Exploring Alaska by Small Plane

Exploring Alaska by Small Plane Alaska By Small Plane – Images by Lee Foster by Lee Foster Nothing captures the magic of Alaska better than the adventure of flying across the vast wilderness in a small bush airplane. I’ve made three such flights that a typical traveler could easily duplicate. From Fairbanks I flew north to a remote Eskimo village at Anaktuvuk Pass in Gates of the Arctic National Park, visited for the day, and flew back to Fairbanks that evening. At Denali National Park I took a 70-minute flight-seeing trip to get a close-up view of Mt. McKinley, the highest peak in North America. From the plane, McKinley seemed almost close enough to touch. In Anchorage I flew west to a wilderness area for a day of northern pike fishing at Alexander Lake and saw moose, white beluga whales, and soaring eagles on the return trip. Small planes, otherwise known as bush planes, called Beeches, Navajos, Otters, Widgeons, Beavers, or Cessnas, are the signature transportation mode of Alaska. Ever since the first bush planes appeared in the 1920s, they have been important links in the state’s transport system. Large commercial jets serve Anchorage and Fairbanks in central Alaska, but beyond that the small plane becomes critical. So much of Alaska remains a roadless wilderness that bush planes are, in fact, the only way to get around. Some bush planes sport wheels to land on small airstrips. Others have floats to alight on the State’s many small lakes and rivers. In winter, skis can be strapped to the bottom of the plane. Anchorage’s Lake Hood is said to be one of the busiest seaplane bases on earth. Similarly, Anchorage’s Merrill Field boasts boasts a huge number of takeoffs and landings, but the planes are small bush planes rather than jumbo jets. The freedom of the small airplane, creating your own road above the wilderness, is exhilarating. The ability to drop out of the sky into a wilderness lake few people visit is exciting. Sighting big game, such as caribou, moose, grizzlies, and wolves, is common. Because small planes fly at low altitudes, perhaps only a thousand feet above the ground, you experience an intimacy with the terrain. The safety record of bush pilots in Alaska is also impressive. It takes some adjustment for many passengers, who would fly with no worries in a 747, to sit next to a lone bush pilot in a small plane with nothing but spruce forests stretching to the horizon below. However, most bush pilots have remarkable longevity. The pilot who flew me into Gates of the Arctic had flown almost every flyable day, in all kinds of weather, for the past 30 years, without incident. When the weather turns nasty, as it often can in Alaska, the bush flights will be canceled, so allow some flexibility in your schedule for a second-day flight. From Fairbanks to Anaktuvuk Pass Anaktuvuk Pass is an inland Eskimo village in Gates of the Arctic National Park, north of the Arctic Circle, about 260 miles north northwest by bush plane from Fairbanks. From time immemorial these inland Eskimos have hunted the caribou that migrate through the region, with herds reaching a quarter of a million animals each autumn. By the early 1950s a legendary bush pilot, Sig Wien, was landing with some regularity at a small strip in Anaktuvuk Pass, causing these nomadic peoples to congregate and settle in the region. When I visited, there are about 250 of these Eskimos, called Nunamiut Inupiats, or inland Eskimos, living in the village at the airstrip. They are the furthest inland of the various small Eskimo populations. The flight north from Fairbanks in Frontier Flying Service’s Beechcraft plane took me over broad tundra flats, across the serpentine Yukon River, and then through the spiky Brooks Range mountains to the village. I passed beyond the northernmost forests. Below me I could sometimes glimpse the pipeline through the wilderness, carrying oil from Prudoe Bay in the north to Valdez in the south. A flight goes to the village from Fairbanks each morning and afternoon, making it easy to fly in during the morning and out in the afternoon. At the village we were met by a mammoth of a man, Steve Wells, a white outsider who came to Alaska to teach. Steve arrived in Anaktuvuk Pass and married a village girl, Jenny Paneak, from the prominent family, that of Simon Paneak, patriarch of this Eskimo community. Paneak’s rapport with bush pilot Sig Wien set in motion the founding of the village. I toured a small museum run by Jenny Wells, showing how the Eskimos lived from hunting the migrating caribou, fishing for grayling trout, and harvesting berries and other plants during the brief summer. The chief virtue of a man was to be a good hunter. As nomads, these Eskimos lived in portable skin houses, following their food supply. Caribou would be killed in the autumn and then consumed through the winter and spring. A typical family would take about 12 caribou during the autumn as the caribou passed through on their annual migration. These Eskimos are one of the few subsistence people who survive on hunting rather than gathering. At Jenny’s house I sampled the full range of the typical meat and fish diet of the Eskimos. I ate caribou leg, marrow of smashed caribou bone, grayling trout, and muktuk, or whale blubber. All these foods were shaved off frozen chunks with the typical rounded Eskimo knife, the ulu. Jenny Wells’ mother, Suzy, living on a traditional Eskimo diet, ate this meat and fat diet, raw or boiled, three times a day. Especially in winter, you need to keep caloric energy output high. This previous winter Steve Wells traded in his two broken thermometers, which stuck at Fahrenheit 40 below zero, for the latest improved temperature-measuring devices, which now go down to 80 below. I rode out with Steve in a small all-terrain vehicle to a promontory above the village to enjoy the scenery. The vehicles, called Argos, seat six people and are capable of going over land or water, with four balloon-like tires on each side. We could make our way at will over the rocky tundra and small streams. Until a few years ago, dog teams would have been the only way to move in this region, especially in winter. Steve and I savored the grey mountains, sprinkle of saxifrage wildflowers, discarded caribou horns, and lichen-covered terrain, the domain of moose, sheep, bear, caribou, and wolf. Steve’s family would go later in the day to the hunting camp a few miles from the village. During the summer the area enjoys sunlight virtually 24 hours a day. Life has always been brutally difficult in this region, even with the abundant caribou, and still remains challenging. The village is 70 miles from the oil pipeline and the nearest road, making the bush plane the only link with the outside. Small pre-fab houses are flown in, but cost a great deal. The houses are built on stilts, so as not to melt the permafrost, which would cause the house to sink. Former dwellings of sod are now deteriorating, but there are still two livable sod houses in the village. The local Eskimo populace accepts modern life on their own terms, controlling the identity of their people and displaying it with pride in their museum. The village has chosen to be dry, meaning no alcohol is allowed, which is a local option in Alaska. Anaktuvuk is known for an important craft, caribou masks, and Jenny’s mother, Suzy Paneak, was one of the foremost practitioners of this art. Hundreds of the masks are displayed at the local village store, the Nunamiut Store, the place to get lunch while in the village. Due to the oil wealth of Alaska, the village at Anaktuvuk Pass is relatively secure and well-to-do. The Eskimos are part of the North Slope Borough political mechanism, benefiting from royalties associated with the oil resource. Only about 600 outsiders fly into Anaktuvuk Pass each year, so the traveler who seeks an off-the-beaten-path experience in Alaska can be rewarded with a fresh adventure. Alaska: Denali Natll Park, Air flights to Mt. McKinley From Denali National Park Around Mt. McKinley The Alaskan name for Mt. McKinley, Denali, means “the high one” or “the great one,” and that is what you notice most about the mountain, the tallest peak in North America, at 20,320 feet. Its broadly-curved top, even from a distance, is immense. Up close, you also see the steep vertical rise of 14,000 feet, called the Wickersham Wall, along the north side. This is one of the steepest rises from a base of any mountain on earth. Many visitors to Denali, however, never see the mountain because of cloudy weather. I didn’t see it on my first trip. But on my second trip, the mountain was “out.” I could observe the peak from the Park Service Wildlife Tour bus, a wonderful experience, highly recommended. The sighting whet my appetite for the ultimate Denali experience, the flight in a small plane close in to the peaks of the mountains. I booked Denali Air for the event. During the May 20-September 20 tourism period, they fly visitors to see the mountain. For the rest of the year they fly into remote Eskimo villages carrying routine cargo. Seven passengers and the pilot crowded into a Cessna 207 for the excursion.

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