Fairbanks is the largest city in the Interior, and a well-known and commonly visited place within Alaska. While summertime is the most popular time for visiting, with at least 21 hours of sunlight each day, traveling to this area in the winter is a trip that has its fair share of benefits too.
A photographic journey of the heart I knelt behind my camera tripod, gazing from the edge of a sandy knoll, northward up the Nuna valley. A few yards away, a fortyish Japanese man did the same. Before us, a weathered caribou skull lay in a blood-red swath of bearberry; beyond, an immense sweep of autumn tundra glowed beneath a furling expanse of clouds, squalls, and sun. Occasionally moving his lips without speaking, my companion seemed adrift in a trance as he studied land and sky, making adjustments and squeezing the shutter release. I divided my time between scanning the country for caribou and studying him—emulating lens choice and angle, trying and failing to mimic both his technical command and his absolute-in-the-moment absorption. At last, he turned toward me with a smile that seemed to mirror the land’s radiance. Oh look, Neek, look! It is all so beautiful. The man was…
A stroll through space in Fairbanks It is a pleasant day for a walk in the middle of Alaska, with blue sky overhead, and people perhaps looking for something to do outside, with lots of space and sweet-scented summer air around them. Not long ago, I hiked the length of a new planet-walk display on the University of Alaska Fairbanks campus with Peter Delamere. In a little less than one mile, we spanned the relative distance from the sun to dwarf planet Pluto. Delamere is a researcher and teacher at UAF’s Geophysical Institute and Physics Department. He knows a lot about each of the heavenly spheres mounted on signs along Yukon Drive, which is arrow-straight and runs up to the high point of the campus. Space physics expert Peter Delamere at the start of the UAF Planet Walk in Fairbanks. The project was developed by members of the Alaska chapter…
Magma Rising Beneath Edgecumbe One crisp April day, Sitka residents were shocked to see Mount Edgecumbe, the volcano just 15 miles from town, erupting. “Smoke was pouring over the edge of the volcano,” recalls Alice Johnstone. “I never ever called my husband at work, but I was so excited I called to tell him about it. I even phoned FAA to get more information.” Phones rang off the hook at the police station while the Coast Guard dispatched a helicopter to investigate. Spray painted in 50-foot letters at the summit they found the words “April Fools.” It was April 1, 1974. Local prankster Oliver “Porky” Bickar had flown 70 old tires to the summit crater and lit them on fire. The Edgecumbe hoax hit international news and went down as one of the best April Fools jokes of all time. But it was no joke on April 11, 2022, when…
Museum of the North will use Bus 142 to tell Broader Story of Alaskan Lands The Museum of the North in Fairbanks has received $500,000 to preserve the bus made famous in the book Into the Wild. The funding comes from the National Park Service and the Institute of Museum and Library Services and will help prepare the bus for public exhibit. Angela Lin, senior collections manager at the museum, acknowledges that the bus can be polarizing in Alaska and says that the exhibit will address more than Into the Wild. “We’re excited to tell a more complete story,” says Lin. Bus 142 is a 1946 International Harvester that served as a school bus, a Fairbanks transit bus, and eventually as remote housing for mine workers near the end of the Stampede Trail west of Healy. When its axle broke, the bus was abandoned on site. The bus gained global…
High Drama When the River Runs Again by Beth Grassi In late April 2014, I stood on a bridge in Fairbanks watching the Chena River waking up under my feet. Flat chunks of ice bumped and bobbed down the river, some a thin, translucent gray, others rafts of white several inches thick. Ice floes and slush hissed through the rush of river water. It felt like standing on the prow of a ship, pushing through to spring. “Spring breakup” may sound like a sitcom episode, but in Alaska it’s a landscape-size drama. Most of Alaska’s rivers freeze over in winter, with ice up to several feet thick. When the rivers finally break free, usually in April and May (or even June in the Arctic), ice floats downstream. Sometimes ice jams—jumbles of ice floes—dam up a river. Large ice jams can cause dangerous flooding. Breakup plays out differently each year on…
Next Few Years Could be Hard to Beat The sun is on fire these days. Ahead of an expected spike in solar activity, it is hurling massive blobs of hot plasma toward Earth. And while this may disrupt civilization, the flipside is that it will likely bring awesome aurora. According to Don Hampton of the Geophysical Institute at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, approximately every 11 years our sun’s magnetic poles switch. South becomes north, and vice versa. The years preceding this are called the solar maximum. Hampton expects the next maximum to peak in 2025 or 2026. As a solar maximum approaches, violent events unfold across the sun’s surface—including fierce solar winds, collapsing filaments of electrified gas, distortions in the sun’s magnetic field, and massive ejections of plasma—which send geomagnetic storms hurtling toward Earth. In space, it can damage satellites and threaten astronaut safety. On Earth, it can disrupt…
Borealis Basecamp launches new offerings Three nights deep in the backcountry of the million-acre White Mountains National Recreation Area outside Fairbanks is a good example of a hard adventure. A soft adventure, says Adriel Butler, could be one hour riding a snowmachine through a powder field. Butler is the owner of Borealis Basecamp, which he aims to make the go-to resort in interior Alaska for those types of soft adventures. The cubes at Borealis Basecamp are spaced out to give guests more privacy. Borealis Basecamp opened in 2017 on a 100-acre parcel of forest 25 miles north of Fairbanks. It was open only during winter months and primarily a destination for aurora viewing. The team used time during the early months of the pandemic to plan new accommodations and adventures that launched in 2022. The basecamp is now open through the summer months and offers excursions like six-hour UTV rides…
Citizen council remains vigilant three decades after the Exxon Valdez oil spill Donna Schantz has worked with Prince William Sound Regional Citizen’s Advisory Council since 1999 and served as its executive director since 2016. After the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill, PWSRCAC was created to give a voice to those who have the most to lose in the event of another spill. The council includes representatives from communities in the spill region and industries like aquaculture, commercial fishing, and tourism. It is mandated by Congress and funded by the oil industry but has complete independence. The Prince William Sound council is one of two such organizations in the United States. The other represents Alaska’s Cook Inlet. Donna Schantz outside the harbor in Valdez Can you share something that the council has accomplished recently that you are proud of? This is always an interesting question because it’s really hard…
