If you're lucky, you might get slightly
more than three hours of light a day during the winter
solstice in Alaska. What would that do to your
psyche?
If there is any remaining doubt as to whether the Alaskan winter's
bitter arctic chill and unforgiving dark days breed insanity, let
the record show that the case is now rested. I'm in a 10-seat
Navajo twin-engine prop plane, taking Talkeetna Aero Service's
brand-new two-hour sightseeing flight around Denali National Park
and
Mount McKinley, and our pilot, a nice-enough guy named Corky,
has already warned us that it is going to appear as if we are
flying dangerously close to the jagged granite peaks of North
America's highest mountain, the 20,320-foot Mount McKinley (aka
Denali), but that we will actually be quite far away. Something
about distances becoming distorted with objects this enormous.
Whatever. As the plane rocks and rolls around the bumpy air caused
by upward wind surges between the peaks, the mountain looks so
harrowingly close you feel as if you could file your fingernails on
it.
Corky tells us the side of the mountain is actually five miles away
from the edge of the wing tip, but that distance draws a collective
sigh of disbelief from the passengers. It may be true, but no one
can believe it. Our point being that it
looks a heck of a
lot closer than that, so our stomachs are reacting accordingly. It
is one of the coolest, most frightening, and most humbling
experiences of my life.
Denali National Park sits 125 miles south of Fairbanks, Alaska, the
gateway to the interior of this vast adventure wonderland. I've
come during the winter solstice, in December, when there is so
little daylight locals count the time in seconds. Sound like fun?
Actually, there is a three-and-a-half-hour-or-so window of vague
light, though the sun doesn't rise much above the horizon, and even
more rarely above the mountains that surround the town. In other
words, in December and January, Fairbanks is a very dark place
indeed. That must be for the birds, right? Well, yes and no.
IT'S NEARLT NINE A.M. when I arrive in Fairbanks on the
first of my five bone-rattlingly cold mornings, and there isn't a
light in the sky. I ask my taxi driver, "When can we expect the sun
to come up?" "What day is today?" he replies. "Monday? I'd say
around Wednesday." Fantastic.
To say things are done differently around Fairbanks is to say TiVo
has changed the way we watch television. For instance, nearly
everyone here plugs in their cars when they park them (almost all
public parking spaces are equipped with outlets). This is to keep
the engine block warm so it can start in -40 degree temperatures.
And they call snowmobiles "snow machines." They don't even have a
word for what we call snow machines (i.e., machines that make
snow), because, if you haven't figured it out by now, snow around
these parts is rarely in short supply. I mean, in December, people
here consider 10 degrees a heat wave.
Still, thousands flock to the Fairbanks area in winter, most coming
to view the aurora borealis (or northern lights) - the eerie,
greenish-reddish-purplish waves of light that move across the
extreme northern nighttime sky throughout winter. Nearly everything
that there is to do here (and there is plenty) is just for killing
time between chances to view the lights. Seeing them, I soon learn,
is easier said than done, but one meets a slew of interesting
characters along the way.
MY FIRST DISTACTION is Fairbanks's newest attraction, the
$42 million Museum of the North, on the campus of the University of
Alaska-Fairbanks. A work in progress, this striking building,
designed by architect Joan Soranno, is the most interesting piece
of contemporary architecture in all of Alaska. Its entrance hall is
designed to evoke a glacial crevasse, which illuminates a stunning
pink glow at dawn. On a clear day, there are mesmerizing views of
the Alaska Range - including Mount McKinley -from the heavily
windowed lobby.
Inside is a fascinating display of native and contemporary art,
including an impressive 36,000-year-old mummified Steppe Bison (a
species that is extinct but which lives on here, thanks to
taxidermy) and an Okvik Madonna, a 2,000-year-old icon carved from
a walrus tusk and worth $1 million. But the cutting-edge side of
the museum is what makes it worth the price of admission. Heading
up that group is classical new age composer John Luther Adams, who
is building a sound and light room that is controlled by the
constant fluctuations of the weather, the sun, and the moon. In
other words, the rhythmic pulses of Mother Nature control the sonic
soundscape inside it. So, no two moments ever sound exactly the
same, and earthquakes make for a very interesting symphony.
Later that evening, I sit down with James Allen, PhD, a psychology
professor at the University of Alaska-Fairbanks, to discuss the
effects of perpetual darkness on Alaskans throughout the winter.
I'm thinking it surely must drive people insane, as evidenced by
several experiences on this trip (there are more on the way, trust
me). Though Allen hasn't seen an increase in suicides or other
violent crimes during Fairbanks's winters, there is certainly an
increase in odd behavior. "This is an eccentric community," he
says. "People really tend to get squirrelly by March. After it's
been 30 below for a while, 20 degrees really feels warm. You'll see
people wandering around in shorts and other crazy stuff like that."
It doesn't take long during a visit to Fairbanks to realize the
locals' thermostats are way off. "You came during a warm spell," I
hear about twice a day, despite the temperature on my visit
hovering right around the zero mark. Is that insane or what?
THE NEXT MORNING, my internal clock tells me to get up
around eight a.m. It's pitch-black outside, though, so of course my
external clock tells me to hit snooze. No can do. I'm showered,
caffeinated, and out the door by ten a.m., ready to begin my hunt
for the elusive northern lights. The sun, however, is still
sleeping. The front page of today's
Fairbanks Daily
News-Miner local section runs the headline, "3:42 of Possible
Sunlight."
There are two approaches to viewing the northern lights, neither of
them ideal for the nonnocturnal. Though the lights are technically
there anytime the sun is down, they generally can't be seen until
the wee hours. So, you can either stay up all night and wait, or
try to get a few hours of sleep, set your alarm for one a.m., and
take a peek outside. I decide to check into Chena Hot Springs, a
popular winter resort for aurora watching, located about an hour
outside of town.
Chena offers an interesting excursion to check out the lights. I
board an SUSV (Small Unit Support Vehicle), a military-issued,
fully tracked all-terrain vehicle that transports about 10 guests
to the top of the surrounding ridge (it's a roughly 30-minute
uphill ride over snow-covered trails), where we all hurry up and
wait for the lights to appear.
At the top of the ridge, Chena has erected a party-size yurt (a
circular, domed tent originally used by the nomadic peoples of
Central Asia) for us to hang out in, and though there are two
wood-burning stoves, my teeth are still rattling. We wait for four
hours, but the lights never truly come. There are a few false
alarms - and even a vague appearance of green waves in the arctic
air - but nothing that even comes close to the photos I see all
around town. It appears the aurora gods will not be cooperating on
this night, though the
frostbite gods seem to be operating at full
capacity.
I wake up the next morning and head to the hot springs that give
the resort its name. It's roughly two degrees outside, darker than
I thought possible, and I'm walking around in my bathing suit.
"This is insane," I tell myself. I practically hurdle the fence and
belly flop into Hot Springs Rock Lake, a 100-year-old natural hot
spring that maintains a yearly average temperature of 110 degrees.
Its healing waters attract loads of Russian and Japanese tourists,
the former because they believe it relieves psoriasis, muscular
pains, and arthritis; the latter because it's rumored they believe
conceiving a child under the northern lights is good luck (there is
ongoing debate around these parts as to the validity of this
rumor).
I submerge myself and become the warmest I have been since
arriving. Then a funny thing happens. As I swim around for a minute
with my head above water, my hair freezes. Literally. Mother
Nature's hair gel has stopped my hairs dead in their tracks,
wherever they happened to be hanging when I came up for air. It
took about 30 seconds for this to occur.
The chorus of 150 howling Siberian and Alaskan huskies, who live on
the property with champion musher
Bill Cotter, startles me from
pondering my new hairstyle. I remember I have a dogsledding date.
Cotter, who has raced the Iditarod 18 times (placing as high as
third), is a sort of dog whisperer, if you will. The dogs, with
names like Blue, Tacoma, Wallace, and Aztec, go berserk when he
begins picking them out for this morning's ride. Every one of these
beautiful creatures is barking, "Pick me! Pick me!" They absolutely
live for this, and it's a treat to see.
Next thing I know, snowcapped trees are flying by in a blur of wind
and fur as a 10-dog team pulls the 250-pound sled, me, my
photographer, Cotter, and a second sled carrying Cotter's
apprentice. It's unbelievable, really. Cotter rattles off commands
barely above a whisper, and the dogs respond like clockwork. Still,
it's freezing out here - and this ride is only 30 minutes.
Deductive reasoning makes it abundantly clear: Anyone entering the
multiday Iditarod must surely be insane.
THE NEXT EVENING, I transfer to the Mount Aurora Fairbanks
Creek Lodge, another popular destination for viewing the northern
lights. Over a fabulous dinner of gigantic Alaskan king crab (the
best I've ever had) and cedar-plank baked salmon, co-owner Stephen
Birdsall gets me all worked up about the lights (he has installed
low-level red lights around the property to help guests' eyes
adjust to night vision). "The lights will make the hairs stand up
on the back of your neck," he tells me. "When they start moving,
you'll feel like they are coming down to get you." Birdsall's
property boasts 270-degree views of the open sky, so I'm feeling
pretty confident that tonight's the night.
Wrong. I set my alarm for one a.m. and hop outside to the viewing
deck. Same thing: There are faint patches of green, but nothing
like the intense photos around town. I wait around in the cold for
about 45 minutes but give up before my toes begin to fall off.
Can't anyone around here think of a warmer way to wait for the
lights? At any rate, I'm beginning to believe they are a Photoshop
creation.
I SPENT MY FINAL NIGHT at a wonderful log cabin
bed-and-breakfast called Grand View (the view, of course, refers to
the lights). This gorgeous spruce home is owned by American Dave
Thompson and his lovely Irish wife, Clodagh, who had enough sense
to put in a Jacuzzi on their outdoor deck overlooking the expansive
Tanana Valley. Now that's what I'm talking about. Once again I set
my alarm for one a.m., and I fall asleep in my bathing suit with
Christmas-morning-like anticipation - surely the third time must be
the charm.
Nope. Thanks for playing. It turns out to be the cloudiest night of
the trip. The next morning, I express my newest hypothesis, which I
cleverly title the "Adobe Photoshop Northern Lights Conspiracy," to
my host from the Fairbanks Convention and Visitors Bureau. I'm
clearly bummed about the lights, and in an effort to lift my
spirits, he asks me if I've ever driven a car across a frozen
river. I most certainly have not, I tell him.
So off we go to the
Chena River, which he tells me freezes over during the winter, offering a convenient shortcut for the locals. But even that’s a no go: The
Department of Transportation has cut off the thoroughfare with signs and a sizable roadblock disguised as a snowdrift. My host is puzzled, saying it was open as recently as a week ago and that people drive over it all the time. Later that afternoon, I learn why it was closed. A newspaper headline reads, “DOT Puts Brakes on Chena River Ice Road: Popular shortcut hasn’t frozen solid this year.”
And to think he was dead set on driving across it. I told you these people are insane. Of course, that’s meant in the most complimentary way possible.
Authoramerican airlines
american airlines offers seasonal daily service to
anchorage starting june 8 and offers codeshare service from anchorage to fairbanks on alaska airlines. for more information, visit
www.aa.com.