Flying to the Arctic Circle

Corinne Alaska, Sightseeing 4 Comments

We had an unexpected opportunity arise. At the RV Rally we attended back in early July, door prizes were given away. I put our tickets into the box for a trip to the Arctic Circle. And guess who won? We did! It was with Northern Alaska Tour Company and they would drive you to and from the Arctic Circle. Woohoo!

I did some investigating and found this tour company also offered a package where they would fly you to Coldfoot (nearest airstrip 65 miles north of the Arctic Circle) and drive you back south. I contacted the company and offered to pay the difference if we could fly/drive instead of drive/drive. They said “yes.”

Coldfoot…remember…that’s where our mail ended up accidentally. And that is how I got a picture of the Coldfoot Post Office in that “How to not get your mail” post. But I digress.

You may recognize the map from the blog post about our mail. Yes, we would be definitely be visiting the same country as our USPS mail did.

We found an excellent weather window and were able to get reservations at the last minute. This trip would give us an opportunity to see how bad the Dalton Highway really was, as we were considering driving in our own vehicle.

It was time to take off.

Our flight to Coldfoot left at 1:00 pm. This is the kind of plane ride where they ask you what you weigh AND they weigh your luggage (a backpack for us). Yikes.
The plane sat eight. The pilot got the front row to himself. We were two of five passengers and sat behind this couple from Wisconsin.
Do I look official? The pilot could talk to us, but we couldn’t respond. The best way to ask him a question was to type it into a phone and show him the question (assuming he wasn’t busy flying the plane). It was that loud in the plane!
Also accompanying us was some fresh groceries for the Coldfoot Camp (one of the only businesses along that highway that offers food, gas and simple lodgings.
The White Mountains in the distance.
The Dalton Highway down below. We would be on that road before the day was over.
The Yukon River, which flows from the Yukon in Canada to the Bering Sea.
The foothills of the Brooks Range.
There are two major mountain ranges in Alaska. The Alaska Range is to the south and that is what most people see when they visit Alaska. The Brooks Range is to the north and needs to be crossed to get to the Arctic Ocean. Coldfoot is just south of it.
After a short one hour flight, we landed on a dirt airstrip in Coldfoot. We had done it! We had made it north of the Arctic Circle.
Our mode of transportation after landing.

We were met by Mia, our Coldfoot tour guide who would give us a ride south to the Arctic Circle. She was from Louisiana and in Alaska for this summer job. She offered to show us around, including her living quarters.

This is where Mia and a roommate were living for the summer. No electricity and lots of mosquitos. It looks nicer on the outside than it did on the inside. No thanks.
At this point, we had cell service in Coldfoot, the last we would have until we get back to Fairbanks. For the heck of it, I decided to check times for sunset and sunrise. They didn’t exist at this latitude.

We all piled into the van and were driven down to the Arctic Circle. There we were to meet the group from Fairbanks who had driven up (as opposed to flying like we did) and join them in their van for the trip back to Fairbanks.

It’s official! I’m standing at the Arctic Circle. Latitude 66 degrees, 33 minutes North.
When the van from Fairbanks arrived, we all were treated to some mud pie (brownies with whipped cream). Shawn, our Fairbanks tour guide, hauled this all the way up from Fairbanks. Apparently he had an excellent cooler!

By this time it was 5:30 in the evening. Some people from the Fairbanks van hopped in the Coldfoot van to head north. We hopped into the Fairbanks van and started our drive south with an anticipated arrival time in Fairbanks of 1:30 a.m. Yikes. It was going to be an long evening.

At one point, Shawn stopped the van so we could all get out and experience permafrost. He dug a hole and we were given the opportunity to feel the permafrost. I passed…with these artificial knees, kneeling is not my jam. James however did kneel and stuck his hand in the hole. “How was it?” “Cold.”
And this was our view for most of the trip. A bumpy, dusty dirt road, and the pipeline accompanying us the entire way. Average speed was 45 miles per hour.
We spotted a bull moose along the roadside and had a staring contest. The moose won, only because we gave up and had to keep driving.
There are only two places with services along the Dalton Highway, Coldfoot which we had left 4 hours before and the Yukon River Camp. We stopped here at the Yukon River Camp for dinner at 8:00 pm. It doesn’t look like much, but the food was actually decent.

I spotted a couple of signs at the Yukon River Camp that had me doing a double take.

Don’t pour your ramen into the bathroom sink.
Don’t stand on the toilet.

Apparently there are some tour bus participants that do things differently where they are from.

After dinner, we piled in the van again for the rest of the journey. By this time, the van was getting a tad uncomfortable. We had three people in each bench seat. The seat belt shoulder harnesses locked up with each pothole and frost heave the van hit. It was getting late and we were tired.

Are we there yet?

Finally, at 1:30 a.m. we were dropped off at our vehicle and made our way back to the RV. It had been a long day. But mission accomplish, we had been to the Arctic Circle!

I took this photo from the RV window at 2:00 a.m. That’s how light it still was. We were so wound up, it was 4:00 a.m. before we crawled into bed ready to sleep.

If we had not won this trip, we would not have taken this tour. But, this unexpected trip gave us a chance to experience how bad the Dalton Highway really was. You hear horror stories. This experience gave us the confidence to tackle the highway on our own…in the RV, because another bucket list item was getting to the Arctic Ocean. Stay tuned for the next blog post and find out what it is like to drive yourself, in an RV, along the Dalton Highway.

4 thoughts on “Flying to the Arctic Circle”

  1. dominiquefeather

    Congratulations!!!! Yes, some people do things differently. When we visited Karen in Japan, she told us to be careful because many people stand on the toilet seats.

  2. Linda n Al

    Yikes! What an adventure! And it sounds like the extra you paid to fly there was probably well worth it. How fun! And the Dalton Highway is no joke, even in your own vehicle where you have elbow room and a bathroom LOL. Count how many bolts you have on your RV before you go and once you get there. Perhaps you’ll find them on the way back. And strap down everything inside so it doesn’t bounce out of its cubby!

    Have fun,
    Linda

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