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Sunday, June 01, 2003
In Deep in the Great Land
By Stephen Gorman
Published by The World & I magazine, June 2003 as ''Alaska for Beginners''
PRINCE WILLIAM SOUND
I stop paddling and the kayak glides across the silky smooth surface of the fjord. Reaching down into the water with outstretched hands, I feel the cold black ocean rush between my fingers until the little vessel loses momentum and gradually slides to a halt. Just then, only a few yards away off to my left, a seal pops to the surface and stares at me, looking for all the world like a big black Labrador retriever. The seal swims to-and-fro for a minute, trying to figure me out, and then vanishes.
Leaning against the backrest, I stretch my shoulder muscles and look up and around at the bright ring of snow-capped mountains chiseling the flawless blue sky. One of the peaks blocks the morning sunlight, tossing a long dark shadow across Jackpot Bay, in the glacier-carved heart of Prince William Sound, Alaska.
Paddling forward again, I break out from the shadow of the mountain and enter a vast pool of dazzling light. Half a mile off to my right, a veterinarian from Long Island paddles towards a little island where she hopes to photograph a bald eagle sitting in the top of a tall tree. Half a mile to my left, an electrical engineer from California and his wife, a homemaker, stroke their tandem kayak towards a meadow of lush wildflowers.
''...we are here for a personal introduction to Alaska, The Great Land, a place thousands travel to every year but a place few come to know intimately.''
Back where I launched a woman with an impish grin, a self-described Cheese Head (a Green Bay Packers fan) who works at the natural history museum of Milwaukee, sits in a comfortable folding chair on the stern deck of our little vessel, the Babkin, where she contentedly jigs for halibut while sipping on a breakfast beer. Fishing for halibut is something shed always wanted to try, she had told me as I got in my kayak, but shed had no idea shed have the chance to on this trip.
Atop the flying bridge, her blonde hair cascading down to her shoulders, is our captain, Alexandra von Wichman. When she sees me looking back over my shoulder she waves and flashes a mega-watt smile that brightens my morning from two hundred yards away.
Pointing the bow towards the mouth of a stream rushing out of the forest, I cruise over to where the little river tumbles over a waterfall and splashes into the sea. As I paddle, the bottom gradually reaches up for my kayaks hull, and suddenly I can see dozens, perhaps hundreds, of long oval shapes hanging suspended beneath the surface.
These pink and silver salmon are staging at the base of the falls, waiting for the tide to rise and carry them over the cascade blocking their way to the spawning grounds upstream. While some are still full of vitality, others lay dead or dying on the shore or strewn drifting along the bottom. Some, still alive but with their life-cycle complete, fin feebly through the shallows, literally decomposing before my eyes in the swirls of gentle current.
The shadow of my kayak passes over squadrons of fish still among the quick, and these dart away in panic. Not wishing to interfere with their long and ultimately fatal journey, I nestle the boat into a little eddy up against the shore where I can watch the fish without adding to their stress. Eventually the other kayakers paddle over and join me. We exchange a few words about the fish, the eagle, and the seal, then watch as the salmon try to hurl themselves up the silvery ribbons of water.
I notice that we are no longer alone with the fish. Not thirty yards away a big black bear has silently, magically, appeared from the forest. Focusing on the fish, he ambles into the stream and scoops a salmon from the water, strips the rich meat from the bone, and then scoops another. Fortunately, the gentle breeze is wafting from the direction of the bear. And since we remain perfectly quiet and still, he never sees us.
Eventually the bear tires of the game or eats his fill, for he vanishes back into the spruce and hemlock. When he is gone, we kayakers share smiles and a few words of appreciation for the unexpected visit.
We were unknown to one another until yesterday, strangers thrown together on a twelve day Alaskan journey, but through these interactions with this extraordinary place, we feel the bonds of shared experience. And as I look at their rapt faces, I know that we are all somewhat stunned by this wild country. The land has knocked us a-kilter, clear out of our tracks. Its as if Alaska has snapped on the bright lights inside each of us.
IN DEEP
There are ten of us, counting our two boat crew members, Alexandra von Wichman and Linda Bassett, and our congenial and accommodating guide, Todd Smith of Wildland Adventures, a travel company based in Seattle. We come from California and New York, Wisconsin and Vermont. We are in our thirties, forties, fifties, and sixties; and we are here for a personal introduction to Alaska, The Great Land, a place thousands travel to every year but a place few come to know intimately. For many who make the journey north, the Alaska they have traveled so far to experience remains tantalizingly out of reach.
Alaska is huge nearly twice the size of Texas but it has a diminutive road system (one of the main reasons why it is still so wild and so spectacular), which makes getting around difficult for those who either dont have the skills to travel the wilderness on their own, or who dont have access to a small boat, small airplane, or some other form of conveyance into the more remote reaches. Consequently, most visitors sign on with a major tour company for their once-in-a-lifetime Alaskan experience. Many of these tours offer every luxury and convenience, but the tradeoff is experiencing Alaska from a distance through the windows of cruise ships, buses, and trains.
On large Alaskan tours each programmed activity is filtered through and interpreted by the tour guide, who efficiently (and necessarily, given the compressed tourist season and the sheer volume of summer travelers) ushers the guests from one extravagant viewpoint to another before cheerfully escorting them to the airport for the flight home.
Its a sad fact that most large tour companies simply cannot offer opportunities for self-directed, personal explorations and discoveries. Its a numbers game for them, and for guests caught up in the game there is almost no chance for spontaneity, for making any meaningful connections with the landscape and its inhabitants. Unfortunately for those who dont fit the tour operator guest profile, Alaska can be a big disappointment a dream of freedom and adventure in a primeval wilderness reduced to a giant theme park experience.
Here, we have access to several small boats from the 58 foot Babkin, to the Zodiac inflatable motor launch, to the sea kayaks. We will have access to mountain bikes, horses, and bush planes. Our guide, Todd, is more facilitator than leader, providing us with a rich palette of options for personal discovery and self-directed adventure. Yes, we have a schedule of sorts, but it is as loose and as flexible as possible.
This is the plan: well explore Prince William Sound for five days while based aboard a small 58-foot-long research vessel; spend a couple of days in downtown Anchorage based at a cozy bed-and breakfast overlooking Cook Inlet; and then well travel to Denali National Park, where well stay at a Native-owned rustic lodge deep in the parks backcountry. Finally, well end the trip flying by bush plane past Mount McKinley and the Alaska Range back to Anchorage.
Whatever we actually see and do in each location will be essentially up to us --both individually and as a group. The only thing Todd guarantees is the chance to immerse ourselves as deeply in Alaska as we wish. Every day I wake up and wonder, whats going to happen next?
Right now this doesnt feel like a tour at all. Each day on the water we see and do things that astonish us. One afternoon we simply choose to drift in bright sunshine for a couple of hours and watch as dozens of killer whales from several distinct pods, or groups, congregate in a broad passage beneath the jagged snowy mountains to socialize and mate.
On another evening we decide to linger while a solitary killer whale patrols the mile-long front of Chenega Glacier, hunting the seals lying atop the white flows at the ice edge. One day we decide to stretch our land-legs and hike inland through the dark forest, up to the rapid headwaters of a clear stream where we catch a couple of ten-pound silver salmon. We unanimously change the planned dinner menu and instead grill the fish on the back deck of the Babkin. And then, on the spur-of-the-moment, we get into the kayaks after dinner for a moonlight paddle into a hidden bay.
Puffins, bald eagles, sea otters and sea lions are our constant companions. At literally every anchorage bears prowl the tide flats and stream mouths. Often, while relaxing on the top deck, we see and hear the explosive vapory exhalations of humpback whales. Wherever we look, wherever we cruise, paddle, or hike, something is there, something is happening.
ANCHORAGE
Too soon, our days on Prince William Sound are over. When we arrive in Anchorage we check in to the little Copper Whale Inn, a downtown bed-and-breakfast overlooking the slate waters of Cook Inlet.
Though it seems Anchorage has always been the gateway to the Alaskan bush, this quirky boomtown of some 260,000 sprang from the wilderness within living memory. In 1915 the site was picked as construction headquarters for the Alaska Railroad, and a tent village sprang up on the bank of Ship Creek to house the throngs headed north to adventure. The tents gave way to frame buildings and wooden sidewalks, then to gimcrack storefronts, highways, and parking lots.
It was a shockingly rapid transition from wilderness outpost to Los Anchorage, as local wags refer to their hometown. But unlike most American cities, here the sprawl spewed from a downtown that never filled in before it started spreading into outlying tracts. Consequently, large portions of downtown and midtown are still forested.
This strange metamorphosis gives the city a pleasingly eccentric, offbeat character. And there is a certain populist satisfaction in seeing the monumental towers of the multi-national oil companies gently mocked by the fireweed tundra in the vacant lots below. Anchorage has never been conquered by concrete and glass high-rises why go up when you can go out? -- and even in the heart of the city doughty pioneer log cabins stand in stark contrast to modern apartment buildings nearby. Aging homesteaders still live on plots they hacked from the wilderness that is now the heart of town. The city is a quacky mosaic of avenues and commercial and residential buildings interspersed with parks, ponds, trails, forests and streams.
But what is most striking to me about Anchorage is neither its graceless sprawl, nor its truly odd settlement pattern, nor its egalitarian sourdough soul. What is most striking about this town is the setting, which might be the envy of any city in the world, for when early in the morning the clouds lift, they expose a range of stunning glaciated mountains that Switzerland would surely covet. All across the eastern horizon, the Chugach Range glows in the soft early morning light. The peaks loom tall and handsome. They dominate the landscape, dwarfing the suddenly insignificant burgh lapping at their feet.
Beyond the last homes tacked to the hillsides is a vast wilderness right at the citys doorstep. 500,000 acre Chugach State Park is a wilderness where wolf packs and grizzly bears thrive and that offers matchless outdoor recreation within minutes of downtown. Just beyond Chugach State Park is the sprawling Chugach National Forest, with its awesome collection of snowy spires and glaciers. At nearly 6 million acres, the Chugach National Forest is roughly the size of New Hampshire.
To enjoy the Alaskan outdoors you need not leave the city at all. More than 120 miles of trails criss-cross the downtown and outlying areas. After breakfast I saddle up one of the inns bicycles and access the Tony Knowles Coastal Trail, heading south along the paved path right by the waters edge. The trail, named after the recent Governor, begins right in downtown and goes for about ten miles to Kincaid Park. Along the way it skirts the shoreline of Cook Inlet before plunging into quiet woodlands.
I stop pedaling at Earthquake Park, a memorial to the 1964 quake that rocked the city with the most powerful tremor ever felt in North America, a whopping 9.2 on the Richter scale. Continuing on, I look back across the water at the gleaming Anchorage skyline. And then I look west across Cook Inlet where spruce muskeg flats reach towards the snowy Tordrillo Mountains rising above a roadless wilderness bigger than Montana.
Passing some dozen moose cows and calves browsing on the lush greenery alongside the trail, I ride all the way to Kincaid Park --a 1,500 acre preserve of mature rolling woodlands and coastal bluffs featuring dozens of miles of hiking and cross-country ski trails. And there I reluctantly turn around and head back to the inn. Its apparent I can ride all day through the Anchorage basin if I wish to, but there is much more to do in Anchorage, and so I roll back the way I had come.
DENALI
Early the next morning we head out on the Parks Highway to the Kantishna Hills in Denali National Park. The little settlement of Kantishna was founded as a gold mining camp in the early 1900s near the juncture of Eureka and Moose Creeks. Some 2,000 prospectors streamed here into the heart of the Alaska Range hoping to make it rich. The miners built saloons and gambling halls and established a small but vibrant community. And though some struck gold, most did not, and within a few years only about 50 Sourdoughs remained. Today, Kantishna is entirely within Denali National Park and Preserve --six million acres of forests, mountains, lakes, and tundra watched over by North Americas highest peak, 20,320 foot Mount McKinley.
Our base camp is the Kantishna Roadhouse, a traditional rustic log lodge and guest cabins owned by an Athabaskan Indian concern. The lodge sits above the banks of Moose Creek quite near the original Kantishna village site. Several old cabins and other buildings from the gold rush era are scattered throughout the forest nearby, while mining trails lead up into the surrounding hills.
One sparkling morning Todd Smith and I pack a lunch and head up those rough trails on mountain bikes. The path we choose is steep, leading high onto a ridge before cresting a pass and descending into a valley on the other side. We ride by old mine shafts, tailing piles, and weathered abandoned buildings dating back to the gold rush era. When we stop for lunch we sit in the cranberry tundra in the sunshine and watch a giant bear eating berries on the open slope across the valley.
In the afternoon some of the guests take a hike with Molissa, a young Athabaskan woman who works at the lodge, while others go horseback riding, fishing, or gold panning (there is still some color in the creeks). I choose to ride my mountain bike on the park road to Wonder Lake. The view from the lake is completely unobstructed, and as I top the last rise the mountain soars into view. McKinley dominates the entire southern horizon its a giant white wall erupting from the tundra, rising higher from base-to-summit than any other mountain on earth, including Mount Everest.
A couple of days later we ride the private Kantishna Lodge bus (to protect the resources, private cars are restricted within the park) back to the park entrance. As we leave Kantishna and approach Wonder Lake, the sun rises, the clouds dissipate, and the mountain gleams like polished gold in the light of dawn. Incredibly, for the mountain is only occasionally visible, the air is so clear and dry we can see every crevasse and fissure on the mountain from more than twenty miles away.
The little dirt road (the only road in the park) hugs the north side of the Alaska Range for most of its 90 mile length, but we quickly learn that the mountain isnt the only thing to watch. Often when we look down from the summits we see mountain sheep, caribou, and grizzly bears. Early in the afternoon, the bus drops us at the airstrip in the village of Healy a few miles beyond the park entrance.
FLIGHT
We divide into two groups, and I find myself in the front seat of a little Cessna bush plane no bigger than a Volkswagen. The aircraft leaps into the air, teeters and totters like a kite on a string, climbs through some bouncy mountain turbulence, and then the pilot levels off. Soon we are flying directly over incisor peaks and ridges cut by massive glaciers pouring down from the heights of the Alaska Range, and Mount McKinley fills my entire window.
Just as with the Babkin, as with the Copper Whale Inn and the Kantishna Roadhouse, the tiny bush plane offers a close and intimate personal approach to some of Alaskas most magnificent landscapes. And that afternoon, back in Anchorage as we settle in to our comfortable rooms at the Copper Whale for our final night, I think about how our small group strangers no more-- has traveled literally from sea level to the tops of the highest mountains in North America. And we did it our own way --with a little help from all our new friends.
