Alaska #9

It’s Saturday night and we’re back to Fairbanks at the Comfort Inn. The last day or so was really interesting. Yesterday we got up and had a big breakfast at the restaurant at Chena Hot Springs. After breakfast, we got our suits, and hung out in the hot swimming lake for a while. Brenda had signed up to go on a dog sled ride around lunchtime. We walked over to the dog sled area, and were met with an unbelievable sight. About 60 dogs, each with it’s own house and tie up chain. Brenda made friends with the dogs and driver and went off on her adventure. The dogs all went crazy when the sled was prepared. They all wanted to run. As soon as the sled left, they all got quiet. Brenda and the driver went out through the 2-mile course and returned from the other side of the dog compound. As soon as they got back all the dogs again went into plaid thinking something was going to happen.

After the dog sled ride we took some downtime to prepare for the Aurora viewing event starting at 10:00 in the evening. We got moving again to go on our tour of the Ice Museum at 5 pm. We met in front of the building and were escorted inside. The whole interior of the building is ice sculptures many of them over 3 years old. There is a huge intricate sculpture of two knights jousting. There is also a complete chess set in ice with figures 2-3 feet high. All the figures are modeled after animals of the Alaskan wildlife. There is an ice wedding chapel, and they report there have been over 50 weddings held there. On the far end of the building are 4 bedrooms complete with ice beds covered with furs. You can rent these “rooms” for $575 per night. Coming back the other side is an ice igloo with table and chairs inside. The acoustics are purported to be excellent inside. I tested it b y singing a couple of the songs from my repertory. On the same side as the igloo is a bar where they serve their signature appletini drinks in ice carved glasses. We had signed up for those so we landed at the bar on fur covered ice stools. We had our drinks and toasted the adventure.

After the tour, we went back and got ready for dinner. Once again, we dined at the Chena Resort. The food was again very good. Jerry had a smoked salmon penne in cheese and cream sauce that was excellent. After dinner, I think naps were had all around. At about 9:30 we donned our cold weather gear and prepared for our aurora adventure. We arrived in front of the activities building at 9:50 as required. It was a large group, and we were split into smaller groups to ride in the sno coaches. The sno coaches were tracked ATV kind of vehicles with a trailer of sorts that held 10 people. Another 3 or 4 could fit in the cab with the driver. We ended up with 6 folks in our trailer, which gave us a little room to spread out.

The caravan of 4 Sno Coaches headed out up the mountain for our destination. The ride was unbelievably rough. I likened it to being in a combination of blender and vibrator. Since the resort had not had any snow for a while and had been subject to the same 40-degree temps the track was mostly ice. If we had been riding on 6 inches of new powder the ride probably would have been quiet and smooth. The trip to the top of the mountain took about 30 minutes and was very steep along the way. When we got to the top they let us out and we found our yurt. The yurt was a round canvas structure with two propane heaters and two propane lights. It was pretty well sealed off from the wind, and they had hot water going for tea, coffee, hot chocolate etc. The temp at the top of the mountain was probably in the 20’s and the wind was blowing quite hard.

We all did pretty well with our cold weather gear. According to the guides, a couple of weeks ago it was 40 below outside with the wind blowing. They said it never got above –20 inside the yurt with the heat running. They could hardly get the water hot enough for coffee. We spent the next 3 hours looking for the aurora. As the time went by and it was not spotted, everyone became discouraged. I was enjoying the solitude of sitting outside watching the sky in the cold and biting wind. I decided that if I did some Alaskan chanting perhaps the aurora would appear. I chanted for a while, and low and behold, the aurora appeared.

When I thought I saw it, I called Vickie through the canvas wall of the yurt. There was a group of Japanese tourists with us on the mountain. Several of them were sitting inside against the wall waiting for the aurora to appear. When my disembodied voice appeared through the wall of the yurt, it frightened one of the Japanese girls so much she ran to the other side of the hut. Not only could she not understand English but it came after her through the wall. Vickie tried to explain it was me, but to no avail. As the aurora intensified Jerry went in and told the folks waiting it out in the yurt. All of a sudden I heard this huge commotion as all the waiters stampeded outside to see the finally appearing show. The Japanese folks insisted on trying to take flash pictures of the aurora. All they succeeded in doing was blinding everyone. Soon they figured out they were getting picture s of nothing and quit. Jerry used his new camera on a tripod with a timed exposure and got some good pictures of what we saw. We watched the ghostly lights for about 45 minutes, and then it was time to head back. We loaded up into our sno coaches, and were scrambled all the way back down the mountain.

An interesting aside. While we were awaiting the aurora on the mountaintop, Jerry and Vickie got to talking to one of the guides. She was married to another guide. Together they had 2 children. They lived even further out than the resort and had a house with no TV, no satellite, no phone, no newspapers, no indoor plumbing, and a 45 to guard from bears on the way to the outhouse. They had a generator they ran part time, and spent most of what they made on fuel to heat their house. The girl told Jerry she left the lower 48 in 98 and hadn’t been back since. Jerry mentioned that if Hillary won the election, we all might be moving to Alaska. To this the girl replied “Is SHE running?” She hadn’t a clue about the election. We are finding the Alaskans are really a different sort, very self reliant, and fiercely independent. They love the life here, and most have little interest of ever returning to the US mainland.

After the aurora viewing, we finally were back in our rooms around 3:30 am. We all crashed, and the next morning packed up for the return trip to Fairbanks. Checking out of Chena was complicated by their technically challenged staff, and Jerry and I will be straightening out our bills on our own later. On the trip back to Fairbanks, we saw several moose and other game. One of the moose was quite tame and spent some time posing for us to take his picture. They sure are big and funny looking. Tomorrow we’re off for the train back to Anchorage. More later.

Wes