Alaska Magazine Mar-Apr 2018

JR. IDITAROD NATIVE TATTOOS WINTER FISHING The Magazine of Life on the Last Frontier

SHRED ALASKA’S POWDER PLAYGROUND

DENALI PIONEERS

Snow Issue

ARCTIC MAN COMPETITION HUMOR: THIS ALASKAN LIFE

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Call 1-800-327-5774 for your free Fairbanks Visitors Guide.

Explore your Alaskan vacation at explorefairbanks.com.

03.18 V OLUME 84, NUMBER 2

FEATURES

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Powder Playground

Backcountry and resort ski and snowboard adventures Text and Images

by Chris Miller

66

Building Blocks for the Big Time The Jr. Iditarod story

By Eric M. Beeman

72 An Iditarod dog surveys the action from its truck kennel.

Photo by:Â PATRICK J. ENDRES /

Go Fast or Go Home

Arctic Man competition pairs athletes with sledheads

By Alexander Deedy

alaskaphotographics.com

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03.18

DEPARTMENTS

QUOTED

The Cache

“Such an endeavor could only be undertaken by three pioneers who possessed grit, solidarity, and an unending love of the land.”

22 Inked: Reawakening a Tradition 24 Science of Snow 26 Movie Magic: Filmaking in Alaska

27 When Snow Might Sink Your House 28 Chaga Tea

Escape 32 Rambles

Field of Time

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KOTZEBUE

40

INTERIOR ALASKA

~ MICHELLE THEALL WHEN THE ROAD ENDS, IT’S JUST THE BEGINNING P. 44

36 Sense of Place

Alaska’s Baseball Tradition

Adventure 40 Try This

Embrace Winter

44 Out There

Denali Refuge

46 Sportsman

Kings by Kayak Camping Accessories

PLUS: 6 My View North 10 Letters 14 Alaska Exposed 18 On the Edge 50 Natural Alaska 52 History 54 Community 79 Interview 80 This Alaskan Life

On the Cover: Lucas Merli slashes a turn on the backside of Douglas Island as the sun sets over clouds and the mountains of Admiralty Island on the horizon.. ~Photo by Chris Miller / csmphotos.com

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A L A S K A M A G A Z I N E . C O M MARCH 2018

TOP: COURTESY MICHAEL CAMERON, NOAA FISHERIES; BOTTOM: COURTESY STOCK ALPINE

48 Gear

Hello Spring!

Winter sinks into spring under the March sunshine.

I

T’S TELLING THAT I STORE EACH YEAR’S MARCH

snapshots in a folder labeled “Spring” rather than “Winter.” By March, we in the northern latitudes are all too ready to call a sunny 20-degree day spring. Psychologically, it boosts our spirits after the dark days of October, November, December, and January, and frosty February.

As with any good spring cleaning, we here at Alaska magazine are tossing out the old and ushering in the new. Say goodbye to “Where in Alaska?” on the last page and please welcome a humor column, called “This Alaskan Life,” by Susan Dunsmore, a long-time Alaskan with a penchant for pointing out our state’s peculiarities.

Spring in Alaska brings people out of the woodwork for world-renown sports like the Iditarod, Iron Dog, and Arctic Man. In this issue, one of the founders of the Jr. Iditarod recounts how a handful of teens created that race. We also delve into the unique Arctic Man event, where couches are allowed in the mini “city” formed over the weekend but burning them is frowned upon.

Those of us less inclined to compete take advantage of the lengthening days to get out and ski, bike, hike, fish, and chase the aurora before the snow melts. It’s also a time of renewal. For me, my first hike with a meetup group called Wild Women Hiking & Backpacking took place in March of 2013. I’d fallen off the

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hiking wagon for several years and worried I wouldn’t be able to keep up with the group on a relatively flat six-mile loop; now I regularly hike 10-mile Saturdays.

In March of 2014, I attended my first spring equinox party a friend holds annually on a frozen river; we roast weenies and hitch our confused mutts to dog sleds and face our camp chairs toward the sun for an afternoon. In 2015, I made 25 outings in March and April by foot, ski, and pedal. A 2016 March trip to Seward with my parents ended in a white-knuckle drive through a major snowstorm; when we arrived back at their house where I’d parked my car, I noticed the driver-side passenger door was open and thought someone had broken into it. Alas, it was I who had left the door wide open all weekend—a foot of new snow covered the exposed seat. Last March, in a snit I left my ancient waxless skis beside the trail they were so sticky. Yes, we emerge each spring a little rough around the edges, hungry for light and cranky as denned bears.

This spring? I’m determined to ski across Portage Lake on a brilliant sunny day to wander among the aqua icebergs frozen in place and see the disheveled glacier terminus while waving so-long to one more winter.

Susan Sommer Editor editor@alaskamagazine.com

COURTESY SUSAN SOMMER

Goodbye cruel winter

There’s no place like Come visit our new state-of-the-art museum, library, and cultural center.

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Alaska’s best kept secret. Come visit sometime.

Plan your next great Alaskan adventure at: www.visitnomealaska.com | 907.443.6555

If someone paid you a million dollars to live in an igloo for one year, would you do it?

Why or why not?

This month at

alaskamagazine.com Log on and explore life on the Last Frontier.

Not a chance— I don’t think I could convince my family to join me.

The Magazine of Life on the Last Frontier GROUP PUBLISHER

You bet! Free housing and an adventure…win-win!

No internet?! No coffee?!

Can I still order in?

EDITOR

Susan Sommer

SENIOR EDITOR

Michelle Theall

ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE

Melissa Bradley

ART DIRECTOR ASSISTANT EDITOR GEAR EDITOR CONTRIBUTING EDITOR DIGITAL CONTENT MANAGER

DIRECTOR OF PUBLISHING SERVICES PRODUCTION COORDINATOR

If there is beer.

PRODUCT MANAGER DIRECTOR OF MANUFACTURING

No way.

Who needs a million dollars?

John Lunn

I’d do it even without the money…but I’m into adventure and spontaneity!

Ron Vaz Alexander Deedy Bjorn Dihle

Nooooope!

I’d miss my wife too much— she HATES the cold.

Nick Jans Seth Fields Karen Fralick

Send me the check right now, and everyone else, too. “Iglu” simply means house in Inupiaq. There are all kinds of iglus, and we all live in one or another.

David L. Ranta Mickey Kibler Donald Horton

Not a chance. I’d go crazy without today’s modern conveniences.

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ALASKAMAGAZINE.COM

Alaska, ISSN 0002-4562, is published monthly except for combined July/August and December/January issues by MCC Magazines, LLC, a division of Morris Communications Company, LLC. Editorial and Advertising Offices: 301 Arctic Slope Ave., Suite 300, Anchorage, Alaska 99518. Not responsible for the return of unsolicited submissions. Known office of publication: 735 Broad St., Augusta, Ga. 30901. U.S. subscription rates: $24 for one year; $46 for two years. Canada and Mexico add $20 per year (U.S. Funds only). Outside North America add $40 per year (U.S. Funds only). Our trademarks registered in the U.S. Patent Office and in Canada: “Alaska,” “Alaska Sportsman,” “Life on the Last Frontier,” “From Ketchikan to Barrow,” “End of the Trail,” “The Guide Post,” “Main Trails & Bypaths,” “Alaska-Yukon Magazine.” Periodicals postage paid at Augusta, Ga., and additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Alaska, PO Box 433237, Palm Coast, FL 32143-9616. In Canada, periodicals postage paid at Winnipeg, Manitoba; second-class registration number 9771, GST No. 125701896. Canadian Publications Mail Sales Product Agreement No. 279730. © 2018 Alaska magazine. All rights reserved. Printed in the U.S.A. Volume 84, Number 2.

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CHRIS MILLER is an award-winning freelance photographer based in Juneau.

He focuses primarily on commercial fishing, backcountry skiing and snowboarding, and photojournalism. He is a contributor to the New York Times, has had multiple solo exhibitions in North America and France and can be found on the back deck of the F/V Icy Bay commercial fishing in Bristol Bay in the summer. Follow his work and adventures on Instagram at @csmphotos.

RUDY TSUKADA works with Alaska Raft and

An escape to the miraculous, magical world of canine endurance, bravery, and fortitude!

Kayak locally and is a member of the Hobie and Kokatat Fishing Team. He moved to Alaska from Japan in 1971 and attended school in Kenai. He now lives in Anchorage with his son, Ryu, and daughter, Saku.

MARCH 2018 A L A S K A

9

Back to Your Roots

Disheartened

by Helicopters

In our family we have Alaska ( formerly Alaska Sportsman) magazines dating into the early 1940s. The long December and January evenings are great for wandering back through all these Alaska stories. And I’ve noticed something: these older magazines were really good! They were filled with articles about the Alaska I wanted to call my home, the one where people went out and did interesting things in interesting places. As time went on, Alaska got more “civilized” and so did the publication. Instead of “The Mad Trapper of Rat River,” we now got to read along the lines of “Window Shopping in Cicely,” or something of the same ilk. But lately I have again noticed a difference. Alaska magazine seems to be heading back towards its roots. I find authors like Seth Kantner a refreshing change. Seth grew up in an Arctic barabara, and has something real to say. Contrast this with the “slick” version shown in the Alaska reality shows I am embarrassingly asked about when traveling. I think the magazine is beginning back on the course from whence it came and I encourage more articles in that vein.

I was bothered a bit by the December/January cover. Wilderness defines Alaska. Bush transport by fixed-wing aircraft has a long, honorable tradition throughout the state. It is inherently self-limiting because of the relative paucity of places to land. Helicopters are another matter. Alaska regulations have long recognized this distinction by completely banning the use of helicopters for all hunting, and, in some sensitive areas, fishing. Flying visitors into remote areas by helicopter has the potential to destroy the wilderness experience they came for in the first place, at least when they are landing as opposed to conducting flightseeing tours from the air. In my opinion, encouraging their use for this purpose is ill advised. I know how I would feel if I had just climbed 2,000 feet through the alders to reach the alpine and had a helicopter land on top of me.

Sincerely,

E. DONNALL THOMAS JR. Lewistown, Montana

DOUG POLENZ Tempe, Arizona

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A L A S K A M A G A Z I N E . C O M MARCH 2018

GEORGE J. DANIELSEN

Feeble Content A disturbing trend reached full flower in your December/January issue…Real content is disappearing. In this issue I counted 40 to 45 pages that could loosely be described as having substantive content. And some of those were comprised of fluff, e.g.

“Where do you read Alaska?” The magazine used to be so much more than a subsidiary of the cruise industry and chambers of commerce.

FACEBOOK POLL RESULTS

What does it take to make the perfect snowman?

Below are a few reader comments from the poll question posted on facebook.com/AlaskaMagazine Rose Petrie: Children and laughter.

Mittens and hot chocolate.

<< Gunter Jost Calvin Clough: The right type of snow can really help. Snow that is powder, usually in colder weather, is harder to form and pack into a snowball. Snow that is wet, usually in warmer weather, packs great but is so heavy. The perfect snow is somewhere in the middle. Snow that packs well and not a sloppy mess works best for me.

Susan Gethen: Family, friends, a bonfire, and hot cocoa!

A perfect snowman is made with the love and friendship of those who make it.

Jeannine Bryanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s image of a wolf at the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center was one of the most popular images on Alaska magazineâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Facebook page in February. Visit Alaska at facebook.com/ AlaskaMagazine to see more stunning imagery from the Last Frontier and to post photos of your own.

Where do you read Alaska?

Every year in November my family and I travel to Phoenix for the NASCAR race at the Phoenix International Raceway in Avondale, Arizona. Growing up in California, I always had a passion for Alaska, especially the wildlife. Having a subscription keeps me up to date until my next visit to the Last Frontier. Here I am keeping cool in the grandstands reading my latest issue of Alaska magazine before the race in the Arizona desert heat.

Eric Sedor >> Upland, California To celebrate our 50th anniversary, my wife, Judy, and I traveled to Scotland and Wales. During our time in Wales we visited the Llechwedd Slate Mine. We had a delightful tour of the mine with details of the history of slate mining in the area. The only thing that concerned us about the tour was the first step. We have enjoyed reading Alaska magazine for many years, in many locations; we read an issue before venturing down into the mine. << Ed and Judy Bousquet Bend, Oregon

My husband and I visited Alaska for a few months back in 2016, and loved every minute of it. We hired a car and camped at over 15 sites and rented a couple of Airbnbs taking us from Homer all the way to Talkeetna! After the trip, we instantly subscribed to Alaska magazine and have been getting it ever since. We travel the world with our jobs, which is why we are blessed to be reading the latest issue of our favorite magazine at the Dark Hedges in Northern Ireland. But no matter how far we travel, or where the road takes us next, our hearts will always remain in the land of the midnight sun; the beautiful state of Alaska that we hope to one day call home.

Alisha and Brandon Conley >> After years of planning we made our first trip to Alaska in 2014 and fell in love with it. Using your magazine as a guide, we planned our second trip in 2016. On our recent trip to Churchill, Manitoba, to view the polar bears on the shores of Hudson Bay, we brought along our copy of Alaska magazine to read on the plane to plan for our next trip to Alaska. << Cheryl and Jim Tibesar Plymouth, Minnesota

Connect with us! Send us pictures of where you read Alaska and submit letters to the editor at editor@alaskamagazine.com.

MARCH 2018 A L A S K A

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ALASKA EXPOSED Happy Dogs

Aliy Zirkle runs her team in the Yukon Quest 300 in 2017.

Focal length: 50 mm Shutter speed: 1/800 sec Aperture: f/11 ISO: 1600 JULIEN SCHRODER / arctic-mood.com

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MARCH 2018 A L A S K A

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ALASKA EXPOSED On the Hunt

A wolverine’s scientific name is Gulo gulo, meaning “glutton.”

Focal length: 400 mm Shutter speed: 1/1000 sec Aperture: f/5.6 ISO: 400 MATTHEW QUAID / greatnorthernimages.com

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MARCH 2018 A L A S K A

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The Snow Run

BY NICK JANS

Haines

Driving down the centerline of the Alaska Highway near Tetlin.

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O

N THE OUTSKIRTS OF DELTA

Junction, I leaned forward into the glare of oncoming headlights.

Nah, it wasn’t my imagination.

Those were snowflakes swirling against the windshield. A half hour later, a few became a few billion. I’d set out from Fairbanks at 5 a.m. on a southward dash, hoping to beat the weather. Instead, I was meeting the first snow of the season head on, with 600 miles of Alaska Highway between me and my Klehini Valley homestead, just north of Haines.

After five way-off-grid weeks in the upper Kobuk country, where clocks and calendars didn’t count, I was back in the world of roads, and locked into a totally un-Arctic travel schedule: an intertwined set of ferry, rental car, and plane reservations covering thousands of miles, Alaska to Florida. I’d allowed one day to drive to Haines. Then a day and a half to winterize and board up the place, unpack from the bush, re-pack for the lower 48, and scram.

An extra day hanging in Fairbanks, waiting on weather, wasn’t going to cut it. I’d set up some logistical dominoes for myself, and now they all had to tumble on cue.

The forecast wasn’t horrible for early October, but nothing great, either—a couple inches of wet snow fading into drizzle, and steadily improving weather as I waged south. Six hundred-plus miles in a day, driving solo on a two-lane road through subarctic wilderness in iffy weather, stops far between, may sound more like work than anything else. But in fact, I was looking forward to it. Watching big chunks of country scroll past is an expansive, meditative process; and my route passed through several stretches of heart-busting scenery. Add on the chance of who knows what around any given bend—caribou, bear, wolves, you name it.

As for conditions—well, there had to be some sort of weather, and this was it. If I could have clicked my heels together and levitated to Haines, I would’ve said no.

What’s the point of getting somewhere without the going?

For the first hour, all went on plan. The highway stretched ahead, except for patches of local traffic around towns, practically deserted. The speedometer inched past 60, then 70. Then I snapped to my senses, and switched onto full moose

NICK JANS

Six hundred miles to home

Breaking trail, my Arctic buddies would call this sort of traveling— forging your way through new snow. alert. When the snow dump began, wildlife worries piled onto slushy rut syndrome. I eased back on the gas in my time-worn minivan. Snow tires and four-wheel drive? Not so much.

On one of those long, spruce-lined straightaways across the Tanana flats, my rear wheels skated loose, and I veered into damn near a sideways skid. I fought out of it, exhaled, and dropped to 40. Patches of black ice shone ahead. At this rate, I’d be home past midnight. In the thin light of a snow-spattered dawn, a fox trotted across the road, in way less of a hurry than I was.

After, all, he was already home.

Miles blurred into each other, my speed varied, and the weather loomed and faded—a reminder of just how local conditions can be, and just how huge Alaska is. I was driving into the teeth of a front hundreds of miles long, itself getting shoved and funneled by big terrain. When I gained elevation, wet snow plastered trees, roadside signs, and the highway. Drop down to the valley floor, and the roadway was clear. On far horizons, peach-hued light beckoned. But every time I built up to serious traveling speed, I’d hit another patch of hard going and have to back off.

At least I had the road pretty much to myself. Freeze-up is a quiet time of year for driving in central Alaska; the migrating herds of tourist RVs and early fall hunters had passed, and any locals with any sense had holed up. Even most big-rig truckers seemed to be sitting this one out.

And there I was, driving straight up the centerline of the Alaska Highway, clawing up those long grades near Tetlin with tires spinning, then skating downhill, tapping my brakes and sawing at the wheel. In stretches, the only tire tracks were mine.

Breaking trail, my Arctic buddies would

call this sort of traveling—forging your way through new snow. And in fact, the sense of connection was the same as I’d felt on long solo trips in the Brooks Range.

The country wasn’t just moving past. I was traveling through it. I could practically feel a snowmachine jouncing along beneath me, and a sledload of gas and gear tugging behind.

The border with Canada’s Yukon Territory marked the halfway point— 300 miles gone, somewhat more than that ahead. When I asked the agent at the U.S. station for an update on road conditions, he shrugged. The guy on the Canadian side flipped through my passport and wished

mile above me. The clear green lake heaved with ocean-sized whitecaps. I was pushing through the trailing edge of a spectacular weather front, through country no less grand. As if to punctuate the drama, a male grizzly appeared out of the wind along the wave-lashed lake shore, and wandered my way—close enough for me to see his individual claws work as he dug for roots. I paused for 20 minutes to watch him, by far my longest stop (the others: 10 minutes for gas and coffee; and the same at the border). At last he wandered off, and not until then did I. No sense, ever, hurrying past a good thing.

I drove on in what felt like a miniature toy across a vast, postcard landscape: late fall colors glowing in evening light, mountains draped with snow. The British Columbia section of the highway rolled across a high tundra pass dotted with lakes, then dropped past glaciered peaks into the tree line, downhill to the Alaska border. From there, home lay just 10 miles down the Klehini Valley; and I

A British Columbia pass north of Haines.

me luck. From there, I’d cut east across the Yukon; and at Haines Junction would turn southward across a strip of British Columbia, then continue into the tip of the Southeast Alaska panhandle, and home.

I still faced a couple of white-knuckle hours. But by the time I reached mountain-framed Kluane Lake, streaks of blue merged with wind-ripped clouds, and a dry road ahead. As I rubbernecked along, skeins of snow shredded from peaks a

never stopped gawking that last bit of the way. It’s something to have passed through so much country, see your own backyard again, and feel its shape carved on your heart. I’d broken trail for a reason, after all.

Nick Jans is a longtime contributing editor to Alaska magazine. Find his latest prizewinning collection of Alaska essays, The Giant’s Hand, at nickjans.com.

MARCH 2018 A L A S K A

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Cache The

03.18

Nature’s Art

Snow-covered tussocks on the tundra.

Photo by:

PATRICK J. ENDRES/

alaskaphotographics.com

“The Cache” is written and compiled

by Assistant Editor Alexander Deedy.

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The Cache Alaska’s Snow

300+ 6 15 By the numbers

Inches of average annual snowfall in Valdez, making it America’s snowiest city.

MILLION

Tons of snow removed from the Anchorage airport during the 2012-2013 winter.

Muck Boot Mania

Alaskans give popular brand high marks You might think Muck Boots are just for wearing in muck. Au contraire!

Alaskans love their various styles for everything from winter hiking to a night on the town. Terry Puhr, a horse-owner in Eagle River, has three pairs and says, “I LOVE Muck Boots!” Pairs in the “Equestrian” series double as dancing shoes—they clean up easily between barn and bar. The Arctic Ice Tall or Mid height boot are both excellent for tramping through wet snow; their Vibram sole provides good grip and the lower portion is waterproof.

Toasty toes make March outings even more fun. muckbootcompany.com ~Susan Sommer

Skip through deep new snow with the Arctic Ice Tall Muck Boot.

COURTESY SUSAN SOMMER

Inches of snow fell in 90 minutes last December in Thompson Pass.

Inked

Reawakening a tradition Caption

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A L A S K A M A G A Z I N E . C O M MARCH 2018

[LEFT] Marjorie Tahbone decided to get her chin tattoo when she felt ready to take on the responsibilities of modern womanhood.

COURTESY KALYNNA ASHLEY PHOTOGRAPHY

Inupiaq women used to get tattoos, often prominently displayed on their face, when they matured and were ready to accept the responsibilities that came with womanhood. It was an important cultural tradition, but the practice was suppressed over the last few hundred years with the arrival of Russian and Western influence. Now, Marjorie Tahbone is helping revive the practice for Alaska Natives, and the tattoos are taking on a contemporary meaning.

“We kind of have a new tradition now, and that’s to heal from the historical traumas our people have faced in the last 350 years from colonization, and missionaries, and boarding school, and modern education,” she says.

Tahbone, who spent a large portion of her childhood at a family camp 12 miles outside Nome, got her own chin tattoo while she was in college at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Tahbone couldn’t find any indigenous artists who were familiar with the tradition and could perform a ceremony with the tattoo at the time, so she decided to learn and offer the service to others. When she first started offering tattoos, Tahbone says men and women often got one on a wrist or somewhere else discreet. Over the last few years, it’s more common for people to opt for a facial tattoo, and Tahbone says it’s been rewarding to watch the change and acceptance.

“The healing that’s occurring through the tattoos has been really transformative,” she says. “I think it allows people who feel they can benefit from tattoos to go through a physical transition of healing rather than a mental one.”

(See page 52 for more on traditional Alaska Native tattooing.)

The Cache

Saving the Past

Rising seas threaten Yup’ik artifacts Elders and community members in Quinhagak on the southwest coast of Alaska have always known Nunalleq, a site about four miles outside of the village, held important pieces of ancestral history. That history was buried and preserved in frozen earth, but rising seas and warming temperatures thawed the ground and threatened to wash it away.

Since 2010, archaeologists and community members have been excavating Nunalleq, which they confirmed was the location of an attack when a warring faction arrived and slaughtered the residents. Along the way they have recovered thousands of artifacts, including elaborate ivory carvings, ceremonial masks, and tools. Warren Jones, head of the local Alaska Native corporation, says saving these artifacts has helped teach younger generations about their history and revive other cultural traditions like dancing.

Once removed, most of the artifacts are taken out of the village to be studied and preserved. This year, Quinhagak expects to welcome back many of the artifacts to the village, where they will be kept in a building half dedicated to storage and half dedicated to processing and preserving newly recovered artifacts around the region.

Many similar sites along the Alaska coast are in danger of being washed away, potentially erasing an important link to their cultural history and identity.

“I hope the other villages follow our lead and get their artifacts restored before they get lost to the sea,” Jones says.

A mask removed from the Nunalleq site.

COURTESY UNIVERSITY OF ABERDEEN

Wild and Wacky

The strange science of snow Professor Matthew Sturm, a snow and ice expert with the University of Alaska’s Geophysical Institute, is fascinated with snow. Sturm shared some of his favorite snow knowledge with Alaska, because he thinks the banal and occasionally bothersome substance, upon closer inspection, might be fascinating for our readers.

121 types of snowflakes fall from the sky. Which one depends on the temperature, moisture, pressure, and other atmospheric factors. And yes, it’s true that no two snowflakes are the same.

Snow has tensile strength like rope and string. Because it’s close to melting, snow sinters, basically allowing the molecules to lock together like the opposing knuckles of two closed fists. That’s why strings of snow droop from power lines and sheets of snow can hang off rooftops.

There’s a liquid layer, just a few molecules thick, always present on the surface of snow and ice. It’s what makes frozen parking lots slippery, but also helps skis glide.

Over one billion people in the world depend directly on snow for drinking water.

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COURTESY MATTHEW STURM

Snow has tensile strength, like string, allowing it to bend and droop.

Like molten steel, snow is almost always about to melt. Steel heated to 90 percent of its melting point, or about 2,500 degrees Fahrenheit, gets white hot and acts strange, like rubber. Snow is 90 percent of the way to its melting point at minus 20, so on an average winter day, it’s near melting.

The Cache

Movie Magic

Independent filmmaking is a vibrant community in Alaska Charles Baird loves to elicit an emotional response. Seeing someone smile, cry, or jump when watching a movie he made is a reward for the Anchorage-based independent filmmaker. He started making films in 2010 after his cousin told him he could make a feature for about the same cost as graduate school. In 2017, Baird had a goal to make 10 movies.

Alaska is home to a vibrant filmmaking community.

COURTESY CHARLIE SEARS

From open projector nights—like open mic night for filmmakers—to the Anchorage International Film Festival, there is a vibrant community of filmmakers in the state, says Charlie Sears, the board chair for the Alaska Filmmakers nonprofit.

Alaskans, he figures, are full of stories, and they often find film is the best way to tell them.

For anyone aspiring to get into film, he recommends first attending events and getting to know people. “Once you feel comfortable with the world, then all you have to do is make something, and it’s as easy as pulling out your phone,” Sears says.

Though Alaska’s environment does add some challenges to the movie-making process, those woes are alleviated by the community at large, which Sears says is incredibly helpful to independent filmmakers. He can walk into a local business in Alaska and ask to use it in a film scene without any compensation, and eight times out of 10 the business will say yes. In L.A., that same question would yield a litany of demands.

Baird has found a talented and passionate pool of Alaskans eager to make movies, who he repeatedly works with so he almost never brings help in from the Lower 48. Though they don’t have it all figured out yet, they are learning as they go.

“It really is the old West of making films,” Baird says. “We’re out doing something brand new. It’s kind of scary, kind of unknown, but we’re just having a blast.”

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The Cache

The Enemy When snow might sink your house

Tara Neilson thinks of snow as the enemy.

During one particularly nasty winter storm, she and her family spent all day outside shoveling snow off the deck and scraping it from the roof, only to have it continue falling as fast as they could remove it. But she couldn’t stop shoveling, because the snow would sink her house.

Neilson lives in a float house in southeast Alaska, about halfway between Wrangell and Ketchikan, in a small subsistence community. When the tide goes out, her house rests on solid ground, but when it lifts with the tide, Neilson feels like her house is levitating. She’s had a sea otter wander into her house and has built a floating walkway so her cat can freely wander from indoors to land.

“It’s just a really unique and strange, mysterious, wonderful kind of way to live,” she says.

Tara Neilson’s dad scrapes snow off the roof with a homemade tool.

Except for the snow. Heavy, wet snow could fall at any time in winter, and Neilson feels like she’s always working on projects to prepare for its arrival. The floats can easily handle a couple inches of snow, but anything more than a half-foot becomes a problem.

Her go-to weapon in times of need is a homemade elongated squeegee-type tool, with a 16-foot hollow handle and

plastic blade to effectively scrape snow off the roof. Sometimes, in the heat of battle, she’ll use buckets of saltwater to melt snow.

The single, semi-upside of snow is that it can be melted into drinking water if the water line freezes.

“I remember one winter when we didn’t get any snow,” Neilson says. “And it was so great.”

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The Cache

Anchorwoman When a 9.2 earthquake—the largest recorded in North America—struck Alaska 54 years ago, one of Alaska’s first female broadcast journalists dominated the coverage. Genie Chance took to the air on KENI with help from a backup battery and cracked transmitter, and talked for 30 straight hours, relaying information to the city, the state, and the country about the welfare of Alaskans. Her coverage won the McCall’s Golden Mike Award and Chance went on to serve as a representative and senator in the state legislature.

Genie Chance was one of Alaska’s first women in broadcast news.

Anchorage innovators designed a new ice scraper that can be made locally.

A stylish Ice Scraper Innovators rethink everyday tools

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A L A S K A M A G A Z I N E . C O M MARCH 2018

Cup o’ Chaga

Chaga, a fungus which grows on birch trees, is becoming increasingly popular across Alaska for its use as a tea.

The fungus has sprouted a following Visitors to Alaska cafes and coffee stands may notice an unfamiliar item on the menu: chaga.

A fungus that grows on birch trees in boreal forests throughout the northern hemisphere, chaga may not look like much—a lumpy, charcoal exterior and light brown inside—but it’s touted to have impressive health benefits. Chaga has extremely high levels of antioxidants, and contains sterols, betulinic acid, beta-glucans, and polysaccharides, all of which promote a healthy immune

system. There hasn’t been extensive research done in the United States to back up the health claims, but people in Siberia, Russia, and Eastern Europe have been drinking chaga for centuries. Some indigenous Alaskans also used chaga as a tool against ailments.

Though it can be consumed in different ways, chaga is most often combined with water to make a tea with a subtle, mild flavor. Its popularity has mushroomed across Alaska in recent years, suggesting it’s at least worth a taste.

(THIS PAGE) TOP LEFT: COURTESY GARRETT BURTNER; TOP RIGHT: ALASKA STATE LIBRARY PHOTO COLLECTION; BOTTOM: TAD MONTGOMERY & ASSOCIATES, TADMONTGOMERY.COM

Scraping ice from a car windshield and removing snow-covered boots in the entryway are daily tasks most Alaskans don’t think much about. But innovators at the Anchorage design firm McCool Carlson Green are redesigning everyday tools and spaces with Alaska in mind.

Their new line, Objects, features items like an ice scraper cut from acrylic, small enough to easily leave in a door pocket or tuck above the visor, and an arctic entry bench with room for gear storage.

Garrett Burtner, director of technology and innovation at MCG, says they wanted to focus on products that could be made locally and are emblematic of the northern lifestyle. Like mukluk boots and fur coats, Burtner says he wants these pieces to continue Alaska’s history of quality material made to function in the state’s extreme environment. The Objects line is just beginning, and as it grows, Burtner hopes it inspires people to be more mindful of quality and the spaces around them.

“Hopefully, instead of the arctic entry being kind of a forgotten space it can be more of a celebrated space,” Burtner says.

MARCH 2018 A L A S K A

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03.18

D E ST INAT IO N AL A S KA

Arctic Meditation Polar bear cub watches snowflakes fall.

Photo by:Â PATRICK J. ENDRES/

alaskaphotographics.com

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RAMBLES

The image of her stayed with me as we drove the winding gravel road... ”

Field of Time

Discovering life in death

BY CHRISTINE CUNNINGHAM

We

A breaching humpback whale.

32

She was gone, although parts of her body were still warm. She lay wrecked like a battleship. Her mouth, stomach, and tail collapsed against the sand in a shape her body never formed in life. In life she was suspended in water and sometimes air. The hard surface of the beach was a cliff she could not jump from.

A man in an official jacket approached us as we circled

A L A S K A M A G A Z I N E . C O M MARCH 2018

her. Because of the jacket, I asked him what happened. He said she came up to the river at high tide, probably got disoriented, and wasn’t able to make it back out before the tide left her on the beach. “She died last night,” he said. “That’s when we tied her off.

She was facing the other way last night.”

Then I saw the rope tied around her tail fin and fol-

JO OVERHOLT/ALASKASTOCK.COM

first saw her from the road, our eyes stopping briefly at the shape.

The tide was out with the mountains in the distance, and the window through the trees offered a scene worthy of a sign along the highway, one advising motorists of a worthy place to take a photo. There were no cars in the nearby gravel stretch, and my partner veered off the pavement just as we both registered the shock of seeing the 30-ton body of a humpback whale stretched out on the beach. The white of her pectoral fin from a distance appeared stained by blood and white graffiti lettering. We didn’t stop to talk about the safety of the rocks or sand as we ran out toward her. We didn’t stop until we had both touched the rubbery surface of her skin, and then we were under a spell of discovery, too lost for words except exhales of amazement, which are not words but raptures.

lowed it across the beach to the nearest trees.

She was dead when the rope was tied, but biologists didn’t want to lose the opportunity to access the body, collect samples, and determine the cause of death. She had rolled with the tide. “People keep coming down here with their dogs,” he said. “No respect.” Did he mean disrespect to the biologists or to the whale, I wondered. How respectful was it to tie her off to a tree for a full necropsy and then throw her back

to the sea in pieces? For a moment, she was Tiamat rising out of the salt water or the abyss.

Tiamat was considered the grandmother of all the gods, but was killed, cut up, and the sky and heaven were made out of the upper half of her body. The lower part created the earth, her head a mountain, and out of her eyes run the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers of Old Babylon.

The mountain in the distance behind her looked the same color as her gray skin.

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I touched the white rings, which I guessed were scars left by barnacles that had been knocked off. “What are these?” I asked, to be sure.

“They’re from eels,” the man said. “The eels latch on and leave marks the shape of their mouths.”

Higher on her body a deep blue gash appeared like rocky mountain topography.

“And this?” I asked him.

“That’s a bite mark from an orca whale probably.”

Above us, on the road, a car was slowing. The crowds would descend soon, and we had plans to hike into the mountains.

We left sooner than we wanted to. As we drove away, we could only describe our shock. We’d never seen a creature so big.

We’d never forget it. She was wrecked and destroyed on the beach, a picture of something wrong and out of place.

The image of her stayed with me as we drove the winding gravel road through the mountain valley. Later, we found ourselves driving back to the whale. Upon our return, she was surrounded by officials. Her side facing the tide was open and coolers were stacked nearby. Her blood ran into the tidal currents in the sand and out to the inlet. It was impossible to look away. She seemed alive. She seemed to have emerged from the abyss willingly. She’d been lost, but maybe she knew it. There’s something here, I thought. And I climbed up the rocks to watch the scene from above. Cars stopped, and people got out, took selfies, and walked back to their vehicles.

Her body was my body. It was 42-feet long. The body of my life, or what some ancients call the “long body,” that is, the body of our entire lives and not just our face in the present moment. The body we lose at the end. Even though I wasn’t, I felt as tied to something as she was. Were all of us as humans tethered to our civilized lives, and what would we do with the wide-open freedom of an ocean if nothing restrained us? We would still become lost and come ashore. Grief so often isn’t just about missing someone, but a feeling that life has gone, that all our lives will go. And here it was, all of my life stretched out before me.

A beautiful creature.

Christine Cunningham is a lifelong Alaskan, dog lover, avid hunter, and the author of Women Hunting Alaska.

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Researchers work on the dead humpback.

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Residents of Wales, a tiny community in western Alaska, head down the beach to play a game of baseball at 10 p.m. on a summer evening.

SENSE OF PLACE

Alaska’s Baseball Tradition

M

EMBERS OF BASEBALL ROYALTY WHO

played at least one Alaska season include Barry Bonds, Randy Johnson, Mark McGwire, Tom Seaver, and Dave Winfield. The origins of Alaska baseball, however, extend back long before their day and lead to some of the more remarkable circumstances under which the game has been played.

Through blizzards and other forms of hostile weather, players would compete, sometimes while wearing snowshoes, on improvised baseball diamonds. No great wealth or notoriety awaited these competitors who played ball–even inside the Arctic Circle–during the most formidable times of the year. Given the elements and the hand-padding needed to avoid frostbite, errors were commonplace, as told by Lew Freedman’s book Diamonds in the Rough: Baseball Stories from Alaska.

Yet somehow, spectators came, often forming a crowd of several hundred people. At some of the more remote and

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A L A S K A M A G A Z I N E . C O M MARCH 2018

BY RAY CAVANAUGH

forbidding parts of the planet, there gathered a cosmopolitan spectator base consisting of Eskimos and various Europeans along with Chinese, Japanese, and Malaysians seeking to pass the time between maritime journeys.

The decline of the whaling industry meant some of the most remote outposts in extreme conditions disappeared, but baseball was in Alaska to stay. And by World War I, Anchorage even boasted an all-female baseball team. These ladies played against the men, who were required to bat the wrong way.

As the 20th century progressed, Alaskan baseball went from being a curious phenomenon to becoming a launching pad for A-list professional careers. Among the budding stars was future Hall of Famer Tom Seaver, who in 1964 and 1965 pitched for the Fairbanks Goldpanners.

From this team alone, more than 200 young men have gone on to play in the major leagues.

The Goldpanners, established in 1960, are also

(THIS PAGE) COURTESY LINDA YARBOROUGH; (OPPOSITE PAGE) COURTESY ALASKA GOLDPANNERS OF FAIRBANKS

Alaska cultivates tough players on the diamond

Tom Seaver pitches at a Goldpanners game in Fairbanks in the 1960s.

He was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1992.

remarkable for at least two other reasons: They are the northernmost baseball club on the planet, and they host the Midnight Sun Game. This annual event, which begins at 10:30 p.m. and usually lasts until about 1:00 or 2:00 a.m., takes place during the summer solstice when—owing to the round-theclock presence of natural light in Fairbanks—no artificial light is needed even though it’s a night game.

The first Midnight Sun Game, which resulted as a bet between two local bars, took place in 1906, more than five decades before the Goldpanners existed. The Fairbanks club typically plays an out-ofstate opponent for this unique game that generally draws more than 4,000 fans and features a performance of the Alaska Flag Song as midnight approaches.

One of the most memorable Midnight Sun games took place in 2008, when Goldpanner alum Bill “Spaceman” Lee, still an effective pitcher into his 60s, threw six solid innings and avenged the loss in his last Midnight Sun event more than 40 years earlier.

The Goldpanners, which have been the state’s most dominant team, recently withdrew from the Alaska Baseball League but might return. Established in 1974, the ABL has five teams: Anchorage Bucs, Anchorage Glacier Pilots, ChugiakEagle River Chinooks, Mat-Su Miners, and Peninsula Oilers.

The Anchorage Bucs typically draw 500-600 spectators to their home games, where tickets are as little as five dollars, and young children get in for even less.

Though some outlets report that all ABL players must have played at least one year of college ball and have one year of remaining college eligibility, Maltby says that his team has a high school senior this season as well as a player who has just completed college and is seeking to get signed.

With the league’s track record of harvesting big-league talent, many professional scouts attend these games.

Though National Collegiate Athletic Association players typically use aluminum bats, ABL players must use wooden bats just like their counterparts

in MLB. Because of this setup, scouts often prefer observing ABL games to NCAA games, as they feel they can better assess how players would perform under MLB rules.

Alaska teams play about 50 games from early June to August. As it’s technically an amateur league, the players are not financially compensated.

They stay with local families who provide them with room and board.

Many of these players come from the congenial climate of California, but rosters also show a sizable number of Alaskans—possible descendants of those feisty souls who, more than a century ago, were determined to enjoy a national pastime no matter how ominous the frontier.

Ray Cavanaugh is a freelance writer who enjoys long walks and short novels.

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TRY THIS

Seven Reasons to Embrace Alaska’s Winter Get outside and play with these unique activities

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OST FOLKS VISIT ALASKA IN THE SUMMER MONTHS, BUT JUST BECAUSE IT’S WINTER

in the 49th state doesn’t mean there isn’t still plenty to see and do. Whether you’re an extreme sports fanatic or looking for something a bit more low key, Alaska doesn’t shut down when shoulder season ends. You’ll find fewer people, shorter lines, better rates, and some absolutely pristine landscapes if you’ve got the gumption to go north in winter.

Here are seven reasons to choose Alaska as your winter destination:

Skiers climb a mountain through poor visibility for the thrill of sliding back down.

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Joe Stock of Stock Alpine is the only internationally licensed mountain guide in southcentral Alaska, and he leads skiers of varying abilities through Alaska’s backcountry. Less experienced skiers looking to transfer alpine knowledge to backcountry can get lessons while on the ski course. You’ll learn everything you need to know using a program set at an international standard by the American Mountain Guides Association. Those already possessing backcountry skills enjoy Joe’s guiding skills as he leads them to one of seven Anchorage-area ski zones for a wilderness

A L A S K A M A G A Z I N E . C O M MARCH 2018

cruise on two planks over snow and ice. Rates vary by number of days and number of skiers in your party. Stockalpine.com

2. Chena Hot Springs Resort

Located about 60 miles northeast of Fairbanks, these hot springs were discovered in 1905 at the confluence of North Fork Chena River and Monument Creek. The year-round resort offers plenty of winter activities to keep you entertained, including the healing waters of the hot springs lake and indoor pool, as well as the Aurora Ice Museum, the world’s largest four-season ice environment. Made of more

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[RIGHT] Fat biking along the Tony Knowles Coastal Trail in Anchorage.

[BOTTOM] An aurora swirls over The Hotel Alyeska.

3. Northern Lights

Prime aurora viewing runs from September to late April, during the period when the days shorten and the sky remains dark enough to see the dancing lights.

Salmonberry Tours offers two great aurora viewing tour options (one seven-day tour out of Fairbanks and the other a six-day excursion in Anchorage) from November through March. Both tours include stops at Chena Hot Springs, a sled dog training run, a star presentation, a flight to the Arctic Circle, and more. All activities are weather permitting. Salmonberrytours.com

4. The Iditarod

Alaska’s historic dog-mushing race takes place in March, and Planet Earth Adventures offers excellent access to the festivities. The three-day package at the finish line in Nome is the beginner’s introduction to the race. You’ll watch the conclusion of the race before taking a

snowmachine ride that covers much of the final leg. For the full experience, sign on for the 10-day tour that starts in Anchorage for the race’s ceremonial start before heading to Talkeetna and Fairbanks. Enjoy the pre-race Musher’s Banquet and the annual winter Fur Rendezvous festival before heading north to watch more of the race. In addition to multiple Iditarod activities, this tour includes northern lights viewing, your own sled dog tour, a trip to the World Ice Art Championships, and a soak at Chena Hot Springs. Discoverak.com

5. Heli-skiing

For extreme sports adrenaline junkies, Haines offers some of the best heli-skiing anywhere in the world. Alaska Heli-Skiing has various tour options, from laid-back to fully deluxe. Typical packages include five- or seven-day stays, though individual heli-runs can be added for those wishing to extend their trips. Remain in town and have an authentic Southeast immersion alongside your skiing, or opt to stay on site where everything revolves around

getting up on the mountain. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime experience for skilled skiers. Alaskaheliskiing.com

6. Winter Fat Bike Tours

One of the best entry-level ways to get out and explore Alaska’s winter wonderland is by bike. Winter fat bike tours by Alaska Trail Guides let you pedal right on through the snow to a variety of locations. Stay in Anchorage and use a fat bike on the Tony Knowles Coastal Trail. Add in a stop at a local brewery to warm up and meet some locals to complete the tour. Or head out to Girdwood and bike along Turnagain Arm before stopping at the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center. Finally, a trip into Chugach State Park promises the chance to view wildlife and see something off the beaten path before warming up at a local brewery. Alaskatrailguides.com

7. Downhill Skiing

If backcountry or heli-skiing are a bit too extreme and isolated, Alyeska Resort in Girdwood offers easy access to groomed and steep runs on its 1,600 skiable acres via seven lifts. Nordic skiing and snowshoeing options provide an alternative to the standard mountain runs, with a slower pace to take in the views of the Chugach Mountains. But make no mistake: Mt. Alyeska is the star here. The North Face sports North America’s longest continuous double black run, and snowboarders will jump for joy in two uniquely designed terrain parks. Alyeskaresort.com Nicole Haase is a Milwaukee-based freelance writer and photographer whose work has appeared on BBC.com, ESPNw.com, and in newspapers and national sports websites. Her forte is writing about women in sports as a founding member of thevictorypress.com.

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A L A S K A M A G A Z I N E . C O M MARCH 2018

TOP: COURTESY ALASKA TRAIL GUIDES, BOTTOM: COURTESY ALYESKA RESORT

than 1,000 tons of ice and snow, harvested right at the resort, the museum includes an ice bar, ice sculptures, and live demonstrations. Dog sled rides, kennel tours, aurora viewing, and snow machine tours round out activities in the area.

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OUT THERE

When the Road Ends, It’s Just the Beginning

BY MICHELLE THEALL

Kantishna A cow and calf moose forage at Nugget Pond in 2017, the same location where Woody, Celia, and Ginny stopped during a hike in 1951 and deemed it the perfect location for a cabin or lodge.

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MAGINE WANTING TO EXPLORE

Mount McKinley National Park in the early 1950s, before Alaska statehood— when the only park hotel wasn’t even in the park and, ironically, didn’t have any views of its mountain namesake. Back then, a primitive road allowed visitors to get as far as Polychrome Pass on a small park bus or to continue on their own for the full 92-mile stretch without aid, facilities, or shelter for staying overnight. Celia Hunter, Ginny Wood, and Ginny’s husband Morton “Woody” Wood, changed that in 1952 when they built Camp Denali in Kantishna, just outside the park’s boundary at the end of the road. Under the Homestead Act, Celia (who initiated the project) might have selected a five-acre parcel and kept it all to herself. Instead, she staked out 80 acres for commercial use, a provision that required all 80 acres to be used for business purposes and leant itself to mining

A L A S K A M A G A Z I N E . C O M MARCH 2018

and logging operations, rather than tourism.

When the park expanded to its current six million acres of protected land, the Camp Denali parcel was grandfathered in for continued private ownership within the new park boundary. Most of the structures built in Kantishna were nestled in the shaded valley along Moose Creek in order to house miners, but Camp Denali set up shop on a rugged hillside in order to provide guests with massive, unobstructed views of Mount McKinley and the Alaska Range. Thus, Alaska’s first true wilderness camp—eco-tourism decades before the trend took root in our national consciousness—became a reality.

Such an endeavor could only be undertaken by three pioneers who possessed grit, solidarity, and an unending love of the land.

And they came by it honestly. Prior to building Camp Denali, Celia and Ginny were two of the estimated 1,000 women trained in

(THIS PAGE) MICHELLE THEALL; (OPPOSITE PAGE) COURTESY GINNY WOOD

Three friends build a refuge for travelers in Denali

the Air Force during WWII to ferry warplanes, including bombers. Neither received GI benefits for their service, but both of them became addicted to flying and to accomplishing whatever they set their minds to, despite barriers to women at that time. After the war ended, they took a dangerous job flying discarded and sometimes barely operational surplus planes to Oregon for repair and resale and later set sail with another woman on Ginny’s 26-foot yawl for four months around British Columbia. Following that summer, Celia and Ginny flew to Fairbanks in Stinson aircrafts, fulfilling a dream to get to Alaska. Westours hired them, and they established tours to the Inupiaq Eskimo village in Kotzebue as their first foray into hospitality and tourism.

Woody Wood met Ginny in Fairbanks and they married three years later. A veteran of the U.S. Army’s Tenth Mountain Division, Woody took a job using his GI Bill-sponsored forestry degree as a Mount McKinley National Park ranger. He fell in love with the park and became obsessed with a desire to climb the highest mountain in North America. In 1947, he answered McKinley’s siren song and climbed to its summit. On another expedition seven years later, Woody logged the first ascent of the south buttress, only to lose one of his climbing partners during an accident descending Karsten’s Ridge. The beauty of the mountain never left him, and the creation of Camp Denali allowed him, his wife, and Celia an 80-acre basecamp to gaze upon her and share her with others.

Inspired by European hut-to-hut camping and skiing, Celia, Ginny, and Woody built a place that travelers could use as a hub for deeper exploration into the surrounding wilderness. They staggered the canvas structures, built on platforms, so each was out of earshot of the other, and so that every tent cabin— and its nearby outhouse—had its own private view of McKinley. Inside, they provided bunks with down sleeping bags, Yukon stoves for heat, Coleman stoves for cooking, and a supply of groceries. They bulldozed a one-mile road up the hill to the cabins, carefully trying to preserve the natural surroundings; drew water, gravity-fed from a natural spring; used a ham radio for emergencies; and built a cache by hand using white spruce. They

battled permafrost, bears, and even the banks, which would not lend money to them because they didn’t believe that anyone would ever pay to stay there. The land, their early guests, and their own financial limitations determined the speed of their growth, but that first summer alone, they welcomed over 70 visitors to Camp Denali.

Sixty-six years later, Camp Denali embodies the vision of its founders; however, it offers more amenities now. I recently stayed for a week at Camp Denali in one of the original tent cabins, completely renovated today with wood siding.

Inside my room, I found a comfortable bunk covered in quilts, a Glo-fire wood stove for heat, lanterns for light, and running water in a spigot a few feet from the structure. My porch overlooked the Alaska Range and my private outhouse, a few feet down a trail, had a carved-out heart in its door (instead of a crescent moon), which perfectly framed Mount Denali. A main lodge, where meals were served family style, offered exceptional

cuisine as well as a detailed account from the staff regarding the day’s activities. One of the big draws of Camp Denali is its proximity to the iconic Wonder Lake, where clear days reflect Denali onto the surface of the water. Several hikes leave from the property, and caribou are frequently spotted in the area. However, I found out one morning on the walk to breakfast that I needn’t wander far from camp at all to see wildlife. In Nugget Pond, the front yard of the main lodge, a moose and her calf waded across the water, snorkeling for algae, with the Alaska Range peeking out of the clouds behind them. I could almost picture Celia, Ginny, and Woody enjoying their lunch on the banks of the pond, talking about what such a place might become and how they could share it with others.

Alaska magazine’s senior editor, Michelle Theall, is an award-winning author and professional photographer. Through her company, Wild Departures (wilddepartures. com), she gives wildlife-viewing tours in Alaska and beyond.

Conservation pioneers Celia, Woody, and Ginny at the Camp Denali signpost in 1952. Ginny was instrumental in starting the Alaska Conservation Society (now Foundation) and received many awards.

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ALASKA SPORTSMAN

Kings by Kayak

Ryu Tsukada with his 16.5-pound youth division winning fish in the 2017 Homer Winter King Salmon Tournament.

BY RUDY TSUKADA

Homer

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ANY ALASKANS, ESPECIALLY IN

Southcentral, are surprised to hear that king salmon can be caught year-round. During the winter months, the most popular location for the king salmon fishery is Homer, with less developed fisheries near Seward and Whittier.

The Homer Winter King Salmon Tournament in March is the highlight of the winter king salmon fishery with the winners taking home tens of thousands of dollars. In 2017, the tournament was postponed one week due to ice covering much of the harbor. My friends and I were disappointed in the cancellation, as our preferred method gave us an advantage over larger, more ice-capable vessels. We were a group of a dozen kayakers that had accepted the challenge of fishing the tournament. Our edge was that

A L A S K A M A G A Z I N E . C O M MARCH 2018

we could launch our ocean-going kayaks from just about any shoreline.

The kayak style most of us use are “sit on top” kayaks, which are very different from the traditional “sit inside” kayaks that we often see touring Alaska’s coastlines. While typically slower, the sit on top kayaks tend to be more stable. Many fishing models are stable enough that an angler can stand up.

Many people, including my son and I, use pedal-driven kayaks to keep our hands free to fish. They are stable enough that I have been able to land a 105-pound halibut off of one.

We launch our Hobie Outback kayaks within several hundred feet from our rooms at the Land’s End hotel. Despite the cold March breeze, we are warm thanks to our waterproof full-body Kokatat paddling suits

(THIS PAGE) RUDY TSUKADA; (OPPOSITE PAGE) SAKURAKO TSUKADA

The lure of winter king salmon fishing

Ryu, the author’s son, hooked up with Mt. Iliamna in the background.

and the multiple layers of thermal underwear and socks underneath. Add the constant motion at about a brisk walking pace and even on days that are below freezing, we easily stay warm.

We troll the herring we are using for bait at roughly two miles per hour, staring at our fish finders looking for any indication of baitfish or salmon. After several hours, I manage to hook and land a 15-pound king salmon. Moments later, I hear my 12-year-old son, Ryu, yell, “I am hooked up!”

Handling both the rod and net simultaneously, Ryu skillfully slides the 16.5-pound king salmon into his net. The fish is good enough to win the youth division (as the only kayak entry) and places second in the kayak division (as the only youth entry).

This is the second consecutive year Ryu has entered a fish in this derby. Not bad considering that in 2017, 1,007 anglers on 299 powerboats and 12 kayaks caught only 216 fish according to HomerWinterKing.com. Kayakers have done well before. In the 2016 tournament, Jacob Graves, fishing off of a kayak, finished 13th out of 1,491 anglers.

As we go to weigh in our fish, Alaska Department of Fish and Game biologists are there to take scale samples. Fish and Game kept the head of my son’s fish as the clipped adipose fin indicated a fish of hatchery origin and the head may have a microscopic coded wire tag that would

reveal the fish’s origin. Virtually none of the salmon in this winter fishery originate from Cook Inlet. Many of the fish are from hatcheries located in British Columbia, Washington, and Oregon.

These fish are unlike the kings we catch in the rivers of the Kenai Peninsula or Mat-Su Valley. Because these winter saltwater kings are so far away in both distance and time from spawning, the flesh has a much higher fat content than king salmon typically caught in a river, as none of the fat has gone to the production of roe or milt. This makes them top-notch table fare. Once or twice per year, we catch a king of the prized white-fleshed variety.

At the weigh in, a number of people come up and talk to my son and me about fishing out of kayaks. The most often asked question is, “Is it safe?” With

the proper equipment and practice the answer is, “Absolutely yes.”

In addition to the stable kayaks, we always wear waterproof paddling suits and life vests. We carry waterproof communication devices such as a VHF radio and cell phones. We also practice re-entering our kayaks.

The new generation of kayaks offers virtually anyone the ability to fish safely, comfortably, and economically. I would encourage anyone who is interested to do some online research and to visit kayak specialty stores. You can bet that the “Tupperware Armada” will be out looking for that winning king salmon in the 2018 Homer Winter King Salmon Tournament.

Rudy Tsukada has fished every Homer Winter King Derby off his kayak since 2013.

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MARCH 2018 A L A S K A

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GEAR

It’s the Little Things That Matter Camping Accessories for Your Adventures

BY BJORN DIHLE Whether you’re going camping for the first time or you mournfully howl whenever you sleep indoors, there are a lot of accessories designed to help you enjoy the outdoors. For this column I selected five practical products—each of which, after testing, I like very much but for different reasons. If you’re in the market to make a cabin cozier or your next campout more enjoyable, here are five great suggestions.

MSR WindBurner Stove System Family [EDITOR’S CHOICE] I love MSR’s WindBurner stove and use mine on adventures all over Alaska. The one complaint I’ve heard in the past is that the stove can be tippy and hard to cook with for bigger groups. MSR has remedied both issues with the WindBurner Stove System Family (available early in 2018). Easier to light and offering better flame control than a WhisperLite and other popular stoves, the new WindBurner is ideal for big and small group adventures when you want to cook more than freeze-dried fare. It can be used with a skillet, 2.5- or 5-liter pot as well as the 1-liter personal pot. Whether you’re thinking Thai curry for six in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge or a quick bump of coffee on a kayak trip to Glacier Bay, this stove system is more than up for the job. I’ve owned a lot of camp stoves, and the WindBurner is my favorite three-season system. $180-$260; msrgear.com

Editor’s Choice

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Cabela’s Five-Piece Cast-Iron Starter Set Whether you appreciate taste and versatility or believe that cooking with Teflon or aluminum is a health hazard, once you use cast iron, there’s no going back.

Good for home or wilderness (when you don’t have to haul it too far), there’s nothing better for cooking game or bread than a Dutch oven on a campfire. Cabela’s is offering a screaming deal on a package: a 10-inch skillet, legless 5-quart camp oven with a lid that fits the 10-inch skillet, a 12-inch deep skillet with a lid that reverses to a round griddle, Dutch oven lifting tool, and heavy-duty leather cooking gloves.

All cast iron is pre-seasoned and ready for a lifetime of culinary adventures in your home and the wilds. $90; cabelas.com

Yeti Rambler 14-ounce Mug The stainless-steel Yeti Rambler products, from the 14-ounce mug to the gallon jug, are all awesome. Depending on your liquid need—the gallon growler doubles as a weapon good for home protection or stopping a charging abominable snowman—Yeti has it. I’ve used the 14-ounce Rambler continuously since I got it for testing. I’ve named the mug Alvin and talk to it more than my golden retriever and girlfriend combined. Somehow water, coffee, cocktails, and tea just taste better when sipped from a Rambler.

There’s no residue when I work my way through my daily procession of drinks, and the mug is virtually bomb proof. Double-wall vacuum insulation will keep your liquids hot or cold for the duration. $25; yeti.com

Crazy Creek Air Chair Compact I love Crazy Creek chairs but rarely bring one out into the field due to the added bulk. With the Air Chair Compact I no longer have a good excuse to sacrifice the extra comfort when I’m wildlife viewing or making dinner on a float trip. The Air Chair packs down to take up hardly any space and weighs only a pound and a half. It takes 10 seconds to inflate, and it’s more comfortable than the original Crazy Creek chair. Built tough, it comes with a patch kit and a limited five-year warranty. It can also double as a two-thirds length super comfy sleeping mat. $83; crazycreek.com

Coleman Quad Pro Lantern This battery-operated lantern with four take-away rechargeable light panels is great for a trip to a cabin or for home emergencies. I took it, instead of a traditional white gas lantern, on a family deer hunt this fall. It felt so wrong at first but, after five nights with plenty of light, plus the ability to use a light panel for cooking or hanging meat in the dark, I was more than won over.

It has three settings. The highest, 800 lumens, runs for 20 hours. Medium, 200 lumens, runs for 200 hours. Low, 100 lumens, runs for 400 hours. I found the medium setting sufficient for lighting up a 15- by 15-foot cabin.

It even has USB ports for charging technology. I highly recommend it. $100; coleman.com

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A Nose for Seals

Brendan Kelly watches Cannon, a Labrador retriever, by an exposed breathing hole.

Labradors aid scientific research

W

ITH NOSES 10,000 TIMES SHARPER

than a human’s, dogs have served to detect the missing, the dangerous, the unbidden: mountain lions, wild hogs, stowaways, and sprung convicts, and more recently, drugs and explosives, victims of murders, earthquakes, and avalanches. In 2014, the federal government mandated that the energy giant BP use trained dogs to avoid impacting seals during ice-road construction and other Beaufort Sea projects. Formerly predators, some canine trackers have turned into protectors.

“Labs” ferreting out ringed seals for science have been deployed since 1975, though their husky cousins guided Arctic hunters to flippered prey for millennia.

The American publisher Charles Francis Hall, seeking Sir John Franklin in 1860-62, admired Inuit who “will go, with their dogs, even in the

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very coldest of weather, and under most dangerous circumstances, to hunt for seal-holes.” Sled dogs, Hall observed, surprised seals basking in plain view as well. Once trained dogs pick up a seal’s odor downwind from it they quarter in a zigzag pattern, which narrows, funnel-like, as they get closer.

Having learned this from an Inuit hunter in Canada, the University of Alaska’s Dr. Brendan Kelly and associated biologists in 1982 loosed Labrador retrievers on shore-fast ice between Reindeer Island and Prudhoe Bay to study noise disturbance from oil development. The dogs sniffed out dozens of lairs, snow caves that seals excavate above breathing holes. Females nap and nurse there, concealed from polar bears and men.

A seal cow has several such pockets and may leave a pup in one while she forages, shielding it from Arctic foxes, glaucous gulls, and the

COURTESY MICHAEL CAMERON, NOAA FISHERIES

BY MICHAEL ENGELHARD

elements. Rutting bulls become rank by May and the snow at their lairs smelly—a condition Inupiat call tigak. After work conducted in Kotzebue Sound, in 2006, DNA from black “dandruff ” in old lairs where seals molted allowed Kelly to identify different subpopulations and to determine that much interbreeding occurred—ice seal species mating outside their subgroup are less vulnerable to extinction. Kelly furthermore investigated the consequences of shrinking sea ice and earlier snowmelt upon these pinnipeds.

The team tagged seals with specially developed satellite responders that traced pelagic migrations and returns to certain breeding sites for up to 14 months. With Dr. Peter Boveng of the Alaska Fisheries Science Center, Kelly instrumented seals also after finding them with an infrared camera instead of a canine gumshoe.

Dogs proved to be much more sensitive, with an 80 to 85 percent success rate in a search perimeter five to 10 kilometers wide. Seemingly inexhaustible, they struck pay dirt up to 200 times in a month, sensing lairs from 500 meters.

Kelly, who prefers females for their stamina, conditioned his retrievers by taking them downwind of visible, basking seals and with scraps of skin or blubber.

Later dogs learned by accompanying experienced ones, responding to the handler’s command “natchiq”—Inupiaq for Pusa hispida, the “bristly-coated seal.”

Praised, primed, and eager, dogs sprinted ahead of the researchers’ snowmachines, directed by hand signals.

A ringed seal pup in its lair.

Cannon investigates Once a retriever a seal lair in the sea pinpoints a target, it ice near Kotzebue. alerts or starts digging.

An avalanche probe then confirms a find. In time, an aglu hoop net is set up in the exposed breathing hole, to trap a surfacing seal before it can dive again.

Weather conditions affect how often interspecies teams can search for lairs and how successful they are. Strong winds can hamper a dog that is trying to lock into scent plumes and trace them to their source.

The window to locate seal pups is short. “If we didn’t have the dogs,” Kelly says, “we’d have to wait until late spring to look for caves exposed by melting snow, and we’d miss the pupping season.”

This specialist dog breed is hardworking tamed-wolf mutt Kotzebue Sound Natives and wise to the ways of the sea, like its (“Malemiut”) and their Thule predecessors ancestors, which earned their keep as have bred for 1,000 years; but Labs possess fishermen’s helpmates, hauling nets, and the same high-grade olfactory gear. Here’s fetching ropes and fish from chilly north an analogy to vision: An object a person Atlantic waters. Labradors don’t share the can spot a third of a mile away, a dog could dense, double-coated pelt, thick pads, from more than 3,000. Put another way, furred paws, and short, frost-resilient ears Pooch catches the whiff of one rotten of the Malamute—the big-boned, apple hidden in two million barrels.

A dog then is two nostrils attached to a brain. The tail merely announces a score.

Noses packed with receptors, split airflow paths ( for olfaction and respiration), an organ we lack (“Jacobson’s”), and an enlarged brain segment exclusively decoding air clues explain a dog’s feats.

Bioengineers now try to replicate this dazzling design. Perhaps some day, robots will replace scientists’ four-legged assistants. Their work, one must assume, will be less entertaining for it.

Michael Engelhard is the author of the essay collection American Wild: Explorations from the Grand Canyon to the Arctic Circle, and of Ice Bear: The Cultural History of an Arctic Icon. He lives in Fairbanks and works as a wilderness guide in the Arctic.

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Marks of the Ancestors The traditional art of tattooing

BY MICHAEL ENGELHARD

in almost every city and celebrities flashing chic subcutaneous designs, facial tattoos still carry a stigma—try landing a bank job, even suited up fancily, when you look like Ray Bradbury’s Illustrated Man. In the wake of Age of Enlightenment voyages into the South Pacific, the practice reached Europe, where it has long been the domain of thugs, sailors, carnival freaks, biker gangs, and other “unsavory” folk. Some of the first New World encounters between pale faces and tattooed ones occurred along Bering Sea coastlines, during James Cook and Otto von Kotzebue’s expeditions.

In Alaska, this visual language was ancient, known to Siberian Yupiit, Inupiat, Aleuts, Alutiit, Deg Hit’an, Gwich’in, Tlingit, and Haida. The earliest representation of a human face in the Arctic—a 3,600-year-old, Paleo-Eskimo carved-ivory maskette

The Haida chief Kitkun, with a codfish design on his chest and salmon on his forearms, 1886.

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from Devon Island—has incised lines, a web of tattoos. Intrigued by fellow practitioners, expedition artists mostly depicted women’s tattoos. “The chins of the [“Kootchin”] women are always tattowed,” wrote Alexander Murray, the Hudson’s Bay Company trader who in 1847 established a trading post at Fort Yukon. Gwich’in men had honor-markings embroidered on their cheeks, for enemies killed. In northern Alaska, elderly women used bone or ivory slivers (and later, steel needles) threaded with sinew they’d blackened with soot mixed with urine, which reduces scabbing. The

skill was the same as that of sewing animal skins. In central and southern Alaska, tattooists favored a puncturing method, rubbing lamp-black into each wound pricked with a bird bone or such.

Intricate marks on the forehead, lips, cheeks, arms, or legs could take several sessions to complete; the process was painful, causing treated areas to swell—as it still does today.

Designs typically comprised lines, stars, and other geometrical shapes. Inupiat who’d fought bravely in battle received tupit, often four parallel straight lines on each cheek. Applied after puberty, chin

(THIS PAGE) COURTESY BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY; (OPPOSITE PAGE) COURTESY ETH-BIBLIOTHEK ZÜRICH

D

ESPITE TATTOO PARLORS

St. Lawrence Islanders in a lithograph by Louis Choris, the artist on Otto von Kotzebue’s expedition in 1816.

tattoos (tavlugun) adorned women of marriageable age.

Stripes scored from the lower lip to the tip of the chin tested their pain tolerance, a virtue in a harsh environment—the wider the chin bands, the higher her threshold. Tattoos protected them from enemies or cured infertility. They denoted kin groups or regional bands or could be pure adornment.

Elaborate thigh tattoos were thought to ease childbirth. Newborns beheld beauty in them, the first thing they saw as they slid from the womb. On Kodiak, transgender men sported women’s tattoos. Among acupuncturepracticing Aleuts, indelible ink distinguished female nobility.

Men’s facial tattoos, sometimes miniature flukes at the corners of their mouth, showed they had harpooned their first whale. Saint Lawrence “first-kill” tattoos (kakileq) announced a hunter’s coming of age with small dots on the joints of the neck, shoulders, elbows, hips, knees, and wrists. Both women and men also wore dot patterns in mourning and to shield them against the deceased’s unmoored spirit at burials—spirits entered the body through joints. Similarly,

“guardian tattoos” served to disguise the wearer from nonhuman evil forces, which could cause sickness or death.

Surveying the newly acquired territory, the U.S. Navy ensign Albert Niblack noted that at ceremonies, Haida men paraded clan crests on bared chests, backs, thighs, shins, and forearms; women also proudly displayed needlepoint “bracelets.”

Children were tattooed in naming ceremonies, and certain crests guarded against drowning.

In their attempt to erase tribal customs, missionaries censured body piercing, “savage” hairstyles, and tattooing, as well as ceremonies, dress codes, and beliefs.

Under their influence, the United States government banned tattoos as part of the Northwest Coast potlatch in the late 19th century (repealed in 1934). The Haida

responded by engraving their lineages’ emblems on jewelry when precious metals became available. These tokens of solidarity and descent could be removed as circumstances demanded.

Heir to Tlingit and Inupiaq traditions, the Seattle tattoo artist-activist Nahaan considers traditional clan crest tattoos “permanent regalia,” manifestations of “a modern-day responsibility to our ancient identities.” Besides proclaiming identities—a universally human craving—the spidery tracings stake political claims.

This explains their resurgence in a younger, outspoken, back-to-the-roots generation. “Upon our bodies,” Nahaan concludes, “we wear our history, the deeds to our lands, our access to the skies, and seas, our relatives.”

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Kotzebue Storms Ed Ward’s ingenuity

BY ALEX HILLS

R Kotzebue Snowfall was heavy in the winter of 1973-74.

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ADIO LISTENERS ACROSS NORTHWEST

Alaska heard this weather report: The forecast for the Kotzebue vicinity and the lower Noatak and Kobuk valleys calls for increasing winds over the next 24 hours as a strong storm system moves north into our area. Southeast winds will reach 30 miles per hour with gusts to 50.

The report continued with a synopsis of the weather map in northwest Alaska, an aviation report for local pilots, and ice conditions for the Chukchi Sea and Kotzebue Sound. But the big news was

the approaching storm. There was no need to say that conditions would be dangerous over the next few days.

Listeners understood.

It was 1973. I was the manager of Kotzebue’s new radio station KOTZ, and weather forecasts were a critical part of our service. A few times each day we relayed detailed forecasts from the small National Weather Service office in Kotzebue. The people of the region listened intently, especially when they were planning to travel.

COURTESY OF ALEX HILLS

The following excerpt from Finding Alaska’s Villages: And Connecting Them is reprinted with permission from the author.

Ed Ward on the day the FAA honored him for his role in saving the hunters.

Travel is a big challenge in the Arctic.

People move from village to village, by snowmachine in winter and small boat in summer, through the vast, windswept landscape, roadless everywhere and treeless near the coast. Bush planes are equipped with emergency supplies—food, sleeping bags, and other survival gear.

Poor visibility caused by fog, snow, and high winds can force a pilot to make an unexpected landing almost anywhere.

And people traveling by snowmachine from village to village need to know about approaching storms. High winds and blowing snow can hide trails and make travel treacherous. Some trails cross sea ice, adding more danger.

In the early ‘70s, the National Weather Service had not yet brought modern technology to Kotzebue. But Ed Ward came up with a way to make weather forecasts reliable. Ed had lived in Kotzebue for many years, working as a Federal Aviation Administration flight service specialist and weather forecaster. Local bush pilots depended on his forecasts and often stopped at his house for a cup of coffee and the latest report on conditions.

And Ed was a ham radio operator able to send and receive Morse code at high speeds. He knew that in Alaska, weather systems often moved from west to east, from Russia to Alaska. To improve the accuracy of his forecasts, Ed worked out a plan to pick up shortwave weather transmissions from our nearby but not-so-friendly neighbor.

First, Ed set out to learn the Russian language. Using a Russian dictionary and a set of Russian language phonograph records, he taught himself to read, write, and speak Russian. Then Ed expanded his Morse code skills, mastering all the letters of the Russian alphabet, and he was ready to listen to weather station transmissions from eastern Russia.

In the attic of his house, Ed had racks of radio equipment, including shortwave receivers that could pick up the Russian Morse code transmissions. The Russian stations’ shortwave transmissions were loud and clear, easily readable by the

experienced Morse code operator. Ed Ward had the best weather forecasts around.

Ed had earlier become a hero in 1968, when he helped save the lives of a Kotzebue pilot and a group of polar bear hunters, some of the many hunters who flocked to Kotzebue in those days for the spring polar bear hunt. The group had crash landed, and they were stranded on the ice of the Chukchi Sea somewhere to the northwest of Kotzebue.

Ed began a radio search.

After hours of transmitting, Ed’s receiver crackled, and he heard a faint signal. He thought that the radio transmitter aboard the downed aircraft could have been damaged in the crash but that the plane’s receiver might still be working.

Ed transmitted, asking the hunters to wiggle their radio’s battery lead if they could hear him. They responded. Ed worked out a yes or no sequence, asking them to do one thing for “yes” and a different thing for “no.”

The hunters didn’t know Morse code, but Ed used voice transmissions to ask them questions. Slowly, through a series of questions and answers, Ed deduced the likely location of the aircraft. Search and rescue aircraft were dispatched from Kotzebue. When the search aircraft were close to the hunters’ position, Ed again communicated with the downed aircraft, using the yes-no system to pinpoint their location.

The pilot and hunters were picked up and returned safely to Kotzebue.

Ed received an FAA award for helping to save them.

www.akstarfish.com 907.344.0223

Homer • Seward • Anchorage

Authentic Alaskan Clothing Designs

Alex Hills has lived and worked in towns and villages all across Alaska. His latest book, Finding Alaska’s Villages and Connecting Them, describes these experiences.

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PHOTO CREDIT

Powder Playground

Text & Images by

Chris Miller Like many of my fellow Alaskans, I embrace winter as a time for fun and recreation. Daylight may be short, but the winter wonderland just outside our doors beckons us to make the most of each day.

Scott Hays arcs a powdery turn above an icefall in the Juneau Icefield on an Alaska Powder Descents heliskiing trip. With over one million acres of permitted land to ski and snowboard, this glacial valley offers clients plenty of terrain as a winter playground. The Juneau Icefield covers 1,500 square miles across the crest of the Coast Mountain Range. It extends from the Taku River to Skagway, spills into Atlin, British Columbia, and contains approximately 65 summits and 38 glaciers. Snow can fall 12 months out of the year atop the plateau, with over 100 feet of accumulation.

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PHOTO CREDIT

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The pace of life slows during the Alaska winter; we aren’t as distracted by the abundance of sport and subsistence fishing and hunting opportunities that occupy the summer and fall months. This new-found seasonal freedom allows expanded recreation time for skiing, snowboarding, snowmachining, cross-country skiing, snowshoeing, ice skating, and when the conditions are just right, curling on lakes beneath the stars. Ultimately, it’s the mountains that I gravitate to in the winter, as they provide the deepest snow for exploration.

[Main] The Bausler family, from left: Kanaan, Katie, Karl, Kaitlyn, and friend Jay Donig take in the setting sun on Pittman’s Ridge and Juneau’s Eaglecrest ski area on Christmas Day. The Bauslers’ winters revolve around skiing, and major holidays are no exception. If conditions cooperate, the Bauslers head to the closed ski area, which they have completely to themselves for the day.

[Left] Chris Hinkley launches off the upper Pump House cliffs at Eaglecrest. For its size, the ski area has an amazing variety of terrain for all skill levels; however, 40 percent of the in-bounds slopes are for adventurous experts with blackdiamond experience. Venturing beyond the ski area’s gates opens up a lifetime worth of fun in advanced terrain and powder.

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PHOTO CREDIT

Thoughts of work, stress, or whatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s for dinner melt away the second I slide into my snowboard boots and begin skinning up the side of a mountain.

Each step brings me closer to the moments of reverie that fill each powdery turn of the descent.

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An Alaska Powder Descents heli-skiing group braces themselves from flying snow and the helicopter rotor wash at the top of a peak in the Juneau Icefield. Getting to tag along with APD clients in the mountains there is one of Chris Millerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s favorite ways to experience Alaska skiing and snowboarding. The terrain is unique, close to the airport, and when the conditions align, offers some of the best powder around.

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[Left]Â Fireworks light up the starry sky above basecamp on a glacier ski trip near Haines. Glacier camping can involve a lot of chores: building snow walls, digging out camp in snowstorms, and trying to stay warm in sub-zero conditions. A little entertainment breaks the monotony and brings a spark of entertainment to those long winter nights.

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PHOTO CREDIT

[Main]Â Ashley Call emerges from the white room (vision obscured by deep, light powder) after slashing a turn in the Juneau backcountry.

The fun of each arc is matched only by the awe-inspiring views that wait at every summit, stretching from one snow-capped peak to the next and off to the horizon.

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PHOTO CREDIT

The sun sets over a glacier camp, and a hard-earned dinner beckons after a long day touring, skiing, and snowboarding in the mountains near Haines.

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My favorite winter moments are filled with friends laughing and reveling in the many scenic vistas that comprise the Alaska winterscapeâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; whether it is touring up Turnagain Pass, riding the chairlift at Alyeska Resort or Eaglecrest ski area, or getting dropped off by ski plane in the mountains outside of Haines for a week camping on top of a snow-covered glacier.

Alaska has something for every adventurer when it comes to playing and exploring in the mountains and snow; all you have to do is dream and wait for the first winter flakes to fall.

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Building Blocks

The Jr. Iditarod teams had come in and I was a nobody.

It was 2006 and for the last three months I had been working as a bear guard on a survey project. We’d moved slowly up the west side of Cook Inlet and were now at Yentna Station. For the others in my group, Dan and Jean Gabryszak’s homey station was a warm respite from our usual cold day’s work, but for me it offered something much more: Yentna Station was the half-way layover point for the Jr. Iditarod Sled Dog Race—my race, the baby I had conceived and helped to wriggle into a snowy world years ago.

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Waiting inside the warm lodge, the mushers’ parents gathered at a table in spirited conversation. It was a select group—past Iditarod champions and those nearly so. Opinions flowed, speculation on race positions surged, their Jr. musher children a very real extension of these not-so-humble commentators. Into the room strides some middle-aged windburned guy who proudly proclaims that he had started the race.

Conversation around the table ebbed for a moment, uncomfortable stares cast in my direction. I could sense what they were thinking: “Uh huh? Crawl back to your tarpaper shack.

JEFF SCHULTZ/SCHULTZPHOTO.COM

The Jr. Iditarod story

for the Big Time

BY ERIC M. BEEMAN

Rachel Cockman and her team approach the finish line in Willow during her first Jr. Iditarod in 2017.

She placed 6th.

No room in this crowd for wannabes.” In a way, I couldn’t blame them; fame and accomplishment have a way of attracting all kinds of hangers-on. Still, it was hardly the reception I had anticipated. I fervently wished I knew someone in the crowd, but all the Dick Mackeys and Ken Chases and Gene Leonards of the early days had driven off into the ether. Once again, I tried, but the results were no different, so I made my way back outside to the dark.

Yep, my Jr. Iditarod had come in and I was a nobody.

Jr. Iditarod Today

The Jr. Iditarod is a 150-mile, two-day race patterned after its much longer namesake event and held one week prior; it is managed by the Iditarod Trail Committee. Jr. racers, who must be under the age of 18, start and finish in Wasilla, with a mandatory overnight at Yentna Station Roadhouse. The after-race banquet and awards ceremony take place at the Willow Community Hall. Past presenters include two Alaska governors and former Iditarod champions.

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[LEFT] A newspaper clipping from 1977 shows Eric Beeman and Rome Gilman, two of the co-founders of the Jr. Iditarod, demonstrating to a younger boy how to harness a sled dog.

[BOTTOM] Jr. Iditarod musher Melissa Owens talks with her dad, Mike Owens, a former Iditarod racer, at the finish line in Willow.

I might be not be immediately recognized anymore in the mushing world, but forty-some years ago a few friends and I wanted to start a long-distance race…

Race Origins

1974: My dogs are going crazy. I’m 13 years old and on my trapline, down where the Iditarod trail comes off the South Fork of the Kuskokwim. The first mushers are coming off the river, and my dogs bark and jump around like mad dervishes. Three fourths of my small team have never seen other dogs. To them, the teams of Seavey, Attla, and Vent are big strings of wild animals. You can bet I have my hands full, but I’m in awe of the teams and the mushers who drive them. I want to pull the hook and follow.

During the second and third runnings of the Iditarod, my family wintered at Farewell Lake. Ours wasn’t an official checkpoint, but the trail passed close to our cabin, and my mom and sister tended a trailside campfire armed with freshly baked cookies and Russian tea. Many mushers stopped to visit and give their teams a brief rest. What a colorful blend of old-time Alaskans these early Iditarod mushers were. I dreamed about being included in this great adventure.

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1976: We have moved back to the “civilized” side of the mountains and I join the Jr. Alaska Sled Dog and Racing Association (ASDRA), the club that holds Jr. races in Anchorage during January and February. My first race is a train wreck. The three-dog category consists of only myself and one other musher. My interior-born dogs still viewed other canines as wild intruders, and during a brief tangle, the most aggressive attempted to reduce the newest team member to an expensive mound of hair and bone. In the ensuing melee’, I managed to both save the unfortunate pooch and to inadvertently knock the offender senseless.

As I awaited his recovery, the rest of the classes streamed by—giving me as wide a berth as possible. Dejectedly, I returned on the outgoing trail, not too smart since if I had kept going I would at least have won 2nd place.

I trained hard and raced most weekends during the season. I enjoyed the competitive spirit of racing, but I missed the hours interacting with my team on the trapline. My sprint team training runs seemed all too short. Occasional camping weekends up a nearby drainage only whetted my appetite for a real long-distance race. I broached the idea of a Jr. Iditarod to fellow mushers Rome Gilman and Mark Couch and they were as excited as I. During the post-race seasons of ’76 and ’77, Jr. ASDRA members held a mushers’ campout on the Iditarod Trail where it crosses the Little Susitna. Perhaps a dozen teams took part. Some of our group had never camped before and it was a learning experience for us all.

By this time, I was president of the Jr. mushers club. This seemed like our last chance for a race since most of us were scheduled to graduate and lose our “jr” status. Rome Gilman, Karl Clauson, Mark Couch, Kenny Pugh, a few others, and I met at the Tudor Track clubhouse to formulate a plan.

(OPPOSITE PAGE) TOP:COURTESY SUSAN SOMMER; BOTTOM: JEFF SCHULTZ/SCHULTZPHOTO.COM; (THIS PAGE) JEFF SCHULTZ/SCHULTZPHOTO.COM

First place finisher Andrew Nolan poses with his lead dogs Mags and Heart at the finish line in Willow during the 2017 Jr. Iditarod.

I had originally envisioned a race from Knik Lake to Skwentna and return—about 170 miles.

My camping compadres were all keen on the idea, but we soon learned that another group was not—those pesky adults! Adults worry: Frostbite. Getting lost. Firearms accident. Moose attack. Liability. To be fair, the core members’ parents were supportive, but we were having difficulty convincing others to permit their progeny to mush off alone into the great wild.

We’d hatched this dynamic idea, gathered eager participants, and imagined a viable route—but struck a geriatric roadblock.

Enter Karl Clauson. Flaming hair above pale blue eyes, a mouth temporarily full of stainless steel and usually spouting an opinion, you knew when Karl entered the room. Karl moved. He made things happen. If the Inupiat were looking to buy ice, Karl was the man.

Sled dogs are team players, mushers less so.

Division still ruled, some of us wanting a longer race, others seeing logic in a simpler, shorter route. Number of dogs, mandatory gear—it was all up in the air. We all met on a winter’s evening at Chugiak Elementary to reconcile our differences. We offered plans and vociferously defended opinions; room temperature increased.

Order was maintained—barely—by the repeated rapping gavel of our newly elected president, Karl, assisted by a couple of cooler-headed adults. Eventually, we decided that a race whose length was palatable to both parents and logistics managers was better than no race at all.

The newly formed Knik Jr. Mushers got onboard, adding a number of eager racers as well as a few helpful adults. Wasilla teacher Jerry Crum and Knik musher Dave Olsen offered to be race marshals. Rich and Dee Pralle and Jim Uhl sorted out rules and details. We were going to have a race!

The Inaugural Jr. Iditarod

March 11, 1978—race morning. We’d split the field into two separate races.

Younger mushers ran six dogs from Knik Lake to Nine Mile Hill and return, a total of 18 miles. We more mature types ran a longer course from Knik Lake to Flat Lake, overnighted, and returned again to Knik Lake the following day, tallying up 40 miles. For those of us who had been heavily involved bringing this race to fruition, only Rome Gilman did well, placing a respectable 3rd. Karl Clauson had racked up more miles setting the race in motion than in training. I had just returned

from racing in Fairbanks and my dogs were still in short-distance sprint mode. Mark Couch had been anticipating our original longer race and many of his training runs had been lengthier than the actual race itself.

This bob-tailed course was short enough that the first three mushers arrived at Flat Lake before the timers. Fortunately, Karl’s father was present and timed them in. That night, while camped in my sled, a band of rogue Jr. mushers filled my sleeping bag with snow. Unfortunately, I was inside. I’ve wondered if Rick Swenson ever had to put up with this treatment?

We ran a nice, litigious-free race back to Knik the next day.

Not a single musher got lost. Toes and fingers arrived intact.

Moose refrained from kicking. No one was shot. Success!

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Building Blocks

Look in the dictionary under “Jr. Iditarod Saviors,” and you will see a full-page picture of Rich and Dee Pralle. For the next nine years, they administered their Knik brand of no-nonsense CPR into a fledgling endeavor that no other outfit wanted to touch. With help from Jim Uhl, race vet Phil Meyer, Al and Bev Marple, Dr. Bob Grohs and other dedicated volunteers, the race’s popularity increased.

In 1979, founder Clint Mayeur won on a 90-mile course with temperatures as low as minus 50. The next year’s race, a lengthened 120 miles, was won by McGrath musher Gary Baumgartner. In a quirky and backwards twist to our originally planned route, 1981 racers Christine Delia and Susan Dubrava mushed

[ABOVE] Rohn Buser poses with his mom and dad (four-time Iditarod champion Martin Buser) at the finish line after winning the 2007 Jr. Iditarod.

pre-race from their homes in Skwentna to the starting line at Settlers Bay. Christine mushed back home again with the 1st place trophy in her sled bag. If justice exists in the Jr. world, she shall henceforth be known as “Libby.”

In 1987, the Jr. Iditarod joined the Iditarod Trail Committee, who continues to provide oversight and fundraising. In reality, it’s a pretty hands-off relationship, leaving the daily workings to the nine-person Jr. Iditarod board of directors.

Over the last 40 years, the Jr. Iditarod entrants read like a mini who’s who of Alaska mushing. If the names Barve, Baumgartner, Burmeister, Buser, King, Osmar, Redington, and Smyth don’t get your collective tails wagging, how about Lance Mackey and Dallas Seavey? Neither need introduction, being multiple Iditarod champs who honed their formidable skills racing in the Jr. Iditarod. The race has drawn mushers from seven states, two Canadian provinces, Czechoslovakia, Spain, and from many parts of Alaska.

Racer’s race to excel. A race is competitive by nature and we tend to focus on those who place well. Our attention should also include others who work equally as hard but who’s canines come from a more meager lineage. Time and again during my research, I got the unequivocal message of just how good this experience is for the kids. To train a racing team requires focus and leadership. To care for one takes countless hours of often repetitious chores and requires a grounded work ethic. Many young mushers start out helping at an existing kennel, basically offering sweat in exchange for mentoring. Others go it on their own. You can bet good money that almost all Jr. racers, regardless of placing, are doing their personal best.

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ALL IMAGES JEFF SCHULTZ/SCHULTZPHOTO.COM

[LEFT] Joan Klejka and team run down the trail on the Denali Highway with the Alaska Range in the background during the start day of the 2015 Jr. Iditarod. The race was moved north from Willow to Cantwell after conditions were deemed too icy to run the traditional round trip route to Yentna Station.

Katherine Winrich at Knik during the start of the 2017 Jr. Iditarod.

The Jr. Iditarod scholarship program began with a $1,000 grant from National Bank of Alaska in 1987.

Under the oversight of former Jr. Iditarod board member Steve Flodin, the fund has dispensed over $270,000 in scholarships designed to help recipients in a wide variety of career choices. Awards are made to the top five racers as well as the recipients of the sportsmanship and humanitarian trophies.

Mushers also compete for donated prizes, which vary from a new sled and trip to the Iditarod finish in Nome, to dog food, to outdoor equipment and many other useful items.

Looking Back

Twenty miles per day is a jaunt. If the Iditarod were eviscerated proportionally to the degree that our original planned route was, it would turn around at the top of Rainy Pass. That said, those 40 short miles broke trail for the next 5,467 miles of the following 39 races. Founder and first year racer Mark Couch put it pretty succinctly, “We could have had our race to Skwenta. We could have had the race we wanted.

There probably wouldn’t have been another.” In the end, I’m pretty happy giving up those lost 130 miles to get the thousands we gained.

And one more thing: Memory lane is a trail more twisted than a ride through Dalzell Gorge. A lot of snow has passed under the runners since the first Jr. Iditarod. I’ve learned that none of us can recall everything perfectly. Every inclusion is balanced by a deserving someone who goes unmentioned. My apologies to those I have omitted.

Rarely are adults successful who weren’t first successful children. If you want to see these young mushers in action, I would recommend the start at Knik, or the race’s finish at Willow Lake. For those who want a more in-depth experience, an overnight at Yentna Station would be tops. If you know a

kid who might like to join the mushing world or if you are an adult who yearns to volunteer, call the Iditarod Trail Committee and ask for Joanne Potts. Remember, kids with the right attitude and a little help can accomplish things bigger than even they would imagine.

Researching this article was a trip down memory lane for Eric M. Beeman. He says, “We were just a few kids that wanted a long-distance dog race—and look what it’s become. Touching bases with those long-ago friends that helped make it happen was a highlight I won’t soon forget.”

Jr. Iditarod musher Patrick Mackey on the trail shortly after leaving the starting line at Knik.

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Go Fast Arctic Man competition pairs athletes with sledheads

or

Go Home

BY ALEXANDER DEEDY

F

Sledhead and skier catch air as they race up the mountain.

rom the moment skier Eric Heil launches off the summit that serves as the start line for the annual Arctic Man race, every second counts.

Crouched low in a tuck, he barrels downhill for two miles, dropping 1,700 vertical feet in less than 90 seconds.

It’s here, at the bottom of a narrow canyon 250 miles northeast of Anchorage and a threehour drive southeast of Fairbanks, that Arctic Man distinguishes itself from every other race.

Here is where skier and motorhead meet. Heil’s partner, Len Story, pulls up alongside him on a 600cc stock snowmachine, and hands Heil a water-ski handle at the end of a 20-foot rope.

Then he hits the gas.

For over two miles, Heil gets towed uphill faster than a driver on the freeway. The duo currently holds Top Gun award, the fastest speed, for being clocked at 92.1 miles per hour. But the speed comes with a price. Heil has determined the fastest place is directly behind the snowmachine, where he’s subject to the ice and snow slinging out from under the sled’s tread, a punishment he likens to standing by a wood chipper’s outtake. >> ALL PHOTOS BY BRIAN MONTALBO

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Sled meets skier, who reaches out to grab the tow handle.

“W

e’re just full of bruises when we finish the race,” Heil says of skiers who stay behind the sled.

At the end of the tow, Story turns to one side of a gate and Heil turns to the other, dropping into a gulley that makes a slight S-turn and starts the final downhill. Taken at top speeds, that separation occurs at a point in the race aptly nicknamed First Aid, for a medical tent stationed nearby.

Skiers who lose control there have suffered broken arms, double broken legs, and broken backs. “You crash in that area and it’s rarely without something breaking,” Heil says.

Heil, an eighth-grade health teacher, and Story, a surveyor, have been racing in Arctic Man as partners since 1990, longer than any other team. They’ve won five times and placed second on numerous occasions, once by 35-hundredths of a second. Along the way they’ve feasted, chased powder, and formed lifelong friendships.

“It’s been quite the adventure,” Story says.

Arctic Man started with a bar bet. Howard Thies used to spend winter days skiing and playing in the natural wonderland near Summit Lake, outside Paxson on the Glenn Highway.

One year, he challenged two friends to a race, side by side, charging what is now the race course. The next year, 1986, the inaugural Arctic Man was held.

Thousands of snow enthusiasts meet each year for Arctic Man.

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There were four or five teams that first year, and everyone stayed in a nearby hotel. It quickly grew, and became more than just a race.

For months leading up to the early April event, Thies, who is retired from the state Department of Transportation, works full time to garner sponsorships, coordinate delivery of supplies, and deal with countless other logistics.

The week before the event, Thies’ son, John, uses equipment from his snow-removal business to clear over 1,000 acres for the parking lot. Thies personally stakes nearly 1,000 camping spaces.

Then as motorhomes and snowmachines arrive, it’s often said the ground that is normally just snow and ice transforms into the fourth largest city in the state. Thies estimates that over 10,000 people now attend Arctic Man each year.

“He made this event,” Andrea Thies says about her husband.

“He started it right from the beginning. He dreamt it up and it’s become international. So it just runs through his blood.”

The race itself has developed as well. In the early years there were few rules, so drivers modified their machines and skiers wore fairings (streamlined shapes fitted around the legs to reduce drag) and other downhill speed gear.

Thies eventually put some parameters on the race, banning specialized downhill gear and limiting drivers to stock machines. As rules created a more formal race, and as the prize money grew into the tens of thousands, the race began to attract some of the best winter athletes in the world.

Daron Rahlves, a former World Cup skier and highly decorated U.S. Ski Team veteran, brought up the idea to his sponsor, Red Bull, to compete in Arctic Man. Red Bull paired him with snowmachine athlete Levi LaVallee, and the two raced for the first time in 2014.

LaVallee knew of the event, but it still blew him away to drive for hours, to the middle of nowhere, then end up amidst a hidden gem of snowmachines, motorhomes, and fun. It was like a “winter wonderland spring break,” LaVallee says.

“It’s just like that wild, wild west type of event and it can only be done in Alaska,” Rahlves says.

A skier prepares to launch.

H

alfway through the canyon on their run that year, the engine on LaVallee’s sled blew and the duo didn’t finish. He spent hours on the flight home to Minnesota taking notes and reflecting on what to do differently. In 2016, the team returned and won the race.

“Yes, we’re all out there to race; we’re all out there to be competitive, but at the end of the day we’re all out there for fun,” LaVallee says.

Though the skiing field is the largest, other categories have been added over the years.

There is now men’s and women’s races for skiers and snowboarders. Snowmachine riders can race each other, and even kids can get in the action with a mini Arctic Man race. This year there will be separate pro and semi-pro divisions for men’s ski and snowboard.

As the race itself changes, Thies is also trying to change the culture in the community. The week gained a reputation for partying and drinking, but Thies says he is trying to steer it into a family-oriented environment.

“I want to take the idea that it’s a big drunken party away and make it a fun thing for Alaskans to do,” he says.

Len Story’s brother, Mike, raced in Arctic Man one year in the early ‘90s. An equipment failure kept him from finishing the race, and though he hasn’t entered as a competitor again, Mike still returns to Summit Lake each spring.

From his home in Juneau, Mike ferries his snowmachines to Skagway, drives to Whitehorse to meet a friend, and the two road-trip to Arctic Man together. He typically arrives about a week before the race and meets with his brother, Heil, and a host of other friends and family. Before any practice runs on the course or preparation for race day, they all spend a few days just playing in the snow.

Dave Hutchings, who owns an auto dealership and has sponsored Heil and Story in the past, says Arctic Man became a sort of reunion. Like some groups gather for an annual hunting or fishing trip, they would gather for Arctic Man. “It’s a little bit more than just fun and games. It got into our lives,” Hutchings says.

As Heil and Story age, and competition grows fiercer, they say the chances of them winning grow slimmer. But that won’t stop them from trying.

“In the meantime, we’ve got 27 years of brotherhood and friends,” Heil says.

Each year, as spring nears, people typically start to ask Heil if he’s going to Arctic Man. “I’m like ‘hell yeah, who isn’t? Why wouldn’t you?’” he says.

“The other option’s no good; that option is stay in town, work, miss it. That’s unacceptable.”

Born and raised in Alaska, Alexander Deedy is a Hawaii-based freelance journalist and assistant editor of Alaska magazine.

Playing in the deep snow is one of the best parts of Arctic Man.

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A L A S K A M A G A Z I N E . C O M MARCH 2018

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Paige Drobny leaves the starting chute in Whitehorse on her third Yukon Quest in 2017.

No Excuses

Musher Paige Drobny fights through illness to compete Sporting a strawberry-blonde ponytail and blue Patagonia puffy, Paige Drobny looks like one of the many Alaska biologists you might see crouching on the tundra or cruising the icy waters of the Bering Sea (her specialty is squid). But underneath the easy laugh and ski-bum attitude is one of the toughest chicks in Alaska. Drobny runs Squid Acres Kennel in Ester with her husband and fellow musher Cody Strathe. A finisher of seven 1,000-mile sled dog races, including four Iditarods, she placed fourth in the Yukon Quest last year despite battling a vicious stomach bug for 400 miles. ~as told to and edited by Molly Rettig What stands out most from last year?

I think just how much fun I had, even though I was sicker than I’ve ever been in my life.

The team was so happy and healthy and barking, just a super fun team to run.

WHITNEY MCLAREN

Sounds rough. How’d you get sick?

I think it was something I ate on the Yukon.

It didn’t really hit me until Circle. I lay on the bathroom floor of the washeteria for three hours. Then I went back outside and puked in a big circle around my sled. My dogs just looked at me, and I was like, “Welp, time to booty!” [Laughs.]

Did you feel better after that?

For a little, but I tanked again going over Eagle Summit. By the time I got to Mile 101, I couldn’t stop shivering. I bedded my dogs

down, and they looked at me like I was about to die. I slept right next to the outhouse that night.

Did you ever think about scratching?

No, the dogs looked awesome. It was like the worse I felt, the faster they ran. When we left Slaven’s Roadhouse it was 50 below. I just sat on my sled the whole way to Circle moaning.

Thank god there was no jumble ice on the Yukon River or there’s a good chance I would have fallen off and been left by my team.

The last third of the race, when everyone in front of you was slowing down, your team just got faster. How were you so fresh after a week of racing?

I’d been more conservative leaving Dawson than they had, so my dogs had a ton of

energy. They were moving really fast and eating everything I put in front of them. On the way to Slaven’s, it started to snow. I could tell by the tracks how slow people were going, how hard they were working to get down the trail, and my team was flying.

I know you love all your dogs, but was there one in particular that gave you a boost last year?

We have this four-year-old named Chevelle. At the kennel she’s pretty quiet, but she loves to run. When she sees something on the trail, like a marker or even snow on a tree, she starts barking and squealing and loping as hard as she can. It makes the other dogs squeal, and the whole team goes yipping down the trail.

After finishing fourth in the Quest last year, what’s your goal this year?

I always have a race plan and as soon we hit the trail, it goes out the window. I will always run the team in front of me to be like that happy team I had last year. Big picture: My goal is to be the second woman to win the Yukon Quest, whether that’s this year or five years from now.

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This Alaskan Life After Iditarod, we settle down to participate in March’s other competitive sport, the retelling of what you were doing when the 1964 Good Friday Earthquake struck.”

At least it’s not still February!

I

BY SUSAN DUNSMORE

T’S MARCH IN ALASKA AND IF YOU’RE NOT STIR

crazy, you’re just plain crazy. It’s been winter for what feels like 14 years. The sun is back but it’s just high enough in the sky to be a constant reminder that the windows are filthy. Sure, you’ve cleaned the dog’s nose art off the insides but the outsides are still dirty with frozen Windex. It’s time to get out of town and head to...Nome? Only an Alaskan could come up with that plan.

The men and women who lit out on snow machines for Nome last month in the Iron Dog snowmachine race packed a pretty good trail. The day after they motored off, the Iditasport racers headed north on bikes, skis, and foot, most planning to complete a 200- or 400-mile trip, some of them hoping to travel 1,100 miles to Nome and perhaps even on to Fairbanks. Come March, more than 70 mushers and over 1,000 dogs will leave Willow with dreams of finishing under the burled arch in Nome.

The rest of us will follow from our armchairs and wonder how anyone could possibly survive nine to 20 days outdoors in blizzards, darkness, and minus 50 degrees, all while having to keep a team of huskies safe and strong. When the teams arrive at the Bering Sea, the race moves out onto the sea ice. Sea ice! I’m nervous about skating on a pond I know is 18 inches deep until I see a truck driving over it. I’m perfectly happy to follow the action with a glass of Merlot in one hand and a mouse in another. Go, doggies!

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A L A S K A M A G A Z I N E . C O M MARCH 2018

The author enjoys catching Iditarod highlights from the comfort of a warm house.

After Iditarod, we settle down to participate in March’s other competitive sport, the retelling of what you were doing when the 1964 Good Friday Earthquake struck. The magnitude 9.2 quake rocked the state for over four and a half minutes, destroyed towns, left parts of the state 30 feet higher in elevation than they had been, other areas up to 10 feet lower, and took 139 lives. If you, like me, weren’t in Alaska when the quake struck, you will forever spend March at the kids’ table of conversation. At least you can hear the grown-ups talk from there, and the tales of violent shaking, tsunamis, and homes teetering on the edge of a cliff where the swing set had been three minutes earlier have an urgency to them, as though the teller is recounting something that happened last week.

Since we’re talking about Good Friday, remember Easter comes early this year. When you hide the kids’ Easter eggs out in the snowbanks, make sure to use those plastic ones you fill with chocolate. You want those youngters to be motivated. It’s 20 degrees, spitting sleet, and if you had to choose between sitting on the couch playing computer games or going out to look for hard-boiled eggs, what would you pick? Anything they don’t find now, the bear will find next month, and if you think that squirrel in the birdfeeder is hard to get rid of, you’ve never met a bear whose been feasting on hardboiled eggs. Stay warm, stay safe, and know that warm temperatures are only three months away!

COURTESY SUSAN DUNSMORE

March in Alaska

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