Money versus Mother Nature

There is one thing we will continue to find strange about Alaska no matter how long we live here. There are roads, highways if you will, that cut through huge tracks of “wilderness.” Areas where to get off the road would make you think you were the only human alive. I put wilderness in quotes because so much of the road system here was put in to exploit Mother Nature. A “Haul Road” across the Brooks Range and North Slope to access the oil fields. The Steese Highway out to Circle, the major hub for transportation before the road system was created. Remote areas. Yet almost every drainage we have passed on this trip has been manipulated by humans in some grotesque way. Mining in most cases.

Mining … it seems like a noble occupation. Your hard work makes the pay off … sometimes. Most of the time miners probably work harder than others and have nothing from the Earth to show for it. It is just them and Mother Nature, away from city life and all the craziness that surrounds it. In some ways, it seems like a pretty self sufficient lifestyle. But when you’re exposed to mining full on in your face it is anything but pretty and far from sustainable. Along the Steese Highway, the Earth is literally being ripped apart in search of this precious commodity … gold … this universal currency. As much as we would like to think otherwise, it is money versus nature almost everywhere we look. Does Mother Nature even stand a chance?

But who are we to say anything? We have gold wedding bands (well … dave did before he lost his canoeing last summer). We drive a van and use a computer that both have some materials only available because of mining. But are these material processions enough to justify the destruction? It is a question we have been pondering more and more recently!

This is a photo looking off the highway towards a drainage with mining activitiy, Notice the big piles of gravel along the creek drainage. These are called tailings. It is the rock and other debris miners move out of the way while looking for gold. It is deposited next to the creek and and in some cases alters the stream flow.

This is a piece of old mining equipment donated to the mining museum in Central.

The Steese Highway to Communities of Central and Circle

Last Sunday, we left Fairbanks on our last trial voyage before the big trip. This time we headed northeast on the Steese Highway to the communities of Central and Circle. We stopped at most of the waterways along the route because we have a dog who loves the water. When Sprout sees a river through the window or gets a sniff of it, watch out. You are better just to pull over and let her do her thing. She had a great trip swimming until she was shaking with the cold but too stubborn to get out and dry off. We found a little campground maintained by the BLM along Cripple Creek. We spent two days there walking the trail, hanging out at the river and slapping mosquitoes.

Sprout Swimming

The Steese Highway has seen its share of fire the past couple of seasons. As a result, the fireweed was out in full force. We spent some time hanging out in it and taking some photos.

Fireweed Along the Steese Highway

Sprout and Otis Watching the Day Go By
You don’t want to know how many shots it took to finally get this good one of the dogs!

About 120 miles outside of Fairbanks, we went through the small community of Central. This is truly a mining community where government employees are not welcome. This sign was posted in the museum in town. It didn't look that old.


Central is a beautiful little community. It was very well kept; lawns were mowed and flowers were all over. You can tell the residents take pride in their homes. There was a small mining museum in the town with lots of old mining equipment and photos. We even found an old timey RV.

The road dramatically changed near Eagle Summit. The trees made way for gorgeous views of alpine tundra. We spent some time exploring the area and seeing how far up we could climb.

Eagle Summit: Notice the Alpine Tundra in the Background

The Steese Highway ends in the village of Circle City. We believe this is an Athabaskan Indian village but there was nobody around to ask. Circle is neat because it sits on the Yukon River, one of the longest rivers in the world and the major drainage in Interior Alaska. This river starts in the Yukon Territories and flows all the way across Alaska to the western part of the state. There it gets close to another major river, the Kuskokwim, and creates a huge river delta before they both flow out to sea. Neither dave or I have been to this region of the state.

Yukon River in Circle

Near the Yukon in Circle there was a fish wheel sitting on the bank. Although we didn’t get a good photo of it, we did get this shot of a miniature fish wheel in the museum in Central. The whole thing floats in the river and the current makes it turn. As it turns, it catches fish in the baskets which deposits them on the raft to be cleaned. It is a really cool invention. The technique has been used by Natives for a long time.

Fish Wheel in Central Museum

We now are back in Fairbanks. We have five days to organize our stuff, put some away into storage and move out of the cabin. We intend to be off for good heading towards Paxon on August 1. Lots to do before then, so we better get going.

Six Thousand Rubber Duckies in the Chena River

Yes … You read the title correctly. The Fairbanks Chamber of Commerce dumped 6,000 little, plastic, yellow Rubber Duckies, with numbers around their necks into the Chena River as part of Golden Days. This is an annual event and many people participate for a chance to win a lot of cash. You can purchase a ticket worth $5,000 or $10,000. If the duckie with your ticket number on it comes in first, you win. Although we were there in person, we still don’t know what the winning ticket number is. So we may be $5,000 ricer. Keep your fingers crossed for us!!Here are some fun photos of the event:

View of the bridge where poeple watched the ducks float by:

Here they come:

Ducks Up Close and Personal:

People watching the ducks float by:

Collecting the Ducks:

The company that operates the pipeline was on hand to collect the ducks with their oil spill response equipment:

World Eskimo Indian Olympics

The World Eskimo Indian Olympics were very interesting. I attended while dave was finishing his last day of work. There were not many people there. Apparently the events take place during the day but the main attraction is at night. They give demonstrations of the events that took place during the day, award the medals and in some cases have some other unique events, like the seal skinning, that I missed.

I saw three different events: a) Kneel Jump, b) Two Foot High Kick and c) Ear Pull. For the Kneel Jump, they sit back on their legs and jump up to the standing position. Whoever jumps the farthest away from the starting line wins. The boys jumped over 55 inches, while the girls were around 45 inches. The Two Foot High Kick entailed jumping from the ground and hitting a ball tied over five feet in the air with both your toes. It was very neat. Some of the guys looked liked coiled springs leaping six feet into the air with no effort. The record set in 1986 was over eight feet!!

Here are a few photos of the Two Foot High Kick:

Here are a few photos of the Ear Pull:

I also participated in an Intertribal Powwow. There were about six different groups of drummers from all over the US that took turns drumming and singing. Some people were dressed in Native American regalia, while others, like me, were in street clothes. We all danced and listened to great music. It was a lot of fun.

The Maiden Voyage

A lot has happened since the last post. Last Friday we finished the van and started off on our maiden voyage up the Dalton Highway. For those of you who have not driven the Dalton, it is a rough road. Only 130 miles of the 414 mile road are paved, so we thought this would be a good test for the van. If there were going to be rattles in the van, this was the road that would bring them out. Luckily for us, there weren’t many of them.

The Start of the Dalton Highway

We followed the Trans Alaska Pipeline north passing over the Yukon River, above the Arctic Circle, through the Brooks Range, all the way to the Arctic Ocean. Although dave can not say the same, I have now been completely submerged in the Arctic Ocean. It will be fun to do the same near Key West. The farthest north and south you can drive in the country.

The Arctic Circle Along the Dalton Highway

The End of the Road: The Arctic Ocean

The Pipeline Runs 800 Miles Across Alaska

We saw our share of wildlife including caribou by the hundreds, a herd of over 20 muskox, numerous foxes and a bonus on the way home … a lynx!! This was only the second time either of us have seen a lynx in the wild!!

The Northern Foothills of the Brooks Range (Notice the pipeline along the road)

All the rivers we passed along our route were extremely high due to the frequent rains we’ve had this summer. Coming after two record breaking fire seasons (2005: 4.4 million acres and 2004 6.6 million acres), this season is much different. There have been very few fires in Alaska this year and lots of rain instead.

We ran into Buck Nelson, an ex Alaska Fire Service Smokejumper, on Chandalar Shelf. He started walking the Brooks Range from the Canadian border and had made it to the Dalton. He intended to walk to the Noatak River headwaters and float back out of the bush. It was an interesting encounter, considering we were living out of a van and he was walking hundreds of wilderness miles with food caches delivered by bush plane. This guy was carrying everything he needed on his back, over tough terrain, in chilly, rainy weather. We thought we were taking a risk with this trip. Buck showed us what a risk really was. We shouldn’t ever complain about everything we “need” not fitting in the van. We could be carrying it all on our backs.

We hope to start off on the second voyage Saturday, realisticly it will be Sunday. We intend to take the roads north to the villages of Manley, Circle, and Central as well as visit Circle Hot Springs. In the meantime, the World Eskimo Indian Olympics are in town. It entails all sorts of unique events like blanket toss, seal skinning, ear pull and knuckle hop. Neither of us have been in town over this portion of the summer and have always wanted to attend.

Happy Birthday to Jody: Hans is Electrified

After I spent hours running around town trying to find a 500 amp fuse, I couldn’t have asked dave for a better birthday gift then to get electricity into the van. My birthday wish came true and before the stroke of midnight the inverter was officially wired in and the power was flowing. The inverter will be responsible for running our refrigerator and other small miscellaneous things, like the computer. We hope this inverter will last through our two year trip and be able to power a small cabin when we get back into the “real world.”

Other accomplishments since the last post: we got a skylight/roof vent, the cabinet hardware has been installed, the propane is hooked up, the water drainage system works, and we installed a clothing rack. Today we will install magnetized screens for the back door and side door, cut out and install the indoor/outdoor carpet, finish the curtains and secure our storage totes, so they won’t fly around the van when we hit the brakes.

Our plan to leave for Coldfoot tomorrow has been postponed one day. We will finish errands and pack tomorrow and head up north on Thursday. So only one day off - pretty good considering we planned this schedule last fall. Coldfoot has a wireless connection so I will do my best to publish a post while we are above the Arctic Circle. This will be the last time we will be that far north for a long time.

Outfitting the Van

The van has arrived and we are outfitting it into our new home as quickly as possible. It is a Dodge Sprinter that for now we are calling Hans. At 6' 1" inside, it is tall enough for jody to stand and an inch too short for dave to do the same.









The rain hasn't let up this summer in Fairbanks. But we are on a mission and rain or shine this van will be completed!

The Realization that the Dream Isn’t For Us

What do you do when you wake up one day and find yourself content but not 100% happy with your life? We were at that point in the fall of 2005. From the outside looking in, life was great. We had achieved the American Dream at 30 years old. But something wasn't quite right. Once you achieve this so called dream are you destined to spend the rest of your life working 9 to 5, five days a week, just waiting for Friday to roll around? That sure didn't seem like any dream we had hoped to achieve.

For us the decision was easy. We would sell almost everything we owned, buy a van, outfit it into our home and travel for a couple of years. Instead of just existing, we would start LIVING our lives. We would see North America. We would put our fingers on the pulse of what was going on in our world. We would take our time, avoid the major highways, big cities and find out if there is a dream out there closer to what we really hope to achieve with our lives.

Sure it was scary, especially quitting two well paying jobs. But if we want to start living it seemed like a good way to start.

Let the adventure begin!