KANTISHNA

Thursday we took a bus trip to Kantishna. That is the end of the road, 90 miles into the park. It was listed as a 12 to 13 hour trip. The day started out great. Before we even loaded onto the bus a mother moose and her calf walked across the road just a few yards from where we were waiting. It took us by surprise and of course we didn't have our cameras ready.

There was a stop at Polychrome Mountain, with its 4 glaciers. Beautiful. Some nice person offered to take our picture there, one of the few of us together.

Our next sighting that day was the red fox. It was loping down the road behind the bus. Next was the ptarmigins, snow shoe hare, a herd of caribou and a huge bull moose. We saw an arctic ground squirrel (in Alaska they call them a "Texas Grizzlies". The bus driver told us "if you cut Alaska in half and make 2 states, Texas is then the 3rd largest State in the US." We did see a Grizzley, eating plants, near the road. We also saw two young grizzlies, they had found some "roadkill" and were sharing it. When we first saw them they were right in front of the bus, in the road. They took their roadkill off the road, into the bushes but stayed where we could all get our pictures. Just past the two grizzlies we came across several ptarmigin with their chicks. Everyone was very quiet while we had the windows down for photos and you could hear the mother calling her chicks to her. At the very end of the road at Kantishna and the mine, is the house of Annie Quigley, a "colorful" woman. She wasn't 5 feet tall, so all of the cabinets in her house were very short. Wore men's clothes usually, and could swear as good as any! She made pies that were famous all over the area. Her recipe for blueberry pie starts out:
1. Kill a bear, render the lard.
2. Pick 5 gallons of blueberries.
3. Hook up the sled and mush 125 miles into Fairbanks for flour and sugar.

The bus we took was a shuttle bus but the bus driver was very knowledgeable and alert for photo opportunities. There were other trips called "Experience" which are narrated by a Naturalist. They cost about 3 or 4 times as much. Maybe we were just lucky but we had all the information you could want. Our recommendation to anyone coming though would be to take the trip to the new Eielson Visitors Center. Maybe it was because it started to rain as we were leaving Eielson but it seemed to us that up to that point was the most interesting part of the trip. We didn't see any animals past that point. The new Eielson Visitors Center is fully powered by Solar and a small turbine in a creek nearby. It was built into the hillside and they used much of the material reclaimed from the previous buildings. It is a beautiful setting but also has very interesting displays. They have guest artists coming into the park that are required to donate one of their art works. Some great art has been acquired that way. They had a beautiful framed quilt piece. I haven't looked at the pictures yet but hope it turned out good enough to post.