Alaska – The World’s Last Great Frontier

Alaska…I have a hard time finding the words to describe it. Awesome is a word that I use when I describe God. There is no way to compare anything on earth to God, but when I was in Alaska and looked at all the mountains and wildlife, I felt as if God was saying, “Look at my creation. Look at what I have made for you to view, to enjoy and to live upon. Look at what I (God) have given to you.” I sometimes forget what God has given me to enjoy. Alaska is just one gift that seems to stand above many of the other places as one of the best gifts. I felt tears in my eyes and on my cheeks as I clicked my camera time after time. The beginning was when I stood looking at Mt. McKinley. I was miles away but yet there it stood 20,320 foot tall, above the clouds, bright and beautiful. I knew that God had everything to do with this one creation. Then as the days passed I realized that God didn’t stop his gift giving with just one mountain, he continued to fill my days with so many different wonderful sights and sounds to enjoy. Let me try to describe a few to you as I tell about my trip.

After arriving at Anchorage I rented a car and drove to Denali National Park. Denali, the “High One,” is the name the Athabascan native people gave the massive peak that crowns the 600 mile lone Alaska range. One of the world’s last great frontiers, its wilderness is largely unspoiled at this time. The drive to Denali was wonderful and I made many stops along the way to take photographs. One of the first stops was at the south viewing area of Mt. McKinley. Mt. McKinley is the crowning jewel of North America’s highest peak in the awe inspiring height of 20,320. I was so very lucky because it was a beautiful clear afternoon and I was among the 30% of people who actually get to see a clear view of Mt. McKinley. I was so very excited. I continued along the Arctic Hwy and I arrived at the Grand Denali Lodge with the sun still high in the sky I thought it was late afternoon but realized it was around 9 or 10 p.m. With the sun so high in the sky I had quite a bit of trouble going to sleep especially with all the beautiful scenery. I was told that the sun would set for about 4 hours each night but it never really got dark all night. That is not too good for a person like me because I have trouble sleeping anyway.

The next day I had scheduled a 95 mile bus tour into Denali National Park. Most of the trip was on a narrow gravel road all the way to Kantishina Wilderness. This was an exciting and long day. Denali’s National Park covers more than 6 million acres. Within those are countless other spectacular mountains and many large glaciers. I was surprised about the glaciers. The diversity of wildlife is the very best. You have grizzly bears, caribou, wolves, Dall sheep, moose and all sorts of birds. The bus would slow or stop when someone spotted a grizzly with her cubs on the beautiful mountain slopes. The male grizzly seemed to stay way off the beaten path but we saw around three or four during our tour. The big horn sheep were high on the mountain tops.

As I traveled through the parks and the towns of Skyway, Ketchikan, Juneau, I felt that I was traveling back in time. I felt a peace and pleasure that I had not felt in a very long time. As I talked to various people I felt that Alaska seems to appeal to most people like no other place in the world. The rugged majestic mountain peaks, the abundant and “large” wildlife at every turn and the remoteness is probably like no other place on earth. Alaska offers glaciers, breath-taking ocean coasts, rivers, waterfalls and incredible fjords. Alaska was my photographic dream and the photos simply do not show the beauty, you would have to be there to see it to fully appreciate it. I loved the feeling of traveling back in time and caught myself envisioning how very hard the life could have been but also how very satisfying at the same time. Just being there gave me such a calm and peaceful feeling, as I would think God intended. I would say that I took in excess of 1,000 photographs. Because my visit was the early part of June which is too early in the season for the salmon spawning so there were no opportunities of capturing any images of bears catching salmon. But, this gives me reason to plan a return trip.

Sunday, June 8th the ship sailed into College Fjord around 6;00 a.m. We spent the day cruising and taking pictures of the some of the most beautiful glaciers in Alaska. College Fjord is a fjord located in the northern sector of Prince William Sound. The fjord contains five tidewater glaciers (glaciers that terminate in water), five large valley glaciers, and dozens of smaller glaciers, most named after renowned East Coast colleges (women's colleges for the NW side, and men's colleges for the SE side). College Fjord was discovered in 1899 during the Harriman Expedition, at which time the glaciers were named. The expedition included a Harvard and an Amherst professor, and they named many of the glaciers after elite colleges. According to Bruce Molina, author of Alaska's Glaciers, "they took great delight in ignoring Princeton".
In 1964 College Fjord was the epicenter of the Good Friday Earthquake, the most powerful earthquake in U.S. history. It is a popular destination for cruise ships. From one place, it is possible to see eight of College Fjords Glaciers at once.