Halibut fishing

Halibut fishing in Alaska is truly a great experience. The incredible size of the halibut found in Alaska's pristine waters is simply amazing. They can reach weights as large as 450+ pounds. I personally have caught one over 250 pounds and many other halibut this size are caught every year in Alaska. In this article we will discuss where and when is the best time to fish for halibut in Alaska, what are some common techniques used when fishing halibut in Alaska and what you should expect when you go out on your Alaska halibut fishing charter.

Some of the top destinations for halibut fishing in Alaska are Homer, Anchor Point, Deep Creek, Seward, Whittier and Valdez. At each of these locations you will find many halibut fishing charter companies who will be happy to take you out for a good day of fishing. However, it is important to plan ahead because during the peak season the fishing boats can fill up fast.

The peak season for halibut fishing runs from mid May until the end of July. In the spring the halibut will move into shallow water following the herring that come into the shallows to spawn. The halibut will stay in the shallow water until the fall and then migrate back to deep water to spawn themselves. The large halibut are usually females and are capable of laying millions of eggs each year.

If you are heading out of Homer, Valdez, Whittier or Seward you can expect a long boat ride. Typically the halibut fishing charters in these areas will run out 30+ miles to get where the fishing is best. If you are fishing out of Deep Creek or Anchor Point the charters only need to run 5 to 10 miles out to get into good halibut fishing. So if you have a tendency to get sea sick Deep Creek or Anchor Point may be you best option.

When fishing for halibut in Alaska there are a couple different techniques. A common fishing technique is to take the boat out and anchor then simply fish the slack tide using a circle hook baited with herring and a large weight. Slack tide is when the tide stops rising then begins to fall or visa versa. The reason slack tide is so desirable is that many times you will be fishing in 100 to 250 foot deep water. When the tide is slack it becomes easier to keep your bait on the bottom and do so using less weight.

Another common halibut fishing technique used is drifting your boat along with the tide. There are many benefits to this such as you can use less weight when fishing, you can cover more ground and you can typically fish for a longer period of time. One of the major down sides to drifting is that many times it becomes easy to get the fishing lines tangled with each other or get your weight caught up on the bottom and end up losing for halibut fishing setup.

Overall, if you enjoy fishing, then an Alaska halibut fishing charter is a great activity to add to you list when visiting Alaska. Most charters are only one day long and will provide everything you need except for your Alaska fishing license. Just be prepared to have a great time, see some amazing scenery and come back with a lot of fish.

source: www.onlyalaska.com

Hostory of great Alaska

Far Alaska, the largest in the United States, 586.4120 square miles (1518800 km ²) is the area. With multiple sub-continent the size of the entire contiguous 48 states corresponding to one fifth, and Alaska.

One of the least populated of all, the most sparsely populated, only the 2008 census population of 683,478 was second, with s of the United States. About half the population of the state, the Anchorage is a metropolitan area.

Great land
Coastline of the mainland United States than all of Alaska (more than 53.1 thousand kilometers) of 33.000 miles are. Also, it is more important than Rhode Island there are 10 glacial lakes and about 3000000 million.

Alaska Aleutian word or name Alyeshka Alakshak said, "it means a great land." Peak of 20 days, higher than among the U.S., 17, Alaska, Mount McKinley (Denali), 20.32 thousand feet, most in North America including the high peaks. Alaska, 1959 was the year.

Federal, state land, public land 28 percent, 11.8 percent of indigenous land for about 60 percent, 0.2 percent of the land consists of the private sector. The major economic sectors are tourism, oil industry, fisheries, timber. And Alaska residents pay income tax, mining and oil revenues in U.S. dollars of annual payments (usually in the hundreds of thousands of people do not) receive.

Alaska's wild land
Alaska, about two-thirds of total area in the United States s services include the National Park System, the area in the United States and 88% s of the National Wildlife System. State had more than 100 units in eight national parks, two national monuments 10,4, 16 national wildlife sanctuaries, 26 national wild and scenic rivers, one of two national forests, parks maintenance, and national .

Approximately 16 percent of Alaska as the nature of just 2.5 percent in South Dakota in the continental United States (size) than is specified. One of the most radical works of the law of conservation of the history of the United States, Alaska National Interest Land Protection Act 1980 of the new protected area was created 105 million acres are.

The beginning of human history in Alaska
Alaska's first inhabitants of the land over the bridge (currently under the Bering Strait), and from Siberia in the late ice age, about 12,000 years were flooded. γ-transition to the ice-free corridor, they will gradually see their way in search of food and shelter to the Americas. Other fish life is dependent on migration to the coast by boat.

Various directions by new entrants, the Inupiat and Yupik spread far north, the Alaska Peninsula, Aleutian Islands, Athabascan people inside, the Tlingit and Haida Aleuts (and), the Tsimshian live along the south coast Europe. First European explorers arrived in the region, 60000 and 80000 between the indigenous people who lived in Alaska immediately.

Seward, Alaska to Russia is crazy
Vitoberingu Sea in July 1741, Alexei Chirikova jobs are registered in the first region in Russia, Alaska and claimed. The coast of southern Russia, Alaska, 126 years, during the fur trading, most of the sea otter is settled that we stay clear of the population

In 1867, United States, Russia, 72 billion dollars, equivalent to about two acres purchased Alaska cents. Acquisition, Secretary of State Uiriamusuwado, Newspapers, coordinated by promptly dubbed "Seward's folly", a small ice cream Alaska call 'from. "Over the years, this purchase of Alaska, the state-owned oil, fish, rich in resources such as wood ... not to mention proving a magnet for tourists, which is what stupid!

Remote Travel Tips

• Research and plan your trip carefully. Some of the most exciting wildlife viewing opportunities in Alaska occur in isolated, remote areas with few, if any, amenities. Contact the State of Alaska Travel and Vacation Information for general information and the agency noted under “Contact” in the site descriptions of this book for more specific information. Make reservations early; services may be limited.
• Dress appropriately and bring layers of warm, waterproof clothing. Always carry supplies to last longer than you have planned to stay. Much Alaska travel is weather dependent and the weather may change quickly and drastically; you may be temporarily stranded. Pack spares: tires, money, food, film, etc. When in the wilderness, carry emergency survival gear — such as waterproof matches, fire starter, and a space blanket — separate from your main backpack.
• Recognize your limitations. Consider guided tours for areas of special challenge. Make sure someone you trust knows where you are and when you are planning to come back, so that they can alert authorities if you fail to return. Carry standard first aid equipment, and learn how to recognize and treat hypothermia.
• Respect the culture and privacy of Alaska Native peoples and their land. Recognize that fishing and hunting camps you may come across are essential to local residents' subsistence way of life.
• Bring insect repellant, “bug jackets,” and/or head nets. Alaska is famous for its mosquitoes, no-see-ums, and other biting insects.
• Do not attempt to hike across mudflats or glaciers. These can be treacherous. Speak with authorities before trying to negotiate these types of terrain. On saltwater outings, always carry a tide table.
• Purify water taken from streams and rivers. Although water may appear pristine, treatment is still recommended.

source: http://www.wc.adfg.state.ak.us/index.cfm?adfg=viewing.respectful

Archaeology of the Tundra and Arctic Alaska

In an area stretching along the coastline from Bristol Bay and the Alaska Peninsula, along the Bering Sea and Chukchi Sea coasts, northward around Alaska, and eastwards across the arctic all the way to Greenland, the coastline is ice-bound in winter and the terrain is generally treeless. In this zone, which can be up to several hundred kilometers broad, developed much of the culture of modern Eskimo (Inupiat and Yupik in Alaska) peoples. Some decisive and significant adaptations took place here and in adjacent Siberia that allowed a more efficient exploitation of this zone. Settlements spread and grew, in some places becoming more specialized, as the historically visible cultures appeared.

Arctic Small Tool Tradition

One of the most distinctive and widespread Arctic cultural traditions appeared around 4000 BP. The Arctic Small Tool tradition (ASTt) was first called the Denbigh Flint complex by its discoverer, Louis Giddings (1964), after the type site on Cape Denbigh on Norton Sound. Subsequently, it has been found throughout the Tundra and Arctic Zone that is characterized by coasts that are ice-bound in winter and treeless hinterland, from the Bering Sea side of the Alaska Peninsula, northward along the coast and throughout the Brooks Range, and eventually, along the Canadian Arctic coast and the Arctic Archipelago to Greenland. The archeological assemblage is distinctive. It derives its name from the finely-flaked, tiny lithic tools that are its hallmark. Irving (1964), from the perspective of the Punyik Point site in the Brooks Range, linked the widespread appeance of these distinctive tools into the Arctic Small Tool tradition.

The origins of this tradition are obscure. It appeared fully developed in northwestern Alaska and spread rapidly southward and eastward. Its microblade, core and burin technology seem to have roots in the Paleoarctic tradition and in the general technology of Siberia and northeastern Asia. However, the continuity with Paleoarctic is cut almost everywhere in Alaska by the intervening and widespread Northern Archaic tradition which had its roots to the south and east in the boreal forests. It seems most probable that the transition to ASTt must have occurred somewhere outside of Alaska, probably northeastern Asia. Also noteworthy is that this time period marked the development and spread of circumboreal cultural adaptations (perhaps as arctic environments stabilized worldwide).

Subsistence was apparently balanced between hunting and fishing with the most likely mainstay species being caribou and anadromous fish. According to Dumond (1987), there is very little evidence for winter ice sealing, consistent use of dogs, or boat use - all of which are traits of the modern Arctic Eskimo groups. Some investigators feel that the Arctic Small Tool tradition marks the arrival of the ancestral Eskimo cultures while many others feel that, although there appears to be some technological continuity, the ancestral development of the historic Eskimo cultures took place in Siberia and the islands of the Bering Sea at a much later date. Nevertheless, the AST tradition people, by exploiting the resources of the coast and the hinterland, were the first group of people to spread across the North American arctic, as far east as Greenland (recognizable there as the Pre-Dorset culture).

There are currently two models for the subsequent course of the Arctic Small Tool tradition. Many investigators, including Anderson and Irving who worked in northwestern Alaska and the Brooks Range, see the tradition as encompassing a number of subsequent phases after the Denbigh Flint complex, lasting until around 1000 BP. These include the Choris, Norton, and Ipiutak phases. There is certainly a strong thread of cultural continuity through them that indicates some form of connection. Other researchers, such as Dumond whose perspective derives from work on the Alaska Peninsula, see a hiatus following the Denbigh part of the AST tradition and the shift to a new, but related, tradition named the Norton tradition. In this construct, Dumond subsumes the earlier Choris, the classic Norton, and the later Ipiutak cultures. The tradition is distinguished by the appearance of pottery just after 3000 BP. This pottery is clearly derived from Asian antecedents, is fiber-tempered and linear-stamped. Microblade use has diminished or ended, projectile points are larger with more lanceolate forms, burins have changed in form, and oil lamps and slate tools make their appearance. By the time of the proper Norton culture, after 2500 BP., the pottery is check-stamped and polished slate implements are present. The settlement pattern seems to have changed to that of large coastal communities that reflect an increased reliance on sea mammal hunting for subsistence.

Around the Bering Sea, the Norton culture persisted until around 1000 AD. On the Alaskan Peninsula this is evident as Norton influence progressively spread across it from the Bering coast to the Pacific coast by 600 AD. Further north, it seems to have been superseded by the Ipiutak culture (which others see as all part of the Arctic Small Tool tradition), which lacked pottery, ground slate, and oil lamps, but otherwise maintained a technological continuity with Norton. Ipiutak shows Asian influences or connections in its spectacular art which seems to show Scythian style elements. The type site, found by Larson and Rainey (1948) at Point Hope, contains hundreds of permanent houses and lavish burials. Ipiutak sites have also been found away from the coast, in and around the Brooks Range, in NOAT and GAAR. Cape Espenberg, in BELA, has Ipiutak sites. Ipiutak lasted from around 2000 BP until about 800 AD, when the Thule Tradition appeared.
Thule Tradition

This tradition, ancestral to the historic Inupiat and Yupik cultures of Alaska, has also been called the Northern Maritime (Collins 1964) or the Neo-Eskimo tradition. As defined by Dumond (1977), it includes all the prehistoric, recognizably Eskimo remains from coastal Siberia, St Lawrence Island (after about 100 AD), the northern Alaska coast (after 500 AD), and from the southern coasts (after about 1000 AD). The assemblages are characterized by use of polished slate for tools and reliance on coastal resources, especially open water hunting.

The earliest identifiable cultures of this tradition, named Okvik and Old Bering Sea, were found on St Lawrence Island, Siberia, and other islands of the Bering Strait. The assemblages typically contain polished slate, fiber-tempered pottery, and toggling harpoon heads of bone or ivory. Also noteworthy is an elaborate art of carved ivory objects that differs from Ipiutak. It is possible that Okvik-Old Bering Sea evolved out of Norton, but this has not yet been convincingly demonstrated. What is known is that it evolved into the Punuk culture on both sides of the Bering Strait after 500 AD at the same time that Ipiutak was extant on the north coast of Alaska and the late Norton was present in the Alaska Peninsula area.

Late Ipiutak was contemporaneous with Birnirk. After 800 AD, Ipiutak was replaced on the north coast by Birnirk. There are various hypotheses on the causes and origins of this transition, from Old Bering Sea-Okvik and Siberian influences (but not Punuk) to indigenous development. Originally, the Birnirk focus was primarily on seals but included some caribou; at ~800 AD whaling harpoons appeared in some Birnirk assemblages. While Punuk was almost exclusively coastal and marine oriented, Birnirk was a mainland culture as well as marine, especially in its use of caribou. Birnirk disappeared by 1000 AD, but not before giving rise to the classic Thule lifeway of winter ice-hunting, kayak and umiaq open sea hunting, dogs and dog sleds, settlement in large villages focused on whale hunting, but still using mainland resources.

Around 1000 AD, Thule culture expanded. Following almost the same path as the Arctic Small Tool tradition 3000 years earlier, Thule people moved to the east across northern Canada to Greenland. They also expanded from the coast into more interior regions, such as the North Slope, the Brooks Range, and along rivers such as the Kobuk and Noatak (where the Arctic Woodland Culture developed). They exploited a wide range of resources, kept up extensive trade networks and social relationships. Thule influence also expanded to the south. Following the Norton culture on the Alaska Peninsula, Thule influence reached as far as Kodiak Island. In the Pacific Coastal region, Thule did not replace the indigenous cultures but did seem to influence them.

source: http://www.nps.gov/akso/akarc/arctic.htm

Archaeology of Interior Alaska

The Alaskan Interior is a vast area and has generally been placed within the even larger Subarctic Zone. Stretching from south of the Brooks Range, over the Alaska Range to the Matanuska Valley and over to the Wrangell- St Elias and Chugach Mountains, the interior encompasses DENA, YUCH, and major portions of WRST and GAAR National Parks. Since the physiography of the region is so varied, including major mountain ranges, river valleys such as the Yukon, Kuskokwim, and Susitna, and the Yukon-Tanana-Kuskokwim plateaus, vegetation is the criterion most frequently used in defining the Subarctic. Most writers include the boreal forest (taiga) and the transitional forest or forest-tundra ecotone as major elements in delimiting the zone. The Yukon-Tanana-Kuskokwim plateaus area of interior Alaska is considered one of the major physiographic regions of the North American Subarctic. In contrast to the Canadian Shield and Cordilleran areas of the Subarctic, this region was not glaciated during the later stages of the Pleistocene. This legacy is evident in well-developed drainage patterns and soils. The climate features long, very cold winters and relatively warm, short summers. Most of the precipitation falls as snow in the winter (another name for the area translates as "cold snow forest"). While the climate is dry (less than 46 cms/year = semiarid), the low evaporation and transpiration rates result in a general surplus of surface water.

One other common way that Interior Alaska is defined is culturally, or ethnographically. In historic times this area was the home of Athabaskan peoples. The Athabaskans have been defined as a group of mostly forest dwelling, hunting and gathering Indians, organized into bands, speaking a group of fairly closely related languages. The Turner, Greenberg, Zegura "Three Wave " hypothesis of settlement of the New World holds that the Athabaskan speaking people were a genetically and culturally separate wave from the early Amerindian groups and late Eskimo/Aleut groups. Anthropologists and linguists generally agree that proto-historic and historic Athabaskans were a separate group in Alaska, distinguishable on cultural and linguistic grounds from neighboring Inupiat, Yupik, Northwest Coast and Pacific Coast cultures. Archeologists, on the other hand, have been unable to pin down the origins of the Athabaskans in Siberia, northeastern Asia, or the New World. While there are several sites that indicate the existence of prehistoric Athabaskans in Alaska, the origins and connections to the historically known ethnographic Athabaskans is much more difficult to trace.

Of concern to us are the 23 languages that form a recognized geographical subdivision of the Athabaskan language family, usually referred to as Northern Athabaskan (Krauss and Golla 1990). They occupy a large, continuous area, mostly in the subarctic interior of Alaska and western Canada. Other groups of Athabaskan languages exist on the Pacific Coast of Oregon and northern California (where it is spoken by a number of riverine and coastal tribes), and in the Pueblo-Southwest (the Apachean languages which include Navajo, Kiowa, Lipan and various Apache tribes). The Athabaskan family of languages is one branch of a larger linguistic group - Athabaskan-Eyak. Eyak, the only other branch, in 1980 nearly extinct, was spoken on the south coast of Alaska, near the mouth of the Copper River. Tlingit, a later arrival on that coast, has a close resemblance to Athabaskan-Eyak in structure but not in vocabulary. Sapir (Krauss and Golla 1981) believed that there was sufficient evidence of a genetic (linguistic) relationship between Tlingit, Athabaskan and Haida to group them into a single entity which he named Na-Dene. More recently, other scholars have felt that Sapir's Na-Dene hypothesis was too broad and that an historical explanation better explains the similarities between Athabaskan and Tlingit and that Haida is not part of the group at all. Greenberg's research (Turner 1994) has recently postulated again the Na-Dene grouping as a larger language phylum.

From a linguistic point of view, it appears that Proto-Athabaskan-Eyak was probably present in interior Alaska and the Yukon by at least 6000 BP. The split between Proto-Athabaskan and Proto-Eyak took place around 3500 BP and the Athabaskan languages differentiated around 2500 BP or later (Krauss 1990). The probable location of this differentiation was eastern interior Alaska, the headwaters of the Yukon River, and northern British Columbia, or some part of this area. Again, based upon linguistic evidence, the earliest directions of Athabaskan expansion were probably westward into Alaska and southward into southern and central British Columbia - probably by 500 AD (ibid.). Later expansion included a movement eastward into the MacKenzie River drainage and another movement southward along the eastern side of the Rocky Mountains into the Southwest (the Apachean languages).

Archeologists (Borden; Dumond; Carlson), using the Na-Dene hypothesis, have suggested a correlation between "Na-Dene"-speaking people and the spread of the Northwest Microblade tradition of the southwestern Yukon in Canada around 7000 BP. Since the Northern Microblade tradition is not generally accepted, other archeologists have linked the ancestral Athabaskans to the Northern Archaic and Northern Cordilleran traditions (Clark 1992) of the same general time period. Based on the Healy archeological site, Cook and McKennan (1970) have postulated the development of the recognizable Athabaskan cultural pattern to have begun in the northern Interior with the major environmental and adaptive changes that preceded the Northern Archaic tradition at least 6000 years ago.

The lack of a clearly stratified and dated archeological site showing the development of the Athabaskan culture pattern has prevented resolution of the differing theories. The Klo-Kut site, in the middle Porcupine River drainage, provides the longest unbroken prehistoric record of Athabaskan occupation. The site reveals 1500 years of continuous occupation that culminates in a well-documented Athabaskan village component. Morlan (1970) characterizes the inhabitants of Klo-Kut as primarily caribou hunters, oriented toward upland, treeless areas and postulates a similar lifeway for other northern Athabaskans during the late prehistoric period. Another site, EAG-139, which is located on the left bank of the Yukon river between Eagle and Eagle Village, represented a Han Athabaskan village that was occupied between 1880 and 1890 AD. Based on oral history and archeological data from the site, it appears that the Han families there focussed on hunting large and small game, especially caribou and salmon.

Another theoretical thread for the prehistory of the Athabaskans is one that links the effects of a major volcanic eruption in the St Elias Range (represented archeologically as the White River Ash), at about 1890 BP with the displacement of Athabaskan groups around Kluane and Aishihik lakes, subsequent movement to the northwest, and the appearance on the Brooks Range with Kavik points and tci-thos, as well as other generalized implements of the Athabaskan tradition. It is also possible that this eruption and displacement was a starting point for the movement of Athabaskan speakers to the Southwest.

The development of Athabaskan culture in the southern part of the Interior (WRST) and southwestern Yukon shows a similar pattern (Table 6). One of the earliest sites, from around 700 BP, is GUL-077, which is a late winter camp along the lower Gulkana River and on the western border of the park. Other Athabaskan sites in that area are Dakah De'nin's Village, a protohistoric site near Chitina, and Taral, a historic period site just across the Copper River.

One of the few Athabaskan cultural sequences has been developed by Workman (1974) for the Aishihik-Kluane Lake area of the southwestern Yukon, just adjacent to the eastern border of WRST. The sequence is divided into four cultural phases:

• --- Little Arm Phase is the oldest, approximately 8000-4500 years in age, with Paleoarctic and Paleoindian traits present.
• --- Taye Lake Phase designates the advent of the Northern Archaic tradition in the area around 4500 BP, persisting until 1800 years ago. Workman has postulated that there was a technological continuity form this phase that persisted to the time of historic contact, and that, as a consequence, the Taye Lake people were speakers of a language in the Na Dene family and thus, were Athabaskan.
• --- Aishihik Phase dates from 1600 BP to ca. 150 years ago and represents late prehistoric Athabaskan culture until European contact. The eruption of Mt Bona and the deposit of the White River Ash marks the beginnings of this phase, Workman sees some technological continuity with the preceding Taye Lake Phase and represents the identifying tie to Athabaskan culture.
• --- Bennett Lake Phase marks the protohistoric native Athabaskan culture (Ahtna and Southern Tutchone)with both traditional implements of the Aishihik phase and European objects.

To be noted is the long persistence of the Little Arm phase (3500 years) that was abruptly replaced by the appearance of the Taye Lake phase technology, which then persisted for thousands of years. Whether Taye Lake really represents the advent of Athabaskan peoples is a major research question for this region.

source: http://www.nps.gov/akso/akarc/interior.htm

Southwest Alaska and Pacific Coast

This diverse and complex (culturally speaking) region has been conceived, archeologically, as an area of Pacific Eskimo co-traditions (Clark 1984b) stretching from the Chirikof Island and Chignik area of the Alaska Peninsula west of Kodiak Island to the Copper River delta on the Gulf of Alaska. Even though there has been a great deal of cultural diversity among Prince William Sound, Kachemak Bay, Kodiak Island, the Pacific side of the upper Alaska Peninsula, Chirikof Island, and the middle of the Alaska Peninsula, they can be considered within a single framework or set of co-traditions. The NPS units within this region are ANIA, KATM and ALAG, LACL on the Alaska Peninsula, and KEJF on the Gulf of Alaska coast of the Kenai Peninsula.

In late prehistoric times, the population of this extensive region fell into two major linguistic divisions, Aleutian and Eskimoan, with the dividing line between them falling on the Alaska Peninsula just west of ANIA , near 159 degrees west longitude. Both groups shared many traits, derived probably from their common existence as marine hunters and their common roots as Eskaleut peoples. Both the Eskimoan and Aleut languages were derived from a common Eskaleutian language. The place and time of the separation of these and other languages from the common stock into separate languages is a major research question for this area (see Dumond 1987). However, other influences were regularly felt on the Alaska Peninsula. Over the millennia, both migration and diffusion came from the Bering Sea coast to the north, from the interior areas to the east, and the Pacific areas of Kodiak Island.

Cultural influences from the Bering Sea coast can be seen on the Peninsula in the presence on Paleoarctic sites at Ugashik Lake and at the mouth of the Kvichak River on Bristol Bay. The Anangula site in the Aleutians also represents an early presence of Paleoarctic type culture but it doesn't seem to have influenced later developments in the area. The Northern Archaic tradition appeared in the area about 5000 BP, with sites at Kvichak River and in KATM (possibly present in LACL and ANIA but these areas are unsurveyed).

In contrast, by 7000 years ago, maritime hunters were living on Kodiak Island, the adjacent Alaska Peninsula, and probably throughout the Pacific area. This culture has been called the Ocean Bay I tradition on Kodiak, and the closely related Takli Alder phase on the Pacific Coast of the Peninsula. Ground slate appears in the tool inventory at this time, although chipped stone technology remained predominant. On Kodiak Island the transition to Ocean Bay II around 4500 BP, is marked by the shift to the predominance of ground state tool technology. However, it seems that Ocean Bay I type culture persisted on Takli Island and the Alaska Peninsula (as shown at the Kukak Bay site in KATM), and extending as far northwest as Pedro Bay on Lake Illiamna. This persistent culture has been named the Takli culture by Clark (1984b) (late Ocean Bay I on Kodiak and Takli Birch on Takli Island). Takli and Ocean Bay II seemingly coexisted and interacted until, at least, 3800 BP. After this Kodiak saw the development of the Kachemak tradition. Takli Birch continued on the Peninsula into a much later time with very little cultural elaboration. By late Takli Birch times influence from Kachemak can be seen, indicative of interaction throughout the region.

In the broad view, the second millennium B.C. showed some cultural diversity in the region with several related, but locally divergent cultures. The Old Islanders of Chirikof Island (near ANIA) employed chipped and ground tool technology but in different styles from Takli and Ocean Bay II. It probably represents a regional phase of the central and western Alaska Peninsula and offshore islands of the 4200 BP period. At the base of the Alaska Peninsula the 4500 year old Pedro Bay site shows variations from Ocean Bay II as does the Brooks River Strand phase on the Bering Sea slope of the Peninsula.

At the Brooks River site, the arrival of Arctic Small Tool people from the Bristol Bay region is evident by 3800 BP and lasted until 3100 BP. The intrusive ASTt occupation of the Brooks River represents a unique phase in the prehistory of interior Peninsula because it is a 700 year period when the influence of Pacific Coast cultures is not evident. This suggests that there was an actual migration of ASTt people from the north and not a diffusion of their technology and culture. The next wave of influence from the north shows up around 2300 BP in the Norton culture, which was resident until 1000 BP. Norton, characterized by pottery and the use of ground slate, marked a shift to an economy based on coastal resources. Norton appears to have shared this marine orientation with the developing Kachemak or Kodiak tradition on the Pacific Coast. They shared many characteristics but Norton doesn't seem to have ever firmly established itself on Kodiak or the Pacific Coast.

As the Kachemak tradition evolved from North Pacific maritime hunters not very different from Ocean Bay, it was represented on the coast of the Alaska Peninsula in the Takli Cottonwood and the Kukak Beach phases, which do show some Norton influences. Sites also have been found in Prince William Sound (Palugvik), as well as in the middle and upper Cook Inlet that are very similar to late Kachemak. Clark labels this development of Pacific Coast groups a co-tradition and Dumond (1987) sees it as a wide-spread Kodiak tradition.

The last centuries of the first millennium A.D. were ones of fusion of Bering Sea and Pacific ideas and cultures. In most areas, cultural continuity is evident though some immigration is probable (Clark 1984b). This period is seen as the time of the development of the historically known Pacific Eskimo. The triggering event for this growth was the fluorescence of the Thule Eskimo culture to the north and its rapid spread to the east and the south from its origins around the northern Bering Strait. By around 1100 AD, the ancestors of the historically known Pacific Eskimo may have been present on the Alaska Peninsula coast in the Kukak Mound Phase and on Kodiak Island in the Koniag phase. According to Clark (1984b:146):

A long series of events and the ongoing operation of cultural processes tending to obliterate cultural differences is involved in the formation of the Pacific Eskimo and their neighbors. The Norton influences and possible migrations of the late first millennium of the Christian era, the subsequent Thule influences transformation on the Alaska Peninsula at the beginning of the second millennium, or the ongoing local development cannot explain fully the later prehistoric and ethnographic cultures of the region. Ethnographically and archeologically, there also is an impressive body of material and nonmaterial culture with a distinctive North Pacific cast variously shared by the Pacific Eskimo, Aleut, Eyak, and other Northwest Coast peoples.

By 1500 AD, the Koniag culture was well established on Kodiak, representing a well developed Pacific Eskimo culture, probably speaking Pacific dialects of Yupik Eskimo speech, reflecting Bering Eskimo influence, but also reflecting in situ development and influences from many other directions. In Cook Inlet and on the upper Alaska Peninsula, Dena'ina Athabaskans were expanding from the east, establishing themselves as far south as Lake Iliamna and Lake Clark. In Prince William Sound and on the western coast of the Gulf of Alaska (KEJF), Kachemak influences remained strong, although there was contact with the expanding Athabaskans. By contact times, their descendants, the Chugach Eskimo, inhabited the area and were expanding.

On the Aleutian Islands, the Aleutian Tradition of maritime hunters developed and remained strong until the invading Russians disrupted that area. It is possible that the Aleuts ventured as far east and north as the lower Alaska Peninsula and the area of ANIA

source: http://www.nps.gov/akso/akarc/swest.htm

Bowhead whales in alaska

Bowhead whales (Balaena mysticetus) are the only mysticete (baleen) whales that spend their entire lives near sea ice and do not migrate to temperate or tropical waters to calve. Bowheads are well adapted for living in arctic and subarctic waters—they have very thick blubber, up to 1½ feet (.5 m), which is used for insulation, food storage, and padding, and heavy bone structure in their skulls for breaking ice. Bowheads are the most important subsistence animal, both culturally and nutritionally, for most northwestern Alaska coastal Eskimos. The northern Inupiaq and Yupik names for bowheads are “agviq” and “aghveq.”

General description: Bowheads are large, robust whales and their shape is much less streamlined than most other baleen whales. They have the largest mouth and head in the animal kingdom, about one- third of their body length. The upper jaw is arched upward, and paired blowholes are located at the peak of the elevated “crown.” This large, bow-shaped head distinguishes bowheads from other whales.

Bowhead calves are gray and adults are black with varying amounts of white on their chins, bellies, and tail areas. The white patches plus scars sometimes make it possible for airborne researchers to identify individuals. Their skin is smooth and nearly free of external parasites. Bowheads have short, wide flippers. Their flukes are very broad, equalling one-third of the body length.

Distribution and migration: Bowhead distribution was nearly circumpolar in the northern hemisphere. Commercial whaling greatly reduced bowhead numbers and only remnant populations remain in most of their original range.

The Bering Sea stock, which is the only population of bowhead whales that survives in significant numbers, follows a 3,600 mile (5800 km) migration route. They winter in the Bering Sea in polynyas (areas of consistently open water within pack ice) and at the edge of the pack ice. During late March and April, bowheads move north through the Bering Strait as the pack ice retreats. Most bowheads follow leads, or cracks, in the ice through the Chukchi Sea along the Alaska coast to Point Barrow. They travel offshore across the Beaufort Sea and arrive in Canadian waters from mid-May through June. The bowheads spend the summer in the Canadian Beaufort Sea, then migrate west along the continental shelf of the Beaufort Sea to Point Barrow from August through October. Next, the whales cross the Chukchi Sea and travel south along the Russian coast, passing through the Bering Strait by November.

Life history: Mating probably occurs during late winter and spring. The gestation period is 13 to 14 months. Most bowhead whales calve during April, May, or early June. After plunging from the internal body temperature of their mothers into near freezing water, the newborns must begin swimming north with the migrating herd almost immediately.

Bowhead whales are shorter but heavier at birth than most other baleen whales. The calves are about 14 feet (4.3 m) long and weigh about 2,000 pounds (907 kg) when they are born. In comparison, gray whale newborns are 16 feet (4.9 m) long and weigh 1,500 pounds (680 kg). Bowheads calve at about three to four year intervals.

Bowheads grow to about 26 feet (8 m) during their first year; then grow very slowly after weaning. Female bowheads become sexually mature at 41 to 46 feet (12.5 - 14 m) and probably at an age exceeding 15 years. Maximum size of bowheads is about 60 feet (18.3 m) and over 120,000 pounds (54,500 kg). Bowhead age determination is difficult, but their life span is probably similar to humans.

Food habits: The bowhead feeding mechanism is most proficient at filtering a “thin soup” rather than gulping dense masses of prey. Instead of having grooved expandable throats like most other baleen whales, bowheads have very large mouths to maximize the amount of water taken in and to hold captured food.

Bowheads feed by swimming with their mouths open and straining zooplankton out of the water with their baleen. Each bowhead carries about 660 baleen plates which hang down in two racks, one from each side of the upper jaw. The baleen plates are made up of a horn-like substance and may be up to 13 feet (4 m) long. The inner margins of the baleen plates are fringed with fine bristles that act as a hairy curtain to sieve food out of the water.

Bowheads feed at all depths, from the surface to the bottom. Their primary foods are copepods, euphausiids, and other invertebrates, typically 0.12 - 1.18 inches (3 - 30 mm) long. Bowheads feed year- round in the Beaufort, Chukchi, and Bering seas. They use a variety of strategies, including feeding under ice and swimming in groups in V-shaped formation, to increase feeding efficiency.

Behavior: Bowheads often depend for survival upon their ability to travel through ice-dominated waters. Researchers using hydrophones have detected bowheads traveling through lead systems that appear to be completely covered by ice. When bowheads can't find open water, they push up hummocks in thin ice or break holes in ice up to 2 feet (.6 m) thick.

Bowheads swim fairly slowly, generally 2 to 4 miles per hour (3 - 6 km/hr). When migrating they make long dives, generally from 6 to 17 minutes, and then usually surface for a series of four to nine blows. Dives of up to 33 minutes have been recorded.

Bowhead whales are very vocal and use underwater sounds to communicate while traveling, feeding, and socializing. Some bowheads produce long repetitive songs that may be related to mating display. They also breach, tail slap, and spy-hop, which may also be mating display. Sexual activity occurs between pairs and in boisterous groups of several males and one or two females.

Predators and other mortality: Humans and killer whales are the only major predators of bowheads. Scars from killer whale teeth and ship propellers are sometimes found on their backs and flukes. Some bowheads die from becoming wrapped in fishing gear lines. Oil spills are a serious potential danger to bowheads. Ice sometimes blocks their movements, and they may starve or suffocate if they cannot get to open water.

Population size: Before commercial whaling, there were over 50,000 bowhead whales worldwide. Between the 1600s and 1800s, the eastern arctic stocks of bowheads were reduced from over 30,000 animals to less than 1,000. They remain severely depleted. The Bering Sea stock originally numbered about 18,000 whales and was greatly reduced in the 1800s and early 1900s. It is currently increasing and the population estimate was 6,400 to 9,200 in 1992.

Human use: Bowheads have been a favored whale for hunting for at least 2,000 years because they produce large quantities of oil, baleen, meat, and muktuk (skin with blubber); because they are slow and nonaggressive; and because they float when they are killed. Only aboriginal subsistence whaling is currently allowed. Alaska Eskimo whalers use handheld weapons and skin boats propelled by paddles to pursue bowheads during the spring hunt and motor-driven boats during the fall. The hunt is managed by the Alaska Eskimo Whaling Commission, representing ten whaling villages in northwestern Alaska, under an agreement with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association. A quota was established by the International Whaling Commission, and 41 whales were allowed to be landed in 1993.

source: http://www.adfg.state.ak.us/pubs/notebook/marine/bowhead.php

Alaska Caribou

Caribou (Rangifer tarandus) live in the arctic tundra, mountain tundra, and northern forests of North America, Russia, and Scandinavia. The world population is about 5 million. Caribou in Alaska are distributed in 32 herds (or populations). A herd uses a calving area that is separate from the calving areas of other herds, but different herds may mix together on winter ranges.

In Europe, caribou are called reindeer, but in Alaska and Canada only the domestic forms are called reindeer. All caribou and reindeer throughout the world are considered to be the same species, but there are 7 subspecies: barrenground (Rangifer tarandus granti), Svalbard (R.t platyrhynchus), European (R.t. tarandus), Finnish forest reindeer (R.t. fennicus), Greenland (R.t. groenlandicus), woodland (R.t. caribou) and Peary (R.t. pearyi). Alaska has only the barren-ground subspecies, but in Canada the barren-ground, woodland, and Peary subspecies are found.

General description: Caribou have large, concave hoofs that spread widely to support the animal in snow and soft tundra. The feet also function as paddles when caribou swim. Caribou are the only member of the deer family (Cervidae) in which both sexes grow antlers. Antlers of adult bulls are large and massive; those of adult cows are much shorter and are usually more slender and irregular. In late fall, caribou are clove-brown with a white neck, rump, and feet and often have a white flank stripe. The hair of newborn calves is generally reddish-brown. Newborn calves weigh an average of 13 pounds (6 kg) and grow very quickly. They may double their weight in 10-15 days. Weights of adult bulls average 350-400 pounds (159-182 kg). However, weights of 700 pounds (318 kg) have been recorded. Mature females average 175-225 pounds (80-120 kg). Caribou in northern and southwestern Alaska are generally smaller than caribou in the Interior and in southern parts of the state.

Life history: Calving occurs in mid-late May in Interior Alaska and in early June in northern and southwestern Alaska. If females are in very good condition they can breed when they are 16 months old, but in most herds they do not breed until they are 28 months old. Most adult cows are pregnant every year and give birth to one calf — twins are very rare. In some areas, wolves, grizzly bears, and golden eagles kill large numbers of newborn calves. After calving, caribou collect in large “postcalving aggregations” to avoid predators and escape mosquitoes and warble flies. These large groups of caribou stay together in the high mountains and along seacoasts where wind and cool temperatures protect them from summer heat and insects. After insect numbers decline in August, caribou scatter out and feed heavily on willow leaves and mushrooms to regain body weight.

The shedding of velvet (the fur covering on antlers) in late August and early September by large bulls marks the approach of the rutting (breeding) season and the start of fall migration. Mature bulls frequently have more than three inches of fat on the back and rump, which is used to provide energy needed during the rut. The necks of adult bull caribou swell enormously in September due to the natural production of steroid hormones like testosterone. Fighting begins in early September and becomes more frequent as the rut approaches at the end of the month. Most fights between bulls are brief bouts, but violent fights occur, and many bulls are seriously injured or killed during the rut. Many injured or exhausted bulls are killed by wolves and bears after the rut. Unlike many other members of the deer family, bull caribou do not control a harem of cows. Instead, they control a space around themselves, and prevent other bulls from breeding females within their space. The largest bulls shed their antlers in late October, but small bulls and non-pregnant cows do not shed their antlers until April. Pregnant females usually retain their antlers until calves are born in late May or early June.

Food habits: Like most herd animals, the caribou must keep moving to find adequate food. Large herds often migrate long distances (up to 400 miles/640 km) between summer and winter ranges. Smaller herds may not migrate at all. In summer (May-September), caribou eat the leaves of willows, sedges, flowering tundra plants, and mushrooms. They switch to lichens (reindeer moss), dried sedges (grasslike plants), and small shrubs (like blueberry) in September.

Movements: In Alaska, caribou prefer treeless tundra and mountains during all seasons, but many herds winter in the boreal forest (taiga). Calving areas are usually located in mountains or on open, coastal tundra. Caribou tend to calve in the same general areas year after year, but migration routes used for many years may suddenly be abandoned in favor of movements to new areas with more food. Changing movements can create problems for the Native people in Alaska and Canada who depend upon caribou for food.

Caribou movements are probably triggered by changing weather conditions, such as the onset of cold weather or snowstorms. Once they decide to migrate, caribou can travel up to 50 miles a day. Caribou apparently have a built in compass, like migratory birds, and can travel through areas that are unfamiliar to them to reach their calving grounds.

Hunting: Alaska hunters shoot about 22,000 caribou each year for food. A few thousand other hunters, primarily from the lower 48 states, Europe, and Mexico, travel to Alaska to experience caribou hunting each fall. These hunters contribute significantly to the economy of the state, particularly in rural areas. Meat from caribou taken by these nonresident hunters is also required to be used for food. Alaska's great caribou herds have also become increasingly treasured as a natural wonder of state, national, and international importance.

Population dynamics: There are approximately 900,000 wild caribou in Alaska (including some herds that are shared by Alaska and Canada's Yukon Territory). Caribou are somewhat cyclic in number, but the timing of declines and increases, and the size to which herds grow is not very predictable. Although overhunting caused some herds to remain low in the past, today, varying weather patterns (climate), population density, predation by wolves and grizzly bears, and disease outbreaks determine whether most herds increase or decrease.

In the 1970s people were concerned about the effect of the trans-Alaska oil pipeline, expanding oil development, and increased disturbance from use of aircraft and snowmobiles on caribou. Although there was some displacement of caribou calving in the Prudhoe Bay oilfield, in general, caribou have not been adversely affected by human activities in Alaska. Pipelines and most other developments are built to allow for caribou movements, and caribou have shown us that they can adapt to the presence of people and machines. As human activities expand in Alaska, the great challenge for caribou management is for man to consider the needs of our caribou herds and ensure that they remain a visible, healthy part of our landscape.

source: http://www.adfg.state.ak.us/pubs/notebook/biggame/caribou.php

Stuffed Polar Bears Still Guaranteed at The Hotel Alyeksa

Ever considered Alaska for a far-flung vacation? Then we say hit up the town of Girdwood, Alaska located about 45 minutes outside downtown Anchorage and home to the state's biggest ski resort, Alyeska Resort.

The resort has seen numerous changes in ownership over the last few years and the newest owners have recently made a dedicated effort to improve the rooms inside the The Hotel Alyeska, the resort's "base camp" hotel.

Not to fear though, you'll still find stuffed polar bears in the lobby and massive views of Alyeska Ski Resort out of the huge panoramic windows, provided there is sun.

In the last year, the hotel has been updated with new Sealy Presidential pillow-top mattresses, new carpet, native Alaskan artwork, totaling a multi-million dollar overhaul of the property to make it pop from the inside out.

The town of Girdwood itself is enough to sate even the most jaded naturalist, with jagged mountain peaks at every turn of the eye. For adrenaline junkies in the summer there is para-gliding offered off the top of the tram. Or you can just walk around and hope not to get mauled by a bear.

The property is looking better than ever and in terms of mainstream accommodations in Alaska, The Hotel Alyeska is as strong as they come. Rates start at about $259 in the summer.

source: http://www.hotelchatter.com/story/2008/7/7/4311/51164/hotels/Stuffed_Polar_Bears_Still_Guaranteed_at_The_Hotel_Alyeksa

Alaska's Newhalen Lodge :: Fishing for Big Tunas

For some people fishing requires a cooler of canned beer, a couple bros, and a local lake or river. Then there are those "Big Tunas"-- heads of mega-corporations, sultans, magnates, and independently wealthy gadabouts-- that won't settle for mediocrity in any corner of their lives.

For those special souls there is a private fishing lodge 185 miles southeast of Anchorage Alaska only accessible by private plane called The Newhalen Lodge.

Ironically, the accommodations themselves are not particularly special. Bedrooms are shared, with wood-paneled walls, shaggy tan carpet and dorm-room linens on the beds. In their defense however, the people that are going there are not ones to sweat decor.

What separates this lodge from all others is the fleet of small planes the lodge uses to fly their guests in each day to private, secluded fishing spots in the Alaskan wilderness where they can catch rainbow trout, northern pike, halibut, grayling, arctic char, lake trout, and salmon.

If the weather is unsafe for flying, there are also rafting options available. The lodge guides, all knowledgeable experts and long-time hosts at the lodge will float you to your own private fishing nirvana.

Another exceptional offering at the lodge is the top quality chef at the lodge who offers 5-star manly cuisine each night. Guests have two entrees to choose from including items like filet mignon and king crab legs to rejuvenate guests after reeling in a 60 pound King Salmon.

This is most definitely a big boys club and the majority of the guests are Texans that love smoking big cigars at the end of the night. They help keep the Alaskan "moose-quitos" away.

Luxury means different things to different people and for the fisherman that has it all at home, roughing it at a lodge for a week and fishing some of the world's most pristine spots alone in the wilderness is the ultimate in bragging rights.

source: http://www.hotelchatter.com/story/2008/7/9/122111/9934/hotels/Alaska_s_Newhalen_Lodge_Fishing_for_Big_Tunas

Frozen Outhouses and Other Winter Adventures in Fairbanks, Alaska

One way to tell a true wanderlust adventurer from a tourist-trap bound prisoner of rushed travel is to see where they're willing to visit and when. A lot of people head up to Alaska in July via a bus tour or cruise, but many of the best stories Inbsp;have from Alaska are based on the experiences you get from surviving an Alaska winter in a place like Fairbanks - right smack dab in the middle of the great frozen north.

Fairbanks, Alaska, isn't the Kenai Peninsula or the Isles around Juneau...the beauty that many people rave about when they visit Alaska most often comes from these southern parts of the state. The north and central sections are still beautiful, but it is a far more subtle beauty - especially during the summer. If you want to see strange and beautiful scenery in Fairbanks, the winter months are the times that can take your breath away. From stunning and truly awe inspiring northern lights to white winter landscapes...you don't find many visitors up when the temperatures hit -30 or -40, but there are some great parts about being around during this time.This picture can't even begin to show how impressive a completely snow and ice covered landscape looks in the twilight type of light that puts all of middle Alaska into its winter mind set. This type of scenery is everywhere. In the city, around it, down every road. I remember walking from my cabin to visit friends and the entire hillside in winter had lights from other homes, the full moon reflected off the snow, and living in the state was like walking through a real life Hallmark card.

Even beyond this, however, are great stories you get from having stayed in a place like Fairbanks during the winter. Alaska travel might be geared towards the summer (and for good reason) but have you ever seen foot long ice crystals all over the inside of an outhouse? It's a weird question I know, but tell me that this picture doesn't hold an oddly beautiful feel to it:Yep, that's exactly what it looks like. Dozens of ice and snow crystals hanging off the wood inside of an outhouse. And that's not even a normal light, it's a heat lamp. Because it's -40 out in the winter, so you want all the help you can get. People laugh, but finding the oddly beautiful where it just happens to show up is a huge part of really understanding the Alaska travel experience. There are great people with great stories to tell, and there are a few very distinct advantages to visiting Fairbanks, Alaska, in the winter despite the temperatures:

1. Tickets will be cheaper (it's not exactly a tourist hot spot in October)
2. Just the fact that you went to Alaska in winter and not summer will set you apart from others
3. You can answer a question that is bound to eventually come up: how do you use an outhouse when it's -40 below zero outside?

If you're the kind of traveler who wants to see real people and not a tourist show, traveling to Alaska in the winter will do just that. In addition to the rest of this article, here's my favorite answer to #3 from above. When someone asks you how do you use an outhouse at -40 below, tell them this: "Very quickly, and very carefully."

You'll get great laughs and a lot of respect from an answer like that, and your stories will rank among everyone's favorite. And isn't that a major part of what travel is all about?

source: http://www.xomba.com/frozen_outhouses_and_other_winter_adventures_fairbanks_alaska

The Cold Show in Fairbanks, Alaska

IT was nearly midnight. The air temperature was below zero. But a few tourists and I were outside, soaking in soothing natural hot springs — close to 115 degrees. Our skin was a comfortably warm bubblegum pink, even as our damp hair was frozen to our heads

The black, starry sky was barely visible through the billowing clouds of steam. But then it appeared: an eerie, neon-green cloud, rolling silently across the eastern sky. It seemed to pause directly overhead. Huskies up and down the narrow valley began to bark and bay at the apparition.

It was an electrical storm, charged by the sun and driven by solar winds: the aurora borealis. At this latitude — in Chena Hot Springs, Fairbanks — the aurora appears an estimated 200 nights a year. This night, it broke into three parallel streams and flowed across the sky like a river for two hours. Then it evaporated.

Seeing the northern lights is why I'm here, braving winter's bleakest hours. But I am not alone. Those tourists in the hot springs with me are from Japan. In fact, Japanese visitors pack this whole resort, even though it's located down a dark and icy two-lane road, miles from the nearest town.

“The aurora is a natural phenomenon, but very mysterious,” said Fumiko Ohashi, a vacationing office worker from Nagoya. “It moved surprisingly fast and kept changing shapes. Wow!”

Futaba Inota, on a tour with a group from Tokyo, said: “I am so impressed by the scale of nature. You can't see the aurora in Japan — it's something I wanted to experience at least once in my life.”

North central Alaska may seem like an improbable winter destination, given its frigid weather, almost round-the-clock darkness and summertime attractions that are shuttered this time of year. But tourists do come — especially the Japanese.

Last year, Miho Kataoka of Finland to see the aurora, only to miss out because of bad weather. This year, she decided to try Fairbanks instead.

“Here, the aurora was all over the sky — amazing!” she said.

The area around Fairbanks is a jumping-off point for Japanese winter tourism in the state because it affords the best chance for viewing the northern lights. It enjoys clearer weather and less precipitation than cities farther south, like those on the Panhandle or in the Anchorage area. And with its recently upgraded facilities for air travelers, Fairbanks is possibly the world's most accessible destination for aurora followers.

At least 10 chartered 350-passenger Japanese Air Lines 747s are expected to arrive at Fairbanks International Airport this winter season, carrying groups from Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya. Another 3,500 or so Japanese tourists are forecast to arrive this season on weekly commercial flights

Fairbanks also offers a popular winter carnival that includes ice carving, ice fishing, snowmobiling and dog races like the 1,000-mile Yukon Quest between Fairbanks and Whitehorse, in the Yukon Territory. Winter tourism doesn't peak until late March.

Japanese wintertime tourism in Alaska first gained popularity in the 1990s, after a Tokyo television crew broadcast live pictures of particularly intense and colorful auroras caused by a major solar disturbance. After 9/11, Japanese tourism in the Fairbanks area “dropped to zero,” according to local tourism officials. But this year, they said, promises to be the first in which Japanese tourism returns to pre-9/11 levels.

Since Christmas, Japanese tourists have helped fill the inns, hotels and bed-and-breakfast lodgings in and around Fairbanks. They play outside, so bundled up they look like the Michelin Man. The mood is festive, despite the fact that skies can be dark nearly 20 hours a day. Ice and snow covers everything: the ground, the roads, the buildings, the cars, the trees.

In summer, hundreds of thousands of tourists from the Lower 48 circulate around central Alaska like patrons of a giant amusement park — rafting, fishing, hiking, biking. In winter, they vanish. (A spokesman for Gray Line of Alaska, which organizes hundreds of summer tours, said the company was “intrigued” by the possibilities of four-season touring in the Fairbanks area, but currently senses insufficient demand to expand its offerings.)

But the Alaskan winter — recent overnight lows ranged from 25 below to 45 below zero — is high season for the Japanese. Somehow, that has given rise to some fanciful notions about why they come to Alaska.

“I've heard lots of stories,” said Kristin Fischer, a guide at the Alaska Public Lands Visitor Center, in Fairbanks. “One explanation says they want to conceive under the northern lights, so they're more likely to have a boy. Another version was for a gifted child. There's also supposed to be a belief the child will be well off.”

She added: “I've also heard it's a complete hoax.”

Debbie Eberhardt, the proprietor of A Taste of Alaska Lodge, a few miles north of town, called the rumors about Japanese fertility beliefs “a crock” and said, “The Japanese come to Fairbanks in the winter because they love the extreme cold, not to make babies.

“They do things like throw boiling water in the air and watch it freeze like marbles before it hits the ground. They blow soap bubbles, which freeze solid and roll around on the ground like Christmas ornaments. They put bananas outside to freeze and then use them as hammers to pound nails into two-by-fours.”

Most popular, however, is anything to do with aurora watching, Ms. Eberhardt said.

source: http://travel.nytimes.com/2007/03/02/travel/escapes/02Alaska.html

In Alaska, a Wilderness to Call Your Own

AS I lifted my kayak paddle out of the waters of Thomas Bay in Southeast Alaska, I paused for a moment to listen to the soft susurration of rain on the surface of the water. Gossamer veils of fog lay over the dark spruce and hemlock hills that disappeared in the mist above me. In the background, the roar of Cascade Creek provided a constant backbeat, a reminder that this part of Alaska really is a rain forest, getting more than 100 inches of rain annually

It’s a good climate for ducks, and later, back at our cabin perched on the pebbled beach of the bay, I watched a line of waterfowl paddle by, diving under the water then coming up with fish in their beaks. Tilting their heads back, they slid their catch down their long necks.

My husband, my son and I had arrived at the cabin earlier that day, on a water taxi out of Petersburg, a fishing town on the northern tip of Mitkoff Island, in the Inside Passage of Alaska, about 16 air miles southwest of our destination. Air or boat was the only way to get there, which was just the way we wanted it. In planning my family’s trip, I had been looking to get off the grid, somewhere without roads or electricity or other tourists, so that we might really experience Alaska on its own terms. But with a 9-year-old whose camping experience was limited to a few nights in a tent in our front yard, backpacking into the wild seemed impractical.

Then, browsing online one night, I’d stumbled across the idea of renting a public-use cabin. These are simple backcountry accommodations offered by various state and federal agencies in Alaska at bargain rates — about $35 a night. A cabin, unlike a tent, has a roof. And a wood stove by which to dry our supposedly waterproof boots. And hooks to hang all our newly purchased L. L. Bean rain gear. The one that caught my eye, Cascade Creek Cabin, was in the Tongass National Forest, a swath of 17 million largely roadless acres. The online description promised “Berry picking and wildlife viewing,” plus a hiking trail with “access to waterfalls, a whitewater canyon, pristine lakes and alpine areas frequented by mountain goats.” I signed us up.

And so, at 8 a.m. on a misty August morning, the three of us headed out for our two-night adventure. We were toting sleeping bags and pads, a camp stove and cooking gear, food for three days — including halibut we’d caught on a fishing expedition the previous afternoon — and a supply of fresh water. On top of the boat were the two kayaks we had rented for our stay. Scott Roberge of Tongass Kayak Adventures, who had rented us the gear and who was dropping us off at the cabin, added to our pile a bag of spray skirts, life vests and other kayaking supplies, including an emergency kit and a radio we could use if disaster struck.

Like hotels, cabins have check-in times, and we pulled into Thomas Bay well before our scheduled noon arrival. As we motored up, we could see the trim brown cabin sitting at one end of a half moon of pebble beach; at the other end, Cascade Creek tumbled into the glacial gray waters of the bay. A skiff was moored in the water out front, and smoke curled from the chimney. The previous night’s guests were still in possession, so we dropped our bags outside and decided to check out the Cascade Creek Trail at the opposite end of the beach.

As we walked along the beach, a pair of bald eagles flew out of the trees and over the bay. The sleek head of a seal bobbed to the surface to get a better look at us. According to a book of hiking trails I had picked up in Petersburg, the first mile of the trail was rated “easiest,” and we happily made our way along, first on a softly padded trail that led past moss- and lichen-covered tree trunks, and then on a series of boardwalks installed by the Forest Service. Stretched over the boards was a black plastic mesh for traction. That seemed like overkill until we crossed the wooden bridge over a waterfall, where the trail took a sharp turn upward.

It was raining by that point, and the trail alternated between steep sets of log stairs — the Forest Service seems to have been conducting a contest on how many ways you can turn logs into steps — puddles and slick muddy trails that sucked at our boots. My son’s feet were quickly soaked, and at one point I fell and hit my elbow so hard that my entire hand went numb for a good 10 minutes.

After an hour of hiking we hit a big blow-down area, with tree trunks scattered like pick-up sticks across the trail. Gingerly we climbed over the fallen trunks, trying to keep the outline of the trail in sight.

According to the trail description, about two and a half miles in we would reach a junction that would take us to Falls Lake. There we’d find a rowboat that we could take to yet another trail, which would eventually lead us to Swan Lake.

But among the scattered trees, it was hard to know how far we had come — or how much farther we had to go — and our determination was faltering. With the rain coming down harder, we decided to turn back.

By the time we made it back down to the beach, it was a little after noon, and we were greeted by the putt-putt of the outboard motor as the previous night’s tenants headed home. The cabin was ours. We quickly reconnoitered the place: Inside were two sets of bunks — one single, one double — a table and benches, a work counter and a wood stove (there was also a diesel stove, which we left untouched). A small cache box on the exterior wall provided safe storage for food. The front porch looked out over Thomas Bay and the beach.

An outhouse and a woodshed stocked with logs and axes were out back, connected to the cabin by a boardwalk. Blueberry bushes surrounded us. A small stream rushed along to the bay.

source: http://travel.nytimes.com/2009/05/31/travel/31alaska.html

Cruising in Alaska, This Time on Land

THE first time I gazed on the storied coast of Alaska I was standing lens-to-lens with dozens of my fellow passengers on the deck of a cruise ship. To say we were bowled over would be a serious understatement. Mountain after mountain, each streaked with a different pattern of snow, exploded from a silver-gray sea into a gray-silver sky — and it all seemed to go on forever. The engines churned, the ship sailed on and the spectacular beauty kept rolling by.

But after a while, I wanted more than scenery. I wanted, well, Alaska: Wildlife sightings without a score of whirring shutters. Hikes without a sign-up sheet. Random, unscripted encounters with people and places. Silence. Solitude.

I wanted to see some of Alaska's 33,904 miles of coast without having to strain against a ship's safety rail. I wanted to get out on the road and drive, to see the beauty of the Last Frontier up close and at my own pace.

Though most visitors see Alaska from the deck of a cruise ship, the reality is that this state, despite its lack of highways and abundance of challenging terrain, can be the setting for a perfect road trip — one that takes the driver through canyons carved by jade-green rivers, along deserted beaches teeming with shellfish and shorebirds and past century-old miners' cabins and dark bars serving up cool mugs of amber brews.

So, earlier this summer, my wife, Kate, and I set out on a six-day journey in a rented Chevy Cobalt, on a route that formed a rough arc through the Kenai Peninsula south of Anchorage. Just 20 minutes after leaving the Anchorage airport, heading south on Seward Highway, we got our first payoff at Turnagain Arm, the dark, tapered fjord that separates the Chugach Range from the mountains and lakes of the Kenai (pronounced KEY-nigh).

I'd never seen mountains so big rising so close to salt water; I'd never seen so many peaks so close to a city; I'd never felt so dwarfed by highway scenery. Fifteen miles into the trip, I'd already exhausted my supply of superlatives.

The plan for that afternoon was to head toward a little town called Hope, an 18-mile detour off the Seward Highway on the far side of Turnagain Arm, and stop on the way there for a whitewater raft trip down Sixmile Creek. Kate was game, but my resolve got a little wobbly when the temperature refused to budge out of the low 50s — and it collapsed altogether once we scrambled down a rough path to the river bank and I got a look at the rapids slamming against the canyon walls.

“You know they lose three or four every year from those rafts,” Jim Tudor told me later as we stood by the stove in the Hope-Sunrise Historical Society and Mining Museum, where he is a docent, and talked about the gold rush days that got the town going in the 1890s. Who needs class V rapids when you can while away an afternoon peering at old photos, stuffed owls and gold nuggets?

Downtown Hope — a bar, a store, magpies singing from big clumps of Alaska elderberry and a collection of quaint log cabins set back from an immense tidal flat on Turnagain Arm — was pretty much deserted. But someone must love the place dearly because these cabins have withstood more than a century of Alaska weather in pristine condition.

NOT counting spurs and side roads, there are only two highways that serve the Kenai: the Seward Highway, which runs more or less north-south for 127 miles between Anchorage and Seward, and the Sterling Highway, which cuts west off the Seward Highway 90 miles south of Anchorage then turns south along the peninsula's west coast to Homer, covering 158 miles.

Cooper Landing, 11 miles west of the junction of the Sterling and Seward Highways in the middle of the peninsula, seemed like a good place to stop for the first night. Anyway, I liked the sound of the name.

Aside from its stunning location where the long snaking Kenai Lake flows into the milky green Kenai River, the town isn't much to look at. A series of cabins equipped with fish freezers and billboards boasting of fishing and rafting trips, Cooper Landing is all about bagging big salmon — and since the fish hadn't appeared yet, there wasn't much going on. What to do on a gray, drizzly morning?

“Drive out to Skilak Lake Road,” suggested a woman who worked at the Kenai Princess Wilderness Lodge, where we spent the night, describing how to pick up the rutted dirt road that cuts through a corner of the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge west of town. “This is where the locals take their guests to see bears.”

No bears were spotted in the course of the drive, though there was a striking change in scenery. No sooner had the billboards of Cooper Landing disappeared than the jagged peaks that had encircled us since Anchorage relaxed into smooth ridges and rounded humps rising from wide glassy waters. Trail signs beckoned every few miles, and so, despite the dreary weather and elevated threat level for bears, we decided to take a hike.

A helpful sign at the start of the 2.6-mile Skilak Lookout Trail explained in graphic detail how to “resolve” all manner of ursine encounters. Singing loudly to alert lurking bears to the presence of a couple of out-of-tune idiots, we set off into the dripping underbrush.

Charred stumps left by a 1996 fire made for a rather somber walk. But the burn did open up glorious views to Skilak Lake (as well as good sight lines to approaching bears) and cleared the way for meadows starred with lupine, bunch berry, Jacob's ladder and purple mountain saxifrage, all in full bloom. We saw but a single raft drifting on the lake below — a dot of blue in a brooding immensity of black, green and gray.

(Had we been there later that month, we would have seen the smoke from a 72,000-acre fire that burned for days southwest of there and destroyed scores of homes).

By the end of the hike we became rather lax about bear patrol and even regretted that we'd encountered no wildlife more thrilling than the celestial-voiced Swainson's thrush and some seagulls, which fly inland to feed on young salmon in the gravelly shallows of Hidden Creek.

source: http://travel.nytimes.com/2007/07/22/travel/22alaska.html

Readers’ Picks in Alaska

Selected reader suggestions on visiting Alaska, compiled from user comments on the Travel section’s Web site. You can read more comments on this and other cities at nytimes.com/travel.

WHERE TO STAY

The Earth B&B in Anchorage (907-279-9907; www.earthbb.com) is always one of the highlights of my trips to Alaska to go climbing. The owners, Lori and Angel, are great hostesses and ready to provide all the information one could possibly need to enjoy the city of Anchorage and surrounding areas (beautiful!). I would not stay anywhere else in Anchorage!

Posted by Simona

Camp Denali in Denali National Park (907-683-2290; www.campdenali.com) is a fabulous place to stay and to explore the fascinating tundra and river bars and observe the wildlife of one of the last great wildernesses. We liked Camp Denali so much when we first happened on it in 1982 that my wife and I have returned over a dozen times.

Posted by Steve Bickerstaff

We stayed at Three Moose Meadow B&B (907-235-0755; hideawaycovelodge.com; ), near Homer, on our honeymoon. We stayed in one of the bright little secluded cabins with fireplaces, kitchens, nice big porches and pleasant décor. There’s a sod-roof sauna & a Jacuzzi. It’s quiet and gorgeous — and yes, there are moose everywhere.

Posted by Arizonapie

WHERE TO EAT

The absolute best place to eat in Homer is Finn’s Pizza (907-235-2878; Cannery Row Boardwalk). Located on the Homer Spit, it has a breathtaking view with casual, comfortable seating. The pizza, which you can watch being made, is a spectacular concoction of local and organic ingredients, attentively prepared and then baked in a wood-fired oven. The thin-crusted pizza with deliciously orchestrated ingredients, fresh organic salad of local greens, locally brewed beer and organic wine selection along with the incredible view, make for a truly memorable eating experience.

Posted by Sheri Raupp

Snow City Cafe in downtown Anchorage (907-272-2489; www.snowcitycafe.com) has great food. Their butternut squash and apple soup is a must try. Great breakfast as well.

source: http://travel.nytimes.com/2008/07/27/travel/27readers.html

36 Hours in Juneau, Alaska

RESIDENTS of Juneau brag that their town is the most beautiful capital city in America, and they have a strong argument. Juneau is inside the Tongass National Forest, part of the world’s largest temperate rain forest. Old-growth groves and glaciers lie within the municipal limits, snow-capped mountains loom overhead, and whales and other marine wildlife are a short boat ride away. But despite Juneau’s overall utilitarian vibe, there’s more to the town’s appeal than natural beauty. Gold Rush-era buildings, art galleries, quality regional theater and fresh seafood make for pleasant companions to Juneau’s stunning surroundings.

BACK TO THE ICE AGE

Nature beckons. But some preparations are required. On your way into town, stop at Western Auto-Marine (5165 Glacier Highway; 907-780-4909; www.westernautojuneau.com) for a pair of brown rubber, calf-high Xtra Tuf Boots, a must-have item in any Alaskan’s wardrobe (depending on whether you spring for the reinforced toes, they typically sell for $80 or $90). A good place to start your trek is the entrance to the Switzer Creek and Richard Marriott Trails (midway on Sunset Street). On the hillside, even ranks of evergreens give way to a hodge-podge of trees of different species, sizes and shapes. This change marks the boundary between second-growth timber on land logged decades ago, and an old-growth forest, untouched since the end of the last ice age. Hike up the trail — it’s not too strenuous — and discover for yourself why environmentalists are so keen to save these ancient woods, namely an amazingly rich variety of plant and animal life. There are hemlock and spruce, whose uneven canopy blocks winter snow, leaving plants like five-leaved bramble to feed deer and other animals through the winter. (Keep to the wooden planks at the base of the trail, and be glad you have your boots. The bog, or muskeg, is plenty wet.)

What better way to start your Saturday than with some close-up views of Juneau’s original residents. A number of companies offer whale-watching trips from Auke Bay, a short car (or bus) ride north of Downtown. Find one offering a trip up the Lynn Canal to Berners Bay and you are sure to see Steller sea lions basking on a rocky haul-out, harbor seals bobbing in the water and harrier hawks, geese and ducks. Also watch for eagles nesting along the shores. Most companies guarantee you will see whales; chances of spotting humpbacks are best in late spring when the herring-like fish called eulakon (“hooligan” in a local Native language) are running.

source: http://travel.nytimes.com/2009/08/30/travel/30hours.html

Whale and glacier watching

The kenai penninsula is known for its marine wildlife and glaciers that end up into the ocean. The best way to experience all of this is by taking a boat trip... But as always with wildlife watching, you have to be lucky to see something... and the weather can block much of sight onto the glaciers.

That morning, it was misty and rainy. Not exactely a big day for this kind of trip. In the beginning, there was not much to see, except for the puffins, several sea birds, and the funny sea otters... When on the deck of the boat the wind and rain were challenging the quality of your raincoat. Not exactely a great trip. But this all changed when the sea lions came into sight. Hundreds of them lying on the rocky coast. The boat stayed at a 'safe' distance, in order not to interfere with these animals. The sounds of the sea lions were however reaching us loud and clear. Later on, someone spotted some dolphins swimming along with the boat. Dolphins seem to like to do this. Sometime later, the ocean had another surprise for us : whales ! Everyone rushed to the side of the boat where they where spotted. Big exitement on the boat, rain and wind were forgotten now. The captain of the boat tried to follow the whales, from a distance, but this seemed a rather difficult task : you could never tell where they would surface from the water again. However we had a couple of minutes till they were gone - some very special minutes in the company of the giants of the ocean.

Along the way the boat stopped to eat some Alaska salmon, which is always great food. After lunch, it was glacier time. One of the big attractions on such a boat trip is to pass by a glacier (not too close however) at the moment a large chunk of ice falls into the water. The sound and movement of the water is thrilling ! Since it was misty, only half of the glacier walls were visible, but still, these were impressive masses of ice. Notwithstanding the bad weather, this was still a trip I can higly recommend.

source: http://www.worldtravelstories.com/alaska_story4.htm