IS THIS JOURNEY
June 15, 2008
From the Classic Country Lyrics - "North to Alaska" by Johnny Horton
From Dawson City, we took a steel barge across the Yukon River, to where we caught the highway heading toward the Alaska border. After loading a few vehicles, the captain reversed his engines and pulled away from the sandy shoreline. Immediately, the swift current of the Yukon swept the ferry down river before the Captain could apply enough power to bring her back. Then as the shoreline approached, the captain gunned his engines pointed her stern into an upstream direction, fighting currents, logs and fallen trees, roots intact, torn away from the river banks maybe as far away as Whitehorse, he brings her ashore.
Doesn't your indoor cat also deserve a KITTY KAT KABANA?
From a steel barge on the fast moving Yukon River to a section of road, called “The Top of the World Highway, those are two experiences I won’t forget any time soon. To me the name given to this highway was befitting, but the top of this world? 
Some other world like Mars, maybe, certainly, it couldn’t be the world we call home. Driving along the crest of these northern mountains with such immense vastness all around us, no guard rails, nothing between us and the great abyss below, had a way of putting things into perspective. It reiterated, how insignificant we were, in this great big wild beautiful land. Molded round hills and deep dark valleys, polished smooth from shifting sheets of glacial ice thousands of years ago. Burnt out stands of charred pencil thin coniferous forest as far as the eye could see. Then, just when I thought this land couldn’t possibly become wilder, we reach an all time height on this highway of 3,955 ft above sea level. 
Now, we were truly on our own, above the timberline. Up where there aren’t even any sounds other than the whistle of the wind through the motor home’s windows and the drone of her 454 cu inch engine, as I dropped her into second and on occasion first gear, as she slowly but happily took us higher and higher to where the clouds and mountains appear to hold hands. Up where the landscape was totally void of anything but rock and snow. It was a very slow trip, travelling on gravel roads with its base consisting mostly of large grey boulders, covered with such a thin layer of gravel, that each time it rained; it washed away the gravel leaving behind only the boulders that even the Mars Rover would be challenged to scale. 
Creeping along at a break neck speed of 23 km /hr, we finally reached the Alaska border, a brief security check, a do-it-yourself wash to remove the road dust from the motor home and the car, a campground and a hot shower to wash the dust off us, in a town called “Chicken”. 
In the winter, Chicken’s population is six and in the summertime it reaches a staggering twenty-seven. Its entire town consists of four buildings, a saloon, (which we took full advantage of, ‘cause a cold beer was just what was needed, after a dry, dusty day on the trails,) a mercantile, a café and a liquor store.
We took the Taylor Highway south to rejoin the Alaska Highway on its route to Fairbanks. The Taylor Highway is famous for the migration of the Fortymile herd of Caribou. When snow and cold weather comes to the alpine uplands, the Fortymile herd of Caribou migrates southeast across the Taylor Highway just nouth of Tok, Alaska, toward lowland stands of Spruce along the Alaska-Yukon border. This Caribou herd numbered more than 600,000 in the 1920s and ranged from Fairbanks to Whitehorse. “I can remember the Caribou goin’ through for days, and you could just go outside the house and hear the click of hooves, and look around and see thousands of them crossin’ the river.” – wrote a Fortymile pioneer. Just imagine a herd of Caribou so immense that it took days for all of them to cross a river or road. Now imagine the same herd dwindling to less than one percent of its peak. By the 1970’s, over harvest, poor weather and predation had reduced the herd to a mere 5,000 animals.
After boarding a tour bus in Fairbanks, we headed north 84 miles to where we caught the Dalton Highway to the Arctic Circle. 
The road consists mostly of gravel, paralleling the Alaska Pipeline which runs south from Prudhoe Bay in the Beauford Sea to Valdez in the Gulf of Alaska. This highway was originally built to service the 800 miles of pipeline, where 800,000 barrels of Black Gold 
still flows every day. It’s now open to the public as a route to the Arctic Circle and beyond. The pipeline itself is an impressive sight, crisscrossing rivers and lakes, meandering through mountains and valleys, like a silver spine giant serpent. There are 78,000 Pylons holding this monster above the Permafrost. Where there’s no permafrost, which is rare, it disappears underground only to appear again as you round the next bend in the highway. 
The Pipeline is constructed of ½” thick steel pipe that’s 48” in diameter. It took 70,000 people to build this engineering marvel at a price tag of 8 Billion dollars in 1977. It can withstand a hit of 8.5 on the Richter scale. It can move laterally on a steel and Teflon cribbing 12’ and 7’ vertically. There are 337 valves that can shut down or control the flow of oil, whether it’s to re-weld a joint due to stress or replace a whole new section due to sabotage. Apparently there was an incident of sabotage some years ago when a man stood and fired repeatedly at the pipe, until the bullets finally penetrated the heavy gauge steel letting the crude oil shoot out at 1100 psi. According to our guide this person is now imprisoned and will never see the light of day.
The following are inscriptions on a plaque at the Arctic Circle describing the seasons of the north;
A Leap Into Life – In a land desperate for change, the returning sunlight brings dramatic rebirth to the arctic. As the northern regions point more and more towards the sun, its returning daylight brings an explosion of life to the region. Ice ponds melt. Billions of mosquitoes hatch. Ponds, lakes and puddles become feedlots for multitudes of Duck, Geese and shorebirds.
Life In A Hurry - Sunlight bathes the north both day and night as the pole points towards the sun. The further north you travel above the Arctic Circle, the more days occur without a sunset. Racing the light, arctic plants mature quickly after the ice melts, spreading vast carpets of tiny flowers over the tundra. Even in the warm micro-climate close to the ground time is short for flowering and bearing fruit in the sudden arctic summer. For eight intense weeks of summer, the daylight, warmth and rich food lure millions of migratory birds to the region. Summers grand abundance also makes the arctic a survivable home for year-round residence, such as Moose, Foxes, Wolves and Ptarmigan.
Before The Light Goes Out – Daylight fades, temperatures drop as the arctic region begins to point away from the sun. The productive warmth of summer wanes with the approach of autumn’s twilight. By mid-August, soft greens and greys of willow; birch and bearberry ignite into yellow, gold and crimson. The tundra is ablaze. Only the evergreen Spruce remains constant in the riotous mosaic of seasonal change. Snowshoe Hare and Ptarmigan coats transform from mottled brown to pure snowy white. Migratory birds flee as ponds freeze shut, while resident Caribou, Grizzlies and Ravens fortify for the ultimate struggle, arctic’s winter night.
At The Heart Of Darkness – In winter, the northern hemisphere of our earth points away from the sun. Plummeting temperatures and absence of sunlight lock the north in an icy silence. In winters deep- freeze, this is a hungry country. Increasing darkness and lack of food drive fat arctic Ground Squirrels into hibernation and Grizzlies into long sleeps. Lemmings remain active in tunnels under the snow, foraging on frozen green grasses. Hearty stores of body fat fortify the Caribou, and Mosquitoes survive in suspended animation due to internal antifreeze systems. From Moose to Mosquito, Lemming to Caribou, only the toughest survive the ultimatum of the minus 80 degree Fahrenheit arctic night.
For all you berry pickers and connoisseurs, while walking the Arctic Tundra we came upon two types of berries that I recognized from my early days. One is the Newfoundland Partridgeberry and the other the Blackberry. The Partridgeberry as it is known in Newfoundland and by the way, Nova Scotian as well, grows abundantly here in the Alaska Tundra and is referred to as a Low Bush Cranberry. This berry is internationally known as the Lingonberry or Cowberry and is grown in numerous places throughout the world, as Foxberry, Mountain Cranberry and in Labrador as the Redberry. The Blackberry that we so well loved in cakes, is known here in the Arctic as the Crowberry. To the Inuit, of which these berries are a staple, they’re called, “Fruit of the North.”
Greetings everyone from the Arctic Circle at 66°33’39” north in Alaska!
Stay tuned as we next take you to Denali National Park, Anchorage and Valdez, Alaska.
Doesn't your indoor cat also deserve a KITTY KAT KABANA?
From a steel barge on the fast moving Yukon River to a section of road, called “The Top of the World Highway, those are two experiences I won’t forget any time soon. To me the name given to this highway was befitting, but the top of this world? 
Some other world like Mars, maybe, certainly, it couldn’t be the world we call home. Driving along the crest of these northern mountains with such immense vastness all around us, no guard rails, nothing between us and the great abyss below, had a way of putting things into perspective. It reiterated, how insignificant we were, in this great big wild beautiful land. Molded round hills and deep dark valleys, polished smooth from shifting sheets of glacial ice thousands of years ago. Burnt out stands of charred pencil thin coniferous forest as far as the eye could see. Then, just when I thought this land couldn’t possibly become wilder, we reach an all time height on this highway of 3,955 ft above sea level. 
Now, we were truly on our own, above the timberline. Up where there aren’t even any sounds other than the whistle of the wind through the motor home’s windows and the drone of her 454 cu inch engine, as I dropped her into second and on occasion first gear, as she slowly but happily took us higher and higher to where the clouds and mountains appear to hold hands. Up where the landscape was totally void of anything but rock and snow. It was a very slow trip, travelling on gravel roads with its base consisting mostly of large grey boulders, covered with such a thin layer of gravel, that each time it rained; it washed away the gravel leaving behind only the boulders that even the Mars Rover would be challenged to scale. 
Creeping along at a break neck speed of 23 km /hr, we finally reached the Alaska border, a brief security check, a do-it-yourself wash to remove the road dust from the motor home and the car, a campground and a hot shower to wash the dust off us, in a town called “Chicken”. 
In the winter, Chicken’s population is six and in the summertime it reaches a staggering twenty-seven. Its entire town consists of four buildings, a saloon, (which we took full advantage of, ‘cause a cold beer was just what was needed, after a dry, dusty day on the trails,) a mercantile, a café and a liquor store.We took the Taylor Highway south to rejoin the Alaska Highway on its route to Fairbanks. The Taylor Highway is famous for the migration of the Fortymile herd of Caribou. When snow and cold weather comes to the alpine uplands, the Fortymile herd of Caribou migrates southeast across the Taylor Highway just nouth of Tok, Alaska, toward lowland stands of Spruce along the Alaska-Yukon border. This Caribou herd numbered more than 600,000 in the 1920s and ranged from Fairbanks to Whitehorse. “I can remember the Caribou goin’ through for days, and you could just go outside the house and hear the click of hooves, and look around and see thousands of them crossin’ the river.” – wrote a Fortymile pioneer. Just imagine a herd of Caribou so immense that it took days for all of them to cross a river or road. Now imagine the same herd dwindling to less than one percent of its peak. By the 1970’s, over harvest, poor weather and predation had reduced the herd to a mere 5,000 animals.
After boarding a tour bus in Fairbanks, we headed north 84 miles to where we caught the Dalton Highway to the Arctic Circle. 
The road consists mostly of gravel, paralleling the Alaska Pipeline which runs south from Prudhoe Bay in the Beauford Sea to Valdez in the Gulf of Alaska. This highway was originally built to service the 800 miles of pipeline, where 800,000 barrels of Black Gold 
still flows every day. It’s now open to the public as a route to the Arctic Circle and beyond. The pipeline itself is an impressive sight, crisscrossing rivers and lakes, meandering through mountains and valleys, like a silver spine giant serpent. There are 78,000 Pylons holding this monster above the Permafrost. Where there’s no permafrost, which is rare, it disappears underground only to appear again as you round the next bend in the highway. 
The Pipeline is constructed of ½” thick steel pipe that’s 48” in diameter. It took 70,000 people to build this engineering marvel at a price tag of 8 Billion dollars in 1977. It can withstand a hit of 8.5 on the Richter scale. It can move laterally on a steel and Teflon cribbing 12’ and 7’ vertically. There are 337 valves that can shut down or control the flow of oil, whether it’s to re-weld a joint due to stress or replace a whole new section due to sabotage. Apparently there was an incident of sabotage some years ago when a man stood and fired repeatedly at the pipe, until the bullets finally penetrated the heavy gauge steel letting the crude oil shoot out at 1100 psi. According to our guide this person is now imprisoned and will never see the light of day. The following are inscriptions on a plaque at the Arctic Circle describing the seasons of the north;A Leap Into Life – In a land desperate for change, the returning sunlight brings dramatic rebirth to the arctic. As the northern regions point more and more towards the sun, its returning daylight brings an explosion of life to the region. Ice ponds melt. Billions of mosquitoes hatch. Ponds, lakes and puddles become feedlots for multitudes of Duck, Geese and shorebirds.
Life In A Hurry - Sunlight bathes the north both day and night as the pole points towards the sun. The further north you travel above the Arctic Circle, the more days occur without a sunset. Racing the light, arctic plants mature quickly after the ice melts, spreading vast carpets of tiny flowers over the tundra. Even in the warm micro-climate close to the ground time is short for flowering and bearing fruit in the sudden arctic summer. For eight intense weeks of summer, the daylight, warmth and rich food lure millions of migratory birds to the region. Summers grand abundance also makes the arctic a survivable home for year-round residence, such as Moose, Foxes, Wolves and Ptarmigan.
Before The Light Goes Out – Daylight fades, temperatures drop as the arctic region begins to point away from the sun. The productive warmth of summer wanes with the approach of autumn’s twilight. By mid-August, soft greens and greys of willow; birch and bearberry ignite into yellow, gold and crimson. The tundra is ablaze. Only the evergreen Spruce remains constant in the riotous mosaic of seasonal change. Snowshoe Hare and Ptarmigan coats transform from mottled brown to pure snowy white. Migratory birds flee as ponds freeze shut, while resident Caribou, Grizzlies and Ravens fortify for the ultimate struggle, arctic’s winter night.
At The Heart Of Darkness – In winter, the northern hemisphere of our earth points away from the sun. Plummeting temperatures and absence of sunlight lock the north in an icy silence. In winters deep- freeze, this is a hungry country. Increasing darkness and lack of food drive fat arctic Ground Squirrels into hibernation and Grizzlies into long sleeps. Lemmings remain active in tunnels under the snow, foraging on frozen green grasses. Hearty stores of body fat fortify the Caribou, and Mosquitoes survive in suspended animation due to internal antifreeze systems. From Moose to Mosquito, Lemming to Caribou, only the toughest survive the ultimatum of the minus 80 degree Fahrenheit arctic night.
For all you berry pickers and connoisseurs, while walking the Arctic Tundra we came upon two types of berries that I recognized from my early days. One is the Newfoundland Partridgeberry and the other the Blackberry. The Partridgeberry as it is known in Newfoundland and by the way, Nova Scotian as well, grows abundantly here in the Alaska Tundra and is referred to as a Low Bush Cranberry. This berry is internationally known as the Lingonberry or Cowberry and is grown in numerous places throughout the world, as Foxberry, Mountain Cranberry and in Labrador as the Redberry. The Blackberry that we so well loved in cakes, is known here in the Arctic as the Crowberry. To the Inuit, of which these berries are a staple, they’re called, “Fruit of the North.”Greetings everyone from the Arctic Circle at 66°33’39” north in Alaska!
Stay tuned as we next take you to Denali National Park, Anchorage and Valdez, Alaska.
K&G, somewhere on the road
1 comments:
oh.... it's wonderfull :X i like this topic
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