a steel band, of all things, was just beginning to play. Imagine that - 75 degrees, sun in your face, sitting on a park bench in Fairbanks, Alaska, listening to calypso from the Caribbean! The band was composed of people from all walks of life. The man sitting next to me, whose wife was playing, explained that Chris, the large bald guy sweating through his purple dress shirt, was a mechanical engineer and was the leader. There were very grandmotherly types wailing away on their drums and some youngsters really rocking out. A young teenage boy, showing just the hint of a moustache, was so enthusiastic in his playing he could barely stand still. The apparent sourdough of the bunch, with a foot-long beard and a two-foot long ponytail, was actually a local lawyer. The announcer and bongo player, who sounded like he came from the Bronx, explained that anyone was welcome to join and that they gave lessons all winter long. Free ice cream was passed out during the performance. Couldn’t beat it with a stick.
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