Places You Should Visit in Alaska

Alaska being part of the circumpolar north experiences displays of northern lights or Aurora Borealis frequently in the winter months. These natural light shows can stretch from horizon to horizon and display remarkable variations in their color and intensity. Aurora viewing is popular with Alaska residents and visitors alike. Being able to witness the northern lights depends on a combination of favorable solar activity and clear skies. One way that you can improve the odds of viewing a good auroral display is to consult the aurora forecasts made by the Geophysical Institute of the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF).

The Science of Space Weather

Auroras are created at extreme latitudes as highly charged particles erupting from solar disturbances stream into the upper atmosphere of the earth. The color of the aurora depends on the altitude of the aurora and atmospheric density found at that level. Auroral altitudes can vary from 80 to 600 kilometers above the earth's surface. Atmospheric gasses like oxygen and nitrogen display unique colors when charged particles strike them with enough force to split their molecules. Oxygen produces red and green lights, while nitrogen creates blue to red to purple colors.

Read more here about Alaska Aurora and Space Weather Forecasts

Copyright © 2008 by Alan Sorum

Alaska's Panhandle is a rocky, narrow strip of land closely abutting British Columbia, running some 644 kilometers (400 miles) from Ketchikan to the upper end of the Inside Passage at Skagway. Steamships carried thousands of prospectors through Inside Passage from Seattle to jam the docks of Skagway and Dyea. Access to the Yukon River and ultimately Dawson City came via the Chilkoot Pass 1,140 meters (3,739 feet) above Dyea.

In its heyday, Dyea proclaimed itself like many other towns yet to come as the largest city in Alaska. Stampeders crossed Chilkoot Pass with their ton of goods in the effort to strike it rich in the Klondike goldfields starting in 1898. Thousands now come to hike the 53 kilometers (33 miles) through history to Lake Bennett each year. Those interested paddling from Lake Bennett to Dawson City on the Yukon River should read Jennifer Voss's Yukon Trail.

Read more here about the Chilkoot Trail to the Klondike

Copyright © 2008 by Alan Sorum

Kennecott is a historic mining town tucked away in a corner of the great Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve. Built to claim a truly huge and rich copper deposit in some of the wildest terrain of Alaska, much of this mining town remains in place. Congress designated Kennecott as a National Historic Landmark in 1986 and the site was taken into the National Park System in 1998 as part of the Wrangell-St. Elias Park.

History - Geologists with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) first explored the region surrounding Root and Kennicott glaciers in 1899. They reported the area's geology as favorable for copper formations.The Kennecott mine and town site was named after the nearby glacier, but there a misspelling of the name at some point in its history. Armed with the USGS information, Clarence Warner and "Tarantula Jack" Smith discovered a massive copper outcropping near the eastern edge of Kennicott Glacier. A guide with St. Elias Alpine Guides, the company that provides tours through the Kennecott Mill, remarked that "Tarantula Jack" had to be the perfect name for an old time prospector. The claim was referred to as the "Bonanza Mine Outcrop" and eventually came under the control of a mining engineer named Stephen Birch. Initial assays found the ore discovery to contain 70% copper. Modern copper mines are profitable with ore at the 1.5% copper levels.

Birch joined forces with eastern business partners, the Guggenheim Brothers and J. P. Morgan, to form the Alaska Syndicate. The group was even part of a political scandal involving President Taft, Gifford Pinchot of the Bureau of Forestry, and Seattle attorney Richard Ballinger. The Syndicate established the Kennecott Copper Corporation in 1915, built the 196-mile Copper River and Northwestern Railway to tidewater at Cordova, and organized a steamship company to carry ore to Tacoma, Washington for processing. Birch's group controlled the entire infrastructure necessary to bring the copper to market. Kennecott was a fully functional company town that employed nearly 600 people. There was a general store, powerhouse, hospital, hotel, bunkhouses, schoolhouse and recreation hall.

Read more here about the Kennecott National Historic Landmark

Copyright © 2008 by Alan Sorum

Wrangell is a community steeped in rich history, home to people for thousands of years. It is an island community in southern Southeast Alaska that has experienced the boom and bust resource development process so prevalent in Alaska's past. Wrangell Island, strategically overlooking the mouth of the Stikine River, has been governed by four nations. People have lifeways dependent on subsistence gathering of food, commercial fishing, logging of the Tongass National Forest, and lately the tourism trade. Wrangell retains its unique character in a time of homogeny; gritty, independent and industrious.

Setting - The town of Wrangell is located on the extreme northern tip of the same named island. Wrangell is in the heart of the Tongass National Forest, an immense expanse of temperate rain forest. Tucked directly next to the mainland, the community lies some thirty miles from the border of British Columbia, Canada and is about halfway between the Alaskan cities of Ketchikan and Juneau.

History - Inhabitants settled Wrangell Island long before European contact with the coastal shores of Alaska. Tlingit people lived in settlements along the island and controlled trade with Natives of Canada's interior via the Stikine River that passes through the coastal mountains. Wrangell was an outpost of Russian-America with establishment of Redoubt St. Dionysius built to protect the fur trade from Hudson's Bay Company in 1834. Under the British flag, Hudson's Bay Company leased land south of Cape Spencer and founded Fort Stikine to replace Redoubt St. Dionysius. On 18 October 1867, Amercian Secretary William Steward negotiated with Russian ambassador Baron Eduard de Stoeckel to purchase the Alaska Territory for $7.2 million. The United States became the fourth country to rule over Wrangell after the Tlingit, Russians and English.

Read more here about Wrangell Island.

Copyright © 2008 by Alan Sorum

The watercourse running from the Spatsizi Plateau to the Pacific Ocean is a territory of superlatives, yet known simply as the Stikine River. Naturist John Muir's initial trip up the river changed his life. He noted 300 glaciers along its shores. Details are in his book Travels in Alaska. Muir says of the Stikine, it's a "Yosemite 100 miles long." Alaskans note with some disappointment that the majority of the river lies within Canada, with the States' portion being only 64 kilometers (40 miles) from the border.

Read more about the Stikine River in Bonnie Demerjian's book Roll on! Discovering the Wild Stikine River

First People - The Tlingit people of Southeast Alaska named the river Stikine for Great River. Tlingit migration lore tells of their people's travel west looking for a new homeland. They encountered a glacier that was too great to cross. A meltwater tunnel was visible at its base and several young men volunteered to attempt a passage through the crevasse. At the last moment, a couple of elders took the trip upon themselves fearing loss of the youth to the future of the group. These elders passed safety through the glacier and found the rich land of Southeast Alaska, Lingít Aaní. The remaining people followed their elders into their new land and became the first Tlingits. Stikine Tlingit traded historically with the Tahltan living on the upper reachs of the river.

Read more here about the Stikine River.

Copyright © 2008 by Alan Sorum

Anan Creek is internationally known as one of the most productive Pink salmon streams in North America, making it by default a unmatched location for viewing both Black and Brown bears. Anan Creek is located on the north shore of the Cleveland Peninsula, just south of Wrangell Island and north of Ketchikan. Wrangell resident Bonnie Demerjian has authored Anan - Stream of Living Water, an exhaustive chronicle of the stream and its denizens. The account displays Bonnie's depth of local knowledge and understanding of the complex relationships that exist between human visitors, feeding bears and spawning salmon meeting together at the creek.

Demerjian paints a descriptive view of the region's natural history and geology. Using photographs taken by Ivan Simonek, she describes the plant and animal species found in the Anan watershed. There is extensive discussion of the Pink salmon life cycle and development of commercial fishing in the area. Explorer George Vancouver noted Anan Bay in 1793, and there has been aboriginal use of the Creek's natural plenty since the beginning of human occupation in Southeast Alaska some 10,000 years ago. A great sidebar and continued discussion in the text relates to the Tlingit Cycle of Food and the methods used to capture the salmon. Later industrial fishing endangered the resident Pink salmon population and would prove a driving issue in establishing Alaska Statehood.

Learn more here about Anan - Stream of Living Water

Copyright © 2008 by Alan Sorum