Anchorage is a young town, the average age is 33, but, of course the large presence of so much military helps keep the age down. Young people, young families. On the other hand, Who retires to Anchorage? The story I hear the most is that people leave and retire to the Desert Southwest. In fact, several of the RV park owners that I’ve talked with tour the southwest during the winter or have homes there. They travel back to Alaska to open their parks in mid-May.
Anchorage itself is young, since it wasn’t even begun until 1915 when the Alaska Railroad chose this as its location and brought in lots of people. The original Anchorage, circa 1915, was a group of tents put up to house workers on the Alaska Railroad. This shanty town housed some 2,000 workers...but there was only one bath tent. Well, who wants to take an outdoor bath in the cold, anyway?
This small city which was 2000 in 1915 is close to 300,000 today. Pretty quick growth. But, then, there were lots of things happening during these 100 years that affected its growth: WWII and the building of the Alaska Highway, the growth of the military for defense, the discovery of oil on the North Shore, the growth of the tourist trade. All these contributed to Anchorage’s good fortune. But, it’s the spectacular scenery that frosts the cake and makes the growth stick. We’ve talked to lots of people who love it here and can’t imagine living anywhere else.
Look at any map of Anchorage and you’ll notice it’s location on a triangular peninsula with an inlet on the northwest called Knik Arm,
Turnagain? Huh? Ah, yes, when Captain Bligh (yes, that very same Captain Bligh of mutiny fame) was ordered to check out a narrow inlet, he realized that it was a bling alley and he would need to Turn Again to get out to sea.
Mountains are visible from every direction, even across the inlets but you never feel claustrophobic. They just add a frame for all the beauty around you. Bounded by all this natural beauty, who’d ever want to leave?
However, as beautiful as it looks, Cook Inlet is very unfriendly water. Cold enough to kill even in summer. Churning wildly when something called the ‘bore’ tide comes in with one rush. It’s the second most violent tide in the world after the Bay of Fundy in Canada. Furthermore, the glacial silt mudflats are ‘thixotropic’ (another word for ‘quicksand’), meaning they liquify when disturbed. Your footsteps may liquefy the clay, causing you to sink in, whereupon the clay re-solidifies around you like cement. I’ve read stories of moose who were out on the mud flats and never made it to shore when the tide came in.
How about the length of the days in summer? In midsummer, Anchorage’s days are around 20 hours long. It’s difficult to sleep when sunlight is streaming in so we’ve heard that some people put tin foil on their windows to keep the sunlight out.
The sun doesn’t even start thinking about setting until it’s almost midnight, and dawn comes just a bit after 4 a.m. In the middle of winter, however, you’ll only see the sun for 5 and a half hours a day. 10 am to 3:30 pm, that’s about the best you can expect.
Most of the people here are immigrants who came for the military, the oil drilling, the gold, etc. Students in the Anchorage school district speak almost 100 different languages.
About the animals. Lots of moose. Here, they are not something you run out to snap a photo of, they are a nuisance: they eat the new bush you just put out in your yard, they run across the street in front of your car, they get angry and chase you. Every year more than 100 moose are killed by reckless or luckless drivers. But some moose retaliate, they stomp several people to death every year.
Bear: yep, take your bear spray out when you hike around here. (However, we hardly ever see people with bear spray around here. Even with all the signs. I’ve seen one or two people with it beside us.)
We keep hearing that you come to Alaska in the summer and fall in love with it and then . . . Then, there’s that ‘winter’ thing. 4 months when the average high temperature doesn’t even creep above to 30. And, the darkness during winter. Ummm. But we’ve read that Anchorage isn’t as cold as you might think: the ocean temperatures keep the winter temps around a balmy 20 degrees. However, the coldest temperature recorded was 38 degrees BELOW zero. Hmmm, ‘not as cold’ my foot. -38 sounds cold to me.
‘Give me my t-shirt, Ma, it’s warmed up to 20.’ I laugh but we spoke with a young woman who’s lived here for 3 years and said that she realized she was an Alaskan when she wore her t-shirt and was just fine at 30 degrees.
Today, we toured around and visited several sites that we had missed before.
We started at the Saturday Market where everything Alaskan was being sold: homemade knives,
At times this is called combat fishing. This is competition at its fines. ‘Mano a mano’ in the stream. Sometimes you get ‘hooked.’ In the ear, in the nose, in the hand. And, there are unwritten rules:
Protect your eyes and ears, head and body as much as possible. Sunglasses, safety glasses or goggles are a must. A hat is a must, and plenty of clothing and good waders, too. You want to protect yourself from the sun and from hooks.
Don’t step out into the water any farther than the people alongside you or you will create a problem for them to cast and get the correct drift to properly catch a fish.
Cast straight in front of you or a little upstream so you don’t cast over others lines. The current is moving fast so you want to follow your line with your rod tip. You then pull your line in, lift your rod tip up and behind you and “flip” your line back out into the water the same way.
Don’t take someone else’s place unless they’ve left it for good.
Land your fish as quickly as you can. Other anglers are waiting to get their lines back in the water.
It’s really cool to watch these people fish. Their fishing lines are whipping into the air from behind them and into the water almost in synchronization with all the others lining the bank. They they pull them in using their other hand to regulate this and then cast again. Poetry in motion,
We got to see two fish fight for their lives at the end of a hook only to be flung ashore, clubbed and taken home for dinner.
But our day was not over yet. We then headed over to the largest seaplane base in the world.
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