Summer Review - Part I

Part I - June and July

Well, it's been 4 months since our last entry. So much for regular monthly updates. We did have a great summer and fall, so thought we'd post some pictures. I'll have to do this in parts, though, so we'll start with Part I - June and July.

The summer began with my birthday. I turned 39 and honestly am starting to get a little freaked out by the idea of being 40. I always imagined myself growing old with grace. I thought wrinkles would be cool. Not so much anymore. Anyway, no reason to act older just because I am older. Here's a lovely picture from my birthday celebration. I'm in the pink hat having a great time in my green satin poodle skirt. That's a pink pom-pom in my left hand. Hat and pom-poms were gifts from my girlfriends. Thanks, Ladies!

Papa Smurf and the Smurfettes

In July we went to the Dawson City Music Festival in Canada. This was our 2nd year going to the festival, which we really enjoy. It's a great mix of Canadian music. Our favorites this year were The Acorns, Luke Doucet (CD okay, awesome live), and Melissa McClelland.

Dawson City

Dawson City was established after gold was struck in Bonanza Creek (formerly Rabbit Creek) in 1896. This gold strike was the beginning of the Klondike Gold Rush. I am probably fond of the town because it reminds me of Colorado's mining towns, though Dawson City is not as old.

There were a couple of venues during the day, and then this year one bar, The Pit, had a band in the evening. The Pit is a "historic" building with much character. The band, Sasquatch Prom Date, played and they literally rocked the house. The floor was moving. Here's a picture of the Fairbanks contingent in a corner of The Pit.

Dawson is also known for "the toe." Dan O'Neill talks about it in his book, A Land Gone Lonesome, if you are interested in a history of the toe(s). It's real. The idea is to drink a shot with the toe in it. One thing about being older, I have finally, and I say finally, learned to not succumb to peer pressure. It was hard, but I did not partake in drinking a shot with the toe.

"Drink if fast or drink is slow, but the lips have got to touch the toe!"
Jeremy, however, showed no reservations about drinking a shot with a toe in it. To prove it we have a picture of Jeremy with the toe and . . .

a picture of the toe itself.

The good news is he got a certificate for this and a card to carry in his wallet verifying that he is a member of the Sourdough Cocktail Club. Jeremy wanted me to make the link available for those of you interested, www.sourtoecocktailclub.com.

It takes about 8 hours to get to Dawson City if the weather is good. To get there you take the Taylor and Top of the World Highways (the word "highway" is used loosely) and you do feel like you're on top of the world. In this picture you can see the purple from the Fireweed which comes up after forest fires. The road is closed in the winter. It was a beautiful trip home.


The weekend after Dawson we participated in the Gold Discovery Run. Jeremy actually ran the 16 miles, but I walked/ran it with my friends Melissa and Carrie. Jeremy placed third in his age group. I could barely walk the following two days. Next year I may consider preparing for it.

Jeremy enjoying a frosty beer at the Silver Gulch Brewery which is where it ends.


Our next summer adventure was the Anderson Bluegrass Festival. We have been every year since we've been in Alaska, so this was our 5th trip. Anderson is a very small town about 50 miles south of Fairbanks. It's a small festival relative to Dawson and Telluride, but very enjoyable.

This is the area where we camp and the music is not far away. It was a beautiful weekend, which was very unusual. Normally it rains.

This year there was a bucking salmon which was highly entertaining. Here Jeremy is about to be bucked off; at least I think that was what was occurring.

Here's a picture of Melissa, Kelly, Sally and I later in the evening enjoying the dance band.

Well that's it for Part I. Reviewing the pictures it kind of looks like we did a lot of drinking in June and July, but there were other moments. We did some running this year, grew a garden, and Jeremy hunted, but that will have to wait until the next update.

Work Trip to Norton Sound

Trip to Nome and the Native Villages of Unalakleet, Saint Michael, and Stebbins

So, sometimes my job is very, very cool. Last week I got to travel to a couple of towns along the Norton Sound. It was a unique opportunity as it is unlikely that I will ever get to travel to those places again, except for maybe Nome.

Nome is located on the Seward Peninsula along the Bering Sea facing the Norton Sound. This is a view of Nome with the Sound in the background. It was cloudy every day that we were there, though we heard the day we traveled to the villages it was beautiful.

This is main street or more accurately Front Street. This is where the Iditarod Sled Dog Race and Iron Dog Snowmachine Race finish. Nome is actually known for being a lively place, especially during Iditarod. It is more like a frontier town than a Native village since it came into existence during the gold rush. At one time it had a population of 20,000. Today about 3500 people live in Nome year round.

This is a suction dredge along the beach in Nome. It is designed to go into the water and dredge the bottom of the ocean floor. This is the location of the famous beach where the gold just washed up on shore. Suction dredgers (I wouldn't call them miners) come every summer from all over the world and live on the beach and dredge for gold.

One either side of the public beach for dredging are the beaches owned by the Native Corporations. These beaches have fish camps on them. These camps are used in the summer for subsistence fishing. They catch and dry thousands of fish each summer.

This is me standing near the Bering Sea. It was a little too chilly for me to be stickin' my toes in it.

But we didn't go to Nome to site see. We had to check out some permitted sites (mostly material sites aka gravel pits) along the Teller, Kougarak, and Council Roads. Gravel is big money in Alaska. Nome has three roads that leave from town, each about 75 miles. They do not connect to any other roads in Alaska. This road, the Teller, came with a warning.

It still looked a bit like winter. The tundra has its own kind of beauty.

There are many White Alice Sites all over Alaska. I find them fascinating. They were communication sites built by the Air Force during WWII and were used up until the '70s when the system was replaced with satellite communications. They were often built in very remote locations and were simply abandoned by the military.

These are reindeer. Reindeer were first brought to the Seward Peninsula in 1892 from Siberia. Today 2/3 of the reindeer in Alaska are within the Seward Peninsula. The reindeer are managed by Native reindeer herders.

Musk Ox! I've seen them before on the North Slope, but never so close.

My favorite, the Tundra Daisy.

This was a burial site at Saint Michael. Saint Michael was the northern most outpost for the Russian-American Company. After the Russians left the US military built a post here during the gold rush. It is 95% Native today, but there are still some Russian influences. Note the Russian Orthodox style crosses. Saint Michael has a population of about 350 people, though it has been said that 10,000 people lived here during the gold rush. Today the residents live a primarily subsistence life style, fishing for herring (which they sell for crab bait) and salmon, and herding reindeer. We were there to check barge landings. While the Native Corporations and villages own the uplands, the state has title to the tidelands from ordinary high tide to three miles out. We permit any activities, construction or improvements in the tidelands.

This is a picture of the Native Village of Stebbins, though not necessarily a good picture. It's about 10 miles from Saint Michael. It is also mostly Native and relies on subsistence activities as well. This was probably the original Native Village on Saint Michael Island.

Unfortunately I don't have any good pictures of Unalakleet. The village is on a point (or maybe its called a spit) and is suffering severe erosion. Here you can see rock filled Gabions as a temporary revetment. They remind me of Hesco baskets in Iraq. According to the state website, archaeologists have dated house remnants along the beach ridge from 200 B.C. to 300 A.D. The Russian-American Company built a post here in the 1830's. In 1898 reindeer were introduced and in 1901 the US Army built 605 miles of telegraph line between Unalakleet and Saint Michael. You'd need to look at a topo map to really appreciate how amazing that is.

Sometimes living in Fairbanks on the road system, you can forget that there is this vast state out there. I feel really lucky to have had the opportunity to travel to these remote and beautiful places.

Scouting for Sheep

I took the opportunity over Memorial Day weekend to do some sheep scouting with a friend. This spring I was notified that I had been drawn for a Dall sheep tag in the Tok Management Area. Only 5% of those who submit are selected each year. Earlier in the year I told Dianna that I had a better chance of winning the Iditarod Sled Dog Race with my 6 dog rec team than getting selected for that hunt. Guess I'm running the Iditarod next year.

Tok Management Area

This is Tom K. who agreed to help me out with this hunt. Tom is on a ridge looking for the elusive Dall sheep.

This is what we had to climb up to get to where we thought a lake (camping with water) would be. Unfortunately the lake was not where it was supposed to be, it was in the next basin to the west, and it was frozen.

Once we finally found camp we decided to glass for sheep, which for the most part means looking through bino's for white spots moving on the hill sides. I use the much more advance method of closing my eyes and listening intently for sheep moving. It looks a lot like sleeping.

This guy came by soon after we set up camp. It's not often that you get to see a wolverine because they aren't fond of people. He was running right at our camp when he saw us and looked quite surprised. I guess he doesn't see to many people in this neighborhood.

After 2 days of scouting we had to return to Fairbanks. We decided to take a different way down than the way up. This route was much more gentle but had a lot more snow on it.

Finally out of the snow and on our way back to tree line, great weekend in the Alaska Range.

All Photo's courtesy of Tom K.

Floating the Tanana

Tanana River - Fairbanks to Nenana

The Delta Clearwater was such a great trip that it inspired another float to take advantage of the beautiful, if not unusual, May weather. Like the last trip, this one started at the Oasis for breakfast.


After breakfast we headed to the put in, which for this trip was just outside of Fairbanks, a place where we usually have one of our ski races, The Tanana River Rally. This is a picture of the put-in in the winter. Many people ski, mush and snowmachine on the rivers in the winter.

But it's spring, now, not winter! This picture was taken just after we got on the water. Steve was solo on this trip, so used his sea kayak.

The Tanana (TAN-uh-naw) River is the largest tributary of the Yukon River (the Yukon River is the 10th longest river in the world). The Tanana River from Fairbanks to Nenana (nuh-NAN-uh) is wide and slow.


While the section we were floating is not as swift or as narrowly braided as the section above Fairbanks, it still has a some braiding, gravel bar islands and plenty of drift wood which demonstrate the power of large volumes of water.

Some times you can find surprises in the drift wood piles. This treasure is also known as a "tundra daisy" and is often referred to as the state flower (although officially the Forget-me-not is the state flower). There is no telling how many of these 55-gallon drums exist in Alaska.


I spent much of the trip enjoying the sun and appreciating the new green of spring. After a long, cold, dark winter one has a better appreciation for sun, warm weather and the returning life that comes with it.

We stopped to camp around 8 p.m. The days are long this time of year with around 18 hours of daylight, which will continue to increase until June 22. This picture was taken around 9 p.m.


Jeremy happy to be spending another day on the water.

The difficult paddling during the afternoon on the second day required us to stop and rest. Though perhaps it was only an attempt to delay our arrival at the take-out that really caused us to pull over and nap in the sun.

The Nenana Railroad Bridge marks the end of the trip as we approach the take-out. President Harding drove the golden spike (no longer there) in the north end of the bridge in 1923, connecting by train Interior Alaska to the ports of the south. This bridge is the second longest single-span railroad bridge in the US and is built on rollers to accommodate the expansion and contraction of the bridge during temperature changes. Before the bridge, tracks were laid across the river ice in the winter so the train could travel on to Fairbanks, the furthest north stop. The highway bridge in the background, further down river was built in 1968, which replaced the ferry system that had been used up until that time.

From Fairbanks to the Yukon River the Tanana River is ideal for barging given its wide and slow nature. In this picture you can see Tom and Melissa with their the pointer-husky mix, Elka, paddling around the Ramona. Nenana is one of the most important ports in Interior Alaska. It is here that barges are loaded with supplies, brought in by train or truck, destined for interior Native communities along the Yukon River. Nenana is a mixed community of Natives and non-Natives. It was used historically as a seasonal fishing and hunting camp by Athabascans, but in 1905 the construction of an Episcopal church and telegraph station marked the beginning of a more permanent community.

Jeremy, Steve, Melissa and Tom

Just outside of Nenana we stopped at the Monderosa for their famous burgers. It was a great ending for one of the most enjoyable floats I have had while in Alaska.

Still the best burgers in Alaska.

Clearwater 2009

A sure sign that summer is on its way is the annual Delta Clearwater float trip!

Fairbanks people start the trip with breakfast at the Oasis, a restaurant and lounge. This is the only time of year that we eat at the Oasis. You have like the smell of cigarette smoke with your breakfast to fully appreciate breakfast at the Oasis. They do, however, produce some tasty eggs bennie.

Parking lot at the Oasis. This is a trip for big kids, no inflatables. : )

The put-in is at the Clearwater State Recreation Site near Delta Junction. As was mentioned in a previous entry, Jeremy has a duty to recreate in state parks since he is a member of the Citizen Advisory Board. He's such a good citizen!

The put-in.

Finally on the water 1 hour 45 minutes later.

The floatilla. It was a beautiful day, maybe 70 degrees. I call those days, Colorado days.

Did I mention it was a beautiful day?

The Clearwater trip for our group involves an overnight at the base of a bluff. Once at our camping spot we usually build a fire and stay up until the wee hours of the morning. This year the festivities were over at midnight, however. We must be becoming a more mature group.

The next day we usually hike up the bluff and chill for a few before beginning the arduous journey to the take-out.

View from the bluff. It's a great place to drink your morning coffee and appreciate living in Alaska.

Spring flowers - Pasque

The second half of the trip is on the Tanana River, a much larger river than the Clearwater. While there are no rapids it moves A LOT of water and at this time of year a lot of trees and ice, too. That is floating ice next to Rachel and Steve.



We usually make one stop on the way out to eat a late lunch (we rarely get on the river before noon - either day). This year a we had a couple rounds of the "stick game." This involves holding the stick to your chin and making 10 rotations then throwing the stick down and jumping over it. Check out Jeremy.

Once you see the bridge and pipeline, you know you've come to the end of the trip; this is the take-out. Now the game of shuttle begins. This year's shuttle was a little confusing and may require some prior planning next year.

In years past we have gone into Delta Junction for burgers and beers, but this year most people felt a need to get on the road back to Fairbanks or Anchorage. It's all a part of being mature. So, this year the Fairbanks people stopped at the Knotty Shop on the way home for ice cream. I couldn't bring myself to take a picture of that.

The Delta Clearwater is wonderful way to begin the boating season. We are looking forward to a summer spent on rivers with good friends.