Yukon, Alaska
Our team is going to storm about 2, 000 kilometers long stage of the Yukon River from Circle town to the coast of Bering Sea. Through Yukon River in fact belongs to the territory of Alaska which was discovered in 1741 when Russian navigators Bering and Chirikov led their expedition ships here. For next 126 years Alaska belonged to Russia. The preceding period is most often considered prehistoric as if nothing has ever been here before. Which is not really true: the first Alaskan inhabitants were Siberian hunters coming here in search of the mammoths. They crossed the Bering Strait by using a natural ice bridge, and before the beginning of the ice-age, 6, 000 years BC they became the forefathers of Alaskan Indians. Only in 1867 Alaska became the property of the USA.
Alaska is that famous state that was sold from Russia to the US for pretty nothing or, to be precise, for 5 cents per hectare. That is that lonely state which is the least densely populated. That is that cold state isolated from its brothers, lying far away in the North, behind the border of Canada. And last but not least, that is the familiar state described in many adventure novels by Jack London. Reasonably, all these factors create myths about Alaska, and two of them are the biggest nowadays.
One of these myths tells us Alaska to be the cold, lonely and deserted place. Well, it is partly true, nights are long and winters are severe here with the temperature falling below -65C. However, there are also mild sunny summers with the polar day when the sun is up for 20 to 24 hours. The fact of the sparse density of the territory is also true: there are barely 100, 000 inhabitants per 1 519 000 km2, which, in fact, makes 16% of the territory of the US. The separated location of the territory is the reason of many peculiarities and even inconveniences. For instance, many food-providing American companies refuse providing their stuff here; that is why the cost of goods here has long been higher than in the contiguous 48 states. Alaska has vast oil resources; however, big part of it is used to keep its population warm during cold long winters. Unlike others, this region has the chance to get some rest from motor vehicles since much more convenient transport here is light airplane and dogsled. Also mountain-making processes here are young and full of energy. Due to global warming, huge glaciers of Alaska are melting and stimulate the liberated ground to change its shape thus raising notorious earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. Yet, a man can never feel lonely here because nature enters his life as numerous ibexes, moose or other animals which use the roads and other anthropogenic objects as if these were their own. Hence, humans and animals in Alaska are united and equal.
This is not a secret to anyone that Alaska began to develop along with the discovery of gold in Klondike, the tributary of the Yukon River, in 1896. More and more prospectors, single, in groups and in families came here to find success and wealth, but what they really met was severe nature of Alaska and hard work in gold mines. According to the data, about 1 million of people came to Klondike for gold; about 60, 000 died on their way down the Yukon or returned back; other 40, 000 made it to Dawson City, and only about 4, 000 really found the gold. During this period more than 100 villages were settled, other mineral deposits, such as silver, lead, zinc and copper were found, few American military bases were located and railway was built.
That is another myth, that there is no more gold left in Alaska. Of course, there is. However, it is not freely available anymore to all the visitors who now can only look but not touch. At least, not as it used to be at the times of the gold rush. Now every interested person for certain amount of money can try himself as the gold prospector and get his own gold washed by his own hands. To make the impression more colourful, Dawson City is revived as the capital of gold prospectors with the entire atmosphere of the gold rush era.
Besides happy tourism offers, Alaska always dares brave men to taste “bear-meat” as Jack London figuratively named the challenge of fight with Alaskan nature, its mountains, glaciers and rivers.
Elizabete Neimiseva for enduroadventure.lv