Land of the Midnight Sun

Land of the Midnight Sun. The Last Frontier. Alaska has attracted explorers, trappers, gold miners, hunters and tourists over the last three centuries. 

With 24 hours of daylight above the Arctic Circle around the summer solstice, there is plenty of time to explore. Even below the Arctic Circle, the long hours of twilight between sunset and sunrise leave little room for darkness. 

Prolific tomato and cucumber plants

The long summer days are ideal for growing vegetables. The largest cabbage grown in Alaska and the world is 127 pounds--that’s a lot of sauerkraut. The largest rutabaga grown was almost 83 pounds. 

Alaska is the land of extremes. Besides huge vegetables, Alaska boasts the tallest mountain in North America, Denali, at 20,320 feet. Seventeen of the 20 highest mountains in North America are found in Alaska. 

Denali

Alaskans joke that if Alaska was divided in half, Texas would be the third largest state. With an area of over 570,000 square miles, Alaska is more than twice the size of Texas. If the entire population of Alaska (710,231) was spread across the state, 1.2 people would inhabit each square mile. Compare that to Washington where there would be 101.2 people per square mile or California at 238.8 people per square mile.

Alaska is huge--it is one-fifth the size of the contiguous 48 states--or the “Outside” or “Lower 48” as Alaskans call it. Alaska’s coastline is more than 50 percent longer than that of the Lower 48 at 33,900 miles and is the only state that borders three seas-Pacific Ocean, Arctic Ocean and the Bering Sea. 

Dalton Highway and the Pipeline cutting through the Brooks Range

While Alaska can’t beat Arizona or Death Valley for the hottest temperature--Alaska’s record high is 100 degrees Fahrenheit--it can produce extremely low temperatures. The coldest temperature ever recorded in Alaska was minus 80 degrees Fahrenheit at Prospect Creek Camp in 1971. The temperature may have been colder but that was the lowest temperature mark on the thermometer. The coldest temperature ever recorded in North America was minus 81 degrees in the Yukon Territory of Canada. 

Alaska has its fair share of earthquakes (50 to 100 each day), but they tend to go unnoticed because of the remote locations. However, the Good Friday Earthquake on March 27, 1964 garnered attention because of the havoc it created along the southcentral coast, including Anchorage. At a magnitude of 9.2, it was the strongest earthquake ever recorded in North America and second largest in the world. Fifty-two percent of all earthquakes in the U.S. occur in Alaska.

25-pound sheefish from the Kobuk River

The lure of the north has enticed many people to venture to the Last Frontier and I am no exception. Soon it will be time for the annual migration north. 

Woodland Caribou

Hundreds of thousands of caribou stampeding across the tundra of northern Alaska tends to be the iconic photo of caribou. Barren-ground caribou, such as those in Alaska, are known for their seasonal migrations between the northern tundra and the inland boreal forests. However, not all caribou inhabit the tundra or make seasonal long-distance migrations every year. 

Woodland caribou inhabit boreal or mixed-conifer forests year-round. Caribou in forests may seem out of place, but so did woodland buffalo the first time I saw them in northern British Columbia. Woodland buffalo are northern cousins to the plains buffalo that we are familiar with. 

Woodland caribou are the southern cousin to the barren-ground caribou. Both are the same species, but are divided into two groups based on a few different physical characteristics and the type of habitat they occupy. 

Woodland Caribou, British Columbia

The caribou that inhabit the Selkirk Mountains of Idaho, Washington and southern British Columbia are considered woodland caribou. They don’t migrate long distances like barren-ground caribou, but instead move in elevation throughout the year in response to snow levels, food availability and predator avoidance--similar to elk and deer. 

Woodland caribou are slightly larger than barren-ground caribou and have heavier, more compact antlers. Unlike the rest of the deer family, both the female and male caribou grow antlers. Woodland and barren-ground caribou diverged from the same lineage but differences resulted as they each became adapted to their respective habitat. 

Barren-ground Caribou, Alaska

During the last ice age, the continental ice sheet separated the caribou either to the  north towards the Arctic and Alaska or south into the United States at the southern edge of the ice sheet. This separation caused them to become genetically different enough to be considered separate subspecies. 

There are areas in Canada where both subspecies inhabit the boreal forest--the woodland caribou year-round and the barren-ground caribou seasonally. Between both subspecies, caribou roamed most of Canada, Alaska and the northern tier of the contiguous United States after the ice age. Caribou once lived as far south as Salmon, Idaho and northern Minnesota. 

A combination of factors caused the populations to decline and to move northward. The advance of human settlement across the country brought hunting, logging and livestock.  

Woodland caribou feed on arboreal lichens during the winter, which only grow on mature trees. When the mature trees were logged, the new growth brought in whitetail deer. The younger forests and open land was ideal for deer and domestic livestock, which pushed the caribou northward. Additionally, whitetail deer carry a parasitic worm that is harmless to them but fatal to caribou. 

Barren-ground Caribou, Alaska

One group of caribou has held out in the Lower 48, here in the Selkirk Mountains. While the population isn’t huge and they probably spend most of their time in the Canadian portion of the Selkirks, there is always a chance of seeing one. 

The spectacle of thousands of caribou on the arctic tundra would be an amazing sight to see but so would an elusive woodland caribou in the Selkirks. 

Signs of Spring

Several signs of spring preceded the spring equinox yesterday--robins, bluebirds, ladybugs and caterpillars. Robins have been singing their melody at dawn for over a week and a pair of bluebirds inspected the bluebird houses yesterday.

Male Western Bluebird

Ladybugs and woolly caterpillars are emerging from a long winter tucked away in a crevice under leaves or bark. Small flying insects are also starting to emerge, but no mosquitoes yet.

Another spring migrant, the spotted towhee made its presence known with its call from the bushes and a flash of orange and black as it hopped around. Tundra swans are stopping in the Kootenai Valley on their way north and the honking of Canada geese echoes across the valley wetlands.

Spring is slowly coming with highs in the 40's this week and plenty of rain to melt the snow. More signs of spring will appear as the days continue to become longer and warmer.

Fire Lookouts of Boundary County, Idaho

Standing on a high peak during a lightening storm is not recommended but not long ago, men and women endured the storms in small towers on those peaks by sitting on chairs with glass insulators on the chair legs. A risky yet crucial job when the only means of detecting wildfires was with human eyes. 

Fire lookout towers once stood on practically every high ridge or peak in Boundary County, 71 towers/cabins/camps in all--only a fraction remain standing. Of the 989 towers/cabins that once occupied the high ridges in Idaho, only 196 are still standing.

Deer Ridge Lookout

The lookout towers were the main fire detection system in the early and mid-twentieth century. After the Great Fire of 1910, early fire detection became a priority for the USFS and they began constructing fire lookout towers. 

In the twenties and thirties, when most of the fire lookout towers were first constructed around here, there was no road system like we have today. Trails from the valley bottom led to the various peaks. A trip to the Bethlehem Mountain lookout was a lot shorter than a trip to West Fork lookout. 

West Fork Lookout

The Forest Service had mules and horses in pack-strings to service the lookouts via the trails which we now hike. Sometimes it would take one-and-a-half months for a pack string to haul in all the supplies necessary to build a tower. 

Once built, the towers were manned during the summer by “lookouts”. In the early days when a fire was detected, a lookout would signal to another lookout closer to the ranger station via heliograph mirrors. The mirrors reflected sunlight and a series of short and long flashes were used like morse code. Flashes could be seen 50 miles and were relayed between towers until the lookout closest to the ranger station received the message and ran down the trail to the ranger station. This only worked on sunny days. 

View from Shorty Peak Lookout

After the telephone started becoming widespread in 1910’s, hundreds of miles of No. 9 galvanized wire were stretched from tree to tree to connect every lookout to a dispatcher. Fires were reported by telephones placed in the towers and along the trail (which were weather-proof and bear-proof).

Short sections of telephone wire and associated porcelain insulators can still be found--sometimes in the most surprising locations. There is a piece of telephone wire going off the northeast side of Phoebe’s Tip, which is a challenge to climb let alone string telephone wire down.  

By the mid thirties, telephones were being phased out as radios became the main source of communication between towers. Airplanes, helicopters, sensitive infra-red sensing devices and other technology started replacing the need for lookouts in the 1960’s.

Log cabin that accompanied lookout (destroyed) on Russell Ridge

Many of the towers and cabins have been destroyed or abandoned. Abandoned ones will eventually succumb to the elements, such as the Roman Nose lookout toppling over not too long ago. Towers and log cabins on Cutoff Peak, Russell Ridge, Burton Peak, Black Mountain and West Fork Ridge are a few of the ones still battling the elements.

Remnants still remain of others, such as concrete footings on the Mollies and a concrete box on Goat Mountain. Deer Ridge and Shorty Peak lookouts remain in excellent condition and are available for rental, allowing one the chance to be a “lookout” for a day. 

Welcome

This is an outlet for my writing and photography, wherever I might be. Natural history, biology, ecology, geology, local history and anything that interests me. I started writing an outdoor column for the local newspaper almost two years ago as a way to share my excitement of the outdoors with others. I will include many of them in the blog. As I prepare to move to Alaska and leave my column behind, I wanted to continue writing about my explorations--so here I go.