We visit Wiseman first - it as a permanent population of 13! It takes a special sort of person to live there through the winter!
This local resident gave us a very interesting insight into the conditions he lives with. Obviously loves it: been there for 50 years. Nothing shipped in here, its all subsistence living. Plenty of hunting, especially caribou. They are allowed to kill one of those a year and thats plenty of meat to last throughout the winter thats for sure. Bears are all around them, but they’re shy beasts and pretty scared of humans. That differs somewhat from how Hollywood portrays them!
Their log cabins are grouped fairly close together - so they must like each other’s company!
The reason these places exist are firstly for the gold mining. And when that petered out, it was the oil pipeline. This flows from Purdue Bay all across Alaska to the first ice free port in Alaska. (I’ll find that out later). The oil company built a road to service it too, so this became a fuel stop.
The other community boast a population of 20, and this one boasts a Trucker’s stop and a small airstrip.
This bar is the most northerly bar in America! That came as a shock to us. It seems the northern part of Alaska is “dry”, and we’re travelling north tomorrow!!!!
You can see in this pic just how smoky it is around here. Unbelievable to think, they have so much snow and surrounded by mountains but they have a shortage of water. The rivers are full of glacier silt, and the snow is too dry.
Special treat for me on the way back - I got to be co-pilot - yay!
So much fun. It was especially interesting as Fairbanks is surrounded by wildfires (normal for this time of year). The more severe ones create their own clouds - spectacular indeed.
I got a real buzz out of sitting next to the pilot - I think I’ll find it difficult to sit in the back of the jumbo’s now - I’ll want to be up front!
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