Alaska, Day 3 (6/30) -- Denali National Park

[carbonel]

In the morning we took a motor coach (a bus with pretensions of grandeur) to the Denali Princess Lodge. The day was fairly overcast, so the view wasn't all that impressive. The driver pointed out where Denali (Mount McKinley) would be if the day were clearer, but it was cloudy enough that we couldn't even see the mountains he normally used as a landmark to point to Denali.

After settling in and having lunch, we took a natural history tour of Denali National Park. Because of park regulations, we couldn't use the fancy Princess buses for the tour -- only school buses are allowed in the park. As school buses go, though, they were quite nice.

The tour started at the entrance, where we watched a short film about the history of the park. It started out as just over 2 million acres in (IIRC) the late 1920s, but was increased to over 6 million acres in the early 1980s. There's only one road through the park, and most of it is patrolled in winter by dogsled, that being the most efficient and ecologically sound mode of winter transportation.

The second stop was at a cabin where a woman acted the part of a worker at the park from 1935. She also told stories about Fannie Quigley, who lived out in the bush and was quite a character. One might have inspired a scene from The Empire Strikes Back -- she shot a bear, and was caught in the woods after dark, so she cut the bear open and huddled in the carcass overnight. Since the outside of the bear was frozen in the morning, it was probably the right decision.

The third stop was to hear an Athabascan Native American talk about the life of his people historically, and in the present. He spoke a bit in his language, but he said that it's probably going to die out in this generation because not enough younger people are learning the language. He sounded hopeful about the future in other ways, with the younger generation becoming educated and trying to integrate modern ways with traditional customs.

The trip though the park provided a number of impressive mountain views (though no sight of Denali), but was rather a disappointment as animal life was concerned. We saw a pair of ptarmigan, an Alaskan ground squirrel, some mew gulls, as well as a moose footprint. We didn't see any moose, Dall sheep, or bears.

We had dinner at the restaurant at the lodge, and while the service was extremely slow, the food was quite good.

Comments

[dreamshark.livejournal.com]

When I was in Denali Park it was still called McKinley. Didn't see any Dall sheep (at least not from the bus), but several moose and bear. I suspect the number of sightings has a lot to do with the alertness of the bus driver. Every 10 minutes or so, ours would sing out, "Moose on the right," or "Grizzly on the left" and everybody would stampede to one side of the bus, cameras glued to their faces. I'm surprised the bus didn't tip over.