Going wild for Alaska
This month, America celebrates 100 years of its National Park Service. SARAH MARSHALL visits Alaska, arguably the country’s last true wilderness
NATIVE American Eskimos have an old adage about dealing with bears: Don’t run or blink and they will know you are a wise one. Personally, I’m not convinced. Despite the national park warden’s firm advice to stand our ground, I imagine every sinew in my body stretching to sprint should I cross paths with 450kg of teeth and claws.
In Alaska, where bears far outnumber people, heartpounding encounters are a real possibility.
Dominated by swathes of uninhabited plains and forest, and consciously set apart from the Lower 48s, this state straddling the Arctic Circle is often touted as America’s last true wilderness.
Appropriately, I’m visiting in the centennial year of the US National Parks Service, a body set up with the intention to protect and preserve places just like this.
On the country’s southwest peninsula, Katmai was originally declared a National Park Monument following the biggest volcanic eruption of the 20th century in 1912. But in recent decades, The Valley of 10,000 Smokes, an eerie plateau of ash sliced by deep gorges, has played second fiddle to the bears. On the beach or along a trail, chances are you will bump into one at Brooks Lodge, a relatively accessible camp (even though it’s still a flight and float plane ride from Anchorage) inland on the banks of Brooks Lake.
Tents and wooden cabins are set back from the water, framed by charcoal-tipped birch trees spiralling like mascara wands and brushing the foothills of snow-streaked mountains.
I meet my first ursus along a narrow forest trail. A nervous sow stands on hind legs with her cubs and utterss a series of teacher tuts to send me scurrying intonto the thickets.
I’m torn between fear and fascination; it’s hard to disassociate the cute, tufty-haired baby bears from the cuddlyly ones which went with me on childhood picnics.
I’m here early in the season (mid-June) when the sockeye salmon are starting to run, and bleary-eyed brown bears – hungry from hibernation – are slowly gathering at Brooks Falls to fill their boots.
The elevated viewing platform overlooking the popular fishing spot can be packed with queues of 300 people in July, the height of the short season, but right now, I have the place to myself. As salmon struggle furiously upstream, catapulting over the weir, bears employ a variety of techniques to make their catch. Some energetically pounce, others snorkel below the surface and the most successful hunters simply sit in the ‘Jacuzzi’, a sm small whirlpool, an and wait. A clear hierarchy is quickly set: a big war-wounded m male takes cen centre stage, while timid fema females and juveniles wait in the wings. Entering the picture with a cowboy swagger, a young pretender digs his hind spurs into the soil, clearly demonstrating “there ain’t room for the two of us”. Distracted by a bountiful, protein-rich food source, these animals show little concern for humans. But it’s a different story further north in Denali, Alaska’s first national park (designated 1917) and home to North America’s highest peak, where smaller but more dangerous berry-foraging grizzlies have rightly earned their name.
Commissioned by President Woodrow Wilson in 1914 to open up Alaska’s mineral-rich interior, the Alaska Railroad now operates as a heritage tourist train with a route running from Anchorage to Fairbanks via Denali.
Snaking through steep, climbing forest and sparkling lakes, we pass remote villages unreachable by road and off-radar regions where outlaws might easily hide.
Avoiding the Disneyfied, built-up park entrance, nicknamed Glitter Gulch, I head to Denali’s ‘backcountry’, Kantishna Hills, where the only access is by light aircraft or a six-hour bus ride.
Sixty-something New Zealander Kirsty has been driving the same daily route in and out of the park for 30 years, and as we hug hairpin bends and steer through gaping valleys, she shares fond memories of her individually nicknamed single-deckers as if they were cherished family members.
Wearing a broad Stetson and permanent grin, flamboyant guide Steve welcomes us to Kantishna Roadhouse, one of the few lodges out here in the wilds. He’s one of the many young, seasonal workers who merrily spend days off exploring with just a backpack and sense of adventure.
Following a briefing on the appropriate action to take should I encounter one of the park’s dangerous animals, I fail to share the same carefree confidence.
“If you see a bear, stand still;