Local Scouts - Scout Out Alaska
 
Two years after summer camp in Hawaii, the Boy Scouts of Troop 337 Wakefield, Bessemer, and of Troop 209 Ontonagon departed for another great adventure flying to Alaska for summer camp. There were 21 of us in total.
Needless to say there was a great deal of fund raising and without the support of many local people, this trip would never have happened. We would like to thank all of you who purchased popcorn, wreaths, candles, pancake breakfasts, and donated cans to our collection bin at Ramme’s Auto and Salvage in Bessemer. Also Black Dog Candles, Waninks Sales and Service, Wakefield VFW, St. SebastianChurch, Noel Wreaths, K-Mart, Wal-Mart, Thrivent Insurance, Keenagers, and to anyone we missed–we all thank you for all your help and support.
We left from Bessemer at 4:30 in the afternoon on July 17. We proceeded in a four car caravan to Minneapolis. Everything went perfect until we got to the cities. As we came in, one car took a wrong exit. We all watched as he disappeared, wondering when we were going to see them again. We were doing fine until we suffered the same fate as we followed the lead car off the wrong exit too. You know there are a few more road there then in the UP. Anyway we got back on the freeway and found our motel and drove right by it. After a few more turns we all made it and settled in for a few hours sleep before we departed the next day.

Early the next morning everyone was up, excited that we were going to be in Alaska in a few short hours. Two of the scouts were a little worried as they had never flown before, but they quickly realized after we leveled off at 32,000 feet that it was boring. There just wasn’t much to do except for getting up to go to the bathroom now and then. They were now seasoned travelers. The flight was uneventful except for our final approach in to Anchorage. One boy was sitting next to my wife when for some reason she asked him if he was going to be sick. Instantly barf bags were being handed to him from every direction imaginable, from behind, side and front. He never did get sick and everyone had a good laugh. Next as were coming in for a landing suddenly the jet had to quickly accelerate to climb back up, for what reason we don’t know, but as this happened one of the scouts who will remain nameless let out such a whoop, we thought we were on a roller coaster and everyone had a good laugh
 
Well, we were now in Anchorage, Alaska, 52 degrees and rain. Needless to say two of us so called well traveled gentlemen had sandals, shorts, and a light short sleeved shirt on with no jacket. Here we are having to venture outside to the other terminal to get our rental cars dressed like that. All the Alaskans were wearing coats, hats and long pants wondering where we thought we were. Well, all and all, we got the car, luggage, and scouts and ventured out. We quickly changed so we could blend in and ala keep warm.

We decided to explore downtown Anchorage on the first day. We started with a halibut lunch and went our separate ways to explore, later at a pre set time and place, we met and went to the Anchorage Museum of Art and History. Here everyone learned about Alaskan history from hands on exhibits featuring the first Alaskan from the land bridge right up to present day.

We were getting pretty tired with the 3 hour time change and decided to head out to the Boy Scout Camp. The Alaskan Council let us stay in cabins for free, for three nights while we explored before and after camp. The first night we were not prepared as Boy Scouts are suppose to be, the gear we brought was not adequate for the temperatures. We were not very comfortable that night as we got up the next morning we realized we didn’t need to be cold, there was electric heat in every cabin and all of us Yooper leaders didn’t see it. Enough about our brilliance.
 
On Saturday we had two separate adventures planned for the day, with half of us going Halibut fishing and the rest going on a 26 Glacier Sea Cruise.

Those of us that were going fishing had to get up at 4:30 AM. We had to drive down to Whittier, an hour and a half from our camp, but the trick was the Anderson Tunnel. You can only pass through this tunnel only once every hour in one direction as it was only that wide. Anderson tunnel was constructed in World War II as a train tunnel to bring supplies in to Alaska. Whittier is a very deep salt water port that doesn’t freeze over. Whittier was a secret submarine base in World War II. We drove down along side of the Cook Inlet taking pictures of all the mountains along the way. We drove past the Portage Glacier and headed into the two mile long Anderson Tunnel which cuts through a mountain. As we left the west side of the mountain clouds were hanging on the mountains and it was raining. Much to our surprise as we came out of the tunnel in to Whittier the sun was shining and the birds were singing.

The fishing group with their skippers headed out on two boats called six packs as only six can goat one time fishing. We headed out for a two hour trip ending at the Hinchingbrook Passage, so named by Captain Cook in 1789. We quickly caught our limit of Halibut ranging in size from 25 lbs. to 87 lbs. I was about to hook a Salmon Shark weight about 350 lbs. but the darn thing rolled in the line and snapped if off like it was nothing, 85 lb. test. We were out on the Prince William Sound fishing for 12 hours when we got back to port, we were all dying of thirst. I found a cure for sea sickness by only eating a large box of saltine crackers and nothing else including liquids, it worked so it was definitely worth it. We watched as our captain filleted our catch and we had lunch with our captain in Whittier and headed back to camp.
The other half of the troop explored the Portage Glacier where the ice worm hibernates. You can warm up a worm frozen in the glacier for 10,000 year and it comes to life. Their 26 glacier cruise was full of wildlife, seals, sea otters, porpoises, and so on. When they parked by one of the salt water glaciers they heard them talking, crackling, groaning, and cracking like a 10 gauge shotgun. On their way back to camp they stopped at the Wildlife Conservation Center, where they viewed Grizzly bears, Moose, Caribou, Black bears, Kodiak bears and Alaskan Bison. Afterwards they returned to camp also.
Sunday morning we headed south to explore the Cook Inlet. We stopped at Beluga Point where we had a chance to take pictures of the inlet and explore the tidal pools as the tide was out. From there we headed over to the Alyeska Ski resort where they operate a tram which took us to the top of the mountain 2,380 feet up, where we could view the cook inlet. I believe the boys had more fun having a snow ball fight and sledding in the middle of July, just like the UP. Then we decided to get rich, we learned how to pan for gold and tried our luck at the Old Crow gold mine. Everyone found color and every flake of gold was worth fifty cent, it adds up pretty quick. Needless to say none of us got rich.
We all headed back to camp and decided to take a day off and catch up on jet lag.
Not everyone, six of the older scouts decided to try their hand at ice climbing. They left camp at 6:30 AM and headed off to the Matanuska Glacier. There they went deep up the glacier to 200 foot walls of ice. Here they learned the equipment, how to use it, and then how to climb walls of ice. I give them credit, no small accomplishment. The rest of us spent the day at camp working on merit badges, eating and getting to know the scouts from Alaska. I had the boys in bed at 8:30 as they were going to get up early.
 
Now this is one of my favorite thing to do, at 3:00 AM I got to wake everybody up. I just love the whining which quickly stopped when I reminded them we were going Salmon fishing. All twenty of us piled into the cars and headed out. An hour and a half alter we arrived at the Little Susitna river landing, where our guides were waiting for us. We headed out in 5 boats with 4 in each at 5:00 AM. .The boat I was in headed out down the river towards the Knik arm of the Cook Inlet. At the spot our guide selected we quickly started catching 12 to 18 lb. Silver Salmon (Coho), we also caught a couple of Chum Salmons (Humpies). Before we knew it we were limited out and back at the landing at 7:45 AM.. Quick trip with no complaints. On one of the other boats a young scout hooked a 40 lb. King Salmon, the scout soaking wet weighs 80 lbs., good for him. Unfortunately King season was closed already and he couldn’t keep it, but he did get pictures. We got the fish back to camp and shipped it off to my son’s house in Anchorage for wrapping and freezing.
 
On the way back we stopped at the starting gate of the Iditorad dog sled race, where there was a museum and a team of sled dogs. The scouts thoroughly enjoyed this part of the trip because they had learned so much of this last great race back home in school, following the actual race. We spent the rest of the day at camp again working on merit badges and visiting. The evening went uneventful until 2 scouts came back and said they had encountered a bear. The scouts were given instruction the first night they arrived, they followed the instructions and backed away slowly with no sudden moves and had no problems, phew! We told the camp director and she got out her 44 magnum in case there were any other problems. Things are different in Alaska.
 
The next morning I got to have fun again although not quite as much only 5:00 AM. We had to be in Talkeetna at 8:15, a two hour drive. This was our worst weather days as it poured rain almost all day. We took a jet river boat trip up the Susitna river where we traveled into Denali National Park. We were suppose to have panoramic views of Mt McKinley and the sister peaks. All we saw was clouds and rain, very disappointing. On the jet boat trip, we did stop at an old trappers cabin and an Athabascan encampment. Before we left the boat, the guide loaded a 12 gauge sawed off shotgun with slugs and buckshot and told us if we saw a bear we were to huddle in a group and slowly back up to the boat, things are different in Alaska. Luckily nothing happened we had our tour and we headed back to Talkeetna. With the rain, our flight up to McKinley was cancelled. We explored Talkeetna for a while and headed back to camp where we again worked on merit badge and got to know scouts from Alaska. We went to bed early in preparation for the next day.
The next day they were getting harder to wake up, so at 5:00 AM. it was more fun getting them up. Well this was a big day rain or shine, it didn’t rain. We headed out at 6:00 AM to Chickaloon where we met with Nova Expeditions for our white water river rafting adventure on the Matanuska river. We were met by our river guide and outfitted for our trip. We were fitted with dry suits, thermal wet socks, special shoes, helmets, and life jackets. The dry suits were so tight that we had to squat down and open the neck seal to let the air out so we wouldn’t look like balloons. We were shuttled 20 miles up river where we received a lengthy safety instructional talk, good thing too. And then we were off. We rounded a 3,000 foot rock mountain in the shape of a Lion’s head thus the trip is named the Lion’s head expeditions. We emptied in the Matanuska river which is fed by the Matanuska glacier, water temperature here was 36 degrees. The trip was getting to be boring and I was wondering what I had gotten us into, when we came around a bend in the river. There we saw 6 and 8 foot standing waves, 12 foot boulders 3 and 4 foot drops, class IV rapids, here we go. As we shot the rapids one of the older scouts was thrown off of his raft everyone yelled swimmer. Fortunately he had listened to the safety talk and as he fell over backwards he grabbed with one hand the rope that ran around the raft and hung on. Quickly he was grabbed from behind and pulled back in. Now I was really starting to wonder what I had gotten us into, but as we went on everyone got used to the rapids and actually started jumping into the water on purpose. Some rode the bull, this where you sit up on the front of the raft and hang onto a rope between your legs going through 8 foot walls of water, they had a blast. Two hours late,r which seemed like 15 minutes, we finished our white water trip.
We all ate lunch and headed over to explore the Matanuska Glacier, which fed the river. We were met by an awesome view as we arrived at this land locked glacier. We took a hike two miles out on the glacier following the marked trails, as these things are not the safest things in the world to be walking on. We explored, took a ton of pictures, got some blue ice and some glacier moraine for a teacher back in Bessemer. When we got off the glacier, we were starting to get pretty tired and we still had a two hour drive back to camp. About half way back we decided to stop at a Musk Ox Farm. A musk ox is a bison type animal that survived the ice age, unlike the wooly mammoth. Here we saw about fifty musk ox and learned about them. At about this time I realized we were going to be too late for dinner at camp. I called and asked if they could save dinner for us, they said no problem with us being two hours late. At this point, I would like to thank the kitchen staff at Camp Gorush as they prepared breakfasts and lunches for us to take with us on our adventures, they were great. We had to get to bed early again as were weren’t done yet and we were starting to get worn out.
The morning came early and I had to wake them at 4:30, it was fun again but I was getting tired too. We had to leave at 5:30 to get to Fort Richardson for morning flag. We were met at the main gate at 6:00 by the M.P.s We were escorted to the parade grounds where we were part of morning flags. They even fired a round off from a howitzer, that woke every up. We were escorted by the M.P.s for a tour of the base. The high point of the tour was the Black Hawk helicopter. Unfortunately I couldn’t get a ride for the boys but they were able to explore them, even going in to the cockpits.
.
After the base tour we headed over to the Alaskan Native Heritage Center. Here they had villages set up depicting the many different native cultures that exists in Alaska including Aleutian, Tlinget, Athabasacan, and Eskimo. Here they boys were treated to a living museum.
Well this day was to be different, the skies were perfectly clear, not a cloud to be seen only the third of the whole year. A call to Talkeetna found they were flying and landing on McKinley.

Eight of us who had our flight canceled on Wednesday became very excited and headed out for a two hour drive back to Talkeetna. A t milepost 70 we were treated to a panoramic view of McKinley, Hunter, and Foraker mountains and not a cloud in the sky. At this time I realized the other half the group had not seen McKinley either. They had gone up to Hatcher’s Pass where you drive up above the tree line and explore mountain meadows surrounded by the Wrangel St, Elias mountain range, at the top of the road is the Independence gold mine. The gold mine was opened in 1906 and closed in 1943 due to World War II. The mine now is a living museum dedicated to the gold boom in the first half of the last century. The scouts thoroughly enjoyed exploring an old mine.
They had gone up the pass from the Palmer side, fortunately I was able to get a cell phone call through to them and told them if they came out of the pass the Wassila way, which was longer, they would be treated to the same view we had of the McKinley range They did and had a wonderful photo shoot. There are times when the McKinley range is not visible for months at a time we were indeed blessed.

Now back to our adventure, we arrived at the airport in Talkeetna at 12:00 and were warmly greeted by the staff of Hudson Air. I had sent them a Yooper dictionary 2 months ago so they would be able to understand us. We took off on our flight t 12:30, we flew up in 2 planes with skis on. As we flew towards McKinley it became bigger and bigger, then we were in the range. Flying over glaciers, through passes where the cliffs towered above us on both sides, it looked as though the tips of the wings were only a few feet away from he sheer rock cliffs. At 8,000 feet our pilot informed us the conditions were good enough to land, which doesn’t happen very often. We landed on skis on mushy snow, uphill, on the Ruth Glacier ice field at 7,000 feet on the south face of Mt. McKinley. The other plane landed with us and proceeded to explore this strange, dangerous and wonderful place. We were instructed that if we went in any direction very far, we would die. There are snow covered crevices that went down 3,000 feet, and 2 people had died 2 months ago over there as they said.
 
They had brought 2 sleds so that we could go sledding on Mt. McKinley, now that is something to talk about. But the strangest thing I did see up there on top of a 1000 foot rock in the middle of the ice field was an out house. Really, I have pictures, things are different in Alaska. Well taking off was interesting, we went down hill as fast as we could dropping off the edge of the ice field and climbing back up into the passes. I didn’t want to tell the boy that I was just a little scared but I was. A half an hour flight back to Talkeetna and our adventure was over but never forgotten.
We beat the other part of the troop back to camp, had a late dinner and off to bed as all were excited, but tired. For it wasn’t over yet
 
 
On Saturday we slept in to 6:00AM still got to wake everyone up, I am enjoying this way too much. Off to the New Sagaya, an Asian supermarket in Anchorage. The meat counter was to be the big attraction. Sea food was all they had, everything from Marlin, Shark, live oysters, clams, conch, four foot squids, but the big draw was live Alaskan crabs. The boys were allowed to hold them and their pictures taken. We picked one out and they cooked it right there and we ate it. They also had whole octopuses there and they cut off one tentacle off for us, they got another photo shoot with the tentacle before it was sliced up and eaten with their crab, nice lunch!
 
Well the trip was coming to a close. We were going home the next day. We all decided we better do some souvenir shopping so we went down to the Anchorage Saturday Market. One hundred booths were set up. You could buy anything from polar bear claws, whale baleen, spirit masks from the natives, wolf fur coats, also food from Alaska and dance and song demonstrations by the Alaskan native, it was great. This is where we parted way, Everyone had a chance to do whatever they wanted to do. Later that evening we met back at camp to pack and clean up.
I got to wake everyone up the next morning but it wasn’t as much fun, knowing it was time to go home made it sad. I left an hour early so I could get to my son’s house in Anchorage and pack 300 lbs. of fish in coolers for everyone to take home. Everyone was pretty quiet as they arrived to pick up the fish and drive to the airport.
We boarded our plane and flew home, some of us will come back in four years for another adventure and some will never come back. I do believe their memories will last them a lifetime and I thank God for seeing us safely through this adventure.

In closing I asked the boys to write down some of their favorite things that happened in Alaska on the flight home.
 

 I would like to share some excerpts from them with you.
Halibut fishing it was the best time, being on the ocean.
The plane ride onto Mt. McKinley, my favorite thing was the snowball fight. I won.
I liked the White Water river rafting the most because the water was cold and intense.
The Salmon fishing with my dad.
White water river rafting, At first I was scared and in the end I liked it.
The scenery the mountain, glaciers and rivers were amazing.
You can see the sun 24/7.
I liked going on Mt. McKinley and playing in the snow in July
The gold panning but we didn’t get rich.
 

IronwoodInfo.com  is a Michigan, Non-Profit Media Corporation

Contact IronwoodInfo.com

email: mail@ironwoodinfo.com
snail mail: P.O. Box 305 Ironwood, MI 49938
Telephone
Ironwood:  906-932-1402
Ontonagon:  906-885-5683
Fax
906-884-2544