whisk tourists to Mount McKinley. As we continue north along Parks Highway within Denali State Park (just south of the national park), we see splendid views of the snow-topped peaks—including Mount McKinley—of the Alaska Range. A right turn at Cantwell brings us to Alaska Route 8, known as the Denali Highway, a 134-mile, mostly gravel route with even more views of rock-filled rivers and lakes reflecting a dramatic jagged landscape. Flightseeing, whether by small plane, floatplane, or helicopter, is often the best way to capture Alaska’s vastness and raw beauty, since there are few roads and so much open country. And that’s especially true at Denali National Park. “Denali is 6 million acres with one 90-mile road—it’s wilderness,” says Ranger Bill Reynolds, who is leading my group on a hike through mountainous forests. While passing quaking aspen and white and black spruce trees, we catch a fleeting glimpse of a moose, while still hoping to see a bear or two. “It’s a chance to see wildlife and nature untrammeled and unchanged—wildlife living as they’ve lived for centuries,” says Reynolds. The park offers daylong bus tours to safely see the “Big Four”: grizzlies, caribou, moose and Dall sheep.
Chugging to Skagway on the Yukon White Pass Route Railroad.
views of Cook Inlet and, on a clear day, mounts Susitna and McKinley. Anchorage is also a hub for floatplane excursions into the piney Alaskan bush, because Lake Hood is the country’s busiest and largest floatplane base. Single- and twin-engine models sit wedged within dug-out docking areas along the shoreline like boats moored along any other lake. And nearby is the Aviation Heritage Museum with its historic planes including a 1928 Stearman, one of first to land on Mount McKinley in 1932. On the road, we head north out of Anchorage on Glenn Highway (Alaska Route 1), connecting with the George Parks Highway (Interstate A-4 and Alaska Route 3) on our way to a four-hour drive to Denali National Park. Forty miles out of Anchorage we pass Wasilla, a small town founded a century ago to supply nearby gold mining, where we start to see the dramatic views of the Talkeetna Mountains. We’re heading into the Susitna River Valley— the calm river and its rocky shoreline at times paralleling the highway. Farther along is the town of Talkeetna, once a riverboat port for the early 19th-century gold rush in the Susitna Valley, and later a hub for the Alaska Railroad. With its colorful landmark, the historic Nagley’s General Store, Talkeetna serves now as a base for hiking, fishing, and rafting excursions; for riverboats maneuvering the Talkeetna, Susitna, and Chulitna rivers; and for flightseeing tours that
Floatplanes on Lake Hood are ready for passengers.
From Denali, it’s another three hours or so to Fairbanks. Finally arriving, we stop in the heart of the city at the Morris Thompson Cultural & Visitor Center along the Chena River. Across the way is Golden Heart Plaza with its central fountain featuring a sculpture depicting an Inuit family. A few blocks away, locally-carved ice sculptures remain solidly frozen at 20 degrees in the Fairbanks Ice Museum. We spend the afternoon just outside the city at Gold Dredge No. 8, a 20th-century houseboat-like vessel with massive earth-digging machinery used to extract gold from 1928-1959. The dredge harnessed 4,000 ounces of gold every two weeks, pulling 7.5 million ounces during its 31
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