ALASKA - PART 4

ALASKA FROM NORTH TO SOUTH 

Our next excursion was to return to all the way south to Anchorage for an Alaska Airlines flight all the way north to the Top of the World:  Utquiavik (UUT-kee-AH-vik), formerly known as Barrow.  We could have taken a scheduled bush plane from closer Fairbanks, but that was a milk-run that took twice as long at four times the cost.

On boarding in Anchorage we accidentally sat on the wrong side of the aisle.  But when the rightful occupant informed us we readily acknowledge it and offered to move.  But he seemed to not want to be bothered and sat across the isle.  Our flight north flew over the Alaska Range, and although we didn't stop to see Denali from the ground we were rewarded with an excellent overhead view.  Flying into Utqiavik across the tundra and melt ponds on the permafrost in June we knew we were seeing geologic-time in our lifetime.  

Denali, the Great One, in the Alaska Range

Yukon River and Yukon Flats

In June snow is already melted and ponds, unable to drain due to permafrost

Utqiavik has just over 5000 people, the twelfth largest municipality in the state.  Most are Inupiat eskimos and subsist on hunting and fishing.  To combat addiction that the isolation, cold, and darkness can create, the village counsel limits the amount of alcohol that an individual can purchase/month at a tribal store.  For those that have had trouble with managing their intake or behavior under the influence, they cannot purchase any.  

In such a small airport the baggage area was overwhelmed with boxes and Costco-like tubs; many per passenger.  Apparently they were coming back from shopping in Anchorage.  We also suspect many tubs were work-arounds of the alcohol rules.  It was here that our innocent seat selection had impact.  While waiting for our baggage I chatted up an Inuit guide who was waiting for his guest.  The guide offered to take us to our hotel since it was the same as his client's (there's only two) - and there's limited taxi service.  When his guest arrived with his luggage he was the man who's seat we offered to vacate. He refused to engage us and made several snippy comments. I took the guide aside and said, I think it best we find other transportation.  He understood his guest type and apologized.  

We checked into Top Of The World hotel in the early evening and arranged for a tour the next day of the town and a drive out to Point Barrow, the northern most point in the US which separates the Chukchi and Beauford Seas.  After dinner we took a walk around town.  It's probably more charming in the winter when everything is white and covered with snow, and the air has that sparkling quality from any moisture freezing into mini crystals like fairy dust.  In the summer it is muddy and unkempt.  Out of necessity every property is a storage area for trucks, cars and snow-machines (not snow-mobiles!) to be used for repairing or rebuilding or inventing something needed. 

Top of the World Hotel

Nearby neighborhood.  They all look the same.

Typical yard with lots of parts need for repair or other uses.  

Buried by Snow in the winter

In the morning we met our tour guide who, it turns out, was the guide we met at the airport. And his only other guest?  the man who's seat he was now convinced we usurped.  While the day was warm, the ride was initially quite chilly, until we started having a good time with the guide while the grump sat in silence.  

Iconic whale rib arch of Utqiavik and the Arctic Ocean.  

The ice is just blown against the beach.  There's open water beyond, and far beyond that ice again

Point Barrow where the two seas meet. Beyond Arctic Ocean to the North Pole and then Russia.

We left Utqaivik for our final stop to the very south of Alaska - the Kenai Peninsula (not counting the inside passage or Aluetians Islands).  We arrived in Anchorage, rented a car and drove 2.5 hours to Seward, the departure point for Kenai Fjords N.P. tour on the east side of the peninsula.  

Turnagin Arm off Cook Inlet, and the Kenai Mountains beyond. 

Leaving Seward, AK and entering the Kenai Fjords

Pair Humpback Whales

Robin with a piece of Glacier Ice - for cocktails

Glacier Ice Cocktail

This is very cool.  The humpbacks fish together circling underwater

and blow bubbles that trap the fish in a "bubble net".  

They then surface through the center with mouths agape.  

(See center left of one open mouth out of the water.)  

The birds know when this will happen and flock there to get missed fish.

Beautiful rock formations inhabited by a variety of pelagic birds - including the colorful Puffin.

We had planned to go king salmon fishing on the Kenai river the next day so we booked a room on the west coast of the peninsula in Soldotna, Russian for soldier.  But a week before we left we were advised the salmon runs were small and the state canceled fishing early.  Instead we drove to the End of the Road in Homer and went bear watching.

Homer is a popular sea fishing port. 

Mom and a couple cubs at Lake Clark N.P. across from Homer.

Our captain was about twenty years old and his two crew were girls fifteen and eighteen.  Soon they were sharing their life in Alaska.  Both have successfully hunted bear with their father and, being my kind of dad, he said "you killed it, you pack it out".  So this petite young woman humped a 200# bear out of the woods - and then butchered it.  She showed us the photo of the dead bear across her back.  Hauling Robin across the surf to the boat ramp was nothing.   

Robin, being lighter than a bear, is carried across the surf to the boat ramp.

Our last day we crossed the peninsula and drove up Turnagin Arm again.  Along the road several cars were pulled over.  We finally got our first real sighting of a moose lazily wading through the marsh.  Majestic - if not a little concerning when he briefly walked toward us before heading into the woods.  

Finally, we see a moose.  

Next Post:  Maybe Czech Republic - in a couple months.