Greetings from Bettles, Alaska!
The news here is: there is dissension in the Desto3 ranks! Serious stuff. Without too much detail, my position is that the main purpose of a travel guide is to, you know, guide, (provide others with helpful travel tips, etc.), but Pablo thinks I want to take my mission too far with this issue. Okay.
Let’s talk about constipation. Constipation and Al Pacino. If you read that sentence fragment and said to yourself, “Wow, Doris, Desto3 must be in Alaska!” chances are very good, (I’d say between 98 and 100%) that you also have been north of the Arctic Circle for your share of days. In which case, I’m not talking to you because you already know that in the dead of winter, (late March it’s still minus 20 degrees) it is prohibitively costly to acquire any comestible product remotely resembling roughage. (I personally overheard two Bettles Lodge staff members discussing the consumption of an apple with the linguistic torque of two drug addicts talking about mainlining primo heroin. And, one night, at dinner, I casually mentioned that I’d consider homicide to obtain a piece of kale and NO ONE knew what kale was, let alone how to purchase it. Apparently, you don’t even want to know what happens to lettuce in five seconds at twenty below zero. It isn’t pretty.)
So, in the interests of advising you on absolute essentials to take along, should you venture up for the northern lights in mid March, DO NOT FORGET the laxatives. (And, I don’t mean a bag of prunes or that herbal tea hippie shit – you’ll pardon the expression and the expletive. If you’re smart, you’ll bring whatever medicinal equivalent to intestinal dynamite you can get your hands on.) Trust me. The discomfort of being break-your-nuts cold is one thing. Break-your-nuts cold and also impacted with four or five days of poo is quite another. I don’t recommend. (This advice comes from a traveler who usually has no problem with regularity…perhaps, when traveling, a trifle of the opposite disorder, just FYI – if that’s not altogether TMI for you. If it is, just leave a nasty comment, make Pablo’s day and get on with yours. Thank you.)
Are you now wondering about the Al Pacino reference? If you haven’t already seen it, go immediately to Netflix and order up “Insomnia”. This is a movie shot on location in a remote part of Alaska in which Mr. Pacino plays a big city detective assisting Hillary Swank in the manhunt of (Robin Williams) a really creepy dude. The scenery is to die for and, aptly titled, this movie is a very realistic depiction of how absolutely impossible it is to sleep in Alaska when the sun never sets. Note: in late March, the days and nights are almost equal with the days growing longer by approximately 7 minutes each day. So we didn’t have to contend with never ending daylight. We were up all hours of the night however to shoot the Aurora Borealis, so we got just a taste of the kind of sleep deprivation that the endless daylight of summer provides and that Mr. Pacino suffered. (See photos.)
Toward the goal of capturing the Aurora, there are two basic strategies. One is to just stay up all night and sleep during the day, and the other is to try to grab some intermittent sleep, by setting your alarm clock on the hour, to get up, dress in arctic gear, and run outside to see if the “lights” are active. (The weather service up there also phones the lobby of the lodge if “activity” is spotted, but you have to trust them and then trust that whoever answers the phone in the lobby will come and wake you up. (I don’t trust anyone that much.) I exercised strategy number one. Sleeping enough during the day to compensate is not an option because the lodge offers so many FUN activities to engage in. Snow shoeing, cross country skiing, dog sledding, (or “mushing” as the locals call it), snow mobile-ing, and a spectacular, (but pricey) “Sight See Flight” that takes you up even farther north over the Brooks Mountain range.
We did it all, which meant that by the end of day three, plus two nights to get to the lodge via Anchorage and Fairbanks, I was sleep deprived and constipated AND colder than I’ve ever been in my life. In short, miserable. And, yet, I LOVED this trip and you will too. I promise.
Other insights: Don’t fear the cold. The cold is actually your friend for viewing the lights. (There is some correlation between really cold, clear nights and visible lights.) You don’t have to buy all the cold weather gear to go up there because the industrial grade arctic wear provided by the lodge (from head to toe) has you covered, including the same boots that US military personnel are issued in Afghanistan. My problem was that I shelled out $150 bucks for Sorrell snow boots on sale at REI (rated to withstand temps of minus 32 degrees) and, damn it! I was going to wear those suckers come hell or high water, (or frost bite). Once I surrendered fashion and checked out the utilitarian boots and garments provided, I have to admit, I was warm as toast. (Almost.) (No charge for clothing and boots with the package.)
Regarding the photography, before you go up, read everything you can get your hands on about shooting in the arctic cold. It will help if you are prepared. Also, know in advance that just like any other natural “event”, sometimes you just don’t get lucky. Of the three nights our guys shot photos, only two were really good. The third night was cold and perfectly clear, but alas, no Aurora presented that night. The stars, on the other hand that Aurora-less night, were out of this world. (Sorry. Couldn’t resist. And, that was also true. Never saw a better night sky ever!)
You might be tempted to skip the dog sledding because it is not included in the package and it’s a little pricey. (It cost almost $500 for two people for two hours.) Don’t, though. Sell your old Van Gogh on EBay if you have to. It was a once in a lifetime highlight. And, when are you ever going to be inside the Arctic Circle again? YOLO, right? Fun fact: sled dogs poop WHILE they are running. And, they eat between 10,000 and 12,000 calories per day when running. And, they are NOT big dogs. (See photo.) Eleven of them pulled three of us for two hours with only a short rest. They are amazing to watch from up on the rails.
Alaskan human residents are just as interesting, even more than the sled dogs. In “Insomnia” one character tells Pacino, “There are two kinds of people in Alaska: those who were born here and those who come here to escape something.” We only met a handful of “native-born” Alaskans. One thing I can say is, they are all wildly proud of their state. The émigrés from southern climes who have found home up there do possess a certain demeanor, as if they are all in on a secret that outsiders will never know, or perhaps they are all members in a cult. Most of them came up “just to see it” and fell in love. This kind of love for a place that has two seasons – Mosquitos and Cold, (mosquitos as big as humming birds and freeze your nuts off cold) – is curious, but, the place is like no other and that might be the draw. A very common migratory pattern emerged. People lived someplace cold, then moved to a place that was colder, then moved to a place that was intolerably cold and then they moved to Alaska. During mosquito season when temps can reach the nineties and the sun never sets, the locals wear “bug jackets”, gloves, and netting to cover their heads. Does this sound like hell to you? People swarm up there for the fishing and hunting and climbing. (And, presumably scratching.)
Be sure to visit the park ranger station in Bettles, a surprisingly well appointed little affair complete with a video room and a NOVA documentary ready to go at your request with a truly fascinating history of the indigenous tribe that followed the caribou and primarily derived everything they needed to survive from that one source.
We flew back to Fairbanks for a second stay-over at Pike’s lodge. Except for some disorganization arising from being short staffed, I would heartily recommend Pike’s. (Warning: You will faint dead away at the front door if you’re a PETA person, but, hey, that’s Alaska. You will have to get over that quick. There are gigantic mounted moose heads and whole stuffed bears EVERYWHERE, even in the bathrooms in Alaska.)
In the early morning we hopped on the train that runs down to Anchorage, a twelve hour (almost) train ride that cuts through the heart of the Denali National Forest. Pray for a clear day and you will see the top of Denali itself, the largest peak in America, maybe all of North America. 12K to the top. It’s a long day so unless you love train car food, bring a picnic and lots of H2O and make friends with your fellow passengers. We had a great but long day.
What to say about Anchorage? Without a doubt it is a beautiful little gem of a small city. We were told that the museum is world class and it does look nice, but alas, closed every Monday. I was sad about that because I REALLY got curious about what kind of art was housed within. (Can someone please inform me?)
That’s all I can say about Alaska. If it isn’t on your bucket list, it should be. And, congratulations to Pablo who is now a member of the Fifty States Club.