Heading into the dark chill of Interior Alaska may seem like the wrong direction to go between October and May, but savvy travelers can bank on encountering light and warmth in the state's Golden Heart -- Fairbanks.
Hot springs are a sure bet for soothing warmth, and the heat of the mineral water is even more relaxing when experienced in a pool surrounded by snow. A cross-country ski at 20 below zero always makes a warm room and hot drink seem cozier, too. Old friends reunite at the Athabascan Old Time Fiddling Festival in November, dancing and making music for days.
Daylight may be brief, but it can be dazzling. Sometimes frost will coat trees, and pale cold sunlight makes feathery crystals on dark birch branches sparkle in clear, still air.
Bright nights
Night light is softer but equally beautiful. Moonlight teases tiny rainbows from the faces of snow crystals and creates distinct shadows behind snow-laden trees. The pink-tinged green of the aurora borealis often spreads across the stars, sometimes in dancing, jagged curtains, sometimes in slow-moving swirls.
The Fairbanks Convention and Visitors Bureau says the city sits along a ring-shaped region known as the Auroral Oval that marks an ideal viewing zone. The best viewing hours are from late evening to early morning. February and March are favorite months, with an aurora visible nine out of 10 clear nights, active on four.
Even for those early to bed there is no shortage of night-sky-watching darkness. On winter solstice, the visitors bureau reports, the shortest day of the year stretches across 3 hours and 42 minutes of daylight, from sunrise at 10:59 a.m. to sunset at 2:41 p.m.
Preparation for the trip
A winter trip in Alaska takes care and preparation. The time spent preparing can lend a visit richness, though, the way cookies from scratch taste better for the effort put into them.
Driving the Parks Highway can be a breeze under clear skies, as cold weather makes roads as dry as in July. That same cold weather necessitates a full stash of emergency clothing and supplies in a vehicle before setting out. Monitoring weather across the state can help make an aurora-watching quest a success, and advise drivers to allow extra time in case of snow.
Snow, of course, is the basis for half the reasons to go to the Interior.
Guided dog-mushing tours and lessons are one wonderful way to enjoy the snow. The visitors bureau can even point out companies that arrange overnight trips.
Racing over the snow
Multiple major sprint and distance sled-dog races begin or end in Fairbanks as well. The Yukon Quest ends in Fairbanks next year, with dogs pulling into town after running 1,000 miles from Whitehorse in Canada's Yukon Territory.
Racers in the Iron Dog travel twice as far. What organizers say is the world's longest snowmachine race begins in Fairbanks in early February, heading to Nome before ending in Wasilla.
Ski trails provide a lower-key way to travel. Frozen rivers make peaceful byways, and groomed and lighted trails crisscross the woods behind the University of Alaska Fairbanks. A spin on the trails can lead to the front door of the university's museum for an evening lecture.
A few buildings away, the Geophysical Institute offers tours of the state's volcano observatory. The institute's motto shows it lives up to the university's unique status as a space, land and sea grant institution: "Conducting research from the center of the earth to the center of the sun."
Getting outside Fairbanks
As roughly the center of the Interior, Fairbanks makes a great staging area for trips farther afield. Blissful relaxation in natural hot springs makes a worthwhile reason to go a little farther. Roughly an hour's drive out of town, Chena Hot Springs offers outdoor and indoor pools and hot tubs. About 140 miles beyond Fairbanks, eight miles off the Steese Highway from the town of Central, is Circle Hot Springs. At the end of the Eliott Highway is Manley Hot Springs.
The sites are interesting for their history as well as their comforts. The Alaska Science Forum relates that a pair of prospectors built a geothermally heated 60-room log hotel at Manley Hot Springs, along with barns for milk cows, hogs and poultry.
They also grew crops and in 1910 shipped 150 tons of potatoes down the Tanana and Yukon rivers to the Iditarod mining district. Mining declined in the area and a fire destroyed the three-story hotel, causing major setbacks to the resort's business. Today there is a roadhouse that rents rooms and a few small cabins.
Places to see, things to do
Turn-of-the-century prospectors reportedly gathered at Circle Hot Springs in winter when streams were too frozen to work. Athabaskans enjoyed the site long before. The hotel built in 1930 is closed this winter.
Chena Hot Springs is the most developed of the three. The resort offers massages, dining and activities from flightseeing to snowmachining to snowshoeing. It has several tubs and pools and a range of lodging. Visitors can choose from rooms with full or partial baths. Family suites and wheelchair-accessible rooms are also available. For that truly rustic experience, there are cabins with outhouses, staff said.
For a serious outhouse fix, try Chatanika Days in early March. In an annual outhouse race near Chatanika Lodge, teams of five propel outhouses over a one-mile course.
March is also when ice sculptors from around the world gather in Fairbanks for Ice Alaska world ice-carving championships. A carver from Los Angeles (where huge ice centerpieces are popular at tony parties) compared ice from around Fairbanks with diamonds, it is so pure. Once the carvings are completed, organizers shine multicolored lights on them for nighttime viewing. The festival is interactive, too, so visitors as well as sculptors get the fun of experiencing the ice. A wall might be set up for local ice climbers to swing their axes and crampons into, and anyone can take a whirl down an ice slide.
(Reporter Sarana Schell lives in Anchorage. She was born and raised in Fairbanks.)
