Our First Week in Alaska

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We have been in Alaska almost two weeks - and we've done a lot and seen a lot already.

First stop for us was Tok. Traveling by land, unless you come over the Top of the World Highway from Dawson City, Yukon, Tok is the first city you come to. It's an unincorporated area - they don't want any government. Several RV parks, motels, restaurants, a grocery store and a health food store. We stayed a couple of days to decompress. We were disappointed to find out that the Salmon Bake was not open yet. Now we'll be waiting until we get to Denali for our first salmon.

10:30 in the campground in Tok - sunset at midnight

We made a day trip to Chicken and Eagle. There is a fire up near the Canadian border - we saw the helicopter carrying one of those big waterbuckets.

We arrived in Eagle at midday ready for a meal at the cafe that we thought was here. Unfortunately, we missed hearing that the breakup of ice on the Yukon River was really hard on Eagle. Basically, they had a couple of really hot days while the ice was still real thick and not ready to break up. The water forced the ice to break and the ice came up into the town, destroying much of the property along the river banks (up to 1/2 mile inland). That of course included most of the tourist services that the town depends on for income in the summer - cafe, lodge, the riverboat that runs up the Yukon to Dawson City, etc.

They had a basic store open, but all the tourist activities were still closed. About 40 familes are still homeless and need to have something livable by the time it starts to snow in September. Evidently FEMA wants to send TRAILERS to Alaska where it gets to 60 below zero! But the residents have put together a plan to build basic cabins like people that people are used to up here in the interior and hopefully FEMA will help them with supplies and materials that they need.
We did not do much sightseeing, knowing how it feels when one is trying to get on with life and recover from a disaster and people are sightseeing with you as the "sight". It is a pretty area and hopefully we'll get back someday.

Firefighting copter near Chicken

Evidence of the Taylor wildfire in 2004 - the area on the right was "backfired"

Visit to Eagle, AK

On the way back, between Chicken and Eagle (this is the definition of the middle of nowhere), we had a flat. Something put a great big hole in the side of a back tire. We had a good spare, so no big deal, right? Wrong... After Tom got the lug nuts off and put the truck up on the jacks, the tire wouldn't come off. He tried beating at it, kicking it, anything to loosen it up, but no results. Luckily a couple heading up to Eagle to help with the cleanup stopped. The guy had a great big jack and a more substantial tire iron. He works on cars and is used to flats, but it took both of them taking turns beating at the tire to get it off. It was not a quick fix. After that, we were on our way in just a few moments. Thanks to the good Samaritans!

The Chicken Post Office - Friday, June 5th

Saturday the 6th, we took a day off to do laundry and we planned to watch hockey. The laundry got done, but we had to listen to the game over the internet. We did get to use our aircard again, but we had a very poor signal.

On Sunday, we headed up to Fairbanks, passing the official end of the Alaska Highway about halfway up the road.

Uh-oh - looks like it may be a bad year for mosquitos!


End othe Alaska Highway for now...

We spent one night at the Faribanks Walmart on June 7th. It is nice of them to let people stay in the parking lot. We spent over $200 there ( a new tire to replace the blown out truck tire, plus food and supplies). We are still trying to get used to the short (non-existent) nights. It's even lighter here than in Tok. It's almost solstice!

10:30 at the WalMart Parking Lot - still a couple of hours of daylight left

The second night we spent at North Pole - really - tonight we wanted electricity. We stayed at a pretty, nice place right on the river. Moose scat right in the campground, but no sign of the moose.

We did more errands (at least Tom did – I played at a yarn shop while he drove around to parts stores). At this point, we lost our internet connection and spent a couple of hours on the phone with Verizon trying to get it working again. Unfortunately, they have no towers in Alaska, so we suspended our service and started depending on free wifi providers again... Safeway in Fairbanks has an internet cafe right in the store (right next to the Starbucks). That was real helpful!

We returned to the Silver Gulch Brewery for dinner and some really good beer, then headed home to North Pole to get some sleep. Sally woke up at 3:30 am smelling smoke from a distant wildfire - smoke collects in the river valleys. Then she spent at least an hour killing about 20 mosquitos that were intent on dive-bombing her.

View of the Chena River near North Pole AK

And th moose scat in near the RV

Tuesday, we decided to head on down to Healy. Our original plans included driving the Dalton Highway again, but we decided to put that off for a while. We don't really start work till after the 15th since the RV park is not real busy yet, so we'll have plenty of time to get settled in and do some touring down south instead.

Talk about coincidences - there are two other workamper couples here this summer. One couple is from Metairie and the other is from Bend, OR (which is the closest big town to Malheur refuge)! We have already had a pot luck with the folks from Denali Park Motel, which is owned by the same people that own the RV park. Looks like we'll have a more active social life than expected! Sally's going to knit night Tuesday and Tom plans to play at the Open Mike Night at the Salmon Bake on Monday night.

In the meantime, we took a ride into the park on our first full day here and --- saw the mountain! Beautiful view!

First Denali sighting - the day after we arrived (June 10th)

Our first lunch at the Salmon Bake - Halibut and Chips and Salmon Chowder

The next day (Thursday the 11th), we took a drive across the Denali Highway. The Denali Highway was built in 1957. Before that, you had to take the train, plane or dogsled to Denali. The road is 135 miles (23 paved). And it is gorgeous. We saw Denali (the mountain) again - from Mile 11. Close to Paxson at the other end are beautiful views of glaciated mountains in the Alaska Range. It's amazing to think that Denali is about in the center of the Alaska Range. The eastern end is south of Tok. We've never been anywhere near the western end. I think you have to fly over there!

View of Denali from Mile 11 of the Denali Highway

Paxson Lodge - at the east end of the Denali Highway


Glacier Covered Mountains on the Denali Highway

Tundra Swans on Denali Highway

Stay tuned in for more exciting adventures as we continue to explore the area. We've already bought our "six-pack" of tickets for the Denali shuttle bus. We'll spend many of our "weekends" in the park. We're looking at other places we didn't get to last time - Chena Hot Springs, McCarthy and Kennicott down near Glenallen, the Anderson bluegrass festival. And we're looking to repeat some of the activities we especially enjoyed, like the Red Green Regatta and the other events of Fairbanks Founders' Days.