In preparing for the trip and doing all the research on the Refuge, I went out of my way not to have too many preconceived notions of what to expect. I didn’t go in with a check list of all the animals and birds I wanted to see, I was prepared for weather ranging from […]

They say, of course, that a picture is worth a thousand words. And, gosh darn it, I came home from this adventure with 1,564 photos. Let’s see…that’s 1,564,000 words. More words than War and Peace, Les Miserables, and Atlas Shrugged combined! Which is precisely the danger of point-and-shoot cameras: you point and shoot them. “What a […]

It’s funny what turned out to really be valuable on my trip. After all the planning and training and classes, the single thing that was the biggest help was something I learned in rock climbing.  No, it wasn’t the Figure Eight knot, which did come in handy, and god knows we used carabiners all the […]

Dateline: Bellingham The one thing I had convinced myself not to be disappointed about was not seeing the Aurora Borealis. It was going to be too light in the Arctic to see them, so I had not allowed myself to hope; I would have to return in winter. But last night on the ferry from Haines, […]

Yep, that’s me – fully decked out in rain gear, life vest, rubber gloves and boots, and a bunch of warm layers – and having a blast!  I got the front row seat on the raft.  Well, actually it was the back row seat, but since you spend most of the time floating with the […]

Dateline: Fairbanks There is so much I haven’t told you yet!  There is so much more I wanted write about before I headed into the Refuge. About how pathetically long it took me to figure out that I wasn’t going to see the Aurora Borealis. It will never be completely dark in the Refuge.  The […]

“Holy Cow!” has turned into “Holy Shit!” I thought the drive through the Peace Valley and the first part of the Al-Can was beautiful, but it just keeps getting better and better. The stretch of the Al-Can up and over Summit Pass and down along Muncho Lake was beyond belief.  I kept muttering “Oh my […]

Recently someone, and let’s not call this person a friend, had the nerve to ask:  Why do you get to go?  Other than the obvious jealousy behind the question, I have to admit I’d been asking myself the same thing, in a slightly kinder way: How did I get to be so lucky? The obvious […]

In the rush to get ready to drive, I haven’t had a chance to tell you about all the fun stuff I’ve been doing in my battle against being the weakest link.  What skills, I asked myself, do I need to develop so that I can be a responsible member of the team? First thing […]

Hey, listen up all of you who told me what a long, difficult drive this would be, how awful the road conditions on the Alaska-Canada Highway are.  In your striving to make sure I knew what I was getting myself into, you forgot to mention one thing: the drive is absolutely beautiful!  Daisy and I […]