Alaska. Of all the amazing places I've visited in the past 16 months of travelling, there are still few which can compare with Alaska. After the few weeks I'd spent there at the end of winter I was looking forward to seeing it in the summer and fall, which that far north starts in late August. It's about 16 hours from Whitehorse to Anchorage on the Alaska Highway, a trip which involves many long hours bouncing along roads corrugated by the yearly cycle of freeze and thaw. A lot had changed since the last time I travelled this way however, landscapes which had been stark expanses of snow were now lush and green and valleys which seemed like any other under the snow now revealed to hold enormous glaciers. And there was no dog throwing up next to me in the back seat this time which was a bonus. Even so I was pretty glad to finally reach Anchorage, not just because it's a long day sitting in a van, but after all those hours of amazing vistas it was almost too much to take in.
After 2 nights in Anchorage to catch my breath I caught the train south to Seward, on the shores of Resurrection Bay. My main purpose for coming back was one of the major draws of Alaska - glaciers. There's something like 100,000 of them in the state so you can't go too far without seeing a few. Just outside Seward is the Exit Glacier, and here I joined a Park Ranger-led hike here which climbed the hills beside the glacier to the Harding Icefields - a 1,800 square kilometre expanse of ice and snow up to 3kms deep. It's almost impossible to grasp the sheer size of it.
There's something like 40 glaciers which extend from the Icefields, many of which are tidewater glaciers which terminate in the ocean. I went on a cruise around the bay to see some of them, but apart from the glaciers themselves we also spotted just about every animal which lives in the bay, from a bunch of porpoise playfully swimming alongside the boat, to a group of 3 orcas, one of them even obliging us by breaching (although it was a fair distance away). We also came across two humpback whales and got to watch one of them feeding, as well as puffins and countless other seabirds, sea lions and of course sea otters. The glaciers themselves were stunning, and although I was hoping to see a huge chunk calve off I had to make do with just a few small pieces falling off. Although when I say 'small' I mean they were the size of cars or so.
After Seward it was back to Anchorage, where I spent a bit of time actually looking around the city itself, which is much more of a typical big city than you would perhaps expect from Alaska. But you're quickly reminded exactly where you are any time you wander along the Coastal Trail and encounter a moose, hear stories of grizzly bears wandering onto the main roads and getting hit by cars or the fact that the street vendors' hot dogs are made from reindeer (which I really took a liking to, they're pleasantly spicy, if somewhat chewy). I quite like Anchorage, with the Chugach Mountains on one side and the gorgeous sunsets over Cook Strait on the other it has a lot going for it, but you don't really go to Alaska to spend time in a big city I ended up staying longer than I would have liked. Transport options in Alaska are unfortunately somewhat limited so that meant a bit of waiting around to get transport to where I wanted to go.
And my next stop was quite literally at the end of the road, at the old Kennecott copper mine. Getting there involves another marathon trip from Anchorage, the last 100kms or so on a dirt road, to the town of McCarthy in the heart of Wrangell St-Elias National Park. Or at least to the carpark across the river from McCarthy, from where access to the town itself is by footbridge. The town has a population of about 300, and 'downtown' consists of 2 dirt streets featuring one hotel (with a backpackers' annex where I stayed, without heating or lights), one store, a gift shop, two bushplane operators and a pub. I loved it, even if I was sleeping with 3 blankets and my longjohns on. The old Kennecott township and mill complex is 7kms down the road, set in a valley which sees the junction of two huge glaciers, the Root and Kennicott (yes, the spelling's different, the township's name was a spelling mistake). The mines themselves are set high in the hills and were connected to the mill by a system of cable cars. The township had it's own hospital, schoolhouse, store, bunkhouses (both in the valley and up at the site of the mines) and the mill buildings themselves. Most of the structures are falling apart to some degree, the Parks service is restoring some and letting others decay. I went on a guided tour through the mill buildings, the Concentration Mill is the focus of the site and the largest wooden building in America. it was fascinating to see and actually much nicer inside than you'd expect looking at the exterior; it had a musty, woodwork shop kind of feel to it. It would be a striking building anywhere, but when you take into account the glacier-side setting and all the rain and mist around at the time it really was one of the most atmospheric places I've been.
I had time to see a bit more of the valley on a hike along the moraine wall beside the Root Glacier. This led to great views of the Stairway Icefall, a wall of ice hundreds of metres high where the glacier flows down a mountain side; but at the same time I was very much aware that the track was lined with brightly coloured, berry-filled bear scat every few metres pretty much so I was loudly singing my way through the Beatles back-catalogue to announce my presence (although I shut up when I had to pass a Ranger - think I scared the hell out of him when I kicked some stones and he thought I might be a bear coming up behind him - good thing he didn't pepper spray me). I would have loved to hang around McCarthy a bit longer but had to get back to Anchorage to get some work done, along with a bit more moose and sunset watching on the Coastal Trail.
Hopping on the train again it was north to Talkeetna. As you will be told often enough this town was the inspiration for the show Northern Exposure, which I personally never watched but felt obliged to pass that information on. Everybody raves about how nice it is, but I'm not really sure what the fuss is all about. I mean it's nice, it's got some interestingly quirky shops, you can get not just reindeer hot dogs but corn dogs (which are also delicious). The best thing about the town is the view you get on a clear day of Denali, at 6,194m the tallest mountain in North America and centrepiece of Denali National Park, my next stop (just so you know the mountain's also called Mt McKinley but compared to the native name, which means 'The Great One', just sounds kind of lame so I never use it).
So Denali (I'm talking about the Park now)... Damn. Just damn. The place is incredible. The fall colours were in full swing so the whole place was just a riot of colour; depending on the light it could look either ridiculously garish or ridiculously beautiful, almost otherworldly at times. The Park is huge, it covers about 24,000 square kilometres and is accessed by just one 145km road. Public vehicles can only travel on the first 24km of that, so there's a brilliant system of buses which you can use to travel the rest of the way - I travelled the entire length of the park road on the first day, and then chose the best spots to go back and visit again the next few days.
One of the best things about the buses is that anytime you see an animal you just yell 'Stop!' and the driver will pull over for everyone to take a look. Although some people can be a bit overenthusiastic about it and will yell stop every time they see a distant speck which may or not be a grizzly bear. I mean I appreciate their enthusiasm but really, unless you can see it's actual limbs it doesn't really count as an animal sighting to me, and we saw enough animals up close that we didn't need to be wasting our time trying to decide if a distant shape was actually a bear or just a rock. Over the few days I spent in the park I managed to pick up what they call the Grand Slam, seeing moose (including a massive bull with huge antlers), something like 30 grizzly bears (mostly at a distance but some a few metres away), gray wolves, caribou and Dall Sheep, not to mention getting a good look at the mountain itself which is hidden by clouds most of the time.
I had my closest and funniest wildlife encounter in the Savage River area. I was following the trail alongside the river, moving fairly quickly so I could cover as much ground in the time I had. I was perhaps a bit too focussed on moving fast though as I completely failed to see an enormous Dall Sheep ram until I was pretty much right on top of him (although in all fairness he did have his head down and looked kind of like a bright white rock... with legs) and was somewhat startled when he suddenly looked up at me. Revealing his rather large horns. Needless to say I backed off pretty quickly but he seemed unfazed fortunately. The people behind me who'd been watching it feed from a more sensible distance (I thought they were just enjoying the scenery) thought I was a crazy person who was going to try and ride it or something and were probably disappointed not to get some Funniest Home Video footage out of it. I resolved to pay a bit more attention to my surroundings (I usually do, honest), not wanting the next 'rock' to turn out to be a grizzly.
Fortunately I didn't have to worry about anything bigger than ground squirrels the next day when I went hiking out at the Eielson Visitor Centre. This was my favourite spot in the Park. There's an awesome view of Denali itself from here (when it's visible), which is probably one of the most impressive mountains in the world. The Nepalese call Everest Chomolungma, the Goddess Mother of the World, which would have to make Denali it's Father. In fact from base to summit Denali is actually a bigger mountain (by almost 2,000m - Everest starts at a higher elevation) Although I'd seen it from here on my first day in the park, Denali wasn't out when I hiked to the top of the mountain behind the visitor centre. It's probably just as well as the view up there was incredible, if the mountain had been out as well I would quite possibly have just exploded with joy. There were times when I would turn around and catch sight of another stunning vista and I would just laugh at how utterly amazing it all was. I was getting a bit of a cold so may have been a bit tired and over-emotional.
Moving on from Denali I continued north on the train to Fairbanks. I'd met Anne-Marie at the Denali hostel who was catching the same train, and warned her not to expect too much from Fairbanks. It was a pretty bleak place to be in the winter and it looks really quite ghetto when you come in by train, even I was kind of taken aback. After showing her around Fairbank's downtown area (such as it is) we decided to be a bit touristy and try the riverboat ride which is one of the main attractions in Fairbanks. It was actually a pretty slick operation, you visit a little village and learn all sorts of stuff about traditional Alaskan life and it was quite pretty on the river, and definitely improved my opinion of Fairbanks. Both of us were keen to make it to the Arctic Circle so we took a day trip up there along the Dalton Highway. We only went to where the circle crosses the highway, so there's pretty much just a sign saying you made it, but still, it's nice to say I've been there and they gave us cake and a certificate to celebrate. As much as I would have loved to go further north and really explore some of the Arctic I just didn't have time that late in the season, so that will have to wait for another summer.
Getting back to Fairbanks we were able to enjoy the single best thing about the city - the great view it often gets of the Northern Lights. The nights were just starting to get dark enough to see them again after the summer and while we'd seen some muted lights the previous nights the sky cleared up completely and the aurora put on a fine show for us. I was entranced all over again, they really are breathtaking to watch, and it definitely helps when you only have to worry about getting cold instead of maybe losing fingers and toes.
With that as a fitting send off it was back to Whitehorse for me, just long enough to catch up with my friends there one last time and enjoy the fall colours around town before heading back to south-east Alaska this time to start heading south again. I took a bus and train from Whitehorse to Skagway, with a brief stop in the really neat little town of Carcross. The train crosses the White Pass, and was originally one of two routes used by prospectors during the Gold Rush. It's a nice trip, but much shorter than I expected - I guess after all the marathon journeys I've made over here I don't feel like I've gotten anywhere after just 4 hours.
Skagway's a pretty nice little town in a great location at the mouth of a river surrounded by tall mountains, and like most of the towns along the Inside Passage is a major stop on the cruise ship circuit. The whole cruise ship phenomena is somewhat strange - they pull up, the passengers pile out, stroll through the souvenir shops for a few hours an then disappear back onto the ships, often without really having seen anything of the places they're visiting. I know not everyone has the time to travel like I do but it doesn't seem very satisfying to me. Once they disappear back onboard though you pretty much have the towns to yourself, particularly in places like Skagway which only has a few hundred residents.
After a few days in Skagway I started my own cruise of sorts on the Marine Highway - the US ferry system which runs from Alaska all the way down to Washington state and connects many communities which can only be reached by sea or air. Sure the ships were only a third as big as the cruise ships, and the cuisine is probably pretty ordinary by comparison, but it's all the same scenery so it suited me fine, and definitely made a nice change from bus travel.
First stop for me was Juneau, the capital of Alaska, which I'd really been looking forward to Juneau but didn't enjoy as much as I'd hoped. Mainly because I had to share the hostel with a bunch of middle aged Americans who were quite frankly, completely mental, having loud discussions each night about how Obama is the anti-christ and will bring about the fall of civilization as we know it. The fact that it rained every day and I spent the whole time with damp feet didn't improve my opinion of the place. Fortunately Juneau did have one redeeming aspect - the Mendenhall Glacier on the edge of town, my first visit out there was postcard perfect. The sun finally broke through the clouds and there was a perfect rainbow hanging right beside the glacier, all reflected in Mendenhall Lake.
It was a beautiful place, and turned out to be a bit of a wildlife hotspot too. I saw my first porcupine there (that wasn't roadkill anyway) and was surprised to see how high they climb trees, they're just like really spiky koalas. I was also very excited to finally see two beavers, which I'd frankly started to think were mythical (well come on, those lodges and dams they build seem way too sophisticated for rodents). Then while I was watching the beavers a black bear wandered along and I got to watch it rummage through the undergrowth from a few metres away. It was probably the only time I wouldn't mind being that close to a bear, but they hang around the area all the time and are pretty much oblivious to people now, in fact the main job of the rangers is to keep people from crowding the bears too much.
So with my opinion of Juneau slightly restored, it was back on the Marine Highway for an overnight trip to Wrangell, an island community of about 2000. Becuase it's not on the cruise ship circuit and a lot of tourist services had finished for the season I may have been the only person actually visiting the place. It was nice to be somewhere a bit quieter and the weather was fantastic, another welcome change after Juneau. It was quite idyllic, and the highlight there was visiting Petroglyph Beach, which has rocks carved with designs by the Tlingit Indians hundreds or even thousands of years ago.
My last stop in Alaska was Ketchikan, a town known for it's many totem poles, and rain (I know the whole Inside Passage coastline is rainforest, but it does get a bit tiresome after a while). The centrepiece of town is the boardwalk-lined Ketchikan Creek, known as Creek Street, where all the buildings (souvenir shops mostly) are elevated over the water on pilings. It's quite nice, but because I'd only ever seen pictures of that part of Ketchikan before I'd always expected the town to be smaller and more rustic, but it's really just the one street unfortunately. Anyway, the creek itself was chock full of fish at the time, as the Pink Salmon were running. That of course brought a collection of seals which were after an easy lunch, they'd just cruise along and snap one up whenever they felt like it. I'd missed all the salmon runs elsewhere in Alaska so was glad to finally get to see one, and watch them jumping up waterfalls and everything.
And that was it for Alaska, one last ferry ride south took me to Prince Rupert and the beginning of my last few weeks in Canada. Despite everything I'd seen I've still barely scratched the surface of Alaska and the Yukon, it's definitely somewhere I'm going to have to get back to and really explore more thoroughly. Some other summer though.
