Tales of Alaska and the Alaska Highway: Aurora Wasilla Cemetery

 One of the first things we did once we were in Wasilla was to stop by the cemetery to visit family members there.  There is a new sign on the road leading into the cemetery which we found amusing.  It is now labeled 'St. Peter's Way'.  I guess it is appropriate.

When we saw Woodworkers father's grave, we were sad to see the condition it was in.  Moss was filing up many of the letters, making them hard to read and little lichen colonies had set up shop on the face of the stone.

Woodworker's sister suggested a trip back to the cemetery with some cleaning supplies so we could work on it a bit.

Other than some slight staining left by some of the lichen colonies, I think it turned out pretty good.  

Next we wandered through the cemetery, remembering old friends and neighbors.  Eventually we came to the the grave of Woodworker's little sister who died many years ago.  I was amazed at how many of the graves in this cemetery bore familiar names.  I heard many stories of people there.

It felt like visiting old friends.

Tales of Alaska and the Alaska Highway: Watson Lake Sign Forest

One of our favorite stops along the Alaska Highway is Watson Lake.  We could easily spend hours there looking at the sign forest.  Usually we don't have hours to spend, but on this trip we stayed overnight in Watson Lake, so we had extra time to look.

The sign forest was started in 1942 by a soldier who put up a sign showing the mileage to his hometown.  Now there are more than 75,000 signs from all over the world.  Some of the pictures were taken on a whim and others had a reason.

There are rows and rows of these posts.

Someone even made a sign out of a bedpan.

This one is here because I have been to Aachen...only 7065 km away.

Found a sign of an Alaska license plate that says Wasilla on it.

In the middle of the sign forest were several pieces of old equipment.  I think, judging from the tree growing in the middle of it, that this thing hasn't been used for a few years.

Here is for the Longmont, CO, folks in the family.

This sign is inside the visitor center and tells about the placing of the first sign.

This has a little sign that says 'Roma'.

Olathe, KS, appears on this post.

If you want to put up your sign when you visit Watson Lake, they will even loan you a hammer and a couple of nails, but you have to find your own spot to nail it.

Tales of Alaska and the Alaska Highway: A Wolf Story

During our recent trip on the Alaska Highway, I was amazed at the number of people apparently doing the same trip on their bicycles.  The Alaska Highway goes up and down a lot...over mountains and through valleys.  It must be a tough ride.

According to a recent article published in the Fort Nelson News which was originally reported in the Yukon News, one cyclist had far more problems than just riding up steep mountains.

Reporter Jacqueline Ronson’s article tells the story.

American Cyclist Chased by Wolf near Watson Lake on Alaska Highway

Mac Hollan told the story of the close encounter on the Facebook page for his ride, a 4,400-kilometre journey to raise money for food for school children.  He had cycled ahead of his two traveling companions, heading north about 100 kilometres west of Watson Lake, when he looked over his shoulder to see “the biggest damn dog I have ever seen,” according to the post.  He realilzed it was a wolf as the animal “lunged for my right foot and snapped its jaws, just missing my pedal.

Hallan kicked it into high gear and put enough distance between him and the wolf to reach for his bear spray, but the blast to the face barely slowed the wolf. After 20 seconds, the wolf attacked again, snapping at the bags on the back of the bike, wrote Hollan. The tent bag was ripped open by the wolf’s teeth, spilling tent poles over the highway.

Another shot of bear spray to the face and the wolf dropped back again, still keeping an easy pace with the bike. Four vehicles passed Hollan, ignoring his increasingly desperate waves and cries for help.

He kept using blasts of bear spray to fend off the wolf’s advances.  Then disaster struck.

“As I came around the corner, to my horror I saw a quick incline, and knew that I would not be able to stay in front of this wolf for much longer,” wrote Hollan.  “I just kept thinking about all the shows I have seen where wolves simply run their prey until they tire and then finish them.  It was a surreal moment to realize that I was that prey, and this hill was that moment.”

Then an RV came around the corner, and Hollan knew that this was his last hope.  “I placed myself squarely in the centre of the road and began screaming at the top of my lungs, ‘Help me, there’s a wolf, please help me,’ while waving frantically.”

The RV stopped just ahead of the bike, and Hollan ran for it, first trying the locked door to the camper, then attempting to launch himself through the passenger window before finally the passenger door was opened for him.

“By the time I shut the door, the wolf was already on my bike pulling at the shredded remains of my tent bag,” wrote Hollan. “It was only at this point that the real reality of the situation sank in and I began to shake and cuss violently.”

It was about this time that Melanie Klassen came on the scene. She had just passed Hollan coming from the opposite direction and saw the look of “sheer panic” on his face as the wolf chased him down the highway.  By the time her boyfriend, who was driving, got the Hummer and tent trailer turned around and back to the scene, the wolf was attacking the now abandoned bike and two other vehicles were pulled over on the side of the highway.

“He was just snarling at the bike, standing over it like it was his prey,” said Klassen.

Under protest from her boyfriend, Klassen jumped out of the vehicle and confronted the wolf, only a couple of metres from the vehicle.  She was running on instinct.  Her father, a former Yukon conservation officer, always taught her to ‘be bigger than the animal’.

She didn’t know where the cyclist was, or if he was safe.  “I reached into the truck and grabbed my water bottle and I just winged it at him, and I was waving my arms and screaming at him,” said Klassen.  Her two teenage children were watching from the back of the Hummer.  The water bottle hit the wolf right in the head, causing it to retreat several feet to the ditch.

At this point a few other brave onlookers exited their vehicles, throwing rocks and any other objects on hand at the wolf.  The wolf was grey and mangy, with “bright orange eyes,” said Klassen.

“Her bold actions earned her the title of ‘wolf beater’ from her kids, who asked, “Mom, what were you thinking?”  She told them, “I wasn’t.  I just knew we had to get rid of him.”

Hollan, safely in the cab of the RV was “pretty shaken,” said Klassen.  “He was literally just vibrating.”

At this point, Hollan’s cycling companions caught up.  Hollan was still ‘jacked on adrenaline,” and just wanted to get out of there, he wrote in a Facebook post.

Between all the mountains, wild animals and ferocious mosquitoes, I was happy to be traveling the highway in a car.

Tales of Alaska and the Alaska Highway: The Secret is Out!

Quite a few months ago we decided to take a road trip back to Alaska to help celebrate the woodworker's mother's 90th birthday, but we wanted it to be a surprise.  Keeping a secret for that long is really difficult.  Our children knew about it.  Woodworker's sisters knew about it.  It got to the point that I hardly dared post anything on this blog or on facebook for fear I would slip up and let the cat out of the bag.

Then when the woodworker had his little health episode we thought the trip might have to be cancelled, but happily he has been doing very well in his healing, so we were able to go.

Were we successful in keeping the secret?  Well, when we arrived in Wasilla, we went to his mother's apartment building where he called her on the phone and started to chat with her.  While he was chatting, he rang her doorbell.  "Just a minute" she told him.  "Someone's at the door."  Then she opened her door to see us standing there.  All she said was "Well!"  So the surprise was apparently successful.

On her 90th birthday, eight of us had birthday dinner at Settler's Bay Lodge, followed by a few pictures on the deck overlooking Cook Inlet.

Happy 90th Birthday!