adventure guide to the alaska highway

Alaska Highway dventure Guide to the 3rd Edition Ed & Lynn Readicker-Henderson... The Kootenay flows down to the Columbia River in Washington state, and westward to the Pacific,weaving a

Alaska Highway

dventure Guide to the

3rd Edition

Alaska Highway

dventure Guide to the

3rd Edition

Ed & Lynn Readicker-Henderson

HUNTER PUBLISHING, INC,

130 Campus Drive, Edison, NJ 08818732-225-1900; 800-255-0343; fax 732-417-1744

hunterp@bellsouth.netUlysses Travel Publications

4176 Saint-Denis, Montréal, Québec

Canada H2W 2M5514-843-9882, ext 2232; fax 514-843-9448

Windsor BooksThe Boundary, Wheatley Road, Garsington

Oxford, OX44 9EJ England01865-361122; fax 01865-361133ISBN 1-58843-117-7

© 2001 3rd Edition, Hunter Publishing, Inc

All rights reserved No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored

in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means, tronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without thewritten permission of the publisher

elec-This guide focuses on recreational activities As all such activities tain elements of risk, the publisher, author, affiliated individuals andcompanies disclaim any responsibility for any injury, harm, or illnessthat may occur to anyone through, or by use of, the information in thisbook Every effort was made to insure the accuracy of information in thisbook, but the publisher and author do not assume, and hereby disclaim,any liability for any loss or damage caused by errors, omissions, mislead-ing information or potential travel problems caused by this guide, even ifsuch errors or omissions are a result of negligence, accident or any othercause

con-Cover photo: Totem carving, Leo de WysInterior photographs © Readicker-Henderson, unless noted otherwise

Index by Nancy WolffCartoons by Joe KohlMaps by Kim André, © 2001 Hunter Publishing, Inc

(Base maps provided by Lynn Readicker-Henderson)

1 2 3 4

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vi n Acknowledgments

Acknowledgments

Books this size take a lot of help, a lot of time spent with locals willing toshare their time and expertise We thank them all, whether they knew wewere pumping them for information or not There are just a few peoplewho have to be singled out, though

First and foremost, Kathy, of Kathy Day Public Relations, goddess of theworld’s largest Rolodex She knows everybody and has always had everyanswer; she’s been indispensable on the last five Alaska books we’vewritten Mike Walsh and Mahla Strohmeier are lucky enough to live justaround the corner from a musk ox herd, and have always been more thangenerous with their Fairbanks expertise Diane Dunham in Anchoragewas again a true, efficient delight to work with And finally, for the lasteight years, Kim André at Hunter Publishing has taken our ever-length-ening typescripts and turned them into lovely books

Thank you all

n n n

We traveled more than 2,000 miles on the Alaska Highway This book was a great companion and guide book wherever we were We

even did some more reading on the plane journey home

because the writing was so interesting A reader

Acknowledgments vi

Maps x

n Introduction How This Book Is Organized 2

Who We Are, What We Do & What You’re in For 2

n The Land & Its Inhabitants British Columbia 3

Geography 3

History 3

The Yukon 5

Geography 5

History 6

Alaska 7

Geography 7

History 7

The Gold Rushes 10

Climate 12

The Landscape 13

Identifying Flora 13

The Forest Service 15

Reforestation 16

Economics 17

Conservation Groups 17

Volcanoes 18

Earthquakes 18

Glaciers 19

The Aurora Borealis 22

The Cultures 22

Southcentral 22

Southeast 24

Totem Poles 25

Wildlife 29

Catching A Glimpse 30

Moose 31

Bears 32

Wolves 39

Other Mammals 40

Whales 40

Orca & Porpoise 44

Seals, Sea Lions & Otters 45

Fish 48

Birds 53

Bugs 55

Other Reading 57

n Practicalities When to Go, For How Long 61

Costs 61

Tourist Information 62

Shopping 63

Ethical Issues 64

Photography 65

Catching Wildlife on Film 67

Video Photography 68

Accommodations 69

Bed & Breakfasts 69

Roadhouses 69

Camping 70

Forest Service Cabins 70

Youth Hostels 72

Transportation 73

Precautions 73

Racking Your Gear 75

Getting Off the Road 77

Boating 77

Charters/Outfitters 79

Wilderness Hiking 81

Fishing & Hunting Rules 83

Health 84

Hypothermia 86

One Highway, Two Countries 86

Legalities & Customs 86

Currency 88

Electricity 89

Telephones 89

Metric Conversion 89

The Beauty of the Wild 90

n The History of the Highway A Highway Is Born 91

A Tough Road to Build 92

A Road in Use 96

n Approaches to the Highway The Western Approach 99

North from Seattle 99

Crossing into Canada 100

viii n Adventure Guide to the Alaska Highway

Hope 103

Prince George 106

The Eastern Approach 107

Kootenay 108

Banff 110

Yoho 111

Jasper 112

Mt Robson 114

n The Alaska Highway Dawson Creek 115

History 115

Things to Do 115

Out & About 116

Food 117

Accommodations 117

Dawson Creek to Fort St John 118

Kiskatinaw Provincial Park 118

Peace Island Regional Park 118

Taylor 119

The Peace River Area 119

Fort St John 120

History 120

Things to Do 120

Seasonal Activities 121

Food 121

Accommodations 121

Fort St John to Fort Nelson 122

Wonowon 123

Fort Nelson 124

History 124

Things to Do 125

Seasonal Activities 125

Food 125

Accommodations 126

Fort Nelson to Muncho Lake 126

Muncho Lake 130

Things to Do 130

Accommodations 131

Muncho Lake to Watson Lake 132

Liard Hot Springs 132

Watson Lake 134

History 134

Things to Do 135

Food 136

Accommodations 136

Watson Lake to Teslin 137

Contents n ix

Teslin 138

Things to Do 138

Food 139

Accommodations 139

Teslin to Whitehorse 140

Whitehorse 141

History 141

Things to Do 144

Out & About 149

Seasonal Activities 150

Nightlife 151

Food 151

Accommodations 152

Whitehorse to Haines Junction 153

Champagne 155

Haines Junction 157

Things to Do 157

Food 158

Accommodations 158

Kluane National Park 158

History 159

Geography 159

Flora & Fauna 160

Climate 160

Out & About 160

Kluane Park to the Alaska Border 162

Burwash Landing 164

Kluane Wilderness Village 165

Beaver Creek 167

History 167

Accommodations 168

Alaska Border to Tok 169

Tetlin National Wildlife Refuge 169

Tok 174

History 174

Things to Do 175

Out & About 176

Food 177

Accommodations 177

Tok to Delta Junction 179

Delta Junction 181

History 181

Things to Do 182

Out & About 182

Food 183

Accommodations 183

Delta Junction to Fairbanks 184

x n Adventure Guide to the Alaska Highway

Big Delta State Historical Park 184

Fairbanks 186

History 187

Climate 187

Basics 188

Things to Do 190

Out & About 198

Seasonal Activities 201

Nightlife 203

Shopping 203

Food 204

Accommodations 205

n Stewart-Cassiar Highway Prince Rupert 210

History 210

Things to Do 210

Out & About 212

Food 213

Accommodations 213

Leaving Prince Rupert 214

Along the Cassiar Highway 215

Kitwanga 215

Stewart-Hyder Side Trip 217

Things to Do 217

Seasonal Events 218

Out & About 218

Food 219

Accommodations 219

The Cassiar, continued 219

Iskut 220

Dease Lake 221

Telegraph Creek 222

The Stikine River 222

The Cassiar, continued 228

n Roads to Skagway The Atlin Road 229

Atlin 229

The Tagish Road 230

The South Klondike Highway 230

Carcross 231

Skagway 232

History 232

Things to Do 234

Out & About 237

Food 239

Contents n xi

Accommodations 240

n The Haines Highway Tatshenshini-Alsek Wilderness 242

Rafting 242

Mountain Biking 243

Haines 244

History 244

Things to Do 245

Out & About 248

Food 249

Accommodations 250

n Dawson City & the Dempster Highway to Inuvik Eastern Roads to Dawson City 254

The Campbell Highway 254

The Campbell, continued 256

The Klondike Highway 257

The Klondike, continued 261

The Western Road to Dawson City 261

The Taylor Highway 262

Dawson City 268

History 268

Things to Do 269

Out & About 271

Shopping 272

Food 272

Accommodations 273

The Dempster Highway 273

Fort McPherson 277

Inuvik 278

Things to Do 278

Out & About 278

Food 278

Accommodations 278

n The Glenn Highway Tok Cutoff to Anchorage 281

Glennallen 282

Matanuska Glacier 284

Palmer 286

History 286

Things to Do 286

Out & About 287

Chugach State Park 288

n The Richardson Highway to Valdez

xii n Adventure Guide to the Alaska Highway

The Richardson Highway 291

The Denali Highway 291

The Richardson, continued 294

Copper Center 295

The Edgerton Highway & McCarthy Road 297

The Richardson, continued 302

Valdez 304

History 305

The Spill 306

Things to Do 311

Out & About 313

Food 316

Accommodations 317

Onward from Valdez: The Copper River Delta 318

History 318

Exploring 319

Out & About 320

Shipping Out 321

n North from Fairbanks The Pipeline 323

The Dalton Highway 324

North from Fairbanks 328

The Steese Highway 328

The Elliott Highway 331

A Narrow Road to the Deep North: The Dalton Highway 332

North Slope Oil Fields 337

Alaska National Wildlife Refuge 337

n Denali Park & the George Parks Highway Ester 341

Nenana 342

The Denali Outskirts 344

Getting Here 344

Out & About 344

Food 346

Accommodations 347

Denali National Park 348

History 348

Geography 348

Flora & Fauna 354

Getting In 355

Development 355

Inside the Park 356

Backcountry 360

The George Parks Highway to the Glenn Highway Junction 362

Talkeetna 362

Contents n xi

Willow & Wasilla 366

n Anchorage History 373

The City Today 375

Basics 376

Things to Do 377

Out & About 382

Seasonal Activities 383

Tours 384

Shopping 385

Food 388

Nightlife 390

Accommodations 390

n South of Anchorage Portage Glacier to Homer 393

Portage & the Seward Highway 393

Turnagain Arm 394

Potter Marsh 395

Girdwood 397

Alyeska 398

Portage 399

Whittier & Prince William Sound 400

The Tunnel 402

History 402

Things to Do 403

Food 403

Accommodations 403

Out of Town Activities 404

Farther Down the Kenai – The Seward Highway 406

Seward 408

History 408

Things to Do 409

Out & About 411

Food 416

Accommodations 416

Leaving Seward 418

The Sterling Highway 418

Sterling 420

Soldotna 421

Kenai 423

Ninilchick 430

Homer 430

History 431

Things to Do 431

Out & About 434

xii n Adventure Guide to the Alaska Highway

Food 439

Accommodations 440

n The Alaska Marine Highway Southeast Section 444

Southwest Section 444

Ferry Technicalities 445

Reservations 445

Fares 445

Baggage Restrictions 446

Pets 447

Check-In 447

Sleeping On Board 447

Food 448

n Index

Contents n xiii

The Alaska Highway travels through some of the most pristine tryside in the Americas Once a rugged dirt road few could travel – aroad known to make military trucks disappear into deep mud – its 1,500-plus-mile route is now almost completely paved and sometimes smooth.It’s open to anyone who wants to follow in the footsteps of the ever-hopefulgold rush prospectors, who wants to head as far north as the roads can go,toward spaces more wide open than most people can imagine

coun-The highway skirts lakes and rivers with water in shades of blue thatdefy description and with fishing where the reality surpasses the great-est lies told in the continental United States It rounds the edge of thelargest wilderness area in the world – the Kluane/Wrangell-St Eliaspark system – a place so remote many of its mountains remain unnamed,

a park bigger than most of the New England states combined The sheerscale of this region is staggering

When you’re on the highway, there is wildlife everywhere you look Blackbears, moose standing seven feet tall, Dall and stone sheep, mountaingoats, and even grizzly bears are often within easy sight of the road –sometimes they’re standing on the road And then there are the smalleranimals: beavers, foxes, martens, porcupines, the ubiquitous Arcticground squirrel Along the coast you’ll spot sea otters, once the source ofRussia’s greatest wealth, smash clams on their bellies You’ll see hump-back whales breach, raising their bodies 30 feet into the air before crash-ing back into the sea For birders, 424 species have been spotted inAlaska alone; British Columbia and the Yukon are both on major migra-tory flyways You might spot bald eagles, Arctic terns, red-throated loons,trumpeter swans, wigeons, canvasbacks, redheads and ring-neckedducks Over 100 species of birds nest in the Tetlin Wildlife Refuge alone,right on the path of the highway

The modern Alaska Highway is a trip without hardship Towns aremostly tiny – some that look like big cities on the map are little more thancrossroads – but frequent enough to keep you supplied with all the neces-sities Campsites are among the best in the world There are no languageproblems along the highway, only two currencies, hassle-free borders,and people who are unfailingly friendly

Traveling the highway is an adventure of peace, beauty, and nature It’sthe greatest drive in the world North to Alaska

n How This Book Is Organized

This book is divided into three sections The first three chaptersserve as an introduction to the North, including its history, geog-raphy, climate, and wildlife This section also offers information

on how to prepare yourself and your vehicle for the journey The secondpart (Chapters 4-6) covers the approaches to the Alaska Highway, thehighway itself, and the scenic alternate route north – the Cassiar High-way In short, it gets you into the far North Roads are described south tonorth, unless otherwise noted Locations for the Alaska Highway aregiven by the old mile markers Over the years, as the highway as beenchanged, these mile markers have ceased to be entirely accurate, al-though they are close to the actual distances The old markers do, how-ever, still exist, and they are the way businesses locate themselves.The last section (Chapters 7-16) details the roads that lead off the AlaskaHighway These are presented in the order in which they appear if you’retraveling the highway south to north These roads are also described ac-cording to the direction in which they leave the Alcan (the Alaska High-way) – if the road heads south, we describe it north to south If it leadsnorth, we go south to north, describing it from the point it leaves theAlcan

n Who We Are, What We Do

& What You’re in For

We’ve been writing these books for 10 years; over that time,we’ve been lucky enough to get to see and do just about every-thing in the state This book brings you the places and thingsthat we think you’re going to love

However, let’s admit to a couple biases right up front: you go to the North

to see the wild, to be outside, to see the best that nature has to offer Youdon’t go up there to eat or sleep at the exact same places you can find athome Chain stores, in all their many permutations, make for mediocreexperiences We believe that you get the best trip when you deal with thepeople who live, work, and make a place their home If you’re planning tospend your trip eating two meals a day at McDonald’s, this book isn’t foryou

We also believe the best travelers, the happiest travelers, are the oneswho know what they’re looking at That’s why we spend so much time onhistory and culture It ain’t just like it is back home

And we hope it never is

2 n Introduction

British Columbia is defined by the

chains of mountains that line the

land: to the north lie the Cassiar

and the Omineca Mountains; to the

south-east, the Columbia Mountains; and to the

east, the Coast Mountains and the mighty

Rockies These mountains divide the

prov-ince into sections of plateaus and valleys, rich

for agriculture and animal husbandry, while

blocking off huge tracts of land that are left to wilderness

The rivers of the province are no less impressive than the mountains The

largest of them, the Fraser, is 850 miles long and is fed by the Nechako, Quesnel, Chilcotin, and Thompson rivers The Kootenay flows down to

the Columbia River in Washington state, and westward to the Pacific,weaving a tortuous path between mountain ranges More than a quarter

of a billion birds stop along the Stikine during the height of the migrationseason

n History

The land that is now British Columbia was first brought to

Euro-pean attention by Juan Perez in 1774; Captain Cook was the

first European to land in the area, near Vancouver Island, in

1778 But it took Alexander Mackenzie to open the area, when his

1793 expedition reached the Pacific Coast by land – a decade beforeLewis and Clark ever turned their sights West Mackenzie was not onlythe first to cross the continent, he was one of the greatest explorers theNorth has ever seen; after dipping his toes in the Pacific Ocean, heheaded north, following what is now the Mackenzie River system to theGreat Slave Lake and eventually to the coast of the Arctic Ocean He was-n’t really looking for what he found; he kept hearing stories about a big

4 n British Columbia

river to the west (the Yukon, no doubt), but while not finding it, he ated the foundations for Canada’s western provinces, mapping endlessstretches of land that even today see few visitors.

cre-Where explorers first trod, tradesmen soon followed After Mackenzie

opened the West, Simon Fraser and George Thompson – names

com-mon to Canada’s landscape today – followed in his footsteps, opening a

series of fur-trading posts for the Hudson’s Bay Company The HBC,

expanding as quickly as it could, sent men out to solidify its hold on tradeand to fend off territorial encroachment by a variety of upstart fur trad-ers The first whites to settle in British Columbia were a ragged group ofhunters and trappers, who either lived with the Indians (the term cur-rently in use through much of Canada is First Nation peoples) or took ad-vantage of them, seeking their fortune in furs

From this beginning grew the modern province of British Columbia.Most (but certainly not all) of the fur traders are gone, but the land is stillrich in natural resources – particularly lumber and natural gas – and is aparadise for tourists

The Yukon

Famed as the home of the Klondike gold rush, the Yukon is one of the

least populated areas of Canada Only about 30,000 people live in theterritory, or roughly one person for every seven square miles of land But

if you take away Whitehorse, home to nearly two-thirds of the population,you’re left with a territory that has only one person for every 26 squaremiles of land – plenty of room to spread out

n Geography

The Yukon (Canadians call it simply “Yukon,” with no “the”) is

al-most completely mountainous: the Rockies and the St Elias

mountains nearly fill the territory The highest point in Canada

is in the Yukon: Mt Logan is 19,850 feet high Although considerably

lower than Everest and a tad lower than McKinley, Mt Logan is the est mountain massif in the world It rises from just above sea level on abase nearly 100 miles in diameter Compare this to Everest, which rises

larg-to 27,000 feet, but starts from a plateau nearly 20,000 feet high and you’llunderstand that the mountains are bigger in the Yukon

Over half of the territory is drained by the Yukon River, which rises

near Whitehorse, beginning a bare 15 miles from the ocean, and thenthreads its path north through the territory and into Alaska, ultimatelyreaching the ocean near Nome on the Bering Sea coast

n History

The Yukon was first explored by Robert Campbell in the

1840s, under command of the Hudson’s Bay Company But itwas another 50 years before the world took notice of the Yukon

On August 17, 1896, George Carmack struck gold on Bonanza Creek, and the Klondike gold rush began Over the next few years a stampede

of hopeful miners headed northwest, looking for the short road to riches –their boots wore paths in the hard rock mountains that are still visible to-day During the height of the gold rush, their paddleboats, makeshiftrafts, canoes, and dories created boatjams on the Yukon River

Many died, and most of those who survived came back down the river ayear or two later, not even carrying their hopes back But the few who didstrike it rich fueled the Yukon legend

6 n The Yukon

Mining is still a primary business of the Yukon Driving toward the goldrush town of Dawson City, you pass earth that has been turned over athousand times in the never-ending search for nuggets of gold.

Alaska

Comprising roughly one-fifth of the total land mass of the UnitedStates, Alaska has a population of barely half a million people, most

of them living in the Anchorage and Fairbanks areas The rest of the state

is largely untouched wilderness accessible only by float plane; one-third ofthe state lies above the Arctic Circle

n Geography

Alaska’s mountains loom as large as the state itself From the

Brooks Range north of the Arctic Circle, to the Alaska Range

– which includes Denali (Mt McKinley), the highest mountain

in North America – to the Chugach Mountains along the central coast,

you are rarely out of sight of snow-capped peaks when you travel in thestate Mountains made overland travel an ordeal until the opening of theAlaska Highway, so the state turned to water routes for its transporta-

tion The Yukon River fed most of the state; the Copper River brought ores from the rich Kennecott mines; and Southeast Alaska, home of the

state capital of Juneau, was supplied by ships that threaded their waythrough the channels and straits of the coastal waterways

n History

When Captain James Cook came into the northern coasts on

his third voyage, only a few months away from being killed andeaten in Hawaii, he didn’t find what he was looking for He’dcome north hoping to find the Northwest Passage, a shortcut from Eu-rope to China What he found instead he described in his journal entry forOctober 10, 1778: “ [the Russians] call it by the name Alaschka From what we could gather from Mr Ismyloff and the others, the Rus-sians have made several attempts to get a footing upon that part of theContinent which lies adjacent to the islands [the Aleutians], but have al-ways been repulsed by the Natives, whom they describe as a very treach-erous people.”

Of course, the Natives, the Aleuts and Athabascans, weren’t thrilled tosee yet another batch of white guys with big boats trying to take overtheir land The Russians had already killed practically everything with

fur along a thousand-mile swath of coast They were looking for new ing grounds; Cook was just looking for a way home.

kill-Alaska’s history has been one of boom and bust When the land wasbought from Russia in 1867 for a bit over $7 million, or the famed twocents an acre, it was immediately dubbed “Seward’s Folly” or “Seward’sIcebox,” after the man who engineered the sale One reporter said of thesale, “We have been sold a sucked orange.” And, in fact, Seward himselfwasn’t that interested in Alaska per se; he just thought owning it wouldmake it easier for the US to annex British Columbia and the Yukon The

US attitude toward its new territory might be best summed up by thefirst building erected in the new lands: a ten-pin alley, in Sitka, to keepthe troops from mutinying

But when gold was discovered, the tune quickly changed Stampeders ontheir way to the Yukon went through Alaska, turning Skagway andHaines into thriving towns And when the gold petered out in the Yukon,there were major gold strikes in Nome and Fairbanks The territory alsoboasted rich fisheries and a brisk trade in furs Alaska suddenly seemedlike a good idea

For most of the past 30 years, there has been a boom in the state due to

the Trans-Alaska Pipeline (which, some fear, is about to go bust) This

ambitious project brings oil from the North Slope, on the Arctic Oceancoast, to the terminus at Valdez, some 800 miles away A largely success-

ful project, the pipeline’s image was tainted by 1989’s tragic Exxon Valdez

oil spill But the state depends on oil money for its survival; oil revenuesare responsible for the lack of personal income tax in Alaska and provide

a state dividend – usually around $1,000 – to every citizen of the state,every year The price of oil rises and falls, but cars continue to run in ever-growing numbers Rising demand means continuing expeditions formore oilfields The ongoing fight over the Alaska National Wildlife Ref-uge and its piddling oilfield is a prime example of the forces that split thestate between developers and conservationists There are 570,000 squaremiles of Alaska, or about a mile for every resident (ignore Anchorage, andyou get two miles per person); put the same population density in NewYork, and there would be 16 people on Manhattan Island So you’d thinkwith all that space, everybody could do what they want and be happy, but

so far, it’s not happening

In recent years, with pulp mills and logging concessions closing and oil’s

shine somewhat tarnished, the newest boom in the state is tourism

Per-haps no other state in the country is so attuned to the needs of its visitors,and Alaska has something for all tastes You can be as far from civiliza-tion as you want in a community without wheeled vehicles, or right in thecenter of Anchorage, a more than luxurious city that spends 1% of its an-nual budget on art Alaska fully lives up to its motto: “The last frontier.”Anything can happen here

8 n Alaska

The Gold Rushes

Even a brief look at the history of the North shows that therestill might not be anybody north of Seattle, if it weren’t for gold.The Russians stuck pretty much to the coastline while Alaskawas theirs – move 100 miles inland and it’s almost impossible to find aRussian place name – perhaps because they had their own great North,and crossing Siberia had dimmed their ardor for Arctic land crossings.And while there were certainly explorers in the North, the basic and in-glorious truth is that the land was opened up by prospectors with nothing

on their minds but gold

Gold made people crazy; it made them perform superhuman feats ofstrength and endurance Long after anyone sane had turned around andheaded south, would-be miners were standing knee-deep in snow, frozenand half-starved, thinking one more trip to the stream might be the luckyone And if not this stream, then the next Maps became hot commodities– trading for several thousand dollars each at a time when that muchmoney could provide you a reasonable living for several years Explora-tion became a by-product of the search for gold

The Klondike rush is the most famous and brings up the most romantic

images – miners heading north over the Chilkoot Pass in winter, ging their gear behind them; trails littered with dead horses; a mad rush

drag-to build boats drag-to float the Yukon drag-to the goldfields

· Rent Charlie Chaplin’s movie The Goldrush for a taste

of how this struggle was turned into legend

But there were actually hundreds of gold rushes, from tiny creeks alongthe Fraser Canyon to the beaches at Nome When the Klondike strikewas made, setting off the largest stampede, a nearby strike at Circle hadpretty much been played out and miners there were moving deeper intothe territory By the time the 30,000 hopefuls arrived from the US, min-ers from other rushes nearby already had most of the Klondike stakedout

As you drive the Alaska Highway, you’ll pass the sites of hundreds ofsmall gold rushes, from the Cariboo rush in BC, to the ResurrectionCreek rush near Anchorage, to the Tanana River strikes near Fairbanks.It’s safe to assume that nearly every creek in the North has been panned,mined, prodded, and poked by people looking for gold; and any time oneperson got lucky, everyone else within shouting distance came running.Throughout the North there are places named for their distance from thelast big strike: Sixtymile, Fortymile

10 n The Gold Rushes

These miners were not having a good time, for the most part They werefreezing their butts off a long way from home and, more often than not,coming up empty Even their equipment, which should have made theirlives easier, made things worse Some early advice to would-be minerssaid that their most important bit of clothing would be “a good pair ofwell-nailed boots They may be high or low, but should be over 18 inches.”The same writer goes on to suggest a “nine-pound eiderdown sleepingbag” for summer.

GOLD CLAIMS

The tradition of mining claims continues, and much of the

North has been staked out by miners who will be quite

dis-pleased if they catch you looking for gold on their claim

They’ll probably let it pass if you’re just standing in a

stream for a few minutes, swishing your gold pan around –

most miners today are well past that method, working

with high-tech and expensive equipment – but you do need

to be cautious and courteous The Natural Resources flyer

says, “The gold you pan probably won’t concern them as

much as the possible vandalism of equipment, liability, or

interruption of their operations.” Then again, it might

Technically, you must have permission to be on someone’s

claim The days when claim-jumpers were routinely shot

are still not so far in the past Claims should be marked off

by highly visible stakes, so watch for them

A flyer published by the Alaska Department of Natural Resources says,

“Most streams originating in the mountains have color [gold flakes] inthem and, by working the stream gravels, usually a few will be found.” Inother words, there’s gold practically everywhere, at least in traceamounts

There’s still a lot of land out there that’s not claimed, and many cial operators will let you pan gold in their claims for a small fee

commer-PANNING TIP: If you’re in a stream, the best place to

look for gold is where a bit of turbulence changes slow

water to fast Put a bit of gravel from the stream into

your pan, add some water, and swish gently, allowing

water and rocks to swish over the sides of the pan Gold

is heavier than gravel and, as you eliminate rocks and

dirt from the pan, the gold stays behind.

You’ve got to try panning for gold at least once – this is what brought ple up North to begin with

peo-If you think a search for gold brought some of your people up this way, anelectronic database called “Ancestors,” put together by librarians at theUniversity of Alaska and a professional genealogist, can help you search

The Gold Rushes n 11

for your roots You can check it out in Fairbanks at the Rasmusson

Li-brary (% 907-474-7261) The project incorporates magazine and per articles, obituaries, mining reports, business directories, and more Ifone of your relatives was in the North during a rush, you should be able to

newspa-find traces here The Alaska Department of Natural Resources

(3601 C St., Ste 1200, Anchorage, AK 99503;% 907-269-8721) publishes

“Sources of Alaskan and Yukon Gold Rushes and Gold Rush

Commu-nities,” which can offer some leads, as can the Yukon Archives, Box

2703, Whitehorse, Yukon Territory Y1A 2C6, Canada.% 403-667-5321

& For a great history of the search for gold in the North,

read Pierre Berton’s The Klondike Fever.

Climate

Expect the unexpected The weather bureaus of both Canadaand the US have been compiling information for years on the cli-mate of the North, and they can supply you with averages and ex-pectations These figures are rarely useful to you when planning your trip

As a general guideline, summers are mild and beautiful, with tures in the 50-80°F range – usually in the lower end of that range –throughout most of the region However, it might rain at any time, andsnowstorms are not unknown at higher elevations in June and July Themountains cool down quickly, and the larger mountains and big northernlakes create their own highly unpredictable weather patterns You canfind an area suffering from full flood conditions, facing a forecast withnothing but rain, while on the other side of the nearest mountain rangepeople are fearing drought

tempera-Overall, expect long summer days – Fairbanks has more than 20 hours ofdaylight in midsummer, and yes, it is very, very easy to get sunburned upthere, particularly on your face and head The weather is warm andsunny, punctuated regularly by rain and cold – how regularly is mostly amatter of luck Nights tend to be quite cool

For summer travelers, not much special clothing is needed It is best tobring a light jacket and a sweater or two If the temperature drops, it’sbetter to have on several layers of light clothes, rather than one layer ofheavy clothing, since layers trap warm air and keep you toasty You’llneed them, and there’s no telling when

In the winter, things are quite a bit harsher The 60° daytime tures drop to well below zero Forty below is a common winter tempera-ture in Fairbanks, and 70 below is not unknown in many places along theAlaska Highway Do not venture out into a Northern winter without ap-propriate clothing and preparation The days are short – in many places,

tempera-12 n Climate

nonexistent – and the nights are incredibly cold If you’re planning tospend time here in winter, bring the warmest clothes you can find, andpack a sunlamp – the dark is going to get to you long before the cold does.

The Landscape

Along the coasts of Alaska and Canada, stretching in as far as

the Rocky Mountain divide, is a mid-latitudes rain forest As

you move inland, you face higher and dryer territory, as shown

by the spruce forests of the Interior Of course, the mountains are a landscape of their own, offering high alpine meadows and perma-

nently snow- and ice-covered peaks At the northern reaches of the state,

around the Arctic Circle and above, you hit tundra, marked by tiny

plants that grow very, very slowly – a willow tree in the tundra can be ahundred years old and only an inch or so high

n Identifying Flora

Sitka spruce (Picea sitchensis) Alaska’s state tree, the Sitka

spruce grows 150-225 feet high, up to eight feet in diameter, andlives 500-700 years It has dark green needles, about an inchlong, that cover all the branches At the top of the tree, light orange-brown cones develop, dropping to the forest floor and providing a favoritefood for squirrels Sitka spruce wood is commonly used now for makingguitars The Russians used it for the beams and decks of ships that theybuilt in their Sitka boatworks, and for housebuilding In World War II, itwas used for airplanes – the British made two of their fighters from Sitka

spruce, and of course that’s what went into Howard Hughes’s Spruce

Goose.

Walking in the forest, you’ll find huge spruce stumps Notice the nichescut in them a couple feet above the ground Loggers, working a two-mansaw, couldn’t cut the tree at the base because their saws weren’t longenough Instead, they’d cut these niches, insert a platform on which tostand, and then lop the tree from higher up, where the saw could gothrough

Western hemlock (Tsuga heterophylla) Western hemlock are shorter

than Sitka spruce – they grow to a maximum of about 150 feet – andthey’re thin, with a large tree only about four feet in diameter Maximumlifespan is about 500 years The leaves are wider and lighter green thanspruce leaves, and the cones are a darker brown Bark is a gray-brown.Western hemlock loves to come back in clear-cut areas

Mountain hemlock (Tsuga mertensiana) It’s not that easy to tell a

mountain hemlock from a western They are considerably smaller,

ing to a maximum of 100 feet high and 30 inches in diameter Their range

is considerably more limited than the western hemlock (Western cangrow pretty much anywhere under the tree line, but mountain hemlock isrestricted to the 3,000-3,500-foot elevation isotherm) The needles aremore pointed than on western hemlock, and the cones are considerablybigger

Yellow cedar (Chamaecyparis nootkatensis) The Forest Service is still

trying to figure out why all the yellow cedar trees in Southeast are dying.The problem is, they’ve been dying off for a very long time, the last hun-dred years or more It’s a fairly delicate tree, temperature-wise, but sci-entists are not sure if the problem is a drop in temperature, too muchsnow during spring growing season, or a rise in temperature Yellow ce-dars (which, like western red cedars, are actually a kind of cypress), grow

to about 80 feet high, and perhaps two feet in diameter They can live up

to a thousand years, but they never get very big The leaves are darkgreen and look almost like chains of beads; the cones are green and black,about a half-inch in diameter Happiest at altitudes of 500-1,200 feet

Western red cedar (Thuja plicata) Taller than the yellow cedar, the

western red cedar covers a wider range, from sea level to about 3,000 feet

in elevation The leaves are much like those of the yellow cedar, but moreyellow-green in color The cones are oval, as opposed to the round yellowcedar cones

Muskeg is a mass of low, dead plants decomposing in a wet area The

dy-ing plants make a rich soil that supports new plants rangdy-ing from themarsh violet and marigold, to sedge, juniper, and swamp gentian Few ofthe muskeg plants grow more than a foot tall The most important plant

in muskeg is sphagnum moss, which holds as much as 30 times its ownweight in water, and so preserves the marshy habitat necessary formuskeg

Muskeg covers more than 10% of the Tongass National Forest, and shows

up as a large, mossy patch in the middle of a forested area Flightseeingover Misty Fjords opens huge vistas of muskeg for view From the groundlevel, walking on muskeg is rather like walking on a trampoline Thetrick is missing the spots where the plant life is not thick enough to sup-port your weight: it’s actually possible to drown in muskeg patches.Think of muskeg as a mat laid over a hole just like an elephant trap in anold Tarzan movie But here the hole is filled with water

Some contend that muskeg is the natural climax of the mid-latitudesrainforest, the place where the forest is heading, forming when the treeshave died of old age and no new growth has come in The acidic level ofthe muskeg keeps new growth out This theory is debatable, as most ofthe forest is on slopes, while muskeg grows only on the flat

14 n The Landscape

Alpine meadows (technically, sub-alpine meadows) exist between the

frozen peaks of mountains and the tree line The soil here is thin andacidic, and only low plants survive (on a sub-alpine meadow, there will bebushes or shrubs; true high alpine will be without them) The meadowsare thick with lupine, lichen, heather, low grass and sedge; a walk acrosssuch a meadow will show a complex of inter-nested plants and roots thatlooks as complicated as an architectural diagram

There’s no doubt that forests in the North are disappearing Most of thedisposable chopsticks used in Japan come from British Columbia Most ofJapan’s comic book paper comes from Alaska

RESPONSIBLE TRAVEL: Like muskeg, the

mea-dow plants are very fragile and can show scars for many years after damage from a heavy foot or camping Always stay on the paths and walk with care.

n The Forest Service

A big part of the forestry problem is that, with no valid tation to work on, the National Forest Service makes the rulesthemselves Their motto seems to be, “When in doubt, build aroad and sell the timber for a loss.” As author Bill Bryson pointsout, there are over 378,000 miles of roads in national forests – that’s eight

interpre-times the length of the interstate highway system In Bryson’s book A

Walk in the Woods, he writes that you show the Forest Service “a stand of

trees anywhere, and they will regard it thoughtfully for a long while, andsay at last, ‘You know, we could put a road here.’” As you’re bound to see

on your travels in the North, your road-building tax dollars serve only to

The Forest Service n 15

open up your national forests to being stripped by private logging cerns.

con-It is absolutely necessary to separate the Forest Service and the peoplewho work for it On your trip, you will probably meet lots of Forest Ser-vice people (Greenies, they’re often called, not because of their jobs, butbecause of the color of the Forest Service vehicles, a sort of nauseatinggreen) They are, with astonishingly few exceptions, good, helpful peoplewho care very much about the wild We’ve never yet met one who said healways wanted to grow up and become an official environmental terroristfor the government The employees of the Forest Service are not the prob-lem, but their bosses are, the people back East who have never seen aninch of unpaved territory in their lives and who never get more wild thanthe area around G Street in DC The ultimate boss of the Forest Service isCongress; that means we’re the boss, because the people in Congresswork for us Look at the forest, then take the time to remind them of thatfact

n Reforestation

Although you’ll pass by mile after mile of untouched, old-growthforest, any trip through the North is going to be an education inclear-cutting You cannot miss the bald patches of mountains,scarred by landslides of rock no longer held in by tree roots

Reforestation efforts are largely left to nature It’s easy to spot old cuts: they are a brighter green than the surrounding forest, since the bal-ance of plants is reversed In the coastal old-growth areas, Sitka spruce isthe dominant species, with western hemlock second However, in a clear-cut area, the hemlock quickly asserts dominance, leaving little room forthe spruce to take root and grow No surprise, then, that western hemlockcomprised 51% of logging activity – the companies are all for it comingback to dominate the land Also in clear-cut areas, the usual lower-levelplants – berry bushes, devil’s club, skunk cabbage and so on – are prettymuch absent from the grow-back

clear-Logging on government land is, though appallingly ugly, strictly trolled Cuts can cover only so many acres, and there have to be bufferzones between cuts and fragile areas such as streambeds These restric-tions do not hold for native-controlled land The native corporations arefree to strip entire mountains bare, to log right up to the water’s edge,even in salmon spawning streams And so they do Logging in native ar-eas makes the rest of the North’s logged areas look like lovingly tendedgardens

con-It may take as long as 300-400 years for the natural balance of the land toreassert itself after a clear-cut, if it ever does There are those – usually

16 n The Landscape

forestry officials – who say it only takes 40-100 years, but they’re kiddingthemselves and lying to you.

Overall in the coastal forests, site of most of the logging, hemlock prises 60% of the forest; Sitka spruce 30% They share the forest withmore than 900 other species of plant This includes 200 species of vascu-lar plant, 100 or so species of moss and liverwort, around 350 species of li-chen, and nearly 30 species of fern In the mature forest, there areroughly 150 species of bird and mammal, plus thousands of insect speciescalling the place home

com-n Ecocom-nomics

Now for the other side of the story Logging has long been secondonly to fishing as the most important industry in Alaska; formany years, especially before the oil strikes, it kept the entirestate’s economy afloat However, that’s changing Japan imports morethan $1.33 billion a year worth of Alaskan materials, three times morethan Alaska’s number two trading partner, South Korea But the dive inJapan’s economy has dried up the timber market and the fishing market.(Now the Japanese will start bringing up all those logs they sank in adeep freeze in Tokyo Bay when the prices were good and the Forest Ser-vice was giving away huge swaths of forest for less than it cost to cut aroad in.) Between 1996 and 1997, Alaska’s fishing exports declined morethan 16%, and lumber exports were down more than 5% That was beforethe serious slump hit Asia Paper exports, once the staple of pulp millsaround the state, declined 60.4% in just that year

There are other problems with the extraction industries With growingenvironmental awareness, methods are changing – which usually meansbecoming more expensive – and with price drops (largely due to seriousdeforestation efforts in the Third World), logging has become less viable.Southeast Alaska’s logging economy has almost collapsed The Sitkapulp mill closed its doors for good in 1993; Wrangell’s saw mill closed in

1995 This is great for the forest, but lousy for the economy of the townsand the state There is nowhere for the people to turn; fishing has beendecreasing throughout Alaska and Canada, and that really leaves onlytourism How many T-shirt shops can one small town support?

Any rational human being, no matter how green at heart, knows loggingmust happen People need jobs, people need wood

n Conservation Groups

Before you write to your congressman, get the facts from both

sides Alaska Rainforest Campaign, 320 4th St NE,

Wash-ington, DC 20002,% 202-544-0475, on the Web at www.akrain

org, works on both the Tongass and the Chugach national forests They’re

the central organization for forest conservation in Alaska, but the

Na-tional Forest Foundation also concerns itself with the Southeast

re-gion, among others Reach them at PO Box 1256, Norfolk, VA 23501 The

Greater Ketchikan Chamber of Commerce, 744 Water Street

Up-stairs, PO Box 5957, Ketchikan, AK 99901, has information from the ger’s point of view

log-For Canada, the log-Forest Action Network, Box 625, Bella Coola, BC,

V0T 1C0,% 250-799-5800, www.fanweb.org, maintains connections with

a large network of conservation groups throughout BC, specializing inthe coastal rain forest

We feel that both conservationists and loggers are correct; the trick is ting them to meet in the middle on the basis of best available science andbest long-term results The question is whether they’ll ever get a chance

get-to do so, given the political wrangling in Washingget-ton It’s obvious thatclear-cutting isn’t the answer

n Volcanoes

The entire coast of Alaska is ringed by volcanoes, and active

vol-canoes dot the Southcentral Alaska landscape Augustine erupted in 1986, and in 1993, an eruption of Redoubt shut down

transportation in Southcentral’s skies for days as the ash cloud billowed.But these events are the exception, not the rule for Southcentral It is onthe Alaska Peninsula and the Aleutians that the volcanoes begin to domi-

nate Katmai, the “Valley of 10,000 Smokes,” saw the largest volcanic

eruption ever recorded when, in 1912, a virtually unknown volcano,

Novarupta, exploded Prior to that, the landscape had been lush and

full of wildlife The eruption dumped 700 feet of ash in some places, andthe area around Katmai remains one of the most active volcanic regions

in the world

n Earthquakes

Volcanoes tend to go hand-in-hand with earthquakes; whereyou’ve got one, you’ve likely got the other And Alaska has earth-quakes to spare

On Good Friday, 1964, a tremor measuring 8.4 on the Richter Scale hitAnchorage Tidal waves practically wiped out every city along theSouthcentral coast

A side effect of another earthquake created of one of the largest wavesever seen on the face of the planet In 1958, a quake caused a rockslide inLituya Bay, near Yakutat The slide was so big that, for all intents andpurposes, a mountain fell into the water from 3,000 feet This kicked up a

18 n The Landscape

wave that on the opposite side of the bay, stripped the mountain bare to

an altitude of 1,720 feet The bay acted as a funnel, pushing the wavehigher and higher A branch of the wave moved toward the narrow openmouth of the bay at more than 100 miles per hour Four square miles offorest were destroyed by this single wave, and two fishermen were killed

n Glaciers

After a while the forest and ocean become overwhelming And it’snever certain that you’ll spot a grizzly bear or a whale But one ofthe other great sights in Alaska is always on display, and you willsee at least one, if not dozens These are the glaciers

There are hundreds of glaciers in Alaska, ranging from tiny cirque ciers to the huge Matanuska Icefields, which cover an area bigger thanRhode Island

gla-How Are They Formed?

Glaciers are, quite simply, old snow Lots of old snow They begin to formwhen newer snow falls on top of older snow, compressing it; more newsnow comes in, and layer after layer forms During this process, the crys-tals of snow undergo a slight change; where they touch, they squeeze outthe air between them, and they near the melting point, allowing for anadjustment of the space between crystals Individual snow crystals arepacked very, very tightly, keeping each other cool and forming thickerand thicker layers of ice

The grand party time for glaciers was in the last ice age, which went fromroughly two million years ago up to only 14,000 years ago The glaciersyou’ll see were formed during this time, as the snows fell and the woollymammoths cavorted

Glaciers are not static entities; they can be considered frozen rivers and,like all rivers, they move A glacier high on a mountain will obey the dic-tates of gravity and start to move downward A few hot seasons will melt

a glacier back Most (but not all) of the glaciers in Alaska are retreatingsomewhat; this is partly due to global warming, and partly simply theway things are We are, after all, just in a warm spot between ice ages,and the freeze will return sooner or later Glacier movement – forward orback – depends on a wide variety of factors, including weather, slope, andthickness of the ice Sometimes one part of a glacier will move faster than

another, causing a bulge of thick ice called a kinematic wave.

Glacial movement is not easy on the landscape While the ice itself isn’tquite hard enough to do much damage, the stones and boulders that theice picks up are abrasive on the ground This is beautifully illustrated in

the land around Exit Glacier in Seward: as the glacier has retreated, it

has left behind land that is stripped almost to the bedrock After just ashort recovery time, the brush starts to spring up, and from that, thetrees

Because of the amount of rock and debris that a glacier carries, its ing is clearly marked When a glacier begins its retreat, it leaves a line of

pass-stones known as a terminal moraine to mark the peak of its advance.

These are simply stones that were dropped or pushed by the leading edge

of the glacier Moraines can be huge and quite dramatic There are also

lateral moraines, where the glacier’s sides once were.

Of Many Shapes & Colors

There are a considerable number of categories of glaciers – mountain ciers and tidewater glaciers are among the major types

gla-n Mountain glaciers are found up on the peaks A good example

is Bear Glacier, near Stewart/Hyder, or the Juneau Icefields

n Tidewater glaciers come right down to the sea: for example,

Tracy Arm, the glaciers in Glacier Bay, and the 20 glaciers thatempty into Prince William Sound These are the glaciers thatlet you see the drama of calving, when huge chunks of glacialface break off and fall into the water Watching a berg the size ofyour house come crashing into the sea is not a sight you’ll soonforget

The final point to make about glaciers is their stunning blue color Thehue is actually due to the pressure that the ice is under, how compact theice crystals are A walk on a glacier will reveal shades of blue that younever before knew existed

20 n The Landscape

NOT TO BE MISSED: The best places to get close to

a glacier along the highway are Worthington

Gla-cier, on the road to Valdez, and Exit GlaGla-cier, outside

Seward Portage Glacier, south of Anchorage, was once pretty accessible, but now it has retreated behind

a bend in the mountain, and you can’t see anything unless you take an overpriced boat ride For more dra-

matic glaciers, head into Glacier Bay, or check out

Harriman and College Glaciers in Prince William

Sound – you can get to them by kayaking out of Whittier.

The Bad News

Okay, Alaska’s got a ton of glaciers However, they’re starting to pear at an alarming rate Call it global warming, call it a hot spell inworld history if you like to rationalize But when we started writing thesebooks, 10 years ago, Exit Glacier was a half-mile longer than it is now –today, the glacier is melting at a rate of three feet a day Portage Glacierwas visible from the road The huge Matanuska Glacier filled valleys.Worthington Glacier was right outside the car

disap-It’s not like that anymore

The glaciers are going Fast It’s that simple

JOKULHLAUP

There’s a little oddity of Alaska, perhaps best labeled as a

side effect of glaciers Jokulhlaup is not something you

want to see, but it’s an interesting geological oddity

This occurs sometimes when a glacier blocks off a chunk

of valley, leading to a large lake, choked off by ice

Be-cause, ultimately, water is stronger than ice, the water

can actually tunnel under the glacier; when it hits the end

of the ice, it floods out into the glacier’s usual silt stream

This can mean tons of water flooding out suddenly from

under the ice This is very much like a dam breaking, and

the effects are the same Everybody downstream needs to

head for higher ground

After the lake is drained, the ice freezes up again, the

lake starts to refill, and the whole process starts all over

again There’s a jokulhlaup on the Snow River, emptying

into Kenai Lake, which floods out about every three years

Statewide, there are more than 750 of them

The Aurora Borealis

Besides wildlife and the glaciers, people go to the north countryhoping to see the aurora borealis – the northern lights As mostpeople travel in the summer, of course, it’s too light to see the dis-play unless you find yourself wide awake in the middle of the night.The aurora is produced by a high-vacuum electrical discharge, created byinteractions between sun and earth What you see – the glowing curtain

of lights – is charged electrons and protons formed by the sun hitting gasmolecules in the upper atmosphere The aurora can be compared to a TVpicture Electrons strike the screen (or the air), getting excited and mak-ing a glow The most common color for the aurora is a yellow-green,caused by oxygen atoms roughly 60 miles above the earth

The lights get more intense the farther north you go People in Montanaoccasionally see a display In Fairbanks, residents are treated to 240 dis-plays a year There are those who say they can hear the aurora, whichsupposedly sounds like a crackling fire, but so far scientists haven’t beenable to prove or record it

Head outside on cool, clear nights, and look north You never know

The Cultures

n Southcentral

The dominant group in the western Gulf of Alaska and the

Aleu-tians is the Aleut Indians The Aleuts came over the Bering

Land Bridge, liked what they saw right there at its base andstayed, making a living from the rich seas and harsh lands of westernAlaska For linguistic purposes, Aleuts are split into western, central,and eastern branches, but the language differences are dialectical and,unlike the Koniags (the other coastal Eskimo group), an Aleut from Attucan understand another from Chignik

When the Russians first arrived in the area, they applied the term

“Aleut” indiscriminately to every native they found Because of this age, which survives to modern times, the coastal Koniag Eskimos werealso lumped into the “Aleut” category, despite the fact of their being fromquite a different group, speaking an entirely different language Physicaldifferences are less marked Athabaskan Indians also inhabited largeparts of Southcentral, though they were not dominant along the coast.Before the arrival of the Russians, Aleut culture thrived They huntedfrom baidarka (animal skin kayaks) for whale, seal, sea lion, and otter,

us-22 n The Aurora Borealis

using tools made from bone and stone Their clothing was made from mal intestines, which made it waterproof.

ani-Aleut dwellings were communal and, usually, subterranean, coveredwith the excellent insulation of growing grass Some of these under-ground houses are said to have been as large as 250 feet long The houseshad hatches in the ceiling to allow light in and smoke out; the ceiling wasoften held in place by rafters of whalebone, instead of scarce timber Win-dows were made of translucent panes of otter intestine In the hierarchy

of society, the back of the house was always reserved for the most spected member of the dwelling The Russians weren’t very impressedwith all this: “What is more revolting than all else is the filth aroundtheir huts, for the islanders do not go far away to do anything – and thisgives one a very bad impression of their tidiness.”

re-But while the Russians were out shivering in wool and living in housesentirely unadapted to local conditions, the Aleuts and Koniags werepretty comfy In addition to the clothes made of intestines, the Aleuts had

developed highly decorated and very practical garments Parkas were

made of sea otter skin or bird skin with the feathers worn on the inside,and so the down coat was invented It took about 40 tufted puffins tomake one parka, but cormorants were preferred for style and comfort

Aleut men wore wooden hats, shaped somewhat like a limpet shell,

heavily decorated to show status and place in the community The hatswere especially important during visits to other villages They alsoshielded the eyes to prevent the social gaffe of looking directly into some-one’s eyes (even the Russians noted how incredibly polite the Aleutswere, and how well their society ran)

The Aleuts also wore complicated tattoos and labrets, small decoratedivory pieces stuck into the lips and cheeks

For the eastern and central Aleutians, burial was usually by tion The deceased was buried with everything needed for the next life,from a baidarka and tools, to mats and eating utensils

mummifica-According to G.I Davydov, who traveled the coast in 1802-1807 (an lent translation of his voyage account is available from the LimestonePress (PO Box 1604, Kingston, Ontario, Canada K7L 5C8), the coastalnatives were fond of games, fairly indifferent to suffering, and extremelycurious, always on the lookout for something new and diverting

excel-How badly the Aleuts fared when the Russians arrived is recounted where in this book Davydov mentions that as of his trip, nobody hadbothered to be interested enough in the locals to even make a collection ofsimple artifacts

else-Here, suffice it to say that on August 21, 1732, when the Russian ship SV

Gavrill headed for the “large country” they’d heard about, the Aleut

world came to a crashing end (This was the same expedition that,

dentally, established that there was water dividing Alaska and Asia,fueling hopes for a Northwest Passage.)

There are very, very few full-blooded Aleuts left today The populationwas nearly destroyed by the Russian and US exploitation of their hunt-ing grounds, and it has been a long, slow road back The Aleuts are back,however The native corporations are helping the increasingly organizedvillages take care of business and fend off the outside world With somuch land in some of the richest fishing ports in the world, many of thevillages are thriving – the Aleut village of Sand Point has one of the high-est per capita incomes in the US

n Southeast

Although smaller tribes of Indians abounded in the AlexanderArchipelago – Tsimshian, Nootka, Samish, Bella Coola – South-east Alaska was dominated by two groups of Indians, the

Tlingit and the Haida The Tlingit controlled trade routes well into

what is now the Yukon, while the Haida largely stayed to the southerncoastal regions – about the only place on the highway that you’re in whatwas once Haida territory is around Prince Rupert

“TLINGIT”

It’s pronounced KLINK-it by Americans The actual

na-tive pronunciation of the word is closer to Khling-GET, but

the sounds involved are unfamiliar to English speakers

and the odds of saying it correctly are about zero

As a general rule, the Haida occupied the southern reaches, from theQueen Charlotte Islands to the Ketchikan area, while the Tlingit lived onthe islands farther north, as well as the inland areas of Alaska, Yukon,and British Columbia

Culturally, the Tlingit and the Haida are remarkably similar Blessedwith living in a naturally rich area, they dined well on deer, bear, seal, ot-ter, duck, and five varieties of salmon Bushes hung low with fat berriesripe for picking Survival was never a problem – there was no word in theTlingit language for starvation, but there was the traditional saying:

“When the tide’s out, the table’s set,” reflecting the rich variety of sea life

in the local diet

Making use of time that most cultures had to spend searching for food,the cultures of the Tlingit and Haida developed in some amazingly com-plex ways

Southeastern society was extremely hierarchical Villages were headed

by a chief (in the case of the Haida, up to four chiefs oversaw a single lage) Everyone in the community had a particular rank in life, almost

vil-24 n The Cultures

like a caste system There was free mixing among the ranks in daily life,but there was little intermarriage between the low and high strata of so-ciety Chieftainship was hereditary, usually passed from the current chief

to a nephew But being chief had few material benefits Chiefs had nopower to order the villagers to work on their behalf and, indeed, paidmore for services because of their high rank

Until European contact (and, some historians maintain, until well after),both the Tlingit and the Haida kept slaves, although only the higherranks were allowed slave ownership Slaves were usually obtained fromcaptives of the many battles that raged among the villages; however, ifyou were born to a slave family, you would remain a slave

The battles tended to be fought over trade routes Trade in Southeast wasrich long before the coming of the Europeans (who continued fightingover exactly the same trade routes) Again, the Tlingit controlled thenorthern routes, the Haida the southern

Home life revolved around communal dwellings Haida structures aged 100 feet by 75 feet Inside, there was little “furniture.” Possessionswere kept in bentwood boxes, decorated with totemic designs Cookingwas done in containers made of spruce-fiber; most food was boiled.Clothes were also often made of plant fibers, including cedar tree barkand spruce root Special occasion wardrobes were made of otter, seal, andmarten fur

aver-Within the hierarchical structure, a village was further organized around

a dual structure of clan and totem Clan was extended family Totem

was a little more complicated, and assured a genetically mixed village.One could not marry within one’s own totem Totems were distinguished

by an animal sign: bear, eagle, raven, and whale are the most commonlyseen in totemic design Children became part of the same totem as theirmother

Totemic design defines the highly geometric, starkly black and red artthat the natives used to decorate their homes, canoes, and blankets It’s akind of cubism, flattening out drawings of animals, with an iconography

of every gesture and posture The art of the coastal Indians is as cated as the most detailed architectural drawing, while simultaneouslylooking as modern and spontaneous as a Picasso

sophisti-n Totem Poles

Contrary to popular opinion, totem poles were never objects ofworship They were a heraldic emblem as well as a method of sto-rytelling, a means of keeping a community memory Althoughthe poles used common elements and figures, any attempt to “read” a to-tem is possible only if you know the family and the story the pole com-