Dalton Highway
Strange things done in the midnight sun. - Robert Service
“Breaker-19 Little grey Ford entering mile mark 1.” Lights on, we enter the “Highway,” a two-lane, no shoulder, morass of washed-out dirt and gravel, leaving behind the old Dalton Highway sign, covered with a dense collage of stickers. Dodging dips and potholes we’re on our way to the Arctic Circle.
My
twin thirty-two-year-old kids invited me to join them touring Alaska this year.
We started in Seward with whale, sea lion, and calving glacier watching,
stopped by the State Fair in Palmer, where 35 years ago their mother took
second prize in Ax throwing, hiked K’esugi Ridge and Savage River Trails in
central Alaska for that fleeting glimpse of Denali. The great mountain did not
disappoint, appearing as the clouds parted, it’s white mass towering in the
distance over lesser mountains closer to us. Now we were traveling north.
We
pass a red pickup truck, hazard lights flashing, rolling at a crawl behind a
man afoot shouldering a large backpack. A mile on we pull off at the new Dalton
Highway sign and map of Alaska with the highway in red. Several guys in
civilian clothes, but with a military air about them, are looking at the sign.
“We’re on a Ruck,” one says finger touching the map at a spot titled Arctic
Circle, “from Fairbanks to here.”
Starting
eighty miles north of Fairbanks in Livengood, Alaska (population 13), the
Dalton Highway runs 414 miles to Deadhorse on the shores of the Arctic Ocean.
Originally constructed by Alyska Pipeline service Company to support the
development of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline. The ‘Haul Road’ as some call it, is
said to be the most dangerous road in America. No cell phone service and only
three gas stations on the road. We travel with our lights and CB short wave
radio always on emergency channel 19. Little grey Ford’s our handle.
CB
blasts “watch out Little Ford… Long Pipes coming.”
A pickup with a row of flashing lights on its roof and WIDE LOAD posted on
front and back passes us. Then a truck loaded with fifty-foot-long solid metal
rods bursts past kicking up rocks and dust. It is followed by another long pipe
truck. We skirt the nonexistent shoulder, a three-foot drop from crushed rock
and dirt road down to permafrost. We take up the rear of this convoy.
Our
modified Ford Escape with heavy shocks, two full spare tires, a complete
toolbox, and an eighteen-inch cubed Medical Kit, that is worn with use, in back
seems very small next to these monstrous trucks. We had parked our luxurious
Yukon Denali rental in the Fairbanks Airport Parking and switched to the only
rental available from Arctic Explorers. All major car rental companies
explicitly forbid driving their vehicles on the Dalton Highway. The only road
in America that crosses the Arctic Circle.
While
we were gathering supplies at a Denali grocery, a local asked me,” have any
firearms with you?”
“No,”
I answered. “I do have some bear spray.”
“Good,”
he said laughing. “Use that and you may get those two,” pointing at my kids,
“to run away.”
CB
on channel 19 announces “Rock trucks blocking road.” Soon progress slows to a
stop, and we wait while cranes fill trucks beds rolling on six-foot diameter
wheels with boulders. Rock debris on the road after blasting. Eventually our
convoy moves north. We pass a line of stationary traffic. My son, currently the
driver, moves his hand up and down vertically. A truck sounds horn in reply.
“Little
Ford’s last in line,” our Pilot pickup tell the southbound pilot truck.
CB,
Citizens Band radio, is a new experience for my kids and an anachronism dating
back thirty years for me. My wife’s handle had been “Plain Jane” my
brother-in-law who hauls horses, “The Headless Horseman.” “Breaker, breaker” is
used to get your attention. “10-4” means message received. “Copy that,” or
“Roger” means I hear you. As I remember most of the jargon regarded Bears. A
“bear in the woods,” “bear on the air,” “bear trap,” “Smokey bear,” “Checkpoint
Charlie” all alerts for police locations. I haven’t seen a policeman yet in
Alaska. I have seen black bears and brown bears. Alaska truckers weren’t
worried about police. They seldom discuss wildlife and want little cars like me
to stay out of their way. They had a schedule to keep. Everyone is friendly
calling you “Good Buddy.”
“We
followed the long pipe ahead of us for ten miles, moving back and forth across
the two lanes avoiding washed out tracks and potholes. It had rained hard here
recently. We slowed for a steep wet downhill grade. The long pipe convoy moved
briskly on ahead.
My
son on CB says “Breaker. Breaker. Obi Wan, thanks for guiding us.”
The
trucker replies, “10-4 Good Buddy. See you on the flip flop.”
Reaching
the Yukon River, we start over a 2300-foot bridge. Clop, clop, clunk as we bump
over the pothole studded wood-decked surface. Broad muddy waters flow rapidly
underneath. I look for but do not see any Beluga whales. Beluga’s have been
reported in the Yukon River, swimming its waters to ovoid killer packs of
“Long-fins,” orcas of the ocean.
It’s
6 pm, seems more like midday, and the ranger at the info station across the
river is closing shop. He tells us it took him six hours to drive from
Coldfoot, normally a two-hour journey. The road has “significant wash out from
the rain. Traffic keeps moving, just slower.”
We
pull into the Yukon River Camp. I had made reservations to stay at the camp,
sleeping in a clean room. Although my son would rather camp outside. Originally
the lodging was for pipeline workers. Two single beds and just enough space for
my son to set up his camping cot. Seemed like a dorm room from college with his
and hers bathrooms down the hall. Shoes are taken off at the entrance. This is
universal in Alaska, as boots are always crusted in mud. The rec room with pool
table, fridge and microwave serves as a gathering place. We met a dusty leather
clad motorcycle couple and a girl who kept going back and forth for something
in her van. She has on a cool set of hiking pants with a pocket on her thigh
for her coffee thermos. She’s helping lead a group on the Yukon River and says
she had spent eight days in a tent waiting to climb Denali. Like 70 % of
climbers, the end she didn’t make it.
I
gas up the car at an old farm like pump in back. One of three gas pumps on the
highway before Deadwood. You must cross the Brooks Range to get to Deadwood.
The pump is entirely covered with stickers from Alaska and the lower 48. I take
a picture of the amount and drive across the lot to park. A tour van driver
drops off a dozen folks for dinner at the camp. He drives over to our little
muddy Ford. He says, “Only one puddle in the lot. I had to who it was that
would park in it.”
I
look around. The lot is chock full of puddles.
“Where
are you going?” he asks.
“Up
to the Arctic Circle,” my son replies.
The
mustached man in his forties leans far out of his open van window and tells a
story.
“A
man came up from South America,” he says. “Along the way he picked up a stray
dog as a companion. The man loved that dog. Passing here he went up to the
Arctic Circle to camp. A lone wolf ranges in that vicinity. Must have been
kicked out of it’s pack. Or the rest of the pack got shot or died. A lone wolf
gets hungry without a pack to help hunt. That South American man camped with
his dog at the Arctic Circle campground. He woke up in the middle of the night
and found the lone wolf sitting out front of the door to the tent. The wolf’s
teeth glistened in the moonlight as he licked his chops. He could smell the dog
and wanted to eat it. The man zipped the tent flap tight. He couldn’t sleep.
All night as he dosed, then woke, each time when he looked out and that wolf
was staring him down.
I
went in to pay for the gas, showing the gas pump reading picture on my phone to
an elderly lady with bright red dyed hair, two inches of grey roots showing,
and a large bruise with twenty stitches above her left eyebrow at the cash
register. Quite a retirement,” she says when asked how long she had worked
here. “One year it was at Yellowstone, one year Denali National Park. This year
Alaska-works web site sent me here. If I stay through September, I get a $2000
bonus and can pay off my car.” She said she loved the northern lights and last
year after work she would go outside and lie back on the seat of an old broken
snow machine and look up at the lights until the sun came up.
We
sat down for a dinner of bison burgers. Behind our table is a boarded-up
window, where a grizzly bear broke in one winter. It tore up the place bad
while hibernating. The kids say, “this may not be smart, but if we drive up to
the Arctic Circle tonight, we’ll have more leeway tomorrow. And we are staying
up to see the Aurora tonight anyway.” We were flying out of
Anchorage 500 miles away the day after tomorrow. It was 7:30 pm and the sun
still seemed a third of the way above the horizon. The temperature was a balmy
55 degrees Fahrenheit.
“Breaker
19, Little Grey Ford entering highway at Yukon River Camp.” Nobody
replied. Driving north through a broad expanse of stunted spruce pines, hills
and bog filled valleys. After a half hour we saw the weathered tops
of the one hundred twenty-million-year-old Brooks Range in the distance.
The
trans-Alaskan pipeline paralleled the road, elevated fifteen feet above the
permafrost. High enough for caribou, bears and musk ox to pass beneath. Twenty
five percent of Alaska is north of the Arctic Circle and one hundred thousand
square miles of flat open tundra lies north of the Brooks Range.
Not
much traffic going north this time of night. We were alone on the road. We
still had to keep it less than 50 MPH to ovoid potholes and washed-out spots.
Not much wildlife either, save ravens that would fly alongside of our car for a
half mile at a time. My Daughter said, “Stop! A wolf I think?” We slowed and
peered into the stunted black spruce trees. The wolf was gone.
The
lady working at Yukon River Camp had told us she drove the entire “Haul Road”
to Deadhorse in 2005. Prudhoe Bay on the Arctic Ocean is the end of
the line, but this is closed to the public, unless you are escorted by oil
company employees or on an approved tour.
She
said the entire highway was paved in 2005. Within five years heavy truck
traffic, rain, ice, and ground shifting had broken up the road. On the few
sections we had driven of paved road, the potholes seemed deeper and more
dangerous. Climate change makes road maintenance problematic. The
lowest temperature ever recorded in the United States negative 82 degrees
Fahrenheit, was recorded at a station off the road. Flooding in 2015 washed the
northern section of the Dalton down to the tundra. The permafrost must stay
frozen to hold the road.
In
the Arctic Circle, latitude 66 degrees 33 minutes, the sun does not set on the
Summer Solstice June 20th-21st. The sun does not rise on
the Winter Solstice December 21st-22nd. Further north in
Deadhorse the longest day lasts almost 64 days May 20th till
July 22nd; the longest night 54 days November 24th till
January 18th.
We
got to the Arctic Circle at 9:20 pm. Took pictures with the sign, looked out
the view deck and toured the rustic campground. It was beautiful, the golden
witching hour before sunset. We did not spend the night. Possibly
subconsciously we feared that lone wolf. I’m more worried about grizzly bears,
and the worst… well you know what they say about Alaskan Mosquitoes.
We
turned back south from the northern most spot we had ever been. But soon had to
stop at a stream. My son wanted an ice-cold dip in arctic water. Steep muddy
stream banks and fast flowing water over rocks nixed the dip. I was driving
this leg and becoming more fearful of potholes and flat tires in the middle of
nowhere in the dark.
We
reached to top of a long climb as the sun was setting. My son grabbed the phone
and opened the car door. “Be quick,” I said. “Just give me three minutes.” he
replied. Vibrant colors of orange and umber crystalized to the west. Running at
full speed he climbed a rock formation atop the high hill. Now the sun
disappeared below the horizon. My son returned in under three minutes. He had
gotten the perfect sunset pic with my cell phone. His phone had broken, while
back-packing in a 24-hour downpour atop K’esugi Ridge. But that’s another
story.
In
the suspended twilight the road seemed to stretch on forever, in wondrous
desolation. Long shadows lighting a landscape seemingly out of the Pleistocene.
We drove silently for a time.
“Wolf,”
cried my daughter. Ahead of us crossing the road was a black outline. A large
wolf loping, covering ground with deceptive natural speed. It disappeared into
the shadows of tundra trees.
I
doubt they ever were able to, or will ever be able to, completely pave the
Dalton Highway. Not because the closest asphalt is 500 miles away from
Deadhorse. Because there still is wilderness in this world. There reaches a
point where the Earth fights back to keep it that way, buckling and washing out
the road in the North. Long after Little Grey Fords are gone there will always
be wilderness.
James Hall’s poetry collection Prairie Roots is forthcoming by Shanti Arts Publishing. His poems have appeared in, Front Porch Review, Blood and Thunder, Deep Overstock and others. He is a writer and physician with interests in cider craft, cross country skiing and dire portents.
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