21 Apr 2018 – 14:18
Alaskan illuminations: I went in winter to see northern lights, I saw much more in daytime
A heated walkway leads to the steaming, geothermal waters at Chena Hot Springs Resort in Fairbanks, Alaska. Washington Post photo by Katherine Frey.
By Andrea Sachs | The Washington Post
Where were they?
The hour was closer to midnight than noon, and the sky above the small Alaskan town of Talkeetna was as black as a bear’s button nose. Several stars twinkled their encouragement. Before stepping out in the minus-numbing-degree air, I had checked the Aurora Forecast. The rating was a 5, which the Geophysical Institute described as meaning “Auroral activity will be high.” I had even brought along my lucky charm, Aurora Dora.
So I ask again: Where were they?
“Nature does as nature wants,” said the northern lights photographer as we stood in the middle of an empty street, gazing at a layer of creamy clouds.
Aurora Dora piled into her car and, with a shrug of a smile, drove off. I returned to my hotel room and sat by the window, hopeful.
The aurora borealis is a staple of Alaskan winters, as common as moose, down skirts and frosted beards. From roughly late August through mid-April, the skies take on a hallucinogenic cast, the result of sun particles colliding with gases and releasing streamers of green, pink, blue, red and violet. The auroral zone – the staging area for the astronomical show – covers a wide swath of the northern polar region. Interior Alaska, for one, averages 40 to 100 sightings a year. In fact, Fairbanks is so keen on the spectacle that it created a fifth season, the Aurora Season.
Even with such strong odds, there are no guarantees. On my migration north from Anchorage to Fairbanks, I always kept one eye on the sky, but I allowed the other one to wander. Offseason Alaska, I learned, also illuminates.
At the Borealis Basecamp in Fairbanks, the domes’ viewing surfaces are made from helicopter windshields. Washington Post photo by Katherine Frey.
Alaskans cultivate a strong sense of community, and that neighborly spirit extends to strangers chasing down the lights. Locals willingly offer tips on how to see them and will even watch the skies for you so that you can sleep.
At the Hotel Captain Cook in Anchorage, the first stop on my nine-night quest, I ordered a wake-up call. A front-desk attendant jotted down my room number and promised to rouse me, no matter the hour, to see the lights. I asked him where the staff receives its information, imagining an emergency aurora hotline and text alerts. Cabdrivers and a co-worker whose shift ends at 11 p.m., he said. (Pike’s Waterfront Lodge in Fairbanks receives its intel from similar sources: the airport shuttle drivers and employees “getting some fresh air,” code for a smoke break.) However, he said he won’t typically awaken guests for a reading below a 6.
“You’ll see it for a minute,” he said, “and then it’s gone.”
Iris Vandenham leads a dog team home after getting water from a Talkeetna spring. Washington Post photo by Katherine Frey.
My day in Anchorage overlapped with the Fur Rendezvous Festival, the annual release of pent-up energy that includes sled-dog races, carnival rides, a costumed run and an outhouse-on-skis contest. Beneath an overpass, gloved artists carved frozen blocks for a snow sculpture competition. I passed a woolly mammoth, Gandhi and SpongeBob SquarePants before running into Jesus and his creator. Jon Eric Thompson, a 30-year resident of Alaska, set down his hatchet.
“As soon as I get out of work, I look up at the sky,” he said. “When I go out to start the van and see the lights, I tell the kids, who look up.”
The takeaway lesson: Keep your head up.
At the Hoarding Marmot, a consignment shop that specializes in outdoor gear, I asked an employee to suggest proper attire for my extreme sport: standing in below-freezing temperatures for long stretches of time. Rifling through racks filled with clothes for skiers, mountain climbers and mushers, he pulled out head-to-toe down – from hat to bootees.
Jon Eric Thompson uses a hatchet on a snow sculpture – second place, solo – at the Fur Rendezvous Festival in Anchorage. MUST CREDIT: Washington Post photo by Katherine Frey.
While shopping, I met a local nature photographer who showed me his photos of grizzly bears, moose and the northern lights.
Then, as Alaskans are wont to do, he pulled up the Aurora Forecast. The evening’s was a 2.
“It can be a 5, nothing; a 2, something,” he said optimistically.
In other words, slight chance of activity, but little hope of a wake-up call from the Captain.
The Aurora Winter Train travels around the same timespan as its namesake, from mid-September through mid-May. The train departs Anchorage on Saturdays and arrives in Fairbanks 12 hours later; it reverses course on Sundays. Three years ago, the railway added a midweek run on select dates to accommodate the growing number of offseason passengers. Many rail riders are locals with no pressing schedule or homesteaders who depend on the train’s flag-stop service to access their remote property. Others come from Japan and China. In some Asian cultures, the aurora borealis contains fertility powers equal to oysters and Barry White.
In the morning, the one-room railway station was crammed with a toy train display – part of Fur Rondy – and passengers dragging wheelie luggage encrusted with fresh snow. Over the loudspeaker, an employee urged us to stop into the gift store, the only retail option between here and Fairbanks. A small group of alarmed passengers rushed the shelves and racks. (I scratched the itch with a postcard and copy of the “Ride Guide to the Historic Alaska Railroad,” which highlights attractions along the route.)
On the train, an employee rattled off interesting facts from both sides of the track. On your left, a grove of trees felled by the 9.2-magnitude earthquake of 1964. On your right, a moose. On your left, Denali, the tallest mountain in North America. On your right, two moose.
“They’ll stop the train for moose, bear and bald eagles,” said a passenger from Fairbanks, who was returning from a girlfriends’ weekend in Anchorage, “but not for Sarah Palin’s house.”
In Wasilla, she pointed out the former governor’s street sign (left side) and her church (right side).
Most of the travelers continued onward to Fairbanks, but a few of us hopped off at Talkeetna. I disembarked knowing that I would be stuck here for several days. The next passenger train would not return till Tuesday.
Trisha Costello, who owns the Roadhouse, and her partner picked us up. The lodge and restaurant are a short walk from the station, but we took the long way around to get the lay of the town: the Fairview Inn, for live music and drinks; the Walter Harper Talkeetna Ranger Station, for a video about mountain climbing in Denali National Park; and Nagley’s Store, office of the late Mayor Stubbs, a cat. (The town is divided on the new chief, Denali, who often hangs around the West Rib Pub drinking a catniptini.) We passed only a few people walking around the snowy streets, a sharp contrast to summer, when throngs of cruisers and land tourists jam the town like spawning salmon.
“There are two Alaskas,” Trisha said. “Winter Alaska really belongs to Alaskans, with the occasional visitor, flight crew or traveling nurse. They come in the winter because it’s not summer.”
The final, filled product, ready for the oven, after a Talkeetna pie-making class. Washington Post photo by Katherine Frey.
Eight years ago, the Roadhouse started holding weekend pie-making classes during the slow season. Three student bakers attended the afternoon session. Only one – me – lived in the Lower 48, arrived by train and had never baked a pie before. The other two friends drove up from Anchorage and knew their way around flour and a pound of butter.
Andy Howe, our easygoing instructor, handed us each a white apron (for keeps) and asked us to pick a flavor.
The choices covered the fruit spectrum, from apples to berries, singular or in such combos as rhubarb and raspberry. I chose a mix of black, blue and cranberry, which I pilfered throughout the lesson, sucking on the frozen clusters.
I tried to copy Andy’s techniques, but couldn’t keep up. The edge of my crust looked like an unkempt braid.
“The imperfections are what make your pie perfect,” he said. “You know it’s handmade.”
Buttercup is among six stars at Running Reindeer Ranch near Fairbanks. Washington Post photo by Katherine Frey.
Hours later, I opened a box with my pie inside and slightly shuddered. But then I remembered another one of Andy’s adages: “An ugly pie is the pie you don’t make.”
In the dining room, I approached several guests, offering a slice.
There were several takers. Lonnie Dupre, an Arctic explorer attempting a winter solo ascent of Mount Hunter in Denali, cleaned his plate. Bye, bye, beautiful pie.
To view the northern lights, you need utter darkness. That leaves a lot of daylight hours to fill. To be exact, 9 hours 51 minutes and 32 seconds on the first day I arrived, with more than a six-minute gain each day thereafter.
Many of the activities that seem exotic in the Lowers are a way of life for Alaskans. Locals use snowshoes, sled dogs and snowmachines (mobiles, to you and me) for errands and commuting. Clearly, their modes of transportation are more adventurous than ours. Plus, you’d earn a low rating for telling an Uber driver that he’s a good boy.
Several outfitters in Talkeetna rent snowmachines and arrange dog-sled rides, but only Iris Vondenham shows visitors how her dogs help her run the household.
“I have a spring a quarter-mile away,” said the owner of Talkeetna Flower and Homestead Tours. “I use four dogs to fill up the jugs.”
Iris, who came to Alaska by way of the Netherlands and Silicon Valley, homesteads seven miles south of Talkeetna. In addition to traditional dog sled tours, she invites guests into her home, a gnome-like dwelling with the basic amenities of a campsite. She chops wood for her stove, forages chaga for tea and relies on solar panels and a generator to power her lights (winter-use only) and computer (she still works as a Web designer).
“People say, “You’re so tough,'” she said, “but I don’t have an option.”
Iris bought the 40-acre property for her dogs. She needed space for her septet to run – and howl – without annoying the neighbors.
“Every day, they’re pretty much running,” she said of the dogs, who the day before had helped her groom five miles of trails.
The dogs live outdoors, in or atop their wooden shelters, though Iris will sometimes bring a few inside for a sleepover. Iris unhooked Sam, an Alaskan husky mix who acted more like a lap dog than a lead-in-training. I followed him inside, where Iris made tea and talked about her way of life. She bought the property more than a year ago, transforming the weekend retreat (basically a skeleton with an outhouse) into her year-round residence. She has a long list of renovation ideas, including a garden, woodshed, root cellar, sauna and smoker. But a more pressing need: collecting water.
Iris harnessed up Sam, Rachel, Luke and Mouse and sped down a spruce-lined trail to the year-round water source. She crawled down to a spout and filled up two plastic containers. The dogs curled up in the snow, relaxing between chores.
In the winter, the Aurora Dora Gallery in Talkeetna opens at 1 p.m. Owner Dora Redman, who works the graveyard shift as a northern lights photographer, is not an early riser. When she teaches workshops, her day starts at 10 p.m.
Dora hails from Sao Paolo, a Brazilian city that has neither northern lights nor snow. She has been photographing the aurora borealis for nearly 20 years and understands the natural phenomena as well as any Alaskan or geophysicist.
“You need dark, clear skies with no light pollution,” she said. “Some people believe that if you whistle, the aurora will come closer.”
She paused and looked at me with mock sternness.
The Chena Hot Springs Resort’s Aurora Ice Museum stays a constant 25 degrees to keep the works solid. Washington Post photo by Katherine Frey.
“Please don’t whistle.”
Dora explained that we were in the low end of the 11-year solar cycle, which means the amount of activity in the sun that produces sun spots is calmer and creates fewer intense auroras.
“In three to five years,” she said, “we will reach a high.”
But, she added, “Any little shake of the magnetic field will produce some form of the aurora.”
I told Dora that I was headed to Fairbanks next. She said the city was an excellent spot for the lights, because Fairbanks sits directly under the aurora oval. However, for a dramatic framing of the main subject, she prefers Talkeetna.
“For a photographer, Fairbanks is gorgeous, but Talkeetna is phenomenal,” she said. “We have something no one else has – the Alaska Range on the northern horizon.” (Another bonus: Talkeetna is 20 degrees warmer.)
Dora pulled up the Current Activity map on the Aurora Forecast.
“Aurora is happening in Europe right now,” she said.
To bide my time, I set out in search of moose and more people who could assure me that I would see the aurora.
About 60 miles northeast of Fairbanks, the hot springs have been pruning skin since 1905, when a pair of gold-mining brothers pursued a steamy tip from a U.S. Geological Survey team. The brew of sulfate, chloride and bicarbonate of sodium averages 106 degrees, easily 100 times warmer than the evening air temperature.
After dark, I peeled back my onion layers and, in my bathing suit, belly-crawled from the shallows into the shoulder-high water. Steam rolled in like Maine fog. Ghostly figures floated in and out of view. I accidentally crashed a game of Marco Polo.
I stayed in the hot springs for more than two hours, my arm and legs wobbling like overcooked noodles. Back in my cabin, I was brushing my teeth when I noticed an insulated golf cart puttering down the lane. The vehicle pulled up and the driver walked toward my front door. Waving my toothbrush, I excitedly asked him, “Are you my wake-up call?”
An intricate, stylized carving of a face at the Aurora Ice Museum in Fairbanks, Alaska. Washington Post photo by Katherine Frey.
He showed me an image of a neon green bolt hovering over the Ice Museum, a few steps from my cabin. I scoured the sky for a match, but only saw a fuzzy green shape that, in a different place and time, could pass for pollution. Wrapped in a quilt, I roamed the resort wishing upon a star for a stronger aurora. But I was too late: The stars had shut down the request line.
At the Borealis Basecamp, I set up my position before the sun dropped. Tea mug on the nightstand, gray down comforter peeled back, pillows stacked and angled. Now, I was ready for some bedtime aurora-viewing.
The base camp opened in November on 70 acres of boreal forest, 25 miles north of the bright lights and big city of Fairbanks. The natural features (trees, mountains, unobstructed sky) dwarf the bread crumbs of civilization, including a gold mine, an oil pipeline and the distant Elliott Highway.
Guests sleep in futuristic-looking domes that are off the grid, though you’d never know it without peeking behind Oz’s curtain. I had heat, running water and a fridge. The one reminder that I was “roughing it” was the toilet. After about 16 flushes, I would need a replacement liner for the dry toilet. But that was a small sacrifice for the dome’s best feature: the giant window that turned the sleeping accommodations into an observatory.
Moonrise in Fairbanks, Alaska, over a yurt at Borealis Basecamp. MUST CREDIT: Washington Post photo by Katherine Frey.
I watched the full moon rise before venturing over to the communal yurt, where guests gather for meals and socializing. Jeremy Rogers, one of the owners, and Frank Stelges, who leads photography classes, were relaxing with a pair of dogs and a plate of pastries. I asked Jeremy about the inspiration for the domes. He said research centers in Antarctica use the shelters, as do rescue teams, after natural disasters. The fiberglass buildings are quick to assemble and can withstand extreme weather as well as polar bears. The basecamp’s domes are identical, with the exception of the 16-foot-wide helicopter-screen window. Those are a Borealis Basecamp original.
“Nothing was built for aurora-viewing,” Jeremy said. “We are trying to create an aurora-centric destination.”
Earlier in the week, the northern lights had unfurled over the six domes. A Florida film crew working on a reality show captured the moment, a crucial plotline for their pilot. The show was about granting wishes to individuals confronting serious obstacles. Blake White, a West Virginia farmer, suffered from a degenerative eye disease that threatened his vision. His one wish was to see the northern lights, and Alaska complied.
For once, I didn’t care if the sky was blotted out with snow clouds. That it was bright outside. That the Aurora Forecast was a 2. I was going to finally see the northern lights.
I entered a very dark space and, within minutes, swoops and swirls of green appeared before me. I watched the lights flit like gossamer scarves across the sky and cascade down like a waterfall. A detached voice reminded us that to see the aurora borealis, we needed patience and a parka.
I sank deeper into the movie theater seat at the University of Alaska Museum of the North in Fairbanks. Actually, I just needed patience.
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IF YOU GO
Where to stay
Hotel Captain Cook
939 W. Fifth Ave, Anchorage
800-843-1950
captaincook.com
The 546-room downtown hotel, a Historic Hotels of America member, feels like a mini-mall (in a good way), with a dozen shops selling Alaskan art, souvenirs and clothing, plus four restaurants. Ask at the front desk for a northern lights wake-up call and a room with views of the Cook Inlet or Chugach Mountains. Rates from $165.
Roadhouse
13550 E. Main St., Talkeetna
907-733-1351
talkeetnaroadhouse.com
The Roadhouse, which originally hosted miners, trappers and railroad workers, is the “Cheers” of Talkeetna. Stay in one of the main house rooms (dorm-style or traditional), all of which have shared bathrooms. If you are sensitive to noise (the building is more than 100 years old and very creaky), rent the apartment over the museum or one of the cabins. The charming Garden Cabin, by the airstrip, comes with an outhouse and a wandering moose. The property offers pie-making classes ($70) on select weekends from October through April. Or book a two-night package with the Alaska Railroad for $265; price includes round-trip train ticket from Anchorage, one night’s lodging and pie class. Double rooms from $85.
Borealis Basecamp
2640 Himalaya Rd., Fairbanks
907-885-2845
borealisbasecamp.net
The basecamp, which sits in a boreal forest 25 miles north of Fairbanks, is open September through April. For next season, the owners plan to expand the number of two-person domes from six to 20 and add a lodge and restaurant. (For its inaugural year, guests had to preorder dinner, which came from a restaurant in Fairbanks.) Other activities, such as fat-tire biking, dog sledding and northern lights photo workshops, are additional. Two-night minimum stay starts at $389 per couple per night, including breakfast.
Where to eat
Roadhouse
13550 E. Main St., Talkeetna
907-733-1351
talkeetnaroadhouse.com
Pull up a seat beside a stranger and dig into homemade breakfast and lunch dishes served at long, family-style tables. The restaurant specializes in hearty meals – don’t worry, you’ll shiver off the calories – such as hot cakes (the flavor changes daily), Hungarian mushroom soup, mac-n-cheese and pastys. (Fillings include beef, salmon and curried potato and pea, among others.) Finish with a slice of pie. Main dishes from $6.25.
What to do
Alaska Railroad
411 W. First Ave., Anchorage
800-544-0552
alaskarailroad.com
The Aurora Winter Train travels between Anchorage and Fairbanks on weekends from September through May and on select weekdays December through March. The trip takes 12 hours, or you can stop for a few nights, for instance, in Talkeetna. One-way fares are $195 for adults and $98 for children ages 2 through 11. For meals, take a seat in the dining car for a proper sit-down experience or grab a portable snack in the cafe car.
Chena Hot Springs
17600 Chena Hot Springs Rd., Fairbanks
907-451-8104
chenahotsprings.com
Soak all day, if you can handle the heat. The pools are open from 7 a.m. to 11:45 p.m., and the $15 pass includes the hot springs lake (adults-only), indoor pool, hot tubs and locker room. (Note: Don’t leave your boots on the rack in the entrance. Mine went a-missing.) Add $5 for a towel. The resort also offers a full slate of summer and winter activities, such as a sled dog kennel tour ($20), Aurora Ice Museum ($15, plus $15 for an appletini served in an ice glass) and Aurora snow coach tour ($75). In addition, visitors can spend the night in a lodge room or dry cabin; springs pass included.
Talkeetna Flower Kennel and Homestead Tours
Seven miles south of Talkeetna
907-232-3944
flowerkennel.com
Dutch native Iris Vandenham turns her off-the-grid home into a classroom, where she teaches visitors about her life as a homesteader and a musher to a sled dog team of seven. Tour options range from a half-hour dog sled ride ($75) to mushing school, a ride, and a kennel and homestead tour ($155) in the winter and a kennel and homestead tour in the summer.
Running Reindeer Ranch
About 25 minutes from downtown Fairbanks
907-455-4998
runningreindeer.com
Hike with a herd of “pet” reindeer, including Buttercup, Daisy and, the newest addition, Margarita. During the forested walk behind the owners’ house, learn about the domesticated caribou, from what they like to eat to how you can tell if a reindeer is pregnant. Reservations required. Cost is $55 to $100, depending on the season.
University of Alaska Museum of the North
1962 Yukon Dr., Fairbanks
907-474-7505
uaf.edu/museum
The museum covers all facets of Alaskan life, including the wildlife (see the 36,000-year-old mummified steppe bison), gold mining, dinosaurs, Denali and the northern lights. The theater screens several films, including “Dynamic Aurora,” for $5. Admission costs $14
Information
travelalaska.com
