ALASKA BOUND

Saturday, September 25, 2010

Still in Alaska!!!!!!!

9/24/10 new adventure-
Drove thru Old Denali Highway yesterday, stopped at an out of the way place for gas, and the lady at the bar had just gotten off the phone with her grandaughter in of all places: DahDahDah-Crystal River.
This world is so small I didn't believe it.
Picture this: 30 miles off the main road on a 134 mile back road, the gas station at the cutoff couldn't pump gas because the pump repair guys were still not back from moose hunting and recommended we go to next stop (30miles) on dirt road cutting across state. Lodge was closed, only thing open was the 'bar' which never seem to close, and the folks were just hanging around (couldn't figure where they came from-no cars in front of bar) the older woman in pj's and robe standing at end of bar-by the phone. This place is so Northern Exposure ya can't believe it. It was at a peak in valley where wind was howelling thru at about 50mph, temp in maybe 50's felt like -20's. I am not making this up-luckly the sun was shining.
Chuckling our way thru the rest of the 100 miles, we finally got to see Caribou and chased them down the road, last sighting left on our wish list. The scenery is magnificent!!!!!!!!!
And it just keeps going. Not on list and forgot to mention in Valdez while walking back from dinner we heard dolphin or seal in the boat harbor, signage warned not to feed seals but it really sounded like dolphin, no camera.
It’s the Journey -9/25/10. And the story continues, we got the needed part sent to Fairbanks, picked them up and hand delivered to Willard and the gang, repairs to be completed Saturday, mid day-we can only hope. While waiting for fedex delivery, had informative conversations at hotel comp breakfast companions. Found out we missed another Aurora the night before and TOK resident who in the spirit of alaskan kinsmanship-offered to deliver the parts since he was returning back home that afternoon. Declining since we would have to head that way to pick up rv, headed back into Tok. Beautiful ride as usual and after hand dropping our precious cargo (parts) spent a very enlightening couple of hours with teacher/musher and a totally different view of life in Alaska. Like Florida, we all have histories and life experiences to share.
It just becomes more and more interesting as the journey continues........................
Stay tuned for next episode, it might get easier from here, but probably not!
Back in Fbanks for yet another part, may get out of here Monay Morn...........Hope in Sept-it is getting cold, ice on edges of ponds, chunks falling off of trucks and warning of a snow storm in Yukon which looks to be clear on Monday.
No Trivia!!!!!

Thursday, September 23, 2010

Blah-Blah-Blah ? Lost in Alaska




It's the Journey, blah-blah-blah. Sounding out of sorts? Still looking for parts to arrive, spent a good day driving back to Valdez, and looks like we missed some of the sights on our first visit last month. Was raining and we still were still a little road fried. Alaska is certainly an adventure- and we are certainly experiencing it.
Took the McCarthy road into the park and got 60 miles to end of road to find the hike 7 miles into the (National Heritage) mining camp and shuttle had closed for season. The pictures attached are purely NTL Park PHOTOS, the sky was gray and we are trying to hold onto our sanity. 'Full Moon, frazzled, and trying to enjoy our trip.

TRIVIA:
Wrangell-St. Elias National Park Wrangell-St. Elias National Park is comprised of 13.2 million acres making it the largest national park in the United States. When the protected lands immediately adjacent to the park, in both the United States and Canada, are added to the equation, this land area becomes the largest area of protected land in the world. It is no wonder this terrain is so wild and untouched, the ideal place for a wilderness experience.

The geography of the Wrangell-St. Elias National Park contains an incredibly diverse array of natural features and provides a spectacular opportunity for scientists and visitors alike to explore and learn. Plate tectonics, volcanoes, glaciers, and erosion have all contributed to the formation of the landscape of our largest national park. Studies have concluded that there are as many as seven distinctive types of bedrock or terranes that make up the area in and around the park. Some may have formed as far south as the coast of California, making their way to Alaska by the motions of crustal plates. Over hundreds of millions of years Alaska's massive mountain ranges were lifted up as the massive Pacific plate crashed into the North American plate. Glaciers, rivers, and wind have eroded them into the soaring snow-covered peaks, vast U-shaped valleys, and high plateaus we see today.

Kennecott, also known as Kennecott Mines is an abandoned mining camp in the Valdez-Cordova Census Area in the U.S. state of Alaska that was the center of activity for several copper mines. The camp and mines are now a National Historic Landmark District administered by the National Park Service. In the 1980s, Kennecott became a popular tourist destination, as people came to see the old mines and buildings. However, the town of Kennecott was never repopulated. Residents involved in the tourism industry often lived in nearby McCarthy or on private land in the surrounding area. The area was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1986 and the National Park Service acquired much of the land within the Kennecott Mill Town in 1998. The National Park Service is currently stabilizing and rehabilitating many of the mill and town buildings. Some of the structures, as well as surrounding lands, remain under private ownership. Tours of the mill town are available three times a day through a local guide service, St. Elias Alpine Guides.
Popular tourist activities while visiting Kennecott include glacier hiking, ice climbing, and touring the abandoned mill. Visitors may also hike to the abandoned Bonanza, Jumbo and Erie mines, all of which are strenuous full-day hikes, with Erie Mine being a somewhat terrifying scramble along cliffs overlooking the Stairway Icefall. Local guide services offer all of these hikes if one would like some route-finding assistance.

History
In August 1900, two prospectors, Jack Smith and Clarence Warner, spotted a green patch of hillside that looked like good grazing for their pack horses. The green turned out to be part of a mountain of copper ore. They, together with nine friends, formed the Chitina Mining and Exploration Company. Shortly after this time, a U.S. Geological Survey geologist found a sample of ore that analyzed as containing 70% copper as well as silver and traces of gold. Stephen Birch, a mining engineer just out of school, was in Valdez when members of the Chitina Mining and Exploration Company arrived in the fall of 1900. Birch, who knew wealthy people in the northeastern United States, bought the prospectors' interest in the mine for $275,000. Within twenty years, the find proved to be the richest known concentration of copper in the world.
Development of the mines began immediately. Ore was taken out by pack horses on a trail to Valdez. Political battles over the mining and subsequent railroad were fought in the office of U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt between conservationists and those having a financial interest in the copper.
In 1903, additional financing for the mining came from the Guggenheim family and J.P. Morgan, who formed the Kennecott Copper Corporation in 1903. The corporation and company town were named after Kennicott Glacier, which was situated in the valley below the town. The glacier was named after Robert Kennicott, a naturalist who explored in Alaska in the mid-1800s. Due to a clerical error, the corporation and town used the spelling of "Kennecott" instead of "Kennicott." It is occasionally also seen as "Kennycott."
Kennecott had five mines: Bonanza, Jumbo, Mother Lode, Erie and Glacier. Glacier, which is really an ore extension of the Bonanza, was an open-pit mine and was only mined during the summer. Bonanza and Jumbo were on Bonanza Ridge about 5 km, (3 miles) from Kennecott. The Mother Lode mine was located on the east side of the ridge from Kennecott. The Bonanza, Jumbo, Mother Lode and Erie mines were connected by tunnels. The Erie mine was perched on the northwest end of Bonanza Ridge overlooking Root Glacier about 6 km (4 miles) up a glacial trail from Kennecott. Ore was hoisted to Kennecott via the trams which head-ended at Bonanza and Jumbo. From Kennecott the ore was hauled mostly in 140-pound sacks on steel flat cars to Cordova, 196 rail miles away on the Copper River and Northwestern Railway (CRNW).
On April 8, 1911, the first ore train hauled $250,000 of 70% copper ore. In 1916, the peak year for production, the mines produced copper ore valued at $32.4 million.


The Kennecott hospital (left) stood out as the town's only white-washed building. The vast majority of other town structures, including workers' bunkhouses (right), were painted red, the least expensive color at the time. The Kennecott hospital was also the site of the first x-ray machine in Alaska.
In 1925 a Kennecott geologist predicted that the end of the high-grade ore bodies was in sight. The highest grades of ore were largely depleted by the early 1930s. The Glacier Mine closed in 1929. The Mother Lode was next, closing at the end of July 1938. The final three, Erie, Jumbo and Bonanza, closed that September. The last train left Kennecott on November 10, 1938, leaving it a ghost town. In the 27 years of operation, except for 2½ years of shutdown, Kennecott produced 4.625 million tons of ore averaging 13 per cent copper valued at roughly $207,000,000 with an estimated profit of $100,000,000. In addition, the silver by-product from this operation brought in another 4½ to 9 million dollars in revenues.
From 1939 until the mid-1950s, Kennecott was deserted except for a family of three who served as the watchmen until about 1952. In the late 1960s, an attempt was made to reprocess the tailings and to transport the ore in aircraft. The cost of doing so made the idea unprofitable. Around the same time, the company with land rights ordered the destruction of the town to rid them of liability for potential accidents. A few structures were destroyed, but the job was never finished and most of the town was left standing. Visitors and nearby residents have stripped many of the small items and artifacts. Some have since been returned and are held in various archives.

Monday, September 20, 2010

TOK Still 9-20-10



Lost in TOK, well you really can’t get lost in Tok, but loosing time on the road is like being lost, maybe. Stopped to have a couple of things checked out before heading into British Columbia turned into a stay over for a few days waiting for parts to arrive. Finished books brought along for entertainment- The library is closed because librarian hasn’t returned from her Moose hunt. the visitor center closed for the winter and Grizzy Grump Cafe has closed for renovations leaving only Fast Eddies open. Part arrived on time, but another one needed, who knew?
Quote from an essays on living in Alaska-”Our Alaska” ‘Strolling the street (singular intended) for exercise every day, not with the easy confidence of one who lives here, nor with the casual interest of a tourist but more like the briefly exiled .’
Post card enclosed shows views of downtown and alltown Tok, Cabbages are big here, flowers still blooming, iditarod dog teams, moose racks and the bus at corner picking up travelers Sunday, Wednesday and Friday.
Trivia:
Tok lies on a large, flat alluvial plain of the Tanana Valley between the Tanana River and the Alaska Range at an important junction of the Alaska Highway with the Glenn Highway.
There have been Athabascan settlements in the region of what is now Tok for many centuries. The population was 1,393 at the 2000 census.
The town at the present location of Tok, Alaska began in 1942 as an Alaska Road Commission camp used for construction and maintenance of the Alaska Highway. So much money was spent in the camp's construction and maintenance that it earned the nickname "Million Dollar Camp" from those working on the highway. In 1947 the first school opened, and in 1958 a larger school was built to accommodate the many newcomers. In 1995 a new school was opened to provide for the larger community. A U.S. Customs Office was located in Tok between 1947 and 1971, when it was moved to the Canadian border.
In one version, the name Tok is derived from the Athabascan word for "peaceful crossing." The U.S. Geological Survey notes that the name "Tok River" was in use for the nearby river around 1901, and the Athabascan name of "Tokai" had been reported for the same river by Lt. Allen in 1887. In another version the name is derived from the English words "Tokyo camp," although the major war benefit was supporting the transfer of airplanes to the Soviet Union. Another version claims the name was derived from the canine mascot for one of the Engineer units that built the highways.
In the 1940s and 1950s, another highway, the Tok Cut-Off was constructed and connected Tok with the Richardson Highway at Glennallen. It was a "cut-off" because it allowed motor travelers from the lower United States to travel to Valdez and Anchorage in south-central Alaska without going further north to Delta Junction and then traveling south on the Richardson Highway.
Between 1954 and 1979, an 8-inch U.S. Army fuel pipeline operated from the port of Haines to Fairbanks, with a pump station in Tok.
In July 1990 Tok faced extinction when a lightning-caused forest fire jumped two rivers and the Alaska Highway, putting both residents and buildings in peril. The town was evacuated and even the efforts of over a thousand firefighters could not stop the fire. At the last minute a "miracle wind" (so labeled by Tok's residents) came up, diverting the fire just short of the first building. The fire continued to burn the remainder of the summer, eventually burning more than 100,000 acres (400 km²).
On January 10, 2009 Tok made headlines with an unconfirmed temperature reading of -80°F.[2]

Sunday, September 19, 2010

It's the journey-9-18-10

The Denali sightings were always exciting, and the is too many to post. Our evening talks from the rangers, on carabou and squirrels are the interesting way we spent evenings at the campgrounds.
Time was coming to leave Denali, so thankfully the sun is still shining and we are headed north back again to Fairbanks. While in Fairbanks we headed to the UAF Museum, again with regional and native exhibits and some great artwork among the artists Sydney Laurence-(the Winslow Homer of Alaska), and so very easy to follow that age. The University also has a lab for the study of the Northern Lights for the explanation of the phenomenon,(even if you slept thru every night it was in the sky). After watching the 20 minute film I think it is understood-but as John Muir observed in 1879.
“the most glorious of all the terrestrial manifestations of God”
Interesting to realize Muir spent a fair amount of time in Alaska and never published his writings, but they were done so by his family after his death.
Dinner in the rv park was delicious chili, made with fresh elk meat we purchased along the way. The ‘journey’ continued on to Tok with vistas of the Wrangell-St Elias Mountains and the also amazing river delta heading along the road.
Alaska is everything ever heard or imagined about with and abundance of much beautiful country, but it needs to be seen in by the eye, cameras just don’t completely capture the magnificence.
WARNING!!!!Trivia section below:
Denali-The Roof of the Continent (part II)
As noted in previous blog, few non-Natives visited the Mount McKinley region—either north or south of the Alaska Range—before the 1890s. The first visitors were prospectors, followed by both civilian and military exploration parties. After the turn of the century, outsiders ventured closer to the mountain mass if than they had previously, and in 1903 two parties—one from Fair- banks and another from outside of Alaska—made the first attempts to climb Mount McKinley. While both attempts were unsuccessful, the leaders of these parties left the area duly impressed by its scenic majesty, and one party found gold particles in a Kantishna Hills streambed. That discovery brought others into the area, and in 1905 a gold rush brought thousands of prospectors, primarily from Fairbanks and nearby points.
The First Park Advocates
Virtually everyone who visited the north side of the Alaska Range during this period were on practical missions; the U.S. Geological Survey crews, for example, were asked to describe the area’s topography and geology for a government publication, the Army expeditions were making a general reconnaissance, and the two parties that arrived in 1903 were there to climb Mount McKinley, nothing more. Despite the pragmatism of these men, however, the reports that they wrote effusively described two remarkable qualities about the area: its scenery and its wildlife. The magnificence of the overall scenery by close-up observers, coupled with praise of the mountain massif, was first recorded by Muldrow, Eldridge, and Herron in the late 1890s, and virtu- ally everyone who came thereafter was similarly impressed.
Beginning in 1902, the area’s remarkable wild- life—diverse and plentiful—was lauded as well. Alfred Brooks, for example, noted that “On the north slopes of the mountains, moose, caribou, and mountain sheep, or big horns, were unusually plentiful ... the party was never without fresh meat.” Wickersham, in 1903, wrote that “the beautiful rolling grass-lands and moss covered hills make it a favorite feeding ground for caribou, and the sharp crags to the east are the home of Tebay, the white sheep. ... We kill ptarmigan on the hills and ducks on the lakes – it is a hunter’s paradise.” And Dr. Cook and his party were profoundly impressed; “Here along the northern slope of the McKinley ground,” he wrote, we crossed the best game country in America. Caribou, moose, mountain sheep, and grizzly bears were constantly in evidence.” Cook’s superlative—“the best game country in America”—would be repeated, in later years as a rallying cry. And Wickersham, too, saw some- thing of the superlative as he traveled through the area; between Wonder Lake and the McKinley River, his party was delighted to discover a large spruce forest. Wickersham, obviously impressed, noted that “This forest ought to be withdrawn from disposal and preserved for the use of those who shall come after us to explore the highest and most royal of American mountains.”2
For Wickersham, or any other Alaska official, to suggest a scenic land withdrawal in 1903 was a highly unusual move. This is because conservation, as we know it today, was still in its embryonic stages. The United States, at this time, had established a ragtag series of forest reserves. These designations were only marginally effective, however, in stopping the ongoing desecra- tion of the country’s forested lands, and the U.S. Forest Service had not yet been established. The first federal bird reservation, on tiny Pelican Island in Florida—which was the initial element in what would later evolve into a nationwide network of national wildlife refuges—had been established only a few months earlier. And as far as national parks were concerned, the first had been established more than 30 years earlier, but by 1903, only eight had been established – and those few were being nominally administered by the U.S. Army, if at all. The Antiquities Act, and the national monuments established by that act, were still years in the future.
Conservation was even less of a concern in remote Alaska. Virtually the only lands in the District that were reserved for conservation purposes at the time were the Afognak Forest and Fish Culture Reserve, established in 1892; the small Alexander Archipelago Forest Reserve, which was a forerunner of what would become the Tongass National Forest; and Indian River Park, a tiny reservation on the outskirts of Sitka. Pragmatic Alaskans, driven by the potential riches of the quickly-developing area, were in no mood to tolerate new federal land withdrawals, and the widespread protests that greeted President Roosevelt’s closure of Alaska’s coal lands, in November 1906, merely confirmed that notion.
In the midst of this antagonistic atmosphere, a visitor from Vermont came to Alaska in search of the gamelands north of the Alaska Range.
Charles Sheldon was financially comfortable, politically savvy, and moved with ease among members of the Eastern elite. Because of his wealth—gained from the supervision of various railroad construction projects and lucrative shares in a Mexican silver mine—he could well have retired and enjoyed a life of ease and idleness. But Sheldon was a hunter-naturalist, in the tradition of Theodore Roosevelt; he enjoyed “roughing it” and the accomplishments that came through physical hardship. And he also had a strong altruistic streak. Given those passions, he developed a deep interest in the study and preservation of mountain sheep, and upon advice from biologists Edward W. Nelson and C. Hart Merriam, he decided to travel to Alaska to observe the relatively little-known Dall sheep in its natural habitat.
Sheldon, then 38 years old9 , ventured down the Yukon River in the early summer of 1906. Along the way, in Dawson, he hired Jack Haydon, and after arriving in Fairbanks, he brought on Harry Karstens, another veteran of the Klondike stampede. Sheldon and the two packers approached the Mt. McKinley area much as Wickersham’s party had done three years earlier. To judge by his diary, which was published two years after his death, Sheldon thoroughly enjoyed the trip; he waxed ecstatically when he first saw Mount McKinley (in mid-July) from a hilltop near Wonder Lake, and he remained captivated by the area for the remainder of the summer as he wound through the area observing—and occasionally harvesting—the area’s sheep, caribou, bears,
and other megafauna. He stayed as long as he could, knowing that if he delayed any further, he would miss the last Yukon River steamboat of the season. But when he left, he did so with two overriding convictions. First, he knew that the Dall sheep’s life history “could not be learned without a much longer stay among them and [he] determined to return and devote a year to their study. With this in view I planned to revisit the region...” He also was struck by both the usefulness and intelligence of one of
his packers, Harry Karstens; he noted that the man was “brimful of good nature” and was fully supportive of Sheldon’s work.
Just as he had promised, Sheldon returned to Fairbanks the following year for a longer sojourn in the shadow of Mt. McKinley. He and Karstens trekked south and entered the upper gamelands on or about August 1, 1907, and they immediately set to work building a cabin on the right bank of the Toklat River, opposite the mouth of present-day Sheldon Creek and just upriver from its confluence with present-day Cabin Creek. Sheldon’s primary purpose, it will be recalled, was to study the area’s Dall sheep populations and to collect a few specimens of them for study and display Outside. But he did far more. A man of catholic interests, he immersed himself in the studies of other mammal populations as well as on birds, vegetation, and other items of interest.
And the more he learned, the more he grew to appreciate the area. In the middle of that winter, he first wrote in his journal about an idea that he had first discussed with Karstens back in the summer of 1906. Because of the “beauties of the country and of the variety of the game,” he wrote, the area “would make an ideal park and game preserve.” Tourists, too, would be an important part of the equation, and he easily anticipated the area’s “enjoyment and inspiration [that] visitors will receive.” The idea of a “Denali National Park,” which was broached in the January 12 diary entry, remained a fixture for Sheldon throughout the rest of his stay. He and Karstens, after that date, paid keen attention to the meandering wildlife in order to create park boundaries that might best protect them. And just prior to returning to Fairbanks, Sheldon noted that the sorrow he felt upon leaving the game country was tempered by his commitment to seeing the area become a designated game preserve.
As noted above, the promulgation of a large national park in Alaska, at this early date, would have been a startling departure from the norm. But to Sheldon, such a proposition was not altogether surprising. The Boone and Crockett Club, of which he was a member, had gone on record as being interested in the establishment of game refuges. And as the longtime chair of the club’s Game Conservation Committee, the club’s position “inspired in him the thought of preserving this area after personally studying the situation in that land.” Another factor that underscored his interest was a darkening cloud on the horizon: market hunters. During his time in the game- lands, he had met several of these men at camps in the Savage, Teklanika, Toklat and Sanctuary river valleys. These camps helped supply meat to Fairbanks and adjacent mining camps. But their work worried him, and he was particularly appalled that half or more of the meat that they harvested was fed to their dogs before it was delivered to its destination.
Shortly after he returned to New York, in January 1909, Sheldon pitched the idea of a game preserve in a speech at the Boone and Crockett club’s annual dinner. Club members responded with unmitigated enthusiasm. Politically, however, members recognized that Congress had a waning interest in conservation—Roosevelt was about to be succeeded by William Howard Taft— and Sheldon recognized that the idea would have to wait. For the next several years, the park idea remained in an embryonic stage, but as time went on, Sheldon and other like-minded individuals continued to refine the idea that had first erupted during Sheldon and Karstens’ winter sojourn.
In the meantime, Sheldon gained a key Alaskan ally. James Wickersham, the former district judge in Fairbanks, became Alaska’s non-voting delegate to Congress in 1909. Wickersham, by good fortune, was a friend of Sheldon’s. He had been an occasional guest at Boone and Crockett Club dinners, and because of his 1903 adventure on Mount McKinley and in the Kantishna area, he was familiar with the country and he admired both its scenery and its remarkable animal life.
Wickersham, as it turned out, was the first of several parties to attempt a Mount McKinley ascent. Just two months later, Dr. Frederick Cook and Robert Dunn made it as far the 11,000- foot level on Peters Glacier before turning back. Cook, obviously smitten by the mountain’s lure, returned in 1906 with Belmore Browne, Herschel Parker and Robert Barrill; he loudly claimed to have reached the top, but many were skeptical, and in 1910 Browne and Parker made another trek into the area and refuted much of what Cook had proclaimed as gospel. Cook’s claims, and the counter-claims of many others, made headlines for months afterwards, among both explorer’s groups and the general public.
A 1910 trek up the slopes of Mount McKinley, by the so-called “sourdough expedition,” resulted in four Fairbanks men hauling a 14-foot-long spruce flagpole to the top of the mountain’s North Peak (19,470 feet). But McKinley’s South Peak—two miles to the southeast and 850 feet higher in elevation—remained elusive. So two years later, Browne and Parker returned to the mountain yet again, this time accompanied by Merle La Voy. Following another route up McKinley’s northern flanks, they muscled their way up past the 19,000-foot level. Once there, however, a clear day turned into a snow-laden gale, and less than 200 yards from the summit, they were forced to retreat down the ridge and back to a base camp on upper Cache Creek. While there, on July 6, they felt a major earthquake, most likely from the Denali Fault; the quake had a significant impact on their camp, and it launched major avalanches on the surrounding mountains. Low on food, the expedition returned to Fairbanks.
A year later, a new expedition—headed by Archdeacon Hudson Stuck, accompanied by Harry Karstens, Walter Harper, and Robert Tatum—attacked the mountain once again. Once on the mountain, the party learned that the previous summer’s earthquake had strewn ice and boulders asunder and made the ascent, of present- day Karstens Ridge, far more difficult. Despite those impediments, the four men climbed up to the 17,500-foot level and camped. Then, at 4 a.m. on June 7, they set off toward the summit. Hiking in full sun, a keen wind, and a temperature of -4° F., the group—first Harper, then the others—reached the top. Ninety minutes later, they headed back down, and less than two weeks later, all four safely reached the Tanana River. The party’s conquest of Mt. McKinley, North America’s tallest peak, captured the imagination of thousands. Among Alaskans, the men’s efforts were duly respected, but each soon returned to their previous lives with nary a look back.
Congress Opts for a Railroad
In 1912, toward the end of Taft’s term, Congress showed more interest in Alaska than it had since the Klondike days of the late 1890s. In August of that year, it passed Alaska’s second Organic Act. This act changed Alaska from a district to a full-fledged territory, and it established a territorial legislature. More important from Sheldon’s point of view, however, the act established an Alaska Railroad Commission, which was asked to report on the most viable route for a government railroad between Alaska’s southern coast and the interior. In short order, the commission recommended several routes, including one that followed the Copper River and Northwestern Railway (CR&NW) and the Valdez-Fairbanks wagon road, and another that followed the old Alaska Central line from Seward to Turnagain Arm, continued north to the Matanuska (Chickaloon) coal fields, then northwest into the Kuskokwim drainage and the Iditarod River. Congress passed the Alaska Railroad Act on March 12, 1914, which provided funding to build the rail line. The legislation, however, did not bind the government to the previously completed survey recommendations, and at one time, routes with five different warm-water termini were being considered. The three members of the newly-established Alaska Engineering Commission soon began surveying these routes, and in time, just two routes were under serious consideration: the CR&NW-based route noted above, and a new, Seward-based route that wound north up the Susitna River valley to Broad Pass, from where it descended to the Tanana River via the Nenana River and continued on to Fairbanks. Given the certainty that one of these two routes would be constructed, opportunists flocked to the mouth of Ship Creek (present- day Anchorage) and to Seward in hopes that President Woodrow Wilson would choose the Seward-based route. Those opportunists, evidently thinking that the government was unlikely to purchase the CR&NW from the powerful (and widely despised) Guggenheim-Morgan Syndicate, proved visionary; on April 10, 1915, Wilson signed an executive order choosing a route that would run from Seward to Fairbanks.19 Alaskans in general, and particularly the residents of towns along the proposed railroad route, were overjoyed to know that a major railroad was on the verge of construction in their territory. Charles Sheldon, however, had decidedly mixed feelings about Wilson’s action. On the one hand, he knew that the new railroad—which would be built along the Nenana River—would make it far easier for tourists and nature-lovers of all stripes to visit the gamelands he knew so well. But he was also concerned because that same railroad would ease access for market hunters whom, he feared, might easily wipe out the area’s sheep, caribou, and other large game. These hunters, he knew all too well, would now have the responsibility to feed thousands of railroad construction workers in addition to Fairbanks and other Interior residents. Sadly, Sheldon’s concern had considerable justification; between 1913 and 1916, market hunters harvested between 1,500 and 2,000 Dall sheep each winter from the Toklat and Teklanika river basins alone.
Given that challenge, Sheldon and his colleagues knew that they had to act quickly. In order to protect the cherished wildlife, they needed to convince Congress to pass a park bill, and in addition they needed to convince Congress to expend funds on park enforcement staff. And all of this needed to be done before railroad construction neared the boundaries of the newly- established park. Sheldon’s first response to the impending challenge was to secure passage, by the Boone and Crockett Club, of a resolution that endorsed the idea of a Mount McKinley National Park. This was accomplished on September 21, 1915. Sheldon and Madison Grant—the latter a historian and fellow Club member—then organized as an ad hoc lobbying committee.
At the time that the Club’s lobbying campaign began, Alaskans were just as dead-set against federal regulations and reservations as they had ever been. They resented the 1908 Game Law, which had been passed over their objections. They resented President Taft’s 1910 withdrawal of Alaska’s oil-bearing tracts. And because the onset of World War I (in Europe) diverted some ships away from the Alaskan trade, they were particularly resentful of any actions that might prevent them from gaining access to locally available meat supplies. Sheldon, Grant, and other conservationists were firm in their desire to have a park established that would allow no commercial hunting. They knew, however, that many Alaskans might fight such a bill; and more important, they knew that any bill passing Congress would need to be completely acceptable to the state’s non-voting delegate, James Wickersham. Sheldon therefore began his campaign by writing his old friend and asking for his thoughts on the matter. Wickersham soon responded. Sheldon, as a result of that interaction, noted that any park in this area “should be created under provisions which will protect local interests in mining.” More specifically, any park bill would need to contain provisions protecting both existing and future mining claims. In the next few months, Sheldon contacted others for support, both inside and outside of government. That December, the Boone and Crockett Club Preservation Committee chief wrote to Stephen T. Mather, who at that time was Interior Secretary Franklin Lane’s assistant in charge of the national parks. (Congress did not establish the National Park Service until August 1916, after which Mather became the new agency’s director.)
Sheldon told Mather that, with the possible exception of the Grand Canyon, nothing could compare to that “region of the Alaska Range for the grandeur of the scenery and the topographical interest...,” and because of the area’s “vast reservoir of game,” he had long “believed that someday this region must be made a national park.” In his letter, Sheldon was careful to note political realities regarding existing and future mining activity. Mather, at first, was less than enthusiastic. His primary focus was on additions to Yosemite, Sequoia, and Rocky Mountain national parks, along with establishing Grand Canyon; as a result, he would “temporarily forget” pushing for any other new park areas. But perhaps in response to the objections of Horace Albright, Mather’s assistant, Mather soon became fully supportive of Sheldon’s plan; in fact, he went so far as to speak with Boone and Crockett members on that subject at the club’s January 6, 1916 meeting.
Over the next few months, word spread about the Boone and Crockett proposal, and leaders both inside and outside Alaska voiced their support. On a national level, Sheldon soon learned that Belmore Browne of the Camp Fire Club of America had been formulating his own proposal for preserving the Denali landscape. (Browne, like Sheldon, was thoroughly familiar with the beauties of the Alaska Range; he was a veteran of three previous attempts to climb Mount McKinley, in 1906, 1910, and 1912.26 ) Browne quickly joined Sheldon’s effort, and soon afterward was included as well. Within Alaska, delegate Wickersham voiced his strong support for a park bill, recognizing that it would stimulate tourism to Alaska. Thomas B. Riggs, head of the Alaska Engineering Commission—which was then constructing the railroad between Seward and Fairbanks—also saw the bill’s benefits, noting that a national park would boost tourist travel along the line.
Because Sheldon, Riggs, and Browne all knew the country well, and because all three men supported a park bill, they were the primary determinants of the park’s boundaries. Sheldon, in mid-January 1916, sent Riggs a description of the park’s boundaries as he envisioned them. That boundary included much of the magnificent gamelands located north of the Alaska Range; it also included the spine of the range itself, along with additional thousands of acres south of the Alaska Range. But it did not include the Kantishna area; in fact, it completely avoided the Kantishna Hills because of the preponderance of mineral claims and the potential for continued mining-related activity. Two weeks later, Thomas Riggs replied to Sheldon. He fully agreed with the general concept that Sheldon had presented, but it differed in several particulars. He told Sheldon that he was offering a new boundary which, I think, suits our conditions a little better than yours. I have so drawn the boundary as to be largely controlled by natural features; I have also eliminated about 700 square miles to the south of Mt. McKinley which would be of no use to anybody but which, when added to a withdrawal, makes the size of the park appear very formidable.
Browne then weighed in with a suggestion to include additional acreage in a broad band south of Wonder Lake. Then, at some point between January and April 1916, someone—perhaps Mather or Albright, who were the only two Interior Department employees advocating for what would become the National Park Service— responded by agreeing to Riggs’s general notions but by simplifying his boundary recommendations. Those revised boundaries were never again modified during the Congressional debate over the park bill.
A Park Bill Becomes Law
Attention next moved to Congress. Wickersham, Browne, and Sheldon collaborated on the draft- ing of a park bill (H.R. 14775), which Wickersham submitted to the House of Representatives on April 18, 1916. An identical bill, S. 5716, was introduced by Senator Key Pittman of Nevada four days later. The two bills, as suggested by Sheldon’s earlier communications with Wicker- sham, broke rank with previous park bills in that they allowed hunting, but only for subsistence purposes. The bills specifically stated that Prospectors and miners engaged in prospecting or mining in said park may take and kill therein so much game or birds as may be needed for their actual necessities when short of food; but in no case shall animals or birds be killed in said park for sale or removal therefrom, or wantonly.
Movement on the park bill first took place in the Senate. The Committee on Territories recommended passage of the bill on May 15, and a report to accompany the bill appeared the same day. No changes were recommended by the committee. The Senate Committee Report gave three reasons for the park: “first, the stimulating of travel by tourists and sightseers to Alaska; second, the preservation of the natural scenery, the facilitating of travel to the park, and the accommodation of tourists; third, the protection of game.” Backers stated that the bill was “heartily supported by the residents of Alaska and by various hunting, camping, and outing clubs.” The report noted that “the game in this vicinity is more abundant than anywhere in the United States,” but it also stated that “prospectors and miners engaged ... in the park may take and kill game therein for their actual necessities when short
of food.” Animals or birds thus killed, however, could not be sold or wasted. The bill then moved on to the full Senate for consideration. The Senate debated S. 5716 on September 8, where it was shepherded through by Sen. Key Pittman, a Nevada Democrat who headed the Committee on Territories. Pittman, back in 1897, had stampeded north as part of the Klondike gold rush, and he had remained in Alaska, as a miner and attorney, until 1902; he thus knew northern conditions. He was able to steer Wickersham’s bill through with just one amendment. Reed Smoot, a Utah Republican, objected to a provision stating that the violation of any rule or regulation promulgated by the Interior Secretary might be charged with a misdemeanor. Pittman, in response, said that this “is largely the same rule that obtains with regard to other national parks,” and he further stated that he had lived in Alaska “too long to think that [harsh punishment for the violation of such rules] would be possible.” The Senate, however, agreed to Smoot’s amendment.
Advocates of a park bill, both in the House and Senate, made it plain that if the area’s game were to be preserved, quick passage of a park bill was necessary. Their efforts were temporarily stymied, however, by an informal rule of the House Committee on Public Lands stating that it could consider just two park bills in a calendar year. The Committee, for whatever reason, bypassed consideration of a Mount McKinley bill in 1916 in favor of Hawaii and Lassen Volcanic national parks. Therefore, the committee did not debate the bill—still known as S. 5716—until January 10 of the following year. Committee passage was swift, and it was forwarded on to the full House. The committee urged that the full House act swiftly on the bill; as its report noted, “the new railroad now under consideration will pass within a few miles of this section, and unless this park is created and this protection furnished it will mean that in a very short time the greatest game supply we have will be exterminated.” Also urging quick action on the bill was geologist Stephen Capps, who published a major article in National Geographic Magazine about Mount McKinley’s potentially endangered game populations. A group of enthusiastic Congressmen, who had recently returned from the Fourth National Park Conference in Washington, D.C., also that the provision was sufficiently safeguarded [without such language, and the Secretary] would have sufficient jurisdiction to take care of game in the Territory.” Delegate Wickersham, asked to weigh in on the debate, stated that “there were good reasons why [the provision] should not be put in,” and he further noted, to the best of his knowledge, that “there is a general park law which gives [the Secretary] that right without putting it in here.” Implied in Wickersham’s “good reasons” is that the battle over whether hunting should be allowed in the park had first been fought a year or more earlier. Conservationists, while not happy with the outcome, recognized that establishing a large park with a subsistence hunting provision was far better than no park at all. The outcome of Rep. Stafford’s effort was thus a foregone conclusion, and by voice vote, the provision was not included in the park bill.
A final provision dealt with mining. Because prospecting had been active in the area for more than a decade, and because the small amount of prospecting within the proposed park’s bound- aries was not perceived to be detrimental to the park’s primary purposes, both the House and the Senate bills proposed “that the mineral-land laws of the United States are hereby extended to the lands included within the park.” But Rep. Franklin W. Mondell (R-Wyoming) worried that “the mineral laws of the United States, some of them, do not apply to any part of Alaska,” so he recommended that the original sentence be replaced by one more appropriate: “Nothing in this act shall in any way modify or affect the mineral laws now applicable to the lands in said park.” Rep. McClintic, the floor leader, was “very glad to accept” Mondell’s substitution, and the House agreed to the amendment by voice vote.
The House then passed the entire bill by voice vote and sent it back to the Senate. But the House bill now differed from the Senate-passed bill in several aspects. So to reconcile those differences and to ensure a quick passage of the bill, Key Pittman, on February 20, stood up on the Senate floor and asked the Senate to concur in the amendments that the House had agreed to two days earlier. The Senate agreed to these changes by voice vote, and the bill was now ready to be signed by President Wilson. Charles Sheldon, who had been closely following the bill’s progress for more than a year (in fact, he had moved from his Vermont home to Washington in order to help move the bill through Congress), was given the honor of delivering the bill to the president. Wilson, at the moment, had other matters to consider; he had just two weeks left before being sworn in for a second term, the end of the 64th Congress brought a host of other liberal appropriation.” The delegate, obviously skeptical, stated that “such a limitation in this bill is a mistake” because it would “leave open to spoliation the herds of wild game which are now within its boundaries.” But he later took a more conciliatory tone, noting that the sum “may be sufficient. ... The park itself is very large, and it is approached by game upon all sides, so that considerable money will have to be spent in protecting the game if you want it protected.”
A second amendment, offered by Rep. William Stafford (R-Wisconsin) suggested another austerity measure: that any funds “derived from leases or other privileges” should be “turned into the Treasury as miscellaneous receipts” rather than “utilized for the continuous use of the park.” Stafford’s amendment, which involved the removal of a single sentence from Section 7 of the Senate bill, generated little debate and was agreed to by voice vote. This amendment, as the one above, appears to have passed in light of the “present condition of the Federal treasury,” and the inclusion of both amendments may well have been underscored by the growing war clouds on the horizon and the fiscal implications of the U.S. getting involved in a foreign war.
A third amendment, potentially explosive, dealt with the issue of hunting by prospectors and miners. As noted above, both the House and Senate bills had consistently included a provision allowing hunting by “prospectors and miners engaged in prospecting or mining in said park.” What provoked discussion, however, was whether the hunting privilege “should be under such regulations as the Secretary of the Interior may prescribe.” Rep. Stafford advocated that such language be included in the bill, arguing that the “occasion may arise when the Secretary of the Interior may think it necessary to proscribe the shooting of game ad libitum by prospectors there.” By so doing, he was following the lead of many leading conservationists, who hoped that this provision might limit or even eliminate hunt- ing in the park.
On February 19, S. 5716 was brought before the House, where it was the subject of detailed debate. Rep. James V. McClintic (D-Oklahoma) was asked to oversee debate related to the bill, and at the suggestion of Rep. Irvine Lenroot (R-Wisconsin), McClintic recommended that no more than $10,000 annually should be allotted “for the maintenance of said park ... unless the sum shall be first expressly authorized by law.”35 McClintic stated that “in offering this amendment we are only following a precedent that
has been established in the creation of all the late parks.” (Indeed, bills establishing each of the three previous national parks, beginning with Rocky Mountain in 1915, had included the $10,000 annual budgetary limitation.) Rep. James R. Mann (R-Illinois) denounced the budget cap, and stated “I doubt very much whether in the course of a year or two $10,000 will be enough.” Rep. Lenroot, however, tried to ameliorate the differences between the two sides. He stated that I am in favor of the creation at this time of national parks containing great scenic beauty or natural curiosities. [However,] I am opposed to the expenditure of any large sums of money on new national parks in the present condition of the Federal Treasury. ... In the very nature of things the amount that Congress will annually appropriate for the development of parks is limited. If you strike out all limitation ... it will amount to nothing so far as actual utility is concerned, and that money should be confined to four or five national parks until they are developed, and begin to gain some revenue... [A park bill] ought to be adopted, and so far as Alaska is concerned, by the time the Alaskan Railway is completed, by the time that tourist travel shall go there in any large numbers, that will be time enough for Congress to remove the limitation that ought to be adopted by this amendment.
Shortly after Rep. Lenroot’s statement, James Wickersham was asked if “$10,000 a year for the protection of game in one single park is a fairly pleaded for quick passage asbills to his desk, and the sinking of Allied ships by German submarines was forcing the U.S. ever closer to declaring war on the Central Powers. But Sheldon, for his part, visited the White House each day to see if Wilson was ready to sign the McKinley park bill. On February 26, perhaps frustrated that the bill had not yet been signed, Sheldon took the day off. But in an ironic foot- note, Wilson chose that day to sign the park bill. The following day, Horace Albright congratulated Sheldon for his part in the creation of a great national park. Sheldon, unaware of Wilson’s action, was dumbstruck. As Albright recounted it many years later, “He kicked himself the rest of his life that that was the one day he didn’t go up there.”
What emerged from the legislative battle was a park that largely reflected the vision that Charles Sheldon and Harry Karstens had first developed almost a decade earlier. The new national park, the first to be established after Congress had created the National Park Service, encompassed an area of almost 1.6 million acres. It stretched more than 100 miles from northeast to southwest, and it was between 20 and 35 miles wide. Within those protected acres was North America’s highest peak, a remarkable array of plant and animal habitat, and perhaps most important, it gave legal protection to vast expanses of habitat where various large mammals thrived. Given those remarkable resources, Congress stated that its primary intent in establishing the park was “the freest use of the said park for recreation purposes by the public and for the preservation of animals, birds, and fish and for the preservation of the natural curiosities and scenic beauties thereof.” It further stated that “said park shall be, and is hereby established as a game refuge” although, as noted above, an exception was provided in order to allow subsistence.

Saturday, September 18, 2010

Its the Journey-Denali


Meanwhile back in the park:
Denali is a most enjoyable time spent in Alaska. The state has so many wondrous places to see with so much natural beauty that it is hard to pick out a single one, but of all Denali and Mt McKinley is the crown jewel of ‘this part’ of the world. After using that analogy it leaves me to believe the northern uncharted travel areas also have quite a bit to offer, and opens up a new list of places to explore. As everyone agrees, Denali is certainly not a place to miss, at least the first trip up here. I have to qualify that it is a bit controlled (all for a good reason) by bus service going into the park and the tour circuit, and probably in the near future be more and more like Diz. The busses into the park have an air of controlled sightseeing, while still show off the beauty of the area. The drivers we encountered are well versed and very cooperative in stopping to view the wild live, and respected the solitude of the bears, wolves and all other sightings along the way. In fact we were constantly reminded to stay quiet while observing them as well as keeping hands and heads in the windows. This was interesting while heading out with an extremely outfitted Asian group who made us aware of how enthusiastic they became when we came upon any animals. Their camera and hiking gear was much to be envied!
-“Wilderness itself is the basis of all our civilization. I wonder if we have enough reverence for life to concede to wilderness the right to live on?”
-Margaret Murie, author and conservationist
Staying at the campgrounds in the park is peaceful, and quite an experience looking out the back window of our rv at open skies, trees and the stars, each night wishing to catch the Aurora Borealis. The evening that it was visible we were sound asleep, but did meet up with a photographer who graciously shared her pictures. That gave us encouragement each night following, but to no avail- missed it again and again. It has to be the fresh air, and busy days that keep us sleeping quite soundly. (Maybe the wine with dinner)


DENALI-A Land of Rugged Contrasts
As outstanding as it is on its own, Mount McKinley is merely the highest point in the long, sinuous cordillera that winds from the Aleutian Islands to the Alaska-Yukon border. The Alaska Range, which forms the highest and northern- most portion of that cordillera, extends from the Lake Clark country, 160 miles southwest of McKinley, to the Tok-Tetlin area, 250 miles to the east. Within this range are a number of majestic mountains: more than a dozen reach at least 12,000 feet above sea level, and peaks exceeding 10,000 feet high are so numerous that several are as yet unnamed. Towering over the rest are Mount McKinley—which has two peaks, each more than 19,000 feet high—and Mount Foraker, with an elevation of 17,400 feet. The high country surrounding these peaks is so extensive that one can fly for more than 90 miles in a straight line and see almost nothing but glaciers and snowfields. Because most of the range above the 7,000 foot level is covered by snow and ice all year long, some 17 percent of Denali National Park and Preserve is perpetually snowbound.
Mountains and snowfields, however, are just one element in the remarkable high country of the central Alaska Range. Much of the range, to be sure, is snow-clad only in winter, and many Alaska Range peaks beyond the immediate vicinity of Mount McKinley top out at 9,000 feet elevation or less. To the south of the mountain’s backbone lies a broad band of rugged foothills incised by glacial tongues that reach 30 miles or more beyond the high ramparts. Beyond the glaciers’ termini lies the great Susitna Lowland, which drains the entire area south of the Alaska Range crest and occupies the entire broad area south to Knik Arm and Cook Inlet.
North of the Alaska Range and northeast of the McKinley River, the mountain fastness gives way to a discontinuous series of highlands—the Outer Range, the Kantishna Hills and adjacent high country—with elevations reaching 4,500 to 6,000 feet above sea level. Between these peaks are located various low, rolling valleys that are between two and ten miles wide. West of these highlands, and north of the Alaska Range at the western end of the park and preserve, is a broad, high plain, dotted with lakes and wetlands, that stretches out into the Tanana and Kuskokwim River drainages.4
Because of the huge differences in altitude be- tween the Alaska Range and the adjacent country to the north and south, a stark contrast in life forms is evident to even the most casual observer. In the higher elevations, and particularly in glaciated areas, resident plants and animals are either scarce or nonexistent. Below that zone is a hundred-mile-long oval of sparse dry tundra. On the north side of the Alaska Range, a broad, pockmarked band beyond the dry tundra is dominated by moist tundra. Interspersed within the moist tundra, however are various river valleys and lower slopes where a mixed evergreen and deciduous forest (of white and black spruce, poplars, white birches, and various willow varieties) holds sway. Other areas more distant from the mountain heights, both to the north and south, are also composed of mixed-forest species. And several areas north of the Alaska Range, including much of the land in the vicinity of Lake Minchumina, is dominated by brush muskeg.5
The area’s animal life is similarly diverse. The region is justifiably well known for its so-called charismatic megafauna, and Denali’s bus drivers are quick to note that many visitors equate a successful trip along the park road with their ability to spot five major mammals: barren ground caribou, Dall sheep, moose, wolves, and grizzly bear. Those same bus drivers, however, are quick to point out that the area offers excellent habitat for many other large animals, such as coyotes, lynx, red foxes, and black bear. They might also note that other species of mammals inhabit the park (for a total of 25), along with one amphibian species, 15 species of fish, and 166 bird species.6 These animal species occupy a variety of habitats, and regarding most of the large mammal species, the areas that they inhabit may vary considerably from one year to the next.
The Denali caribou herd, which inhabits the park and preserve, graze in many areas outside of the high country. Of other major mammal species, Dall sheep inhabit the Outer Range foothills
and the lower slopes of the Alaska Range, and moose may be seen throughout the area below the 3,000-foot isopleths. Wolves, in several packs, inhabit many areas in the northern half of the “old park” as well as in certain areas in the so-called “northern additions” and in drainages south of the high peaks; and grizzlies are found both north and south of the Alaska Range, primarily in tundra and in adjacent riparian taiga vegetation. Only the high- er, glaciated slopes are bereft of large mammals. Although most of the large mammalian species are found on both sides of the range, these animals (accord- ing to a recent management plan) “occur within the park in greater concentrations north of the Alaska Range than south of the range.” Furthermore, viewing opportunities are excellent on the northern slopes; by contrast, “most areas to the south of the range are not expansive and open and thus do not afford a comparable view- ing experience.”

Early Residents and Visitors
Although the present park and preserve supports a broad spectrum of plant and animal species, conditions in most of this area are fairly marginal for year-round human subsistence. Factors contributing to this marginality, all of which are a function of the area’s relatively high elevations, include a preponderance of tundra vegetation (and thus a lack of firewood) and relatively severe winters (with poor hunting prospects and peri- odic high winds). Thus it is perhaps no surprise that the earliest known sites in the area—Dry Creek, Walker Road, and Moose Creek, each more than 11,000 years old—are located outside of the park. The Carlo Creek and Panguingue Creek sites, which date from at least 8,000 years B.P., are also located just outside of the park boundaries.
Five different Athabaskan speaking Indian groups have utilized the area now contained in Denali National Park and Preserve.

2 Crown Jewel of the North:
(An Administrative History of Denali National Park and Preserve)
Based on the archeological record, human populations appear to have existed within the present-day park boundaries for more than 7,000 years. The first known evidence of human occupation, a piece of charcoal from a bluff near the Teklanika River, has been radiocarbon dated to 7,130 ± 98 B.P. Humans appear to have stayed at that site, off and on, for more than 5,500 years. More recent prehistoric sites are found at Lake Minchumina, just northwest of the park, which are between 1,000 and 2,600 years old. Archeologists thus far have recorded 84 prehistoric
or protohistoric sites in the park and preserve. Most of these sites consist of one or more lithic artifacts, and it is hypothesized that they are related to former hunting camps, overlooks, or butchering locations. Because of their lack of cultural context, however, archeologists can only guess at the age of most of these artifacts and at the functions they served.
Because of the lack of broadly applicable evidence, there is considerable dispute about the cultural tradition of these early peoples. Some researchers consider the development of a recognizable Athabaskan cultural pattern began roughly 6,000 years ago. Others, however, feel that the earliest peoples were called Amerinds, while the separate Athabaskan tradition represents a later migration. And still others consider that people representing the Athabaskan tradition began liv- ing in Alaska as early as 11,000 B.P. Regardless of when they began, Athabaskan culture and ethnic identity has been traced back 1,500 years or more according to linguistic evidence, and about 1,000 years through their material culture.
For the past several hundred years, five groups of Athabaskan-speaking Indians have lived in the park and surrounding areas. These groups include the Ahtna, the Dena’ina, the Upper Kuskokwim (Kolchan), the Lower Tanana, and the Koyukon. The Ahtna, whose culture was centered on the Copper River valley, includes the southeastern part of the present park and preserve within its territory. The Dena’ina, a coastal group of Athabaskans centered along upper Cook Inlet, includes the southcentral part of the park and preserve. The Upper Kuskokwim culture, based on several villages along the Kuskokwim River, utilized lands near the western end of the park and preserve. The Lower Tanana people, based on various villages along the Tanana River, has long been centered on the present-day vicinity of Fairbanks and includes the northeastern corner of the park and preserve. And the Koyukon Athabaskan culture encompassed a vast stretch of the Yukon, Koyukuk, and Tanana River drainages, including the northern Non-native exploration of the area surrounding the present-day park unit was slow in coming, primarily because it was distant from the coast and remote from easily navigable rivers. The Russians, who held a nominal jurisdiction over present-day Alaska from 1741 to 1867, never penetrated within 50 miles of the park unit. And while it is indisputable that virtually all of Alaska was being either directly or indirectly influenced by European-based explorers—in- direct influences being trading networks and disease transmission vectors—the reality is that non-Natives, during this period, impacted the lives of those who either occupied or used the lands in Denali’s shadow less than other groups who lived along the coast or along major inland trading routes. By all accounts, non-Natives’ only direct influence on the area during this time was a series of uncoordinated attempts to apply names to the area’s mountains: Russian Creole explorer Andrei Glazunov, in 1834, applied the Ingalik name “Tenada” to the “great mountain” that loomed more than 100 miles northeast of his route along the Stony River, and William Dall, who took part in the ill-fated Western Union Telegraph Expedition of 1865-67, proposed that the mountain chain that divided the Yukon River from the coastal country to the south be named the “Alaskan Range.” Locals, over time, shortened his suggestion to the Alaska Range, a name that still stands.
The purchase of Russian America by the U.S. government, at first, had few immediate impacts on Alaska outside of Sitka, and for more than a decade afterward, few Americans ventured north. But in 1880, a major gold strike took place along Gastineau Channel, and Juneau erupted into life. Soon afterward, more gold was dis- covered at nearby Douglas, and before long, an increasing number of prospectors headed north and began fanning across the north country. Gold was discovered along the Fortymile River, near the U.S.-Canada border, in 1886; and in 1892-95, additional discoveries took place along Birch Creek (which caused Circle City to spring into existence) and along Resurrection Creek (which created the Hope and Sunrise boom towns, on the shores of Turnagain Arm).17
Most prospectors were far less fortunate. As a group, however, they were willing to go virtually anywhere in search of the elusive yellow metal. A party led by Frank Densmore, for example, crossed from the Tanana to the Kuskokwim drainage in 1889; though he found no Eldorado along the way, his enthusiasm over the huge, unnamed peak to the southeast prompted his peers and western end of the park and preserve, to call it “Densmore’s Mountain.” Densmore, or perhaps other prospectors during this period, may have entered the boundaries of the present park unit.
Seven years after Densmore’s trek, another prospector, William A. Dickey, was one of several who approached the mountain from the south. Confronted at first by torrential rains and cloudy skies, Dickey was not able to get a clear view of the Alaska Range until he reached the so-called “great forks” of the Susitna River, near present- day Talkeetna. Although he and his fellow prospectors continued to ascend the Susitna until they reached “an impassable canon, whose upper end was blocked by a high waterfall,” they probably got no closer to the present-day park than Densmore. Unlike his predecessor, however, Dickey decided to publicize his trip in an influential Eastern newspaper. In the January 24, 1897 issue of the New York Sun, he gave an avid, detailed description of the mountain he had encountered. In addition, he gave the mountain a new name—Mount McKinley—and justified it because both he and McKinley were avowed proponents of a gold standard, and McKinley’s nomination as the 1896 Republican presidential candidate “was the first news we received on our way out of that wonderful wilderness.” Dickey’s contention that the mountain was the highest in North America—soon corroborated by others— gave additional credence to his verbiage, and a short time later the U.S. government accepted Mount McKinley as an official designation. Dickey’s sojourn up the Susitna River took place the same year as a huge gold strike took place along a tributary of the Klondike River, and although that discovery took place more than 300 miles to the east, the impacts of the Klondike gold discovery soon reverberated throughout the north country. Individual prospectors were first to respond to the promise of riches, but before long, the U.S. Geological Survey and the U.S. Army began to play strong supporting roles; the two agencies engaged in various expeditions into Alaska’s unexplored hinterlands and searched for viable routes between the coast and various Interior prospecting areas.
The fervor surrounding the Klondike strike resulted in the two agencies conducting five differ- ent expeditions into the countryside surrounding Mount McKinley in 1898 and 1899. In 1898, a USGS party headed by Josiah Edward Spurr and William Schuyler Post ascended the Yentna and Skwentna rivers, crossed over Rainy Pass, and left the area via the South Fork of the Kuskokwim River. That same year two other parties ascended the Susitna drainage, much as William Dickey had done two years earlier: George H. Eldridge and Robert Muldrow of the USGS, and Sgt. William Yanert of the U.S. Army. Both of these expeditions went farther inland than Dickey; both traversed the Broad Pass area and reached the north-flowing Nenana River before retreating back to Cook Inlet.
The following year, two more Army parties entered the area. The first, led by Pvt. George Van Schoonhoven, ascended the Susitna drainage and reached the Broad Pass area before reversing course, much as the other exploring parties had done a year earlier. The other expedition, led by Lt. Joseph Herron, began by following in the footsteps of the 1898 Spurr-Post expedtion; it ascended the Yentna River. This party, however, ventured north to the Kichatna River, crossed the Alaska Range via Simpson Pass, then made its way to the Kuskokwim River’s South Fork. Herron’s group differed from the Spurr- Post expedition in that its goal was a route to the interior. As a result, Herron and his men nearly starved in the area’s swamps until rescued by the Natives of Telida village. Chief Sesui of the village accommodated the men until freeze-up that fall, after which villagers led the party to the headwaters of the Kuskokwim’s North Fork, near Lake Minchumina. Guides then led the party down the Cosna River to Fort Gibbon, the Army camp that had recently been built at the Yukon-Tanana river confluence. As a result of these combined efforts, military authorities were now familiar with the southern, eastern, and western margins of the present park unit, and at least one of these groups may have been the first to tread within the boundaries of Denali National Park and Preserve.
By the fall of 1899, the Klondike rush was over; interest moved on to the beaches of Nome, and in 1902, a gold strike near the Tanana brought a new rush and prospectors began flocking to Fairbanks. During this same period, a flurry of new interest was shown in the Mount McKinley region; at least four unrelated expeditions were launched to the area in either 1902 or 1903. In the spring of 1902, the USGS dispatched Alfred H. Brooks, along with topographer De Witt Lee Reaburn, to explore “the largest unexplored area in southern Alaska and [run] a traverse to the Yukon which should connect the previous surveys of the Susitna, Kuskokwim, and Tanana
rivers.” The Brooks-Reaburn party responded by ascending the Yentna River drainage to Rainy Pass, after which it dropped down to the northern flank of the Alaska Range and skirted it—first to the northeast and then to the east—all the way to the Nenana River, near present-day McKinley Park Station. The party then crossed the river, ascended the Yanert Fork for several miles, headed north over the Alaska Range and descended the Nenana River to the Tanana. And that same year, engineers working for the Alaska Central Railroad began a two-year survey
effort that brought them from the Susitna Valley up to Broad Pass and on to the Tanana Valley.
The following year—1903—witnessed the first attempt to climb Mt. McKinley. James Wickersham, the U.S. District Judge for Alaska, left the Fairbanks gold camp with four others. They floated down the Tanana River, then began ascending the Kantishna River. Upon reaching its confluence with the Toklat River, the party climbed Chitsia Peak, then headed southwest along the margin of the Kantishna Hills. They decided to ascend the mountain via Peters Glacier. They continued on to Jeffrey Glacier but were stopped cold by a “tremendous precipice,” now known as Wickersham Wall, that separated them from McKinley’s North Peak. The disappointed party had no choice but to descend from the mountain and return to Fairbanks. Just a few weeks later, another party came to the area with similar intentions. Led by Dr. Frederick Cook, a recent medical school graduate, the 18-man party followed a route much like Brooks and Reaburn’s the year before. They made several unsuccessful attempts to approach the mountain from the west; and they, like Wickersham, tried to climb McKinley via the Peters Glacier. The party then meandered along the base of the Alaska Range, probably as far east as the Easy Pass area; it then surmounted the ridge, rafted down the Chulitna, and descended the Susitna to Cook Inlet.
Wickersham’s party, during its 1903 sojourn, stumbled across some “colors” along Chitsia Creek and filed mining claims that were recorded at Rampart. Spurred by the news, prospectors soon filtered into the area. The following year, Joe Dalton spotted gold along Crooked Creek in the nearby Toklat River drainage, and after Jack Horn and Joe Quigley struck pay dirt along Glacier Creek in early 1905 and returned to Fairbanks with the news, the Kantishna gold rush ensued. In July and August of that year, hundreds if not thousands of prospectors flocked to the hills and staked their length and breadth, and several instant towns sprang up: Roosevelt along the Kantishna River, Diamond City at the Moose Creek-Bearpaw River confluence, Glacier City near the Bearpaw River-Glacier Creek confluence, and Eureka (later Kantishna), where Moose Creek and Eureka Creek meet.
Up until this time, the area surrounding Mount McKinley was being explored and developed in a way similar to most of the rest of Alaska. Because of its isolation from navigable waterways, European-based peoples had filtered into the area somewhat later than many other areas in Alaska. The recent gold rush, however, suggested that this area might soon develop to an even greater degree. The possibilities seemed limitless. New visitors, however, would soon intrude upon the scene.

Monday, September 13, 2010

Mileage 7100 It's the Journey...............WILL START HAIKU.


We will be taking a few days off, leaving to drive into Denali 30 miles to Teklanika River Camgrounds. No cell and no internet, so hopefully will get new and better photos. The total drive on Friday will be all 90 miles of park road.
This tree fascinated me because there are so few trees with broad branches, wonder how this one got so perfectly Christmas tree shaped.
After the infamous Raven lecture, last night was Ranger lecture of Mammals in Denali, and tonite is Caribou. The lectures are held outside in a amphitheater in the campground woods and very interesting. Still no BEAR, but after last nights lecture on road trip we saw a lynx, and since it was part of talk was pretty exciting.
A RANGE OF MOUNTAINS SHAPES HISTORY
Five groups of northern Athapaskan people once occupied, at least seasonally, the region now within Denali National Park and Preserve. The formidable Alaska Range separated the territories of the Dena’ina and Ahtna to the south and east from the Lower Tanana, Koyukon, and Upper Kuskokwim to the north. The rugged terrain did not pose a barrier to these mobile people, who carried out trade via mountain passes and sometimes over glaciers. The remains of villages, fish camps, and trails attest to the presence of Athapaskans during historic times, when 20th century explorers, trappers and miners were first coming into the Denali area. Their place names provide a rich context for understanding traditional patterns of subsistence and settlement across the landscape.
Archeologists have found evidence for more ancient occupation at small camp sites where hunters produced and sometimes discarded their stone tools. The age of these archeological sites is often difficult to determine exactly, unless remains of charcoal or bone from old fire hearths are discovered. One of the earliest sites in Interior Alaska, the Dry Creek site, is located just outside the park boundaries. The bones of large Pleistocene mammals, such as elk and bison, were found at Dry Creek, proving beyond a doubt that ancient hunters killed species of animals which eventually became extinct in Alaska. The oldest cultural level at Dry Creek was dated to about 12,000 years before present.
Perhaps the greatest influx of people, until recent park visitation, occurred during the early 1900s gold rush to the Kantishna Hills. By the early summer of 1905, prospectors Joe Quigley and Jack Horn had found gold in paying quantities in Glacier Creek. During the next few months the rush to Kantishna was on. Several thousand prospectors flocked to the area during the summer and fall, staking claims on every creek that heads in the Kantishna Hills, but the shallow, easily accessible gold deposits were quickly mined and the region's mining population dwindled to about 50 people by the fall. Fannie Quigley, whose accomplishments ranged from hunting and mining to cooking and gardening, was one of the more colorful characters to live in Kantishna.
SIDE NOTE: FANNY'S FAMOUS BLUEBERRY PIE RECIPE STARTS WITH-
FIRST YOU HITCH THE DOGS!!!!!
Mountaineering is another important theme in Denali’s history, as is the establishment of the original park, Mt. McKinley National Park, in 1917. Many of the historic buildings in Denali are located in the front country along with road corridor, and date to the first few decades after the park was established. Several cabins built as hubs for construction camps during the building of the Park Road (1923- 1938) were later put to use as ranger patrol cabins. The research and fieldwork of National Park Service archeologists, historians, and landscape architects continue to bring to light the details of Denali’s vibrant past.

Sunday, September 12, 2010

6900 miles and counting!

Sunday, Sept 12, 2010- Spent the time checking the roads leading out of Fairbanks-Chena River, and northward to Dalton Hwy, which after 50 miles we realized it was primarily Pipeline industrial road. Snooed about some deserted gold mine properties and a couple of deserted towns and got back on the road.
Leaving ‘the Banks’ (Fairbanks) to head back south to Denali National Park. Our last stay was to get acquainted with the park and just sample what it had to offer. A few days in Fairbanks convinced us that to enjoy the experience Alaska Magic was to spend as much time as we could in Denali also.
Stopping at small village Nenana for lunch proved to be interesting as usual. There are so many Alaskans with such a vigorous spirit who survive this life and live an envious life of adventure up here, it always ends up in at least an hour long conversation-and they always want to share the magic of life here. Since we will be in Denali thru Saturday, it should take us at least that long to find the bear. At this point the evening weather has cooled down to the 40’s we will forgo the ‘bearfooting’ started in Kenai, just the thought has sent chills up n down the spine. Back at Riley Campground/Denali we had the usual dinner, wine, cheese along with salad and reindeer sausage and beans. We have been eating a lot of beans for the protein and other benefits?
Our evening treat: the rangers in the park do small lectures on the highlights of the parks, and the outdoor amphitheater in this campground was Ravens, an insight into the myths and facts of ravens. It including a reading of EAPoe’s “Quote the Raven-Nevermore”. Was very interesting lecture, and as usual opens up a new window into natures wonders. The inuit and natives of the northwest have long regarded them as spiritual. Tried to stay awake for ‘Aurora Borealis’ last evening, but fresh air and travel didn’t help in that adventure, but since it is clear we will hopefully get another chance this week.


DENALI National Park

Surrounded by 6 Million Acres
There's no place more wild, rugged, and breathtakingly beautiful than Alaska’s Denali National Park & Preserve - and no place more ideal to experience it from than Denali Park Resorts. McKinley Chalet Resort and McKinley Village Lodge are located in the heart of Alaska’s magnificent interior, with awe-inspiring views of some of the most pristine geography on earth. Fine dining complements the untamed landscape and provides a relaxing place to return to after a day of guided hikes, whitewater rafting, or a tour into the heart of Denali National Park.

Saturday, September 11, 2010

Mileage 6622, long trip?


Hey, Sort of running out of stuff to report, STILL NO BEAR!
Every turn is another calendar scene, there is no way to describe the sights.
Hanging out in Fairbanks for a couple day to get some work done, now need to clean up before heading back to Denali. Schedule is still loose, as long as we head into Denali by 14th.
Cant say enough about the people up here, sure isn't like we are used to, a small question can turn into 3 hour coffee at Mickey D's.
Keep checking back, will get mind in gear again, don't forget click on postcard to enlarge pix.
Remember: it's the journey, not only the destination!!!!!!!!

Fairbanks (pronounced /ˈfɛərbæŋks/) is a Home Rule City in and the borough seat:
Fairbanks North Star Borough, Alaska, United States.
Fairbanks is the largest city in the Interior region of Alaska, and second largest in the state behind Anchorage. It is the principal city of the Fairbanks, Alaska Metropolitan Statistical Area which encompasses all of the Fairbanks North Star Borough and is the northernmost Metropolitan Statistical Area in the United States.
According to 2008 Census Bureau estimates, the population of the city is 35,132,[1] and the Fairbanks metropolitan area's population was 97,970.[3] Fairbanks is home to the University of Alaska Fairbanks, the oldest college in Alaska.
History
Main article: History of Fairbanks, Alaska
Captain E.T. Barnette founded Fairbanks in August 1901 while trying to set up a trading post at Tanacross (where the Tanana River crossed the Valdez-Eagle trail). But the steam boat Barnette was aboard,[clarification needed] the Lavelle Young, ran aground and he was deposited seven miles (11 km) up the Chena River. Smoke from the steamer's engines attracted some prospectors, and they met Barnette where he disembarked. The prospectors convinced Barnette to set up his trading post there.[4] The city is named after Charles Fairbanks, a Republican senator from Indiana and later the 26th Vice President of the United States, serving in Theodore Roosevelt's second term.[5]
The Tanana Valley is an important agricultural center for Alaska, and during Fairbanks' early days the vicinity of the town was a major producer of agricultural goods. Despite early efforts by groups like the Alaska Loyal League and the Tanana Valley Agriculture Association, and the editor of the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, W.F. Thompson, to encourage food production, agriculture in the area was never able to fully support the population, although it came close in the 1920s.
On August 14, 1967, after an unprecedented record rainfall upstream, the Chena River began to surge over its banks, flooding almost the entire town of Fairbanks overnight. The results of this disaster eventually led to the creation of the Chena River Lakes Flood Control Project, which built and operates the eight-mile long, fifty-foot high Moose Creek Dam, designed to prevent a repetition of the 1967 Flood by being able to divert water in the Chena River upstream from Fairbanks into the Tanana River (and thus bypassing the city).
Further information: History of Fairbanks, Alaska#The Great Flood


Topography
Fairbanks is located in the central Tanana Valley, straddling the Chena River near its confluence with the Tanana River. Immediately north of the city is a chain of hills that rises gradually until it reaches the White Mountains and the Yukon River. The southern border of the city is the Tanana River. South of the river is the Tanana Flats, an area of marsh and bog that stretches for more than 100 miles (160 km) until it rises into the Alaska Range, which is visible from Fairbanks on clear days. To the east and west are low valleys separated by ridges of hills up to 3,000 feet (910 m) above sea level.
The Tanana Valley is crossed by many low streams and rivers that flow into the Tanana River. In Fairbanks, the Chena River flows southwest until it empties into the Tanana.[9] Noyes Slough, which heads and foots off the Chena River, creates Garden Island, a district connected to the rest of Fairbanks by bridges and culverted roads.
According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 32.7 square miles (84.6 km²); 31.9 square miles (82.5 km²) of it is land and 0.8 square miles (2.1 km²) of it (2.48%) is water.
Railroad


The Alaska Railroad provides regular freight and passenger service between Fairbanks and Southcentral Alaska towns.
After large-scale gold mining began north of Fairbanks, miners sought to build a railroad from the steamboat docks on the Chena River to the mine sites in the hills north of the city. The result was the Tanana Mines Railroad, which started operations in September 1905, using what had been the first steam locomotive in the Yukon Territory.In 1907, the railroad was reorganized and named the Tanana Valley Railroad. The railroad continued expanding until 1910, when the first gold boom began to falter and the introduction of automobiles into Fairbanks took business away from the railroad. Despite these problems, railroad backers envisioned a rail line extending from Fairbanks to Seward on the Gulf of Alaska, home to the Alaska Central Railway.
In 1914, the U.S. Congress appropriated $35 million for construction of the Alaska Railroad system, but work was delayed by the outbreak of WWI. Three years later, the Alaska Railroad purchased the Tanana Valley Railroad, which had suffered from the wartime economic problems.[60] Rail workers built a line extending northwest from Fairbanks, then south to Nenana, where President Warren G. Harding hammered in the ceremonial final spike in 1923. The rail yards of the Tanana Valley Railroad were converted for use by the Alaska Railroad, and Fairbanks became the northern end of the line and its second-largest depot.
From 1923 to 1994, the Alaska Railroad's Fairbanks terminal was in downtown Fairbanks, just north of the Chena River. In May 2005, the Alaska Railroad opened a new terminal northwest of downtown, and that terminal is in operation today. In summer, the railroad operates tourist trains to and from Fairbanks, and it operates occasional passenger trains throughout the year. The majority of its business through Fairbanks is freight.The railroad is planning an expansion of the rail line from Fairbanks to connect the city via rail with Delta Junction, about 100 miles (160 km) southeast.[

Thursday, September 9, 2010

9/08/10 Mileage 6100

Denali National Park-
Sleeping in Riley Creek Campground in Denali was a serene experience to say the least. We have come to the realization that rv-ing is really about spending as much time in natural surroundings as possible.
The early morning ride out into the park to Savage River was the best part, got to see a lot of wildlife right near the road. Visited Happy Harry at the old log cabin along the road and spent a good hour talking with him about the development and changes to Denali, and most of them positive. Even though you feel somewhat like in Disney it is mainly to keep control of the masses of people who travel the distance just to see the beauty of the surroundings, and it has been most glorious with the colors of vegetation..Another Paradox of life..........
Headed to Fairbanks to track a fedex package arriving from Hong Kong and since we will have to wait around till Friday PM, probably will stay another night in this area. Took side road to Chena River Hot Springs to drive 65 miles NE thru state parks and very remote area. At the end of the road we arrived at Chena Hot springs Lodge, tour busses and airplanes arriving with tourists. Guess there is no where left to run. ?Urban legend related to us by Happy Harry was about when a small town finally got tv, the local bar patrons watching the Americas Most Wanted show recognized the bartender on the list.

Nice sleeping along river in State Campground kinda keeps all in perspective, I hope? State campgrounds are really well planned and mostly wooded and perfectly clean kinda wonder what they are like in lower 48!

TRIVIA:
Fairbanks (pronounced /ˈfɛərbæŋks/) is a Home Rule City in and the borough seat of the Fairbanks North Star Borough, Alaska, United States.[2]

Fairbanks is the largest city in the Interior region of Alaska, and second largest in the state behind Anchorage. It is the principal city of the Fairbanks, Alaska Metropolitan Statistical Area which encompasses all of the Fairbanks North Star Borough and is the northernmost Metropolitan Statistical Area in the United States.

According to 2008 Census Bureau estimates, the population of the city is 35,132,[1] and the Fairbanks metropolitan area's population was 97,970.[3] Fairbanks is home to the University of Alaska Fairbanks, the oldest college in Alaska.

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Tuesday Second half of Journey thru AK


Have I mentioned clicking on photo will enlarge so you can actually make out images, but yall probably knew that!
Forward we go heading north to Denali: The fact that it was labor day increased the traveling of loads of people celebrating the beautiful weather and last weekend of summer. Lots of family groups out and about, a great amount of four wheelers with camping rigs.
The road became more scenic as we ventured north.
Taking a side trip to Talkeetna, supposedly the funky-ness of Northern Exposure so much reminding us of Woodstock, NY. Cute little town and to T’s delight another art show! At the town museum we were in time to be part of a ranger walking us thru the factoids regarding the climb to the top and were part of a group experiment as to the pros and cons of attempting such.
Our team made it and very interesting learning experience, removed climbing from bucket list!!!
A hike into town for after dinner desert and along the river was the highlight of his day.
Watched an eagle fishing but: Still No Bear!
Greeting to all, you gotta see this state, LnT

Here comes the trivia:
Talkeetna is in Matanuska-Susitna Borough, Alaska, United States. It is part of the Anchorage, Alaska Metropolitan Statistical Area. At the 2000 census the population was 772. The town of Cicely from the television series Northern Exposure is widely thought to be patterned after Talkeetna.

It is situated on the confluence of three wild, glacially fed rivers: the Sustina Chulitna and Talkeetna. An important location for trading and fishing by the Dena’ina, a subset of the Athabaskan people which is where it gets it name meaning ‘river of plenty. In 1869 a gold rush in the Susitna brought prospectors and was the sight for a riverboat steamer station which brought supplies to prospectors heading northwest to mining claims, and later headquarters for the Seward to Fairbanks railroad route.

Talkeetna is close to world-class salmon fishing and Denali (also known as Mt. McKinley). Tourists travel to Talkeetna each summer to fish, raft and go flightseeing. Products from local artists, musicians and craftspeople are available in area stores. A 37-year history of The Moose Dropping Festival, a two-day celebration was named after a lottery where participants bet on numbered, varnished pieces of "moose droppings" dropped from a helicopter onto a target. A softball tournament historically other events that typically have been held include a five-kilometre walk-run—also not a part of the official festival, a Mountain Mother contest, and a parade. In December, the Wilderness Woman and Bachelor Auction & Ball takes place.
Talkeetna is served by Talkeetna Airport, which is home to several air taxi companies that provide flight seeing trips and support for mountain climbers. Many of the air taxi companies were started to ferry climbers from Talkeetna to Denali, as Talkeetna has the easiest access to the south side of the mountain where the main base camp is located. Legendary bush pilots based out of Talkeetna, pioneered glacier flying on Mt. McKinley. Their companies are still in operation.

Talkeetna is home to independent webcast and wiki Whole Wheat Radio. Talkeetna has a community radio station, 88.9 KTNA, with locally hosted shows and NPR programming. There are two local newspapers. The largest, the Talkeetna Good Times, has a distribution of 8,500 year-round and serves the communities of Talkeetna, Trapper Creek, Willow, Houston, Big Lake, with additional distribution along the Parks Highway as far north as Nenana. The Good Times is currently published every other week in print and updated frequently online.[9] Publishers of the Good Times also publish a local area phone book and an annual visitors guide. The Alaska Pioneer Press is a monthly newspaper based in Talkeetna, with an online news component and news briefs updated regularly.

Mount McKinley or Denali
(Athabaskan for "The High One") in Alaska, USA is the highest mountain peak in North America and the United States, with a summit elevation of 20,320 feet (6,194 m) above sea level. The CIA World Factbook lists its summit elevation as 6,198 metres (20,335 ft). It is the centerpiece of Denali National Park and Preserve.
Geology and features
Mount McKinley is a granitic pluton. It has been uplifted by tectonic pressure while at the same time, erosion has stripped away the (somewhat softer) sedimentary rock above and around the mountain.
The forces that lifted Mount McKinley—the subduction of the Pacific plate beneath the North American plate—also raised great ranges across southern Alaska. As that huge sheet of ocean-floor rock plunges downward into the mantle, it shoves and crumples the continent into soaring mountains which include some of the most active volcanoes on the continent. Mount McKinley in particular is uplifted relative to the rocks around it because it is at the intersection of major active strike-slip faults (faults that move rocks laterally across the Earth's surface) which allow the deep buried rocks to be unroofed more rapidly compared to those around them.
Mount McKinley has two significant summits: the South Summit is the highest one, while the North Summit has an elevation of 19,470 feet (5,934 m) and a prominence of approximately 1,320 feet (402 m). The North Summit is sometimes counted as a separate peak (see e.g., the List of United States fourteeners) and sometimes not; it is rarely climbed, except by those doing routes on the north side of the massif.
Five large glaciers flow off the slopes of the mountain. The Peters Glacier lies on the northwest side of the massif, while the Muldrow Glacier falls from its northeast slopes. Just to the east of the Muldrow, and abutting the eastern side of the massif, is the Traleika Glacier. The Ruth Glacier lies to the southeast of the mountain, and the Kahiltna Glacier leads up to the southwest side of the mountain.
Notable features
Mount McKinley has a larger bulk and rise than Mount Everest, although the summit of Everest is higher at 29,029 feet (8,848 m). Everest's base sits on the Tibetan Plateau[4] at about 17,000 feet (5,200 m), giving it a real vertical rise of little more than 12,000 feet (3,700 m). The base of Mount McKinley is roughly at 2,000-foot (610 m) elevation, giving it an actual rise of 18,000 feet (5,500 m).
The mountain is also characterized by extremely cold weather. Temperatures as low as −75.5 °F (−59.7 °C) and windchills as low as −118.1 °F (−83.4 °C) have been recorded by an automated weather station located at 18,700 feet (5,700 m). According to the National Park Service, in 1932 the Liek-Lindley expedition recovered a self-recording minimum thermometer left near Browne's Tower, at about 15,000 feet (4,600 m), on Mount McKinley by the Stuck-Karstens party in 1913. The spirit thermometer was calibrated down to 95 °F degrees below zero and the lowest recorded temperature was below that point, they the thermometer back to Washington, D.C. where it was tested by the United States Weather Bureau and found to be accurate. The lowest temperature that it had recorded was found to be approximately −100 °F (−73 °C) degrees.


Mount McKinley from Denali National Park
Naming
The Koyukon are a group of Athabaskan people living in northern Alaska. Their traditional home is along the Koyukuk and Yukon rivers where they subsisted by hunting and trapping for thousands of years. Many Koyukon live in a similar manner today.
The *Koyukon language belongs to a widespread family called Na-Dene or Athabaskan spoken by native people scattered throughout northwestern North America and in pockets as far south as California and Arizona.
Main article: Denali naming dispute
The name of the mountain is subject to dispute. The Koyukon Athabaskan people who inhabitants the area around the mountain referred to the peak as Dinale or Denali ("the high one"). In the late 1890s, a gold prospector named it "McKinley" as political support for then presidential candidate William McKinley of Ohio. The Alaska Board of Geographic Names changed the name of the mountain to Denali, which is how it is referred to locally. However, a 1975 request by the Alaska state legislature to the United States Board on Geographic Names to do the same was blocked by Ohio congressman Ralph Regula, whose district includes McKinley's hometown. Members of the Ohio congressional delegation continue to protect the McKinley name, blocking attempts by the Alaska congressional delegation to get the Board of Geographic Names to change it to Denali. Thus, "Denali" is correct according to the Alaska state Board, while "McKinley" is correct according to the national Board.
History


Hudson Stuck led the first successful summit of the mountain in 1913.
The Koyukon Athabaskans are the first Native Americans mentions with access to the flanks of the mountain (living in the Yukon, Tanana and Kuskokwim basins).[2] The historical first European sighting of Mount McKinley took place on May 6, 1794, when George Vancouver was surveying the Knik Arm of the Cook Inlet and mentioned “distant stupendous mountains” in his journal. The Russian explorer Lavrenty Zagoskin explored the Tanana and Kuskokwim rivers in 1843 and 1844 and was probably the first European to sight the mountain from the other side.[5]
William Dickey, a New Hampshire-born Seattleite who had been digging for gold in the sands of the Susitna River, wrote, after his return to the lower states, an account in the New York Sun that appeared on January 24, 1897.[6] His report drew attention with the sentence “We have no doubt that this peak is the highest in North America, and estimate that it is over 20,000 feet (6,100 m) high.” Until then 18,000-foot (5,500 m) Mount Saint Elias was believed to be the continent’s highest point (Mount Logan was still unknown and Mount St Elias’ height had been overestimated to beat Pico de Orizaba[citation needed]). Though later praised for his estimate, Dickey admitted that other prospector parties had also guessed the mountain to be over 20,000 feet (6,100 m).[7]
Climbing history
The first recorded attempt to climb Mount McKinley was by Judge James Wickersham in 1903, via the Peters Glacier and the North Face, now known as the Wickersham Wall. This route has tremendous avalanche danger and was not successfully climbed until 1963.
Famed explorer Dr. Frederick Cook claimed the first ascent of the mountain in 1906. His claim was regarded with some suspicion from the start, but was also widely believed. It was later proved false, with some crucial evidence provided by Bradford Washburn when he was sketched on a lower peak.
In 1910, four locals (Tom Lloyd, Peter Anderson, Billy Taylor, and Charles McGonagall), known as the Sourdough expedition, attempted McKinley, despite a complete lack of climbing experience. They spent approximately three months on the mountain. However, their purported summit day was impressive: carrying a bag of doughnuts, each a thermos of hot chocolate, and a 14-foot (4.2 m) spruce pole, two of them reached the North Summit, the lower of the two, and erected the pole near the top. According to them, they took a total of 18 hours — a record that has yet to be breached (as of 2006). No one believed their success (partly due to false claims that they had climbed both summits) until the true first ascent, in 1913.


High camp (17,200 ft/5,200 m) of the West Buttress Route pioneered by Bradford Washburn, photographed in 2001


Mount McKinley West Buttress (lower left to upper right), August 2010
In 1912, the Parker-Browne expedition nearly reached the summit, turning back within just a few hundred yards of it due to harsh weather. In fact, that probably saved their lives, as a powerful earthquake shattered the glacier they ascended hours after they safely left it.
The first ascent of the main summit of McKinley came on June 7, 1913, by a party led by Hudson Stuck. The first man to reach the summit was Walter Harper, an Alaska Native. Harry Karstens and Robert Tatum also made the summit. Tatum later commented, "The view from the top of Mount McKinley is like looking out the windows of Heaven!"[8] They ascended the Muldrow Glacier route pioneered by the earlier expeditions, which is still often climbed today. Stuck confirmed, via binoculars, the presence of a large pole near the North Summit; this report confirmed the Sourdough ascent, and today it is widely believed that the Sourdoughs did succeed on the North Summit. However, the pole was never seen before or since, so there is still some doubt. Stuck also discovered that the Parker-Browne party were only about 200 feet (61 m) of elevation short of the true summit when they turned back.
See the timeline below for more important events in Mount McKinley's climbing history.
The mountain is regularly climbed today, with just over 50% of the expeditions successful, although it is still a dangerous undertaking. By 2003, the mountain had claimed the lives of nearly 100 mountaineers.[9] The vast majority of climbers use the West Buttress Route, pioneered in 1951 by Bradford Washburn, after an extensive aerial photographic analysis of the mountain. Climbers typically take two to four weeks to ascend the mountain.
Geography
Talkeetna is located at 62°18′41″N 150°5′13″W / 62.31139°N 150.08694°W (62.311397, -150.087053)[1] at the confluence of three rivers, the Susitna, Chulitna and Talkeetna. The Talkeetna townsite was established in 1919 when the railroad surveyed and auctioned 80 lots. The average price at the sale was $14.25.[2] Flightseeing, rafting, mountain biking, hiking, camping, fishing and hunting make up a large portion of the local economy. Talkeetna is a 2.5 hour drive from Anchorage, the largest city in Alaska. The core downtown area is classified as a National Historic Site, with buildings dating from the early 1900s including Nagley's General Store[3], Fairview Inn and the Talkeetna Roadhouse[4].
According to the United States Census Bureau, the CDP has a total area of 42.9 square miles (111.2 km²), of which, 41.6 square miles (107.7 km²) of it is land and 1.4 square miles (3.5 km²) of it (3.19%) is water.