Our trip to Alaska and on to Prudhoe Bay
There were many trips for us after our retirement, in 1995, but some of them were more enjoyable to us than most of the rest. The first was the trip when Barbara and I took a fourteen-day trip to Alaska in 2004.
It was an extended journey in that we flew into Anchorage and stayed at a hotel overnight before taking a bus in an attempt to get a view of Mt. McKinley but it was covered in clouds and smoke and we didn’t see much of the beauty. We then took a train to Fairbanks and from there to the rest of the way by bus along Alaska’s Dalton Highway. We were surprised to see so much of the trees burning for many miles but was told that this is common as the beetles had infested the trees and this was the only way to rid the trees of the insects.
We made a stop along the way at a diner and small hotel in Cold Foot that had been built by the truckers who drove the route and had no other ways of getting meals. We spent one night in Cold Foot camp staying in small cabins that been brought from the old section of the Prudhoe Bay oil drilling fields. They were the original places where the workers stayed until they had been rehabbed into more livable buildings. We continued to follow the giant pipeline all the way.
We did get to stop at the Arctic Circle and take a group picture of passing that point, even though it was still 300 miles on to our goal of Prudhoe Bay. We followed the huge pipeline all along way to Dead Horse and on to Prudhoe Bay. One of the highlights of the trip for me was to be able to swim in the Arctic with about half of the members of our bus. It was 38 degrees and you were required to at least get your head under water if you wished to become a member of the Polar Bear Club. I accomplished that and received my certificate for doing so. We stayed in the camp at Prudhoe Bay overnight which was another location that had been used by the oil field workers before better quarters were prepared for them. We were given tours of the oil fields and facilities before we left.
Alexander Andreev Baranov was a Russian native, born in 1747 and died in 1819 in Kargopol, Russia. He grew to be a successful merchant in Irkutsk, Siberia, but he was lured to Alaska by the region’s rapidly expanding fur-trading industry. We had a picture of us standing in front of his statue in Sitka, Alaska.
Baranov became quite successful in his Alaskan ventures also. He established
and managed trading posts throughout the Kodiak Island region. He set up trading posts in Saint Paul’s Harbor, Cook Inlet, and Prince William Sound, and was instrumental in establishing colonies throughout the region.
In 1799 he became chief manager for the profitable and influential Russian American Company, and over saw all of Alaska, including the Aleutian and Kurile Islands. Activity in the region flourished as trading in sea otters and seals boomed.
In addition to establishing trading centers and presiding over vast expanses of territory, Baranov is credited with organizing native Alaskan hunters to expand their range to include the coasts of California. Baranov also advocated more educational opportunities for native Alaskans. Under his leadership, schools were created and frontier communities became less isolated.
Toward the end of his life, Baranov said goodbye to the adopted land where he lived for 28 years, and headed back to Russia by heading south and then sailing around the Cape of Good Hope. Unfortunately, Baranov became very ill on the journey, and died in Java, far from both his native and his adopted lands.
We were given a tour by ship to see Glacier Bay National Park, Silka, Skagway, Ketchikan and Juneau on our way back to Vancouver. The glaciers in the bay were impressive but were not “calving” with bergs falling into the water while we were watching them. That would have made their more impressive, in my opinion, and would have made them seem more alive.
We did enjoy the three stops along the way as they were made to look like Old Alaska for the tourists. We visited the Red Dog Saloon in Juneau., a saloon that was more like a museum. We were told that there was no road in Alaska that would allow tourists to drive to the Capital of Juneau and that the only way to reach it was by plane or by boat.
We then flew back to Anchorage by Alaskan Airlines and were bused to the ship where to get to Seward to board the ship for the seven day trip back to Vancouver. On the way to Seward, we passed through the South central part of Alaska where the great Alaskan earthquake took place in 1964. It lasted just 4 minutes and 38 seconds and had a magnitude of 9.2 mega-thrust earthquake and was the most powerful ever recorded in North America and the second most powerful recorded in World history. See article on this.
All in all we met many people that became friends with us and we continued to communicate with for several years. Finally, our trip ended by landing in Vancouver where we departed and flew back home to San Antonio.