1:58 PM
| Sunrise at | 10:55 AM | in direction | 153° | South-southeast |  |
| Sunset at | 2:54 PM | in direction | 207° | South-southwest |  |
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| Mid January 2012 - Alaska Range north of Summit Lake, Richardson Hwy |
Yesterday I let the dogs in and out @ 4:00 PM and noticed it was still bright enough to see things. Today I checked and civil twilight ends at 4:16 PM. Things are brightening up!
I have been thinking over what to do about my blog. My goal was to write every day, which I did not achieve, but I did write enough to capture the essence of a year in Interior Alaska. Taking the photos to combine with the entries was a complete joy to me and sharing my life was a pleasure. But what now? My dad suggests I name a new blog, Fairbanks Journal - continued. I could simply start a blog titled Fairbanks Journal and continue in any case, but I am not sure what I would share that I have not yet shared. Yet, each year is different, each day, each moment. Maybe I would garner enough details to keep it interesting for me and for anyone who wants to follow it.
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| Mid May 2012 - Leaf Out |
Today, I am interspersing photos of the year from January to December with links to sites I explored about the region of Fortymile River. I visited these sites as a consequence of following the Top of the World 350 dog sled race. Yep, racing season has begun and this race was interesting for several reasons. First, teams mushed from Tok through Chicken into Eagle Village to reach the race start. The trip up was meant to be relaxed and once there, mushers joined in the celebration potlach and dance commemorating the life of Chief Isaac Juneby whose accidental passing was far too early for many. Chief Juneby's life is described on the home page of the race link provided above.
The Taylor Highway, which runs from Tok, Alaska to Eagle and Eagle Village, is not plowed beyond the first 10 miles. Folks like to ice fish at Four Mile lake and ponds beyond, but the other 173 miles are not maintained through the winter. The only practical way to reach Chicken or Eagle is to fly. It is possible to snow machine the entire route, as people did in support of the race. And of course, if you have a way to supply your team that distance, you can mush.
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| Summer, 2012 - Gardens at Sophie's Station Resort |
The teams mushed to Chicken, rested, then mushed to Fortymile Hospitality Stop, rested, and finally mushed into Eagle and Eagle Village. My dad and I talked about driving Top of the World to Dawson City or Taylor Highway to Eagle (both routes start via the Taylor Highway), but opted to go south instead since spring was late in coming. But I am still interested in that trip, so I started by reading more about Chicken, Alaska. The miners who settled the town wanted to name it Ptarmigan, but couldn't spell it. They settled on Chicken instead and that humorous spirit persists to this day as you can see by reading through the web page link. The Chicken Gold Camp, also in downtown Chicken, is not so rustic as touted for Chicken in general, but that in no way diminishes the remote nature of this village.
One thing I found interesting was that those that live in Chicken refer to the region as the Fortymile. I did some research and learned that the Fortymile River has five forks feeding into it and all along those forks above Chicken people settled and mined. In the summer, the region is still mined, boosting Chicken's population by several hundred. In winter, it drops to under 40 people.
From Chicken, the race route then followed Taylor Highway, bypassing the eastern fork to Top of the World and Dawson City, to the Fortymile River where it joined the route of the Yukon Quest Sled Dog Race. A hospitality stop was set up at the river and it appears most took advantage of that rest point as it is between two peaks, American Summit and Polly Summit. The river itself is a major tributary of the Upper Yukon River. Yukon Quest mushers travel along the frozen river bed from Taylor Highway to the junction of the Yukon and the historic settlement of Fortymile, now preserved as a historic site. The links I provided include eye popping photos of the region. I was especially struck by the view of the Fortymile River from the bridge on Taylor Highway.
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| Late August, 2012 - birch forest understory |
From the river, the route climbed up American Summit, a notoriously windy route on the Yukon Quest. Many a harrowing tale has come out of that traversal in the annals of the race. An article in the YQ archives provides photos of both the summit and the Fortymile River in winter along with a description of the difficulties for mushing along these routes.
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| Pre-dawn - 21 December 2012: Slide show of sunrise can be found on the "SOLSTICE" post |
Eagle and Eagle Village are located in a precarious bend of the Yukon River on the north side of American Summit. Eagle was founded as an outpost on the U.S. side of the Yukon which supplied miners of the Klondike era, secured for a short while by Fort Egbert. Eagle Village, three miles up river from Eagle town site, is settled by Han Gwich'in who live in the traditional way, chiefly by subsistence. I say precarious because the ice, at break up in spring, can clog the flow of break up waters. In 2009, Eagle Village was wiped out most homes in the village, even those over two stories high, by flood waters (Yukon flood destroys Eagle Village, floods Eagle). A few days later the ice jam broke sending huge ice boulders into the settlements (Chunks of floating ice tear up Alaska town).
The timed race started at 2:00 PM 12/29, running the same route back to Tok. Lance Mackey came in 12/30 at 4:17 PM with the winning time of traversing 183 miles in one day, one hour and 47 minutes. The temperatures, after bitter, bitter cold earlier this month, turned mild (well, mild from our perspective), and the race was run in very pleasant conditions. Today, at 1:30 PM all 22 mushers had made it safely into Tok; no one scratched, a tribute to the way mushers ran the race and the race organizers.
This concludes my blog for the year - I am sad to be ending it, but I leave with one final photo. The sun has now risen in the sky such that at midday, a trace of sunlight touches the snow on the ground. The year is renewed.
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| Late December, 2012 - 2:04 PM |
