My trip to Alaska

Alaska is a country of great contrasts in temperature; it reaches 40 c, or higher in summer and down to 40c below zero, or lower in winter.  In mid summer the sun shines for 24 hours but mid winter it does not rise at all and evidently the long hours of darkness are hard on the tempers of men and animals alike.  Bears and some other animals go into hibernation as their means of coping with it.  Though most of the country’s main roads are kept open nowadays, huskies and snow sleds are in common use in the country areas.  

A yearly event eagerly looked forward to is the 1000-mile sled dog race between Whitehorse and Fairbanks.  This takes 10-12 days, with a compulsory 36-hour layover in Dawson City. To train for it during the year they put hay or straw on the paths so the sleds will slide as they do on snow.  When I was there the hours of daylight were very similar to our own here, the seasons being just opposite to ours.  The summer is only enough to thaw the top 6” of soil so that is all things have to grow in.  Nevertheless they do grow- I guess the long hours of sunlight help and many vegetables grow really well and flowers that we grow in our summer gardens flourish.  Indeed some of them grow wild, golden rod aquilegia and forget-me-nots.  The same trees grow all through British Columbia, Yukon, and Alaska but in the coldest part they take 200 years to reach 6’ high.  Poplars, Alders and at least two kinds of spruce grew alongside the roadside all the way we travelled.  Can you imagine it? If there were farms, most likely they were behind the trees, where there were houses they were in among them, or sometimes back from the road in a clearing, but even then there were some trees among them.  Only in the towns did the trees give way to the buildings and on many of the mountains trees grew right to the snow line or beyond.  For some reason they self-sow and are sometimes very close together.  Even where fire had been through an area there were new ones springing up- and some that had escaped.   

Up until 1942 there were a few roads in the country but there were airstrips in many country areas.  When the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbour America decided they must not be allowed to enter into Alaska (they had bought it from Russia for 2 cents per square mile).  16000 American and Canadian soldiers and civilians did back breaking work twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.  Guts and tractors built the Alaskan highway, the premier engineering feat of the century.  It was a job fraught with many dangers and challenges, both for the engineers and those who worked on it.  They started in March so worked through the dark and intense cold. They had to cross rivers and mountains and muskeg presented problems they didn’t know how to over come and often the men on the job had to work out their own answers.  Often mosquitoes plagued them, but in 8 months and 10 days they had got the road through so that the military could get through the 1523 miles to Fairbanks.  On the bus we were shown a video of the men and machinery and the mud and difficulties they had to contend with.  In 1992 many of the towns en route held celebrations to commemorate the achievements but of course by then the roads were sealed and improved into a good state highway.  After each winter though there were “ heaves “ to work on.  The cold lifts the seal into hillocks that have to be cut, flattened and resealed.   

Our trip took us from Edmonton in British Columbia, Canada, through Yukon, which is a Canadian territory, and then into Alaska, which is American.  At the border we had to have our passports checked and again when we passed back into Canadian territory.  Going from Dawson City we crossed the mighty Yukon River on a ferry, which took our large bus and several trucks and motor homes. They do not build a bridge there because in the winter they can travel across the river itself- it freezes so solid!  One would think with all that cold in winter there would be some sign of it the rest of the year, but no, even the tops of the mountains had no snow, or occasionally a little patch here and there, until we got to Porter Valley and there we did believe we were in Alaska.  The bay was full of icebergs.  They were so beautiful.  Even so, it did not feel particularly cold.  Later in the day we boarded a boat and sailed among them, but then the rain came down and the glaciers we should have seen were hidden from view.   

At a place called North Pole (it wasn’t really) some enterprising folk had built a Santa Claus House, complete with a Santa Claus to welcome travellers, and a gift shop full of gifts. A 20 ft. Santa was at the entrance and his reindeer and sleigh were atop the posts, which were around a children’s playground and park, but a real reindeer was in a pen beside it. The poor thing was very lonely though and spent its time wandering round the fence line. At the reindeer farm we had visited a few days earlier we were able to go among the animals- I suppose 20 or more- and feed them on fireweed which they willingly took from our hands and let us stroke them.  They are sent from there to many different places in the world but those folk make sure the recipients know how to feed and look after them.  The mother rejected one baby, weighing only 10 lbs, and they had fed it from a baby’s bottle.   

Another historic project we viewed from time to time was the Alaska pipeline. I guess the discovery of oil in Prudoe Bay meant more to America than gold that men from all over the world had rushed to find.   To get it to the shipping port meant 800 miles of pipeline over mountains and terrain as difficult as the highway.  Because of the permafrost not much of it could be buried in the ground and it had to be built high enough so the animals could walk underneath it.  It was built in a zigzag, in case of earthquakes, so that it was flexible enough not to break.  As Valdez was the only harbour that was not frozen over in winter that was where the terminal was built.  A tour of that area showed 18 huge tanks and installations and all sorts of security measures so that no accident happened.  We even had to leave our luggage at the hotel and go back for it later, in case any of us had something that could have caused a problem.   

You may have heard of the Inside Passage.  This is comparable to the Marlborough Sounds, but extends 500 miles along the coast between the islands that lay the length of Prince William Sound.  Our bus spent two days and nights on the boat travelling down there. We were able to get off at several places en route.  At Ketchikan we went in a local bus to a salmon hatchery, and saw totem poles and houses perched on a hillside, one even having its own tram.  Then we went to the rubbish dump, where bears came foraging at dusk.  We saw three big black ones but they were too busy tearing the rubbish bags open to take any notice of us.  On the roads they have right of way and a couple of times a bear meandered across the road in front of the bus, but caribou fighting on the side of the road took no notice when folk got out of their cars to photograph them.  In Jasper the elk cropped the grass verge in the town with people walking on the footpath beside them.  One day we visited Liard hot springs and many of our group enjoyed a swim there.  I walked further on where the notice said there were hanging gardens and orchids but was disappointed.  That day we were to have our afternoon tea in the kiosk at the roadside but as our courier was setting it out a bear appeared near her, evidently having smelt the food.  She clapped her hands and it turned away but didn’t go far.  Fortunately a Ranger appeared and dealt with it but he advised her to pack up the food quickly and get us back in the bus as soon as possible.  What a scramble and excitement but none of us saw the bear and we had our afternoon tea in the bus.   

There were 42 of us on the bus, counting the courier and driver, and 24 were from Tauranga- the rest from Canada and America, and all got on well together.  The final night our group did (or attempted anyway) the haka, sang God Defend New Zealand, and then led in Now is the Hour.  Some told tall tales, and amid much hilarity, and some sadness, we farewelled those who had come to be friends.