Faceless in Fairbanks

Well, it is December 30 and it is truly cold...and has been for the past 3 days. It has gone down to -40 and seems to be staying there.This is how I look now when I go outside.  Its no easy task between getting me loaded up with clothes and then Fred outfitted as well.  We had two neighborhood families for dinner the other night, and between taking clothes off and putting them back on, many minutes went by.

We actually did go outside and throw boiling water up into the air and watched it evaporate.  Wow!  Quite funky.  Of course, nothing changes.  Life does seem to go on.  However, if it does not "warm" up to -20 by next Saturday, we cann ot go ice fishing.  We have reserved an ice house on Chena Lake, with 4 holes, two seats and a wood stove.  However, the borough won't auger out the holes if it goes below -20, and since we do not have an ice auger, we might be out of  luck.  Oh well.  Only time will tell.

On Christmas day we went to North Pole to see their ice park sculptures as a pre-curser to the big show downtown in Fairbanks in February.       the highlight, for me, was the ice slide, which, of course, I just had to try.The big baby strikes again!

We have been to several great holiday parties, the latest at our neighbors.  All are potlucks with great, great food.  Not only wase verything homemade, but the turkey we ate was home grown and the berries on the pies were picked this su

mmer!  Great fun at gift exchanges which are always chinese auctions where you can "steal" a gift if you don't like what you have chosesn.David made quite a hit in his Vietnamese holiday vest.

In the category of "Only in Fairbanks". this was posted in freecycle the other day:  A woman was giving away a dead goat to be used for dog food.  Quite a popular item around here since there are so many dogs.  Usually we see offers for freezer burned meat to be given away.  This was the first time I saw a newly dead goat offered up.  YUP!

Ho! Ho! Ho! Winter is Here

Well, it is now December, the solstice has come and gone and we are now gaining seconds of sunlight rather than losing minutes of daylight.  we now have about 3 hours and 45 minutes of sunlight which means that the sun rises around 11 am and goes down about 2:45.  however, the dawn is quite long as is the dusk and the dark is wonderful.  Bright starry nights with the moon twinkling on the snow and auroras lightly skimming the sky. 

David has a job with Design Alaska which is a general engineering firm right in Fairbanks which is quite community minded and is a prominent sponsor of the symphony and public radio.  The folks that he works with are all very interesting, as are all of the people in Fairbanks.

I am still working two jobs, one a the Yukon Quest and one at the University while hoping that the University job finally comes through as a staff position rather than a contract one.  I finally had an interview, and now am waiting to take a computer literacy test, of all things.  The wheels of acadmia grind very slowly.

The job at the Yukon Quest has offered some amusing moments.  I am now in charge of events and put on a Hawaiian Lua fundraiser in December full of sand, leis and, as you will see, coconuts.  We had to come in costume and David, we did not have his photo taken was in shorts and long underwear bottoms and a Hawaiian shirt which he insists on wearing to work.

The Yukon Quest 1000 mile race is coming up on February 14, so to get prepared David and Iwent to a 100 mile race that started about 10 miles up the road from us.  Silly us.  We thought that sled dog racers were spectator sports, but about 10 minute after we got there, after asking what we could do to help, we found ourselves holding lines while dogs were snapped on, holding dogs, and then running like crazy while haning on to lines and dogs while the sled drove to the start line.  That was quite scary because 12 dogs on a line are so, so powerful; there were too many lines and too much bumpy snow and too much speed to cross a tiny, short space.  I was scared I would fall and get my leg snapped off. 

The dogs were incredible.  Silent as could be when they were in the dog boxes atop the trucks and howling, jumping and screaming when they were on the line waiting to go.  But all good natured and friendly, allowing one and all to haul them around. this is a shot inside a dog box and the next shot shows the dogs outside the box. Once they were at the start line, off they went! Here are David and I as we watch the race. Notice, you can see our eyes, nose and mouth.  This contrasts nicely to the next outfit we were wearing.  I, ignorantly asked what next we could do and was told that we should man the nighttime road crossing.  Well, this involved waiting for a phone call which told us to be a the point where the trail crossed the main road at a certain time and then making sure that we stopped the cars and tracked the teams as they crossed to road for their two hour home stretch.  This was after their 5 hour first leg, 4 hour layover and then about 3 hour trip back to the road crossing where they would thent ravel about another 2 hours to the finish line.  Didn't seem too bad. 

The call came to be at the crossing at 10 pm for the first team that was scheduled to cross at about 10:30.  2 pairs of long underwear, lined pants, 2 long underwear tops, sweater, snowsuit, 3 pairs of socks, jacket, neck gator, scarf, hat, hand warmers and mittens for each of us.  We were unrecognizable...but it was -8.  What we did not know was that, although the first team would, indeed cross at 10:30 (Lance Mackey..the reigning champ), Lucy, the last musher would cross 5 hours later!!!  BRR!!!

Would we do it again.  You bet.

A few weeks earlier, we had decided that we too could be mushers and borrowed a harness for Fred and bought a child's plastic sled from WalMart,and went to Dog Musher's Hall where the real mushers go.  First we let Fred run with the harness and just the sled.  Then I sat on it...and he sat down, turned around and seemed to say, "What the hell?"as you can see, Fred and I make quite a team!!!

There seems to be a common expression here which goes..."only in Fairbanks" and the other day that seemed to be true.  I was downstairs in the Yukon Quest building, which is a lovely log cabin on the banks of the Chena River when one of my co-workers called down the steps..."There's a lady coming through the doors with a reindeer.  Of ocurse, the rest of us came crashing upstairs, and sure enough, for no apprent reason, a woman had walked in leading her pet reindeer by a red lead.  Coca was quite friendly and cow-like and very tiny with giant, thin antlers.  We took a photo and then she strolled on out and we all went back to work.  Yup!

 

We are quite enchanted with the scenery since the angle of the sun on the winter trees is magnificent.

This is also the beginning of ice sculpture season, with many businesses having them sprout in front of their entrances.  This was taken outside of David's office and on Christmas Day we are going to North Pole to see their ice park.  The big festival is in Fairbanks in february and we can't wait.

Life in Alaska

David and I spent the greater part of September and part of October looking for a job.  This meant that every morning we would get up and try to 'share" the computer as we did our job search work.  Many resumes and many letters of inquiry liberally mixed with walks in the woods and trips around Fairbanks.

The people here are so nice and have been so helpful.  Everyone we have spoken to has given us job leads and suggestions and they paid off.  David has started his job at Design Alaska, a very community minded long time all purpose engineering firm in Fairbanks.  I was directed to do volunteer work at the Yukon Quest, the 1000 Whitehorse to Fairbanks ( or vice-versa every other year) which has been very satisfying.  The people in the office are wonderful and, of course, the dog sled is so quitessentially Alaskan.  And the vocabulary...mushers, dog drops, check points, handlers, vet checks, pilots to fly dogs here and there.  And the stories.  One woman musher has been on dog sleds since she was a few months old.  Her mother, a musher, lived on a trap line 50 trail miles from the stores.  Once she was strapped to the sled and her mother lsot the dogs and off they went.  The little girl was found a few miles down the trail still in here little box that had jiggled off the sled.  Or the musher who found she was pregnant whilerunning a race in which she had an accident and got a concussion...and, by the way, found she was pregnant. What a world.  But I can bring Fred when I go in and he is quite a hit.

I really want a job at the University.  I met a woman at synagogue whose husband helps chair the Resilience and Adaptation program and she suggested to him that I would be a good coordinator.  Thsi is a wonderful PhD program that takes an interdisciplinary, holistic approach at training scientists, policy makers and advocates and academians to look at problems affecting the circumpolar north.  I went to an all day colloquium during which some of the students presented their papers.  Wow!  Traveling with carabou; working far out in villages; looking at water issues for folks who pump water directly from rivers and on and on.  Right now I am working as a contract employee putting together their website, hoping that I can apply for the coordinator job hen it is offered. 

Lots of fun, but now we have very little play time.

We took a wonderful trip into the White Mountain area outside of Fairbanks before we got our jobs and spent a day in snowy mountain paths.  We also went past a gold dredge.  In the course of a conversation at the Obama headquarters with one of the field staff we told about our little trip and the gold dredge.  She said, "Oh yea.  My mother owns it."  and then she just kept talking.  'Stop!"  We shouted.  Go back and explain.  And sure enough, her mother a historian, bought the thing and 50 tailings acres to save it from being torn down.  We will get a tour.

We also stopped at a campground and saw a spooky, empty tent covered with snow, and then, further down the trail a snow cat. Strange.

The next weekend Fairbanks held an Obama rally.  David and I volunteered to stand on a streetcorner with signs advertising the rally.  Street corner standing is what you do here. Not my favorite activity.  But the rally was fun, especially the pig.What was even stranger is that everyone knew the pig and the woman who owned her.

Having great fun and looking forward to Thanksgiving in Homer.

When is 21 degrees not really cold?

On September 23 and 24 the sun was shining, the trees were glowing gold and the daytime weather hovered around 40.  It has been so lovely that we decided to make a stab at tent camping this weekend (September 27-28)  Off we went with our final destinationb eing the Chena Hot Springs where we planned to soak in the hot water on Sunday.

We packed up Fred, our back-packing tent, sleeping bags, etc. and drove less than an hour to a series of three lovely small lakes where we pitched our tent and then went for a great hike through the woods.  Except, it was snowing to beat the band.  What a surprise!  But we pushed on and the snow lessened and then stopped. We found out that it actually snowed about 1.5 inches overall.

On  our hike I saw, in the woods, a small tree with a great little spruce burl that I really wanted.  David refused to walk all the way back to the tent and get our saw and then come back while I stood guard to make sure the burl didn't run off.  So, we clearly marked the spot, continued on our hike and then eventually returned to the camp.  I grabbed the saw, Fred and then boldy stepped off to hunt down that burl.  Got there, found it, sawed it down and returned with not a misshap.  For me, that was quite an accomplishment!Look closely...you can see the snowflakes.

Nightime provided a bit of discomfort.  First of all it started REALLY snowing again.  We were freezing in our bags, and poor Fred, on the tent floor between us was shivering and shivering.  Even after David gave him a sweatshirt to sleep upon, poor old Fred was miserable.  Until, that is, he smooshed himself into my one person mummy bag, curled up in a ball and started snoring and twitching.  Yikes.  No room for me at all and I ended up almost crippled!  As soon as we got home we went to a pet store and bought that boy a coat.  Notice how the blue matches his one eye.

Oh well.  The next day we drove for about 10 minutes to the Chena Hot Springs, which were hard to miss since the road ends in their gate and the steam plumes coming from the water were reaching to the sky.  Fred waited in the car as we soaked outside amid the icicles.  Yummy!

Fall here seems to leave overnight.  The trees are naked and the thermometer now hovers in the 30's during the day and the low 20's at night.  And it was cozy just a few days ago.

However, I go out every morning for my walk through the woods to get the paper at our mailbox for a round trip of about 1.5 miles in just a sweater and sweatshirt and mittens.  You know that in Philly, at 21 degrees I wouldn't think of sticky my nose any further out the door than I really needed.  Must be like the heat in Arizona..you know..it's not really the heat, but the humidity.  Here it is so dry that cold doesn't seem quite cold.

David is off getting snow tires right now.

Two and a half weeks seem like years

David and I cannot believe that we have been here almost three weeks.  Our trip across country feels like it happened to two other people.  It is weird.  I still am surprised sometimes when I realize we are actually in Alaska.  The sense of un-reality is strengthened by the normal and abnormal things we have been doing.  For example, as we go down our dirt road to the main road, we usually come upon two groups of spruce hens.  These are quail like birds with an absolute sense of entitlement to the road.  We either stop and wait for them to move or follow them slowly as they waddle down the middle of the road.  Then its on to the main road into Fairbanks where we have actually seen a moose in the road and many trucks loaded with freshly killed moose as well as pick up trucks fitted out in the back with dog boxes to haul the sled dogs.

Then we stop at my favorite place on the way into town:  The TRANSFER center.  This is the local dump where everyone takes their trash...and EVERYONE shops for new-to-them stuff.  Dumpster diving has reached new heights here:  some days it seems that there are more folks taking stuff out of the trash bins than putting stuff in.  And many folks have specially home-made picks for going through the dumpsters.  And there is a whole section that is like a yard sale, where the "good stuff" is dumped. I just got a wonderful oak desk chair today!David is quite willing to throw things in, but has yet to rummage about taking things out.

Then on to Wal-Mart.  That is what makes it all seem so unreal.  The shopping center has Lowe's, Pet Smart, Barnes and Noble and Wal-Mart.  Hard to compute.

Then, if we continue into Fairbanks proper things get weird again.  There is no real center of town; there are two main streets, and then everything kind of mushes out from there.  The paved roads are only one or two streets deep and then everything turns to gravel.  Log cabins are everywhere.

Since our house is located by so many great trails we have done a lot of walking in the woods, as well as down the road and back for a round trip of a little over 1.5 miles to get the morning paper.  We are starting to see a lot of dog sled activity and the other day we saw a 4 X 4 being pulled by a team while the driver stood hard on the brakes.  Our neighbors and landlords have 6 dogs which they use to attach to themselves and get pulled on skies over the trails.  Not Me!

We decided to go t the Chena River Recreation Area and go for a hike last week.  When we arrived (about 1/2 hour from our house) and got out of the car, we realized that we did the same hike 5 years ago when we travelled in AK.  How strange.  But we had a good time and saw another moose. Please note that I am somewhat overdressed as other folks we saw were without hat, coat or scarf.David keeps warning me that I better slow down with the amount of clothes I put on in this relatiely warm weather or I will be so overstuffed with layers in the real cold that I won't be able to move.

David is quite pleased now that we have a "tongue" hanging out of our car just  like everyone else. The car has been winterized and now has all the fluids needed to get us through a cold winter as well as the heaters needed to keep things warm under the hood.

Went to Denali on Sunday, the day after the buses stopped running through the park so it was quite empty.  Saw fox and moose. and visited their resident sled dog teams which were way too quiet, not at all like the ones near us that howl and bay with as much vigor as inner city police sirens.  But not at all unpleasant.

Weather is getting cooler.  We had frost this morning, September 22, but the paper says the frost is two weeks later than last year.  Hmm.  What are we in for?

David and I have "full time jobs" looking for real full time jobs and it gets ugly around here as we push and shove to use the computer.  We both have to calm down and behave.

We are doing a lot of volunteer work for the Obama campaign here in Fairbanks.  There was a fully staffed office with about 6 staffers, 4 from out of town.  Then when Sarah as announced as VP candidate, the Obama folks conceded AK and pulled their out of towners.  So, now there are only two young women working night and day.  Its very active and intense.

We will post as frequently as we have good photos to share with you.

Homer and Home

On our way to Homer we stopped in Anchorage for a few days to see why it is characterized as so “not-Alaska” and then to go to the Alaska State Fair in Palmer which we had been hearing so much about from Dylan.  This is the fair that showcases the GIANT vegetables; cabbages as big as your head and turnips that take two hands to hold.  We had been hearing all summer how bad the weather was in AK during the summer; rainy and cloudy and apparently this affected the size and amount of vegetables.  But they were pretty big I must say.  This was the greatest fair we have been to. we had purchased tickets to see Ralph Stanley and the Clinch Mountain Boys at the show so we got into the fair for free. 

One of the first places we went to was the fabric art barn.  I have been interested in learning to spin but don’t want to purchase a wheel.  As luck would have it we met a wonderful woman who not only gave me a spinning lesson on a spindle, but gave me the spindle, the fiber and a hand-made bag to put it all in.  She also put us in touch with a woman who had a musk ox farm.  I have been hunting musk ox ever since I saw Quiviat which is a yarn made from their underhair.  We saw it in Banff for $90.00 for 6 oz and I was trying to go to the source and get it cheaper.  However, the price was the same at the farm and her supply of hair had just gone to Peru to be processed.  So I will wait until spring when it will return and buy some fiber that I will try to spin myself.  Wish me luck.

The concert with Ralph Stanley was all we could have asked for.  AND, we were able to go backstage before the concert and get my banjo signed by Dr. Ralph and David took my photo with the 81 year old legend.  Great time.

Then it was on to Homer, Dylan and Fred.  We had not seen Dylan without his beard and were anxious to see his new house, as well.  We had a lovely visit which included meeting Angela who seems to know everyone in Homer.  She owns a beauty shop and gave me a great new color and cut and even convinced David to go under the scissors.  Great lady!  We went Halibut fishing and each caught our limit of two, small but feisty fish.  David and Dylan and Angela also caught huge skate which were impossible to bring up and then were released.  We had a great time and were able to bring lots of fish to our new house.  We also had a great party at Dylan’s and met a lot of his friends.  A very, very nice visit with great food and great people.

Then off to Fairbanks with a stop in Talkeetna so the driving wasn’t too tedious.  Fred the dog is quite an attraction.  He is an ordinary hound with the most amazing eyes that just beg for loving. We went into a bar to listen to some jazz in Talkeetna with Fred and EVERYONE had to pet him.  And he is a great car dog as well.  We love him.

We made a quick stop in Denali National park, about 2 hours outside of Fairbanks so I could get my old lady parks pass.  $10.00 for a lifetime pass and half off camping in all national parks for me and my carload.  So…it pays you all to come and visit.  Also, for anyone who has gotten this far in the blog…we also have asparks pass for Canada’s national parks which anyone of you can use if you wish.  Just let us know and we will mail it to you.  No ID required.  Canada parks are quite expensive; $20.00 per day plus $27 for camping, so use our pass if you wish.

Fairbanks:  It is everything we could have wished for.  Our house is exactly as we had imagined and Karen and Butch, our landlords are going to be good friends.  The house looks like new, is just the right size and feels like home.

We have been SO BUSY!  Our first night we slept on the floor, on pads from Celeste because there is no furniture.  Luckily Dylan was able to order a memory foam bed for us from Homer that we were able to pick up in Fairbanks on Tuesday.  We also were lucky to find a bedroom set and dining room table and chairs in Fairbanks at the home of a woman who had just died, but had lived in Fairbanks all her 91 years.  So, we are getting furnished and the boxes and stuff all around and slowly diminishing.  We also had a chance to join a phone bank for Obama on Wednesday night and hope to get active in Alaska politics soon.  We took our written driving tests for our AK licenses and FAILED.  Had to go back the next day after some serious studying.  Do you believe I missed the questions about when to use parking lights.  DUH!  (The correct answer is:  “when parked’)  Then we found out that David could not get his license because that bad boy had TWO outstanding speeding tickets from two different states incurred years ago!  He had to spend the whole day getting that taken care of.  Of course, I could not get my license right away either because, even with a passport the state wanted to SEE my social security card.  David just whipped his right out of his wallet.  I haven’t seen mine in 40 years and had to leave the DMV and go the federal building and apply for a new one.  But all ended well for me and I have my license in hand and now am eligible for next year’s Permanent Dividend Fund, which this year is $2000.00  Quite cool.

No sightings of wild animals yet, but some critter laid an egg next to our car this morning.  Go figure.  We live in the “Two Rivers” area which seems to be the dog sled raising capital of Fairbanks, so we have seen dogs and our neighbor has a cow, so we see that.  But no moose, bear, etc, YET. 

The weather is wonderful and fully fall.  Yellow leaves on the few deciduous trees; nights in the 40’s and days in the 60’s.  Some predict snow by September 19.  All cars have little tongues hanging out the front (really plugs for block heaters) and our parking area has a plug in spot as does the Wal-Mart shopping center and a number of other public parking places.

Well…the traveling part of our adventure is over and the Alaska part has begun.  David has adjusted to the change better than I.  I think I have a rambling soul and could have gone on and on.  But, this new adventure is going to be WONDERFUL based on the folks we have met and the stuff we have seen so far. So stay tuned for the Alaska blogs.

Our new contact information:

Address:  3477 Buffalo Lane, Fairbanks, AK 99712

Home Phone:  907-488-4749

Ellen’s cell:  907-388-4788

David’s cell:  907-388-1559

According to David we have travelled 16,047 miles and averaged a little more than 19 miles of gas per gallon. Of the miles travelled, I drove almost 200 miles!

Tonight we are going to Fairbank’s First Friday to visit galleries and hear music and this weekend, if it gets a little cooler we are going to soak in the Cheena Hot Springs.  If not, we might visit North Pole (which, according to the telephone company, is actually where we live.)  It’s supposed to be where Santa lives and is done up for Christmas all year.

Here is Fred.

Mile 0 and beyond

Mile 0

Dawson Creek is the official start of the Alaska Highway and the official beginning of our end.  I was lucky enough to find a thrift store in Dawson Creek and was able to buy a bread machine which I have been wanting ever since we stayed at the sheep farm and Dave feed us home made bread every morning.

The man who oversaw the campground outside of Dawson Creek directed us to the next campground on the Liard River.  The enticement there were the hot springs.  And what springs they were…a river actually, accessed by a ten minute walk over a board walk into a river that had several natural pools and man made steps into them where you could soak in very hot mineral water. The weather was slightly rainy and the air quite cool…just the way a hot springs should be.  It was WONDERFUL.  Again, since we had not had showers, and did not see the possibility of one in the near future, the hot springs were even better.

Our next stop was Whitehorse, where we decided to camp for 2 nights since we had driven for three long days and needed a break.  We passed the famous sign post park where visitors are encouraged to place town signs and apparently have been doing so for years.On the way we saw herds of wild buffalo, including one dead one on the side of the road with a roast cut out of his haunch for someone’s dinner, caribou, and goats.  We quickly learned that stopping in the middle of the Alaska highway to take a photo is NOT A GOOD IDEA.  However, stopping in Whitehorse was a good idea.  Cute town, great setting in the mountains and wonderful  activities.  Our first stop the morning after we set up camp was to approach the nearest RV park and beg for a shower which we got for $2.00 each.  Quite a bargain.  Feeling all clean and new, we went to see the a very long fish ladder which was built to help the salmon navigate past the only dam on the Yukon River.These boys and girls have travelled 1800 miles to get to this point so its nice that they get a little helping hand.

 

Then we went into Whitehorse for a tour with a costumed historian who showed us all the “old” buildings…from about 1903.  My favorite were the log cabin sky scrapers; three story log cabins built in the early 1900’s by a man who realized he could make more money building up than out. And they are still used today by three different tenants!

That evening we took a tour with a naturalist to the Great Salt Lake of Whitehorse.  What was so amusing to us was that, even though the tour had been advertised through posters planted all over town, no one seemed to know what or where the salt lake was.  However, Bruce, our guide did and we rode for about 10 miles outside of town to a funky, salt layered area that came about from salts leeching out of the rocks and being deposited in the lake that was evaporating and being covered with red sea asparagus.  And to make matters even more interesting, the area had been used for horse grazing and was littered with old horse bones, as well as fresh bear paw prints and digs, elk poop, giant ant hills and a toad.  We walked for about 2.5 hours in the area, through “quaking mud” which jiggled when we trod on it; across slumps created as the permafrost stats to melt and the land sinks, and around “boot-sucking mud”…no explanation needed. IT IS FALL HERE!

We also saw the world's largest weather vane.  The story goes that the propellers used to turn until an unsuspecting visitor was driving by in a wind and saw the propellers turning and thought th plane was about to take off and crash into him, which caused the driver to crash.  So the propellers are now welded shut and do not spin.  But the big plane, a DC-3 does swing in the wind.

  All in all, great diversion from the Alaska Highway.

Another day of driving got us to the western edge of the Yukon. Did you know that this territory is bigger than Montana, Wyoming and part of Colorado and has less than 30,000 people, most of who live in Whitehorse.  Whew. Pottstown, PA has 30,000 people.

And now we are in Alaska, having passed through Tok into the great Wrangell St. Elias National Park which is bigger than Connecticut, Mass. and Rhode Island combined and has only two roads; one 60  miles long and the one we are camping on which is 40 miles long.  The roads are dirty and gravelly and have wrecked havoc on our car. We also got our first stone chip on our front window.  Boo!We finally saw a moose (mother and yearling) on the way today. And our luck has held out…it rained all the way to the park and half way to the spot where we are camped.   Here I am writing this very post. And now, even though it is quite cold (about 41 degrees at 9 pm) the sun is shining brightly in the sky (at 9 pm) and the mountains are glowing pink.  Here is the view from our campsite.   What a place.

Today, August 25 wwe are spending in Anchorage and tomorrow we go to the giant Alaska StateFair in Palmer and will end the evening listening to Ralph Stnley and the Clinch Mountain Boys.  Quite fitting to both begin and end our journey with music.

Looking forward to arriving in Homer on Thursday to see Dylan without his beard in his new house, and to start making friends with Fred who will be our new dog in Alaska.  He’s Dylan’s second dog now and his knapsack is packed and he is ready for the move to Fairbanks.