July 24, 2009

There is no place like Nome.  I think I can stand behind that statement. 

Our second weekend with my parents started with another early morning.  It was a painful 3:30 wakeup to catch our 6:00 flight to Nome.  Waking up that early is always a little disruptive to the thought processes.  As I focused on not forgetting anything, I must have gone into autopilot on some other things.  As I entered the security area, I removed my shoes and began digging through my pockets for any metal objects.  Imagine my surprise when I pulled out my folding knife.  It is just something that goes in my pocket every day.  I had to put my shoes back on and run back to the car.

The flight up was amazing.  While low clouds made the Anchorage morning a little dreary, we quickly rose above the clouds.  As we turned north, the big peaks of the Alaska Range appeared alongside the plane.  We had a nice view of Denali, Foraker, and Hunter that helped pass a nice chunk of the time on our flight.  North of the Alaska Range, the low clouds disappeared, providing us views of rivers and tundra that went on forever.  Huge expanses of water separated by thin strips of land appeared as we approached our stop in Kotzebue.  This was the first time my parents have been north of the Arctic Circle and the first time we have actually been north of the imaginary line since we moved up.  Kotzebue was a brief stop with a scary runway before continuing on to our destination.

The weather wasn’t all that cooperative in Nome.  We had rain and clouds, but it didn’t really detract from the experience.  We rented a truck at our hotel and headed out the Council Highway, a dirt road that led over seventy miles to the town of Council.  The first part of the trip was along the coastline that provided us views of fish camps, mining relics, and endless tundra.  The road turned inland near the remnants of an old railroad.  Engines and flatbed cars were abandoned in place, slowly sinking into the tundra over the decades.  Inland provided rolling hills and beautiful river valleys in the vast treeless landscape.

We scanned continuously for wildlife.  We saw interesting northern birds like Red Throated Loons and some ducks that might have been Shovelers.  We saw large birds of prey that we struggled to positively identify.  We saw a small group of seven caribou resting on a snow pile and a momma caribou with her baby walking across a grassy island.  We kept hoping to find musk ox or bears, but none were noticed.  It was impossible to judge distances across the valleys.  We were never sure if a large animal would appear clearly with the unaided eye or if they would appear as just a dot through our monoculars, binoculars, and large camera lenses.  We stopped frequently to scan, but came up empty on the big animals.

The road to Council ended at a river with the collection of homes on the other side.  The river was supposedly shallow enough to drive across, but we had no need to put forth an effort to find the right crossing.  We stopped and walked along the river before turning around and heading back to Nome. 

After dinner, Kris and I took a hike along the beach.  Gold seekers had equipment and tents set up on the beach.  People are still finding enough gold in the sand to make a living.  Offshore operations of some sort also appeared to be taking place. 

Our second day in Nome was rainier.  We headed up a different road, the Nome-Taylor highway.  This one was eighty five miles long and ended well before the settlement of Taylor at a scary bridge across another crystal clear river.  The mosquitoes were a bit fierce at the bridge so we didn’t hang out too long in this bizarre location.  Who built this old bridge in the middle of nowhere and why?

Our bad luck on wildlife continued.  In some parts of the lower valleys, lush thick vegetation provided some cover.  The higher elevations were always low vegetation with endless views blocked only by the occasional fog bank.  I think all our eyes were exercised for endless hours, scanning the interesting landscape.  We stopped at a beautiful lake and fished the outlet for a few minutes.  It was the furthest north any of us have ever fished.  We didn’t catch anything, but I did see a few grayling surface even though no one believed me.

The town of Nome was equally interesting.  Our hotel was very nice.  We found nice restaurants for breakfasts and dinners.  We ate at Subway for breakfast one morning, an ocean front property that seemed so unreal from our Lower 48 backgrounds.  The town appears a bit run down with dirty streets and building exteriors that show the wear of the harsh environment of a northern town along the Bering Sea.  The town’s history is an open book.  Over a hundred years of equipment is abandoned in place.  Countless dredges, bulldozers, pipelines, and steam engines dot the landscape.  Tons of scrap iron is available for anyone who can figure out how to overcome the transportation challenges of getting it to market.  All of the equipment had one primary purpose, to turn over the land in search of gold. 

One massive dredge of early 20^th century vintage was parked in a pool near the beach.  It was the first dredge I have seen with the dredge bucket line still intact.  We asked about it at the museum and were told that it had operated within the last ten years and people were contemplating firing it up again.  It is amazing that such old technology is still considered an effective technique.  It is amazing that such destructive technology is even still legal.

The town currently has a population of about 3000, down from over 40,000 in the gold rush years.  Pictures in the museum provided a mind-blowing image of a bustling city so far from anything so long ago.  The current small population and limited tourist traffic made us pretty obvious.  We suspected the taxi driver knew we needed a ride to the airport Sunday afternoon as he waited at our hotel.  The ticket agent at the airport greeted us with “you must be the Knapps”.  We were probably the only group of four that the agent didn’t know going out on the only flight at that time.  I think we all left enriched by the experience of our visit.  Kris and I discussed that we could imagine living there for about a year.  I doubt my parents had the same feeling, but they seemed quite amazed by the visit.

We returned to Anchorage for a few more days of visiting with my parents.  My dad and I fished one evening on Campbell Creek.  He caught a couple of small Dollies and landed a jack King Salmon on four pound test.  I caught one tiny trout.  We had a great visit.  We didn’t kill ourselves with too much activity.  Kris and I enjoyed having great home cooked meals when we got home from work each night and having our kitchen cleaner than normal, although that has quickly returned to its normal state of clutter.