It was a very long day for us as we set our alarm for 5:00
am to begin our Arctic Circle Tour bus ride at 6:00 am. Our guide and driver was a young man named
Ryan Cunningham who is a student at the University of Alaska. There were 11 of us on a nice, modern bus
large enough for 24 passengers so we could spread out. Our fellow travelers were from Australia, New
York, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Virginia and we all got along well. Skies were cloudy with threats of rain which
materialized from time to time but never very heavy. Temperatures ranged from the mid-forties to
the mid-fifties and a wind breaker was sufficient for our weather.
We headed north of Fairbanks to the start of the Dalton
Highway which is gravel and stretches all the way to the Arctic Ocean at
Prudhoe Bay. The highway was built first
by the Aleyska Company which was created by three oil companies. Next they built the Trans Alaska Pipeline
from Prudhoe Bay to Valdez, an ice free port.
Apparently there is a series of shows called the “Ice Road Truckers” on
the History Channel about this highway but we haven’t seen it.
The few people who live up in this part of Alaska are a
hardy group living off the grid. Imagine
living with no telephone or mail service.
They have no electricity except for that generated by their diesel
generators. Their water is either a well
or, more likely, brought back in containers from Fairbanks. There is no cell phone service or Internet
unless they subscribe to expensive satellite providers. In winter they can’t get to grocery stores so
they store up and freeze food ahead of time or hunt locally and butcher their
own game. They usually have wood burning
stoves for their heat and cooking.
Medical care is a long ways away and probably not available in
winter. It’s a tough life where winters
can drop to minus 50 below zero. No,
thank you!
First we stopped at the Arctic Circle Trading Post where we
had smelly outhouses to use for our potty break. Then we trucked on with our next stop to get
out and under the Trans Alaska Pipeline where Ryan gave us the history of its
design and building. Further down the
road we crossed the Yukon River which originates in Canada and which we were
told is the fifth largest river with respect to volume of water. At our bridge it was a half mile across but
in some places it is two miles from bank to bank. Where we stopped was the Yukon River Camp, a
truck stop with toilets, showers, and food.
Most people picked up a box sandwich to eat on the bus but Rita and I
had enough snacks to see us through.
Miles and miles further along we stopped once more at Finger
Mountain which has a pointed rock that looks like a finger pointing the way to
Fairbanks. This was used by early
explorers, trappers and pilots to get their bearings. We hiked up a short nature trail which
pointed out flora and birds in the area.
A little further up the road Ryan stopped once more to let us get out
and walk on the tundra. Up to a point we
had mostly forest of birch and spruce trees, both scrawny as the soil is not nutritious
enough to support big trees. Here we
were mostly on tundra which is boggy and shifts under your feet. Ryan dug a hole just a couple of feet deep to
let anyone who wanted to put their arms down the hole and feel the permafrost
ice.
Finally about 200 miles north of Fairbanks we finally
reached the Arctic Circle at latitude 66 degrees, 33 minutes. Here you can witness the midnight sun on June
21 and total darkness on December 21 at noon.
The Arctic Circle only touches eight countries and you can probably only
drive to the Arctic Circle here in Alaska, plus in Canada, Russia, Sweden, Norway,
Finland and maybe Iceland. We took
several photos at the sign designating the Arctic Circle. Ryan brought out a red carpet with a dotted
line and laid that on the ground for more photo options. After a while we turned around and headed
back down the Dalton Highway to Fairbanks.
We stopped at Yukon River Camp for dinner and to walk to the river for
better views. Then we only stopped for
bathroom breaks and arrived back in Fairbanks about 10:30 pm after a long
day. We received our certificates that
we crossed the Arctic Circle and headed to our hotel for a short night’s sleep.
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