Glenn Highway, Tok Cutoff and Tok, Alaska

We left Palmer under heavy skies and drove the super-scenic Glenn Highway eastward.  The road is in fair to middling condition and runs along the Matanuska River and past the Matanuska Glacier.  This is a fairly sizeable glacier, being nearly two miles wide where it terminates at the river it has created.  Some glaciers are growing, some are ebbing and some are stable – the Matanuska is one of the stable ones.

Which leads me to a question I’ve been pondering since we encountered our first glacier in Alaska.  Why do folks find them so fascinating that they’ll go miles out of their way to see one?  After all, they are just old snow and some of it fairly dirty snow at that.  They generally hang out in inaccessible places, make the area around them chillier than you thought it would be ( and haven’t dressed appropriately) and don’t do anything except at, you should pardon the expression, a glacial pace.  But folks can’t seem to get enough of them.

The Milepost has advised us to be on the look-out for trumpeter and tundra swans in the small ponds that are dotted around the landscape.  We saw a number of swans but from a moving vehicle and at a great distance, we couldn’t tell if they were trumpeters or tundras.  We’ve been told there’s a goodly difference in size (which could only be judged if they were side by side) and that the tundra has a small yellow area on the beak, whereas the trumpeter’s beak is all black.  Either way, they are elegant and regal and wonderful to see in the wild.

The Glenn Highway intersects with the Richardson near the town of Glennallen and a few miles north we picked up the Tok Cutoff.   The cutoff is not exactly a speedway and we encountered areas of construction with some lengthy delays waiting for the “follow me” car.  We had confirmed reservations in Tok so were in no part-   icular hurry. The clouds were quite low that day so we weren’t able to see the wonderful views of the Wrangle Mountain Range The Milepost bragged about.

Now that we were in Tok we had a steady and consistent supply of ice with which to keep the refrigerator cold.  Or at least cold-ish.  It had a nervous breakdown while we were in Palmer and the halibut (and a variety of other frozen foods) became endangered.  It turned out that Russ and Rochelle were in Tok at the same time we were and so I created a chicken dish to use up some of the food cache and we had a vicious game of Aggravation.

There was a winding down feeling in Tok.  Maybe it had something to do with all the sales at the gift shops and the empty RV sites and lack of traffic.  We couldn’t help but notice that some of the aspens along the Glenn and Tok Cutoff had started to take on some color and the fireweed was down to its last few blossoms and showing tufts of “cotton”.

Russ and Rochelle left to take the Top of the World Highway from Chicken to Dawson City while we opted for a more sane route toward “home”.  Which is how we came to be in Destruction Bay along with a caravan of about 20 coaches.  When the caravans stop, the owner of the Destruction Bay Lodge takes off his camp- ground owner/chef/baker hat and puts on his entertainer hat and we were invited to join in the evening’s festivities.  He sang and told stories about the path he took to this wide spot in the Alaska Highway.  We were all particularly interested in what one does in Destruction Bay in the dead of winter.  It’s a long drive to Whitehorse for supplies, that’s for sure. 

The trip to Skagway and our visit there deserves a chapter all to itself and so that will follow shortly.

Kenai Peninsula – Part II, Plus Palmer and Talkeetna, Alaska

We had very pleasant weather for our short drive from Soldotna to Seward and got settled in at Stoney Creek RV Park early enough that we could dash into town for a quick look around.  We were scheduled for a wildlife and glacier cruise on Friday and stopped by Major Marine Tours to get signed up for the prime rib and salmon buffet.  Both the Kenai Fjords National Park visitors center and the Seward Visitors Center were uninteresting so we hustled back to the campground and sat in the sun, a most pleasant change of pace.  The sun actually felt warm!

Our campsite faced Stoney Creek (not that we could see it for the bushes) and we had high hopes that we would see a moose or two.  Moose-themed souvenirs dominate Alaskan gift shops and road signs warning of moose crossings abound.  But we’ve come to believe moose are mythical characters, like unicorns or Big Foot, since we’ve yet to see one.  We did see a head and antlers at the Anchorage Zoo and a moose behind disappearing into the woods in Denali but we’ve yet to see an entire moose, even though we’ve been to some pretty moose-ish neighborhoods.  On the other hand, friends touring the New England states this summer have seen plenty of them. 

When we booked reservations for the wildlife cruise, we based our date choice on a long-range weather forecast.  Friday was the only day predicted to be only partly cloudy in a long string of bad weather.  And the weather was just lovely as we boarded the Kenai Star for a trip out of Resurrection Bay in a search for wildlife and glaciers.  Before the captain even backed out of the slip we saw a harbor seal and within minutes spotted a sea otter.  He was floating on his back with a pair of live crabs balanced on his chest, snacking away to his heart’s content.  Between the park ranger and the captain, we were alerted to wildlife spottings in plenty of time to see, if not photograph, the birds and mammals.

Our tally for the day resulted in sightings of two humpback whales, a pile of rocks dotted with the endangered Stellar sea lions, harbor seals both in and out of the water, a small flotilla of sea otters, Dall porpoise which look like miniature orcas and have an inclination to cavort alongside boats, bald eagles and seabirds too numerous to mention.  Puffins are the iconic birds of the Kenai and we saw plenty of them, both tufted and horned.

 

 

Our route took us out of Resurrection Bay, around the Aialik Cape and into Aialik Bay so that we could get up close and personal with Aialik Glacier.  Along the way, the ranger informed us about the various types of glaciers we were seeing; Aialik is of the tide-water variety and terminates at the water’s edge.  The “calves” fall directly into the sea and there were plenty of little icebergs floating around to keep the theme song from “Titanic” running through my mind.

 

 

It hardly seemed we’d left the bay when savory odors began wafting about.  The crew was obviously preparing our buffet meal and it could come none to soon to suit me.  Staring at the water can give a body a ravenous appetite.  The menu consisted of prime rib, a tasty baked salmon dish, rice pilaf, mixed green salad, sour-dough bread and a beverage of choice.  Later along in the afternoon, a variety of desserts was presented.

As we returned to port, the clouds began rolling in and the sun had disappeared completely so we counted our blessings that we’d had a fine day for sailing.  And we slept the sleep of the seriously over-fed and contented.

Sure enough, our second full day in Seward was overcast and chilly.  On our way to town, we stopped off at Exit Glacier, a segment of Kenai Fjords National Park.  Howie took the established trail up to the glacier to snap this photo.  As a long-time resident of Upstate New York, I’ve seen dirty snow and went back to the car to read a good book.  Exit is the type known as a “valley glacier” which inches its way down a mountain and into a valley. 

We also paid a visit to the Seward Historical Museum, housed in the Senior Center, and to the Benny Benson Memorial.  Benny spent his early years in an orphanage in Seward and, as a seventh-grader, won the contest to design a flag for the Territory of Alaska.  That design, with navy blue ground and gold stars, is now the State Flag.  We also discovered the “shopping district”, the old part of town which abounds in shops selling Alaska-themed items.

On Sunday we visited the Alaska SeaLife Center, a marine research and rehabilitation facility which grew out of the catastrophe of the Exxon Valdez spill.  We sat in on a lecture about declining Stellar sea lion populations and another on the Center’s rehab process for injured or orphaned sea creatures.  What struck us the most was the cost of caring for an orphan sea otter pup -- $20,000 for two months of care.  Maybe that includes hazard pay for the caregivers; sea otters were described as “chainsaws with fur”.  Most of the animals in rehab are kept out of sight of the tourists so that they won’t imprint and can, in time, be returned to the wild.  Here’s a two-month old seal pup…aren’t they just the cutest things!!

The aviary section was a-squawk with seabirds of all sorts.  Getting close-up photos of puffins in the wild proved to be impossible so here are photos taken at the Center of the two types:  tufted (the one with the yellow DA haircut) and horned (the one with the spiked eyebrows).

 

 

By the time we left the SeaLife Center it was raining mightily and it continued almost all night.  The clouds hadn’t cleared when we pulled out to head north on the way back to Palmer.  We’d already scrapped the idea of going to Valdez since the forecast for the next ten days included rain, followed by more rain.  And when rain wasn’t predicted, clouds were.  Fortunately just as we began the trek along Turnagain Arm heading into Anchorage, the sun made an appearance and we had some good views all along the way.

We checked in at The Homestead RV Park in Palmer, a pretty setting in a grove of white birch.  Our next-door neighbors, it turned out, had spent many years living in Rochester, New York.  It has been proven to us over and over again that it is indeed a small world.

What was to be our only full day in Palmer was sunny and even a bit warm.  When it turned out that the admission fee for a nearby musk ox farm was what we consider “too high”, we decided to take a road trip (is that novel or what!) up to Talkeetna.  Along the way we were afforded some magnificent views of Mt. McKinley, here reflecting itself in Kashwitna Lake.  The mountain was definitely out!  Footnote:  Just a few hours later, on our return to Palmer, the mountain had gone into hiding.  We could see only a pile of clouds on the horizon where Mt. McKinley once stood.

Talkeetna is either a rustic town turned tourist trap or a tourist trap turned rustic.  Many of the old log cabins are now bistros or trinket shops or both.  It is the hub for “flightseeing” tours of Denali and the starting point for climbers wishing to scale Mt. McKinley.  The bright sunlight brought out tourists of all sorts, some of whom arrived by tour bus or via The Alaska Railroad, or drove in from elsewhere.  McKinley was still visible from the banks of the river.

The Talkeetna Historical Society Museum consists of three buildings:  the former little red schoolhouse, the train depot and a railroad section house, now referred to as “the model house”.  The model house holds the museum’s mountaineering exhibit, including a scale model of Mt. McKinley.  A volunteer from the nearby Ranger Station gave a talk on climbing Mt. McKinley.  About half the people who attempt the climb actually make it to the summit.  They did not offer any statistics on the percentage who make it to the top but not back down again.  In fact, the climbers of Mt. McKinley have a higher rate of success than the viewers of Mt. McKinley – only about 30% of visitors have the opportunity to see it when it’s “out”.

We spotted this old photo in the Depot portion of the museum.  Wouldn’t you just love to know the story behind it?

Plans were to move to Glennallen today but this part of Alaska is once again enjoying heavy rains.  There was even a bit of a thunderstorm (an infrequent occurrence) this morning so we’ve extended our stay here an extra day and hope for better weather tomorrow.  The fireweed has bloomed all the way to the top, has fluffed out with cotton and so it’s time to be on our way back to the Lower 48.  The locals have a saying: “When the fireweed turns to cotton, Summer is soon forgotten”.

Kenai Peninsula, Alaska – Part I

The weather conspired against us once again as we made the 200 mile drive from Anchorage to the twin cities of Soldotna and Kenai on the western side of the peninsula.  The highway runs along the portion of Cook Inlet known as Turnagain Arm and we can only imagine how lovely it must be in full sunshine with the snow-covered mountains reflecting in the water.  For our trip we were treated to gray skies and gray water which makes for a soggy scenario.

This is probably a good time to insert a few words about Alaskans and their relationship to weather.  They seem to ignore it.  If the sun is even hinting at shining and the thermometer is hovering in the high 50’s, the natives are running around in tank tops and shorts while we tourists are snuggling down deeper into our hooded sweatshirts. 

Our “home base” in Kenai was the Diamond M Ranch, a very pleasant surprise in spite of what continued to be wet weather.  The campground is a work in progress for several generations of the Martin family.  A number of activities had been planned but bad weather derailed some of them.  One event that was not seriously impacted by rain was a clam chowder/salmon bake/potluck dinner scheduled for Saturday evening.  After wolfing down a hearty meal we were treated to some rompin’ stompin’ bluegrass music provided by a pair of very talented young ladies from Indiana who bill themselves as Diamonds in the Rough.  With fiddle and guitar they rendered up bluegrass and Celtic tunes.  We later learned they’ll also be performing at the Alaska State Fair in Palmer later in the month.

We were parked next to Russ and Rochelle   and so were able to  visit back and forth, enjoying the opportunity to savor a pair of rhubarb pies utilizing rhubarb from their very own garden.  For our first full day in Kenai we made a mad dash down to Homer so the guys could get signed up for a fishing charter they planned to take.  It was another dreary day and so we can only imagine how pretty this scene might be in good weather.  While in Homer, we had lunch at Land’s End on “the spit” and checked out The Salty Dawg, a saloon decorated in dollar bills and abandoned underwear.  Behind the  saloon, we watched a pair of knife-wielding fish filet-ers at work; they dispatched halibut into filets and “cheeks” with the speed of ninjas and the precision of surgeons.

 

 

 

 On another drizzly day we headed north out of Kenai (which, by the way, is pronounced KEEN-eye and not kin-EYE which is the way I’m inclined to say it) and after checking out the visitors center we stopped by the Holy Assumption of the Virgin Mary Russian Orthodox Church.  Built in 1895 with a $400 grant from St. Petersburg, this is still an active parish.  The docent, a retired   archpriest who served the parish until 1991, explained the various icons which decorated the tiny church and gave us a brief history of Russia’s involvement in this area of what eventually became Alaska.  We were all very curious that there are no pews in the church.  According to the Old Testament, the congregation is instructed to stand…and so they do.

Saturday was a pretty tiring day starting when the guys took off for Homer at 4:00 a.m. in order to catch a fishing charter at 6:30.   Russ is an experienced fisherman but Howie has only minimal experience in the fine art of drowning worms.  However, they both scored their limit of two halibut each and came rushing home to get the catch into the freezers.  Russ had to put some effort into hauling this “but” in – it must be hard to bring up a 300 pound prize winner!  Reportedly, “chicken halibut” (fish that are between 10 and 30 pounds) are the best to eat so we are happy to say that those are what we have in our freezer.

Because the weather was so crummy we decided not to relocate to Homer to camp on the spit so we re-upped for another three days at Diamond M and then moved to the other twin city, Soldotna, for an additional three days.   The town’s visitor center is smack on the Kenai River and has a boardwalk where fishermen can congregate to try their hand at snagging a salmon.  The weather finally improved and we had a nice day to explore the visitors center and walking trail at Kenai National Wildlife Refuge.  We didn’t see any wildlife but the forest trail did render up some very interesting mushrooms.  Are we surprised?  After all, we are in a rainforest of sorts.

Our final stop was the Homestead Museum in Soldotna and it turned out to be one of those wonderful surprises, a little gem when least expected.  The docent, daughter of one of the town’s original homesteaders, led us from exhibit to exhibit, explaining much of the town’s history and the artifacts before us.  Slowly it dawned on us that Soldotna's “historic past” happened during our teen years!  The town was homesteaded following WWII when veterans were given preferential treatment in staking a claim to 40 acres.    Once again we were awestruck by the treasures which find their way to small-town museums.  It was a delightful afternoon and the best fun thus far of our Alaskan tour.

We had high hopes that we’d be able to spot some resident beluga whales at the mouth of the Kenai River where it empties into Cook Inlet but we were apparently several weeks too early – they only get active when the silver salmon are running.  The silvers have started but the massive influx won’t be until later in August.  But we did have the opportunity to stare at the Inlet with Mt. Redoubt in the distance and chat with a newly-minted Alaskan, a former Californian who has abandoned the smog of L.A. and moved to the pine-scented Kenai.  We also spotted several seals sporting about at the mouth of the river.

Our paths crossed with Bill and Carolyn’s – they are headed down to Homer for a few days after a couple of days in Kenai.  Russ and Rochelle are staying on in Soldotna for another few days and will then mosey on over toward Anchorage and Palmer.  And we’re on to Seward for a few days, including a wildlife cruise, so stay tuned for Part II of the Kenai report.

Wasilla & Anchorage, Alaska – July , 2011

It’s just a little over 200 miles from where we were camped near Denali to the Big Bear RV Park a hair south of Wasilla along the beautiful Parks Highway.  Initially I thought the highway was named to its proximity to Denali NP but, no, it was named for George A. Parks, the territorial governor from 1925-33.  Along the way we had a series of views of Mt. McKinley, lovely lakes and ponds, rugged mountains and bogs where moose might gather.  But not so much as a single glimpse of a moose.

Wasilla has been mocked out by the big-city press over the past few years as a haven for hicks and rednecks with frost bite.  In fact it is a bedroom community for Alaska’s biggest city, Anchorage, and has most of the amenities you could wish for.   We were delighted to once again shop in stores that offered more than one kind of white bread (and it wasn’t stale before you took it off the shelf).  The first order of business was to make a run to the Super Walmart for a refill on our prescriptions.  There was a small snafu but the pharmacy team rectified it almost instantly and we were on our way back to camp and a good night’s sleep.

The weather continued to be on-again off-again with rain for half a day and sunshine for the other.  Unfortunately most of the sunshine came after some of us wanted to turn in for the night.  We toured the small but well-planned historical society museum as well as the mushing museum at the Iditarod Headquarters near Lake Lucille.  The gray skies gave us an opportunity to spot the two stone chips on the Saturn’s windshield and get those repaired before they “ran”.  Wasilla also provided an opportunity for us to get much-needed haircuts.  Luck failed me once again and I got a lousy cut at a franchise salon.  It doesn’t seem to matter how much or little I spend on a haircut, they are seldom satisfactory.

It was a lovely sunshiny day when we drove the few miles to the neighboring city of Palmer. 

What a pretty little city!  Palmerites almost always win the giant vegetable prizes at the state fair, which may explain why the fair is held in Palmer instead of some larger city.  This is the home of the 100 pound cabbages and 58 pound beets – fertile glacial soil and endless hours of daylight combine for a growing season that can’t be beat.  Palmer started life in the 1930’s as a New Deal project whereby folks from the lower 48 (mostly from Minnesota and Wisconsin) were “given” 40 acres and the promise of a house to establish a community here.  What they discovered was that the 40 acres first needed to be cleared of timber and the houses built from that timber.  With winter fast approaching, a significant percentage of those “volunteers” headed back to the Lower 48.  Those who did stick it out soon tired of the government’s demand for price controls and assorted other “rules and regs” and refused to play the game.  Today many of the farms are owned and operated by the descendents of those original families…and who still don’t much like the government telling them what to do.

Wasilla holds a farmers market every Wednesday behind the city museum so we dropped in for a visit, our taste buds screaming for some genuine fresh produce.  Too bad there was nothing we could afford!  Green beans were priced at $9.95 a pound and home-grown tomatoes varied from $5.00 to $7.00 a pound. 

On our final full day in Wasilla, we experienced an earthquake in the 5.5 range.  It was centered up near Talkeetna and shook our coach a fair amount.  Initially I thought Howie had fallen out of bed, not that it’s possible to fall out of bed in an RV, but then the tremor continued.  It felt as if the washer/dryer had hit the spin cycle.  It was enough to wake Howie who thought I was doing some sort of exercise in the living room.  We were both wrong.  A neighbor who was smart enough to turn on the t.v. told us what had happened.

Later that morning we made the 30-plus mile drive into Anchorage to visit the Alaska Zoo.  They don’t have a lot of animals, and most of them are cold-weather species, but we thoroughly enjoyed our visit.  The female polar bear was in a totally playful mood and was doing her underwater tai chi while playing with a section of plastic tubing.  The tube was large enough to accommodate her enormous front paws and she insisted on wearing it like a muff.  Attempts to stick her head in one end failed.  Meanwhile, the male polar bear sat on a rock and sunned himself, yawning mightily and letting his eyelids flutter closed like some-people-we-could-name dosing in front of the t.v.

Although they weren’t active when we stopped by, the two Siberian tigers in the Anchorage collection were born and raised at the Rosamund Gifford Zoo in Syracuse, New York.  That makes them already acclimated to inclement weather!

Bill and Carolyn decided to stay behind in Wasilla to allow some much-needed mail to catch up with them while we went on ahead to Anchorage. 

The sun was shining so it was an excellent afternoon to visit the Botanical Garden.  We haven’t yet learned to drench ourselves in DEET before heading out and, immediately upon entering the garden, were set upon by those little bloodsuckers.  This is the only public garden we’ve visited thus far that comes with a warning to keep an eye open for bear and moose.  It was also the first time we were able to see Himalayan blue poppies, a Holy Grail of gardening.  They were a bit of a disappointment – I was expecting a larger flower along the lines of an Oriental poppy and a blue in the same league as delphiniums.  They looked more like baby blue hollyhocks and something had been nibbling them so the blooms were not in tip-top condition.  Life can be full of minor disappointments, eh.

Saturday started out overcast, with drips of rain now and then, but we decided to forge ahead with a trip to downtown Anchorage for a visit to the Farm Market and whatever else downtown had to offer.  We found a parking spot and began our stroll, poking our noses into some of the shops before reaching the farm market.  The market  covers quite a bit of space and there are vendors offering all sorts of Alaskan-made items:  honey, syrup, jewelry, knives, t-shirts and even some home-grown produce, although I was a bit suspicious about the oranges.  Once again we found prices on the produce to be ridiculously high.

I’ve been eying ulus since we first discovered them at a grocery store in Fairbanks so we climbed aboard a free shuttle headed for a tour of the Alaskan Ulu Factory down near the railroad station.  The factory wasn’t running but a docent described how they are made and pointed out various pieces of machinery.  Then we watched the video on how to use them and saw the ancient ones in a display case.  The ulu is a perfect example of a good idea being hatched in a variety of places – it looks exactly like an old Italian kitchen implement called a mezzaluna.  I was going to purchase one but decided they were cheaper at Fred Meyers.

The Alaska Museum is mind-boggling, almost too much to comprehend in just one visit.  There’s a section devoted to paintings, mostly oils, by northern artists.  An enormous room houses a chronological collection of artifacts relating to Alaska’s evolution to statehood, including quite a large section devoted to the pipe-line and it’s ramification on the state’s economy and environment.  There’s also a Smithsonian-sponsored display of clothing, jewelry and utensils.  The parka made entirely of auklet pelts was especially interesting but I could have lived without knowing the hem and neckline were trimmed with dog fur.

It was nearing 3:00 p.m. and I was feeling very much in need of a rest along with some food.  We were heading back to the car (and a power bar or two) when Howie spotted a streetside vendor who had reindeer sausage for sale.  So we each had a sausage, quite spicy, topped with sautéed onions and the usual hotdog condiments.  Fortified with food, we proceeded to Earthquake Park for a view of Cook’s Inlet.  Theoretically you can see Mt. McKinley from there but it was overcast again by then and we couldn’t see much of anything except gray skies and gray water.

Now it’s on to the Kenai Peninsula and a rendezvous with Russ and Rochelle.