Fishing in Alaska - A Winter Activity?

Our first trout of the day

The weather lately has been frigid – single digits or less – but today broke warm (18˚F) and windless, so my son and I packed up and hit the lake for our first ice fishing this winter. Ice fishing season in Alaska begins as early as October, and runs through March before the ice becomes too soft. Many local lakes offer not only rainbow trout, but landlocked king salmon, silver salmon, dolly varden (Arctic char), burbot, and grayling.

We have two lakes within a few miles of our house. One of them is full of pike, and Alaska Fish and Game attempts to purge it every few years without success. The other lake is stocked with lovely little rainbows, so we favor that spot. Our bait of choice is cocktail shrimp, the stinkier the better. I’ve known people to fish with small chunks of herring, last year’s salmon roe, even kernels of corn or cheese puffs. (And, of course, there is always Power Bait, but I’m cheap.)

The snow over the lake wasn’t deep, but it had the fine, sandy quality only weeks of extreme cold can create, with a wind-blown crust over the top. Walking to a suitable spot was like walking on sand, and I had to take off my parka before we stopped to set up. Sweating in cold temperatures is dangerous, because once you cease moving and cool off, if your clothing is wet, you can chill too quickly and develop hypothermia. Luckily, I wasn’t that hot, and soon had to bundle back up with a cup of hot tea at the fishing hole.

We don’t have an electric auger, only a hand crank, and the ice this time of year is around fifteen inches thick, which makes bringing along a robust teenage boy a must. The ice below the snow pack was nice, solid black-ice. We routinely drive our vehicles onto the lake without a second thought (although today we hoofed it.) For safety, ice should be a minimum of four inches thick for one person ice fishing, seven inches for a group of people, and nine inches for vehicles. The National Weather Service posts ice thickness predictions, and this time of year some places in Alaska may have ice as deep as 48 inches! I wouldn’t want to hand auger through that ...

We only fished a couple of hours, until our fingers were numb, but we brought in plenty of little trout. And we had a great time hanging out, which is rare these days now that the kids are older.

Tam Linsey is a lifelong Alaskan who writes science fiction romance. When she's not writing, she enjoys gardening, hunting, fishing, and foraging. You can read more about her on her website at www.tamlinsey.com

Return of the Light!

My chapter members have been writing about Solstice, which is wonderful. How can I not follow up on that theme, given that today is actually - finally - Solstice? Solstice brings back the light. It reminds us that the world won’t always be plunged in darkness. As much as Spring, it is a time of renewal. A time to work the creaks out, stretch, and lift our faces to the sun.

Aside from the emotional and spiritual aspects of solstice, in Alaska, getting minutes of daylight back every day is important. Really important.

In other places, though, Solstice is often overlooked. If it’s acknowledged at all, it’s with an almost indifferent shrug. Other dates get the attention. Hanukkah has just ended. The last minute rush for Christmas is in full swing. Plans for New Year’s Eve are being set. It’s easy to forget that Solstice is here, too, which is a shame. So I have a suggestion.

Back when I worked in human services, I had an exercise I did with my groups. Take a piece of paper and brightly colored pens and write everything you liked about yourself all over the paper. It was good for these women to see it, have it there in front of them. One woman, though - it was eighteen years ago, but I remember her so clearly. When it came time for me to show off everyone’s papers, hers was almost blank. In one corner, in little tiny letters, in black ink, she had printed “I’m a good friend.” All I could do at first was look at it. Finally, I looked at her and asked if that was really all she liked about herself. She nodded. My heart broke.

I did the only thing I knew to do; I told her it was the saddest thing I had ever seen. I told her we were going to fix this. The rest of the group chimed in. They loved her. They knew there was more to her than that to like. As much as I wanted to let them go, the point of the exercise was to acknowledge what we liked about ourselves. In this instance, the group didn’t matter.

Instead, I turned her paper over and handed her a hot pink marker. This time, though, she wrote:

I AM A GOOD FRIEND!

It filled the page. Those five words took over those 8.5 x 11 inches in hot pink. She started to weep, saying “it’s so beautiful…it’s so beautiful…” Let me tell you, there wasn’t a dry eye in that room.

Which brings us to my suggestion. In a few weeks, many people will make New Year’s resolutions. Now, I dislike them, I have to be honest. Starting a new year that way inherently requires us to make a list of things we don’t like about ourselves. Why would we do that?? But I get that I am in a minority, so I’m not going to tell you not to make a New Year’s resolution. Go right ahead. Still, along with those resolutions, this year, let’s start by celebrating the things we like about ourselves here at the Solstice.

 

Get your piece of paper. Get your colored markers. Fill your page. Make it big. Make it loud. Make it yours. I promise you, there is something wonderful about you. You are worth hot pink letters pouring off the page. What better way to celebrate the fact that the cold winter is on the way out then by embracing the light inside of us?

When you’re done with it, tuck it away somewhere safe, frame it and hang it on your wall, tape it to your bathroom mirror. Whatever you do, don’t just throw it away. We can revisit them next Solstice and see what we can add to it.

 

Until then, may your 2013 be even better than your 2012.

---Pauline Trent

 

COUNTDOWN! It's coming! Winter Solstice!

Everyone! Quick! Check your calendar. It’s coming!
Winter Solstice - and all any Alaskan can say is:
“Yay - bring it!

We celebrate the Winter Solstice with more than a party. We have a festival. Why? Because it marks the longest night we’re going to have and from here on out we get about 15 minutes of daylight back each day. No big deal? Well. Let me give you a few secrets of this wonderful State:

Winter is dark.

Cold.

Snowy.

Dark. (Oh. I said that)                           Here is yesterday morning at 9:45 am.

I walk my dog three times a day.

Faithfully. In all kinds of weather and conditions.

I’ve been in the state over a decade, but less than a half-century. That’s puts me halfway between a Cheechako and a SourDough.

    (see Lizbeth Selvig’s earlier post for what on earth those terms mean.)

So. Since I’m an Alaskan, and a dog owner, I don’t just own any dog. One of them is a Black Labrador. I think this breed is up there on the Alaskan Favorite Dogs List. I swear. Every truck that goes by seems to have a black lab in it.

My dog would make a great sled dog (if a scent or something interesting along the path didn't waylay him) He's got great torque. Strength. If he had a sled, he'd be pulling it.

His name is Coal. As in "Lump of COAL". He was my 2002 Christmas gift I didn’t think I wanted. (Silly me. He’s been my buddy for years). Here is a picture of him. He looks adorable and sweet.
This is not a dog who just expects a walk. Trust me. When it is time to take him for his ¾ mile slog through any weather, this sweet old guy turns into a very spoiled dog with a mission.
"Get the leash and get moving, lady."

Yesterday, I decided to take the Boston Terrier along, too. Why? He wanted to go. He was at the door. He doesn't like his doggy coat. Or his doggy boots. And he detests his doggy halter. But he wanted to go. So...he got dressed in all that.

Here is that particular perpetrator

 

What happened?  He turned into a wuss at the halfway point and got a luxurious berth in mom's arms under her coat, with his head out the collar so he could watch the proceedings and enjoy everything. He'll probably want to come along today, too. And they ask if I get exercise while I write.

 

So, hey. Alaska is gorgeous in the winter. With a coat of snow. And when the daylight does decide to grace us, you can actually see it. Here is a photo from our walk area taken an hour later. That's right. 10:45. We have light. No sun, but it is daylight. See what I mean? Winter wonderland.
Northern style.

Where am I going with this? Good question. The 21st. The headlines. The hype. The conjectures. the blogs. Up here? Well...Winter Solstice comes every year. And we love it. I think they're having the usual party in town. They'll have fireworks (the lights show much better now than in the summer when it's daylight), libations (what fest isn't made better without those?), and lots of fun (because we're at the turning point up here. From here on out it's sun, sun, sun. Or at least, we know it's coming). This year is no exception. It'll be great.

 

Oh. Just to show what I usually get to look at while I'm walking, here's the view from one section of our walk; during autumn, which was really gorgeous this year. It doesn't get much better. Oh. I have to go now. I have a labrador knocking his head against my keyboard. Smart dog. He hasn't gravitated to tugging at my chair yet.        (That will be next).

Take Care! And enjoy the 21st! I'm pretty sure I'll be out and about that day. Walking the dog.

--- Jackie

The Shortest Day of the Year or the Longest Night of the Year

I used to scratch my head when I saw calendars that marked December 21st as the first day of winter. As a life long Alaskan I thought, first day of winter my ass, we’ve been in it for a couple months and we are just hitting the heart of it next month and have more months to go. How can December 21st be the first day of winter? Maybe in Kansas, Hawaii or California some exotic place in rest of America…
I recently learned while researching this blog that the change of seasons are marked by changes in the Sun cycle, these changes are called Solstices and Equinoxes. So it’s not the temperature or weather changes they are using- it is the cycle of the sun and the axis of the earth.

Meanwhile here in Alaska depending on your location and the impact of global climate changes, winter starts in September, October or November. Also dependent on geographic location in this massive state is the length of the long winter night. For example here in Anchorage located at the south central portion of the state on December 21, 2012 the sun will rise 10:14 AM and set at 3:42 PM the length of our day will be 5h 27m 40s. Sounds like a long night right? Not compared to Barrow, the northern most city of Alaska, which is around 728 miles as the crow flies from Anchorage. In Barrow the sun went down on November 17th at 1:44 pm and it is still down, in fact the sun will not come up in Barrow until January 23 at 1:11 pm, so there night is three months, not 30 days as many of been misled to believe. The long winter night in Barrow lasts 67 days that is 9 weeks and 4 days. So here in Anchorage I can’t complain or say that 5 and ½ hours of daylight is paltry when I look at a night that lasts for 3 months.

Interestingly many pagan rituals of winter Solstice permeate our modern culture today. The celebration of the returning Sun can be found as far back as Ancient Egypt as they rejoiced in the rebirth of Horus the god of the sky and his left eye being the Sun and the right eye being the moon. The Romans partied like Romans during Saturnalia a celebration of their god of abundance and agriculture Saturn during the winter Solstice. Not only did they party like Romans, but masters would serve their slaves, kind of like boxing day without the slaving part.

The pre-Christian cultures of Northern Europe also celebrated the winter solstice and the coming of the longer days with the burning of a Jul or Yule log. They would cut a tree that could burn for twelve days as a symbol of fertility and the return of the sun. A pig would be sacrificed and eaten at the feast. They would decorate trees with pieces of cloth and gifts to tree spirit, which also occurred in the Druidic Cultures as well. I even read on the Skanland website that a large wheel would be lit on fire and rolled down a hill to encourage the sun to return.

In Alaska, Russian Orthodox Christmas will be celebrated on January 7, 2013 and it is kicked off with Selaviq or the Starring. It is a wonderful fun filled event, Stars made of cloth or yarn on a wood frame, which represent the guiding star that led the Three Wise Men to Jesus are blessed and spun. These stars travel from house to house in the community blessing the people and their homes. The carriers and stars are welcomed into homes for tea and feasting.

So whatever you may be celebrating on these dark winter nights I suggest you turn out all your electrical lights and burn a few candles. I have been doing that since last summer to get a feel for the historical I am writing set in Iceland during the early settlement period. I know one thing for sure all those winter Solstice parties had a lot of candles, which is probably where are tradition of Christmas/Fairy lights comes from. Careful, don’t stub your toe while negotiating your living room by candlelight and please don’t do an Edie and catch something on fire!
Happy Solstice, Happy Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Kwanza, Happy Festivus, Happy Chrismukkah, however you choose to celebrate the long winter nights in the Northern hemisphere enjoy!

--- Carmen Bydalek

Location and Setting in Alaska

As they say in Real Estate, it’s all about the Location! And it’s hard to beat Alaska for unique locations.

What do you envision when you think of Alaska? Wide open tundra dotted with lakes and lichen? Soaring mountains covered in ice and glaciers? Stormy seas lashed by gale-force winds and thirty-foot waves? Icy green lakes surrounded by majestic mountains? Forest primeval with moss covered rocks lining tumbling streams teeming with salmon?

Alaska has all that and more. Sand dunes, barren isles, quiet lakes perfect for a canoe or water skiing. Wide rivers, raging rivers and babbling brooks. Big cities, little villages, quaint towns, stretches of land that haven’t seen a human foot in a thousand years or more. It can be friendly or forbidding, forgiving or ruthless, but the same stretch of road is rarely the same each time you drive down it.

When setting a scene or novel in Alaska, research is necessary. You won’t find the same services in Cantwell as you will in Healy, Eek, Ketchikan, Fairbanks or Anchorage.

To begin your research, head for the internet or find a map. Is the location you want on the main highway system? The rail system? Or beyond? Is it on a river or only accessible by air? If your location is on a road system connected to the main highways (to get out of Anchorage, one goes north, the other south) Google Maps might be able to give you an estimate of travel time by car. Then again, they may not have all the facts concerning road conditions.

For example, the drive from Anchorage to Fairbanks via the Parks Highway is fairly straight forward. Allowing for a lunch and gas stop and a couple breaks, it takes about six hours to drive the 358 miles. Many stretches of the road may be traveled at 65mph, although frost heaves north of Healy generally mean slowing down to 50 or 55mph. Depending on conditions, slower might be better. Say, in winter when the road might be icy. In the summer, no worries. Or rather, not many if there isn’t road construction going on. And there is ALWAYS a road construction project, or three, along the highway.

Mountainside covered with fireweed along the Steese Hwy.

By comparison, the drive from Fairbanks to Circle, a city at the other end of the Steese Highway, but not on the Arctic Circle, is 155 miles. A distance Google Maps estimates will take about 4 hours to drive. They’re not off by much. Only 2 hours. The day I drove from Fairbanks to Circle and back, Liz Selvig and I spent more than twelve hours on the mostly dirt/gravel road. Granted, we made a couple of stops along the way, mostly to take photos, but we didn’t make four hours worth of stops. We had the advantage of a clear, hot, sunny day with no rain and mostly dry roads, although there was one section that was sort of soggy and we weren’t all that confident we’d get through it. There was also a section where a “creek” was cutting into the soft side of the road. The creek was wider, deeper and faster than rivers I’ve seen in Colorado and California, but since it was feeding into the Yukon, I guess creek was an appropriate term. Sort of.

In the end, however, no matter how much information you dig up on the internet, there will be huge holes. Holes that can only be filled in by personal experience. This is where making friends with an Alaskan resident can help your manuscript immensely. I’ve been asked questions such as: Is it possible to run the length of the Alaska Pipeline? Um, well, I wouldn’t recommend it, and I’m pretty sure Alyeska Pipeline Service Company security wouldn’t be thrilled with the idea. And there are sections where the ground is so boggy, I doubt it would be possible, although there is the Dalton Highway (aka the Haul Road) north of Fairbanks, but between the dust and mosquitoes in the summer, and the ice and subzero temps in winter… no, it wouldn’t be practical at all. Better to have the hero jump in the Arctic Ocean in the annual Polar Bear Plunge. Or the Seward Harbor in February during a snowstorm. Same idea.

What about medical care? Where will your characters go if they need more care than the handy First Aid kit can provide? 

The largest city with the most options is Anchorage, although hospitals may be found in Fairbanks, Juneau, Sitka, Kenai and the Mat-Su Valley to name most of them. The farther out you go, the smaller the facilities and the fewer services available. Time of year also makes a difference. Some roads are not plowed in the winter, even if they are on the highway system. Anchorage has three large hospitals, only one of which has a Level III Newborn ICU. Many babies from the villages end up there. Medical care in the villages is often re-routed to the larger cities, and sometimes further south to Seattle. If you watched the episode of Deadliest Catch when the captain had a stroke, you would have seen a lovely shot of Providence Hospital with the Chugach Mountains in the background. He was airlifted from Dutch Harbor to the largest medical facility in the state. A process that took more than a few hours.

October moonrise over Broad Pass

Distances are deceiving here. The more remote the location of a scene, the more you’ll need to talk with someone who’s been there if you can’t make it there yourself. The internet can only give so much information. It can tell you what trees grow in the area, average temperatures and snowfall, hours of daylight day by day, even current news – if there’s a news source there. What it can’t tell you is what it smells like, what sounds you’ll hear while standing under the trees, or how biting or soft the breeze is. An aerial view might show you the landscape – are there trees or tundra – but it won’t show traffic patterns, or how fast the placid-looking river is actually flowing.

Like the land itself, the topic of Alaska is extremely vast. To drill down and investigate one facet could fill pages here. It’s certainly filled libraries. I’ve lived in Alaska since 1977, with brief ventures out for college and a few years in Colorado, and I still don’t know everything there is to know about this wild and beautiful land. Sometimes I love it, sometimes I hate it, but I always respect it, because like a wild animal, it can turn from benign to deadly in the blink of an eye. Something it’s hard to explain to Outsiders enthralled with the myths, the mystery and romance of The Last Frontier.

Here’s my advice to people writing about Alaska: choose your location, do your research, then find someone local to talk to. Your book will have a ring of truth that will enhance the reader’s experience and not add to the many misconceptions already out there. If you’re not sure where to start, well, there’s a whole chapter of RWA members here who are happy to help!

Morgan Q. O’Reilly

http://morganqoreilly.com

Romance for all Your Moods

All 2012 Royalties from the sale of Weathering the Storm, Book 3 of the Shaughnessys, will go to the Alaska Red Cross to help with disaster relief stemming from the Sept 2012 floods in Southcentral Alaska.

Weathering the Storm: Available at Kindle, Nook, Sony eReader and from other ebook retail sites.

Southeast

A world apart...
 

Some would argue that Southeast Alaska has two seasons: wet and wetter. Water defines life in Southeast, from the way we dress and work to the way we travel.

While the rest of Alaska speaks of ‘Outside’, in Southeast the equivalent term is the ‘Mainland’ – a mindset any Hawaiian could relate to. Only three of the many towns and villages of Southeast are connected to the mainland via a road, every other community – including the state capitol, Juneau – requires some form of boat or airplane ride to get there.

The state ferry system, the Alaska Marine Highway, is a lifeline for visitors and locals alike. These ‘Blue Canoes’ haul everything from summer tourists to school basketball teams, vans of produce to cement mixers. If it needs to be shipped, the ferry is one of just three options. Every stitch of clothing (unless you wear buckskin or tanned salmon hide), every vehicle, every gallon of milk at the store – all of it - is shipped into the region.

Most freight arrives via a barge – and the lion’s share comes from Seattle.

Some consider Southeast another suburb of Seattle – with the added bonus of not having to pay Washington sales tax (however what you save on taxes doesn’t offset the cost of the commute). We do more shopping there than in Anchorage, although if one does end up in Anchorage you can bet that we’ll fill those three free bags (Alaska Airlines allows three free bags, up to 50 lbs each, on all in-state travel) to their weight limit. Forget Samsonite, luggage in Southeast is often a set of beautifully matched Rubbermaid totes – they’re inexpensive, lightweight and, best of all, rainproof.

Speaking of air travel, around here fish fly first class. It’s one of the few places in the world where ‘combi’ aircraft are still used. In a combi, the front half of the jet is taken up by ‘igloos’ – storage containers that only resemble an igloo if you’ve had one too many slugs of orange juice (most flights in Southeast are too short for a full beverage service – and forget about a proper meal). It has to be one of the few places in the world where a scheduled jet flight can be as short as 15 minutes (that same flight can last an hour if the weather is bad with a missed approach). Passengers fly in the ‘back of the bus’ – which also means deplaning into whatever form of rain is falling at the time since only two airports in Southeast have those cozy little tunnels found at airports elsewhere.

If the jet has a mechanical issue and the ferry schedule is no help, you might find yourself on a floatplane. For many of the smaller communities, small planes serve as transportation, mail carriers, ambulances and a way ‘off the rock’.

Getting off the rock can be important in February when you’re fed up with the freeze, thaw cycle that is winter in Southeast. Up north they complain about breakup – a two or three week period of time when winter is dissolving into an icy, slushy mess that soon blossoms into spring – in Southeast winter IS breakup.

Common dress in Southeast is Xtratuffs (brown rubber boots) and a ‘halibut jacket’ – a heavy woolen shirt that could be either shirt or jacket. If you don’t mind being marked as an ‘outsider’, by all means, wear that suit or skirt and heels, just watch your step on the float – those gaps in the boards will kill a pair of heels faster than a gravel road – which we’ve also got plenty of.

 The cool, wet climate grows luxuriously dense forests. Don’t plan on riding your horse through this underbrush (if the skeeters don’t get you, the devil’s club will). If you need to hide from the world, our temperate rainforest is the largest anywhere.

Just don’t let anyone in town see you because (with the exceptions of Ketchikan, Sitka and Juneau) you’ll be that ‘new face’ and easy to point out to the authorities.

Logging still happens, but in very small, family-style operations. We may not have cowboys in Southeast, but we do wrangle a lot of fish and all of it is natural….no farmed salmon here!

Like our neighbors to the north – Southeast has a mystique and rugged beauty all its own. And like our northern neighbors you’ll see the sun here, but only about as often as you’ll see Denali in all its glory – about 30% of the year.

  

One thing about rain, clouds and fog – it makes for atmosphere (pun intended) and amazing, Technicolor sunsets, those 20 minutes in the day when the sun is low enough to peek beneath the clouds just before it sinks behind the mountains. If you’re writing about Southeast….don’t forget the sunsets!

--- By Kris Reed

Eareckson Air Station - Shemya, Alaska

Alaska is home to many magnificent places, including the Aleutian Islands which are an important part of Alaskan and American history. In July 2012, I spent two weeks at Eareckson Air Station which is located on Shemya Island, part of the Near Island group. My career as an environmental scientist has afforded me the privilege of traveling to many remote sites, and Shemya is probably one of the most unique spots. The professionals who manage the base and the natural beauty of the island captured my heart.

 

The totem pole

located in front of the main building

on Shemya Island

　

 

 

 

View of the coastline

off the

northwest side of the island

 

The only mammal on the island is the Blue Fox, locally called "Scruffies". Russians originally stocked the island with these sweet beasts as a source of fur. Today, the population is closely monitored and managed.
As you can see, they aren’t camera shy!

 

 A blue fox I encountered near my work site

 

 

And if you’re looking for the comforts of home on this remote site…you’ll have to travel a bit to get it!

 

 

The closest hamburger joint

 is 1,500 miles north!

　




I’ve included a brief history of the air station below…

Military forces first occupied the once uninhabited island on May 23, 1943, during the final days of the battle to retake Attu Island from the Japanese. Shemya was originally intended as a B-29 Base for the bombing of Japan. Air Force activities were reduced after World War II, but its location provided an ideal refueling stop on the Great Circle Route. Following the Korean War, Shemya was declared surplus and the base was deactivated on July 1, 1954.

The facilities were leased to Northwest Orient Airlines who remained on the island until 1961. In 1958, the Air Force resumed operations in support of various Air Force and Army strategic intelligence collection activities. The Cobra Dane AN/FPS-108 Phased Array Radar facility was constructed during the mid-1970s and is used to monitor space and missile activities. In April 1993, Shemya AFB was renamed Eareckson Air Station after the World War II commander of the island.
 

http://chugach-eareckson.com/index.php?pr=Island_History

--- by Elizabeth Komisar

A PRIMER ON WRITING ALASKA

--- by Liz Selvig

Reading and writing about Alaska is extremely popular these days. Alaska is one of those “sexy” book settings—like London or Paris. Think New York with bunny boots instead of Jimmy Choos, Carhartts rather than couture, and Denali (Mount McKinley) rather than the Empire State Building. If you wrote a meme about the 49^th state it would read: “I’ve never wanted to visit Alaska,” said nobody ever.

It’s true. Everybody wants to visit Alaska at some point. And that makes Alaskans just a little smug—because they know they’re part of a legendary place. And it makes those who’ve lived and been accepted as honorary Alaskans (like lucky me) even smugger. (I’m a writer; I can make up words.)

Alaskans are also very interested in and sensitive to books set in their state. They read with hope but a lot of skepticism the details included in these stories, and they’re wont to pick on mistakes in things like distances, weather scenes, snow conditions, light conditions, and descriptions of bush planes. To name a few.

This protectiveness is probably true of people who live in any setting a writer chooses, but because Alaska is so big, so grand, and so beholden to stereotypes, its native sons and daughters pray for the rare book whose writer didn’t fall into the trap of making stuff up based on Nanook of the North. (Yes, he was a Canadian Eskimo, but that illustrates the point: it’s another fact most people get wrong.) In other words, they look for writers who get the details right when they write. 

In the next few months here at AKRWA’s blog, real, honest-to-gosh Alaskans will divulge their secrets to writing credible scenes about various Alaskan topics. I, as a non-native but adopted Alaskan, want to share my favorite facts about Alaska—the things I fall back on when I’m working on my Alaskan novels. These are just insights and basic helps. One thing I learned when I lived in Anchorage is that nothing, but nothing beats getting to know Alaska like talking to Alaskans. So if you need one to research with, contact me or any writer on this blog!

13 Random Things I learned about Alaska:

1.     Alaskans are incredibly friendly and welcoming, but they are laid back. The whole state is laid back, even the largest city Anchorage. There’s a subtle, “hey, don’t worry about it, where’s it going to go even if it tries to leave?” mentality about every problem from making a hair appointment to fixing a broken pipe. Any place that isn’t Alaska is a long way away, so you might as well chill. (No pun intended.)

2.     A new arrival in Alaska is a Cheechako. A full-fledged Alaskan is a sourdough. I lived there three years and was honored by several friends with graduation-from-Cheechako status, but I’m a long way from being a sourdough!

3.     If you go somewhere not in Alaska you have gone “outside.” Outside ALWAYS means outside of Alaska, not outside your front door.

4.     The two biggest tourist attractions in Alaska are Denali (Mt. McKinley) and the Inside Passage (where the cruise ships go) and they are NOWHERE near each other. You can’t drive from one city to the other, although you can get close – Anchorage to Haines, for example. But then you must fly or take the Alaska Marine ferry. (IMHO it’s really just quicker to fly the whole way.)
 

5.     Mount McKinley is the highest mountain peak in North America. Alaskans never refer to it as Mt. McKinley. It is Denali.  Or The Mountain. (And other names, too, but these two will do if you’re writing a book.)

6.     When it’s clear, you can see Denali from Anchorage even though it’s 140 miles (as the crow flies) away. It’s about 125 miles from Fairbanks, so you can see it from there as well. But The Mountain makes its own weather so it’s only visible 30% of the time. Most visitors to Alaska don’t get to see Denali at all, which is a shame, because it’s stunning.

7.     It takes five hours to get to Denali National Park from Anchorage, and nearly three more to get from DNP to Fairbanks.

8.     Yes, moose DO walk down the busy streets in Anchorage. Many times I saw a line of cars stopped at a green light so a moose could saunter through the crosswalk. And, in a smaller town, like Homer, they are ubiquitous.

9.     They use dollars and cents and USPS stamps in Alaska. I actually knew this before I ever got there, but I just wanted to clear this up. Seriously, when I came back outside to visit, several people asked me what Alaskans use for money. Seriously.

10.  They don’t live in igloos anywhere in Alaska.

11.  There are no penguins in Alaska and there are no polar bears in Anchorage. Or Fairbanks. Penguins live in Antarctica. Polar bears live in the Arctic. Never the twain shall meet except, possibly, in a zoo.

12.  The scenery is spectacular, but the politics are the most interesting part of Alaska. If you’re writing about The Last Frontier (Alaska’s nickname) read the Anchorage Daily News online. There’s always something unique going on. Oh, and, it has been thoroughly established but I’ll reiterate: you can’t see Russia from Alaska.

13.  The Iditarod. Someone will write an entire blog on this 1149-mile sled dog race, but if you’re going to use this event in a story PLEASE research the rules and check out a LOT of pictures. Long distance dog mushing sounds sexy. It ain’t sexy. Don’t get me wrong—it’s a VERY cool sport and I’m a huge, huge fan. But 70 men and women dressed in fur and ice, dealing with dogs and fatigue and no real showers for nine-plus days is not a great setting for a romantic scene—if you get my drift. A few master storytellers have tried it—but I promise you, the stories are not realistic.

I could go on, but thirteen is my lucky number. There are so many amazing facts and colorful details you could put in a book about Alaska. This little list is simply meant to whet your appetite for reading and/or writing about one of my favorite places in the world. And it should serve as a nudge to get you researching anything and everything about your book, your trip, or your fantasy rugged Alaska hero.  Keep watching this blog spot for more info about State #49. And I beg you, if you EVER get the chance to visit do not turn the chance down. You will never ever regret a trip and you’ll have fodder for stories from now until the midnight sun sets!