grit to the core

So I get it that you have to be tough to live here, though no more than those who arrived and lived here before modern conveniences like ducted heating, gortex jackets and snow machines (snow mobiles). Living on the edge of the world was arduous and cruel and many lost their battle with the extreme and unforgiving conditions while trying to harvest the abundant resources. The poet Robert W Service, b. 1874, who would have no doubt been great mates with Banjo Paterson had they’ve met, came to Canada and Alaska from England and wrote:

This is the law of the Yukon, and ever she makes it plain: 
"Send not your foolish and feeble; send me your strong and your sane -- 
Strong for the red rage of battle; sane for I harry them sore; 
Send me men girt for the combat, men who are grit to the core; Swift as the panther in triumph, fierce as the bear in defeat, 
Sired of a bulldog parent, steeled in the furnace heat. 
Send me the best of your breeding, lend me your chosen ones; 
Them will I take to my bosom, them will I call my sons; 
Them will I gild with my treasure, them will I glut with my meat; 
But the others -- the misfits, the failures -- I trample under my feet. 
Dissolute, damned and despairful, crippled and palsied and slain, 
Ye would send me the spawn of your gutters -- Go! take back your spawn again.  

(Service’s poem ‘The Law of the Yukon’ is worth a read http://litterature.historique.net/service/law.html)

And doubtless the sentiments apply equally to the Yukon’s twin sister, Alaska.

So here I am in Alaska in the early summer! It’s just like mid winter in Port Macquarie really – cold mornings and cold nights punctuated with moments of brilliant warm sunny skies (if it’s not raining). If the forecast says 18°c, it will hover between 10 - 13°c then warm up for a hour or two in the afternoon and drop down to 8°c or less overnight.  I am wearing 4 layers most days as the locals happily wander around in short sleeves.

A cycle was on the agenda last weekend along the Turnagain Arm of the Cook Inlet on a section known as Bird to Girdwood (45km return). Three of us set off armed with bear spray and bear bells from Bird Creek in the Chugach State Park (202,400 ha). Chugach SP is a vast wilderness that creates a dramatic mountainous backdrop to Anchorage. A camping area is nestled on the water’s edge at Bird Creek just off the highway. Facilities are sparse but the view through the forest and across the inlet to the snowy mountains of the Kenai Peninsula more than makes up for the lack of them. There lots of birds flitting around as we set off through the forest, though none of them I recognise.

The ride is along a purpose made bitumen track rising above the railway and the road that skirt the water’s edge and as we coast along I scan the inlet in vain for the blow of Beluga whales. Long sections of the track are cloaked with shining birch and spruce trees flattened in a couple of spots by the remnants of winter avalanches, the dirty snow still frozen from it’s slippery and calamitous journey down the side of the mountain. Whole trees are snapped clean in half and the highway closed by such events, but today with no fear of avalanches we cycle on.

Suddenly I catch sight of large black furry mass in the bushes and slam the brakes on, almost toppling off my bike. The young bear, about my height looks up, frozen with fear for a second and then disappears into the undergrowth while my trembling hands fumble in my pocket for a camera. My friends still look alarmed and I quickly cognise that where there is a young bear the mama is not far afield. We all sing tunelessly and loudly, as making noise (hence the bear bells) alert the bears to our presence, and we pedal furiously along the track out of the closed forest. Apparently a bike is a good weapon to protect you against a bear – getting the bear (capsicum) spray out of the bag lashed to the rack might take too many valuable seconds and one cannot afford to be meek with these high order predators if they are aggressive. A bear savaged a cyclist in Anchorage yesterday (!) so I am mentally preparing should one take an interest in me while I am in town. 
http://www.adn.com/2010/06/15/1324609/bear-attacks-cyclist-on-anchorage.html

Chugach State Park melds into the expansive 2,100,000 ha Chugach National Forest somewhere along the trail and the sheer enormity of managing these natural areas is not lost on me. And so we continue on into the cute skiing village of Girdwood past loud dancing clearwater streams and over wide wetlands dotted with water birds busily foraging. A bald eagle joins us for a few minutes soaring overhead as we jump off the bikes and eat lunch at a local pub.

Originally called ‘Glacier City’, Girdwood is surrounded by seven permanent glaciers and began as a supply camp for the alluvial gold miners with claims along the creeks feeding Turnagain Arm. Later it was renamed for an Irish entrepreneur who staked the first gold claims in the area in 1896.

The long lines of ski lifts and runs are visible high on the steep slopes of Mount Alyeska above the opulent Aleyska Hotel complete with a stuffed polar bear in an faux snow scene in an alcove aloft in the foyer.  It’s not clear if it hailed from this neck of the woods. Interestingly Girdwood is home to the northernmost rainforest (sub polar actually) in the world. Wow! Rainforest in this inhospitable environment is almost inconceivable!

After a huge feed I could not finish of halibut and french-fries we are ready to cycle back to the car, at one point running the gauntlet of a gaggle of kids skating along on skis with tracks like those on a bulldozer, taking up more than their fair share of the track. The ride back is further punctuated with a passing train loaded with tourists, headed for Seward that whistles a greeting as I snap a shot, snow streaked mountains framing the picture.

I let my imagination run wild on the trip back into town, thinking about the goldminers coming here, the weak succumbing to the elements, the native people making a living, collecting and storing food and furs for the winter and how this place would have looked back then… much the same I think… wild and beautiful.