August 12, 2000
 

I arrived in Anchorage airport after a 6 hour trip from Dallas, Fort Worth where the sun was hot and the average temperature was in the 100 degrees F. When the plane flew to Anchorage, we flew over some of the glaciers which were beautiful as we saw them drop in the sea. The state was settled from the West because this is the route the Russians took as they traveled from the west. Vitus Bering, a Danish navigator who served Peter the Great and his successors, traveled west from Kamchatka and discovered the Aleutian Islands and the south shore of Alaska. Ultimately, the territory was administered by the Russian-American Company, During the Russian era, there was little awareness about the geographical or resource knowledge of Alaska which was sold after the Crimean war to the US in 1867.
 

From the airplane, I could see the mountains were covered with spruce trees. For Anchorage, in June, there are 24 h of functional daylight while in August there are 17h 41 min of daylight. In December there are 7 h 35 min of daylight. At this time of the year, the sun rises at 6 AM and sets at 10 PM. At the airport I saw Reeve Aleutian Airways which flies from Anchorage to Bethel, Cold Bay, Dillingham and King Salmon. Dad (http://www.freenet.tlh.fl.us/~heinisj) came on a later plane from Florida. We stayed overnight at the Youth Hostel on 700 H Street, Anchorage, AK (907) 276-2635 which is very close to downtown. Others stayed at the Spenard Youth Hostel (907) 276-2630 or the Backpackers Hostel (907) 274-5036. Hostels are a good inexpensive place to stay. From the city, you can see the mountains from the hostel. At the airport, there is an Aero BP which takes petroleum workers to Prudhoe Bay. The next day, we took the Alaska Shuttle (888) 600-6001 from Anchorage, Denali and, from there,. to Fairbanks. Before the van left, Dad took pictures of flowers by the Alaska Center for performing arts.
 

While we were driving up the side of the Parks Highway, we saw a lot of fireweed and spruce. The Parks highway takes 324 miles to Fairbanks from Anchorage. On the side of the road, you see many birches and alders and few conifers. Going further north to Palmer, you get to the start of the Iditarod Dog race between Girdwood- check www.iditarod.com) and Nome. In the Northwest, the main towns are Nome and Kotzubue. There are no trees and all the lumber there had to be imported. Nome was the site of a gold rush in the 1889's on the Seward Peninsula . When the Bering Sea was frozen, the town was very isolated There is still some gold mining on the beach since nobody can legally stake a claim to the beach. Some of the most important residents of Nome are Wyatt Earp and Jimmy Doolittle who led the Doolittle Raiders against the Japanese. The last ship of the summer leaves in December. Unlike Nome, the white man's town, Kotzebue is an Eskimo community that is famous for its jade carving and is also the site of a zinc mine. The furthest north settlement in Alaska is Barrow. Barrow varies between being "wet"and "dry"because there is a large alcohol problem. Other news about Barrow is at (http://www.ilovealaska.com/alaska/Barrow/) and the Top of the World Hotel (http://www.topoftheworldhotel.com/). The mayor of Barrow offered $1000 cash to junk car owners because there is no way to drive the vehicles away.. Barrow gets very cold in winter and is the government seat for the upper third of Alaska. Another town in the west, Wales, on the Bering Sea closest to Russia, has a $1.2 million windmill program that is intended to stabilize electrical prices which vary due to the price of imported diesel fuel. Until 1982, they used gas lamps for light. Kotzebue Electric runs the only wind farm north of the Arctic Circle. Winds in this town are very steady and can get up to 120 mph.

Of course, I noticed the gasoline stations. The major petroleum marketers are Texaco and Tesoro. Tesoro is a major refiner/marketer in Alaska. Although it is headquartered in San Antonio, the company sells gasoline in Alaska, Hawaii, Washington and Oregon.. Tesoro means "treasure" in Spanish. During 1998, the company introduced its new "treasure burst" logo. .The firm operates a network of 19 marine terminals located in Louisiana, Texas and on the West Coast. The company also works with Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. allowing Tesoro to build and operate retail fueling facilities in Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming. Plans are underway to deliver gas from the North Slope to the lower 48 states.
 

We drove up the George Parks Highway from Anchorage to Fairbanks, the gateway to the North. On the way to Fairbanks, we drove through Palmer which is the center of the Mat-Su region and Alaska's agriculture. Palmer was a farming colony that was established in 1935 as part of President Roosevelt's New Deal. Settlers came from Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin. The long light of summer causes the cabbages to be huge (90 lb ) (see the Alaska State Fair vegetables). Since this area is the center of population, Willow, in the same valley, has been proposed as the capital of the state but electronic technology makes it easier to keep Juneau as the capital The distance from Anchorage to Denali is 237 miles. Wasilla is the beginning (or Girdwood) of the Iditarod Dog Race (http://www.alaskan.com/iditarod/) which began to deliver diphtheria serum to the settlers in Nome. Here in the Mat-Su valley, there are gold mines in Hatcher Pass, a musk-ox farm. Further to the north is Talkeetna, (http://www.alaskan.com/vendors/flytat.html) the main festival is the Talkeetna Moose Dropping festival. where moose nuggets are thrown at a paper moose target.
 

To the side of the road is swampy land and on the side of the road, you see people fishing in the gravel streams. As we passed the Swanita River, we saw gravel banks which is where the salmon spawn. Some of the streams are full of silt which makes it very hard for salmon to spawn. Near Denali, the road becomes two lane and there are many tall spruce which are identified by cones which hang down while cedar cones point up.. The weather is drizzling with weather like Oregon. The van stopped at Willow which was the only settlement on the highway where we ate some rhubarb pie. The van then drove up the Parks Highway to Cantwell which is at the base of the Alaska Range.
 

Tourists often get in trouble. For example, I read about a Minnesota couple who went canoeing at Naneek Lake at the Katmai National Park near King Salmon. They were found drowned with entangled life jackets
 

Other Alaska news is the controversy about the Permanent Fund. . In 1976, voters created an Alaska permanent fund which distributes a share of the wealth to residents of Alaska (when established it was six months or longer). The amount varies and is now $1900.but varies year to year based on the price of oil. Moves to end or reduce the permanent fund have been heavily opposed by voters. This is because of the discovery of oil on the North Slope near Prudoe Bay.
 

Oil was discovered in 1968 on the North Slope of Alaska near Prudhoe Bay. Roads were built when the oil was discovered but there were problems dealing with permafrost. The first road, the Hickel highway from Livengood to Sagwon ended up becoming a trench and was replaced in 1969-1970. Gravel roads were improved and avoided the problems of melting the permafrost. Environmental concerns were always a problem. . First, in 1969, Humble Oil (now Exxon) tried to use a strengthed tanker, the SS Manhattan to try to make the North West passage from Prudhoe Bay to the south and determine if it was commercially feasible. The hull was broken because of the ice floes. An 800 mile pipeline between Prudhoe Bay to Valdez was a better choice. Oil now flows at a rate of 1.16 million barrels per day and takes six days to flow from Prudhoe Bay to Valdez (www.ayelaskapipe.com). The Trans-Alaska pipeline. (completed in 1977) transports heated oil that is warmed to 160 F between the oil head and the tanker port. The state of Alaska receives 86.5% of its revenue from oil. Because of this, . Alaska's income tax was abolished in 1976.
 

At the Denali National Park, there are a lot of hikers who are backpacking from throughout the world. When we arrived, there was a lot of drizzle due to the weather in Fairbanks Although the natives gave the mountain a name, Denali, the mountain name was lost and, in 1897, it was named Mt. McKinley after the then senator from Ohio. Mt. McKinley is the highest point in North America (20,320 feet). Until then, Mt. St. Elias was the tallest mountain (18,000 ft). The mountains at the side of the Sushita River are 3000-5000 ft tall. In 1916, a national park was established.. In 1980, the park name was changed to Denali National park because this is the original Athabaskan name for the mountain. . Mt. McKinley (known as Denali = The Big One) is near Healy and is the goal of a lot of hikers. Many Army expeditions were made to get an American route to the gold-fields in the interior of Alaska. On July 16, 1899, the expedition led by Lt. Joseph Herron discovered Simpson's Pass which helped cross the Alaska Range. In 1902, there were many surveys around the area which were led by Alfred E. Brooks, after whom the Brooks Range is named. The first successful ascent of the mountain was done in 1913. Dr. Frederick Cook, a physician whose German father changed the family name from Koch to Cook claimed he reached the pole in 1908 and claimed to have climbed Mt. McKinley in 1903. Although he claimed to have climbed the peak on September 27 and did a lot of mountaineering, it was shown they never made it above 10,000 ft. In 1910, the Sourdough expedition climbed Mt. McKinley's North Peak with just normal miner's gear. In June 1912 a party led by Belmore Browne almost reached the summit but was beaten back by the extreme cold which was made even worse by their diet of pemmican (made from the local game) which failed to warm them because it was indigestible at high altitudes.. Shortly after they were beaten back, there was an earthquake. Hudson Stuck led a successful expedition to the mountain's summit. The glaciers near the mountain are filled with crevasses especially those on Muldrow glacier. Airplanes with skis (such as Piper Cubs) land on the glaciers. especially Kahlitna because it has fewer crevasses. Crampons are necessary when walking over glaciers to prevent slipping into crevasses. Many small Piper cubs supporting the expeditions fly out of Talkeetna. They are not insured because the flights are hazardous.
 

We then took the Parks Highway Express ($105 RT) to Fairbanks. This town was founded as a gold mining town where gold was dredged up from the Chena river. The stops were in Fairbanks, Healey, Denali Visitor Center, Talkeetna Jct., Egan Center and Anchorage. Temperatures get up to 96 F in Fairbanks and down to -40 F. During summer, daylight gets up to 22 h. In winter, the day is 3 h 42 min. Felix Pedro and Tom Gilmore discovered gold in 1903. The last gold dredge stopped operating in 1966. A gold dredge is a barge which scoops gravel from the stream bottoms, processes it for gold and then spits it out the back.. The town is still somewhat of a frontier town. After staying with a German family (actually a B&B hostel), we went to see a bit of the town. The newspaper is the Fairbanks Daily News Miner We drove around town and saw a lot of construction. After all, this is the time when people fix their roads up here. A Marriott Springhill Suites hotel is going up on Cushman Street and is expected to open in summer 2001. The University of Alaska is located here (the other main campuses are in Anchorage and Juneau) and they have a very good arctic biology program as well as arctic engineering. The museum has a mummified (36,000 year) steppe bison which was discovered by gold miners. The major military base, Eielson AFB), the DEW (distant early warning) line of the cold war era (http://www.stmartin.edu/~dprice/cold.war.html) was located near here (http://earlywarning.westgeorgia.org/) . In Fairbanks, we saw an ad at a travel agency for trips to Hawaii which is what some people do in winter.
Discontinuous permafrost is patchy and extends through Anchorage but north of the tree line there is continuous permafrost. (http://www.grida.no/prog/polar/ipa/preview.htm). A U of Alaska-Fairbanks researcher (Tom Osterkamp) says permafrost is melting throughout the Arctic. The melting of permafrost causes thermokarst (http://www.greenpeace.org/~comms/97/arctic/library/climate/perma.html). The Brooks Range is the limit of continuous permafrost. Near the northern coasts, the layer of permafrost is 500-600 m.
 

Poker Flat Research Range near Fairbanks is the world's only scientific rocket launching facility owned by a university. Poker Flat is home to many scientific instruments designed to study the arctic atmosphere and ionosphere. In northern regions like Alaska, the best time to view Aurora Borealis (see the attached image for where you can see it) is around the equinox (March and late September-October) because this time of year offers the best trade-off between mild weather and dark skies. During the summer months, night skies are not dark enough to view aurora, and in midwinter temperatures in the -40 degree range make outdoor aurora viewing somewhat unpleasant.
 

To the north, you can take the Dalton highway, (http://aurora.ak.blm.gov/dalton) which was built as a haul road for supplies to North Slope oil developments. This road is never far from the trans-Alaska oil pipeline. Conquering the Dalton Highway, 416 miles of gravel road that begins at Mile 73 of the Elliott Highway north of Fairbanks, is no cushy excursion--though the road is scheduled for improvement. Services are limited. The highway is heavily used by semi-truck drivers hauling supplies to the North Slope. Drivers of private vehicles should yield to the big rigs, as well as carry a spare tire, basic tools, food, first aid supplies, warm clothing and mosquito repellent. Independent travelers have only
been allowed to drive farther than Atigun Pass, which is about 250 miles out of Fairbanks, for six
years. The hundreds of miles of wilderness between Coldfoot, the last pit stop on the Dalton located just before Atigun Pass, and Deadhorse, the final stop, are essentially uninhabited.
 

After a night in Fairbanks, the transportation hub for interior Alaska, we decided to take the bus back to Anchorage. While waiting for the Parks Highway Express, we met Dr. John Alden who is a faculty member at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. He has written a lot on forest development in cold climates. He and Dad spent a lot of time talking about spruce trees, larch and a lot about botany so Dad had a kindred spirit. Here is Alaska there are no native pines. The Siberian Larch is a fast growing tree which is useful in shipbuilding. Peter the Great established several Siberian larch farms in the area of Finland near Lake Ladoga. It takes very little time for the larches to grow to commercial size. They then discussed insects which attack northern forests. Since spruce hybrids are not well adapted to spruce beetles, they are attacked. Dry weather allows the spruce beetle larvae to attack trees. He mentioned that global warming is established because porcupines and beavers are now living north of the Brooks Range which is further north than they used to. This is also true for trees in the Aleutian Islands which are able to grow now because the temperature is only a few degrees warmer than they used to. The Mt. Pinatubo eruption also caused temperature to rise.
 

Dr. Alden also explained how the philosophy of the forest service changes with time. When he started work in the forest service, the emphasis was on production and the old forest was called decrepit. The idea in the 1960's was to harvest the old growth and to leave the fallen trees with trees with white speck. Black spruce survive on the muskeg. which is a swamp or bog formed by an accumulation of sphagnum moss, leaves, and decayed matter resembling peat. We then drove with Loran Martin who was Dr. Alden's friend. He went up in the north and went swimming in Prudhoe Bay. It was cold. Walking on tundra was like walking on foam rubber. There he could see many musk oxen and caribou.
 

A fellow passenger mentioned that Hertz Rental cars has no drop off fee. Although it is more expensive than other auto rental agencies, this makes it cheaper. The drive to Fairbanks takes 322 miles. Near Anchorage on the Rim of the World highway, there is a town named Chicken which was abandoned in 1967. The town was named for the state bird but no one could spell Ptarmigan (http://www.akohwy.com/c/chicken.htm). We then drove to Nenana (http://www.mtaonline.net/~ncc/Nenana/Nenana_Alaska.html) which has an ice classic where people bet on the last day the ice will melt. Tickets cost $2.00 and the closing data is April 5. Further details are at http://www.ptialaska.net/~tripod/watching.breakup.html. The ice freezes over during October to November and by April 1, the thickness of ice over the Tanana River is 42 inches.
 

Coal is produced hear Healey by the Healey-Evans coal company which wants to powder coal and provide power to Fairbanks. The river (Riley Creek) is high and at flood stage as is the Nenana River. Outside the weather is cold and rainy. We decided to continue onto Anchorage and use it as the base of operations for trips in Southern Alaska. We then continued south down the Palmer-Wassilla Highway. Alaska is a lot like Finland. Dad said that when he went to (www.freenet.tlh.fl.us/~heinisj/chile.html), that the wind was so strong you had to lean into it when walking. There were also a lot of sheep there as was the Darwin Channel. Punta Arenas in Chile is cold. The Parks Express then drove us to the Spenard Youth Hostel which is the other Youth Hostel in Anchorage. Lodging cost was $15.00 per night.
 

At the hostel, back in Anchorage, I talked with a woman who was involved in the Alaska-Russia small business exchange. There is a lot of interest in Alaska about working with the Russians on Sakhalin because of oil (http://vlad.tribnet.com/1998/iss162/sakh.html). Investors include such companies as Shell, Mitsui, Mitsubishi, and Marathon (all in Sakhalin-Il), Exxon (Sakhalin-1 and Sakhalin-lll), and Mobil and Texaco (Sakhalin-IIl) (http://www.offshore-technology.com/projects/sakhalin/index.html). There is a website on Sakhalin-Alaska development (http://www.alaska.net/~sakhalin/) and also one on Sakhalin (http://www.sakhalin.ru) which is also known as Karafuto in Japanese (http://www.karafuto.com/). The island's southernmost coast (visible on a clear day from the northern tip of Japan), barely gets warm enough for a chilly late summer dip. The northern half of the island is arctic and is often rocked by seismic activity. Commercial development began in 1977. A large earthquake in 1995 killed approximately 2,000 people on Sakhalin (total island population is about 680,000). Winter brings huge, moving ice floes (http://www.russianconservation.org/sakhalin.html) so the weather is terrible at best: The Sea of Okhotsk is subject to dangerous storm winds, severe waves, icing of vessels, intense snowfalls and poor visibility. The average annual extreme low ranges between -32 deg C and -35 deg C. Ice sheets of up to 1.5 meters thick move at speeds of 1-2 knots. By the way, Dad was on the Sea of Okhotsk while in Japan, see http://www.freenet.tlh.fl.us/~heinisj.
 

The future director of the exchange was upset because she was going to direct the University of Alaska-Anchorage Russia Business Training Center in Yuzhno-Sakhlinsk, Russia. This training center jointly coordinates the dissemination of Western businesses and technical know-how to the management and employees of Russian companies. The previous American directors were deported. In Russia, when you are deported, they wait until the visa is expired and they then put you on a plane going out. Taxes are on 70% of a person's salary and the only ones who pay taxes are American who are hired part time and have two different jobs to cut down on taxes. The local newspaper made it appear that her predecessors were spies. Russians from Sakhalin do a lot of buying in Alaska of very specific items because it is cheaper (http://www.airport.sakhalin.ru/english/).
 

We then planned to see the Kenai fjords the next day. We met Tobias Friedman, a Jewish fish entrepreneur who wants to sterilize salmon roe and how to make fish broth for marketing. The Koreans build a fish processing plant in Anchorage but never used it. He also showed us a story about himself in the Nome Nugget. Nome is very ecumenical: the Catholic, the Protestant and the Jew all take turns to be the town drunk. We then took the Alaska RR from Anchorage to Whittier. This town was an ice-free military port run by the Army.Whittier was chosen as a rail port because it was a shorter voyage, reduced exposure of ships to Japanese submarines, reduced the risk of Japanese bombing the port facilities because of the bad weather, and avoided the steep railroad grades required to traverse the Kenai Mountains. During the 1964 Alaska Earthquake, the most intense one ever recorded in North America, the town was hit by three waves, one of which crested at 104 feet. The Army blasted two tunnels through the Chugash mountains to connect the town with the Alaska Railroad depot at Portage. This remained active until 1960 at which time the total population was 1,200. The city of Whittier, incorporated in 1969, purchased the town site from the federal government in 1973. Whittier is located on the Prince William Sound. The Anton Anderson Memorial combined rail/road tunnel opened this year (http://www.dot.state.ak.us/whittiertunnel/). Thanks to a unique design, the tunnel allows a single lane of automobile traffic to drive directly over the railroad track area. In Whittier, all 306 inhabitants live in a single "college dorm". The Alaska Marine Highway's terminus (http://www.dot.state.ak.us/external/amhs/home.html) connects the port during the summer to the Aleutian Islands. In Whittier, we took the Prince William Sound Glacier Cruise. Glacial ice is a different color than regular ice. It is so blue because the dense ice of the glacier absorbs every other color. Sometimes the glacial ice appears almost turquoise. Its crystalline structure strongly scatters blue light. The ice on a glacier has been compacted down so that its structure is pretty different than the ice you normally see.

From Whittier , we took

the tour boat up the Passage canal. On one side of the bay you could see the Learnard Glacier and the boat then took us around Shotgun cove and then further around Blackstone Bay. First you could see the Tebenkopf Glacier and the wind blowing off the glacier made you realize how cold everything is. We then proceeded around Willard Island and went to see the Blackstone Glacier. This glacier was named after a mail carrier who delivered mail but got caught in the dead of winter and died trying to cross Blackstone Glacier. There were two other glaciers nearby called the Beloit Glacier, Northland Glacier, the Lawrence and the Ripon Glacier. When we went back, the wind was blowing and the sights were beautiful. We even ate some salmon on the ship. The captain said that when the glacier calved, you could hear the ice straining as it gave way. On the way back, we took the train through the tunnel under Maynard Mountain. We then went up on the northern side of Turnagain arm which is called that because Captain Cook searched for the Northwest Passage and came to a dead-end at the end of the arm. The shallow waters and treacherous tides of the Cook Inlet and Turnagain Arm kept gold prospectors away until 1890, when Alexander King surprised locals with four pokes of gold. Hope is a mining town on the opposite side of Turnagain Arm. Turnagain arm is very treacherous because its floor is glacial silt and is therefore very easy to get stuck in it. The only way to get out is to jam in an airhose and blow the person out.. The tides are the second highest in North America (40 ft range). Only the Bay of Fundy has higher tides. In 1778, Captain Cook, who was searching for the Northwest Passage, named this arm the Turnagain Arm because he ordered his ships the Resolution and Discovery to turn about, hence the name Turnagain. Anchorage became the main port after Seward and Valdez were devastated by the 1964 Good Friday Earthquake.
 

On the way back to Anchorage, we saw some beluga whales. The beluga whale is a small, toothed whale that is white as an adult. Beluga means "white one" in Russian. The beluga's body is stout and has a small, blunt head with a small beak, tiny eyes, thick layers of blubber, and a rounded melon. They have one blowhole. Its genus, Delphinapterus, means "whale without fins", and the species, leucas, means white. This whale is also called the sea canary (because of its songs) and squid hound (due to its diet). These whales congregate in pods (social groups) of 2-25 whales. The average pod size of 10 whales (consisting of both males and females or mothers and calves). A pod will hunt and migrate as a group. Belugas live in frigid Arctic and sub-Arctic waters, but some populations migrate south to warmer water in the summer. We saw some Dall sheep on the cliffs adjoining the Seward highway. It takes a Dall ram about eight years to grow the majestic, circular horns that are the trademark of this species. These all-white sheep live their short lives on alpine ridges and meadows, and on steep, craggy slopes. When Dall sheep sense danger they flock to rocks and crags to elude predators. The females-or ewes-give birth on these steep slopes in May and June. Lambs are sure-footed just hours after being born
 

Near Valdez, which is the terminus of the Alaska pipeline, the Exxon Valdez oiltanker went aground on March 24, 1989 on Bligh Reef

(http://response.restoration.noaa.gov/spotlight/spotlight.html). Nearly 11 million gallons of oil spread slowly over open water during three days of flat calm seas (http://www.adn.com/evos/index.html). Despite the opportunity to skim the oil before it hit the shorelines, almost none was scooped up. Fortunately, much has improved since then and substantial environmental recovery has taken place since the spill. The U.S. Coast Guard now monitors fully laden tankers via satellite as they pass through Valdez Narrows, cruise by Bligh Island, and exit Prince William Sound at Hinchinbrook Entrance. Since date of the accident,Captain Joseph Hazelwood has been continuously in court The last of his court appearances was in 1998. He was acquitted of operating a tanker while drunk (blood alcohol level of 0.061) and was sentenced to 1,000 hours of community service as punishment for the 11 million-gallon oil spill in Prince William Sound.Thomas Cousins, the third mate was the man who actually ran the tanker aground at Bligh Reef. Joseph Hazelwood lost his job after the tanker wreck in 1989 and has yet to serve any portion of the sentence after his conviction in 1990 of negligently discharging oil -- a misdemeanor. In 1990, the ship was renamed the SeaRiver Mediterranean and hauls European oil to Italy. The ship is permanently barred from Prince William Sound. The industry response.
 

Satellites are now used to map oil spills and different methods can be used for bioremediation Oil spills are listed at the Oil Spill Intelligence Report. Substantially larger oil spills have occurred.
 

After returning to the Spenard Youth Hostel, I took Dad to eat dinner at the restaurant Gwennies which is across the street from the youth hostel. The restaurant has the typical Alaskan food and I took Dad to eat some seafood including samples of halibut, salmon and King crab. The youth hostel is an unassuming place in a decent part of town and is, surprisingly enough, close to the seaplane base which is part of the Anchorage airport. Since Alaska has such vast distances, we could see why it was easy to take the plane instead of ending up in the bush. The youth hostel's email address is spnrdhstl@alaska.life.net. Fairbanks winters are brutal (50 below zero). By October 15, the first snow sticks here in Anchorage. We then took the tour bus owned by Ron Hewitt to Homer. Ron is a colorful character. He was in charge of the Top of the World motel in Barrow when the 88 whales got stuck in the ice and created a media frenzy. The network feeds were done by satellite. On the road to Homer, porcupines get run over by cars and moose are a road hazard. George, on the Homer half of the run. He mentioned salmon fishing and told us that the best salmon in the world is the sockeye or red salmon and then comes the silver. Finally, comes the pink salmon which is also known as the dog salmon because it is fed to the dogs. There are five salmon species found in Alaska: King, Coho, Sockeye, Chum and Pink Salmon.
 

Of course, in Alaska, you can go hunting and trapping. If you get a trapping license, you can trap such furbearers as the beaver, coyote, arctic fox, red fox, land otter, flying squirrel, ground squirrel, marmot, wolf and wolverine. If you want to export the pelts, you need to get an export tag from the state and Fish and Wildlife. Any moose, caribou or deer that dies after being caught in a trap or snare is the property of the state as are those killed in defense of life and property. Moose can be aggressive too (http://www.state.ak.us/adfg/wildlife/geninfo/game/agmoose.htm). You may take a wolf, wolverine, fox or lynx after 3:00 am after you have flown in an airplane. You may not transport or export from Alaska any untanned bear skin or skull until it has been sealed. There is a limit of one bear every four regulatory year. You may not hunt brown/grizzly bears over bait. You may not bother a bear with a snowmachine nor use it to pursue a bear that is fleeing. Grizzly bears live in the outskirts of Anchorage since the mountains are nearby. It is best to leave bears alone (http://www.state.ak.us/local/akpages/FISH.GAME/wildlife/geninfo/game/bearfax.htm). You can't outrun a bear. They have been clocked at speeds up to 35 mph, and like dogs, they will chase fleeing animals. Grizzlies inhabit the more open tundra. Standing bears are usually curious not threatening.
 

We took the the Katchenak Bay Transit Company down the Sterling Highway through Soldotna, Ninilchick and finally to Homer which is at the opening to Kachemak Bay on the Kenai Peninsula. For trout and other species, you see rainbow, cutthroat, Dolly Carden Char, Arctic Chark, Steelhead, Sheefish Halibut are caught in the Cook Inlet as well as in other parts of the state. Shellfish and crustaceans include king crab (closed), tanner crab, dungeness crab (closed), shrimp (closed), butter clams and razor clams. The daily bag limit is 60 razor clams per day. The largest halibut ever caught is 459 lbs which was caught on Unalaska Bay near Dutch Harbor in the Aleutian Islands by Jack Tragis. Now, the halibut fishery is in March and October and the catch is under an individual fishing quota (IFQ). Labor organizers for the International Longshoremen and Workers Union are active in Alaska, too (www.ilwu.org). At a book store, I read a title about king crab fishing in the Bering Sea which is to be the most dangerous occupation on earth. King crabs look like big spiders and crawl into crab-pots which are baited with decomposing fish. These scavengers are then caught when they try to eat the decomposing fish (http://www.cf.adfg.state.ak.us/region4/shellfsh/crabs/catchval/98kc_sum.htm, http://www.cf.adfg.state.ak.us/region4/shellfsh/crabs/1953-94.htm)
 

First, we passed through Ninilchick which was founded by the Russians more than 100 years ago. Apart from the Russian Orthodox church (their cross is the same as that used by the Byzantine Rite of the Catholic Church (http://www.byzantines.net/StCyril/cross.htm), there are 750 residents and not too much to do. Homer is on the southern shore of the Kathemak Bay. After our driver took us to the Spit (which is the fishing port of Homer), we walked around town (http://www.ci.homer.ak.us/).
 

On the opposite side of Cook Inlet are several active volcanos (http://www.inalaska.com/alaska/volcanos.html; http://www.avo.alaska.edu/) all of which erupt periodically: The most active ones are:. Augustine, Spurr and Redoubt The Augustine volcano has been the most active volcano in the Cook Inlet region, erupting at least twice in the 1800s and four times in the last 100 years. An eruption in 1883 sent a tsunami, a giant sea wave, hurling toward the small fishing village of English Bay (http://wcatwc.gov/).. On June 27, 1992, Mount Spurr burst into eruption, shooting a mushroom cloud thousands of feet into the air. The Aleutians are part of this ring of fire as are the mountains of Kamchatka (http://www.wildrussia.spb.ru/kamchat.html). .
 

Around 1920, Kamchatka nearly ended in American hands because Lenin was willing to sell it (http://www.travelkamchatka.com/kamchatka.htm) Kamchatka is immensely important to the Russian military and was closed to all outsiders (including Russians who did not have explicit permission to be there) until 1990. Kamchatka is home to the Soviet Pacific Submarine Fleet, several major air bases, and is an important testing ground for ICBM's. . A large naval base across from Petropavlovsk bobs with poorly maintained nuclear submarines, one of which sank at its berth . In 1991, the Russian Federation was established as an independent republic and is now open to visitors. There is a saying in Kamchatka which loosely translates as, "In the winter it's not too cold, but in the summer it's not very warm!" More about Kamchatka is given at the web site: (http://www.travelkamchatka.com/azulay.htm)
 

While in Homer, we ate at a Mexican restaurant and I had halibut buried as part of the meal. Across the bay you could see the volcanic peaks in the distance (Mt. Ileanna, Mt. Readout and Mt. Spur). Oil rigs in the bay are serviced out of Kenai.. Driving back to Anchorage, we saw moose crossing signs. since people run into them while driving (http://www.peninsulaclarion.com/). The view across Cook Inlet was marvelous. Coming back to Anchorage, the Seward Highway is most snowy at the Turnagain Pass in the Kenai mountains with snowfalls of 8 to 10 feet. We were very close to some of the best fishing in Alaska but would have to contend with the crowds. The world's largest king salmon (97 lbs) was caught on the Kenai river and a larger one was caught but broke the line and got away. The Russian River is Alaska's best red salmon fishery and is packed during the combat fishing season. The further south you do the clamming, the bigger the clams. Near Ninilchik, clams as large as 10 inches long have been uncovered. From Homer, you can take a boat trip to Seldovia which is on the other side of Kachemak Bay.
 

On the way back from Homer, we talked with Barbara Todd who is a well known whale photographer who is associated with the New Zealand Whale and Dolphin Trust. She often operates out of Auckland University. In NZ, the fishing has collapsed because the fish mature slowly. She photographs humpback whales and has published a photo (with the blow hole reversed) on a calendar. Like many female photographers, she got in photography through being in the right place at the right time. Of course, she is a member of the American Cetacean Society. The International Whaling Commission sets whaling limits. Other whaling groups include the Cetacean Society International. There are many whales in Katchemak Bay, near Homer. Here in Alaska, the research is done through Alaska-BC Whale foundation. The Alaska Eskimo Whaling Commission ensures that whaling quotas are established (in 2000, the amount was 22) and Barrow Whaling Captains vote to begin the season between Sept. 25 or later. In 2000, the opening is on Oct. 2
 

Humpback whales migrate annually from Alaska to Hawaii and back. Whales arrive in Hawaii in late November of each year where they calve and breed. In April, they migrate to Alaska and by June are back in Alaska where they feed. This 3,000 mile trip takes an estimated 40 days. Other migrations also occur for other whales. Sperm whales are the deeper divers and have been found with the remains of deep sea squid where they have been tracked to depths of 7000 ft. To the south, there is a lot of whale watching.
 

Humpbacks feed on fish by bubble feeding. Humpback whales eat huge quantities of small fish, krill and sometimes salmon. Whales swim in a circle around the perimeter of the school releasing a steady stream of air from their blowholes Fish stay within this net while the whales swim straight up toward the surface through the center of the "bubble net," trapping the fish in their baleen. Species you may see in the summer in Alaska are blue whales, fin whales, sei whales, minke whales, humpbacks, gray whales (migrate past southern Alaska and spend the summer mostly in waters north and west of Alaska), sperm whales, belugas, and orcas.
 

Barbara is part of the whale identifying group and takes photographs of animals and uses natural markings to identify each individual. Individual whales may be tracked over long periods of time (http://whale.wheelock.edu/whalenet-stuff/humpcat_intro.html) Her fluke photographs (http://whale.wheelock.edu/whalenet-stuff/MAPSindex/images/mugshots.jpg) help her to identify whales. When the whales migrate, she works with the Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary (http://www.sanctuaries.nos.noaa.gov/pgallery/pghawaii/pghawaii.html). Other whale research groups are found at http://www.pacificwhale.org/learn/links.html. Near Kodiak, there are large numbers of whale species (http://www.koc.alaska.edu/sprojects194l/whalefest/ktsp.htm). To identify whales, you look at their characteristics. Right whales have callosities (http://vineyard.er.usgs.gov/soundings/old/migration.html. In Northern Alaska, villagers get 50 strikes (attempts to kill a whale) per year. When they catch a baleen whale (Bowhead, right, gray etc) they make scrimshaw. The best scrimshawers are in Kotzebue.
 

As we traveled north, we saw a beluga whale in Turnabout Bay. This whale pod even made the Anchorage paper. The range of Beluga Whale is found at http://whales.magna.com.au/DISCOVER/BELUGA/belugad.html. For Orca, the Killer whale has never hurt a person in the wild but is is inquisitive and approachable. Aggression within a pod is rare and the pod is a close-knit family group and is stable from one generation to the next. It's members usually stay together for life. Regarded as too small by the commercial whalers the Killer whale population has not been depleted.. Barbara Todd also has traveled in Indonesia and has seen the Komodo dragons which eat goats. They are very big animals with a poisonous bite. Near Sumatra, there are many spinner dolphins which jump up in the air and spin around. No one knows why they spin. These small dolphins eat fish and small squid. (http://www.maui.net/~mermaid/Spinner_Dolphin/spinner_dolphin.html). Dr. Stephen Dawson of the University of Otago, NZ is an internationally acknowledged expert on the conservation biology of dolphins and whales. Although we did not see any orca whales, they are known to be common in this part of Alaska. Soon we came to Portage which was once a town until the Good Friday earthquake of 1964 caused the town to sink into the glacial silt from whence it came. Here is a seismic map of Alaska (akseis.gif).
 

The next day, Dad went with Annette Crawford, a venturesome Australian backpacker to Kodiak. while I spent another two days in Anchorage. After seeing Tobias Friedman's salmon roe processing operation at Great Pacific Seafoods, he then brought me to Spenard Street. I stayed in Anchorage and wandered around the town.
 

One of the interesting places I saw was the distributor for newspapers (http://www.alaska.net/~aknewspr/) and I bought a copy of the newspaper from Dutch Harbor, the Dutch Harbor Fisherman. Here is something about Dutch Harbor (http://www.dutch-harbor.com/). Unalaska/Dutch Harbor is a community of contrast - the buzz of the largest international fishing port in the nation (http://arctic.net/~prtdutch/anchorages.html) , next to the rich culture and history of Unangan and Russian heritage that shaped this island. The native people were forcibly evacuated during WWII and most families were trilingual, speaking Unangan, Russian and English. Though I went to neither Unalaska nor Barrow, I did read their newspaper (http://www.alaska.net/~aknewspr/) when I was in Anchorage. Here is some news After going to buy the newspapers, I took the bus to Fort Wainright (http://www.wainwright.army.mil/).. Army helicopters based at Fort Wainright frequently pick up stranded mountaineers on Mt. McKinley. In the background, you can see the Chugash mountains (http://camera.touchngo.com/). Title Waves books is the main bookstore (www.wavebooks.com). Downtown Anchorage has many merchants who cater to tourists (www.russiangiftshop.com), I returned to the Spenard youth hostel (http://www.alaskalife.net/spnrdhstl/hostel.html) and rested. Overnight stay was $15.00 which is substantially less than for other lodgings in the city.

After returning back to the Spenard hostel by city bus I walked around the area near the hostel and came to the seaplane base (http://www.dot.state.ak.us/external/aias/airport.html) at Lake Hood.. Floatplanes are used a lot for transportation in the country because the state is so large (http://www.seaplanes.org/).

On my walk back, I passed by one of the Anchorage TV stations (http://www.excite.com/entertainment/tv/television_industry/television_stations/alaska/) and took a photograph of some Eskimo children who moved with their mother from Kotzebue. Finally, I was at the airport and had to go. At the bar, I talked with a man who had just left Dutch Harbor and drank my last Alaska beer (Silver Gulch from the Silver Gulch Brewing Co.). Finally, I got on the well packed American Airlines aircraft and flew to the lower 48. (to Raleigh, North Carolina).