Saturday, 3 September 2011
Fall in Alaska
Let us backtrack for a moment. A week or so ago, when we were in Seward, we entered the knitting store where Meriam spent time while the weather was particularly unpleasant. Cindy, the store owner, greeted us with “Happy termination day!” “What?”, we responded. She explained that Termination Day was when the first snow “dusts” the top of the mountains. We suspected this meant the start of fall/winter. “No” says Cindy. Termination day marks the End of Summer! This shows the significance of summer to them, not the importance of fall or winter.
Return now to the present time. We are traveling up the Parks Highway towards the Denali Highway and Denali National Park. We had traveled this same road when Kay and Larry were with us only a few weeks ago. Then we had traveled the road in reverse, coming across the Denali Highway and down to Anchorage. At that time, the vegetation was lush and green. Now, fall colors have arrived in all its glory.
But before we talk about the fall colors, let’s talk about vegetables in Alaska. Firstly, they are very expensive. Imagine, they only have at most 2 months to grow them. Secondly, we discovered yet another myth about Alaska. The pictures of vegetables one sees in the tourist magazine showing 50 pound cabbages are not typical. In fact, we suspect these monsters are hot house grown. How do we know? Well, we took a side trip in the Mat-Su Valley to visit a pick-your-own-vegetable farm. This farm was an obvious local (mostly from Anchorage) favorite. It was quite large with a variety of vegetables. The vegetables were nice, but there were no monsters here! As a side note, the water in this valley comes from the snow and glacier melt. (You will hear more about farms using snow melt when we travel through the Okanogan Valley in British Columbia and Washington State.)
On the way up the Parks Road, we stopped at the southern viewpoint for Mt. McKinley. Oh what the difference weather makes! If you will remember on our blog entry entitled “Mt. McKinley, Talketeena and Moose Pass “, the view of Mt. McKinley was superb, clear and bright. Today, the weather was cold and rainy. One could not even see the base of McKinley!
From here on, the colors of the vegetation were awesome, color combinations we had not seen before. The fall colors we experienced elsewhere in the lower 48 and British Columbia revolve around the trees. Here, the colors result from the ground vegetation! Undergrowth vegetation for our first month or so in Alaska has been nondescript. Now, it is the undergrowth which grabs and holds our attention. Before even coming to Alaska we had looked forward to seeing Alaska in the fall. We are fortunate to see the fall colors for several reasons. Perhaps the most interesting is it’s short life! Colors here seem to last no more than two weeks! By the time we leave Fairbanks we suspect all the color will be gone!
