Bearfoot Guides Looks At Alaska's Ice Age: Woolly Mammoths, Sloths, Camels, Giant Bears -- And Humans

Sign at Creamer's Field in Fairbanks shows the variety of wildlife that lived in the Ice Age.

Fairbanks Was The Serengeti Plains Of The Ice Age Northlands

Amazingly, the northern part of Alaska that is now "Fairbanks" wasn't covered with ice during the Ice Age. (Though Canada, and parts of the American Midwest were.) Bones of many animals that do not now live in Alaska -- many are totally extinct -- are found here.

There's an old dairy farm in Fairbanks with the very apt name of "Creamer's." It's now a sort of wildlife sanctuary and has walking trails. This sign at Creamer's Field shows the types of animals that once roamed here, in a sort of Serengeti-Plain type tableau. Hidden in the middle of all the huge sloths, cave bears, woolly mammoths, foxes, extinct horses, ice age bison -- and northern style camels -- are a few tiny humans. Nowadays, the main wildlife you'll see at Creamers (in addition to tourists and locals) are sandhill cranes and geese.

Alaskan Hype: Bearfoot Travel Guides Analyzes The Lure Of The Klondike Gold Rush

If It Was About The Gold Rush, It Sold Products To Americans

Klondike Cough Drops: 5 cents. 

During the Klondike Gold Rush of 1898, Americans had a lot on their minds. It wasn't necessarily the lure of the North that was the most pressing concern. This was the time of the Spanish-American War, and in history books, you'll find that the war actually turned out to be more significant, at least historically, than the simultaneous Gold Rush.

For people in most of the U.S., "Klondike" was not a regional name for a place in Canada. It was, instead, a general, northern symbol of hope, vast wealth, happiness, success...  For them, "Klondike" included Alaska, too. The whole idea of the Klondike had all the reckless, frothy attraction of a Power Ball lottery. Emotionally, it was Annie Oakley, the California Gold Rush, and Westward-Ho the Wagons all rolled into one, in the minds of small-town and city dwellers all over America. This poster is on display at the Fairbanks Community Museum in Downtown Fairbanks.

Bearfoot Guides Tell How The Klondike Gold Rush Spawned A Number Of Board Games

The Dawson Gold Fields actually produced gold -- as shown here. 

Board games were popular during the Klondike Gold Rush. 

At the turn of the 20th century, most board games were quasi-educational (including Monopoly, which has turned out to be an enduringly popular anti-monopoly cautionary game about the evils of amassing things.) Monopoly was invented in 1903.

Here are two board games from about the same era, involving the Alaska Gold Rush.

The top game shows the very real peril of crossing the Gulf Of Alaska by small boat. When the Gold Rush began in the late 1890's, warehoused ships were brought back into commission and sent up north, loaded with prospectors. Many of them were lost. The top map shows the Kenai Peninsula, and the coast near what are now the towns of Valdez and Cordova.

The Klondike gold rush game purported to show the area of the Alaska-Canada Gold Rush. It was a Pin-the-Tail-On-the-Donkey sort of game, involving blindfolds and hand-held darts.

Although there actually was gold in the "Gold Fields" near Dawson, there wasn't any on the lower left, in the Copper River Valley, due to the fact that the valley had once been a large inland lake, and was scrubbed clean of just about everything but sand when the lake broke through an ice dam 10,000 years ago and headed out to sea. Somebody drew a little blue line, in ink, on the original game, showing the Chilkoot Trail in Canada, and the miners and horses that trudged up that trail.

The shipwreck board game is on display at the Fairbanks Community Museum. The Dawson Gold Fields game was glued to a dining room table in a Denali Park hotel restaurant on the Parks Highway.

Bearfoot Guides: Outbuildings (Small Historic Cabins) Near Existing Alaska Roadhouses Give Glimpse Into The Past

Tolsona Lake Lodge is now a modern roadhouse -- with an original cabin displayed nearby.

Modern Roadhouses & Lodges In Alaska Often Still Have Cabins From The "Old" Original Roadhouse Nearby

Original small log roadhouse at Eureka Lodge.

Alaska's roadhouses and lodges were originally tents, or small, hastily-built cabins, located along the Gold Rush, trapping and freighting trails that connected major destinations (such as Knik, Fairbanks, Seward and Nome) to each other.

As the roadhouses grew, lodge-owners established two-story, larger buildings. But the original cabins stayed on the property.

Due to the problems of operating wood stoves -- combined with long distances, lack of a population, and extreme isolation -- a vast majority of Alaska's original roadhouses have burned to the ground.

Yet, as you travel Alaska, you can still find modern gas stations and roadhouses with some of the smaller, original lodge log cabins nearby. For a long time, these original cabins were pretty much ignored by the owners of the modern lodge, or used for storage.

But today, they are attracting more attention, and lodge owners sometimes put them on display, by adding a placard -- such as Eureka Roadhouse did (right) -- or placing them adjacent to the current lodge, as at Tolsona Lake Resort. The Tolsona cabin still has scorch marks on the logs, a relic of the original Tolsona Lodge burning down. Both of these small log cabins are located on the Glenn Highway, and both places were used extensively as hunting camps.

Extreme Alaska Tip: ORIGINAL LOG CABINS AT LODGES When you pull up to a gas station, or hotel that's out in the middle of nowhere on one of Alaska's roads, check around for small cabins either beside or behind the place, and ask the owners about their history.

Gold Miners Dragged Thousands Of Pounds Up The Trail

Poster geared toward prospective miners, headed to Alaska and the Canadian Yukon. 

There Were No Real Roads In Alaska

This large poster informed miners, headed to Alaska, "We carry a very heavy stock..." They were right. The axes, augers, chisels, frying pans, gold pans and scales, hammers, hatchets, pitch, picks, planes, rockers, rowlocks, saws, shovels, sleighs, steel and stoves -- along with everything else -- was, indeed, really very heavy.

And since there were no roads in Alaska, all that stuff posed quite a problem. Miners who left for Alaska in the late 1890's were not true 'miners' since very few of them knew anything about geology, gold mining, or much else, including how to live in the arctic. They were most often city or small town people who had enough money to buy all this gear, and then were gullible enough to drag it all, by hand, up over glaciers and down deadly rivers in boats they built themselves (using the "hatchets, planes, axes, augers and chisels, etc. etc. etc."). They watched their oakum and pitch-sealed raw spruce-plank boats crash on the rocks, and their shovels and eye protectors sink into the raging torrents, never to be found again.

Many miners died in their quest for riches in the northland.

Old Map Of Alaska Shows Oil, Gold, Radium & Salmon As Natural Resources: From Bearfoot Guides

Map of Alaska printed on a tablecloth shows state's natural resources. 

Alaska Has Always Been A Place Where Natural Resources Are A Major Reason For Being There: Gold, Wildlife, Radium, Platinum, Whales, Wildlife, and Oil...

A tablecloth made in the 1950's (around the same time as statehood) shows an "Alaska" that's full of natural resources.

These include gold, radium and platinum. And also whales, canned salmon, oil derricks, reoindeer herds, McKinley Park, "large herds of reindeer," crab fishing, hyrdaulic mining and -- near Fairbanks -- the midnight sun.

It was obviously a bid to show Alaska as valuable, as America committed to a big, new state, full of volcanoes and bears and mountains. Eventually, of all these things, oil became king, and the state is still largely financed by its oil finds.

Alaska's Roadhouses Have A Rough & Ready History: Looking Back With Bearfoot Travel Guides

Summit Roadhouse at the top of Thompson Pass in Alaska is now long-gone. 

Roadhouses Offered Shelter Against Alaska's Terrible Elements

Alaska's roadhouses had their origins as tents along the trail. The earliest roadhouses were replaced by shacks, and rough cabins. Some of them eventually went on to become two-story, relatively substantial buildings.
But this one at the top of Thompson Pass looks like it was made of rocks. Eventually, this roadhouse was covered over with old crates from the Alaska Commercial Company, in a desperate effort to keep out the cold and snow.

The roadhouses of the Richardson Highway were roughly 10 miles apart; a day's walking distance. The Thompson Pass section of the trail is cold, windswept, and often blanketed with a dense fog, winter and summer. 

You can see the tattered and frayed cloth around the edges of the building in this picture -- beaten by the high, glacial mountain winds. Many people traveled on the Richardson Highway trail (it was known as the Valdez-to-Fairbanks Trail back then) in the winter. This was because you could cross frozen rivers and lakes more easily. 

But, you also encountered raging blizzards and Minus 50 temperatures. Summit Roadhouse, in Thompson Pass, was in Alaska's heaviest snow country. It averages 551 inches of snow every winter -- and had almost twice that much during a record winter. To wrap your head around these numbers, Thompson Pass averages 45 FEET of snow. Not blown snow, or snow drifts, but actual snow, falling down. The Pass had a record snowfall, in the winter of 1952-53 of 81 feet of snow.

FINDING ALASKA TIP: STOP IN THE MOUNTAIN PASSES & IMAGINE BACK

As you travel around Alaska, you'll come to high mountain passes on every road: Maclaren on the Denali Highway,  Eureka Summit on the Glenn, and Thompson Pass on the Richardson... The old trails of the early 1900's were dangerous everywhere, but especially at these long and lonely summits. If blizzards and white-out conditions occurred at the summits, and travelers couldn't find the lodge, their lives were in serious jeopardy.

Bearfoot Guides Go To The Pioneer Hotel: An Old Fairbanks Roadhouse That Offered Whatever You Might Need

Turkish baths, stables, dog houses -- what else could a traveler in Alaska really need? 

Travel In Alaska A Hundred Years Ago Was By Sleigh & Dog Sled 

People sleighing to Fairbanks were happy to have a safety net when they finally managed to get there. They appreciated a "complete and up to date hotel" offering moderate prices, a 1st class cafe and bar, and those little extras: steam heated stables, dog houses, turkish baths, "plain" baths, and a sleigh corral.

The trail between Fairbanks and the port town of Valdez was long and arduous. In the winter, travelers were tucked into open, horse drawn sleighs. It took days to get there. And, along the way, the roadhouses served as havens.

Alaska is not an easy place to run a business -- even today -- and the Pioneer Hotel was proud of its ability to provide service.

Travelers often wrote in their diaries about how welcomed they felt when they finally reached a roadhouse; even one that was far humbler than the Pioneer.

This was before the days of Trip Advisor -- which encourages travelers to gripe instead of appreciate. In the days when this sign was made, and posted somewhere along the Valdez Trail,  travelers actually understood that Alaska was (and still is) far, far away from the rest of the world, in a subarctic and very different environment than the rest of the United States.

This sign is currently at the Sullivan Roadhouse, in Delta Junction, Alaska.

Explore Alaska Tip: WHAT IF YOU WERE ON THIS ROAD ON A DOG SLED?

Instead of driving around Alaska in a fully-enclosed car or RV, travelers used to go up the trails in open sledges, dog sleds or drafty Model-T's. In fact, many people just walked -- hundreds of miles -- across Alaska, from one lodge to another. It was a long and arduous trip, usually in the Alaska wintertime. The bare essentials, such as a place for the dog team to stay, out of the cold, were very much appreciated.

Bearfoot Guides Explore Alaska Athabascan Artwork: Showing An Understanding Of Esthetics In Everyday Life

Elaborate beaded baby-carrying strap made by Athabascan artisan in rural Alaska. 

Beaded Athabascan Baby Strap At Museum Of The North

This museum display of a typical Athabascan Alaskan baby strap shows a level of care, design -- and hopefulness. It's a celebration of the birth of a child in the wilderness of Alaska. You can see a similar strap in another section of Finding My Alaska,  showing articles that were made and used by Sophie Lincoln, of Copper Center Village. 


The baby strap Sophie Lincoln made is not on display in a major museum, like this one. But it's just as nice, and shows that common, everyday items throughout Alaska were often finely crafted. They were not just "for show" as "art," but were literally meant to carry a baby through the woods. On display at the University Of Alaska Museum Of The North in Fairbanks.

An Entire Life's Array Of Athabascan Slippers, Baby Belts & Mittens: A Bearfoot Report

Locally produced everyday artwork, made by Ahtna elder Sophie Lincoln
throughout the course of her long life. 

Display Of Ahtna Athabascan Beadwork From Copper Center Reveals Strong Esthetic Judgement.

Lisa Yoshimoto (it's her married name; she's actually Ahtna Athabascan) has assembled a wall full of beaded shoes, handmade mitts, and high-top boots and mukluks -- all made or used by her grandmother, Sophie Lincoln of Copper Center, Alaska. There are hair decorations, bands for carrying babies, earrings -- and a wide range of foot gear and mitts, some adorned with heavy beadwork. Others are made in a very simple manner, in the same tradition, but out of mattress covering, or whatever was available. 

When the mitts, slippers and boots served their purpose, they were placed somewhere in a corner or shed -- just like old tennis sneakers, or once-beloved baseball caps that aren't serviceable anymore. Voles and small creatures cropped the fur. You can see how authentic and heavily-used these slippers were; Sophie Lincoln's foot shape is clearly visible in the everyday wear of her artwork.

 Sophie Lincoln died in 1995 at the age of 93. With her husband, Louis Lincoln, they had eight children.There's a highly decorated baby-carrying strap that runs across the top of this display, showing that, even in the most ordinary of Ahtna households, the birth of a child was a time for rejoicing. The baby was safeguarded while traveling on the mother's back by way of a lovingly crafted functional, yet beautifully artistic, object. 

You can see a similar baby strap elsewhere on this website, on display at the University of Alaska Museum in Fairbanks. Lisa's grandmother's artwork is currently on display at Meiers Lake Roadhouse, in a back room behind the counter, between Paxson and Delta Junction, on the Richardson Highway. 

Bearfoot Guides Takes A Look At Birchbark Baskets On Display In A Small Rural Alaska Country Store

Locally made birch baskets in Chistochina, Alaska.

Alaska's Birchbark Baskets Were As Common As Plastic Containers Back In The Past -- And Served The Same Purpose As Modern Tupperware, Pans Or Pottery

In Alaska, you can find birch in the Matanuska-Susitna region, along the roads.  Lots of birch. So much birch, in fact, that there's actually a birch syrup company that sells gallons of birch syrup that rivals maple syrup. This is a relatively balmy part of the road system: "The Banana Belt," as Alaskans like to call it. 

There is also birch near Fairbanks. Up there beyond the high Alaska Range, Fairbanks and the Tanana Valley are very cold in winter, but extremely warm in the summer. 

The Mat-Su Region is Dena'ina Indian country. The Fairbanks Region is Tanana Indian country. And both have a heritage of use of birchbark for a broad range of tools, especially the canoe. But also, baskets, baby cradles, and other objects. Birch is an excellent, moldable, strong wood that is used for snowshoes and sleds, too.

In the Copper Valley, which is Ahtna Indian country, and which lies between the vast areas held by the Dena'ina and the Tanana language and cultural groups, birch is hard to come by. The Copper Valley is plagued by poor, cold, permafrost-underladen soil. It's cold in the winter. But, unlike Fairbanks, it's usually cold in the summer, too. You can find birches here. But they are few and far between. This is black spruce country, and aspen country. It's home to willow. Birch are extremely rare. They do grow here -- often on isolated hills -- but they do not grow everywhere.

Yet, birch is highly valued all over Alaska, even in the Copper Valley. These baskets are at a Copper Valley trading post in Chistochina, near the Tanana Valley entrance.

Bearfoot Looks At Denali Park: Nail-Studded Shutters On The Savage River Cabin Keep Bears Away

In Alaska, Cabin Owners Keep Bears Out By Putting  Nails On Their Shutters 

Humans don't have claws so they can fight back against bears. But this is almost as good. Sharp nails are a classic Alaskan anti-bear measure, used for many years by Alaskans who have left their cabins for awhile, and don't want a nasty surprise when they come back.

Nail-studded cabin at Savage River in Denali Park.

Bears often become habituated to humans, and search out empty cabins to ransack for food when the human occupant is gone. The nails point outward and serve as a deterrent. The Savage River Cabin is on the paved portion of the Park Road at Denali National Park. You can drive there, park in the nearby parking lot, and go in on a short trail to view the cabin. It's a "real" cabin, which was actually lived in. It was placed here as an example of Alaskan life by the National Park Service.

Bearfoot Travel Guides: An Old Bus & 50 Cans Of Urethane Foam Provided A Temporary Home While Cabin Was Built

For Many Years, When People Arrived In Alaska There Was Nowhere To Live 

It's hard to bridge those first months or years when you come to Alaska and there's no place to live. This was especially difficult in several times during the modern era: During the 1898 Gold Rush, and then again during the years of the construction of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline,  around 1975. The first oil went through in the early summer of 1977. Tens of thousands of people had already arrived along the Pipeline Corridor of Alaska, north of Valdez. Many people arrived in roadside Alaska to work on "the pipe." Still more came to provide support systems.

Alaskans had to find inventive solutions for the lack of housing.

Before the construction era, there had been perhaps 1,500 residents in the Copper River Valley, north of Valdez and south of Delta Junction and Tok. When "The Pipeline" came, the population leaped to 10,000 workers, hangers-on, and new residents.

This is an old bus that was sprayed with insulating urethane foam, and which provided living quarters in Gakona, Alaska. The spray covered everything except a window on the side, and a place at the front in the driver's seat, so he could drive the bus to its current resting place.

The need for housing in the 1970's duplicated the intense need for dwellings in the 1898 Gold Rush. Back then there were no buses, of course. And no urethane. So all of the jury-rigged solutions that gold miners came up with were tied to the land, and included tents, lean-to's and logs. This 1970's era bus is less than an eighth of a mile from the old Valdez Trail, which was used by the miners of the 1898 Gold Rush.

Isolated, Off-Road Alaska River Villages Get Their Propane By Barge: By Bearfoot Travel Guides

With No Local Utilities, Or Fuel Pipelines, Families Off The Alaska Road System Have To Rely On Boats & Fuel Tanks Full Of Propane

Propane tanks are labelled with family names and Athabascan villages along the Yukon.

It's tough living off the road in Alaska. In the Yukon River town of Ruby, for example the huge inland rivers of Alaska are the primary supply line. Only around 50 families live in Ruby, which was a thriving place in the days of the Gold Rush. Since there are no roads, fuel and propane is sent in tanks from the tiny roadside port of Nenana, south of Fairbanks. The goods are freighted to villages up and down the river, including Fort Yukon, Stevens Village, Tanana, Galena, Nulato, Kaltag, Grayling, Anvik, Holy Cross, Russian Mission, St. Mary's and Mountain Village. The last boats leave around mid-September, before ice starts jamming the rivers.

Smoking Salmon In Rural Alaska For Use In The Winter: Bearfoot Travel Guides Take A Look

Fish-drying display outdoors in Nenana.

"Dog Salmon" On Display at Nenana, Alaska 

This is a fish drying display in Nenana, Alaska. Salmon is a major source of protein along Alaskan rivers. Dried fish is a staple of Alaskan culture, and Athabascan Indians were adept at turning fish into nutritious, portable food, easily carried around in bundles. Please note -- this display is at least a decade old, and has weathered storms, dust and bad weather. Actual dried and smoked salmon are red and delicious; these fish are so old, and dust-covered, that they have not been edible for many years. They're just a display.

Bearfoot Insight Into Rural Alaska Life: Let's Lock That Door! Or Not.

Alaskans Didn't Feel The Need To Lock Their Doors, Until Very Recently

Door latch on a string.

A trap door latch.

In rural Alaska, it wasn't until recently that people even felt there was a need to lock their doors. One reason was that you knew everybody, and they knew you. Another was that you probably didn't have anything worth stealing anyway. Besides, it seemed downright rude to keep your neighbors out. They were the only people who could help you in the days (not so long ago) before helicopters were available to medically evacuate the sick.

These three door latches are all from different locations. And all equally ineffective, and only symbolic. The one with the string is from a cabin on the Richardson Highway, north of Valdez. For many years, hitchhikers, bicyclists and other wanderers just kind of ended up in that empty cabin along the road, and spent the night. They were respectfully asked to lock it up when they left, on the sign tacked to the door.

The cabin latch with the spoon was at a restaurant in Cooper Landing, south of Anchorage. And the one with the bear trap (which is disabled) is representative of a kind of comic latch that doesn't really do anything, but which seems to have sprung up in the Talkeetna area, on the Parks Highway, back in the 1970's, when Ray Genet, a McKinley mountaineer, used traps like this in a number of cabins.

Spoon lock on an Alaskan door in the Kenai Peninsula.

Alaska's Bugs, By Bearfoot Guides: The Northern Mosquito Is Ferocious

That's A Lot Of Mosquitoes!

Hundreds of mosquitoes trapped in a propane bug trap.

Mosquitoes live all over the world, but the Alaska mosquito (sometimes called "The Alaska State Bird") is fiercer than most. There are basically two mosquito seasons. The early season features big, slow-flying insects that are relatively easy to swat when they land on you. Later, as the season winds down, they give way to tiny, kamikaze-like fighter bombers that sweep in, suck your blood, and run off again before you even notice.
In the tundra areas, where there are few trees, mosquitoes are replaced by "no-seeums" or gnats, when berry picking season comes along. Gnats bite you around the edges of your clothes, like your waistband, the top of your socks, your wristband, or even the edges of the back of your ears. Gnats are even worse than mosquitoes because they leave huge, hard lumps that take days to fade away. 

A coil of Pic.

So what do you do when it's mosquito season? There's actually a very easy solution. Buy some Pic. 

Pic is available at gas stations, convenience stores, grocery stores and sporting goods stores throughout Alaska. 

 Remember when you were a kid on the 4th of July, and you set fire to sparklers?Pic®  is something like that. Pic® is very eighties. It's a coil of pressed material made of chrysanthemum. Place the coil on a metal surface or in a metal pot or on a dish (think oversized ashtray), and then set fire to it. The active ingredient of pyrethrum smokes away and the smoke kills nearby mosquitoes, who drop dead when they come near it. Needless to say, Alaskans love Pic®. 


You can use it to fumigate a trailer or tent before entering it. 

Nasturtiums Fill Up The Bed Of A Truck In Chitina

The San Jose Steel Company Truck #43 found a home in Chitina, Alaska

Flower Gardens In Alaska Are Often Placed In Unusual Locations 

Alaskans love making flower beds out of all sorts of discarded functional items: old boats, chipped porcelain toilet bowls, gold dredge buckets. And, in Chitina, an old yellow truck.

Alaska Dog Mushing Truck: He Built It One Piece At A Time: Reality Check With Bearfoot Travel Guides

Nothing Is Ever Too Far Gone For An Alaskan 

"I got it one piece at a time and it didn't cost me a dime

You'll know it's me when I come through your town
I'm gonna ride around in style, I'm gonna drive everybody wild
'Cause I'll have the only one there is around..."                                                                Johnny Cash

Dog mushing truck in the Fred Meyer parking lot in Fairbanks.

A red left fender, blue door, and yellow back panel -- along with a stovepipe exhaust pipe -- adorns a dog musher's truck in the Fred Meyer store parking lot in Fairbanks. Alaska mushers carry their athletes around in the locked boxes. The dogs' heads stick out the holes. Mushers carry straw in each box to form a nest. That's a dogsled on top of the box.

When Life Gives You Ice: Start A Sled Dog Derby Festival & Ice Carnival

Fairbanks Dog Derby & Ice Carnival Poster From 1935 at the Fairbanks Community Museum.

Alaska's Long Winters Lead To Yearly Ice Carnivals, Dog Races, River Break-Up Betting Pools, Fur Carnivals, and Reindeer Runs

There's no denying it. Winter is tough in Alaska. All that darkness and 50 below zero temperatures. It can take a toll on you, and make you wonder if summer will ever come again.

What people don't realize is that March -- when the snow still blankets the earth -- is still "winter," but a part of winter that is unbelievably wonderful.

The darkness has gone by March, and days are long and sunny. Although there's snow, in places like Fairbanks the snow is hardpacked and easy to travel over.

$15,000 Prize North American Championship

Early Fairbanks 1937 Ice Carnival Poster.

In the old days, trappers and miners used to come to town with their furs in March. They'd whoop it up, socializing and spending their money. It's a great idea. All over Alaska, even today, there are spring festivals. For example, in Nenana, there's an Ice Classic. It's a lottery, where you bet when the ice on the Tanana River will go out. In Anchorage, there's the Fur Rendezvous (or Fur Rondy). In Willow, you can watch the start of the huge Iditarod Sled Dog Race. All of these events, and many more, got their start as spring festivals.

There are also festivals in Fairbanks, even today. Fairbanks people put up huge ice carvings all over town in the winter -- something like the ice carvings you'd see on a table in a restaurant at a catered wedding in the Lower 48. But larger, and more ambitious.

These are Fairbanks Dog Derby and Ice Carnival posters, for longstanding Fairbanks events that go back at least to the 1930's. They're at the Fairbanks Community Museum, on display.

Garrett's Gas Station One-Woman Effort Funds New Homes & A School In Vietnam

Alaskans Believe In Giving Back

Angela Garrett of Anchorage, along with her husband, Nelson, run a busy gas station on Arctic Blvd. But, they also run a support program for the entire Vietnamese village which Angela came from. Garrett's is, by far, the most "Alaskan" gas station in Anchorage. Its small little office is always full of customers who come in to say hello. Recently, the pumps were upgraded. You don't have to go in, because it accepts credit cards. But that doesn't stop longtime customers. They WANT to drop by and say hello.

While there, they're asked to help support Angela's many causes. And to look at the photos on the walls. There are orphans, families with new homes, and smiling photos of hundreds of people in Vietnam who have benefitted from Angela's efforts.

She looked at all of Nelson Garrett's loyal customers, and saw a way of helping bankroll homes. With tiny donations -- and a plastic jug -- she's whittled away at bringing 18 families new houses in her village. The Garretts have also funded a school. And they work tirelessly to support a growing number of orphans.

It's an unusual gas station; both very Alaskan, and very cosmopolitan. But all heart.

Nelson and Angela Garrett run an Anchorage Tesoro gas station -- and a volunteer community renovation system.

Rural Alaska: Hauling Drinking Water From A Local Pump House – From Bearfoot Travel Magazines

Hauling water in a truck in Healy, Alaska.

For A Place With So Many Rivers, Getting Drinking Water In Alaska Is Not Easy 

Water hauling is a huge problem in rural Alaska. It doesn't matter where you live; many people don't have running water. This is true even in the city of Fairbanks, where "dry" (i.e. waterless) cabins are rented out to college students who are going to school at the nearby University of Alaska.

McCarthy, Alaska  "community drinking water" sign.

In many parts of the state along the road system, entrepreneurs set up small pump houses over their wells, and charge by the gallon, with coin-operated timers. The simplest system is to load 5-gallon jugs. This large plastic container is especially designed for hauling water. It fits into the back of a pickup, and is made so the water won't splash out when it's transported back home. On arriving home, the water is pumped back out of the container and into another container, inside the warm house.

"Coin-op" water pump in Gakona, Alaska.

Hauling water is an arduous task, often done in the middle of the night, at temperatures that can go down to 50 below zero.

Pump house in Eagle, Alaska.

Water is precious in Alaska.

Winter water hauling in Kenny Lake, Alaska. (Photo: Neil Hannan)

Water sign at Clear, Alaska lodge.

Delta Junction With Bearfoot Travel Guides: Russian Junk Food At The Local IGA

Russian juices and snack foods at the IGA.

Russians Were The First Outsiders To Come To Alaska 

Russians settled the coasts of Alaska before they sold it to America in the mid-1800's. In Delta Junction, Russian food is as common as American food. That's because a large number of newly immigrant Russians live near the Interior community in rural Alaska.

The Corn Is As High As An Elephant's Eye In Talkeetna

It's unusual to grow corn in Alaska!

Corn Is Hard To Grow In Alaska 

Alaska is a cool-weather crop kind of place, being so close to the Arctic, and all. So when the summer is warm enough to grow corn this tall, that means it's a great summer...

Travel With Bearfoot To Cooper Landing, A Native American "Supermarket"

Long Ago, People Came To the Kenai And Russian Rivers, Just As They Do Today 

Cooper Landing is where the Russian and Kenai Rivers come together. And where salmon fishing is absolutely fabulous... and, totally accessible from Alaska's road system. Only 100 miles south of Anchorage, Cooper Landing was once a large Kenaitze Indian fish camp. The Kenaitze had a name for the area. Roughly, it translates as, "The Grocery Store." This is a Native American icon, marking a spot along the river banks. 

A Native American icon marks an historic
 spot along the river in Cooper Landing.

Five Different Types Of Salmon Were Canned At The Libby Cannery: A Bearfoot Report

Salmon Processing Was A Big Industry In Alaska 

Libby, McNeill and Libby was a Chicago company that started out by producing bright red trapezoidal cans of corned beef. You opened the can on the bottom and the chunk of meat just slid right out into the skillet. The company started up in 1875, and quickly grew. In Alaska, Libby's diversified. It operated a large salmon cannery near what is now the city of Kenai, on the Kenai Peninsula.

The fish named on this board are all conveniently limited to names with no more than four letters in them, to make a tidy list. But each salmon also has a longer, completely different name. Reds are also called "Sockeye." Chums are sometimes called "Dog Salmon." Cohos are known as "Silvers." Pinks are called "Humpies." And Kings are also known as "Chinooks." It's confusing. Even to Alaskans.

Five types of salmon were canned in Kenai.

In general, the names on that board are the ones commonly used by Alaskans -- except for "Coho." Most Alaskans call a Coho salmon by it's longer name: "Silver." The Libby Cannery is now closed, although there are still a few fish canneries in Alaska, including a Peter Pan Seafood Cannery in Valdez, which produces both canned and flash frozen salmon.

In the 1970's, in the early days of mass TV marketing -- exactly a century after the national Libby company was started -- jingles were popular. There was one for Libby products that appealed to children, who took the rhyme with them to their school playgrounds: "If it says Libby's, Libby's, Libby's, on the label, label, label -- you will like it, like it, like it, on your table, table, table!"

Today, Libby, McNeill and Libby is probably best known as the company that provides America with pureed canned pumpkin for its millions of Thanksgiving Day pies. Pumpkins are a safer bet than fish.  Pumpkins can be harvested, in the fields of America, far easier than operating a distant Alaska salmon cannery 3,700 miles from home.

The historic Libby Cannery was torn down a few years ago. 

Every Spring, Hope Rises Anew For The Alaska Summer Growing Season: Looking At Alaska Life With Bearfoot

April 27th in Gakona, Alaska. 

Plants Growing Inside In April Bring Pungent Aroma Of Warm Earth 

Outside this window,  the snow is still thick on the ground in the Copper Valley of Alaska at the end of April. But indoors, carefully-tended zucchinis sprout in potting soil that was purchased at a Home Depot in Anchorage.

The smell of dirt is one of the things that Alaskans miss most during the long winter months. The Alaskan outdoors during the 8 months of winter has almost no smell -- other than hydrocarbon emissions wafting through the breeze in the larger cities. The actual terrain that makes up our world -- dirt, plants, trees, flowers, berries -- is completely covered for the entire duration of winter. In a way, it doesn't really exist until spring comes.

Smells -- especially fresh, natural smells, like trees and dirt -- require warmth. And warmth comes in June. For Alaskan gardeners, the earthy aroma that emanates from their hopeful little pots of seedlings is a sign that spring is coming, and that the underlying earth will be laid bare and burst into life once more.

Growing A Greenhouse In Alaska Is Difficult: Bearfoot Report

Water buckets near an Alaska greenhouse.

It's Hard To Get Water To Your Alaska Garden

A lot of rural Alaskans don't have a subterranean water source. Think about it. They don't live near a municipal water company, which pipes water under the ground. So they have to dig wells. If they don't have enough money to dig a well (Alaskan wells can be hundreds of feet deep) or if water is hard to find, then they have to haul water. You either haul water in jugs from a little pump house (if one of your neighbors has decided to provide one to the community) or you haul water on your pickup truck in a large plastic container especially made for the job. Or, there may be somebody living nearby, if you're lucky, who can bring water to you in a big water truck, something like a fuel truck takes gas to a gas station.

If you do have a well, the water is most likely just above freezing when it comes out of the tap, winter or summer. So you have to let it sit in a barrel or buckets outside, to let it warm up a bit before dumping it on your plants, and shocking and stunting their growth. These are water buckets to hold icy well water and let it warm up before use.

Alaska: More Coffee Shops Per Capita Than Anywhere In America

Train car in Eagle River, an Anchorage suburb, converted into an expresso stand. 

Frappaccinos, Americanos, Lattes... Skinny Lattes. You Want It, Alaska's Got It. 

Back in the "old days," when you talked about getting a cup of coffee in most of Alaska, you probably meant instant coffee, dipped with a spoon out of a jar and stirred into some warmish water, before being tempered with a dash of evaporated milk. That's what "coffee" often meant in Alaska roadhouses or lodges, even into the 1970's.

Then, somewhere along the way, Seattle exerted its influence on Alaska.  Seattle already had historic ties to the 49th state. The ships that came to the northland in the 1890's on the Alaska Gold Rush came from Seattle. In the 1930's and 1940's, Alaskan children from well-to-do families went "to the States" to go to school. And the state they were going to was often Washington State -- and the town of Seattle. 

Espresso is as much a symbol of Alaska as the Klondike Gold Rush. 

In the 1980's and even into the 1990's, before Alaska became more modern and upscale, and major chain clothing stores were available, Alaskan women who had the means often traveled at least once a year to Seattle to go on fashion-buying trips. For decades, Alaska's football team has been the Seattle Seahawks

Espresso stands are common throughout Alaska, including in Hope.

Before there were eye doctors, and cancer specialists in Alaska, many people had to go Outside -- to Seattle -- for specialized medical care. Today, when Copper River salmon come rushing into the Copper River, Seattle's fine restaurants are at the ready, waiting for the world's best fresh fish to be air lifted out to them so they can be served to  Seattle's elite.

In a strange way, Alaska has been a younger cousin of Seattle for at least a century. So it probably isn't surprising that Alaskans picked up Seattle's love of good coffee.

Seattle is the American home of espresso. There are 2.5 coffee shops per every 10,000 people in the Seattle area, serving up mochas, lattes, skinny lattes, and every other type of high-end, expensive custom coffee.

But when Alaska caught the coffee bug, Anchorage went even farther than Seattle. Anchorage is now the number 1 city in America for per capita espresso shops, with 2.8 shops per every 10,000 residents. And it's great coffee, too. That powdery instant coffee is long gone.

Although some stands in Alaska are indoors, many are outside, in small rolling coffee shacks, something like elaborate hot dog stands. They're everywhere in Anchorage.

But... Espresso Stands Are Not Just In Anchorage, But All Over The Rest Of Alaska's Road Systems, Too!

Espresso stands are located all over the rest of the road system, too. You can drive for miles on an isolated highway, and suddenly come across a tiny coffee stand with a bright neon sign blazing the words  "Open" into the night -- and a full range of every possible type of coffee choice you left at home.

There are very few things in rural Alaska that are like this. For example, you'd be hard pressed, anywhere in rural Alaska, to find a brand new pair of boxer shorts. Or a box of plain white envelopes. Or a reading lamp. But you can find freshly ground, hot espresso. And lots of it.

Another Alaska Railroad caboose, turned into an espresso
stand at Gold Hill Gas Station, on the Parks Highway
as you approach Fairbanks.