Am Bratach No. 194
Goulder's Alaska by Dave Goulder Dyker Dave Goulder from Rosehall concludes his report of a recent trip he made with his wife, Mary Camp Denali’s owners, the parents of Land Cole, had passed on the message — “Look after the Scots!” We were loaded on to one of the camp’s buses and set off on the ninety mile run over dirt roads to the camp. My companions had already seen lynx dooking for beaver whilst I was working so inevitably we were looking for moose and bears. About forty miles along the road we began to be irritated by the slow speed of our bus and a complaint to the driver produced the response, “Sorry but I can’t overtake the bear.” A trotting grizzly found the road much easier going than tripping through the tundra and was destroying the timetable. I suppose we should have complained but one must make allowances. We arrived at the camp; a collection of substantial wooden buildings and cabins, and were greeted by the owner, Wallace Cole, a delightful and very unassuming character who promptly pointed us to the flagpole bearing the Stars and Stripes, the Great Bear constellation (Alaska state flag) and the saltire! He had already given us the use of his house while I was doing the workshop and now we were to be treated like visiting royalty. The whole camp and what it offered was ours for the asking, too numerous to list here, but I did achieve a life-long dream of paddling an Alaskan lake in an open canoe, against a backdrop of high snow-covered mountains on a beautiful day in autumn. The road into Denali Park is closed to private vehicles; only the park buses have admission, but we were given the owner’s own Land Rover to make our exit so we were able to stop whenever we chose just to absorb the scenery and wildlife en route to the workshop site where we had abandoned the hire car. We then headed back to Anchorage only to be overtaken by Wallace at a filling station and, on hearing that we planned to stay in a motel that night, he promptly booked us into his own guest house in Anchorage — no charge! Next day, a race back to Whittier via the infamous tunnel only just making it before the lights changed. For road traffic reversal the tunnel is closed for an hour every evening to clean out any fallen debris; rather unfortunate time as that is exactly while the ferry is in for its brief stay at the slipway — except in this case there was no ferry. Another breakdown. We managed to get back through the tunnel with three minutes to spare. Our transport provider, Rick, was another casual acquaintance we’d met at a music shop in Anchorage (he’d been to Ullapool five times) and he was a superhero — and not just as a taxi service. Having already fed us Cullen Skink the night before, he found us a motel, collected us in the morning, gave us breakfast, and his wife ran us to the airport. This unplanned flight was worth it. The route to Juneau goes over the Chugach Mountains and Bagley Ice Field, then on to Glacier Bay. Juneau is the state capital, rather surprising as it is tiny compared to Anchorage. A bit like having Wick as the capital of Scotland. Just like Ketchikan the cruise ships have commandeered all the parking space in the harbour so the ferry has to dock fifteen miles out of the town. We stayed the night at the local brothel (not in business any more) and were entertained by a bluegrass band in the bar, while we enjoyed Juneau’s principal export — the famed Alaska Ale. This stuff would grace any British pub, being malty, with a lovely hoppy “edge”. I’ll be putting in an order at the Invershin Hotel. The three day ferry trip back to Bellingham was a nice way to wind down. We encountered more whales, dolphins, bald eagles and two piano players. And more Alaska Ale. No more breakdowns, but because of the earlier mishaps we had time to spare before flying home, so we set off to explore the Cascade Mountains in Washington. But that’s another tale. Now I’m sitting here at
home trying to get my head and body to cope with crossing nine
time zones. The jet-lag seems harder to overcome as I get older.
The prospect of a second workshop in Denali is exciting and threatening
at the same time. What if...? Oh, I need to go to sleep again. |