Alaska does glaciers and stunning scenery rather well. We saw this on our tour around the south of the State. Now we’re overlanding central Alaska – the middle bit – seeing more of the same old scenic stuff and hiking to a glacier… again (yawn 😉). But wait, there’s more! In central Alaska we do some cultural stuff too: we experience our first 4th July, watch our first Eskimo Olympics, and enjoy not a chicken pie, but a pie in Chicken….
All at Sea
We left Whittier on the Kenai Peninsula by ship. It felt like we were setting off on a voyage to another world, but nope… it was just a ferry across Prince William Sound to Valdez. The fact that it took over six hours to get to the other side of the bay gives an indication of the scale of things in Alaska. It saved us a 580 km drive retracing our steps, and as a Brucie Bonus it’s a scenic sailing too (yes… everything’s ‘scenic’ in Alaska). The ocean was calm, the weather was gorgeous, and we saw wonderful nature including seals, whales, birds, glaciers (no, we’re still not bored of a glacier) and small icebergs that had calved off the glaciers and floated out to sea.
Battle of the icebergs
Valdez is our arrival port. Valdez. Ring any bells? If, like us, you’re of a certain age you may recall Valdez being the centre of world attention back in 1989 for the tragic Exxon Valdez oil-spill disaster. As we sailed towards the port, the Captain of our ferry pointed to the very spot where the Exxon Valdez oil tanker ran aground, spilling 41,000m³ (37,000 tonnes) of oil into the delicate eco-environment. Over 2,100 km of shoreline were affected. It took decades to clean up the mess which decimated the tourism industry in this region for a generation.
Valdez
Valdez itself is (yet another) beautiful fjord town, promising great spots for kayaking. Ooh, we’ve got our Boaty McBoatface inflatable kayak designed for just such an opportunity. Unfortunately, although the sky was clear and sunny, the wind was fierce. Kayaking downwind would have been just fine and dandy, but the coming back bit, not so much. So kayaking was off the agenda for Valdez, but there’s plenty of other stuff to do: there’s the glaciers (of course!), blustery hiking, an interesting museum and a fascinating salmon hatchery which allows salmon to hatch in far greater numbers than the rivers now naturally allow for.
Around Valdez
McCarthy – Independence Day
There’s only one road out of Valdez, and that’s the Richardson Highway north. It’s… yes, you’ve guessed it… a very scenic drive over the Thompson Pass. Then we took a detour east to the old mining community of McCarthy and the (now defunct) Kennecott Mine. It’s all rather touristy now, but nevertheless, still worth the 300 km (out and back) detour. Not only for the mine history and the charm of McCarthy, but also for (yet more) hiking to glaciers. Here it’s an easy hike to reach the Root Glacier, but we also got to park-up and camp not far from the ‘toe’ of the far larger Kennecott Glacier. Overnight we could hear the glacier cracking and splitting in the not far distance. It’s an amazing sound of nature and a cogent reminder that these vast masses of ice are moving and evolving constantly.
Kennecott Mine. Oh look… another hike to a glacier 😂
Another of our great joys in McCarthy was seeing an All-American small-town 4th July celebration. We’ve spent a lot of time in USA over the years, but this is our first 4th July here. It was great fun to see this real piece of American history and culture celebrated in a small community. The village has very few residents, but in real American spirit they decorated the street (note the singular here, there is only one!), they put on a small but animated parade for the seasonal visitors, they sang the National Anthem, they had kids’ games, sack-races, a tug-of-war, and music. We love seeing the national culture in any country we visit, and this was no exception.
4th July Celebrations – McCarthy
Highway to (Smokey) Denali
Back to the Richardson Highway and we’re northwards again, this time as far as Paxson where we turn west onto the Denali Highway. This is a cross-country gravel road to Denali National Park. By now you’ll understand we’re offering no prizes for guessing… it was an incredibly scenic drive! Its reputation (generated in part by the tourism brochures) as a ‘hard core, rough trail’ is truly unwarranted. It’s a road on which any vehicle will want to take its time, but only to take in the views. It is really not a tough drive and certainly doable in any kind of vehicle.
As we arrive in Denali National Park, the weather is fab. Blue skies and sunshine. We’re really looking forward to getting out for a bit of hiking and maybe even catching a rare glimpse of the great Mt Denali (the mountain formerly known as McKinley). It’s often shrouded in cloud, but we have our fingers crossed. We decided to chill out for the afternoon and plan activities for the next day. That… as Julia Roberts once said… was a mistake. Big mistake.
When we woke next morning, we looked out of Cuthbert to see… errr… nothing! Was it foggy? Nope. Were we in cloud? Nope. It was smoke. Wildfire smoke. Overnight the wind had dragged a huge blanket of dense smoke over the whole area. This caused not only poor visibility, but an extreme health warning due to the terrible air quality. The air was thick and the smell of burning hung heavily. The park staff were strongly advising not to hike and that outdoor activities should be limited. Bugger. If only we had got out the day before in the clear conditions ☹.
The forecast was for the smoke to hang around for at least several days; they had no idea when it would move on. It could even get worse before it got better. Eeiissshh! We’re disappointed. But the real victims are locals who have to live with this air quality and face losing everything as fires sweep the region.
Denali Dogs
The best part of our short time in Denali was a visit to the husky kennels. The vast Denali Park is patrolled in winter by the traditional huskies pulling sledges. In summer the dogs are kept in shape pulling land-buggies. Now here’s a bit of a circle to our North America travels. Cuthbert’s longer-term followers may recall that waaay back in February 2020, we parked-up for a while with a great guy, Henning and his four wonderful huskies near Bend, Oregon. Henning’s business is building husky buggies for summer training, and he built the very buggies we saw demonstrated at Denali Park. Cool huh?
The smoke forced us onwards from Denali far faster than we had anticipated, but hey… flexibility is what overlanding’s all about. Instead of Denali we pushed north to do the legendary Dalton Highway, hopefully out of the smoke. We did a separate blog on this amazing route (click here), so in this blog we’ll transport you in a time machine one week forwards, where you find us on a triumphant return to Fairbanks after completing the Dalton.
Fairbanks – Ice City
Fairbanks is a curious city. As one of the most northerly cities in the world, it lives a kind of Jekyl & Hyde existence between the extremes of dark, cold winters and light, warm summers. It’s attractions at this time of year are pleasant surroundings for outdoor activities and a few museums.
Although Fairbanks is warm in summer, in one of the city’s most fun museums, it’s ice-time all year. The Fairbanks Ice Museum starts its display with one of those unfortunate, dull videos that leaves you with ‘that’s-15-minutes-of-my-life-I’ll-never-get-back’ feeling. However… when you move on to the ice display, it all becomes worthwhile. Escorted by the hugely entertaining Andy (“hey… you no take foto click click click, no, you take video whoooosh yes?” 😂 ) you go into a huge, refrigerated, disco-lit room. Here you wander extraordinary ice sculptures, slither down a frozen ice-chute, sit at a frozen bar or sit on a solid-ice husky sledge. Then Andy does an ice-sculpture demonstration showing how he creates colourful 3-D images inside a huge block of ice. Admittedly it’s cheesy, and it’s never going to rival Disney for ‘US Theme Park of the Year’, but it’s worth the $15 for a bit of fun.
Ice City – Fairbanks
Also in Fairbanks, local Aussies and former biking overlanders, Tanya and Mick saw Cuthbert and kindly invited us to their home. A delicious meal and great company with them and little Max really made us feel welcome in Fairbanks. Thanks guys!!
Eskimo Olympics
One of the highlights of our time overlanding central Alaska was the Eskimo Olympics. But before we get into the action, let’s just deal with the elephant in the room: ‘Eskimo’. It’s not our term. It’s a term used by the organising committee who are all indigenous people of North America. They accept that ‘World Eskimo Indian Olympics’ (WEIO) is controversial in some eyes, but they’re happy with it, so that’s that. Don’t shoot the messenger.
We had no idea what to expect of WEIO. The Schedule listed events such as: Toe Kick, Inuit Stick Pull, 4-man-carry, Kneel Jump, One Hand Reach, Fish Cutting, Blanket Toss, Ear Weight, One Foot High Kick to list just a few. Hmmmm???
Blanket Toss Event… get tossed on a blanket!
The fascinating thing is that many of the events have origins in traditional indigenous life. So the Blanket Toss for example, where the competitor is thrown into the air from a walrus skin ‘blanket’ (like a kind of reverse trampoline), is based on how they used to throw hunters into the air to scout for prey across the tundra. Similarly, the 4-man-carry where one man carries four other men (weighing 4 x 150lbs = 600lbs) hanging around his shoulders, is based on a hunter carrying a caribou on his shoulders, back to the village after hunting.
Many of the events require extraordinary fitness, physical strength and agility. How about the One Hand Reach? This requires the athlete to lie on the floor, raise and support their whole body horizontally on one hand (no feet, legs or body touching the floor!), then raise the other hand to knock a ball hanging from a string above him/her. Or the One Foot High Kick? Here the athlete sits on the floor holding their left foot with their right hand, then, raising their whole body off the ground supported only on their left hand, extends their right leg into the air to kick a ball hanging from a string above them. Study the pictures carefully and give them a try 😊
One Hand Reach and One Foot High-kick. Give them a try!
Not all events are aimed at the physical elite. Some are skills-based challenges, such as ‘fish cutting’. Here, ladies of a certain age (one was 75) crouch on the floor over a whole salmon and compete to fillet their fish the fastest. There is a similar competition for seal skinning, which we couldn’t quite bring ourselves to watch.
Fish Cutting – On your marks, get set… cut!
There’s a Baby Regalia contest where mothers show their babies. The show is not for the babies themselves to be judged, but for their home-made costumes to be judged for authenticity and craftmanship with traditional materials such as furs and reindeer tendons (yes, really).
One of the less-skilled events of the tournament is Muktuk eating. Eating, eh? How hard can that be? Fancy a go at this ‘olympic’ event? Maybe not so keen when you learn that muktuk is raw whale blubber.
If we’re honest, the (lack of) organisation and time-keeping did lend a slightly ‘High School Sports Day’ feel to the tournament. However, the whole event was fascinating and we really enjoyed it. The constant ‘what’s-going-on-now?’ mindset, even amongst the organisers, somehow added to the charm and authenticity of this real cultural event. If you’re doing Alaska in 2023, check out the dates.
Stick Pull Medals and Miss WEIO 2022
North Pole to Chicken
Leaving Fairbanks, we’re finally on our way out of Alaska. On the way we stop briefly at North Pole. No, not the North Pole, just ‘North Pole’. At just 64°45’ north, some small town decided to call itself North Pole 🤷♀️. Rumour has it, they were hoping to attract a toy manufacturer to the area who could then advertise their products as ‘Made in North Pole‘! Not sure the toy thing ever came off. But as a bit of corny tourism tat, they’ve added a huge retail opportunity called ‘Santa’s House’. We’ll leave it to your imagination as to what sort of stuff is on offer in said ‘house’ to those easily parted from their hard-earned cash.
Our final stop in Alaska is the ‘town’ of Chicken. Chicken was originally a remote community of hunters, trappers and gold prospectors. When deciding on a name, they liked the look of the local wild-fowl Ptarmigan scuttling around. That’ll be it then: ‘Ptarmigan’. Turns out however, nobody there actually knew how to spell ‘Ptarmigan’. A Ptarmigan looks like a Chicken, so they went with that instead.
Today, Chicken is an olde worlde tourist haunt of a few buildings on the Top of the World Highway in Alaska on the way to the Yukon, Canada. It’s a cool little stop with the best homemade blueberry pie ever, at the Chicken Creek Café. Oh, and don’t forget the ever-present retail opportunity: Chicken-themed souvenirs and… the pièce de résistance… the ‘I got laid in Chicken’ t-shirt 😬
So we’re now done overlanding central Alaska. Just 70km across the hill-tops east of Chicken and we’re crossing the Alaska/Yukon border into Canada. Watch this space for the next leg of our looong drive through Canada, back to the ‘Lower 48 USA’.