Anchorage to Fairbanks Denali National Park, Alaska’s top attraction and larger than the state of New Hampshire, is the must-see highlight when on the road fromAnchorage to Fairbanks—a journey revealing just some of the state’s mountainous terrain, dense forests, and swirling rivers. An estimated 100,000 glaciers weave through mountainous valleys. Alaska has more than 50 recently active volcanoes and the country’s 10 tallest mountains topping off the landscape. No wonder many still consider Alaska to be “The Last Frontier.” And after surviving at least one arctic winter, true Alaskans and their Yukon counterparts have earned the so-called “sourdough” title, stemming from the tradition of tough gold prospectors protecting their sourdough bread starter from the cold by keeping it close to their bodies. In Anchorage, Alaska’s largest city, that raw outdoor spirit comes alive in many ways through the paintings of Mount McKinley, the displays of dugout canoes, feathered spears, totem poles, and other artifacts—some Smithsonian items—in the Anchorage Museum. The downtown visitor information center is actually a log cabin accented by flowers in summertime and capped with a grassy roof. Diverse Native American cultures come together at the city’s Alaska Native Heritage Center with their dances,
Flightseeing at Denali National Park.
It’s a view of a lifetime from my window above the clouds. I’m tightly strapped in a 12-seater touring plane emerging from a drizzly haze below. We’re soon soaring amid snow- capped mountains with their craggy peaks shrouded by wispy cloud bands, getting my first look at Alaska’s colossal Denali National Park and Preserve. I see stretches of rocky valleys with what looks like a superhighway carving around the mountains. “Those lines in the glacier are actually piles of dirt, gravel, and rocks that rise to the top and form what looks like roads or strips,” explains pilot Bob Edison, his tinny voice echoing through my headset as he describes the elongated Eldridge Glacier. Before long, we’re peering out our windows to see another ice field, the 3,800-foot-deep Ruth Glacier. “That’s one thick piece of ice,” Edison says. But our mission on this flightseeing adventure is to see Alaska’s behemoth Mount McKinley; we’ll fly 200 miles roundtrip to North America’s tallest mountain peak. But will we see it or will it be smothered in clouds? I feel a cold chill, and condensation creeps up my window as we soar even higher. And then our answer comes with a burst of elation. “There it is!” shouts Edison. “The feeling is hard to describe other than to say words like awesome or spectacular, or breathtaking or bucket list.” Mount McKinley’s snow- covered, 20,310-foot South Peak glimmers above the clouds.
Artifacts at the Anchorage Museum.
storytelling, and artisans. Key to understanding such cultures is the recreated native villages outside with simple clan houses of the Eyak and Haida peoples of Southeast Alaska, or the sod-covered mound homes of Aleut and Alutiiq communities from the North Pacific Rim, to name a few. When Anchorage was founded in 1914 as a hub for the Alaska Railroad, the now modern city was mostly a construction camp with tents. The 1915 Oscar Anderson House dates back to that time, once belonging to an original resident of the early tent city. Nearby is waterside Resolution Park, named after Captain James Cook’s flagship, with a statue of the British explorer and sweeping
16 COAST TO COAST SPRING 2016
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