Part V - Denali National Park - June 8

Saturday morning and we need to be up and at 'em. Our Natural History Tour of Denali National Park is scheduled to leave at 7:10 AM and we need to have our luggage out of our room and breakfast eaten before we begin the work of touring.  We wake up shortly after 3:00 AM (7:00 AM EDT) Alaska Standard Time and begin getting ready while another World Cup soccer match is being played on the TV from Japan or Korea. Here we've come 4500 miles and are further north than any of us has ever been, yet we're connected to the life were used to by satellite TV and cell phone. In the middle of a Massachusetts sized national park only a few hundred miles from the Arctic Circle we have as strong a cell phone signal as we get anywhere - and no roaming or long distance charges.

As we head out to catch the "Bear Bus" shuttle to the lodge headquarters the sky is blue and the mountains towering over the Nenana River are sharply etched against the sky. The air is crisp and chilly. We go into the Chalet Cafe for breakfast and I pull out my little business card requesting cooperation in serving small meals at half price. To my surprise, the staff is more than happy to charge me half price for what little of the buffet I can eat.  The cashier at the desk is a young Mexican woman. Yesterday I cashed out with a Yugoslav at the register. The park employs people from across the nation and around the world for summer. As we emerge, we notice the sky has become gray and cloud covered. A cold wind is whipping up. It looks like a raw and chilly day coming.

We head to the mustering area to wait for our bus.  Natural History tours, a part of our package, leave every twenty minutes or so for the next hour and a half.  Ours leaves on schedule at 7:10.  We wait in the only indoor sitting area the McKinley Chalet provides, a small corner with upholstered seats for six or eight.  Perhaps four hundred people are staying in the hotel and all must vacate their rooms by 11:00 AM, even though our train isn't scheduled to leave for Fairbanks until four this afternoon.  Our bus pulls up and Steve, sporting a green flannel shirt with sleeves rolled to the elbow in this forty degree whether with a brisk wind whipping around, gets out and invites us all to board. We file on board the school bus and head into the national park.  Steve is a wilderness botanist and wildlife biologist who will try to make sure we see wildlife and come to understand the geology and biology of the area.

We start up a paved road into the park. We rise through stunted evergreen forests which become increasingly sparse and short as we gain altitude toward the tree line at about 2500 feet. We see no indications of moose. Each time he moves ahead, he mutters "Oh, Damn!" to little avail as the wildlife seem to have headed for warmer beds than the inside of our bus.  Unlike Disney World, the wildlife in Denali does not line up and wait for us to drive past. The temperature is dropping while the wind rises. Everyone is chilly on the bus even though the heat is going full blast.

We stop often to peer through the bus windows out across the endless tundra and forest.  The road changes from paved to gravel and continues to rise as it winds along.  We stop at Savage Cabin, once lived in by the park superintendent.  At present, it’s used as an interpretive experience, with a young woman playing a teacher who lived in the park during the forties. She’s dull and uninspiring.  It’s important to understand that people who came to Alaska during the 1940’s are now referred to as pioneers.  It seems strange to know that my own contemporaries are pioneers anywhere in the world.  Steve points out the yellow pine pollen he can shake out of a spruce tree in small clouds. We spot a small herd of Dall sheep grazing high on the side of a hill. A herd of hikers can be seen coming down a trail. We travel on and spot a large herd of Dall sheep grazing. Mom can see them, but can't seem to spot them through the binoculars. We continue to the turnaround where we have hot chocolate, tea, or coffee from a lukewarm water dispenser built into the rear of the bus.  The driver supplies cookies and a souvenir booklet about park animals we haven’t seen. 

The view from here provides a vast panorama across a tundra plain to the mountains.  Behind, Mt. McKinley rises into the clouds; we can see one shoulder about seventy-five miles away.  I ask some people how the view compares to the ones in Colorado.  They say it’s similar, but the land here is more lush and greener.  I can’t imagine anywhere in North America where civilization seems to have made as little impact as here.  A sharp wind cuts through us as we listen to an Athabaskan woman, who is on-site as a cultural interpreter, tell us a story of the courage exhibited by an Athabaskan woman hiking across the valley after her husband had died.  She says the woman’s story had captured her heart.  The brave Athabaskan woman was the interprer’s great grandmother.  We return to the bus for the trip back to the Chalet. 

A lonely bus penetrates the wilderness up the Park road.	Carol, and Athabaskan Indian, told us the story of her great grandmother's trek across the tundra.	We listen to Carol's story in the cold wind with the Alaska Range behind us	The stark tundra bumps against the Alaska Range in the distance. Mt. McKinley is off in the clouds.	Mom and Irene listen to thepark interpreter tell of life in Denali during the pioneer forties.

We are homeless people and it’s no fun.  We return from our morning excursion at about 10:30 AM.  Our train for Fairbanks is scheduled to depart at 4:00 PM, and we have already checked out.  The McKinley Chalet is distinguished by an almost total absence of indoor sitting and lounging areas.  There are some picnic tables outside, but the wind is blowing and clouds cover the sky.  Everyone is cold.  And we get colder.  Combine the chill wind with the fact that everyone is tired and this is a recipe for disaster. People begin to gripe and complain. And everything that's wrong is the fault of HAL. The cold, the wind, the boredom - it's all HAL'S fault. Then we hear the train is late arriving from Anchorage. HAL is really in trouble now. The temperature continues to fall as the wind begins to howl. Some people have hoar frost hanging from their chins.

Around 3:30 we board the school buses and are taken to the depot where we are told to go to shelters. We decide the bus is enough shelter for us as we wait for the train, which is now an hour late. Desultory conversation is soon drowned out by the snoring of some passengers. Eventually we see the train come around a curve led by its distinctive blue and yellow Alaska Railroad cars with the various cruise lines’ cars bringing up the rear.  We board our car, meet the car manager, and are hustled off to the dining car.  The food is good and we feel like we’ve jumped back to an era fifty years ago.  After dinner we return to our table and sort of drowse together.  I write, Mom watches and snoozes, as does Irene. 

Across the aisle from us a woman in her early forties is talking to her father. “I haven’t met anyone who’s having a good time,” She says.  “Why would anyone want to live in the wilderness like this, get their heat from a wood stove, and use an outhouse?  If I wanted scenery like this, I could have gone to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.  And I haven’t even seen any animals.”  As I think about her reaction, I realize she really frightened, even in the almost hermetically sealed and protected environment of the train.  Alaska can be intimidating even to the most hardy.  We’re tired. There isn’t much scenery to worry about missing. Except... we finally see a moose loping along beside the track in the outskirts of Fairbanks.

When we get to our hotel in Fairbanks we walk into our room and find Mom’s bag waiting for us.  This would be fine, except we left it in Anchorage with instructions to be delivered to the ship.  If her bag is in Fairbanks, where are ours?  And how will we manage an additional piece of luggage?  Then Irene begins to study the itinerary and the air tickets for tomorrow.  According to the schedule, we will arrive in Seward ten minutes after the boat sails, that is if everything is on time. The line at the HAL desk reaches out the door. Later I get to present our problem just after an obnoxious fat guy has screamed at the HAL representative, who is young and doesn't know much about anything that might be happening in Anchorage. Still later I return to find a sign saying "Back at 7:00 AM tomorrow." Irene and I go out for a short walk at ten o'clock. The sun is still high in the sky. It is so bright I wear my sunglasses. We come back in and hit the rack.