Tree at last!

There hasn't been anything big going on this week at work except for a new project that I am taking on. I am assisting with an advertising campaign for Denali KidCare. This program seems pretty amazing. It pays for doctor bills for teens, kids, and pregnant women. It will even fly people to Anchorage to get the treatment they might need.

Outside of work, I was able to go on my first trip to Council. It is a big deal to go out there! There are only a few roads that lead outside of Nome and all of them don't go any further than about 120 miles. Council is about a 90 mile drive away from Nome. The road is a long dirt road that takes you up, down, and around all kinds of mountains. Driving on it, makes you feel like you should be in a truck commercial. Along the coast, most of the houses look the same as the first picture I have included in my blog. It starts getting different when you drive in the village called Safety. Safety is the last checkpoint in the Iditarod. One of the things that puts Safety on the map is the roadhouse. Just as it sounds, it is a roadhouse that has a rustic touch with walrus tusks decorating the walls along with autographed dollar bills from locals. In addition, people are known to come from all around and drink at the bar. With that in mind, the first picture in this blog is of the outside of the roadhouse with the old fashion face front. Notice the small blue plane in the parking lot. Apparently, it is common for people to fly to Safety Roadhouse.... only in Nome.

Further in the trip, we stopped at the "Train to No Where." This is the second picture in the blog. This train was built to easily transport gold to New York. Unfortunately, the builders forgot that they were in Bush Alaska and things like trains don't last. The area was flooded and the train got stuck.

After a long drive, we finally got to Council. This cute little village has about 15-20 houses and is a get away place for people in Nome. This village is unique for 2 reasons. First of all, there is no bridge to get to it so you either stop and walk across the river to get to your house or hope that your car can make it across. The water is about30 feet wide and 1-2 feet deep at the most so trucks can easily get across. The second aspect that makes Council unique is the trees. About 15 miles away from the city, we started seeing a few trees pop out. Since Nome is so far north, we don't get any trees, just tundra. It was interesting to suddenly see a line of trees pop up as if they suddently existed. The camping experience was great. It was kind of hot (70 degrees, which is hot for Northwest Alaska) with no wind so we had a lot of bugs. Despite all of the bug bites, we decided it was worth it to see trees again.

Over all, we saw 3 wild reindeer, a fox, a beaver dam, several rainbow trout, countless bunnies (over 30 just sitting in the road), and a heard of muskox from a distance.

I also got to visit Anvil Mountain. This mountain is right outside of Nome and is known for the abbandoned Cold War structures. There is always a large amount of wildlife at the top of it. Bywildlife, I mean muskox. I have never seen muskox up close but I have collected a lot of the kivia. Kivia is the fur muskox shed and is known to be worth alot of money.