A Most Quirky Place

The people here are fantastically unique. They are the heart of Talkeetna, and they are why I want to come back. Yes, it is a lot like it was depicted on TV’s Northern Exposure. Most of the town’s female inhabitants are featured in the "Women of Talkeetna" calendar, for sale at better establishments all over town. They do have a radio station. Unlike the show, DJ responsibility is shared among volunteers. From what I understand, one simply shows up at the station with whatever music that they want to play.

The locals here eat what they can get: halibut and salmon marinated in brown sugar and soy sauce before smoking, black bear burgers, moose steaks, and caribou stew are staples brought in by hunters (most everyone). They gather berries in the late summer and preserve these in various ways for year round use. Most I spoke with raise a huge garden, since a green pepper can cost you at the store out of season.

There are a lot more men then women. Some say that it’s a 10:1 ratio. Some typical sayings related to this imbalance are, for the ladies: "the odds are good, but the goods are odd" and for the men, "you don’t lose your girlfriend; you just lose your turn". The public showers in town stay busy since a lot of people live in small cabins with no electricity or running water.

Into this eclectic mix stir the climbers. All parties attempting to summit Mt. McKinley (the tallest peak in North America at 20,320’) have to sign through the ranger station here. They are everywhere in season and are as much a part of Talkeetna as anyone else. They keep the inns, restaurants, campgrounds, and cemetery full. As macabre as it may sound, the cemetery itself deserves a look while you are here. In addition to assorted personality-focused monuments the locals have erected for their loved ones, there is a very nice fallen climber memorial. It consists of a climber’s effigy, plaques listing names by year, graves adorned with climbing gear, benches, etc.

Quick Tips:

Get into the local culture. Rub elbows with the locals and talk with them. This is one of the most interesting and entertaining places I’ve ever been, and I wasn’t even there during any of the town’s festivals. For example, the Bachelor Auction in early December is an annual charity event where single women from all over the area bid on recently bathed and sometimes even freshly shaven single men. The winner gets a guaranteed drink and conversation with her purchase. Anything beyond that is on them. Then there is the Moose Drooping Festival, Wilderness Woman and Mountain Mother Contest.

Do some research and learn something about the area before you go so that you’ll know what you are getting into. The Chamber of Commerce’s website is great--http://www.talkeetnachamber.org--as was www.alaskatravel.com.

Also see the following books which were useful for me: Lonely Planet’s Guide Alaska; Looking for Alaska by Peter Jenkins; One man’s Wilderness, An Alaskan Odyssey by Sam Keith; and James A. Michener’s Alaska.

Best Way To Get Around:

Talkeetna is a bush aviation hub. K2 Aviation is the biggest operator at the airfield and offers a nice variety of flightseeing tours, glacier landings, and transportation to various points. Contact them at 800-764-2291 or on the web at www.flyk2.com. If you can’t see Mt. McKinley from town, chances are that you can’t fly there. In fact, they have a large bell downtown that they ring to alert the climbers when the ceiling is breaking up. Plan to spend a few days in Talkeetna to increase your chances.

If driving, the Parks Highway, Route 3, runs to within 14 miles with direct access along the Talkeetna Spur. It's best to arrive by train. The Alaska RR offers service from the north via Denali/Fairbanks and also from Anchorage to the south. The scenery is fine and the ride relaxing. Trains arrive and depart from these locations in the late afternoon daily from May to September.

There is also a "whistle-stop" train that makes a run daily in the summer from here out to Hurricane Turn and back. This is real backcountry. People just get on or off near their remote cabin sites along the way.

The most popular beds in town are found at the Roadhouse (see other review). They were booked, so I reserved my second choice the Latitude 62 Lodge. It worked out splendidly, too. The Latitude is the lodging option closest to the train station and the air strip, making it an easy walk for anyone with luggage or backpackers. My room, small but clean, had a private bath with a great shower. Arriving on a misty late afternoon, I immediately set out to see the downtown only about a half-mile walk away.

I returned a couple hours later for dinner. The Latitude offers a nice restaurant and bar. An antique ice box from the old Fort Bragg Officer’s Club was well stocked with beer, and an ornately carved mahogany bar the owner acquired in Bavaria, Germany, accentuated the otherwise rustic decor. I had the prime rib special with a side of king crab legs—around $21, minus my beer tab. It was a nice thick cut, juicy and delicious. After devouring it in short order, the chef (or owner or bar manager; I couldn’t determine which) said, "Well, you obviously liked it, huh?" "I sure did" I replied. "You a climber," she said . . .

I really enjoyed talking to the locals here. Aside from the chef, one of the first people I met here was the contractor that builds most of the houses. "Talkeetna’s secret is getting out," he said. "All kinds of people are moving here. Three this summer." Others at the bar included a Scottish couple. The man was smoking a pipe. I could only barely understand his English. Everyone had to keep asking him to repeat himself, though I got the sense that he was a regular. A four-man French climbing party checked into the hotel while I was at the bar. Apparently this excited the local women because I caught them smiling at each other and semi-subtly checking each other out when they thought no one was looking.

Shortly, I departed back downtown for the nightlife there. The staff worked with me for a late check-out the next day. Coincidentally, the room was $62 per night. The Latitude 62 worked out better for me than the Roadhouse after all.

The Roadhouse epitomizes Talkeetna. Alaskan roadhouses are typically in off-the-beaten-path locations and offer small private rooms with a shared bath and a restaurant. Talkeetna’s is perfect and on the main street in the center of town. This one was booked when I tried to reserve lodging a couple of weeks before my trip, but the main reason to come to the Roadhouse is the food.

The dining room doesn’t open until just before breakfast because it doubles as the living room for the lodgers. There is a smaller sitting area near the bakery case for other times of the day. You eat at long tables and sit wherever you find space. I sat with an older couple from Ohio who were traveling on an anniversary present from their kids. "You a climber?" they asked. Their daughter had been to Talkeetna in the ‘70s and wanted them to experience it as well. They were seeing internal Alaska on their own, then boarding a cruise ship to do the inside passage south back to Washington—seems like a good plan. Groups of climbers adjusted their gear, practiced knot tying, and discussed various charts in assorted languages while we waited and abused the bottomless coffee pot in the back.

Aromas of bacon and cinnamon wafted out of the kitchen. I ducked in for a peak. They had just stuffed a display case with oversized, steaming cinnamon rolls and were now filling another space with scones. A huge cast iron skillet near 2 feet in diameter sizzled full of bacon in the front of the kitchen. At around 6:55am, a waitress emerged asked for our orders. What a tough decision. The breakfast menu was short and written on the blackboard, but it all sounded great. She returned with plates, big plates, promptly at 7am.

The food was simply awesome. I had thick-sliced, double-smoked bacon and the 1902 sourdough Alaskan wildberry-and-walnut pancakes. They were bigger than my plate and served up with real butter and Birch syrup (they don’t have maples here). Their "Standard Alaskan Breakfast" is too big for a normal human to eat. I’m told that only climbers who’ve been stranded on McKinley for several days are able to eat it all. A half order itself is a large plate full of eggs, bacon, hash browns, biscuits, and the like. The guy across from me had a huge order of fresh buttermilk biscuits with gravy and a side of reindeer sausage. I immediately regretted that I wouldn’t still be in Talkeetna for breakfast tomorrow.

See www.talkeetnaroadhouse.com.

I was looking to see more of Talkeetna on my first night there. Asking around at the first place, I really didn’t get any actionable advice. I only understood that "everybody goes to somewhere" and "somewhere else is really dark." So I set out on my own, which is easy enough when the entire town is only a few blocks small. The first watering hole in which I stopped was a nice place, but packed with tourists, climbers, and the like. It was too crowded and didn’t suit my mood this evening. I passed by a pizza place with signs declaring "now open" and "beer on tap," but the only customers were a pair of teenagers. Looking up another street, I saw a small, dark A-frame with a little neon sign near its peak. I walked that way and had to really get close to confirm that it actually was a bar—the Tee Pee.

It takes a while for your eyes to adjust since it really is dark inside. There were only a handful of locals inside: a Vietnam vet, one of the ladies from the Latitude, a couple of climbers, and a 50-ish guy with perfectly molded, wavy silver hair. I first struck up a conversation with the vet and ended up drinking shots with him and his buddy. Fortunately, I was invited to play a game of doubles pool: Hair and I verses the bar girl and another fellow. Something had happened in Hair’s life, or he had just grown tired. He took early retirement from his government job and now spends summers bartending at the plush resort just outside of town here and winters teaching English at a little school in central Mexico. He seemed like a great guy who was enjoying his life to the fullest.

Of course, drinking tends to make the people you meet at bars seem profound. A group on tourists in their early 20s entered. "What beers do you have on tap?" The bartender said "Just that one" and pointed to the Hefewisen. It was a nice Hefe, too; a quality brew selected specifically by the owner to be his only one on tap. They promptly left. Not a big enough selection, I suppose. Finally, our game ended with me sinking my team’s last ball. Somehow, though, I had missed a rule that had emerged and hadn’t "called" my shot. We didn’t win, but winning isn’t everything. I left the really, really dark bar and weaved my way back across town to my hotel.

Riding the Alaska Rail Road’s Denali Star train from Fairbanks to Talkeetna was even better than I expected that it would be. What a civilized way to travel: complete relaxation and the ability to write, stretch one’s legs, etc. I didn’t even have to remove my shoes or be herded through any security stations by self-important people with bad hair. The seating was fantastic, with lots of leg room and the ability to recline to near flat. Furthermore, the view is better than from the highway. The staff wore smart-looking uniforms and conducted themselves professionally. Unlike most airlines, they narrate as the train passes significant landmarks.

Initially, the landscape consisted of large rolling hills colored with the dark and light green of alternating Sitka spruce, birch, and Aspen stands. We passed a freight train carrying oil, lumber, and steel, then learned that an oil refinery near North Pole, AK (not the real North Pole) is the RR’s biggest customer. Next was a town called Happy that didn’t look happy at all. Not far from Fairbanks, we made our way past Ester, whose population during the gold rush was 15,000. Now it is home for around 1,600 people due primarily to its great micro climate that moderates the temperature at least 20 degrees compared to its ugly neighbor Fairbanks.

There were still snow pockets on the ground in low-lying places and thousands of small lakes ponds dotting the landscape along this route due to perma-frost. The soil remains frozen, so the water can’t be absorbed into the ground. We saw some moose here in the marshes as the train moved slowly along. Between RR cars, you can stick your head out into the cool spring morning air or take pictures unobstructed by window glass. One can walk the entire train, with the exception of the baggage cars, to the front near the engine and the Holland-America Cruise Lines cars in the back. The package tour/cruise set up is very expensive, formal, and regimented (read set meal and report times). These operators take great pains to ensure that their customers remain completely isolated from the land and people that they think they are experiencing.

I made my way to the snack bar and had a $2 cup of Folders coffee. The windows here stretch from ceiling to floor, offering an even better view than in the dome cars. Don’t pay extra for a dome-car seat. They are nice, but, honestly, there really is nothing to see looking straight up. I lingered here, chatting with some of the crew, and enjoyed the expanded view as we passed by Nenana, home of the annual spring ice break up gambling event, and Clear Air Force Station, which was one of the original ballistic missile defense radar sites circa 1950s.

Ferry, the next town we passed, is divided by the Nena River. When this RR bridge was built, the residents started driving their cars across. The RR tried to stop them by installing spikes. In turn, the residents put boards on top of these and continued with their commute. Animosity still exists, and the good residents of Ferry manifest their frustration every July 4th by mooning the train in mass.

Now, in my window, the peaks of the Alaska Range loom ever larger, shrouded in clouds. We pass Healy, which has the highest per capita income in the US, averaging $60k per year. They either work at the coal mine, Denali National Park, or the large power plant that’s also here to burn the coal. The river canyon, through which we pass here, is beautiful. Looking down, we see rafters, kayakers, and Dall sheep posed stoically on the hill side. Regretfully, we only had a brief stop at Denali National Park. Leaving DNP, we passed through a beautiful area called Carlo, then through Broad Pass. At elevation of 2,300 feet, this is the lowest pass through the Rockies anywhere, but was blanketed in deep snow with frozen lakes and barren of trees.

The train switched crews with its northerly headed counterpart near Honolulu Creek—named by a miner dreaming of a warmer place. From there on, I had the train car to myself. A fellow strolled by and said I was just like Elvis with my own car. We were on a high RR bridge now. Below was Hurricane Gulch, aptly named for the 90mph winds that whistle through the 296-foot canyon underneath. Thirty minutes out from Talkeetna, we saw a mass of beaver damns and lodges. No beavers, but, at long last, we reach Talkeetna. This was my first leg of travel on the RR, and, come to find out, the least scenic of the three. No one could have convinced me of that at the time.

http://www.mahaysriverboat.com/
907/736-2210

I wanted to go "flightseeing" around Mt. McKinley and land on a glacier. But, as is often the case, we were socked in due to the weather and resultant low visibility. As I considered my options for the day, one caught my eye: a 4-hour jet boat safari into a canyon on Class III rapids. It sounded interesting and like a good way to see more of the area’s backcountry while still making my afternoon train. The price of $120 (including lunch) seemed high, but it was half of what I was going to spend flightseeing.

The boats are sturdy aluminum flat-bottom, glass-enclosed jet boats capable of operating in very shallow draft areas where traditional boats can’t. The high velocity, constantly shifting, shallow glacial fed rivers that bisect this country are navigable only by this sort of craft. We sped through the water dodging piles of glacial gravel, trees, and other woody debris. The boats sliced through mild rapids splashing the glass enclosure around us. This type of boat is literally the only way to get to some of the remote fishing camps or cabins along these rivers in the summer. In winter, these waterways freeze solid and can be driven on by sled (snow mobile), ATV, or even heavy construction equipment. We passed a huge excavator that had been driven there from town over miles of ice. The owner of the home site there was preparing his lot and probably a couple for neighbors over the summer. He would drive it back to town when the river froze again this winter.

There was an older couple from Wisconsin on the boat. The man mumbled and sandwiched his words together illegibly. His wife was a bit heavy and uttered a high-pitched "ooohh" every time something mildly exciting occurred. We pulled to the bank and went ashore to see a real trapper’s cabin built by the tour company’s owner back when he was a homesteader running a trap line. As we disembarked, the lady said, "Ooohh, I’m not so sure about this!" "I’m not an outdooorzee person." With a little extra encouragement from Kelly, our guide, she braved it anyway.

Come to find out, Kelly is from WV, as am I. She comes from a fairly well-off family. Upon graduation from a private college, she and her friend loaded a minivan and drove cross-country then to Alaska. Kelly never left. Now she dates the boat tour owner’s son and lives in a 10x12 cabin with no water or electricity and just exudes happiness. Kelly was extremely knowledgeable about the local flora, fauna, and folklore. She explained a lot, from how great dried spring moose droppings are for starting fires to how the Native Athabascans were able to live in three-sided shelters in the extreme cold and deep snow that befalls this area. All the while, she packed a 12-gage bear gun for our protection. Later, she jumped into the frigid water up to her thighs in order to help tie off the boat.

Aaron, our boat pilot, was also an interesting character with his eccentrically bushy brown beard. He is a native of Talkeetna. Seasonally, he guides big game hunts for an outfitter on Kodiak Island. He exhibited a level of calm, agreeable patience in every situation that was made possible, I’m sure, by growing up here. Aaron married the girl who won him in the annual bachelor auction a couple of years back (see my Talkeetna overview). He knew her beforehand, though, so it’s not as quirky as it may sound. After work, Aaron was going fishing. He heard that a few of the kings may have already made their way this far inland, and he was going to his secret spot to find out. Even though, it was probably too early for the kings to be in, he and his wife were out of salmon and she was pressuring him to bring some home.

Neither she nor Kelly are in the "Women of Talkeetna" calendar. They both were pressured to be in it but were not sure how the final product would look and didn’t particularly want to be associated with some of the "ladies" who were featured therein. I said, "I think I met some of those ladies you are talking about last night." "You went to the Tee Pee didn’t you" Aaron said. "It’s really dark in there, isn’t it" said Kelly. We talked about my going on to Seward in a few days and how much they liked the Keni Peninsula, except for Whittier. Aaron said "You have to go through a long tunnel to get there." "Everyone lives in the same building, and they get practically no sunlight." From what I gather, even Talkeetnans think that people from Whittier are weird.

Aaron pushed the powerful boat through the raging water until we reached the pinnacle of our trip near a large freshwater inflow named Disappointment Creek. A group of miners coined the name when they found no gold there. Mr. Mahay (owner) is the only one to have taken a boat much farther past here. Apparently it gets very choppy and dangerous beyond this point. After stretching our legs on a gravel bar, we headed back to the dock, this time with the flow of water. Overall, it was a great day filled with adventure, insight, and good company.