Alaska - The North-most Frontier

From the time I read Jack London describing Alaska in his books the 'Call of the Wild' and 'White Fang', I nourished desire to see the wild bush country myself. This summer I got the chance of the lifetime when I joined a camping trip up in the north-most state of US.

My Alaskan adventure started from Anchorage, the largest city in Alaska. As it was summer the sky was lit for near 20 hours a day and my first observation was the reddish golden glow in the starless sky. We had decided to camp in the different National Parks for the next two weeks and I felt as spirited as 'Alexander Supertramp'. 

Wrangell St. Elias National Park (Macarthy): After a long bumpy van journey, venturing eastwards to the Wrangell St. Elias National Park, we camped on the base of a glacier. A huge magnificent structure, truly a wonder of nature that took our breath away. The small town of Macarthy is at the bottom of the glacier, once famous for its copper mines, it now lies empty, visited only by tourist who want to climb the glacier and enjoy quiet solitude on a solid block of slowly moving ice. My first night at the camp was a strange experience, the glacier seemed to be enveloped by a reddish glow and the whole area had an eerie feeling to it. The only sounds were of the flowing water and it took me a while to adjust to this silent dreamy atmosphere.

The next day we went ice climbing on the glacier, an experience which was worth the physical exertion and tiredness that followed. After hiking about seven miles on the glacier on my cramp ons, it was quite a herculean task to climb the steep ice slopes precariously balancing myself with ropes, nails and pick axes. A high adrenalin exercise which took a while to master will go down in my books as one of the most extreme sports that I have ever done.

McLaren - Denali Highway: The next day we continued our adventure, driving on the famous Denali National Highway, one of the northernmost highways of US towards the Denali National Park. We stopped at a small village called McLaren along the way and camped outside the river lodge for the night. An extremely cold place where I must have put on a record number of layers, McLaren river turned out to be an excellent spot for grayling fishing. Learning some fundamental tricks from my Australian tent mate, I managed to catch a couple graylings myself. Since the days are 20 hours long, we decided that a boat trip to the bottom of the glacier at 11PM at night was worthwhile, so braving the super cold and the mosquitoes we paddled for about an hour to see the glacier from close. A spectacular sight and even in the harsh weather, I felt in complete peace with my surroundings. The sunset was fascinating, more colorful than any other place I have ever been too. Though I did not sleep much that night, I did not feel tired the next day and was awake early to board the van for Denali.

Denali National Park: Denali National Park is known for its beautiful flora and fauna and for the wild animals that inhabit the national park which is the size of the state of Massachusetts. It is also an unique national park is it has no marked trails and people are allowed and encouraged to independently venture out to the wild in any direction they want. The only thing to watch out for are big grizzly bears and its always advisable to have a portable GPS if one wants to venture our far from the main road. Generally most tourist board the national park bus which takes them about four hours into the forest. We took the bus to Fish Creek, a three hour long journey and then hiked for about five hours in between the mountains, the grasslands and the fast streams. We were lucky also to see a beautiful blond grizzly bear from close quarters, sleeping blissfully in the sun. Also, we saw a number of moose, raindeer and amazingly a lone grey wolf (quite a surprising sight since wolf are generally always in groups). On the way back to camp, we also had a chance to see a dog sled demonstration and the handsome proud huskies took our breath away.

Our campsite was next to a stream and I spent a long time, sitting on its edge relaxing. The next day we made an early hike to Mt. Healey and then chartered a plane to see Mt McKinley (Denali) from up close. The small turbo prop four seater was supposed to land on the glacier at the base of Mt McKinley but bad weather foiled our repeated attempts. But even though we were not able to land, we did get a excellent view of the mountain.

Pt. Barrow: On returning from Denali, I decided to go to the northernmost inhabited settlement in North America - Point Barrow.

A eskimo town, very underdeveloped and covered with ice nice months a year, its amazing to see how these people survive off the land. After long delays and detouring off Purdoe Bay, America's oil platform on the North Arctic shore, Barrows turned out to be a lot different than what I had visualized. Rows and rows of poor broken down houses, and really old cabs greeted me. The shore of the Arctic was covered with large whale bones and the ocean seemed unusually calm. At 78 degree's north, this is nearly the top of the world. I ate some fish at a Japanese hotel, one of the two food places that I saw in the whole town and then played some soccer with the eskimo kids on the shore before heading out in a broken down cab to the north-most extreme of the land, hoping to see one of the most elusive bears - the polar bear. Standing on the edge or the Arctic ocean with my toes dipped in the water, I was as close to the north pole as one can be. An exhilarating feeling of achievement and satisfaction that even the absence of polar bears could not quell. 

Sewart: With half of my vacation nearly over, I headed for Southern coastal Alaska on the Alaskan Railways for the city of Sewart. Named after the one who brokered the deal for Alaska's purchase for $ 7 million from Russia, Sewart is Alaska's main port and also the entry to the Kenai Fjords National Park. The Alaskan rail coaches are also an interesting way to travel with each coach having a student guide volunteer and the train itself passing through beautiful forests and snaking along the fjord coast. The large windows allow all tourist to enjoy the beauty of Alaska from the comfort of the coach while sipping wine or drinking hot chocolate. On reaching Stewart, I took a cruise to the fjords watching whales frolicking close by and huge seals resting on floating ice. I also managed to see the famous colorful bird - the puffin which is said to be able to dive up to depths of 20 meters into the cold waters to catch fish. 

Homer: Our next stop was the small artistic town of Homer. Perhaps the most interesting town in Alaska, it boasts of a large number of artists who settled here during the vietnam war and gave this town a distinct culture. This is the place where I had the strangest meeting in my whole life. Late in the evening, we met a talk and handsome bearded stranger who suddenly appeared at our campsite and started helping us with unloading our gear. The man never said a word and for a while we did not know what to ask him. Finally we shared some camp dinner with him and later while cleaning the dishes found out that he was a traveller from Israel who was traveling Alaska and Canada on foot. The strange fellow had a super calm and confident look on himself and walked around with a huge back back and a single tent on his back. He had deep eyes and after a while seemed to look like Jesus Christ (not kidding!!) and to add to our surprise, he vanished the next morning. Very very strange experience.

 

Across the Bay: Across the bay is a small island which is on the other side of Homer. Owned and maintained by a elderly couple, it is a beautiful little semi resort from where one can go sea kayaking with the hope to watching sea otters, birds or if lucky the resident orcas. Our sea kayaking excursion was more relaxed and we had salmon sandwiches on another island before heading back to Homer.

Hope: Hope was the last village on my trip, a small settlement of about 300 people, which was founded during the gold rush, it is still home to the old gold panner families. I had an opportunity to try my hand at some gold panning with Peck and managed to get a few specks of gold after an hour of shaking and draining. The old museum is interesting too and the town folks were really nice and hospitable, offering us pancakes and coffee where ever we went.

My Alaskan experience will always be memorable and I hope that the north-most bush country stays that way without people exploiting it. I know I will go back one day maybe in winter when the sky is dark and there is snow everywhere.