The Gol-Darn Bloody Skeeters are Freaking Me Out! (Report 5)





Sukakpak from the NW with wild sweet pea blooming in foreground.

Are the mosquitos driving me out of my mind?  

Geared up to hike in 80 degree weather in the Arctic

No, not really.  Okay, maybe.  Yes, really!!!!!  This is requiring all I’ve learned in a lifetime of practice: focus, positive thinking, self-distraction.  

DEET really does work.  No longer worried about bearing mutant children, I lather up with the repellant.  Unfortunately, I’m still a mouth-breather so I inhale the little buggers as I bike and hike.  They also get up my nose.   The ones I hate the most are the five or six that fly into the safety zone of my cabin on my shirt tails when I come inside.  In the middle of the night they wake me up with the lightest buzz and touch.  The choice is to either ignore them or spend half my night chasing them around with the fly swatter.

Otherwise, life is fantastic.   Tex, aka Jeffery, a server from Coldfoot Camp, and Christie, a Yupik nursing student from Oregon, hiked up the mountain behind camp with me.  It was their first mountain so I got to relive the wonder and power of seeing the whole world from such an elevated perspective.  He has biked 12,000 miles in the past three years and she is a star basketball player so they had no problems other than the slide down the steeper sections of sphagnum moss.

I also got to play hide-and-seek with a snowshoe hare research team.  First we had to find the grid and then the plots and lastly get down on hands and knees and search for the hare pellets.  Since the hare/lynx cycle is at an ebb, my partner and I only found one pellet in two days of searching.  I was ready to capture a hare, hold it over the grids and squeeze the pellets out.  

Jenna hunting for bunny poop.



Not to worry, researchers, it was only a fantasy.  Fantasies become much more elemental in the boreal forest.   

Did I mention we had a 19 year old sharpshooter girl whose job it was to hold the shotgun and protect us from the grizzlies while we concentrated on the ground??  After the seeking, the counting, the sweat and mosquito swarms, we got to relax on the gravel beaches of the Hammond River, wading, splashing, rockhounding.  The mountain ridges and the rivers are places where the wind can blow unimpeded and purify the air of mosquitoes.  I really, truly appreciate a good stiff breeze here.

Another day outside was spent picking up trash along the highway as a team.  Ted won the prize for most trucker pee bottles found. I found the remains of an old car wreck.  We celebrated afterward at Coldfoot Camp.  I will work for root beer floats most any day.

K. likes to keep us happy so Wednesday when there were free seats on the NATC flight to Anaktuvuk Pass, Caylon, Christie and I got to go.  In an eight passenger plane we flew over the Gates of the Arctic National Park and between what Bob Marshall called the Gates:  Boreal Peak and Frigid Crags.   The North Fork of the Koyukuk flows between them. 

Anaktuvuk is a 350+ self-governing Eskimo village within the National Park.  Unlike most villages which are on the coast, it is smack dab in the middle of the mountains, located there because the caribou herd flows through on their way to calve on the coast.  The Numamiuts are Inupiat and until fifty years ago, nomadic.  Harriet, a native and mother of six, escorted us through town and took us to the Simon Paneak Visitors Center.    She didn’t mind being called Eskimo even though the more politically correct term is Native Alaskan.  There are also Athabaskan Indians in Alaska who are not Eskimo in the least.  They live in the Interior or southeastern Alaska.

Because it was a last minute deal I didn’t have time to bike home for my Dramamine. Baaaarf! The paying passengers were not impressed with me. 

The next morning was Summer Solstice so Karen, Chinook the sled dog and I drove up over Atigun Pass to Roche Moutanee, the drainage just south of the famous Atigan Gorge.  The scenery was breathtaking but between the skeeters and the 80 degree heat, we were miserable and only lugged our backpacking gear in a few miles.  Once we had erected the tent, our evening walk was more enjoyable.  We found a complete dall sheep ram’s skull with nearly complete curl.  The wild flowers carpeted the entire drainage and the streams were overflowing, making it hard to cross.  The bugs were so bad we had cold cereal for supper and threw ourselves into the tent.  A storm blew in, cooled us off and swept the bugs into Canada.  The next morning was heaven: stiff wind, cooler temps, no bugs and the space and scenery I needed to fill my soul.

Still lots of aufeis on the Deitrich River.  That's layers of ice still floating above the flowing water.



Happy Solstice, enjoy your bug free moments!



Fragrant Lapland Rosebay



Wintergreen, a pyrola

Every predator's favorite food source: the arctic ground squirrel.

Wooly Lousewort is HERE! (Report 4)

How am I to write a blog?  The weeks fly and I can’t remember what happened yesterday.  With my biking to work and hiking and dog walking, at night I make supper at 11 pm., read a chapter, pull the blackout curtains and fall straight to sleep.  April to October is my time for activity, not rumination.  Now is the time for me to live without thinking.  I’m content with what I have right now:  physical activity out of doors, meaningful tasks and friends everyday for a little conversation. Still I’ll try to dreg something up for this blog.

I started the week with a solo hike up to Marion Falls, the result of a landslide that came down 2,000 feet of mountain and blocked Marion Creek.  As in Denali the BLM corridor along the Dalton Highway has no “official” or maintained trails but occasionally one can find a muddy boot path going back to a specific destination.  The hike to the falls and back would have been two hours but the early flowers are now blooming so it took me much longer; there were cottongrass, heather, bog rosemary, and windflower.  This trip I also “caught” a rainbow. 

Unlike Denali, we have active gold mines throughout the corridor so I stumbled across the dirt road that allows miners to take heavy equipment to and from the mines up Marion Creek.  Miners won’t say how much gold they are bringing out but some of them must be pretty successful to own all that equipment.

The next day I hiked up the hill to the SE of camp which is the equivalent of 1500 feet on the Stairmaster.  It’s straight up through willows and alder over bog and moss and rock. Being on a mountain makes me feel powerful!   On top of the ridge I found wooly lousewort, alpine azalea and mountain avens in bloom.



Glasses to give you an idea of scale.

Returning home, I took a sponge bath and had supper with Linda and Ray at their travel trailer at Marion Campground where they are the hosts.  With their generous meal, the good company of their four dachshunds and a game of Mexican train, I felt nurtured and complete.

Annie and I had a morning off together so we drove down to Grayling Lake.  I planned to wait around for her to catch her first fish so I could take her photo but, since she caught her first grayling in 15 seconds, it was a short plan.  We were there less than two hours and she caught over twenty-five grayling.  Apparently they make good eating if cooked and devoured immediately. She threw all hers back.  Karen told her she needed to “stop playing with her food”.   After I snapped a photo, I walked the shore of the lake where four wigeons were swimming behind a tundra swan, apparently hoping for her to churn up some goodies.  I also found a shrub new to me called leatherleaf which has heather-like belled flowers.  So I was happy to “catch” the widgeons and the leatherleaf.

Our community recently welcomed two new members on the same day:  Christie, a First Alaskans intern, nursing student, Yupik native and Princess of Smiles, plus Chinook, a retired lead Denali sled dog.  Christie brings youthful enthusiasm, intelligence and energy to our group and Chinook brings me a canine companion to walk and hug.

This is the first time I’ve worked for the Federal government.  Karen manages a core of twelve folks, most of them “expenses paid” volunteers like myself.  People come back year after year not only for the job and the community but training and opportunities in the parks and refuges. In addition to us, K. has to deal with researchers, educators, Bureau of Land Management folk, NPS folk, and Fish and Wildlife people.  The Interagency is truly a cooperative effort but somewhat of a bureaucratic nightmare.  The people in the next cabin over might have different rules than we have in our cabin.  And each agency has its own lead person.  Even compared to public schools, the government has a HUGE amount of “Thou Shalt Not” rules.  Being new, I don’t know which ones I can bend, which ones I can break and which ones are inviolate.  It’s uncomfortable being this good.

Happy Get Outside Week!



Koyokuk River Valley, Marion Camp in Center between tree and pond



GREENUP (Report 3)



Leaving Coldfoot for Deadhorse.  This is the last stop, folks, for 240 miles.



Spring came this week.  One morning there was still snow on the ground.  The next morning we walked out of our cabin and it smelled like summer had arrived.  I could see the willow leaves opening from hour to hour.  One of the Wiseman residents said this was the fastest he has ever seen spring come.



I don’t have much in the way of pictures from this week because we are settling into the routine at the Visitors Center.  Compared to Toklat we have very few visitors, maybe fifty at day.  There are more than enough of us, two to five at a time on duty, so time moves slowly. 

AIVC display

travelers' room at the AIVC

AK GEO bookstore



Another display at the AIVC



Also this is the usual week for me to feel at bit out of place.  Young friend Jeff called his mother to complain and she said, “Sweetie, if you chose to go out of your comfort zone, don’t be surprised if you are uncomfortable!”  I’ll adjust.  I always do.  My roommate, Annie, is great company and everyone is super –accepting of each other’s little quirks.

For eight hours a wildlife biologist from Fairbanks instructed us newbies in bear awareness training.  The information was all good, particularly the fake moving bear target that we got to practice spraying.  Fish and Wildlife folks in the field have to have a designated shooter in all their groups so the F & G people got to practice with 12 gauge shotguns.  From studies, though, bear spray is actually more effective.  Yesterday a man down in Delta was killed by a black bear.  The black bear attacks here in Alaska are much more feared than back home in Montana.  Word is that Alaskan black bears are less predictable and more predatory than the grizzlies.

My bike commute is still the loveliest I’ve ever had:  flat, paved, incredible, one to three vehicles per trip.  Luckily I always seem to have a headwind to remind me that there is more to life than biking to work, e.g., getting off my bike and showing up at the AIVC.  I don’t see the moose as easily now that the greenery has come.

The day spring came, Whitney, Caylon, Annie and I had a lovely hike after closing at 10:30.  We strolled across the road, over the pipeline and down to the river.  The light is soft at this time of day. I learned that unfurling willow leaves are extremely soft.

On Saturday Meadow took the Dalton Express up from Fairbanks.  It took eight hours plus another hour for the flat tire.  Kumbaya said they should charge extra for letting the customers change tires and get the true “Dalton Experience”.    Meadow and I walked the lovely paths around the center and the unlovely pot-holed dirt roads.  The Koyokuk River is full and  moving speedily along. Caylon presented her with her Arctic Circle certificate.

She and I had the buffet over at Coldfoot.  All the food is good but the salad and the veggies are the real treats.  I can’t wait until our CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) boxes begin arriving via AirArctic.  Rosie Creek Farms is behind because of the late spring.  Here we don’t have the greenhouses we had in Toklat but some AIVC folks are trying tub veggies.  They have to compete with the snowshoe hares and voles.  I hear that folks in Wiseman have lovely, bountiful gardens of greens, turnips, cabbages and other cold weather veggies.  I'll have to ask how they keep out the nibblers.  Pet lynx?

After supper we listened to Caylon’s “Kumbaya with Bears” interpretive evening program at the AILC.  I never tire of bear stories but after the Bear Aware Training I’m now more afraid of black bears, big, old grizzlies and bears in general.  At the end of the program we sang “The Other Day I Met a Bear”, an old song we sang in Girl Scouts.  It was hokey but fun.

Wiseman Post Office, now closed.

The program was over by 9:00, just the start of the evening.  Enlisting Annie and Jeff, a server from Coldfoot Camp, we drove up to Wiseman, the historic town that Bob Marshall lauded in his book Arctic Village.  Bob came to town in 1930, ostensibly to survey timber in the boreal forest of little, spindly spruce trees. He grew bored with trees and secretly recorded the lives of the villagers.  Reading the book and seeing the life of the Wiseman folks today gives me a great deal of respect for the Alaska native and the white pioneers.  Jack Reakoff had just finished a Northern Alaska Tour Company tour so allowed us to visit the unlocked museum.  Now that it is warmer, the smells inside reminded me of our old home in Shelby:  dead animals, old wool, dust, smokers, hemp rope, and old leather.

Craig and I drove the 60 miles south to the Arctic Circle to welcome visitors and pass out Circle certificates.  Since this is the only place in the US where one can drive to the Arctic Circle we make a big deal out of it.  For many people it is a lifetime goal.  I enjoyed their delight at the crossing.

When I opened one day this week, I thought to post the sunrise/sunset times on our visitor board.  Then I learned that here in Coldfoot from May 31^st to July 13^th we have no sunrise or sunset.   Duh!

Off road, at last! 2nd week in Coldfoot. (Report 2)

May 23, 2013, Thursday

All we needed today were cypress trees to make this place seem like a bayou.  We have dark, tannic water running everywhere, plus a few ducks looking to nest and raise ducklings that will winter in Arkansas.  The rivers have lost most of their ice and half the valley floor snow is gone in just a few days.

Training was Wilderness First Aid.  Two of our lady rangers live in Wiseman over six hours from the nearest doctor.  They don’t casually make the trip to town for sniffles or a sprain. They and their children have become very self-sufficient when it comes to good self-care. 

I’m thinking about purchasing a “Spot” which is a GPS beacon for the possibility of serious injury when I’m out hiking alone.  Out here, one good stumble on a rock slide and I’d be toast  grizzly bait if no one knew where to look.

May 24, 2013, Friday.  Warmer outside than inside the Visitor Center which was out of propane.  AIVC opened for the season.  With the day off I slept until 10 and read and lounged about until 1:00.  I enjoyed being lazy today much more than I have during the months I didn’t work.  

May 25, 2013,  Saturday.  Another day off so Annie and I drove the thirty miles up the Dalton to Sukakpak Mountain.  We balanced on the tussocks crossing the valley marshy areas and managed to keep our feet dry as we climbed up the southeastern slope to a high ridge where we had lunch.  The hike included willow whacking, mud, lynx tracks, wolf scat, somewhat steep slopes, permafrost slumps sliding downhill.  We had a lovely time and this half day hike was the perfect ‘real’ start to the summer. 

Annie had trouble keeping up with me on the way up.  This is the usual pattern.  The youngsters are out of shape and not used to the climb.  I’m in my usual stalwart trudge mode which is the best I can do.  At the end of the summer I haven’t improved because of my age and because I was already doing my best but the younger folks are now three times faster than me because they have been getting in shape and have gotten their mountain legs.  So  I get to feel in shape now and less so as they surpass me.  Oh, well!

May 26^th  , Sunday,  Kubaya and I took off in her BLM Ford Explorer and swooped over Atigan Pass to explore the coastal plain.  She prefers coastal plain and Arctic Refuge to the terms North Slope and ANWR because those are oil industry terms.  There were birds galore and Arctic ground squirrels, too.  I had to laugh at the Red-necked phalarope which looks like the bird equivalent of an energizer bunny, turning and zigzagging through the water.  Hence their collective names are  “a swirl, twirl or whirligig of phalaropes”.  These ADHD birds migrate down both coast to winter in Peru.  Others winter in Saudi Arabia and Indonesia.   The short-eared owls look very serious on their teeny-tiny bumps of earth (remember, no trees) as they scan for prey but when they fly, they look like grey angels.  In Denali we would get hepped up by the Long-tailed Jaeger, a beautiful bird which I’ve tried to draw here for you.  On the coastal plains they appear as common as robins in Helena.  They are known as a “shishkab of skuas”.  They spend winter over the southern seas, never landing. We also saw the usual tundra swans,  Lapland Longspurs, plus the caribou.

On the way back we had to wait 3 1/2 hours at the pass for them to clear it of avalanches.  A truck had gotten smacked by a small one but only slightly damaged but not shoved off the road which sometimes happens at this time of the year.

The high point of the day.....or maybe it was the next day by then?.....was a wolf sighting on our way home.  The middle of the night is the best time to see animals.  Even though it is light all the time, many maintain their same work hours.

 May 27. Monday

This is the view from the front porch of our cabin.  It is a dry cabin which means, not that the roof doesn't leak, but that there is no running water.  It's much nicer than the one I shared with Andrew last year at Toklat but I do miss having a functioning faucet.  I take showers just before work at the Visitors' Center five miles down the road.  At night to go to the bathroom  I use a milk jug with a big cut out opening.  I had to explain because once when I explained the evening toilet facilities someone assumed I had great aim.   During days at home I take the path to the outhouse, a nice one with a tank that gets pumped out once a year.  Annie and I each have our own room.  We only need to run the generator every two to four days to provide enough electricity for our fridge and appliances.

May 28, Tuesday

Coldfoot proper, i.e, the truck stop across the street from the Arctic Interagency Visitors Center, is not particularly lovely but the food at the restaurant is good and generous.  The hotel is just a bunch of trailer units stuck together, a common style from the middle of BC north, but it still costs $200 a night.  The post office is open three afternoons a week.  I was hoping that there would be a convenience store as part of the gas station but that was wishful thinking.  Other than restaurant food one can buy pop, chips and t-shirts.

May 29,  Wednesday, K. and I went out to Sukakpack to climb up to a waterfall.  We found that the early wildflowers are now out.  Because nothing else is blooming yet, these grab my heart with the contrast they display to the rest of the brown, grey world.