Dinali (Mount McKinley)
About halfway between Anchorage and Fairbanks and reachable by road, railroad or air, is the Dinali National Park. This National Park is in existence because of the presence of Mount McKinley, called Dinali (meaning "the great one") by the local Indians.
The greatest feature of the Park is, of course, the mountain; however being able to see the entire mountain is extremely rare. When we were there, only the bottom third of the mountain was below the cloud layer and Park officials assured us that was a better than average sighting.
On our first day in the Park, there was excitement evident among the staff. One of them had discovered a cow moose with triplets. Triplets are rare, and on the occasions when they are born, one of them probably won't live. What got the staff so excited was that all three of the calves seemed to be in excellent health.
The second most popular attractions in the Park were the animals. At the time we were there, driving your own vehicles any farther than the parking area was not allowed; however the park service was operating buses that would take us on a 90-mile (each way!) trip to see the wild-life. We did see some: a grizzly bear on a far ridge pouncing on what was probably a marmot hole; a little red fox who did not want to share the road with any old bus; lots of marmots; jagers dive-bombing the nests of skuas for their eggs.
By the time we had returned to the parking lot, we had developed a great sympathy for the school children who had to ride on those hard seats. (I understand the buses are much better now.)
Considering how far Dinali is from everything else, we found it to be well-maintained and staffed by friendly, courteous people.
Turnagain
Arm
Anchorage is located on a body of water named "Cook Strait" after the well-known Captain Cook. The Strait splits into two parts, one of which (the northern one) is called the Knik Arm. It terminates near Anchorage, in a small creek that once was known as Ship Creek. Considering the state of Anchorage's primitive sanitary facilities, the name soon became spelled with a "t" instead of a "p".
The southern part is called the "Turnagain Arm". The story is that Captain Cook, or one of his officers, sailed into the Arm looking for a short way back to the blue water. After sailing through the twists and turns of the Arm, he "turned again" and retreated the way he had come. This story may or may not be true, because the Turnagain Arm has a fascinating habit that would have made such a trip difficult, if not dangerous. At high tide the Arm is a magnificent body of water; but at low tide (twice a day) it shows nothing but a very narrow creek, entirely surrounded by mud flats.
There are stories about people being caught in boats on the flats, and having to decide whether to wait six hours for high tide or trying to walk out. Many of the walkers were caught in the mud, and died within sight of safety.
Anchorage itself is a city, much more typical a city than I would have anticipated. I was most interested in the local airfield, which was located next to a river; affording landing facilities for both land- and float-planes. Many of the land-based planes had huge low-pressure tires, to ease the shock of landing off-runway and eliminate sinking into the muskeg.
