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?”
