Our mini condo is in the Begich Towers (formerly the Hodge Building when it was built during the Cold War). It has all the ameneties we need and we affectionately call it “The Bunker”.
Cold War Pink Tiles
Whittier Alaska Becomes
The town of Whittier, Alaska began as an Army installation named Camp Sullivan during WWII. A deep water ice-free port and a train spur through the newly completed tunnel made it the perfect entry to supply the interior of Alaska. It was also chosen because of its lousy weather, yes, I said lousy weather. Whittier is a soggy place that recieves on average, 200 inches of rain, and 250 inches of snow and has roaring winter winds. All of these combined made it the perfect place for an undetectable military base by enemy survaillance. The original camp consisted of wooden buildings, trailers, piers and railroad facilities.
Fast forward a few years to the cold war and Whittier once again became an important port. The town’s 2 very large concrete buildings were built during this time. The Hodge Building had apartments for families and the Buckner Building had sleeping quarters for 1,000 military personnel and all the amenities they could need such as cafeterias, bakeries, a theater and bowling alley, babershop and medical facilities, and of course, a 6 cell jail. It was known as “the city under one roof”. The two buildings were even connected by underground tunnels so travel between the buildings and the school was easy during the winter.
In 1964, the military abandoned the base and the town of Whittier was born.
Tunnel Vision
Darrin used to have to travel a lot for work. One time, he was trapped on a plane for hours waiting to take off. As he sat there, the walls closed in. His coworker literally climbed over Darrin’s seat and headed for the door stating that he was getting off this plane right now! Just then they were cleared to take off and all was okay. That bit of claustrophobia has stuck with him.
Fast forward to a couple of days ago when we realized getting to Whittier involved driving through a tunnel, a very long tunnel. Did I mention that the rover was in desperate need of a tune up! Did I mention that the Whittier Tunnel is one of the world’s longest drivable tunnels. Did I mention that its 2 and a half miles long! Suddenly, Darrin is back on the plane, but this time it’s him scrambling for the door saying I’m outa here!
The construction of the Whittier Tunnel began in earnest between 1941 and 1943 as a railroad line to reach the year round, ice free port in Whittier during WW2. As more people wanted to access Whittier (being only 1 hour out of Anchorage) they began to load cars on the train to transport people and vehicles. In 1998 the tracks were modified to allow both vehicle and trains to traverse the tunnel.
Here is how it works. The tunnel is one way traffic only. You line up on the hour or half hour depending on the direction. The light turns green and you proceed at 25mph with a 50 to 100 yard spacing to the vehicle in front of you. You periodically pass fire safety shelters and can feel the blast of huge turbine fans that provide breathable air and clear the exhaust. You bounce along in the dark through the tiny, rough blasted tunnel. All the while thinking “If something happens now, it’s a mile walk out of here in either direction!”
Now that we are through it’s not as bad as it sounds. It’s a bit like a Disney theme ride….narrow, dark, cold, dripping, rough blasted rock….oh crap…I’m outa here!
Uncle
After almost 2 weeks of camping in the chilly rain (50’s during the day and 40’s at night) and no change in the future forecast, we said UNCLE!
We packed up our stuff and headed to a motel in Wasilla to dry out and take a hot shower.
On the way, we looked into finding a small cabin in the Seward vicinity, no luck. Everything was booked. On a whim, I looked into places to stay in Whittier where we are supposed to catch the ferry south in a week, viola, up popped June’s Condos and an economy room! There were no pictures on the web, so I called June. She told me the room was brand new and was just listed and she would give it to us for a great price (almost the same price to camp on the beach in Seward in the rain). We booked it!! We would be at a harbor, with hot showers, heat and enough of a kitchen to do our own cooking!
I love when things fall into place without any effort or persuasion.
No more camping in the Alaskan rain!!!!!!
Say a Prayer for the Lost
It’s seems somehow fitting that we have been under a blanket of clouds and rain during most of our time at Denali. When we arrived the ranger told us that a sightseeing plane carrying 4 visitors from Poland had crashed on Denali the previous day. There had been radio contact a number of times just after the crash letting the rescuers know that the 4 passengers and pilot had survived but were injured. A rescue attempt was made, but the weather turned and the rain down here was snow on the mountain. The next day, the skies cleared briefly and they lowered an EMT to the site from a helo who discovered that all had perished under the snow.
Yesterday, they announced that the site is too dangerous to retrieve the bodies.
Say a prayer for the lost and their families.
The Rollercoaster of Life on the Road
A few weeks ago we were in Eagle, AK and it was 90+ degrees. We heard the distant rumblings of thunder and in need of some heat relief, and as usual in need of a shower, we did a little impromptu rain dance…it didn’t rain. We took our bar of biodegradable all natural soap and went dipping in the brook.
Unbeknownst to us, our rain dance must have had a delay built in. Fast forward a few weeks and all it wants to do is rain, including the remnants of a typhoon hitting Alaska as I type. We aren’t complaining, we did have 2 beautiful days that gave us a glimpse of her majesty, Denali. A rare treat!
We have also been saying that we needed some down time. We have been traveling too much, and 3 weeks above the Arctic Circle in 24 hour sunshine does something screwy to your noggin, well screwier, we already have quite a few bolts loose. We now have had days and days of down time to read, play cards and chess and take naps. Again, we aren’t complaining…I’m reading a great fantasy book full of dragons and mages and such.
Moral of the story: Be careful what you wish for! Take what life on the road gives you and be thankful:)
Chance Encounters of the…
They say it is a small world and we can vouch that that is true. We are consistently running into people we have seen in other places. We have run into 1 family so many times their young kids come running up to us now like we are old friends!
2 recent stories stand out.
The first happened in Fairbanks. We were sitting in a restaurant having breakfast (our first meal out in months) when a woman comes over and starts telling us how she saw us up on the Dalton Hwy. It turns out, she was riding in one of the oversized big rigs we pulled off the road to let past. She saw us drive into the restaurant and had to come over and tell us how much she loved our rig. We were almot 500 miles from where she had seen us. What a memory.
The second happened just the other day here in Denali State Park. We were sitting under the awning enjoying a bit of nice weather when a rig pulled in a few spots down and the guy came running over to tell us he had a picture of our Land Rover on his phone. It turns out a good friend of his, Mike, had camped next to us at the Ponca State Park in Nebraska. Darrin and Mike had hit it off talking about cars and such and Mike had sent a picture of our rig to his buddy back home in Iowa. What are the chances that guy from Iowa would turn up here in Alaska in the same campground we are in?
It truly is a small world.
The True North
Just north of Coldfoot on Alaska’s Dalton Hwy is the small community of Wiseman. We had a bit of spare time because of road construction so we decided to detour in and take a look.
Wiseman is a very small community that historically was a mining area and according to Wikipedia had about 100 residents during the mining boom. Today, the community is much smaller and mainly consists of people living a subsistence lifestyle and/or providing ameneties to travellers on the Dalton (Bed & Breakfasts, etc.).
We drove the 3 miles in from the Dalton and slowly made our way through the tiny community. Part way through we noticed a sign for a shop. Darrin, always being happy to meet new people, wound the wee Rover in towards a small homestead.
We were greated by Jack Reakoff and his cat, Willow. Jack and Darrin talked about life in Alaska, hunting, different furs and their uses and such while I took on the much more serious task of playing with Willow. Jack even invited us into his home and shared some amazing lettuce out of his garden. We were very taken with his hospitality and thoroughly enjoyed our impromptu visit.
Jack has lived in the north most of his life and is a guide. People drive or fly into Coldfoot to spend time learning about the north from him and other locals. We highly recommend joining one of the tours!
A Parting of the Clouds
Today, the sun came out! The clouds parted! And Denali peaked through! For 20 minutes she shyly gave us a glimpse before pulling her modest cover back over for the rest of the day. Tomorrow is supposed to be sunny so maybe we will hit the jackpot and see her twice…a rare thing the park ranger tells us.
Moldy Toes
For those of you who haven’t been following the news, or your news channel doesn’t relay the items that are important to my life, Alaska is having a bit of a chilly rainy season (a ‘bit’ is what the Newfies say when there is a downpour or gale force winds…we learned that one the hard way one year riding our motorcycles in Newfoundland).
The good news is that all the rain is putting out the many wildfires raging up here, the bad news is it is raining so much the rivers are flooding, and the really horrible news is that it really makes camping soggy. See you knew it would all come back around to me:)
Being the intrepid campers we are, we tucked into a state campground, set-up all the tarps and such and hunkered down. We read, played cards and chess, read some more, walked around the campground and the airport next door, played more chess and cards…well you get the idea.
After 5 days of rain, we noticed a patch of less rain and even a few cloudy spots in the forecast…for the other side of the state. So, we weighed the options…stay on the eastern side in the rain or make the dash for the other side and a chance for a peek at a blue sky. We also figured in the fact that we were way over due for a shower and some laundry (we won’t discuss the actual definition of how far we were overdue). The vote was unanimous! We packed up and made the dash to the other side, in the rain, over a pass which was probably beautiful, but we will never know, to a motel in Wasilla (and no, we couldn’t see Russia all of you SNL peeps).
12 hours later, we are clean, our clothes don’t stand up on their own any more and….drum role please…we did see a patch or two of blue sky! It was fleeting, but it was there (sorry, we were too busy staring at it to take pictures, it is amazing what a week of rain will do to you).
The weather report now shows a 2 day window of clouds and partial sun that might let Denali peek out, so north we go for a rare summer glimpse. They say in the winter she shows herself much more often, although seeing it requires frostbite. After that window, the clouds and drizzle are back…I think there is a real chance we might grow a new strain of mold between our toes before we leave Alaska.