In a state with few roads, small airstrips become Alaska’s highways.  Photo by Gene Korte

Above that imaginary line called the Arctic Circle the Alaskan wilderness is home to hundreds of miles of lakes and rivers, mountains and forests, but few people.

Airstrips are the only highways up here and the long winters demand resilience. The school in the village of Anaktuvuk Pass, for instance, doesn’t close unless the temperature falls below minus 50 degrees. And in tiny Bettles, our second stop inside the Arctic Circle, an old single-engine floatplane is available to drop travelers into the bush for weeks.

ANAKTUVUK PASS, POPULATION 340

On a sunny Indian summer day we flew into this friendly village on an all-day excursion from Fairbanks. Located 150 miles south of the Arctic Ocean near the Gates of the Arctic National Park, it is the last remaining settlement of the Nunamiut, the inland Inupiat Eskimos. The only sign of civilization that we saw on our flight was the silver colored Alaskan oil pipeline that was installed in the late 1970s. It appears as a double stripe from the air, one line is the pipe and the other is the maintenance road.

For thousands of years the Inupiat Eskimos were nomadic, moving seasonally following the caribou herds. In the mid-20th century a few families gathered in this place to create a new home, and today the village prospers in part because of their portion of Alaska’s oil revenue.

When the tribe first arrived, they came by dog sled. Now they hunt caribou — the herd is estimated to number half a million — on snowmobiles and ATVs. And, though they have more food choices now, caribou is still part of the daily diet for most locals.

The Eskimos’ first dwellings here were sod houses. Now families live in durable heated homes. The town has a water treatment plant, electricity, sewer system, health clinic, police and fire stations, a grocery store, a Presbyterian Church, a U.S. Post Office, even a museum. The Simon Paneak Memorial Museum, http://www.co.north-slope.ak.us/nsb/55.htm, tells the story of these Eskimos. And in a little museum shop residents sell carvings and the caribou skin masks for which the village is widely known.

In the summer months there’s a small restaurant where it’s ESPN all the time, and the cheeseburgers are as tasty as they are down in the lower 48. An estimated 40 percent of the village has access to the internet in their homes, and probably everyone has Dish TV. No alcohol is available in this village and its ban is strictly enforced.

When we arrived, it was sunny and in the 40s. By midday it was well into the 70s and we heard some grumbling about the heat. The village had already experienced cold weather and frost earlier in August and this heat wave was unexpected. The winters, arriving soon, are very cold and the thermometer will stay below zero for months.

There are no roads into or out of Anaktuvuk Pass. Aside from the food (game, fish, wild strawberries and cranberries in a brief season) gathered by the tribe, every item in this town is flown in. During the course of our day here about a dozen planes landed, including small single-engine planes — mostly for hunters — and even a 1940’s era war bird, a C46. Called Dumbo, it flies into air shows in the lower 48, but it landed several times here delivering fuel oil to the village.

Our day trip to Anaktuvuk Pass is a tour offered by Warbelow’s Air Ventures, Inc., http://www.warbelows.com, based at the Fairbanks International Airport. For more information about the people who settled in Anaktuvuk Pass along with mid-20th-century photos of them, read “Nunamiut, Among Alaska’s Inland Eskimos” by Helge Ingstad (The Countryman Press, 1954). In a recent edition it has a new introduction by the former curator of the Anaktuvuk Pass museum.

BETTLES, POPULATION 12

Hunters, fishermen, backpackers and those in search of the Northern Lights come to Bettles, the smallest town in Alaska, for the wilderness experience of the far north. A dozen Japanese visitors, on the hunt for that magnificent light show, the aurora borealis, arrived the days we were here.

The Bettles Lodge, http://www.bettleslodge.com, is listed on the National Registry of Historic Places. Built in the late 1940’s it’s a laidback, casual lodge with good food and conversation, wireless internet and a half-dozen guest rooms reminiscent of what hotel rooms looked like in those old Western movies. A newer building, the Aurora Lodge, has bigger rooms with their own toilets and shower/tubs. And like Anaktuvuk Pass, Bettles has a busy airstrip.

On our last day inside the Arctic Circle, we walked down a dusty road to the Bettles Post Office where a hunter was mailing home caribou horns that he found while in the bush. The postmistress helped him wrap the packages and sent them on their way. Despite their size, the total was only $28 parcel post.

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© 2011-2014  Diana and Gene Korte