Saturday, August 30, 2008




Subsistance living

I’ve been giving a lot of thought to the “subsistence” lifestyle espoused by so many Alaskans. To most of us in the lower 48, and many dictionaries, subsistence is defined as “the minimum necessary to support life.” To Alaskan natives, early homesteaders/settlers, and to those who today chose to live in remote areas, it is more clearly defined as “the means by which one supports life.” These families subsist on what the land provides in concert with their own ingenuity. And such are the 15 full-time residents of Wiseman, a small community 12 miles north of our visitors center in Coldfoot, of whom half represent three-generations of one family.

Meeting and talking with several of them (and ourselves living for 3+ weeks in a cabin with no running water more than 500 miles round-trip from the nearest shopping for anything other than gasoline) I have come to think more about the infrastructure that supports us. In Wiseman, families are “off the grid” electrically and must create energy for lights, heat, refrigeration, cooking. Most use a combination of solar, wind, and back-up gas-powered generators. One innovative family also harnesses the spring/summer energy of a nearby stream with a paddle-wheel generator. All cut, haul and utilize wood stoves to heat their homes against the up-to 70 degree below winter temps. With gas at 5.60/gallon, this creative ingenuity is necessary for personal and economic survival. All have also had to consider how to deal with human and household waste making me think more deeply about where is the “away” when we discard our household waste; throw things away?

Families in Wiseman must also supplement expensive food stocks trucked in on trips to Fairbanks at 3-6 month intervals. Every family hunts and supplies meat for the table - caribou, moose, bear. They appear to practice good animal husbandry and I have come to support and admire this reliance on and co-existence with the land. I continue to have some difficulty with trapping lines (which many there run) for income. Everyone had berry-picking forays during our stay - berry ripening time. Erv and I also enjoyed fresh blueberries we picked every week and I even got enough cranberries to make sauce to enhance our canned-goods meals on occasion. Most also had gardens, carefully planned, tended and “put-up” during the very brief, intense growing period at these latitudes. Wiseman boasts the farthest north “truck gardens” in the US!

A minimum of 10 children are required for a State-appointed school teacher so the 4 local kids are home-schooled. All have placed well above average on standardized testing for age. Their “book” education is supplemented by the necessity for practical creativity - the ability to improvise solutions to basic engineering and “entertainment” challenges with only the materials at hand. I don’t mean to suggest there are no modern resources at all. There is a rudimentary telephone system and satellite radio/TV on a very small frequency. There are trucks, snow machines (snowmobiles) and vehicles/tools to assist. And, unsought-after by Wiseman residents, the 800 mile pipeline and haul road are within sight of their community.

To me, these folk represent what most Alaskan’s admire and identify with, no matter if they live in the relative urban comfort of Fairbanks or Anchorage, Homer or even smaller towns. Some of these Alaskans are “end-of-the-roaders” who have fled their problems and disgruntlements elsewhere and come north only to find new problems, etc. Other residents enjoy Alaska much of the year but return to more temperate southern climes for hard winter. Most all residents, however, benefit from “subsistence” waivers in hunting and fishing regulations. Perhaps this is warranted by Alaska’s significantly higher cost of living, perhaps not. With increased human population, it is having impact on animal/fish populations in some areas. Where does one draw the line? That remains a quandary for me.

This trip to the arctic north has made me more aware of and, hopefully, thoughtful about my own environmental footprint. Even if I do not chose to live so close to the land as the hearty souls of Wiseman, I have a more intimate knowledge of being an interactive, integral part of my local ecosystem and the whole planet Earth, and a deeper appreciation of how what each of us does impacts that balance. For one thing, monitoring and conserving our own energy usage can do far more to promote national energy independence than drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge would ever do. Think about it!

Thursday, August 21, 2008




Hiking the Arctic Refuge

Hi all,Erv here.We just got back from a few days hiking in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge- Not! ANWR as the industry refers to it to depersonalize it. As Sandra’s entry touches on, its beauty is magnificent. Its size is humbling, Its silence is deafening. It’s everything they say, but NOT an easy place to get around in. We covered just a few of the 11 million acres by hiking in from Atigun Gorge across wet spongy tundra covered with tussocks, little mounds of grass about a foot high and spaced so you can’t find a rhythm in walking them. The ones you think are firm, will sink under your feet and soak you, the ones you think are soft are hard as rocks and twist your ankle. Makes for slow, wet travel. Even so, a flyin would have been around $800 so we hiked. Another Alaskan conundrum. If the pipeline wasn’t built, the road would not be there for us to travel on. If the road wasn’t there, we and thousands of others would never know this place in person. But one road and one pipeline is all that should ever be here. Because of our choices of lifestyle, they are necessary scars on the land. If you ever find yourself arguing the point against more drilling, ask if the other person believes in God. If the answer is yes, remind them that this is quite possibly the last place on earth that is as God made it. Keep it that way for your children should they ask what the world was like then.



Above the Arctic Circle

Wispy tendrils stretched across the sky, undulating in shades of yellow-green, with an occasional patch brightening into a rainbow of red-green-yellow then quickly fading leaving a question of whether it was even there. We have seen a tease of the aurora, like restless spirits visiting the night sky. It is finally dark enough here above the arctic circle to experience the Aurora Borealis! Of course it means setting the alarm for 1AM and mustering the determination to bundle up and head outside but, like so many things here in Alaska, the discomfort is repaid by the experience.

Coldfoot, named for men, drawn here in the early 1900's by gold fever, who developed “cold feet” and gave up their dreams of easy riches to return home. Later, in the 1970's it became a working station along the Trans-Alaska Pipeline and now it has morphed into an “essential services” station midway between Fairbanks and Deadhorse (local name for the large Prudhoe Bay oil complex) on the Arctic Ocean. Erv and I are working at an interagency visitor center here where we provide information and assistance to visitors from many countries: independent travelers, backpackers and river floaters and large bus loads of tourists bound to see, and maybe dip a toe into the Arctic Ocean. The mission of the center is “to instill an understanding, appreciation and connection to the Arctic as an important part of our natural heritage.” Challenging! One more week before heading south. Hope the good weather holds!

We live in a nice little cabin with propane stove and solar/ gas generator for heat and electricity. With no running water we haul well water from the full facility visitor center (15 min. down the road) where we also shower. The outhouse is a chilly 2-3 blocks from the cabin but has its own rewards in opportunity to see short eared owls, flocks of crossbills, Grey jays and moonlit skies. Our work is not difficult and we have plenty of time to explore locally. We just returned from a two day camping trip (beautiful days but really cold, frosty nights) when we traveled another 100 miles north. Fall colors on the tundra are spectacular! We saw Dall sheep, caribou, Peregrine falcons but weren’t able to get far enough to see Muskox . We also encountered a number of bow hunters(caribou) and a most interesting fellow who drives a water truck as part of the Alaska DOT road crew and shared a slice of watermelon with us! We developed an admiration for all who venture to hike the tussocks and watery pits of the tundra. It’s like working out on an unstable stair master surrounded by water! This trip has strengthened my legs! So much more to share.... later!

Friday, August 8, 2008




Fairbanks

Fairbanks was an opportunity for Rand R after camping in poor, OK- horrible, weather and developing colds. We splurged for a night at a lovely B and B with Jacuzzi bathtub then the Fish and Wildlife service put us up at the BLM Firefighters barracks on Fort Wainwright - exposure to another choice of work and lifestyle (challenging, tedious, often dangerous; people we count on but have little contact with) and an interesting temporary home base. In the unduly rainy summer here (there was significant flooding in Fairbanks), most of Alaska’s fire fighters had been detailed to California so there was plenty of room.

When feeling up to it and not tending to laundry or “last chance” shopping for food, and supplies for the next 3+ weeks above the arctic circle, we did a little sightseeing as well. The Museum of the North and botanical gardens at the Univ. of AK were spectacular and we discovered a beautiful new bird, the Bohemian Waxwing in the gardens. Creamers field/bird sanctuary and nature walks were also delightful. The Sandhill Cranes, our favorites, and several duck species had begun gathering for their fall migration south; they’re early this year which unnerves me a bit. Walking through the boreal forest there I discovered that the birch and other plants, as well as the people and animals we are more familiar with, also entered Alaska over the Bering land bridge. Interesting! We’ll be on the road to Coldfoot on Tuesday.....

Friday, August 1, 2008

Another point of view





Erv here. Sometimes Sandra gets just a leeeeetle to romantic about this place. Sure, it's beautiful and all that, but the weather truly sucks. Our first night in Denali it rained hard all night. Our second night the wind howled all night. Our third night it rained hard AND the wind howled all night! My memories of those nights are represented by the photos of her precious Honda and how the tent site really looked in the morning.
But then I saw wolf pups and Golden Eagles. Two firsts for me. So life is good again.




Denali

Our experiences in Denali State and National Parks have been a microcosm of our overall experience of Alaska - a study in contrasts.

In order to more intimately experience this vast, beautiful landscape and its wildlife, we chose to hike and tent camp. The weather was not cooperative, however, and we were usually wet, cold and windblown - sometimes exhilarated, sometimes miserable and most often just tolerant. We savored 12 hours of sunshine during the eight days out. Those hours were incredibly rich in views of the elusive Denali peak (only 20-30% of those traveling here to witness this mountain, the highest in North America, are actually able to see it through the turbulent weather systems its great heights generate even when it is sunny and clear below).
We savored it’s perspective from high overlooks and also as we hiked around a lovely lake where the eerie, wild call of the loon enhanced the experience of both lake and mountain.

In Denali National Park we also rode buses (designed to protect the 65 miles of park roadway from the impact of hundreds of individual cars) from which we saw a variety of wildlife; remarkable in that this roadway represents a tiny inroad into an area larger than the state of Massachusetts. During our three days we saw small groups of magnificently racked caribou, two grizzly sows with cubs, several moose (including cow with yearling offspring, one a bull in velvet rack), Red fox, ground squirrel, Snowshoe hare, Dall sheep high on mountain slopes, Grey wolf pups - our favorite, Golden Eagles, Ptarmigan (Alaska’s State bird) and many raven, magpie, Grey Jays and a few songbirds. We just missed a lynx glimpsed by others. Most of these were distant views; we had close encounters only with the wolf pups and the smaller mammals upon whom the entire carnivore food chain depends. Although sometimes frustrated by having to ride busses and be part of the tourist mass, we support the intent of providing “wilderness” access while minimizing human impact. We learned that we could leave the bus for hiking intervals and especially enjoyed several hours hiking ridges in the tundra above Polycrome Pass.

As has been the norm for us in Alaska, we were humbled and awed by the vastness and rugged beauty of the country which is difficult to depict in words and photos. Part of the yin and yang of Alaska is its vast, wild beauty which is often difficult and costly to access and frequently requires the sacrifice of personal comforts. My greatest personal discomfort has been the dearth of sunshine. Even though this summer will likely go on record as the wettest, and one of the coolest - we’ve been above 60 twice, the amount of sunshine in a more typical year would likely not be able to meet my needs. A second yin-yang relates to the kinds of people Alaska attracts - and that’s a topic for another blog.