CALL OF THE WILD
Alaska adventure features Iditarod, Northern Lights, stark beauty
After spotting a moose, I spot the “Mushing Mortician.” Along the Iditarod Trail, in Alaska's snow-coated wilderness, 57-year-old funeral home owner Scott Janssen barks, “Straight! Straight!” to his sled dogs barreling toward a checkpoint 311 miles into the famed, grueling and controversial 1,000-mile race.
I've arrived at this remote, deep-frozen village of McGrath an easier way — by a flightseeing plane that will soon soar us over the Arctic Circle and land in the isolated funky Gold Rush town of Bettles, population 10.
During my 11-day powdery adventure, I do my first-ever hike with antlered guides, including a rambunctious reindeer named Buttercup; come face-to-bearded-face with prehistoric woolly mammals at the “world's only musk ox farm”; and sip aurora-hued martinis in a neon-aglow ice museum after melting outdoors in natural hot springs. From a mountaintop at night, I awe-strikingly gape at the twirling, morphing, phosphorescent green-and-pink Northern Lights.
We begin in Anchorage as Alaska celebrates its pioneer grit at the 83rd annual Fur Rondy festival, which features locals costumed as toilets-on-skis for shivery outhouse races. Fur Rondy coincides with the 46th annual Iditarod, which is under a cloud before it starts: There's the 2017 scandal, when a champion musher's dogs tested positive for banned painkillers, the loss of top sponsors, and increasing pressure from animal rights activists who cite chained living conditions, abusive treatment and deaths of dogs. Mushers are adamant about how much they love their “bredto-run athletes” — Iditarod king Rick Swenson adored his multi-winning lead dog Andy so much he had him stuffed and mounted after the husky-mutt died at age 18 in 1993. I see furry Andy on display at the Iditarod's log cabin museum.
At the rib-eye banquet, competitors pick bib numbers from a native mukluk boot, and the next morning, with sled dogs yipping, yapping and powerfully pulling their harnesses, the Iditarod's 11-mile ceremonial start dashes through fan-cheering downtown Anchorage. The following day, we're at the race's official start in Willow about 80 miles away.
On a calmer note, at a 1930s-era homestead in nearby Palmer, our group bonds with Ice Age musk ox. They look like bison
who mated with Cousin Itt. About 80 of the shaggy, long-haired, rare ruminants lumber about — and play tetherball with their thickhorned heads — on the 75acre nonprofit Musk Ox Farm.
Next up is the eccentric tiny hamlet of Talkeetna, the inspiration for the town in TV's “Northern Exposure.” Our group of 16 is staying at the bluff-top deluxe Talkeetna Alaskan Lodge (off-season we have the 212-room spread to ourselves) when predawn I'm in a lobby rocker drinking coffee under an upright 2,000-pound taxidermied grizzly bear shot by a 10-year-old girl. Slowly, miraculously, a coral-pink sunrise unveils the coveted prize right out the window: all 20,310 feet of elusive Mount Denali, the tallest peak in North America. Most tourists never see the entire mountain because it's shrouded in cloud cover two-thirds of the time.
At the Talkeetna lodge, full-time “Aurora Hunter” Todd Salat gives a slide presentation about the unpredictable polar phenomena. Basically, the aurora borealis — also known as the Northern Lights — results from solar-charged particles and you've got to have inky clear skies and no light pollution to have a crack at the most soughtafter cosmic show.
Our best shot is north in Fairbanks. That's where we join the herd at Running Reindeer Ranch for a comically enchanting daytime walk. Owner/reindeer guru Jane Atkinson first lays out ground rules about our seven hoofed escorts — most notably, “Don't play `push the antlers' game with Jasper.” The 450-pound Jasper sports a helluva intimidating headdress and apparently insists on winning.
Our very last day, we're staying at Chena Hot Springs Resort. In the morning, snow flurries cascade on hubby and me as we blissfully turn to rubber and my ponytail to permafrost in the 1905-discovered steamy springs of a boulder-rimmed man-made lake. That afternoon, we watch a sculptor carve our ice martini glasses before we plop on caribou fur-clad ice stools and belly up to the Aurora Ice Museum's bar to lap appletinis. Later, our group piles into snowcats for an ultra-bumpy half-hour ride up a secluded mountain. Standing in pillowy drifts, we toast the magnificent setting sun with Champagne. Yes, skies have amazingly cleared.
Around 9 p.m., I'm consuming a vat of vegetarian curry in the lounge when someone yells, “The aurora is starting!” Outside, it's as if a luminous green funnel cloud touched down. I soon ride a snowcat back up the mountain for a sensational 360-degree view among gangly snow-draped spruce trees straight out of Dr. Seuss. In the bonechilling pin-drop quiet wilderness, between
11 p.m. and 1 a.m., Mother Nature delivers a doozy. The electrifying aurora repeatedly spirals up like genies, then flattens into wiggling chartreuse curtains underlined with magenta streaks. I can't believe my lucky stars. But there they are, brightly piercing an emerald, otherworldly tango in the incomparable 49th state.