Night Fall

I remember as a kid little things like fire flies, tree frogs and being able to see the Milky Way on a dark moonless nights. Then one day all that seemed to vanish. The fire flies seemed to disappear along with the tree frogs and light pollution from "civilization" (I use it here as a dirty word, pardon my language) obliterated the Milky Way. Fortunately Becky and I are now living in an area of relatively little light pollution where on a good night the Milky Way can still be seen. Of course, a good night in Fairbanks this time of year starts sometime around 4pm and last until 9:30am and is somewhere in the temperature range of zero Fahrenheit to minus forty Fahrenheit. Cold but beautiful. And for the lucky few the Aurora will dance in the sky with the Milky Way in the back drop. Becky and I are doing well and wish everyone of you a happy holiday season.

Chicken Little

Don't mess with the ladies in the coop. Harriet is on guard and ready to mess up any intruders if they try to rumble with the other ladies. Give them fresh greens, grains and grit and no one will get hurt.

Aurora Borealis

Here we are, sinking back into the depths of another subarctic winter. October brought early snow and proved to be one of the coldest Octobers in recorded history. Oddly enough it made for a very nice fall. Once the trees finished turning brilliant yellows, reds and oranges the leaves dropped to the ground followed closely by snow falling to the ground. There was enough snow on the ground by mid-October to start cross country skiing. While this time of year is great for leaves falling and snow flying it is also one of the prime times to view the Aurora Borealis. Three factors play into this: 1) it's dark which means the Aurora can be seen if it's active, 2) it's cold but not too cold which means the night's sky is clearer but not unbearable to stand outside in for extended time periods and 3) planetary alignment is ideal for solar storms to activate the lights (trust me on this one, you don't want me to get started on the explanation). With all this in mind I went for a walk with my camera for a few hours a couple of nights ago to star gaze and hopefully see some Auroral activity. JACK POT! The forecast predicted a moderately active night which ended up being a bit off. It was one of the most active nights I've seen in a few years. Keep in mind when you look at the above picture that the color you see takes place 70-200 miles above the Earth's surface and moves like curtains in the wind.... a very dynamic process and aw inspiring. For more information check out http://www.gedds.alaska.edu/AuroraForecast/

Early Snows

October arrived with a different face this year. In past years October was known as the drab, brown, leafless, rainy/snowy, frozen rain transition time of year with no recreational benefits. Could not run or bike because the trails were either ankle deep mud or ice but could not ski because there was no snow. This year things are different.... nothing but snow (and a little sunshine)! Once snow started falling the temperatures never got warm enough to melt what was on the ground. Total snow pack is somewhere around 11 inches which is close to a record for this time of year and the cross country skiing is great. The ski areas started grooming the trails last week. In years past I can remember no possibility of skiing until well after Thanksgiving. No complaints.

Denali Road Lottery

Once a year, in late September, Denali National Park opens up the Park to private vehicles. But as you can guess, if the opening was unregulated everyone would rush in with chaos resulting. To keep things under control the Park holds a lottery from which 100 lucky winners per day (for 4 days) are allowed to drive their private vehicles the length of the Park road. Normally the only way to get further back into the heart of the park is by joining a bus full of 40 other tourist. The bus is not a bad way to see things. It keeps congestion down and makes the area nicer for wildlife. At the same time it is hard to pass up the opportunity to drive your own vehicle around being able to set your own pace and go off on hikes as you wish. As you might suspect, since I'm writing this, Beck and I won a pass in the lottery this year to drive the road. What a treat it was. Being able to see Denali is always hit or miss. The mountain creates it's own weather and seems to enjoy playing hide and seek with visitors. We were in luck. We left Fairbanks early in the morning in the clouds. It looked as if we were in for a wet day which would have been fine, the Park if full of wildlife and the colors were in full swing so we knew there was still had a great chance of seeing the unexpected. As we got closer to the Park the sky started to open up. By the time we were at the Park entrance there was nothing but blue sky over head and Denali looking down on us from a distance. The whole day ended up surpassing our expectations. Wildlife sightings included sheep, grizzles, caribou, ground squirrel and a number of raptors.

Fall Colors in the Arctic

August in the Arctic brings fall and it's plethora of vivid colors scattered across the landscape. Reds brought on by birch, blue berry and bear bear berry bushes, yellows from poplar trees and willows, greens from grasses and sedges. It's a dream like state in the north this time of year.

Kongakut River trip

Sarah Palin and Ted Stevens will tell you the arctic of Alaska is barren.....primed, ready for oil drilling. Becky and I just got back from leading a raft trip in the arctic on the Kongakut river where we saw muskox, brown bear, Dall Sheep, caribou, and wolf just to name a few..... not barren at all. Not even close to barren! It was a custom trip for Tom Murphy, a professional photographer, with five of his close friends. While our main mission was to find cool subjects to photograph we were not in short supply of other things to do. Fishing! The fishing was unreal. With any cast worth its weight in salt we would catch fish, mainly Arctic Char or Grayling.

Dawson City Music Festival

Rain, music, mud, fun and ferries on the Yukon River sums up last weekend. Beck and I along with our friends Brook and Andrea took a four day road trip to Dawson City in the Yukon to get away and listen to some live music. Being the dirt bags that we are we pitched a tent down by the river in the government campground (not under a bridge). One of the unique things about Dawson, besides being a gold rush town isolated in the Canadian arctic, is that instead of using a bridge to span the river to connect the Top of the World Highway there is a free ferry that runs nonstop back and fourth. Our routine was to wake up, eat, ride the ferry to town, listen to music, ride the ferry back to the campground for lunch, ride the ferry back to town for music, walk around town, ride the ferry back again to sleep in a soggy tent. Oh yeah, and it rained the whole time we were there.

July 4th in Ester, AK

July 4th in Ester, AK. Ester is a small community not far from Fairbanks as the road takes you (only a few miles) but way off the beaten path when it comes to liberal political views. Ester's parade is open entry to all and fairly unpredictable. This year the line up started with kids racing down the road on their bikes with training wheels throwing candy to the masses followed by Uncle Sam waving the U.S. and Alaska flag. Then the fun started. We saw every thing from Calypso Farm's goat drawn cart to the Bad White Dog kennel (bad white dog imprisoned inside waging his tail). And of course it would not have been an Ester parade without some of the paraders depicting corrupt government officials and the Veco scandal. Did I mention is was the warmest, sunniest day of the year so far.

Tundra dogs

Happy Solstice to the folks out there that recognize and celebrate it. Loads of day light outside right now. It is hard to remember the last time I went to bed or woke up without the sun shining. This is certainly the time of year to soak it up. Becky, Charlie, Riga and I along with a few botanist friends made a little exploratory excursion to the Mount Prindel area in the White Mountains last weekend. What a glorious place to spend the day. The hike started off in the trees along an ATV trail. We were mauled by mosquitoes right off the bat. After walking a mile up the hill side the tundra opened up to us. Absolutely beautiful! Leaving the trees behind we were able to cut cross country and gain elevation along a gently sloping ridge. This is the time of year to get out and look at the plant life. Never plan on a brisk walk when everyone in your group is a plant nerd. Every twenty feet another plant...... "Woolly Lousewort, that's a Pedicularis isn't it?"... (twenty feet) "I've got Moss Campion over here!".... (thirty-two feet) "Hey, check out this Ranunculaceae." It was great. We were all doing it and learning new plants from each other. And of course Charlie and Riga had their normal running wild and free play time.

Down on the Chicken Ranch

Our small scale chicken ranch is finally open for business. Well, for our own personal business anyway. A total of nine ladies grace the premises. They have been pretty low maintenance so far. Feed and water in the morning and evening and food scraps as available, clean coop once a week. In return we have been getting 2-6 eggs per day and lots of satisfaction watching them run around doing chicken things. Charlie and Riga were initially VERY excited about our new friends but with a little persuasion (ok, it took allot of persuasion) we've been able to convince them that the chickens aren't toys or food..... not yet anyway.

Chicken Farm

Transformation is the name of the game in this photo. Our back yard has this old dog pin in it. Since our dogs are treated like a king and queen they spend their days with us and rarely, if ever in the pin. With that in mind we got the idea to change the dog pin into a chicken pin. Phase I, as soon as some of this snow melts we'll make a few repairs to the fence, put on a new gate and erect the chicken coop. Phase II, early May we have a friend that is turning over his flock of ten laying hens for us to raise. We'll be taking over a few different variates of chickens (Road Island Reds, Latrops and Araucanas) with about 80% of the eggs being blue/green in color. Phase III, get first hand experience raising chickens, collect eggs, make omelets. Stay tuned for chicken farm updates.

Byer's Lake

Alaska is full of public use cabins that folks can rent for a few nights through the park systems. This cabin, at Byer's Lake in Denali State Park, is one of the closer cabins to the road system, only a mile ski in from the parking lot. Some of the cabins are 20-30 miles out making them more conducive to dog sledding or snowmachineing. Last weekend Becky and I along with our friends Amy and Dave decided to get away for a little R&R with our K-9 friends Charlie, Riga and Yukon (Charlie and Riga's friend that lives with Amy and Dave). I'm sure you will be happy to know rest and relaxation was successfully achieved. Saturday was spent skiing around the lake with a nice quiet lunch mid-day by the partially frozen over creek draining the lake. It is hard to tell from the photo but this is a sod roofed log cabin with large burls incorporated into the structure. Just out of the picture to the right is Byer's Lake frozen over and covered with snow. Had the sky been clear we would have been able to view Denali by waking out onto the lake. No view of Denali this time but that was not our goal so no skin off our teeth.

Ice Art day dream

This year's Ice Art Competition has been no different than years past. It is absolutely mind blowing! The shapes and detail these folks can extract out of blocks of ice is impressive. This sculpture is 13 feet tall. The person is pretty much life size.

Ice Art Starts

Just because interior Alaska is cold does not mean we can't have fun. Every March Fairbanks is the home to the World Ice Art Championships drawing competitors from all over the world. To check out some of the past and present art go to http://www.icealaska.com/. There are two main categories, single and multi-block. A block being a 8'x5'x3' chuck of ice the sculptors get to manipulate using every tool imaginable from chain saws and chisels to hair blowers and sand paper. The photo to the left is an entry in the single-block competition. The multi-block competition starts in a few days and is when the really impressive sculptures are created. The meticulous detail and enormous size of some of the works are mind blowing. Sure, Becky and I go for the beauty of the occasion but we also go to keep the little kid inside of us alive. Half the park is full of serious ice sculptors to be marveled at while the other half is built into a kid's park for play time. They create 60 foot long slides of ice coming down dinosaur backs, igloos and tunnels to run through, a gigantic labyrinth to chase folks in and a series of luges, and spinning cups. Except for our size you would not recognize us as one of the mature, responsible adults in the park.

Charlie Dog

Charlie... Riga's partner in crime, squirrel hunting enthusiast, moose chaser extraordinaire and top ranked food connoisseur of k9 cuisines. Riga has had her day in the spot light now it's Charlies turn. We got him about four years ago from the Fairbanks shelter. If we had the motivation a great book could be written about all of his near catastrophic adventures. I'm sure you are probably thinking right know, "all dogs have adventures, what's so special about Charlie?" Let me tell you. Every six months he seems to get into some form of trouble that we could not have imagined in our wildest dreams. It started out simple like getting too interested in porcupines and having his face loaded with quills (along with Riga who got the majority of them). Fortunately Becky was around to have them pulled out. With his strong affection towards large ungulates he's been kicked by both a moose and horse. A few summers back he and Riga feel into a stream with swift current and step banks that they could not climb. Becky once again had to same their asses. Last winter while we were skiing along the frozen Chatinika River Charlie pounced like he was going to land on a small snow borrowing rodent only to punch through the snow and ice and land three feet down in the flowing river. He came very close to being swept under before having his human chaperons pull him out. While we were saving Charlie, Riga came over to see what all the excitement was about and fell through the ice herself giving us two dogs to rescue. Two winters back Becky was walking the dogs on one of the ski trails in Fairbanks when she noticed Charlie missing. She called and backtracked but he would not come. She finally noticed him whining off in the woods. When she found him he was caught in a snare left by a trapper. Once again... Becky to the rescue. Last winter while wrestling with Riga his paw got caught sideways in the carabiner on his collar. Try as we did, Becky and I could not get his foot out so we drove to the local fire department to have them cut the carabiner off with their gigantic bolt cutters. I felt like the classic "my cat is stuck in a tree" person. About six months ago Charlie and Riga were wrestling outside as they normally do. Some how Charlie's lower jaw got caught under Riga's collar, Riga twisted locking Charlie's jaw tight and cutting off her airway. Neither of the dogs knew what had happened but where very freaked out. Becky, once again, saved the day by calling out to the neighbors for help and getting them untangled. It scared both the dogs so much they avoided each other for a few days after. I'm leaving out some of their adventures but this should give you some idea of the type of adventures these dogs (especially Charlie) get into every so often. Never a dull moment.

Yukon Quest Sled Dog Race

The 1,000 mile world famous Yukon Quest Sled Dog Race started in Fairbanks this weekend. What an event to watch! If you ever want to see an enthusiastic dog, watch the start of a sled dog race. I was taking photos of most the mushers as they were leaving the start this year. By chance I happened to catch this shot of Lance Mackey (he is the Michael Jordon/ Lance Armstrong of the mushing world). Last year he won the Quest and the Iditarod back to back. That was a feat no one thought possible until Lance and his amazing team of All-Star dogs came along. Let's keep a close watch to see if he breaks any new records this year. Many of you are probably saying, "Damn, I forgot that started this weekend. How do I keep up with the race results?" I'm glad you asked. Visit http://www.yukonquest.com/ for all the important answers I'm not going to give you here.

The Sun is Coming

It is safe to say... the sun is coming back! February often brings interior Alaska a mixed bag of tricks. On the one hand the sun starts rapidly reappearing giving the visual impression that spring is on the way with a gain of over 6 minutes of light a day. On the other hand temperatures often start dipping to record lows. All week we've been waking up to the radio reporting, "..curent temperature -44F at the Fairbanks airport with the highs today reaching between -25F and -20F. No change in sight until the weekend." Sure it's cold being 76 degrees below freezing but it is a dry cold and you tend to get use to it after a bit (or is that the numbness from the cold setting in?). On the plus side, the combination of the sun coming back and the cold temperatures brings an amazing quality of sunrises and sets. This photo was taken at 9 am from the university over looking Fairbanks south toward the Alaska Range. On warmer, clear days you would see the community of Fairbanks just under the blanket of ice fog enshrouding the trees. On cold days like this there's often a temperature inversion where the cold air settles in low areas trapping smog, fog and pollution particalls. It can be as much as 15 degrees warmer on a ridge or hill top and sunny. I'm heading for the hills today. Stay warm.

Warm Subarctic Nights

Winter, and particularly winter in the northern regions, has a reputation of being dark, dreary and bone chilling cold. Sure.... at times.. But the beauty that comes with it is worth its weight in gold. Without the dark we would not have the opportunity to see the Milky Way, Aurora Borialis, and incredible moon lit landscapes. It's the lemonade from the lemon, and so sweet it is when we take time to drink it in. Lately the temperatures in Fairbanks have been between 0F and 20F. That feels like the tropics after the -40F temps we had last week. In general, this winter has been warmer than normal with less precipitation. Up until last week we only had about 7 inches of snow on the ground. That all changed two days ago with a Fairbanks record breaking 10 inch snow fall over night. No one was expecting it, not even the forecasters. It's good to be wrong sometimes.

-30 F

The darkness of arctic winters started descending on us in Fairbanks a few months ago but the cold never really hit as expected. Sure, up till now we've had temperatures hovering around zero Fahrenheit but that's considered comfortable this time of year. Yesterday was the end of the balmy weather as the temperature started to drop deep into the negatives. This morning we woke to -32 degrees Fahrenheit on the thermometer outside our window. Now this is what arctic winters are all about! While this may sound bad, -32 is still 20 degrees warmer than the record lows we have been here for (-52 F) a few years back. Think about that for a moment...... -52 F means things could warm up seventy-nine degrees and still be below freezing! While we are finally getting the cold that is expected for this time of year, we are also witnessing the rapid return of day light. Our shortest day gives us about 3 1/2 hours of sun above the horizon on winter solstice (Dec. 21). We are passed that marker so every day will be brighter than the previous for the next six months. Today the sun was above the horizon just shy of 5 hours with a gain of close to 6 minutes a day. Damn that feels good, it's coming back fast.