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Up Ship Creek

If you were to clone Aroostook County, Maine, stamp it out an infinite number of times, and suck out all the people and most of the potatoes and roads, you would have created Alaska. Oh, you’d need to crumple your finished drawing too, for Alaska is also very mountainous.

I know this because I drove thousands of miles across Alaska and Canada, with a detour above the Arctic Circle.

I started this day at Buzco Automotive in South Anchorage. It was owned by a church buddy of Jason and Debbie, who let us couch surf while we tried to figure out what was wrong with our aged SUV. Buzco was very unprepossessing but the owner, Jayson, was a very gifted mechanic. At the time, we thought a replacement catalytic converter was $1000 and a day’s delay. Later we learned that it wouldn’t have ever been available; the Suzuki was too old.

Instead, Jayson cut the pipe, cleaned out the mess, and welded it back together. Presto, a smooth engine.

Jayson was the second of many mechanics who would work on our car along the way. While I cooled my heels, I painted a little study of Ship Creek, which winds through industrial South Anchorage. As with so many places in Alaska, stunning scenery sits next to the humdrum necessities of modern life.

The car ran like a top as we zoomed through the Matanuska-Susitna Valley. Mist shrouded the mountains and the autumn foliage stood out against the towering, jagged peaks.

And then we blew the muffler.

Reluctantly, I turned back to Wasilla and googled muffler shops. We opted for the local one, Quality Muffler, and prayed it wouldn’t be busy and we wouldn’t be ripped off. Ten Thousand Reasons (to bless the Lord) by Mat Redman was pouring out of the speakers as we pulled in. Mike replaced a gasket, a hanger strap, and the missing bolts. He pumped up our spare tire and sent us on our way with two jars of his wife’s home-canned salmon.

As difficult as this trip got at times, we were blessed. The SUV never died when we were out of cell range, or far from a city, and we were never taken advantage of. We camped in lonely, isolated backwoods country with no problems at all. It felt like we were handed along a chain of saints all the way. You may doubt this, but I was there.

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In 2016, my daughter Mary and I set off across Alaska and Canada on a Great White North Adventure, which you can read about starting here. We arrived in Anchorage at the beginning of September and got home in mid-October. In between, we visited every province but PEI (been there, done that), and Yukon Territory. In retrospect, it might have made more sense to do this during the summer, since Alaska and Canada threw a mess of strange weather at us.

Above the Arctic Circle

I didn’t even know I had a bucket list, let alone that painting above the Arctic Circle was on it. But as I crossed the Yukon River, I realized that no amount of bad road was going to stop me from seizing this opportunity. My daughter asked me whether the Dalton Highway or the one-lane roads in the Hebrides were more terrifying to drive. It’s a draw.

Northerners know that 25° F and damp feels colder than below 0° F and dry. It hovered in the freezing range all day, with bands of snow. It was beautiful, but not that comfortable.

We followed the Alaska Pipeline north from Fairbanks into the Arctic. It snakes from Prudhoe Bay to Valdez, and it’s a beautiful companion. It appears to be meticulously maintained; not only the pipe itself but the property surrounding it.

As we approached the Arctic Circle, it got snowier and more desolate. The birch forests dwindled, leaving stunted black spruce forests and low shrubs on the higher elevations. The deep red of blueberry bushes covered the slopes.

A Mercedes people-mover played tag with us. That’s a top-heavy vehicle and it worried me to see it slip-sliding in the deep mud at reckless speeds. We stopped at the Arctic Circle for the requisite photo op; it followed us in.

We waited patiently while its Chinese tourists took every possible photo—the sign with each person, the sign with a hand puppet, calisthenics in front of the sign. A woman posed for a photo with our mud-spattered Maine license plate as a prop.

We didn’t get much farther north; I’d promised my husband we’d call once a day and there was no cell reception that far north. After making a cup of hot coffee on our cook stove, we headed back south, intending to camp near Manley Hot Springs. The visibility was poor, so we stopped where we were for the night, in a roadside lay-by. Everything in our truck was frozen when we woke up.

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In 2016, my daughter Mary and I set off across Alaska and Canada on a Great White North Adventure, which you can read about starting here. We arrived in Anchorage at the beginning of September and got home in mid-October. In between, we visited every province but PEI (been there, done that), and Yukon Territory. In retrospect, it might have made more sense to do this during the summer, since Alaska and Canada threw a mess of strange weather at us.

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Wildfire!

If you’re in the way of the great plumes of smoke coming down from Canada this week, stay in your studio. There will be plenty of fine weather in the months ahead.