You're Invited

Buck and I returned home on Friday, October 3. We were really excited to be home after being on the road since May 17.  While the trip was wonderful in many ways, we are very happy to be back home with family and friends.  

We are presenting slides and videos of our travels in Canada and Alaska on Sunday evening, November 15 at Dover Baptist Church located at 1501 Polkville Road (Hwy 226 North), Shelby, NC  28150.  

You are invited to attend. Arrive around 5:30 to view a CD made by some of our caravan friends who are professional photographers. You can also survey our table filled with interesting books, photos, and maps of the trip. Our presentation will be at 5:45. Please feel free to bring family and friends interested in learning about our trip.

One very interesting event happened on our return trip in Canada. About 3:00 AM we were awakened by caravan friends telling us that the Northern Lights were lighting up the night sky.  The Northern Lights were amazing; a phenomenon that is very difficult to explain.  We will share slides of the lights at our presentation.

We hope to see you there!

Valdez, AK - Mother Nature's Playground

Valdez is Mother Nature’s Year-Round Playground.  It has a spectacular mix of tidewater glaciers, rain forests and mountains unequaled in the state of Alaska.  Valdez offers wonderful recreational opportunities throughout the year.  Wild animals, birds and nature flourish in the area.

Valdez is located on the north shore of a deep-water fjord in Prince William Sound.  It is 305 miles by road south of Anchorage.  Valdez was named in 1790 by Senor Fidalgo for the celebrated Spanish naval officer Antonia Valdez Bason.  In 1898 Valdez became a debarkation point for prospectors seeking a route to Dawson City and the Klondike gold fields.  Gold was discovered in the area and Valdez was incorporated as a City in 1901.   Tsunamis generated by the 1964 earthquake destroyed the original city, killing several residents.  Valdez was rebuilt in a more protected location about four miles from the original site.  It is the southern terminal of the Trans-Alaska oil pipeline.  Construction of the pipeline terminal and other cargo transportation facilities brought rapid growth to Valdez in the 1970’s.    

One of the greatest adventures of our stay in Valdez was a cruise on the Stan Stephens Glacier and Wildlife Cruise.  See picture below of sea lion bulls floating on the buoy in the ocean. They had no clue we were even close to them. 

Valdez is a fishing town and fishing is the main source of income.  Although Buck did not fish in Valdez, we went to a fish cannery and purchased fresh-catch cod and salmon.  We froze the fish in our motor-home freezer and hope to enjoy it with our family when we return home.

This is the time for the salmon run. Adult salmon spend several years in the ocean before returning upstream to the location of their birth.  The salmon  hatchery at Valdez is normally where the salmon were born, so we’ve seen them jumping in the ocean on their return to the hatchery; we’ve seen them at the hatchery trying to mate so that their intended purpose can be accomplished;  and we’ve seen their predators enjoying a wonderful meal on salmon as they’ve tried to accomplish their goal.  Predators include fishermen, sea otters, bears, eagles, wolves and foxes.  Wow!  It’s amazing that at least some of the salmon make it back to the hatchery!  Below is a picture of a post card showing you the salmon. They really were that plentiful

Valdez has beautiful waterfalls. We captured two of them as we traveled the mountainous road into Valdez.  Below are pictures of the Horse Tail and Bridal Veil waterfalls.

Valdez was the last sea-port town in Alaska that we visited.  As we left, we retraced our drive and headed to Tok, the last Alaska town to visit.  We were there only one night and enjoyed a caravan dinner at the one-and-only local restaurant.  After Tok, we will enter the Yukon Territory in Canada again on our way to Smithers, British Columbia (CA) where our caravan members will scatter and go on our own ways.

Alaska, the last frontier, was an exciting place to visit.  The scenery and wildlife made it so. We are so grateful for the opportunity.

US Flag flying above the Stan Stephens Glacier and Wildlife Cruise ship

  

Anchorage, AK Population approximately 400,000

Anchorage, Alaska's largest city, is embraced by the Chugach Mountains and the waters of Cook Inlet.  It’s a place where young spirits and adventurous souls come to play.  One can step foot on a glacier, fish for king salmon, hike to a mountain vista, fly out to Mount McKinley, and still enjoy big city life. Above is a beautiful scene along the Seward Highway on our way to Anchorage.

On the Seward Highway is the Alyeska Resort and tram.  The tram is a seven-minute ride to a viewing deck with breathtaking panoramic views of mountains, hanging glaciers and wildlife. We rode the tram and enjoyed the beautiful views.  See pictures below:

Along the highway was a business featuring chainsaw carvings. We stopped and I found a friend.  We bought this little guy and named him Happy.  Take a look: 

Happy

The Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center is also located off the Seward Highway to Anchorage.  The center provides spacious enclosures and also quality care for injured and orphaned animals in its 200-acre park.  When injuries heal for adult animals, they are placed back into the wild.  However, if an orphaned animal is brought in due to the death of the mother, the orphan will remain at the center for life. Not having learned the survival skills normally taught by the mother, the orphans would not be able to survive in the wild.

We visited the Alaska Native Heritage Center where native Indian culture abounds.  The center is a premier cultural center which shares the rich heritage of Alaska’s eleven major cultural groups.  There, we were introduced to Native traditions and were allowed to participate firsthand in authentic native song and dance.  We interacted with the artists while they worked on their wares. 

Totem Poles have special meaning
 to the natives Indians

I bought a pair of earrings
 from this Indian lady.

An explanation
of the totem pole above.

                                                                                                                                                

As we toured the grounds of the heritage center, we noticed the fire weed plants.  They’ve lost all their blooms except for the top of the plant.  This is a sign to the community that the short summer everyone has enjoyed is about to end and that colder seasons are approaching.

Seward, AK - An All American City

Saturday, August 1 we traveled to Seward, AK for a four-night stay.  Seward is a small coastal town 127 miles south of Anchorage.  It is one of Alaska’s oldest and most scenic communities.  The population of 2,700 people lives in a beautiful area surrounded by mountain slopes, glaciers, and beautiful seas.

Tourism, shipping, and fishing are the mainstay of Seward’s economy.  Many outdoor activities are enjoyed here including boating, kayaking, fishing, and canoeing.  Seward was voted an All American City in 1963, 1965, and 2005.  

Our SMART caravan spent a whole day on a catamaran in the Kenai Fjords.  We saw sea life as shown in the pictures below:

A sea otter playing in the ocean

Orcas are the largest members of the dolphin family.

Steller Sea Lion sunning on the rocks on the shore.

Our ultimate destination on the catamaran tour of the Kenai Fjords was the Northwestern Glacier, a massive collection of ice fields on mountain ranges and slopes.  As we neared the glacier, we passed by chucks of ice that had fallen from the glacier in the warmth of the days prior to our visit.  We hoped to see that happen on the day of our visit.  I was able to capture some of that action in the picture below. 

Look at the two sections on the left. 

The process is called calving, and is also known as glacier calving or iceberg calving.  It is the breaking off of chunks of ice at the edge of a glacier. It is a form of ice ablation.  I had never heard the term before. 

The Northwestern Glacier was certainly a sight to behold. 

Homer - the Halibut Fishing Capital of Alaska

 Homer is at the “End of the Road.” It’s 225 miles south of Anchorage on the Sterling Highway and on the shores of Kachemak Bay.  It is surrounded by glaciers and mountains and is used as a base for fishing, kayaking, bear viewing, and hiking by Alaskans and visitors. 

Homer was named for Homer Pennock, a gold miner who established the first development on the Homer Spit in 1896.  It is a thriving community of approximately 5,400 residents.  Across the Kachemak Bay, the rugged Kenai Mountains surround Homer and the bay.  Soaring snow capped peaks overlook massive glaciers.  Along the coastline, the steep mountain valleys form narrow fjords.  (A fjord is a long, narrow inlet with steep sides or cliffs, created by glacial erosion.)  Homer is one of the few places in the world, where several glaciers and active volcanoes can be viewed at once.

Find the sea gull in the picture?

Homer has the distinction of having the second longest “Spit” in the world.  The Spit is a natural geological phenomenon formed from an accumulation of rock and soil from previous glaciers. Homer’s Spit juts 5 miles out into the bay. 

The Homer Port and harbor is where vessels of all shapes, sizes, and uses can be seen.  The “Time Bandit,” made famous on the TV show, “The Deadliest Catch, “calls this harbor home and can be seen whenever it is in port. 

This is the fishing boat for the chartered fishing trip.  She is called "Sandy."

The guys enjoying their catch

Buck and some of the guys and gals signed up for a chartered halibut fishing trip.  The limit was two halibut each.   He enjoyed the trip and did not get sea sick.  We had the halibut fileted and sent home in a freeze-packed shipping box.  It was delivered to our address on Tuesday, 4 days after the catch. When we return home, our family will have a great halibut meal together.

Our campground was on the beach at Homer.  An eagle family nested nearby.  Buck shot a picture of the eagle guarding the nest. 

We enjoyed an evening meal in downtown Homer with caravan friends.  Also, a caravan get-together for an Italian dinner was held at the group canopy at the campground. Everyone enjoyed the fellowship.

After three nights at Homer, we’re set to leave for Seward, another seaport town.  

Denali National Park Part 3 of 3

This is the last part of the Denali National Park blogs. Our activities

Our caravan enjoyed a dinner theater the first night in  Denali.  The rib dinner was served country-style.  Servers performed the show after the meal.  A combination of music, comedy and drama made for a great entertainment.  It was a relaxing activity after a long day’s ride.

Entry to Husky Homestead

 The next day we all jumped on a bus for a Husky Homestead tour.  Jeff King is the owner of the Husky Homestead and is a Musher.  A Musher is someone who guides the team of sled dogs over the snow.  Jeff owns a team of sled dogs and is recognized as the “Winningest Musher in the World.” His victories include not only the 1,049 mile Iditarod Sled Dog Race in 1993, 1996, 1998, and 2006, but also over two dozen first place finishes in races all across Alaska.  Jeff gave a presentation to our group about the dogs and a demonstration of how the dog team works. Below are some pictures taken at the homestead.

There's no snow, so they use a four-wheeler
for demonstration..

Jeff King giving a presentation.

The next day Buck and I joined some of our caravan for a jeep ride. The jeeps hold four people and each person supposedly gets to drive ¼ of the time if they choose.  We were the odd men out, so we rode with the owner who served as the tail-gunner.  The trip was very interesting.  We crossed big mud puddles, went through narrow passages and enjoyed a meal prepared by a wilderness cook.  The cook has a camp where he stays 6 days a week and his only job is to prepare 3 meals per day for the jeep tours that come by. He loves his job.  He is a recent graduate of a university in Philadelphia and just needed to get some fresh air, he said. You can see him making sourdough bread which he served with the stew for lunch.

Christopher McCandless was also tired of the busy and frustrating role as a college student, so after graduation from Emory University in the eastern part of the US, he, too, left and came to Alaska to get the fresh air.  He had no experience in the wild and did not prepare himself for the journey on which he was about to embark.   He just wondered around for several months and ended up on Stampede Road (the road that Buck and I took for the jeep ride.)  By this time it was winter and he crossed a river that was completely covered with ice.  He didn’t know the area or have a map, so he was unaware that he had crossed it.  He found an old abandoned bus and made that his home.  When Spring came, the ice melted on the river and that presented a new problem for him.  He could not get back across the river.  He didn’t know where he was and he had very little to eat.  He found berries, probably red ones, and ate those.  Unfortunately the red berries made him sick and he began to lose weight.  When hunters found him dead in the bus, he weighed only 60 pounds.  It was estimated that he had been dead for around two weeks. 

The story of this young man is captured in Jon Krakauer’s book Into the Wild. Buck has this book.  Our son, Jason, gave it to him for Christmas several years ago.  A movie has also been made of this experience.   Below is a picture of the bus that was used in the movie.  Also, there’s a picture of an article in the “49^th “State Journal.”

Just in case you can’t read the last sentence on the picture above, I’ve written it here.  “I have had a happy life and thank the Lord.  Goodbye and may God bless all."   

 Chris McCandless Journal from Alaska.

Denali National Park - Part 2

The Denali National Park and Preserve represent the unique flavor of Alaska.  From a low spot within the park of 200 feet, the mountain rises to 20,320 feet in one grand vertical sweep.  Not only is it the highest mountain in North America, Mount McKinley is considered to be the most spectacular rise of any single mountain on earth.

The mountain was first called Denali, the “High One,” by the Indian Nation many years ago.  In 1897 the mountain was named Mount McKinley for President William McKinley.  The park was called McKinley National Park until 1980 when the name was changed to Denali National Park.  At that time, the park was tripled in size to six million acres.

Denali National Park is accessible by the Parks Highway or the Alaska Railroad from either Anchorage or Fairbanks.  In summer a number of private bus and van services operate daily from these cities.  We took a shuttle bus tour of the park.  One could get off or on a shuttle as desired.  People would get off to hike up a trail and then take the next shuttle. 

Don’t be fooled by the word “Highway.”  Sure, it was a paved road for maybe ½ mile.  Then the road changed to dirt, and then the road narrowed to about 1½ lanes and it was two-way traffic. Buck and my seat was right behind the driver.  The picture on the left shows the section of the road (small horizontal line in the middle of the picture) that we would be driving on in the next picture. 

While it was a warm day for our visit to the park, Denali’s weather changes without waning.  The annual range of temperatures is extreme, from -54 degrees F to +91 degrees F.  Average high for July is 66 degrees. Snowfalls are not unusual in any month.  In the land of the midnight sun, on June 21 there are 20 hours and 49 minutes of daylight.  But on December 21, there are only 6 hours and 4 minutes of daylight.   Check out the beauty of the day in the picture below.

Vegetation in the park is determined by the strength of the forces of cold air, permafrost, brief summers, and mountainous topography. At lower elevations, evergreens are plentiful and the ground is covered with small shrubs.

 As we climbed in elevation on our journey, we noticed that fewer evergreens were present, and eventually near the top, no trees were present at all.  Just the tundra – small hedges, shrubs, bushes, and mosses. 

The animal pictures you saw on Part 1 of the Denali blog were taken at various elevations.  The elevation determines the vegetation and the vegetation determines where certain animals will live in the park. 

     

Four visitor centers serve Denali National Park.  The center most far from the entrance is the Eielson Visitor Center.  This is where Buck and I are posing in the picture below. 

Denali National Park -Part 1

Before I begin the Denali Blog I want to make a correction from the Fairbanks Blog.  The Ambassador Bible College was the school the missionary attended in Lattimore.  I don’t think there is an American Bible College, at least not in Lattimore, NC.  (My proof reader noticed the error and I thought he had corrected it before I sent the blog, but obviously, he had not.  He won’t make that mistake again!!)

I’ve divided the Denali National Park Blog into three parts.  There’s so much to tell and show you that one blog would have been too long.  I’ll begin with the one everyone wants to see:  the animals. 

First, let me explain – the animals rule here. They have the right of way on the road (there’s only one road in the park – it’s a dirt road). Vehicles must stop and wait for the animal to move to the side of the road.  At one point in the park, tour buses are the only vehicles allowed to continue on the road. Thus, more animals are visible and active.

Many animals live in the national park:  grizzly bears, Dall sheep, caribou, moose, ground squirrels, wolves, willow ptarmigans, lynx (the only cat native to Alaska) short-tailed weasel, beavers, porcupines, pika, marmot, red fox, red squirrel, and birds – the artic tern, golden eagles, red-throated loon, and falcons.  

Below are actual photos that we took with our camera, either in the park or on the side of the main highway going to the national park. We were thrilled to see so many animals in their natural habitat.

Young male moose on side of the main highway into park.

This moose will lose his antlers each year and grow stronger and larger ones as the years progress.

Our tour bus stopped to watch this grizzley bear enjoy berries near the road.  He proceeded to climb onto the road, walk beside our bus, and even put his nose on the bus door.  He must not have liked what he saw, because he moved on to the front of our tour bus and turned to pose.  He's an unusual color, probably shedding some winter coat for the summer fur.  

The Dall Sheep live in the highest mountain ranges where predators cannot climb.  Rams are distinguished by their massive curling horns. Ewes have shorter, more slender, slightly curved horns. Rams resemble ewes in appearance until they are about 3 years old. After that, continued horn growth makes males easily recognizable. As rams mature, their horns form a circle when seen from the side. Ram horns reach half a circle in about two or three years, three-quarters of a circle in four to five years, and a full circle or "curl" in seven to eight years. In most cases, hunters are restricted to taking only full-curl rams. 

These young Dall sheep graze free of threat of predators.

We discovered a family of willow ptarmigans as we returned from the summit in the park.  The "chicken" is the Alaska State Bird. Remember the little town named, "Chicken."  

An older male caribou.
Like the moose, the caribou lose their antlers
and grow new ones each year.

The bus ride was a real treat.  The driver said she had never seen so many animals in one excursion.  Guess we brought her luck.

The next part of the Denali blog will be the scenery.