Talkeetna to Whittier June 19, 2010

This morning we were transported from the Mt. McKinley Wilderness Lodge to the Talkeetna Railroad Station. The “station” is quite rustic as it consists of nothing more than a railroad siding and some logs to sit on. Quite primitive considering the posh accommodations at Mt McKinley. This time we boarded The Alaskan Railroad to our journey.


We headed south through the towns of Fish Lake, Sunshine, Montana ,Caswell and Kashwitna. We then arrived in Willow. Gold was discovered in this area in the late 1890’s and mining did well for 50 years. WWII basically shut down the gold mines in the state. After the war, with wages and expenses skyrocketing, mining was no longer economical. The Willow District mines have never recovered.

Willow as a town was dormant until the 1970’s. At that time Alaskans started talking about moving the capital from Juneau to a place closer to the major population centers of Anchorage and Fairbanks. In 1976 the citizens of Alaska voted for Willow as the site for the new capital. Many plans for a model capital community were developed and the land values in Willow escalated. After six years of feasibility studies it was determined that it would take in excess of 2 billion dollars to move the capital and in 1982 the votes killed the plan. Willow became the official starting point for the Iditarod sled dog race. Perhaps you know of Willow because it was the inspiration for the name of Sarah Palin’s first daughter.

We followed the Little Susitna River, or Little Su as it is called by the locals. This river is well known for its run of salmon. The king salmon run in May and June with the silver making their run in July and August.

We arrive in Wasilla which everyone knows is the home of Sarah Palin and no you can not see Russia from her back yard. We did see her childhood home a fairly nondescript beige ranch home with a green roof. Wasilla was named for Chief Wasillla, an Athabaskan Indian. It was established in 1917 at the intersection of the Knik-Willow trail and the Alaska Railroad and became a supply center for the Willow Creek gold district. Today Wisilla is an active community of about 8,471 residents. Between 1980 and 1982 the population nearly doubled and it was believed to be the fastest growing community in the nation.

The Matanuska Valley is our next destination. In the summer of 1935 about 200 financially strapped farm families, mostly from Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan arrived in the town of Palmer. They were to be colonists settling in the valley as part of a planned farm community project through the Federal Emergency Relief Administration, a New Deal agency. These farmers were offered an opportunity to farm on a homestead basis. Many of the homesteader families are still “Mat Valley” residents. Between Palmer and Wasilla, the fertile soil, 19 hours of sunlight and a three-month growing season combine to produce abundant crops. Each year at the Alaska State Fair, giant cabbages weighing over 80 pounds, huge radishes and other vegetables are displayed. The most reliable plants to grow are lettuce, potatoes, carrots, cabbages, peas and beets.

Knik Arm is the northern arm of Cook Inlet. Cook Inlet has one of the highest ties in the world sometimes reaching a maximum of 40 feet. The greatest tidal variation in North American is the Bay of Fundy between Nova Scotia and New Brunswick (Doug and I saw this on our Top of the World Motorcycle ride in 2002). Knik Arm is a faulted basin shaped by recent glaciations. The basin is actively filling with sediment from the numerous large, glacier rivers that drain into it. We enter Anchorage which I have already talked about is previous posts.

From Anchorage we follow Turnagain Arm…WOW is all I can say. They say a picture is worth a thousand words so check them out! The Turnagain Arm flow between the Talkeetna Mountai to the north and the Kenai Peninsula to the south. I believe Turnagain got its name because you were constantly turning you head this way to look at the Tulkeetnas and again to the south to the Kenai mountains. My neck needs a massage. The tracks take us to Girdwood once a small mining town and now home to the Alyeska Ski Resort. Mt. Alyeska is 4,000’ and the state’s largest ski resort.

Portage is named for the historic trail of portage route connecting the Gulf of Alaska to the Cook Inlet region. At this point we are only 10 miles from Whittier as the crow flies. The settlement of Portage was destroyed in the 1964 earthquake, when the ground subsided by as much as 12 feet. There are still remnants of the old buildings. The earthquake had a tremendous effect on the railroad. The ground sunk so far that the tracks were awash during high tides. As high tide receded the tracks would be cleared and the train would go through on a twice a day schedule. The ride from Portage is short and a good portion of it is spent in two tunnels. The first tunnel is a mile long and goes under Beglich Peak . The second is the Anton Anderson Memorial Tunnel. At 2.5 miles long, is the longest highway tunnel and the longest combined rail/highway tunnel in use in North America. It is designed to work at temperatures -40F and in winds up to 150 mph.

We emerge from the tunnel in Whittier where it is gray, rainy and cold, but behold there is our ship, the Coral Princess.

Once again that to Anita Williams and Linda Ewers for the historical information.