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| Talk,
Thomas Garland,
17 January 1999 | |
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Starting term on the east coast in September it made sense for me to start my summer as far away from Virginia as was possible, without actually leaving North America. I inevitably ended up in Alaska. As I boarded my plane at Heathrow I knew no more about the place than anyone who'd watched an occasional episode of Northern Exposure. It was famously cold, but got warm enough for mosquitoes to swarm so I figured the summers must be hot and a coat would not be needed. The summer however ends early and I reached Anchorage at the same time as the drizzle, which then never stopped. That would have been enough to ruin any trip for me, except of course in Alaska.
Alaska remains the US's last frontier, so big that if superimposed unto the lower 48 it would stretch from LA to New York (that's no Joke). It was bought from the Russians for $7,200,000, seen at the time as a rather bad investment it soon paid off with the discovery of gold, the fortune seekers soon turned up as they now do for the oil. The result is a population of just over half a million, most of whom are men. But they also come to get away from it all so that Alaska has more than it's fair share of freaks and the slightly odd.
So I found myself wandering the wet streets of Anchorage, confused by the light. With the sun only setting briefly you end up thinking about dinner at 2AM, I spent the first day with my watch set 12 hours off so it was time for lunch for me. The city was an odd collection of log cabin architecture and featureless glass boxes, all of it seemingly new. But then Alaska isn't about architecture, it's about wilderness and great wide open spaces, so I was soon hitching a ride out of town and heading up to Denali, stopping off in Talkeetna along the way and was lucky enough to turn up during their world famous moose dropping festival (worry not, no moose were harmed, though moose shit was dropped on the town from a light aircraft).
Denali is to Alaska what the Peak district is to England, however it is also the size of Switzerland and some of its wildlife is capable of slapping the head off a horse. I am of course referring to the grizzlies which you will come to know very well, Alaskans talk about bears the way we talk about the weather. Everyone has a story to tell and plenty of advice: dont climb a tree to get away, the trees in the region are too small, wear bells when you hike and if you are unfortunate enough to get into a fight with a half ton grizzly your only hope would be to punch it on the nose. I fortunately only encountered the cuter, but nearly as dangerous black bear and plenty of caribou and of course the occasional moose, and let me tell you they are as dumb as they look.
I didn't bother with the Arctic circle, I'd crossed the Equator in a minibus
and had bought the T-shirt, I figured that the experience would ultimately have been just as pointless. I headed for the south coast and its warmer climates instead, hitching around the woody Kenai peninsula before catching a Alaska Marine Highway's ferry over to Valdez, past glaciers that tumbled down into the sea, I still hadn't sorted out a coat. To get down to the fjords of the Pan Handle I was back to hitching, reaching the Alaskan Highway at the notorious Tok crossroad, had to spend the night in the bush and in the rain and managed to make it out in just over 24 hours, and eventually down to Skagway.
Skagway was born during the Klondike gold rush a century ago and it was from there that boat loads of prospectors hauled their ton of gear over the mountains into the Yukon along the Chilkoot Trail. If you are properly equipped, which I was of course not, the trail can still be walked in under five days. Climbing up through the coastal rain forest, past the rusting remains of the gold rush and well above the snow line you get to walk into
Canada, it was then that I really wished I'd brought along a coat.
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