I am keeping a diary while we are here, a leather bound book made of real paper where each morning, while waiting for the sky to glow, I use real ink to record the previous day's events. A lot of those days are pretty mundane, "Worked on a simulation for . . .", ". . . went grocery shopping & library . . .". But I think that by writing it down, it makes me realize that our time in Alaska is slipping by. But I also see that I get out and ski or run or hike about six days a week. There are places which are becoming favorites, which is not bad. But occasionally there is something unique.

So here is a one-line version of my diary.

Goldstream Creek

I think this place wants to make it perfectly clear that there is water here, whether you call it a stream or a creek. There is also gold here - or was until the "Goldstream Dredger #8" got to work on this valley a century ago. But today the dredger is rusting apart, and sinking into the earth half a dozen miles east of here, and the stream, or creek, is buried deep under the ice.

On my map Goldstream Creek is a bog 6-7 miles long and about half a mile wide. In person it is a mixture of spruce, snow and ice.

It is a day which even looks cold, so bright and clear. It was late in he afternoon before I finally stepped into the ski-bindings and set off to explore. For a mile I follow a snow-machine trail through the edge of the forest, then I turn north and head towards a pond in center of the valley. It is here that I picked up a musher's trail. It is too narrow for a snow-machine. I think one other skier has been here. But the dominate tracks are dogs and sleds.

I am surprised as to how narrow the runners on the sled are, each runner is about an inch wide, and the pair of runners span 14-16 inches.

After crossing a marsh with frozen cattails the trail dropped onto the creek proper, and then wound our way to the northeast, with the sun setting behind me. Moose tracks occasionally join the dogsleds, but that first day I saw neither dogsled or moose.

I thought to myself that this is definitely one of my visions of what Alaska should be like. A team of dogs, a musher, a moose all following a frozen stream across a spruce bog. And the setting sun giving a golden glow to everything.

The second time I visited Goldstream it was an overcast day, about two inches of powder had fallen overnight and the snow was still coming down. This time when I got to the stream I found that it had an inch of slush on it! We have not had a thaw, I don't think the temperature has topped 12 deg F in the last week. But water still moves under ground and under ice and occasionally it seeps out, mixes with the new fluffy stuff and gives us this layer of slush.

I took off my skis to cross the stream, the ice under the slush is still thick and firm. I skied along the creek upstream a few hundred meters to where I knew there was a beaver dam. Above the dam the ice was again slush-free and firm.

A mile later I stopped to enjoy the day and sip tea from my thermos. When I stepped off the trail I am nearly waist deep in snow, so I end up sitting on my skis so I don't sink too deeply.

And while I sat there a dog-sled team glided by. I was impressed by how quiet they are. I half expected the musher to be cracking a whip and shouting, and the dogs to be howling, barking, growling. But there was none of that. Instead the snow absorbed the sound of 20 paws and two runners and I heard almost nothing.

Yukon Quest

When I heard that the Two Rivers check-point of the Yukon Quest needed volunteers I was on it. This is as Alaskan as it gets.

Start of the Yukon Quest in downtown Fairbanks

Dogsled teams waiting to start

A team heading into the wilderness

Dogsled team resting at Checkpoint #1

Most people have heard of he Iditarod, the dog sled race from Anchorage to Nome. It is about 940 miles long. The Yukon Quest is similar, and normally stretches over 1,000 miles from Fairbanks, Alaska to Whitehorse, Yukon. The fans of the Quest claim their race is harder, since it crosses mountains and runs a long ways on the Yukon River, which is notoriously rough as its roars over rapids, water levels change, ice cracks and sleds are shipwrecked.

I said it is normally 1,000 miles, but not recently. When Covid hit the border with Canada was closed and the first year the event was cancelled. In the last two years there has been two events, "Yukon Quest - Canada" and "Yukon Quest - Alaska". They promise to get their act together and merge next year.

"Yukon Quest - Alaska" has three divisions; 550 miles, 300 miles and the 80 mile "fun run", with 9, 9 and 20 sleds in those divisions.

The race started in downtown Fairbanks at 11:00 Saturday morning and we went to see them off. We were not certain where exactly the start was, but once in downtown everyone was walking in the same direction so we followed. Eventually the yapping of excited dogs also led us to the starting line.

At three minute intervals the teams were released and dashed east, up the Chena River. There are about a thousand people here, with the temperature near zero, to cheer them on. I didn't know there were this many people in Alaska!

After the third team started, I headed to the car. Kristina is going to meet friends and then walk home. It is thirty miles by road to the first check point, forty miles by musher trail since that follows the river. The dogs do 7-8 miles an hour when running and will travel a little over one hundred miles a day. So I get to the checkpoint well before the teams. The checkpoint is at the Two Rivers community center.

My job is traffic control. In my view there is no traffic. But if you live in the village of Two Rivers this is utter confusion! Before the sleds arrived my jobs mainly was information. When the snow machines that are checking the trail arrived I point out where the checkpoint managers (Josh & Justine) are, where the coffee is, and where to leave their snow machines. Expedition class snow machines with large chainsaw are big! When the "Musher-Handlers" arrive, they all have big trucks and trailers and need to be parked. This is where I met the "First Indian Musher" - meaning from India.

A dog sled team consists of 12 to 18 dogs when they start. Teams can drop dogs as they race, but not replace them. At every checkpoint there are veterinarians who check and approve every dog. Teams also have support trucks and crews, a sled with supplies and the "Musher". In one sense the musher is the quarterback, or team captain with a cloud of dogs and handlers. But I also expect, when they are our there trying to cross "Frozenfoot Stream", fifty miles from the nearest road, they many feel like the loneliest of long distance athletes.

Sleds are not much bigger than the Klondike Derby sleds we used in scouts. These, however, are a lot sturdier since in the Yukon Quest they can be repaired, but not replaced (which differs from the Iditarod). The checker at the checkpoint also check to see that each sled has the required equipment; a "cooker", a radio beacon, an axe. A few years ago a sled was being attacked by a grizzly bear, and the musher defended his dogs and eventually killed the bear with the axe.

The handlers are hauling food for the dogs as well as straw. If the sled stays here for awhile, the dogs will bed down in straw, but still in harness. In fact the 80-mile fun-run are required to spend 6 hours here, so there is a pile of straw for them. Most teams pause here for an hour, take half a bale with them, and then press on. It is getting dark now, but they will race another few hours before a short night and then up over "Rosebud Mountain".

Tracie, Clinton and later Sebastian are checking teams in and out. Josh and Justine manage the whole checkpoint. Jim is radioing back information to the headquarters in Fairbanks. Julie, Nora and Bob are dealing with food (including 144 eggs!). So I go with Kathy and Georganne down the road another few miles to where the race actually crosses the Chena Hot Springs Highway.

In the two hours that I man this crossing, three dogsled teams, four snow machines and six cars or trucks pass by. But it gives me a chance to talk with Kathy & Georganne. Both of them are from Two Rivers and I think it was Kathy who told me that only recently had she given up her team of dogs. I think Kathy must be about eighty, and iron women.

I think half the people in Two Rivers work in Fairbanks (an hour commute) and the other half rase dogs at one of the many kennels. "Paws of Adventures", "Fairbanks Dogsleds", "Frozen Trident", "Chena River", "Smoking' Ace" and many more. In fact, many of the teams racing today call Two Rivers home. And thhis in a town with a population of 700 humans.

I joked with Kathy & Georganne that if I was to apply for permanent residency in Alaska, I would have to acquire a dog, or six. Georganne laughed and agreed, Kathy gave me that look which said "of course - but this is no laughing matter".

I stayed a little while beyond the end of my shift. But with temperatures dropping, after eight hours, I ready to head home to our cabin in the woods.

Short Items

Musk Ox About a mile from our house is the "Large Animal Research Station". Apparently a Musk Ox is more of a sheep than an ox. And it has both hair and wool - some of the warmest and most expensive wool anywhere. Wouldn't you like to have one as a pet?

Tanana River I was skiing on the Tanana River. It is one of these great "braided" rivers of Alaska. All these rivers are glacial at the source, and so carry great masses of silt, gravel and chunks of ice. Which means when they get to the valley bottoms there are reinventing themselves every year, and so have broad, braided river beds. The Tanana river bed is half a mile wide here, but wider in other places.