Santa and Arctic Circle - Day 9 @ Alaska

We woke up to an overcast sky and intermittent drizzles.  Guess the weather had to catch up on our plan some day. 

Drove two hours up Park Highway on our way to Fairbanks.  Couldnt see anything much outside due to heavy fog that settled in soon.  We reached Fairbanks in a couple of hours and drove on to the nearby city of North Pole.  My son was thrilled about our trip to Santa House. He got more excited at the sight of the large Santa cut-out outside the building and the  enclosure with four reindeers!  We went inside to see a shopping area filled with Christmas goodies and souvenirs.  And Santa himself was patient enough to answer all my son's questions and requests for the next few minutes.  We also sent out few post cards - they will have the North Pole postage seal of course! Well worth the hour we spent there - my son was never so happy last few days.

House of Santa , North Pole, Alaska

The rain still didnt let up and we were worried about our next trip getting cancelled.  We were scheduled to go on an Arctic fly/drive adventure.  Luckily enough, the flight took off as scheduled even though the overcast clouds meant that we couldn't see much outside during the initial 30 minutes.  We flew from Fairbanks to Coldfoot  - a distance of close to 500 miles.  It was an incredible sight to watch Yukon river tracing its path from Canada, Brooks ranges outlining the horizon and the Dalton Highway lying alongside the shiny trans-alaskan pipeline. 

From Fairbanks to Coldfoot and back

We started our drive back from Coldfoot - named after prospectors who got cold feet after reaching this far - around 3 PM.  It will be an almost 12 hour drive back through the Dalton Highway and worth every minute of it.  We crossed Arctic Circle -  rather hopped, jumped or danced our way across in a nice "ceremony" - after an hour's drive. Arctic Circle is the southernmost point where one can see the sun at midnight during the summer solstice.  It felt a privelege to be one among the few to cross this imaginary line. 

Arctic Circle - with our guide Chris

We stopped shortly to take a walk across the Tundra. Chris - our guide - cut a portion of the soil out and showed the permafrost lying underneath. It is incredible that the whole expanse was built on a permanent layer of ice with an overlay of a feet of soil along with a symbiotic pool of vegetation.  We stopped for lunch at Yukon river camp. 

View from Dalton Highway

The river and the bridge provided a great background against the late afternoon sun (it was around 6 PM!).  Yukon is the 5th largest river in the world and this is the only bridge across it for the entire 1400 mile span it has in US.  Trans-alaskan pipeline, a near 500 mile engineering miracle built in the 70's, lay alongside the Dalton Hwy through the trip. Intentionally built in a zig-zag manner to account for sharp climate variations and earthquakes, it has been a controversial project due to its possible impact on environment.  Will be interesting to see if it will be dismantled once the oil is exhausted per the original clause.

Trans-Alaskan Pipeline - Blessing or bane?

Our guide - Chris - was an encyclopedia of information and made the journey lively through his stories.  It was funny to hear the story of how a bear made itself home at the Yukon camp restaurant during a winter.  We also heard the story of Joy - a homestead in Alaska - and marveled at the determination and superstitions of miners.

We reached Fairbanks around 3 AM.  The sun had set completely around 1 AM and the darkening sky had gloriously been replaced by the morning sun seamlessly.  We found ourselves looking at early dawn at the time of check-in.  Literally no night at all!!