Alaska - the Northern Lights

Part 7 of the Alaska Series.  Click here to start reading at Part 1: Above the Arctic Circle.

There's nothing quite like an alien-green sky to make you forget how cold Northern Alaska becomes once the summer sun finally relinquishes its grasp on the sky.  We didn't have too many opportunities to see the aurora borealis due to cloud cover, but camp guide Dan was happy to double as a 2am alarm clock if there was a chance of a clear sky.

The first night I saw the Lights, I was blissfully asleep, dreaming that Dan was talking to me, patiently calling my name.  Bubbling up from slumber, I realised with a start that he was outside our tent, trying to wake us.  I'd wanted to witness this phenomenon since the first time I'd heard of it and now was my chance.  I'm not sure if it was the excitement or that I was still half-asleep (or both!), but while I had enough presence of mind to pull on a warm coat, I completely forgot to put anything over the thermals on my legs or even socks and boots. 

Not that I noticed the below-freezing temperature; I was too busy looking up while trying to keep my mouth from opening in amazement.  After seeing glorious photos of a breathtaking array of colours, you might think that seeing a green-only display would be a letdown.  Not at all.  The Lights had a life of their own and sent pulsing bursts, jagged fingers and billowing curtains of light streaking across the starry skies.

HowStuffWorks explains what causes both the Northern Lights and the Southern Lights - which my mother watched as a child in New Zealand:  "The auroras, both surrounding the north magnetic pole (aurora borealis) and south magnetic pole (aurora australis) occur when highly charged electrons from the solar wind interact with elements in the earth's atmosphere."  Read more about the auroras, including an explanation of the different colours in this article.

Crawling back into bed, I realised just how silly I'd been, rushing out unprepared for the frigid night.  Even the super-toasty sleeping bag Cecil lent me didn't cut through the cold and it took two pairs of woolly socks, warm leggings over the thermals and woolly gloves before the warmth of the freshly-stoked fire seeped through and I finally stopped shivering enough to sleep.

The next time Dan woke us from our snug cocoons, I made sure to put on a coat, socks, boots and a good warm pair of pants over the thermals.  Even if it was only so that I could stay out longer.


Next up:  Here for the Hunt

Bow Hunting in Alaska

Part 6 of the Alaska Series.  Click here to start reading at Part 1: Above the Arctic Circle.

This is one of my most favourite memories of our trip to Alaska.  Father and son moose-hunting team The Petes (otherwise known as Big Pete and Little Pete), camp guides Dan, Cecil and Chris, and I were sitting in the cook tent after breakfast, playing Farkle.  If you've never played this game, you're missing out on a bunch of fun.  Especially using Cecil's rules, which state you have to score exactly 10,000 to win. 

Playing Farkle in the cook tent

After a couple of rounds of Farkle, Little Pete asked me if I'd be able to photograph him at target practice with his hunting bow.  He wanted a photo of the arrow right before it hit the target.  Welllllll I'm up for a challenge, so we headed out to the airstrip.

After a few warm-up shots, Pete declared he was ready.  First, however, we needed to figure out how I'd know when to start shooting, to catch the arrow in flight.  I suggested that I count down from three and then he'd let loose.  It went something like this:

Me:     "Okay ready?  Three -"
LP:     [lets arrow fly - it hits target with a resounding THUNK!]
Me:     "SERIOUSLY?"
LP:     "Shut up."

Chris and Cecil enjoying the fun

But Pete is pretty darn good with a bow and arrow, leaving me to be the one having difficulties timing the shot.  Even at a continuous four frames per second burst, the photo below is the closest I got the arrow to the target.  Not bad for a first time, though!

Straight and true

Pete got what he came to Alaska for - he nabbed a moose, using a bow and arrow.  Now that's a serious beastie and some major bow hunting skills.

Pete and his moose.  Photo used with permission.

Next up:  The Northern Lights

Alaska - Planes from the Inside World

Part 5 in the Alaska Series.  Click here to start at the very beginning - Part 1: Above the Arctic Circle.

I was going to call this post Planes from the Outside World, but then I realised you don't get any more outside than inside the Arctic Circle.  If you follow my drift.  Planes come from towns and cities where people tend to spend more time inside than outside.

The airstrip at camp - marked by moose antlers.

It's amazing how seemingly random sounds can provoke strong emotional responses from us.  I grew up in an area that was not quite urban, not quite country; lots of farmland and orchards around my home town.  So it was a fairly common occurrence to hear a prop-plane off in the distance, mostly crop-dusting but sometimes recreational.  So while I'm not the world's most enthusiastic flyer, the sound of a prop plane has a special place in my heart and brings back memories of hot summer days.  I even wrote a poem about it:

Tiger Moth

A distant plane drones
And memory strings
Stir in harmonic hum,
Long ago days and 
Slow summer haze.
Time was a cat
Stretching languidly
As we lay on our backs
On sun-warmed grass,
Cobalt sky reflected in 
Blackberry-flavoured lips.
We sweetened the hours
With lethargic dreams while 
Time mocked our laughter,
Slinking unnoticed
On small padded feet.
And the days and the years
Walked unmarked, except by  
Dusty lines on our faces 
And sepia memories
Revived by the sound
Of a fading plane. 

Got an A for that one - yay me!  (Which reminds me, I need to enroll for next semester soon...)

Anyhow, back to Alaska.  Apart from a satellite phone for emergencies, the only contact we had with the rest of the world was via the bush pilots.  We were a world away from Fantasy Island but the sound of an approaching plane brought Tattoo's cry "De plane!  De plane!" to mind more than once.  Everyone in camp at the time would head out to the 'airstrip' to greet the pilot and help unload the goodies.

Helping unload and load the plane.

And seeing as it wasn't a quick jaunt to the supermarket, planes usually also meant the arrival or departure of hunters.  The first team we said goodbye to was Jerry and Lisa and it was a sad farewell - they are a great couple and brought a lot of laughter to camp.  The joint cook-tent-crossword-solving effort was an epic event and I'll never look at a crossword puzzle again without giggling.  Jerry's such a good sport.

Jerry & Lisa on their last day in camp.

So now, along with memories of the long, hot, dry summers of my youth, the distant sound of a prop plane also brings to mind a colder, utterly wild part of the world.  Two different hemispheres; the bottom and the top of the world, two different times separated by 'several' years, but still the same 'Great Outdoors', good friends and good times.

Next up:  Bow Hunting in Alaska

Alaska - Wolves and Bears

Part 4 of the Alaska Series.  Don't miss a moment: click here to start reading at Part 1: Above the Arctic Circle!


Luckily, I wasn't holed up the entire time with a cold.  The first fine day saw me champing at the bit to be out by myself in the Great Outdoors of Alaska.  But there was a problem:  I didn't have anything for protection from the wild beasties.  Not that we'd been inundated with four-legged visitors; all we'd seen so far were a couple of moose, at a distance.  The only thing I was planning on shooting with was my trusty Nikon.  Nevertheless, best not to tempt fate, so when Wayne offered to lend me his handgun, I accepted.

This wasn't any old handgun though; this was a Smith & Wesson 500, no less.  According to Wikipedia, the S&W 500 is 'the most powerful production revolver in the world today, and it is being marketed as [...] "the world's most powerful handgun" by the manufacturer."  Yikes.

(I just used Wikipedia as a source in my writing.  My English professors will be rolling their eyes in dismay.)

Okay, so that you know where I'm coming from, I hadn't even seen a handgun until I came to the US.   My brother has a rifle, my uncle and cousins enjoyed hunting and I'd shot a BB rifle, but I'd never been in the presence of a real-live, hip-holstered, gun-totin' type before emigrating.  When we were planning the Alaska trip, Steve and I decided it would be a good idea for me to learn how to use a handgun, if only so that I didn't shoot myself...  (For the record, I'm pretty darn good at sporting clays and the paper-silhouette target at the gun range ended up with a nice, tight cluster of holes in its shoulder, right where I intended it to be.)

Smith & Wesson 500

Anyhow, back to the story.  Here's me, the rookie in camp, out for a walk by myself with a portable canon strapped to my chest (gee I hope Mum isn't reading this...).  The S&W 500 is a lot heavier than those I practiced with at the gun range, but Wayne promised me the adrenaline rush would take care of that if I had to point it at something.  Oh joy.

I walked far enough away that camp was a few smallish white blips in the distance, then stopped to breathe in the scenery.  A movement caught my eye and I spotted a black bear moving at a fairly quick pace in the direction of camp.  My heart started racing - it wasn't the first black bear I'd seen in the wild, but this time I was alone.  My initial thought was to alert the folks back in camp.  Actually, that was my third thought.  The first two were:  Eek!  Oh whew, it's moving away from me and then Rats!  I wish I had a longer zoom lens.

Black bear heading towards camp.

But my cellphone was stuffed into the bottom of a pack in my tent and no-one provides service north of the Arctic Circle anyhow.  Yes, that's right; of all the ridiculous things to flash through my mind at that moment, calling camp on the cellphone was one.  Yet more proof that I've lived in a large city too long.  (Smoke signals would have been more effective.  Hold on a moment while I rustle up a fire.)

By this time, I was fairly hopping with excitement and no-one around to high-five.  At least I had photographic proof!  I turned south again and spotted husband-and-wife team Jerry and Lisa heading back to camp.  Walking over to meet them, I 'casually mentioned' seeing the bear.  Jerry took one look at the photos and hot-footed it back to camp, trying to intercept the bear before it could disappear.  Lisa and I chatted for a while, then she followed Jerry back to camp.

If you look closely enough, Jerry is just below the horizon off
Lisa's right shoulder.

That wasn't the end of the excitement, however.  Walking back to the river, I spotted a wolf on the far bank.  No doubt he'd long since seen me, but right then he was watching Jerry and Lisa intently as they moved further away.  Determining that they were no longer a threat, he focused his attention on the next curiosity - me.  My heart was now pounding so hard that I could barely get a clear photo, because if there was one animal I wanted to see out here, it was a wolf.

My friend the wolf.

I was totally okay with him trotting down the far bank, then daintily crossing the river and I even got a few shots of him looking upstream and downstream on the near bank.  But when he stared fixedly at me, then quick-trotted straight for me, I started getting nervous.  I thought wolves were shy creatures!  This one was sizing me up for a tasty snack.

Quickly but carefully (yes, carefully, go figure!), I placed my camera on the ground and stood up, drawing the gun and standing broadside to the wolf in one movement.  The gun that was so heavy had never felt lighter.  Until this point, I'd been standing side on so as to better steady myself while photographing the wolf, but turning to face him afforded him a better view of me and he realised I was human.

If I'd known then what I know now, I would have handled it completely differently and ended up with some beautiful photos before scaring him off.  And I would also have scored some awesome video footage as the wolf spun a swift 180 then forded the river, pushing up waves bigger than he was as he bounded back across.  My mind is now the sole keeper of these images, as well as how he quickly climbed the bank, shook himself, then looked back at me over his shoulder before disappearing into the trees.  Next time, my friend.

Next up: Planes from the Inside World

Alaska - Food, Glorious Food & Pitching In

Looking south-ish from near camp.  The sun never got higher than this, but it took forever to cross the sky.

Part 3 of the Alaska Series.  Click here to read Part 1: Above the Arctic Circle, or Part 2: The Outfitters Camp & Moose Bottoms.

Any camp that has razzleberry pie or cake every day is not too shabby in my books, even if it does mean dealing with a long-drop.  I thought I was going to lose weight out there - not a chance - these guys can cook!  And you have the opportunity for fresh caught food, like the Arctic Char one of the hunters fished.  If you've never tried fresh Arctic Char, you're missing out on a treat.

Part of the fun of camp is helping out with the chores.  This is no five star hotel with a chocolate on your pillow!  But that's not my cup of tea anyhow - I'd much rather be having fun in the 'great outdoors'.  Although, the hot shower in Kotzebue after eight days out in the field was much appreciated.  Taking showers by mixing a tub of hot water with a tub of cold water, then ladling it over the top of your head has only so much entertainment value.  Especially when the shower tent is built with shorter people in mind.

I made a killer pasta sauce one night (with the help of a special, top-secret ingredient entrusted to me by Le Roy) and chicken with chipotle sauce another night.  What else was I going to do while having to hang out in camp for a couple of days, nursing a nasty head cold?

Then there's the wood-chopping to do and plenty of it, to keep the cold nights at bay.  I helped out with that too, mostly chopping kindling.  Welllllll, I say chopping, but it was more like scaring the wood to pieces, if the truth be told...

Next up:  Wolves and Bears

Alaska - The Outfitters Camp & Moose Bottoms

Alaska Kobuk Outfitters Camp

Part 2 of the Alaska Series.  Click here to read Part 1: Above the Arctic Circle

Prior to leaving on our Alaskan Adventure, Steve built a slider for my camera so I could pan smoothly while videoing.  The whole thing disassembles and fits neatly into a tube for storage and travel.  The mistake we made before catching our flight is that we didn't have the TSA folks open it, check the contents and seal it with "TSA Inspected" tape.  After all, it was a whole bunch of metal rods and hunting knives stuffed into a 3ft PVC pipe...

We arrived into Kotzebue with all our bags except for the one containing the slider tube.  A search by the helpful airport folks found it in Seattle and one of the local pilots brought it out to me at camp that evening (yay for fantastic customer service - thanks Alaska Airlines and Eric!).  The whole bag was thoroughly inspected, including my apparently suspicious-looking bag of woolly socks.  I do wish the TSA people would learn to repack stuff nicely.  It all fit in once upon a time; it can do it again.

But while waiting for the bag to arrive we realised that my sleeping bag was with it.  It's not much fun in Alaska without a warm sleeping bag and not knowing if it would arrive that day (if ever), I was in a bind.  Camp guide Cecil came to the rescue with a -40deg sleeping bag.  I was Toasty (see that capital T?!) and kept it for the whole time we were there.  I even had to take my socks off.  Best. Bag. Ever. (Thanks, Cecil!)

Wayne and his Alaska Kobuk Outfitters crew really treat you well.  There is a woodburner in your tent to keep the cold out and trust me, you stay warm with that going, as well as drying your clothes when it rains.  And it rained.  We were in a four-man tent (with Steve's brother and sister) and there was plenty of room.  The cots (stretchers in Kiwi-lingo) are comfortable and have enough clearance to store bags under them.

The first full day in camp brought a lot of rain.  Did I mention before that it rained?  September is definitely rainy season in Alaska.  But that (along with a snowfall the previous week) dealt to the bugs, so I was okay with it - mostly because I wouldn't need to wear my BCHN (this is comparable to a pair of BCGs, but is a hairnet instead of glasses).  We spent time getting to know the other folks in camp then suddenly word came in that a moose and calf had been spotted nearby.  Steve and I took off after them, but those long-legged beasties are speedy even when walking.

We climbed up a small rise and waited for a while, finally seeing the pair as they broke cover and headed for the hills.  I only had a chance to photograph their backsides as they quickly moved away from us.  But hey - I snagged a photo of a moose.  Next time it'll be up close and personal.

Next up:  Food, Glorious Food & Pitching In

Alaska - Above the Arctic Circle

Alaska - a land of wolves, bears and cute arctic foxes; rugged wilderness and breathtaking scenery.  A land where one mistake can make the difference between life or death and a land that will take hold of your heart and not let go.

Two weeks ago Steve and I boarded a plane for a part of the world where I never dreamed I'd actually set foot.  Three flights and 19 hours' travel time later, we arrived in Kotzebue - 53km (33mi) north of the Arctic Circle (if you're really interested, the coordinates are 66°53′50″N 162°35′8″W.  Trust me - it's waaaay up there).  But this wasn't an ordinary tourist excursion to the top of the world; we were there to hunt caribou and rough it - as far as you can call it that with a gas stove in camp.

Kotzebue gave us a welcome that was a far cry from the Hotalanta summer we'd just left: cold, windy and a misty drizzle.  Arriving at 9:40am local time, we had a few hours to kill while we waited for the weather to clear for the flight out to the camp run by Alaska Kobuk Outfitters.

One thing we noticed while exploring Kotzebue is that the satellite dishes don't point up; they point to the horizon.  Yet another clue that you're in a completely different part of the world.

At around 3pm local time we finally received word that the cloud layer had lifted sufficiently at camp for us to land out there - and we were off again; even further north and inland.  I've piloted a Cessna once, a long time ago (and have one hour clocked in a pilot's logbook to prove it) but that was on a sunny, windless day and this was not.  I'll freely admit I'm not the happiest flyer, but once I got the courage up to ignore the bumps and look out the window, I was in for a treat.

Our pilot was ever on the lookout for wildlife and thanks to him we saw a group of musk oxen and a rather large-ish moose, which glared up at the plane with a "what?!" attitude.  After a sweet landing on the riverbed (much smoother than the wind-blown thriller landing into Kotzebue), the pilot took off back to Kotz, leaving me to catch this shot of the plane heading for the cloudy sky.

This truly was an adventure to remember - and one that will always be among the best I've ever had the privilege of experiencing.

Next up: the Alaska Kobuk Outfitters Camp and Moose Bottoms.