Tag: Northern Lights

Spring in Alaska

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The light returns to the frozen North in March. The winter in interior Alaska stretched long and dark. Even now, there are no signs of pussy willows clinging to stark branches. The riverbanks have not re-emerged from beneath their crusty snow layer. At Creamer’s Field, Canada geese and trumpeter swans, generally the first to arrive, have yet to be spotted. But the light has shifted, angling between the black spruce and birches. Even though there is still the crunch of snow underfoot, we lean into the promise of a gentle force slowly persuading winter to surrender. 

The town has stirred out of its winter hibernation. Its inhabitants embrace the warmer weather and the possibilities that spring offers. At Summit Lake, snowmachiners glide through the snowy hills, celebrating the vastness around them. In Nenana, a betting game is underway that has people eagerly casting their votes as to when the ice will break and trip a tripod on the Tanana River. Dogs and mushers in the Iditarod sled dog race take on the challenge of jumbled river ice, mountain slopes and a thousand miles to Nome. In Fairbanks, ice carvers hone their skills and display ice sculptures. In an outdoor studio of subzero temperatures, they glisten until the thaw claims their ethereal nature.

            It is a time of transience. Before long it will be time to put away the snowmachines. The ice will go out on the river, causing great boulders to crash against each other with terrific noise in their break-up. The sled dogs and their handlers will claim their victories. The dancers, temporarily frozen in their tango, will slowly melt into each other’s embrace.

Photo credit: Cole Michaelis

Soon my daughter Helen will come home from college for spring break, even if it means trading daffodils in Ohio for the snow-covered landscape of Alaska. The days are breaking earlier and lasting longer, I promise her. We might go for a cross country ski on wooded trails like we did when she was growing up. She tells me about chemistry lab and discussions in her ethics class. I swallow a thickness in my throat. She is already halfway through her college studies. I want to slow down the hourglass, to be present for the season, even in its fleetingness. 

In March the northern lights often present themselves. I look out for them, knowing that in summer months ahead the midnight sun will no longer allow me to see them. I linger outdoors for some time and watch them shimmer and undulate in the night sky. In hues of green and violet and red, they sometimes look as though they are deceptively close. I am captivated by the myths and tales that have been associated with them by different peoples throughout the centuries. I contemplate the physics of the aurora borealis and wonder how electrically charged particles from the sun entering the upper atmosphere can look so exquisite. Most of all, I feel privileged to have obtained another glimpse of them before they are gone again. 

The winter, relinquishing, is whispering to us its final song.

Photo credit: Elizabeth Cook

Dogsled racing in Alaska

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On a crisp, sunny Saturday the Summit Quest 300 race started in Pleasant Valley. February typically marks the start of the dog mushing races in Alaska. Temperatures hovered well below zero, but the chill did not stop the dogs. Eager to be on their way, they jumped and janked at their harnesses. Dog handlers restrained them with effort, preventing them from bounding down the trail prematurely. The dogs’ barking and breath clouded the frigid air. They were surprisingly small in stature yet unsurpassed in stamina and knew neither trepidation nor doubt. The broad, untamed winter wilderness beckoned. The challenge was on.           

Their energy was magnetic. I felt my own breathlessness, a fast pulse in my throat as I watched them run through the start chute. The gathered spectators cheered them on. They left at regular intervals, in teams of eight or ten or twelve. Their musher, standing behind them on the sled as they hissed by, raised a parting hand in greeting and in pride. Beyond us, they were on their own in the wilderness, left to their own devices and skill. 

The race was adapted due to the pandemic that has reached even the hinterlands of Alaska. Typically, the Yukon Quest traces a route from Fairbanks to Whitehorse, a distance of a thousand miles, following the historical trail of the Goldrush route. This year, with Canada’s border closed due to the pandemic, efforts were made to skirt and safeguard northern villages. While somewhat shorter in distance and contained within Alaska, the Summit Quest 300 proved to be no less impressive.

Mushers and dogs were tested to the extreme. The ascent was in front of them. For some veteran mushers, after a lifetime of successful runs and stories from the trail, this season was to be their last. Would they look back wistfully after a final run? There were “rookies,” new to the race, ready to take on the inhospitable northern landscape and the blackness of subzero nights with a young dog team. Perhaps they wavered in their decision to take on challenge, as they prepared their sleds and dropped dog food at checkpoints, when they heard the weather report of temperatures that would plummet to 40 below in the night. Would they have conversed with the seasoned mushers before the race, absorbing suggestions and a thimble of encouragement? Watch for frozen tundra hillocks and the glare of river ice on Birch Creek. It can disorient the dogs. Be sure to give them the mandatory rest at mile 101. Try doing squats on the sled to keep warm. And don’t forget to look for the northern lights. They are awesome this time of year! The newcomers, shifting again, smiled in return. Mushers and dogs, old and new, were all in this race together.

For many miles they would run, challenged by jumbled ice on the creek and a windswept trail that could easily mislead in inclement weather. There were two summits to overcome. Rosebud was said to be long and steep. Eagle Summit was well known for its treacherous descent. They would run for hours, left to their own devices, before reaching a checkpoint at Two Rivers and Circle and Central. Stopping to rest, mushers would feed their dogs a mixture of beef or high protein kibble or salmon before bedding them down on straw. They would take off booties, apply ointment, run their hands over paws. They would check in with vets to assess heartrates and hydration. Only after the dogs were attended to would the musher eat his or her own food and try to take a quick nap.

Running again, at times it felt as though they were the only ones out there, miniscule in a huge, unrelenting landscape. They would think of the other dog teams on the trail, all on a similar quest, even as they ran their own race. And when they reached the finish line with an expanded feeling in their chest, they would know that even after many miles on their own, they were all connected in the great race of the north.