[smartslider3 slider=3] We just skied 100 miles of the frozen Yukon River, two friends and I, until it got too cold for our skis to glide, and we flew back to Fairbanks on a plane that landed on both skis and wheels. Though my friends — Bob Gillis and Adam Bucki — are both […]
A father wakes, rolls out of bed and drops his toes to cold carpet. He grabs a flashlight and shines it outside the window. The thermometer reads 40 below zero, the only point at which the Fahrenheit and Celsius scales agree. The red liquid within his thermometer is alcohol; mercury freezes at 38 below. […]
Photo: A brood of ruddy ducks in Yukon Flats National Wildlife Refuge in summer 2018. Photo by Michelle Lake, USFWS. Every spring, millions of ducks touch down on Yukon Flats National Wildlife Refuge, a spread of muskeg and dark water the size of Maryland. These days, more ruddy ducks seem to be among them. Recent […]
IDITAROD, ALASKA — While gliding along a trail that had just felt the imprint of 2,000 dog feet, Bob Gillis skied over to a rock that jutted from the snow. A few miles northwest of the ghost town that gives the world’s most famous sleddog race its name, Gillis and I were in the […]