First week in Coldfoot, Alaska (Report 1)

Preamble:

Meadow and I got off to a good start from Seattle but the engine developed a few loose parts and was no longer safe to drive by the middle of BC at Fraser Lake.   I was angry at myself for my own culpability, i.e., not checking the oil (What was I thinking!!!).  We spent five days in Fraser Lake, most of it in an agony of indecision:  try to fix the old car?  fly to Alaska?  buy a Windstar van?  bus a hundred miles into Prince George and buy a car there? I ended up I buying a used Subaru from someone who replaced the good tires and battery while I went to the bank.  Of course, I had no proof as I hadn’t noted the brand of tires or taken any pictures before leaving.  Otherwise trip up Stuart-Cassiar and Alaska Highway was pretty uneventful except for grizzly, caribou and bird sightings.  Meadow is settled into her job at Princess.

May 16,  The Arctic Interagency gang and I left Fairbanks and convoyed up to Coldfoot, stopping at the trophy signs of Dalton Highway and Arctic Circle.  We walked out on the still frozen Yukon River and froze ourselves in the wind and snow at Finger Mountain.  The Hot Spot hadn’t opened for the season so Dotty quickly and graciously made a fire and presented us with hot sausage sandwiches at her place at 5/7 mile where she will spend the summer alone, manning the Yukon River Station.  I rather wish I were her because I’m still feeling shy around these people.  I have to battle my tongue to keep from talking too much.  This is, of course, no surprise to any of you.  The people I am with are all smarter than I am and so much more knowledgeable about everything.  I want to be known and accepted, a process that will take all summer but makes me miss all my friends here and now.

May 17.   This day after training I walked from the Arctic Interagency Visitors Center to our cabin at Marion Camp where Annie and I share the Fish and Wildlife Kanuti cabin.  Without dawdling or taking photos I can make it home in one and a half hours.  On the way I saw my first Lapland Larkspur, a group of who kept just ahead of me on the road, eating seeds next to the road where the snow had thawed, and working their way north to the tundra for breeding season.  Lots of birds have been stuck further south, waiting for the snow to melt.  The grizzlies are hungry because there is no food for them with all the snow.  It’s a hard time all around for most of the animals and birds.  Their four months of non-snow has been shrunk this year by a good month.

May 18^th. We woke to 12 degree weather and no heat or electicity.  Through necessity I now know five times more about inverters and generators.   At training today  we learned about interpretation vs. environmental education.  Interpretation is a means of using our knowledge but adding an emotional/intellectual tie that pulls our awareness to the intangible values we have regarding natural processes.  After work I biked up the Dalton (one truck in seven miles) and joined the others at a potluck at the Castle, the NPS cabin which has hot and cold running water and indoor toilets.

May 19^th, 8 degrees at 7:30.  Today at the AIVC I worked on my orientation talk on caribou headgear, attempting to add an emotional, intangible (values) component to what  I have given before as  mostly an outdoor education lecture.  We also learned about powerpoint do’s and don’t’s and brainstormed ways to deal with various problems in our audiences, e.g., kids, know-it-alls, etc.  We walked to the pipeline and the DOT site and the airport and saw the dry cabins sin electricity where Craig and James live.  The hardest, craziest, most fun of the day was our Rock Star presentations in which we surveyed the rock display in front of the AIVC, choose a rock, and added some of its characteristics to a popular ‘rock’ song.  Dotty and I were the Granite Grannies and we mangled Simon and Garfunkel’s “I Am a Rock, I Am Red Chert” in our song ‘Kanayuk Conglomerate’.  Also, this evening we were again without heat so Karen showed us how to switch out our propane tanks.

May 20^th.  We were supposed to drive up to Galbraith Lake and Toolik Research Station on the tundra but Atigan Pass was snowed in so we will go in August.  Instead, Jack Reakoff, long time resident of Wiseman and new father, gave us a historical tour of Wiseman, a mining town about thirteen miles up from Coldfoot.  The Wiseman River had just gone out at 8 in that morning.  The snow around the cabins was quickly turning to mud.  What I feel most when I hear the stories of the people who live here year round is the question, “Could I do it, too?”   Am I strong enough to survive, tough it out and enjoy it??  Only seventy five plus miles north of the Arctic Circle, Wiseman does get a fair amount of ‘civil twilight”.  Cross country skiing and snowmachines would be a fun way to get around if I could stand the cold and dark.  If I only had ten to thirteen neighbors, how friendly would I be?

 

May 21^st.  Warmer weather with much mud.  We drove in a two truck, seven-person convoy up to Atigan Pass where the road crests the Brooks Range.  We stood on frozen mounds called pulsas, oo-awed as a group over Sukapak Mountain, competed in First Person, i.e., first person to see an animal over 100 pounds, first person to see a mosquito, first person to find a wildflower (ha-ha).  We saw two golden eagles, three bear hunters, a Christmas tree inside an outhouse (guess!), the last spruce tree between here and the North Pole, eight caribou, a Northern pintail duck, and, to everyone’s surprise and pleasure, a lone grizzly on top of the Pass.

 

May 22^nd.  It must have gotten into the 60s today.  Marion Creek is running and the ditches are all full.  This is the first day I rode the 5 ½ miles to work from the Marion Creek complex of BLM, NPS and Fish & Wildlife cabins.  We tidied up the store, adding price labels.  Ted saw two moose around the campground.  Annie and I found the two geocaches over by Coldfoot Camp.  We both spent a relaxing evening doing little besides, uh, relaxing.  I’m starting to draw again, play my guitar and am reading a Nevada Barr novel set in Big Bend National Park.  After spending a great part of the day learning little gadgets like label and price makers and being frustrated by the inability to get on the DAR or Internet with my BLM computer and being frustrated by the FAX machine,  I found hanging up my laundry on our screened in porch was the most I could handle.