Camp Denali & North Face Lodge

Amazing Place

Wed, 11 Aug 2010 19:39:17 +0000

In 2008 I visited North Face Lodge as a guest. Long on my list of “must-do’s”, the visit finally appeared on the calendar, and I climbed onto the blue and white Camp Denali bus. After wildlife sitings, an incredible picnic of elegant foods, and an unparalleled view of Mt. McKinley, I asked myself, “How do they DO it?” After arrival at North Face Lodge, the question popped up again. Planters overflowed with blossoms, windows sparkled, no little bug bodies in the windowsills, linen napkins, no plastic utensils or plates, crisp bed linens, and consistently smiling cheerful staff…and this was the END of the season! What an amazing place! What was their secret?
This year I came back to Camp Denali/North Face Lodge as a staff member. I figured out how they do it! Standards. High standards of hospitality, cleanliness, expertise. And training for all staff--even the ones who’ve been on staff before, not just the rookies.
It’s now about week nine here at Camp Denali. New staff know their jobs, returning staff bargain to trade days off for extended hiking trips, and Spritzer (one of the three dogs with us this summer) has perfected the look and posture guaranteed to garner attention from all passersby. The hill is not quite so steep as it was in June, and the mosquito population has declined. In short, it’s that long slog in the middle of the summer when staff drag a little, sleep a lot, and work to focus on new tasks assigned in the wake of early-departing workers.
About a week ago, one of those new tasks fell to me. Each Monday evening I now set up the reception for incoming guests. Working in the empty kitchen, I cut and arrange fruit, make sure the cakes are dusted with confectioner’s sugar. Then I move to the large dining room and set up beverages, set out cups and glasses, and set aside concerns about what time the evening’s work will end. I double-check the napkins, tea water, spoons and forks, clear the deck at the dishwasher, prep the busing cart, take a deep breath, and wait for the bus driver to call in with arrival time.
When the call comes, an amazing thing happens. Tired staff rally. The procedures set out to make the process of welcome uniform and easy, procedures that have become familiar over the weeks, guide staff through the welcome process. While staff unloads luggage, guests climb off the bus, stretch out kinks developed on the ride into the park, cross the porch and enter Potlach.
And then the magic happens for me. I get to say, “Welcome!” Smiles and responses from guests make me smile even more and makes me realize I’m as glad to be here as the arrivees. My “aha” in this interaction is the awareness that this is how they DO it!
Welcome.
What a simple word, and what a basic idea. When you are proud of your home--even a temporary summer home--you are eager for your visitors to be as pleased with it as you are. And that is how I’ve come to feel about housekeeping tasks, dishwashing duties, and serving food to diners. I’m welcoming them into both the National Park and Camp Denali. We‘re all part of a family: owners, cooks, dishwashers guides, operations crew along with authors, artists, producers and scientists, parents and children from far-flung places. We‘re all here together, all happy simply to be here in this amazing place.

From the Alaskan Wilds to the Table: Salmon!

Sat, 26 Jun 2010 21:29:57 +0000

Perhaps you have been hearing at your local seafood counter that the Copper River red salmon are in. According to Alaska Department of Fish and Game, the Copper River commercial fishery peaked around June 4 with 26,200 fish passing through the sonar site daily. To date this season, more than 417,000 have entered the Copper River system en route to spawning grounds, with more still on their way. In mid-May, the fist Copper River sockeye salmon (“red” is a term used to describe sockeye salmon) arrived in Seattle and the 46-pound fish received the red carpet treatment as it disembarked the Alaska Airlines plane on it’s way to the kitchen of a top local chef. Growing up in Seattle, this was always an exciting and much anticipated time of year. We often featured this prized fish at neighborhood BBQs, park potlucks and boating excursions. In the Puget Sound area, we were won over by the flavor and the successful marketing campaign of the Copper River fishery.

Since being transplanted to Alaska, I have happily been able to routinely incorporate salmon into my diet through a variety of means: smoked salmon snacks in winter, fresh grilled salmon dinners by summer and a stack of fresh caught frozen fillets that line my freezer waiting to hit the table mid winter. Like so many of those in the state now, as many generations have done before, I may travel some distance when the fish are running to secure salmon for the winter. I’ve now finally seen the infamous Copper River and participated in the Alaskan tradition of dip-netting for reds as they make their way by the thousands each day upriver toward their spawning grounds. Fishing for salmon, whether by net at the mouth of the river, rods from a boat or shore, or dip-nets on the Copper or Kenai Rivers, is very much an Alaskan way of life and economic powerhouse, not to mention a way to secure nutritious, healthy and wild grown food for our tables. It is a very closely monitored fishery, and so far, one that seems to be quite healthy.

In the spirit of celebrating the season of the salmon, here is a recipe straight from our Camp Denali and North Face Lodge kitchens this year. May your tables be rich with a taste of the Alaskan wilds!

Roasted Tomato and Preserved Lemon Vinaigrette for Grilled Alaskan Salmon

*Note: Prepare vinaigrette at least two hours before serving to allow flavors to meld well. The recipe is loose to allow for chef’s discretion.

1 qt grape tomatoes

½ shallot, minced

½ C fresh lemon juice

zest from 1 lemon

parsley, finely cut

tarragon, finely cut

chives

extra virgin olive oil

salt and pepper to taste

Toss grape tomatoes lightly with oil and salt and roast on sheet pan until they just begin to caramelize and concentrate their flavors. Let cool.
Macerate shallots in lemon juice for at least 20 minutes.
Combine tomatoes, lemon, shallots and preserved lemons in bowl and agitate with a wooden spoon to break down tomatoes until they get the texture of a chunky sauce.
Emulsify with olive oil.
Finish with salt, pepper and fresh herbs.

Cook salmon as desired (we prefer using our barbeque grill) and spoon vinaigrette atop before serving. Serves 4

An Uncommon Season

Thu, 06 May 2010 21:12:14 +0000

Oh, give us pleasure in the flowers today;
And give us not to think so far away
As the uncertain harvest; keep us here
All simply in the springing of the year.

It is May 5, and here in Denali snowflakes swirl outside my window. Robert Frost’s words from “A Prayer in Springtime,” do nothing for my morale. Instead, his words make me wish for the crocuses, forsythia and daffodils of my Connecticut childhood.

I sit at my desk, and consider lighting a fire in the woodstove. I thought we were done with the woodstove, when we hung up the dogsleds two weeks ago. The mushing season ended late this year. I heard the first song of an American Robin when I was preparing the dogs for a run on a frosty –20 degree April morning.

Returning birds are usually the first signal of spring in this country. The Sandhill Cranes fly high overhead long before the flowers bloom. Now in the midst of a snow flurry, a Yellow-Rumped Warbler lands on the windowsill inches from my face. He hops, then flies off, but not without giving me a message. If he can wing his way from another hemisphere to visit me during a May snowstorm, it is time for me to embrace the new season.

I grab my binoculars, camera, and a bird book and drive into the park. The road has recently been plowed, and invites me to visit a wildlife corridor that has been off limits since late September. I recall the first time I traveled the park road. It was in June of 1985, and my father had recently died. My mother found herself lost without her wilderness companion, so my husband and I were determined to take her on a new adventure. We planned a five-day trip to Camp Denali. None of us had been there before, and we hoped our visit would relieve Mom from some of her grief.

Our drive on this road to Camp Denali was a journey into springtime. After winding through the initial miles of taiga forest, we entered a wide tundra valley where we admired an enormous cow moose with twin calves teetering at her side, and a puffed-up Willow Ptarmigan who scuttled alongside the bus, her downy chicks in tow. As the miles continued we listened as Wally described the landscape’s history, and we contemplated the span of geological ages. When the road took us alongside the rock outcroppings of Polychrome Pass, pink clusters of moss campion enchanted my horticulturist mother. She delighted in “meeting” a new flower. Grizzly cubs playfully tumbled down snowfields on Highway Pass, and caribou trotted along eskers that reached toward Wonder Lake. By the time we walked inside our cozy log cabin at Camp Denali, our dark winter had faded from view.

Today the park road is closed at mile 13, so I park the car and walk a mile further. The Savage River valley is blanketed in snow, but the river runs open in places, cascading beneath shelves of ice. Winter doesn’t yield easily here, yet the signs of a new season are all around me. Pussy willows wave in the cold north wind, and a thrush lands on the branches. A Mew Gull sits on a snowbound bench that’s designed for summer tourists. I imagine he is already looking for their breadcrumbs. A ptarmigan cackles in the brush. His feathers are no longer winter-white; they’ve already turned to summertime brown.

I take heart in these confirmations of spring, but I know it is a vital yet fleeting presence. Long before the final flower blooms on the slopes of Primrose Ridge, snow will bury its chance. Soon after moose calves find their strength, a skim of ice will form on the kettle ponds, making their lives difficult. The snowshoe hare will shed its summer coat of brown, and turn white. Now I’m distracted by the cheep cheep cheep of a ground squirrel. He scampers to a rock and I watch him forage in the snow. He is skinny after months of hibernation. He is already busy preparing for next winter.

I return to my car in high spirits. The same way my mother found renewal at Camp Denali, I have found hope today. I no longer wish for the crocuses and daffodils of my childhood, but am grounded in the elusive certainty that spring is present. Somewhere nearby a pasque flower is pushing through the snow. That flower, the earliest to bloom each season, will certainly be followed by blossoms of monkshood and arctic poppies, arnica and moss campion. Denali Park is defined by her glorious uncommon season of springtime. I wouldn’t trade it for any other.

Lasers vs. Dozers

Tue, 20 Apr 2010 00:42:49 +0000

It’s springtime in Denali. It snowed for three days in a row last week, today is in the mid-50’s, and just a bit north of our office, the Park’s Spring Road Opening Crew is hard at work plowing the Denali Park Road.

I realized recently that my knowledge of this process was woefully inadequate, and that perhaps it was time I find a more suitable explanation than my theory of aliens simply zapping the road with their magical, snow-melting lasers. My quest to discover “How They Plow the Park Road” complete, I now share my findings with you.

The goal is simple enough: remove snow and ice from the 90-mile road. Ideally, the crew reaches Kantishna by around May 18, which yet allows a few days for the last part of the road to dry out before it is opened to administrative traffic. The crew therefore begins plowing around the third week of March. The total process averages about ten weeks and is tackled by two crews, each consisting of three equipment operators for plowing, and two steam crewmembers for thawing culverts.

The plow team relies on three machines to get the job done: a grader with a snow wing, a D7 bulldozer, or “dozer,” and a front-end loader with a 6-way plow. There is also a flatbed pickup that follows carrying extra gear, oils, tools, and a generator: machinery gets plugged in at night in cold temperatures.

The steam team follows the heavy equipment and is primarily concerned with the culverts. By attaching a steam hose to the steam pipes attached to and inside some culverts, the crew is able to run steam all the way through, which helps melt the ice that has frozen solid inside. When there’s no steam pipe installed, the process becomes more of an art form than an exact science, and it’s a lot of work. Much time is spent getting water away from the road to help it dry and avoid structural damage.

Certain stretches of road often see deeper ice and snow levels. Around mile 4.5, there’s a quarter-mile section where crews have seen ice 12 feet deep in the past. Other tricky spots include mile 17 (just past Savage River), mile 40-41 (just shy of our picnic supper stop), and a long stretch just west of Camp Denali, to name but a few. How does one go about removing 12 feet of ice? In the old days, they drove over it when they could and let it melt, or spread coal ash on it to speed up the process. These days, the dozer uses three ripper shanks—think giant claws (that would humble any grizzly)—to break up the ice so it can be removed by the loader. Recent road projects, particularly at mile 4.5 and in Igloo canyon, have helped significantly in reducing the amount of ice found on those sections of the road.

Toklat marks a significant point in the process for several reasons. First, the timing of their arrival is a good gauge for whether the teams are on schedule. This is also the time to address any equipment maintenance issues. Last but not least, it marks the start of snow country; farther west, snow depths are typically greater than those on the eastern half of the road. Highway Pass often sees drift depths of 12-15 feet, or a bit further west, up to 20 feet. (I might parenthetically add that by park entrance-area standards, this is quite substantial. Skiers and snowmachiners in our east end winter community rejoice at any snowfall exceeding a few inches.)

So with all that snow and ice, does not one wonder how they know where the road goes? Experience. Most of the time they can see an edge or two, but sometimes, they go by feel. The dozer operator is therefore the most experienced member of the team (and also he who has most recently paid his life insurance premium).

Is it dangerous? Yes and no. In much the same way that guides leading hikes in bear country are aware of their situational hazards and take appropriate precautions, so does the road crew. Putting cleats on the dozers helps to reduce slipping sideways, for example. And experience helps operators recognize hazards, such as an “ice lens” that forms on the road itself as surface snow melts and runs down through the snow pack, then freezes on the road surface.

All things considered, it's probably safer than zapping the road with lasers.

Want to read more? Follow the road crew's progress here.

Special thanks to West District Roads Supervisor Brad Ebel for patiently providing all of this information, and also for sharing the bus photo from his own personal collection.

Cry of the Wolf

Thu, 25 Mar 2010 21:43:35 +0000

Wolves in Alaska represent for some an icon of the rugged north and a land left undisturbed—a symbol so important people will travel thousands of miles and spend great amounts of money to see them. For others, wolves are viewed as a consumable resource, providing important furs that keep so many people warm in the harsh environments of the arctic and interior Alaska. And the prevailing political opinion in the state is that wolves are a direct threat to game species such as moose and caribou, so predator control has long been in effect. With so many passionate views, and politically appointed decision-makers, it is no wonder the state is in turmoil over its wildlife resources.

The wolves have endured a series of blows this winter, beginning with the untimely death of perhaps their greatest advocate in the state, Dr. Gordon Haber. As an independent researcher, Haber spent the better part of four decades closely studying and advocating for the wolves not only in Denali National Park, but elsewhere in the state.

In early March, the State Board of Game ignored requests from the National Park Service and its biologists, many wildlife and conservation groups, and numerous local citizens to reinstate, and even slightly enlarge, no-take wolf buffer areas located immediately adjacent to Denali National Park. The wolf buffer, which has been in place for the last six years, would have continued to prevent wolves within it from being hunted or trapped. Park boundaries, while drawn on maps of the area, are obviously not recognized by wildlife. NPS managers are tasked with managing for healthy wildlife populations, which can be difficult to do when park animals regularly cross its boundaries. In Denali, once those animals leave the park, they are on state land where wildlife is subject to intensive management for the greatest possible game species yield (moose & caribou). Park managers have long recognized the buffer area as important habitat for Denali National Park wolves straying beyond the park boundaries in pursuit of winter caribou. Not only did the Board of Game disregard this information as a viable concern and vote to eliminate the Denali wolf buffer, the Board also instituted a six-year moratorium on considering the issue again.

The Alaska Department of Fish and Game has drawn attention in the last week for a couple of controversial moves. As part of Fish and Game’s intensive management for maximum yield of the Fortymile caribou herd and moose in the eastern Interior, the agency is using fixed wing aircraft to spot wolves and then returning in helicopters with gunners to shoot them. They hope to remove and kill 185 wolves through the efforts of trappers, hunters, private pilots and the state, leaving about 100 wolves remaining in the control area. While this is controversial in itself, last week the State’s team killed an entire pack of wolves just outside of Yukon Charley Rivers National Preserve, including two wolves collared for research by the National Park Service. Fish and Game had agreed beforehand that it would not kill wolves collared by biologists from the Yukon Charley Rivers National Preserve, and then afterwards said they killed the wolves wearing radio collars by mistake.

The second controversial ADF&G issue involves the appointment of Corey Rossi to be the new Alaska Department of Fish and Game’s Director of the Division of Wildlife Conservation. Given his lack of a college degree or other qualifications necessary for even an entry-level biologist position within the Division, a group of 40 former agency biologists are crying for his removal. They cite concerns regarding his lack of scientific background and the potential move the Division is heading regarding managing Alaska’s wildlife—a move away from the standard of science-based management, and toward a simplistic abundance management model where the single, overriding objective is maximum production of wild game meat. Thus far, the Commissioner of Alaska Department of Fish and Game is standing by his leadership choice.

What does all this mean for Alaska and it’s great wealth of wildlife? What does it mean for those who are non-consumptive wildlife “users”—those who rely upon wildlife for tourism, photography, and as indicators of a healthy ecosystem? The answer isn’t simple or clear, and will likely be a moving target as politics, appointees, climate change, public views, and other factors evolve over time. For now, despite the hostile environment wolves and other large predators may experience elsewhere in the state, Denali National Park, and other national parks within Alaska are sanctuaries where nature’s food chain remains un-manipulated (at least while the animals stay within the boundaries). Denali continues to be one of the best places for viewing wolves in North America, a place that illustrates there are economic rewards in watchable wildlife, and where we as humans might be reminded of what is truly wild.

A Week in the Life

Thu, 04 Mar 2010 02:02:19 +0000

This past week has been busier than usual but is emblematic of the activities this Camp Denali year-round staff member partakes in during the dark, cold winter months.

My name is Martha McPheeters. I am a Naturalist Guide in the summer and the Personnel Coordinator in the fall, winter and spring. Right now it is hiring season. My work life is full of interviewing potential staff, setting up in-person interviews, checking references, revising last years hiring documents and deciding who will work at Camp Denali/North Face Lodge during the upcoming summer. The rest of this blog is about my non-work hours.

First to set the scene, it is NOT dark or cold by interior Alaska standards as this February week unfolds. The most recent snowfall and sub-zero temperatures were in January and it is now late February. The minutes of sunlight each day have been increasing steadily since the winter solstice so that now we have nearly 11 hours of sun-above-the-horizon time each day. At Solstice we had 4 hours of sun-above-the hypothetical-sea-level-horizon time. The light comes rushing back at 4-7 minutes per day. From the beginning of this week to the end, the amount sun-above-the-horizon time has increased by nearly 49 minutes.

Friday: On certain Fridays after work I join the Women’s Ice Hockey Team in Healy, AK to scrimmage. Today is the tenth day of above 32-degree temperatures and the outdoor rink is a big puddle. Hockey practice is cancelled so I head home.

Saturday: The DERT bags (the newly organized Denali Emergency Response Team) execute a practice search and rescue. Sixteen of us show up at 10 AM and pretend to find four skiers buried in an avalanche at some distance from our meeting point. With the rescue complete, the DERT retreats to 229 Parks Restaurant and Tavern to debrief the experience. Many participants suggest improvements for next time.... the real rescue we hope will never happen.

Sunday: Sunday begins with brunch at my cabin. We eat artichokes that a California friend mailed to me after listening to me complain about the scarcity of the vegetables in the interior of Alaska in the winter. Brunch is followed by a ski trip up Riley Creek in Denali National Park on no-wax skis. My preference is waxable skis but today the snow underfoot has been thawed and refrozen maybe 10 times making proper wax selection impossible.

In the evening, I put my books and homework into a pack and walk over to a neighbor’s house for Physics Class. This small group of older women who had Math or Physics majors in college have been getting together weekly to take an online Physics course from MIT. Actually that was last winter, this winter we have become less formal and choose topics of mutual interest to research. Tonight we are making telescopes from cardboard toilet paper tubes and lenses we acquired from broken cameras, broken magnifying glasses and toys. We find ourselves flummoxed by the need for a parabolic mirror. In the process we discover that collectively we do remember the equation for a parabola and how to calculate the focal length of the mirror we do not have.

Monday: It is still above freezing so I go for a bike ride to Carlo Creek on completely bare roads. Then I move firewood from a tarp-covered heap to my now half-empty woodshed. I wonder if wood-burning season is half-over.

Tuesday: Today is cooler, a high of 20 degrees and we’ve had a whiff of snow greatly improving the ski conditions. I go for a six-mile ski on my waxable skis.

Wednesday: Now there is an inch of new snow and the temperature is 10 degrees. I hook up a neighbor’s dog and skijor for nearly three hours covering more miles than I could ski in the same period of time. (Skijor means to use a dog to assist a cross-country skier. The dog and the skier wear harnesses and are connected by a length of rope. The skier provides propulsion with skis and poles while the dog pulls.)

Trudging home in the evening, the snow has the unmistakable and satisfying squeak that accompanies sub-zero temperatures. I get home and sure enough, it is 4 below zero.

Thursday: I attend my weekly Tai Chi group in Healy. This group learned a Yang style short form in 1999 and has been meeting weekly ever since to read from the Tao Te Ching, do Shibashi and practice the form.

Friday: Three more inches of snow have fallen. Yippee! A friend asked if I would be willing to exercise her sled dogs while she is gone. This friend, Nan Eagleson, former Camp Denali guide, is going to “town” to guide Exploritas (formally Elderhostel) trips to the Fur Rondy and the Iditarod dog sled races. I love mushing dogs and this afternoon I hook up Nan’s six mellow, aging sled dogs and go for a run. There is nothing quite so thrilling or quite so Alaskan as riding the runners behind eagerly pulling dogs.

In the evening there is a dessert potluck to kick-off Winterfest. (I did find time to make cookies.) Winterfest is a three-day celebration of winter for those of us living just outside the eastern boundary of Denali National Park. The keynote address this year is given by our very own Jerryne and Wally Cole, the owners of Camp Denali. They give a wonderful presentation that starts with baby pictures of Celia Hunter and Ginny Hill, the founders of Camp Denali, and end with baby pictures of their grandchildren, the potential inheritors of Camp Denali.

Closing: Perhaps these few paragraphs will give the summer guest to Camp Denali pause to re-consider the inevitable question that year-round staff answer repeatedly, “What do you do all winter in Alaska?”

Winter Warmth

Wed, 06 Jan 2010 19:25:20 +0000

What’s your preference? Spruce or birch? When it comes to heating our homes and cabins this winter, this question is one of many about the methods we use. Many people heat their homes with oil, as natural gas is not available north of the Matanuska Valley in Alaska. To supplement that, both financially and environmentally, most of us utilize the local abundance of trees we have right here.

The process of rendering a standing tree to logs burning in our wood stoves takes several steps, as well as a substantial amount of time. Dead trees are ideal, as you don’t have to ‘cure’ them in your yard for a few years prior to burning. The tree has to be sawed down, the branches taken off, and the trunk chopped into sections (aka ‘bucked up’). Then you haul those sections home, and split the logs. Colder days are ideal, as the grains of the wood split more easily then. A sharp big ax and maul are very useful here, as well as having a healthy chunk of confidence. I never seem to split my logs perfectly on the first swing, and end up grabbing the maul a lot. I get particularly befuddled by knots in the wood, which are basically scars from when old branches fell off. One of these days I’ll be a regular Paul Bunyan, I swear.

My naturalist’s sense of wonder is still active while splitting the logs. Inside, I find several grubs, which have bored extensive networks through the logs. How is it that I can hardly get a heavy ax through the logs, with all the help of physics and a young back on my side, while a grub the size of my fingernail can? Seeing these little guys doesn’t exactly make me jump for joy, however. They are reminiscent of the recent explosion of spruce bark beetles in south central Alaska, which has left vast swaths of boreal forest dead or dying. The incidences of wildfires have escalated due to the abundance of dry timber. Similar problems are occurring in the lodge pole pine forests of states such as Montana. Although the direct reason for their explosion is speculative, it probably correlates with global climate change and warming winter temperatures.

But for now I’ll do my part to reduce carbon emissions, and keep my cabin cool. 50 degrees is the baseline temperature while I’m out for the day, but I throw some wood in the fireplace while I’m home and heat it up to a comfy 70 or so. Norwegians have a word for a quaint, rustic but cozy atmosphere like the one generated by a wood stove. The word is “koselig,” and though it has no direct English translation, embodies the essence of a warm winter retreat. We hope you are all having a koselig winter, as we think about the summer to come and the seasons which lie ahead of us.

The Urge to Fly

Mon, 30 Nov 2009 19:17:20 +0000

At the humid edge of a mangrove swamp, on one of dozens of palm-fringed coral islands that fringe the Celebes Sea, a small greenish bird feels it.

On the sun-seared savannah of Tanzania, darting after insects stirred up in the dust by the hooves of zebras and wildebeest, a pale cinnamon bird with a black and white tail feels it.

In the teeth of a roaring Antarctic gale on the Weddell Sea, the gray ocean churned as white as the eroding summer pack ice against which it crashes, a lithe seabird borne effortlessly on the wind feels it.

As dusk falls along the Essequibo River in northern South America, and the first bats begin skimming the water's surface while a tinamou gives its last, plaintive whistle somewhere in the darkening forest, a slender, streaky olive bird settles into a sheltering clump of leaves for the night, and feels it.

Whether they spend the winter in the company of crocodiles and hornbills, lions and gazelles, leopard seals and penguins, jaguars and anacondas, the Arctic warbler, northern wheatear, Arctic tern and blackpoll warbler all sense the same growing tug. Scattered as they are across almost the entire globe, they all feel the pull back to Denali, back to the Alaskan landscape of their birth.

Right now, the spruces along Moose Creek where the blackpolls nest lay silent under snow; the winds howl unchecked through Thorofare Pass, where the wheatears sing in June. The tundra ponds are locked in ice, the willow thickets empty. Only the hardiest ones, the rock ptarmigans and the gyrfalcons, the ravens and gray jays, hunker down and tough it out.

But for the migrants, living their distant lives in distant places, the draw of the breeding season will soon make itself known; one day soon a little itch will awaken in them, which will become a compulsion, which eventually becomes the overwhelming, incontestable command: Fly.

And back they will come, as the snows melt and life returns to the tundra. And I'll be there, too, migrant that I am, because even here in the gentle mountains of Pennsylvania, where what we call winter has finally settled in, I can feel that same tidal force, that same growing itch that tells me it will soon be time to head back to Denali.

When the first Arctic warbler of the summer, freshly arrived from the hazy mangroves of the Philippines, begins to chatter its song from the willows - I will be there too, to welcome both of us home.

Author Scott Weidensaul will be at Camp Denali June 4-10 to share more on bird migration and conservation of Alaska's avifauna.

Always Getting Ready

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 19:40:15 +0000

In a place where seasons vary dramatically and there is much to prepare for each season, many Alaskans feel that we are “always getting ready.” This is the title of a book that describes the lifestyle of Yup’Ik Eskimos on the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta and their constant preparation for each subsistence activity. Around my home, I think of that phrase most often in the fall as we prepare for the onset of deep winter, and in the spring when life returns and we must ready ourselves for the busy summer season.

This year, in addition to stacking the firewood, cleaning the chimney, putting up food in the freezer and cupboards, winterizing my truck and swapping the summer clothes for winter boots & parkas, I have another matter of urgency to attend to: closing in my new home. While there are some hearty souls who do winter construction in Interior Alaska (and who’s working cut-off temperature is usually minus 20 F!), it is generally preferable to get a roof on and get “closed in” before the snow flies and the mercury drops. This has been my goal all summer long and while I have missed completing this before the first snowfall, I hope to have this stage completed in the next couple of weeks. Luckily, the building season has been long this year, and our first snow proved only to be a teaser since it was followed by weeks of unseasonably warm fall weather.

The building project occupied most of my waking hours this summer (I took a summer sabbatical from Camp Denali & North Face Lodge to focus on building), and it will continue to be the focus of my weekends until that metal roofing is on. At that point, I will be able to walk away for a while and go back to the drawing board. The skeletal structure of the cabin will fall into deep freeze dormancy in the company of the spruce trees around it. This winter’s projects include reading and learning about wiring, plumbing, interior insulation and air exchange systems for healthy interior air.

While I call it “my cabin,” I know better than to believe that. This cabin is the result of many, many hands. From those who lent their strong backs to clearing large rocks out of the foundation hole, to those who have taken me through some of the more complicated framing aspects, to those who have shared their tools and words of encouragement, to those who have come out on cold, snowy mornings to help raise my timbers--I have learned that it takes a village. And in this village, we help each other get ready.

The Arrival of Winter

Tue, 22 Sep 2009 16:19:09 +0000

This morning I scraped frost off the windshield of our vehicle. Last night I stoked up the woodstove. Today I looked up at the peaks around our winter office and noted how low the snowline was creeping towards us. 3000 feet now, perhaps?

Locals call the first snows at the tops of the mountains “termination dust”; harbingers of the end of summer. We had been anticipating the arrival of winter for over a month now in Denali. Hard frosts killed many of our flowers at Camp Denali and North Face Lodge in mid August. How is it that flowers are still blooming in Anchorage? Here in the interior portion of the state, our climates are extreme. Like Siberia or Colorado, we are great distances from the ocean, which absorbs heat during the summer and releases it during the winter, making greater temperature swings for us non-coasties.

Clever ‘ol Jack Frost seems to be sneaking towards us.

The last signs of autumn are disappearing…leaves are falling off our deciduous trees (willows, alders, aspens, and poplars) and all the birds we’re seeing are winter residents lately. Trumpeter swans flying above our office about a week ago seemed to be a final salutation to our migratory avifauna friends.

Today, September 21^st, is the fall equinox. The date is special to us in many regards. Today we experience exactly 12 hours of both daylight and nighttime. Beginning tomorrow, we continue to lose 5-8 minutes of our daylight daily, until we hit the winter solstice on December 21^st.

I recently moved into my new cabin for the winter, a beautiful log house, sans indoor plumbing. Before I did, I spent a night curled up on our office porch in my sleeping bag, watching the green twists of a faint aurora borealis to the north. I’m waiting almost breathlessly for the first snowflake to fall, almost as I await the first pussywillow in the spring. Transitions, both in life and in the seasons, can be exhilarating. The lingonberries (Vaccinium vitis-idaea) are in abundance here, about 10 miles south of the park entrance, nestled along a bluff of the Nenana River. Perhaps our summer season is over, but we’re looking forward to a cold winter filled with wood fires, knitting, skiing, and general warmth.