Arctic Circle

No trip to Alaska would be complete without going to the Arctic Circle.  However, I chickened out on driving our motorhome.  We took a tour bus.

This was our tour bus.  It was a 400 mile roundtrip to the Arctic Circle from Fairbanks.  About half of that was over a road called the Dalton Highway.  We had been told that the road was terrible; that flat tires and broken windshields were likely.  It turned out to be an exaggeration.  The road was no worse than any section road in Oklahoma.

This is the Alaska Pipeline.  It is raised above ground here to protect both the pipeline and the permafrost landscape.  The upright supports are chilled to avoid thawing the frozen ground.

This is the bridge across the Yukon River.  The river is quite large here but not as big as the mosquitoes.

This may not look like a first class motel, but the prices did.  A small room with two cots was $89 and a shower cost another $10.  We were told that further north, a comparable room was $150 and at Prudhoe Bay it would be $220.  If you intend to get sleepy, it would be a good idea to do so further south.

This was a wild fire somewhere east of us.  It was one of 57 such fires in Alaska at the time.  Most of these fires are started by lightning.  We were told that 1800 lightning strikes in one day was not unusual.  No one does anything about the fires unless people or their possessions are threatened.  Since there is a lot of territory and very few people in Alaska, all but a few of the fires are simply allowed to burn themselves out.

As we got closer to the Arctic Circle, most of the landscape was tundra like this.  Walking on the tundra is like walking on a mattress.  Since the growing season is so short, vegetation that dies has no chance to rot.  Therefore, there is about four inches of dead vegetation on the ground giving it a spongy feel.  Our guide dug a small hole through the tundra.  He dug through four inches of dead vegetation and then about eight inches of soil and hit permafrost.  Nothing but simple grasses or lichen can grow here.

Here we are standing on the Arctic Circle.  There is nothing here except the sign you see and a small campground run by the US Bureau of Land Management.

The trip was interesting and educational.  I wouldn't have missed it for the world, but I will never do it again.  We spent 18 hours bouncing around in a bus on a rough, dusty road in order to take this picture.  Of course, we did receive a certificate to prove that we did indeed cross the Artic Circle.