Winter Alaska

Borealis Basecamp

No Northern Lights last night. Pooh! However, I must have been so keen to wake up at 2 am, I heard a knock on my door and someone called my name. I thought this was the “Aurora Alert” signal so I got up, put on a gazillion layers, and went outside to find the green lights. Couldn’t find anything or anyone. I did manage to take this picture

Yes, I know…. It’s not green but it was all I could find. Went back to my room and called the “Aurora Alert” hotline and they assured me that no one had contacted me. That was some dream!

For clarity about the cube I am in, it’s a big cube.

Despite the disappointment, the day was packed with new experiences. Starting with the dog mushers…..The dogs which do the long distance running are Alaskan huskies. The dogs that do sprints are a cross between an Alaskan husky and a German pointer.

The dogs love having their ears and hindquarters patted. We got to play with a couple of puppies who also got fed warm soup with kibble. They can’t leave water for them because it freezes.

Then they got them ready to do some sledding. All the dogs go crazy at this point. “Pick me”, “pick me “. And then they took us on a 2 mile loop through the snow. It was a lot of fun. We got to ride in both the standing position ( which requires balance and soft knees) and the sitting position ( which just requires you to hold on)

The musher (who was a 3rd generation musher) explained the difference between a sprint sled and a long distance sled.

Then we got to meet Rory, the reindeer, who walked with us to his sisters and brothers in the reindeer pen.

We tried to feed them but because we smelled of the musher dogs, they weren’t interested. To get Rory back out of the pen, Stephanie held up his bucket of food.

Then a walk through the forest. I chose to walk. The others chose to use snowshoes or skis.

And going up that long white strip to the right of me is the Trans-Alaska pipeline on stilts.

Hoping that I get a real call tonight for the Northern Lights.