Alaskan Telephone Booth

Brrr. Good thing I had my cell phone with me.

Mush!

One of the things we did during the day was to visit Paws for Adventure for dog mushing. We were invited to visit the kennel which had dozens of dogs, and then two at a time, we went for a sled ride. 

The dogs seemed eager to pull the sled across the fields and through the forest. The ride was very quiet, with the sounds of panting dogs, the sled runners on the snow, and the musher occasionally calling out to the dogs.  

The team can carry a total weight of 500 pounds.

When we got back each dog got a snack of frozen salmon which they wolfed down in record time. The company was booked up for the afternoon and the next day because they were taking a couple out overnight to be married. The owner of the company was going to marry them, with a couple of the mushers as witnesses. The company offers overnight trips and mushing lessons. When I go back I plan to take a lesson, and I'd love to go on an overnight trip (they use heated tents.)    

Redpolls

How do these birds do it? How do they stay in Alaska all winter when the temperatures can drop below –40 degrees F.? These birds have a variety of adaptations to cold, and in fact can’t survive in warmer climates. The high temperatures (close to 90 degrees F.) during the summer in the interior of Alaska cause them stress more than the low temperatures of winter. During the winter they mainly eat seeds from birch and alder trees, and in the summer insects. They do have pouches in the esophagus where they can temporarily store seeds and digest them through the night to help them stay warm. Birch seeds are high in calories and by digesting them through the night, their metabolism helps keep them warm.
They also eat about 30-40 % of their body mass a day! The pouches can hold about 15% of their body mass in food. For a 100 pound person that would be like holding 15 pounds of food in your esophagus to digest during the night.


Alaskan redpolls also have heavier plumage in the winter than they do in the summer. The weight of the plumage can increase over 30% which provides them an important source of insulation against the cold. They also dive into the snow and create roosting burrows where they are protected against the bitterly cold wind. Notice how the bird in the picture above tucks it's bare legs into the insulating blanket of its feathers. I took dozens of photos of redpolls while I was in Alaska, and in all of them the birds have their legs covered by the feathers like this to retain body heat.

Aurora Borealis

For the last four nights I was north of Fairbanks Alaska along with two friends. We traveled up there to observe the Aurora Borealis, or the Northern Lights. These amazing displays are created when particles in the solar wind interact with gases in our atmosphere, causing the release of light. 

The Auroras I observed started out as faint wisps of what looked like pale greenish clouds, but then they began to shimmer and flow across the sky in a way clouds never do. They moved vertically and horizontally and changed color as they danced across the early morning sky.I have read that the native people of Alaska believed the lights were the spirits of their ancestors, and can understand why they believed this. The Aurora is the most ghostly apparition I have ever seen.

We saw the most active lights between midnight and 2 AM. Yes it was cold. The temperature was 3 degrees F. without the wind chill taken into consideration. Here's what we looked like as we waited for the Aurora to appear.

We also had a great time during the day, and I'll post more about that later. For more information about what causes the Aurora, you can take a look here. We stayed at the Aurora Fairbanks Creek Lodge owned by Stephan and Brenda Birdsall. I highly recommend it. I have never felt so much at home in any lodge. The lodge is a converted mess hall and bunkhouse from and old gold mine. You go to their website here. They were exceptionally accommodating, and helpful as we planned our day's activities. They also own the ski area where we went to watch for the aurora.