The sweltering heat and humidity of the past summer made me long for Alaska. Even in the hottest months it is cool there, but sometimes getting up to 75 or 80 degrees.
We made six trips (Jerry flew up with our son-inlaw another time to go fishing), four of them in our motor home, the only way to go if your husband likes to drive 12-hour days. It’s nearly 5,000 miles one way. The roads were mostly paved - those that weren’t under construction because permafrost had torn them up.
The year we took our son Dan with us, he wasn’t as impressed with Canada as I was; he just wanted to hurry and get to Alaska. But hurry one didn’t. Most of the drive was through Canada, and it took two or three days driving through Alberta and British Columbia, just to reach the famous Alaska Highway, then another couple of days though the Yukon before reaching Alaska’s border. We saw lots of wildlife, though - buffalo, bear, caribou, moose, antelope, dall sheep, and everywhere there were the huge mosquitoes. On a couple of our trips, Jerry caught a 65 pound salmon and a 95 pound halibut.
We entered Canada from North Dakota, Glacier National Park in Montana and Washington. Each time we went, we’d take a different route. That way we got to see a lot, mostly museums. An interesting museum was at the buffalo jump, where Indians would drive buffalo off a steep cliff; a good way to kill their prey. The scenery was breathtaking - so many lakes and trees.
And it could be cold. Each morning I’d turn on our stove in the motor home. It amazed me how little the cold affected the natives.
My sister and I went to a little Baptist church in Big Lake wearing our winter coats. DeeDee Jonroe, a musher who routinely finished in the top 10 in the Iditarod, sat beside us in shorts. I guess someone who drives a dogsled in minus 47 degree weather would think 55 is quite warm. Kids would go swimming when the water was only 40 degrees. One lady recalled, when she was small, her mother always made them wait two weeks after the ice melted before they could go swimming. I was told kids wear shorts year round to school.
There are few cities in Alaska, but one interestingtown was Palmer, just a few miles from Wasilla and 50 miles north of Anchorage. Back in the late ’40s, the government transplanted about 250 families from Wisconsin, Minnesota and other northern states, thinking they’d be more likely to survive the cold. These people not only survived, but their descendants are renowned for products they grow in the rich delta, and for their dairy cattle.
Our traveling days are over and we’ve sold the motor home. But we have memories and pictures. We visited so many places. One was Danali National Park, back when school buses took tourists to Mt. McKinley, at no charge. We went to Portage Glacier, rode a train through Wittier tunnel, viewed part of the Alaska pipeline.
Probably our most memorable trip was a plane ride on July 4 to Barrow, where Jerry bravely waded in the Arctic Ocean. The temperature was 37 degrees and ice floated on the ocean. The only other transportation to America’s northernmost city was by dog sled or boat. (We did ride a dog sled once.)
I don’t remember taking a vacation, growing up in the Ozarks. I guess vacation was three months in the summer between school days. But, going to Alaska had been my dream vacation for years.
Opinion, Pages 5 on 09/11/2013