The Beginning
Eleven years ago I had found Alaska. I had set out on my
honeymoon with a man I was only just beginning to know. It wasn't much of a
honeymoon. We were on the road every day, from Anchorage to Denali to
Glennallen, Valdez, Seward, Fairbanks, the Arctic Circle, and back. We fought
our first battles and forged our first peace. We became best friends and I
became a traveler.
Stranded in Minneapolis after
missing the last flight to Fairbanks, I drank a lot of beer. The bartenders
were chatty when I said I was going to Alaska. One of them
shared that he wanted to go there too – to look for gold – but had to invest in a state-of-the-art metal detector first. What was I going to Alaska for?
My husband died a little more than a year ago in a motorcycle accident. I was going to take what
physically remained of him – an awful thought still –
to the Gates of the Arctic and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, where he had tried to hike in 2011, but hadn't been able to go far without a guide. The traveler in me also knew that I had to go a bit further and open my
heart to Alaska. I was reading The Blue Highways as I waited for my plane. William Least Heat-Moon chided, "any traveler who misses the journey misses
about all he's going to get". I thought I should listen to him... he has seen more than me and is a much better writer.
 |
| State Fair: Reindeer sausage, anyone? Photo: Urjasi |
Day one in Fairbanks was not what I expected. I had planned
to visit the museum, and rest. Instead, I hit the state fair with Julie, Steven and Judy. We grazed on all things fried and got on
rickety rides. In the evening, we met the rest of the group, got dinner and
loaded up on alcohol for the trip. Sue, my tent mate and veteran group-traveler, assured me that we had enough beer –
on these trips, people rarely drank that much. She had to eat her words before the week was over.
Manley Hot Springs
It was a 160-mile ride to Manley Hot Springs, a town with 65
– 70 residents. We hiked in the
White Mountains area on the way, picked wild blueberries and found a dead vole.
Kim, a scientist among us, explained that voles are promiscuous creatures. The
receptors in their brains are not as dense, so they don't feel intensely
"in love". When a male vole meets a female vole, they go, “eh, you’re
cute… but not cute enough for me to stay put”.
 |
| Sign before Manley Hot Springs/ Photo: Urjasi |
Closer to Manley, where the highway is often unpaved, we
stopped to look at the Minto Flats. After the engine died and people stopped
chatting, there it was – the silence – the utter absence of sound, except when a bird flapped its wing or the wind rustled. That silence is the most peaceful "sound" I've heard. Finally, I
was in the Alaska I remembered!
 |
| Manley Hot Springs Slough/Photo: Urjasi |
We reached Manley in the evening. This time of the year, the
summer sun doesn’t go down until late night, and even then, it just bobs along
the horizon as the sky turns pink and gold. After pitching tent near the Slough, we headed for the Roadhouse next
to our campsite. It came with a full bar, food, flush toilet and pay showers.
We downed some local beer, gratefully used the flush toilet, tipped generously
and made friends with the locals, including Tonka, the bartender’s Chihuahua
and Ruby, a miniature pincher with frostbite tipped ears.
“What’s the hardest thing about living here?” we asked
Ruby’s owner.
“The cold.”
In a classic lack of perspective, I was having
trouble imagining the cold trumping the darkness and isolation. What does
60 or 70 below zero feel like? The coldest temperature ever recorded in Central
Park, New York City was -15 degrees, on February 9, 1934. And in more recent
years, on January 24th, 2011, the city experienced a record low of 6 degrees. I
had stayed in and watched television. I had explained to April, my
pit-lab bundle of joy, it was too cold to go for a long walk. She had agreed.
 |
| Manley Roadhouse/Photo: Urjasi |
We had baked halibut for dinner that night – the first of
many unbelievable meals that our guides, Steve and Jeff, would whip up at their
camp kitchen – and then it was time for skinny-dipping in the
hot springs until midnight. The hot springs were part of a resort that's no longer there. A couple manage a greenhouse with concrete tubs fed by natural hot springs - rustic and perfect. For a small fee, you can book a slot and soak underneath a lush green canopy (check in the Fairbanks Visitors Center for more information). Jameson made my tent spin that
night, but I was among friends.
 |
Pam Redington tells us about fishing and drying
chum salmon for dog food / Photo: Urjasi |
In the morning we met Pamela Redington, musher and wife of Joe
Redington. Joe Senior is known as the "Father of the Iditarod Trail Sled
Dog Race”. Pam and Joe don’t participate in the Iditarod any more and are
training a “small” pack of 30-40 huskies for speed racing. Huskies, we learned,
are dogs with a thick undercoat and often mix-bred, far from the AKC
definition.
Pamela is a petite woman with graying hair. Her eyes speak
of wisdom and tenacity. I could easily see her racing twenty dogs on a sled in
the middle of a blizzard, and her dogs would obey her. In her little backyard
and greenhouse, Pam grows vegetables. Joe and Pam have a subsistence lifestyle.
They fish, hunt, farm, race sled dogs, make carvings and hats out of ivory and
fur. When she first moved to Manley, she went to Fairbanks once a year to get all her
household supplies.
 |
| Sled dog/ Photo: Urjasi |
As with most year round residents of Alaska, Pam and Joe
have more than one job, a zillion skills, and roots that run deep and strong in
Alaska. In her previous life, Pam was a potato farmer’s daughter in Idaho. We
asked what brought her to Alaska.
"I always wanted to and once I was here,
I wasn’t going back..." she smiled wistfully.
I come from leftist liberal, feminist politics, not in favor
of guns or sports hunting/fishing. But when I meet Pam, Joe and others like
them, practicing subsistence lifestyle in Alaska, I can see that they hunt,
consume and live much more sustainably and humanely than us. They don’t over
fish because they know their food supply would be wrecked if they do. They
don’t kill senselessly. Hunting, skinning, using all parts of the animal,
storing the meat, is a lot of hard work, and the people who live off this land
don’t mess with their source of subsistence. For these people, climate change
is not a political debate. It's a frightening reality that's poaching their way
of life and wrecking the planet for all of us.
The rest of the day we canoed on the slough, hoping to spot
moose. Instead, we saw a sign on an outhouse "Sarah Palin for
Governor". Day three closed with another gourmet meal – baked salmon,
pasta and fresh green salad from Pam’s garden – followed by dips in the hot
springs. We had it booked for the entire evening. No Jameson for me tonight. Our stock of beer, however, had started
dwindling.
The Haul Road
 |
| Tanana River/ Photo: Urjasi |
Past Manley airport, which is a mere strip of gravel, we
drove to the banks of the Tanana River in the morning. In 1984, a 25-year old
man named
Michael Silka
had gone on a killing spree here that left 7 people, including a two-year old
baby, dead. He was ultimately shot dead by the state troopers from a
helicopter.
Steve and Jeff skipped stones as we took photos. The past and the present played hide and seek as we turned on to the
Dalton Highway, driving towards the Arctic Circle.
 |
| The Haul Road and Minto Flats/ Photo: Urjasi |
I love the “Haul Road” – 414 miles long, the Dalton Highway
runs from just north of Fairbanks to Deadhorse, weaving through mountains and
valleys, with the Trans-Alaska Pipeline often running parallel. It was built as
a supply road for the Pipeline in 1974 and formerly known as the North Slope
Haul Road. This is a road that I would love to drive some day – stop as many
times as possible, soak in the silence, switch off the
lights and sit in the blackest night once more, looking for the aurora. Here,
on this road, I never feel alone. Here, he belongs, and will return if he can.
 |
| Yukon River Camp/Photo: Urjasi |
 |
| The Yukon/ Photo: Urjasi |
It took us half a day to reach the Yukon River Camp. The old woman who ran it eleven years ago was gone, but the place was pretty
much as I remembered it. The Yukon is powerful, and at thirty-four I am patient enough
to appreciate it. Eleven years ago, a 26-year-old boy and a 23-year-old girl
had got their truck stuck in the mud on these banks. The girl had complained, “I
told you so.” They had to wait until someone came with another vehicle to pull
them out.
I met a fisherman/musher on the banks of the Yukon, loading
his retired pack of sled dogs on a truck. We talked about Alaska, dog sledding
and climate change. He was thankful that the people in the lower 40-s keep lobbying “to save Alaska from the Alaskans”. The Alaskans in the
cities don’t care about Alaska, he said. The turnover rate in the cities, where majority of the population is concentrated, is
five years on an average. Politics ensuing from there serves the rich, not the land and animals of
Alaska, and certainly not the people who practice subsistence lifestyle.
Driving past the Yukon River Camp, we finally reached the
Arctic Circle. Jeff busted out his saxophone to mark the crossing. Before we go
any further, let me answer the two most frequently asked questions – it
wasn’t cold in the Arctic Circle, and no, there were no penguins. Summer
temperatures in the Arctic can rise up to 80-s or even 90-s. The “arctic
circle” marks one of the five major circles of latitude and it’s the
southern most latitude in the Northern Hemisphere. The area that lies north of
the circle is known as the Arctic, the land of the midnight sun.
In the Brooks Range
For the next two nights, we set up our tents at Marion Creek
Campground, overlooking the stoic Brooks Range. Steve whipped up memorable
meals and Jeff played his saxophone from the top of the van. I learned I was
good with rum, had fun with tequila, and spun on Jameson.
 |
| Tundra hike/ Photo: Urjasi |
In the morning we went for our first tundra hike and met
“tussock” – the one-of-a-kind arctic grass that I lovingly call “Arctic
Gremlins”. They are round clumps of grass that roll beneath your feet. I was
grateful for having hiking boots with good ankle support. The red-and-green Sphagnum moss, on
the other hand, felt like trampoline and gave us a bounce. We hiked up a
mountain, past a gold mine where Crazy Mike and his dog Stupid are the only
year-round residents. The mining area was quiet, since most of the
mining happens in winter when the shafts are not at risk of being flooded. We
hiked 6 miles, with an elevation gain of almost 1000 ft, and picked wild
blueberries on our way back.
 |
| Marion Creek in the morning/ Photo: Urjasi |
Julie woke up next morning and said “damn tussocks!” But she
still led the way, along with Kim, through the forest floor carpeted with snowy
lichen and rolling tussocks towards Marion Creek Falls. We only had about a
couple of hours before breakfast, so couldn’t make it all the way to the falls.
After a comfortable stroll, we returned to the camp to devour our share of wild
blueberry pancakes. The guides served them with melted butter and maple syrup
on the side.
“Would you have this much butter if you were at home?” Joyce asked
me.
“Yep” I said in between bites, unperturbed. (I am trying to see life through
my dog’s eyes. You eat, shit, walk, play, work, love, and then
you die… there’s always room for butter in that way of life).
 |
| Log cabin in Wiseman/ Photo: Urjasi |
Next stop, Wiseman, a town of maybe 13 residents, some 12
miles north of Coldfoot, where trapper Jack Reakoff was waiting for us. A
“town” has different meaning in the Arctic. There are no paved roads in
Wiseman, although this 78-square-mile-community is only 3 miles from the Dalton
Highway; there’s no electricity or cell phone reception. Jack’s sister runs the
Boreal Lodge, which has a store selling instant noodles, canned goods, chips
and souvenirs. As you walk through the town on roads that are dirt in summer,
muddy in spring, and frozen in winter, you see log cabins strewn around, and some
sink lower than others.
 |
| Jack Reakoff in front of Boreal Lodge/Photo: Urjasi |
Jack Reakoff is a subsistence trapper, hunter, and gardener.
Handsome and clean-shaven, perhaps in his fifties, he speaks in a steady, calm
voice and has still eyes. I didn’t have trouble imagining him killing his first
bear at twelve. If you chance upon a bear, Jack says, hold your ground,
establish dominance, as you would with a dog. “But if a bear was hunting me, I
would stand no chance” he admits.
Jack was raised in Wiseman and has maintained a subsistence
lifestyle supplemented by talking to tourists, and commercial fishing. He has
solar panels and Internet in his cabin and uses the generator sparingly. He
grows vegetables in his “yard”. The growing season here is short, but furious.
We couldn’t believe the size of the lettuce we got from Jack’s garden.
 |
| Jack taking samples from spawned salmon. Photo: Urjasi |
Jack also serves on the Regional Subsistence Advisory
Committee for the Alaska Department of Fish and Games and shared his concerns
about over hunting of caribou in these areas. The Alaska Department of Fish and
Games is partly funded by selling hunting licenses. Jack’s arguments for
conserving the caribou population by not increasing hunting limits or expanding
it to caribou cows have fallen into deaf ears of the Board. While reading more
about the issue, I came across this
petition
that Jack had filed in 2010.
We asked Jack about his thoughts on Shell’s plans of digging
for oil in the Arctic. He believes it would be far too costly and unmanageable
to dig and transport more oil from the Arctic –
"there is talk of lowering the
maintenance cost of the Pipeline.” I shuddered hearing this. In recent years,
there have been
concerns
about corrosion in the pipeline, a viable threat to wildlife and
people alike.
The town of Wiseman is where early wilderness advocate Bob
Marshall spent a little more than a year in 1930, and wrote a book called
“Arctic Village”, giving the most delightful, vivid description of life in the north of
Koyukuk River. In his book, Marshall observed that the “Koyukukers” were the
happiest people he had met; over 90 percent of them had above average
intelligence and the percentage of Koyukukers in the “very superior
intelligence class” was four times greater than among normal Americans.
 |
| Mountains from the sky/Photo: Judy Kuczenski |
 |
| The village of Anaktuvuk/ Photo: Urjasi |
We took a scenic flight out of Coldfoot that evening to the
Nunamiut village of Anaktuvuk. The small plane took us over the Gates of the
Arctic. I had dreamed of taking Sanjay’s ashes to this place, not knowing that
it would be impossible to reach this point on foot in a day’s hike.
When Bob
Marshall got to this point, where the Boreal Mountain and Frigid Crags flank
the North Fork of the Koyukuk River, he named it the “Gates of the Arctic” and
remarked,
"No sight or sound or smell or feeling even remotely hinted of
men or their creations. It seemed as if time had dropped away a million years
and we were back in a primordial world."
 |
| Anaktuvuk, "Avoid Conflict"/ Photo: Urjasi |
The Nunamiut were the last of the indigenous peoples in
North America to give up their nomadic lifestyle and settle in a permanent
village. Harriet, our Nunamiut guide in Anaktuvuk showed us around. We saw more
sled dogs, sod houses, and dumpsters painted with words like “Love”, “Share”,
and “Avoid Conflict”. Harriet explained that school children made the artwork,
drawing from the main tenets of their culture. We asked her if the kids who
grow up in Anaktuvuk continue to stay there or migrate to the cities?
“No, they
stay here. We like the village life.” “Why did your ancestors give up their
nomadic life?” I asked.
“The government built us schools and we wanted to go
to school,” Harriet answered.
 |
| Sunset from top of the van/ Photo: Urjasi |
We couldn’t get Harriet to talk about the oil money or the Alaska
Native Settlement Act, which, along with the construction of the Trans-Alaska
Pipeline gave natives, including the Nunamiut,
land and cash
awards and irrevocably changed their lifestyle. In this remote
Nunamiut village, a grocery shop sells the most basic supplies, in cans and
bottles. Fresh vegetables are not easy to come by, and many of the young ones
have forgotten how to herd reindeer. But as soon as we landed in Anaktuvuk, our
cell phones had full reception.
The sky went up in flames of red and pink that night as the
midnight sun bobbed along the horizon.
Beyond the Northernmost tree
We filled up on drinking water and gathered firewood on
the way to Galbraith Lake. We passed the “northernmost tree” before going
through the spectacular Atigun Pass. Someone had actually tried to axe down the
northernmost tree – spruce, I think – and it was dying! But Steve pointed to a
baby tree growing merely a few feet away from the “northernmost tree” sign. “The
light of God is shining down on those trees,” drawled Sue from the back of the
van.
 |
| Atigun pass/ Photo: Judy Kuczenski |
 |
| Golbraith Lake, North Slope/ Photo: Urjasi |
Golbraith Lake in the North Slope was our last
camp for this trip. It sits off the haul road, and to its east lies
the Gates of the Arctic National Park (GAAR) and to its west, the Arctic
National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). This was the pinnacle of our trip. I've been walking in
Sanjay’s footsteps.
Past the Atigun Pass, where we had stopped to watch Dall
sheep on the ridges, the Pipeline was once again our faithful companion for the
rest of the journey. As we got nearer, I recognized that somewhere along this
road, Sanjay had stopped, and tried to hike in. He had described the road, with
the pipeline running next to it, and the vast tundra around it. He had been to
Golbraith Lake. I looked around and realized that this was not only my destination, but also my Alaska –
with or without him. That night, I stayed up very late and got very drunk,
watching the fire burn down.
Steve and I discussed where to scatter the ashes. It didn’t
really matter anymore, whether we hiked east or west. We decided to hike west if it was sunny, or east if it was wet. I knew that I would know
the place when I saw it, and Steve seemed to know where to take me. Sometimes, you just know...
 |
| View from Midnight Dome/Photo: Judy Kuczenski |
 |
| On the ridge of Midnight Dome/Photo: Urjasi |
We had pancakes and coffee for breakfast next morning. I
skipped the cereal… my stomach was somersaulting, a combination of nerves and
hangover. We parked our van by the Haul Road and hiked through the boggy tundra,
along a low plateau, up a mountain and down a valley. We had stopped to take a
break when a caribou ran in front of us, posed, and
trotted away. It felt so magical that it may as well have been a unicorn.
By
then, I had forgotten my hangover. I was sure that the
weather would hold that day, and that I would take whatever remains physically
of my best friend, partner, anchor ("husband" just doesn't cut it) to wherever
he was supposed to go.
That place turned out to be on a ridge line of Midnight Dome,
in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, facing the rivers, creeks and a
glacier. We hiked about 7 miles, experienced an elevation gain of close to
2000 ft, and scrambled up rocks in all fours to get to this point. And there,
inexplicably, I didn’t feel alone.
Land’s End… Deadhorse
I am struggling to describe Deadhorse. Steve and Julie
agreed that it was something like “Mad Max,” except in a place with dirt roads
flanked by tundra and monster trucks.
 |
| Most photographed spot in Deadhorse/Photo: Urjasi |
Deadhorse is at the end of the Dalton Highway, by the Arctic
Ocean. It is an unincorporated township with warehouses and trailer park like
structures that serve as living quarters and hotels for the workers and
companies that work on the Prudhoe Bay oilfields, and for tourists like us. The workers mostly work two weeks on and two weeks off. Our “hotel” had almost
sterile rooms along a long corridor. While the signs inside the door urged
guests to be quiet and mindful of the people sleeping on the other side of the
thin walls, we woke up to the sound of heavy trucks.
 |
| Our hotel, Deadhorse/ Photo: Urjasi |
The hotel came with wholesome meals, hot showers and
laundry. Sitting on her sterile bed, Sue, my tent/room mate, reminisced that in
grade school her teacher had thought she would be a juvenile delinquent. I
wanted to sing Jailhouse Rock at this point… but even more than that, I wanted to steal
Steve’s van and drive back to Golbraith Lake.
Deadhorse was an eye sore and a rude reminder of what the
“Outside” looked like. After more than a week in the Alaskan wilderness, I had
lost track of the “Outside.” Time and dates had blurred, cell phones were meant
for taking pictures and emails were forgotten.
 |
| Watching the tundra from behind the trucks/Photo: Urjasi |
I woke up early the next day and took my coffee to
sit by the monster trucks, looking at the tundra. As we had driven from
Golbraith to Deadhorse, we had seen the hills disappear into the Arctic plains.
We had spotted a grizzly bear, musk ox and loons. At 6 am, the air was cold,
the sky was gloomy and the silence was only broken by the sound of occasional
wheels on the Dalton Highway.
After breakfast, we piled on to a “secure” van for a tour
of Deadhorse and the Arctic Ocean. You cannot access the Arctic Ocean from here
without security clearance. We saw a caribou on our way. The brave (or stupid)
ones among us – that includes me – took a dip in the Arctic and ran back to
shore as fast as we could.
 |
| Deadhorse, AK/ Photo: Urjasi |
We had lunch and drove few miles away from Deadhorse
for a quiet tundra walk. Jeff played his saxophone by a
glacial blue river. Steve skipped stones. We all linked arms around each other
and walked back to the van, to head towards the airport.
And, just like that, a
spell was broken, a trip was over.
 |
| Goodbye march/ Photo: Urjasi |
He took a film camera and an extra lens and came back with these.
I booked the trip,
Gateway to the Arctic, through REI and I would recommend it to anyone who wants to explore Alaska but doesn't know where to start. Also, unless you know the area, it's quite difficult to hike off trails in the arctic. Phones and GPS don't work there, so having a guide who knows these mountains helps.
I went to Alaska fearing pain, but found joy. And because I let myself feel the joy surrounding me, and immerse myself in the journey, even as grief walked along with me, I found my Alaska again. This is the
Alaska I would some day return to, for myself.
I don’t know what happens after we die. I am reminded of my
favorite chapter from "Arctic Village" as I write this, "An Evening at the Roadhouse." There, in 1930, the wise men of Wiseman had deliberated about death, after-life, racism,
capitalism, income inequality, censorship and more. All I really know is that I
have this life, right now, and a choice about living it with joy or misery.
The grief is a given, and there is no "closure" to be had. I'll always love him and miss him, but I choose joy and wish that Sanjay gets another chance to hike these mountains.
I want to give a shout out to the incredible group of
people I traveled with. We were strangers and none of us had expected to find
so much joy and camaraderie in each other’s company. We also had unusually good weather. I would have done what I had sought to do even without good weather and good company... but I couldn’t have sent
him off amidst joy, and I may not have found my Alaska. For that, I thank my
fellow travelers and guides.
A last word, about the environment: Climate change is the
one issue that will affect us all, incrementally, or drastically, regardless of
where we are and who we are. Some population theorists would even say that it
would be nature’s way of culling the burgeoning human population. But I won’t
go there. Instead, I will share the knowledge I gather during my travels, and point
you to small and big things that we can do for the environment.
Thanks for reading… and happy trails!
