5/20/23: The Magnificent Denali National Park and Preserve!

 

Photos from the second day Steven and I spent at Alaska's glorious Denali National Park:

We read that during the 1920s, guests stayed in canvas-sided tent houses at Savage Camp, which was located near here. Each 10x12 tent was furnished with two iron cots, a washstand, a chair, and a wood stove for chilly nights. A large social hall, a dining room, and a well-stocked cookhouse made for a pleasant stay. Elegant evening meals were served on long tables decked with white linen tablecloths and napkins, real silverware, and fresh flowers.

In 1922, during his second year as the park superintendent, Harry Karstens purchased seven dogs to patrol the park boundary. As a result, the Denali Kennels were established. Tige, a park sled dog, was awarded the World International Diploma of Honor for saving a ranger's life in 1940 after his sled had fallen through the ice into six feet of water in the Toklai River.  

All patrols were conducted in 1946 in the M-7 Snow Jeep. However, one ranger noted that though the distance traveled in a day over unbroken trails exceeded what a dog team could do, the dogs had fewer issues than carburetors! In 1950, the Park Service acquired an Army sled dog team to revive dog demonstrations and patrols after the working dogs were taken away for military duty during World War II. 

Since 1980, sled dogs have patrolled the legally designated wilderness of the Denali National Park and Preserve after the signing of the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act. Centennial celebrations in 1922 included a trip up the Tanana River to visit the island where the first dogs were purchased, in 1922, and an honorary run as the first team across the ceremonial start line of the Iditarod Sled Dog Race.

During the summer months, the dogs serve as park ambassadors, helping park rangers share stories of wilderness mushing. Once snow covers the ground, the kennels assist with park projects, including non-motorized travel and freight-hauling capabilities to maintain the spirit and letter of wilderness regulations. 

To avoid using motorized vehicles in Denali's wilderness, the sled dogs often trail crews by hauling materials where they are needed. To help complete the Riley Creek suspension bridge and the Triple Lakes Trail in 2010, the dogs hauled more than 10,000 pounds of building materials into the park for the projects. Dogs continue to help with new trail projects in the park.

Denali sled dogs are a reliable force, regularly used to assist scientists with winter research. One ongoing project aims to expand knowledge of the park's changing landscape by collecting snow data at vegetation study sites in the Wonder Lakes area. The long-term monitoring of these sites dates back to the 1950s. 

When studying wildlife, the National Park Service aims to minimize the impact of research on wild animals. The Denali Kennels help collect scat samples of predator species in the park. That allows park scientiststo survey those populations with minimal disturbance and gives park managers a better picture of population numbers in the park. 

Summer: Training for life as a sled dog begins a few weeks after birth. Once their eyes and ears have opened, the pups are held and socialized to visitors, as they will be visited by hundreds of thousands of people throughout their careers. 

Fall: On walks, the pups are exposed to new terrain and challenges they might face on the trail. That is a great time to get a sense of their personalities: who loves to explore and lead the way, who gets tired first, and who wants to keep going and going. 

Winter: By this time, the pups have learned to run home from their walks, as they are harnessed to an adult dog to learn how to pull a ranger on skis back to the kennels. Pups learn commands and build confidence as they begin their harness training and through skijoring, a winter sport in which a person on skis is pulled by a horse or dog on a mechanical device, such as a snowmobile. 

Spring: During the last few runs of the season, the pups learn how to pull a sled with the rest of the dogs. When the snow melts, the skis and sleds are put away for the summer, and the dogs must wait until winter to be part of a team again.

Mother of the kennels: Many of the dogs could trace their lineage to an exceptional husky named Susie, who was acquired by a musher living near Denali. She ran for him as his best leader for five years before joining the park kennels in 1977, and continuing her leadership work there. Susie's two litters served as the basis for the kennels' breeding stock.

Alaskan huskies are bred for particular traits that enable them to better perform the work of a sled dog. Although they are not a formal breed recognized by the American Kennel Club, research indicates they are distinct from other breeds. Their genetic history contains breeds such as the Malamute, Samoyed, and Siberian Husky.

Traits of a great leader: To make dog teams work, they must have strong dogs, an experienced musher, and, in particular, a special dog or two at the front to lead the team. A lead dog must have a head to learn to follow verbal commands; the heart to work in harmony with the musher, the desire for the team to succeed, and the will to make it happen; and the spirit to provide experience and enthusiasm for the rest of the dogs.

Could there be a cuter dog's name than Munchkin?!

Chris, originally from New Jersey, where he'd never had a dog growing up or had seen much snow, told the crowd that he was a guide who had started as an intern the previous summer and then worked one-on-one with sled dogs during the winter. Dogs haul out heavy debris during the winter months. He mentioned that the first sled dogs were brought to the park on February 9, 1922. In the 1800s, before the park was established, sled dogs running in the park were used for transportation and freight hauling. 

Chris mentioned that the dogs were a mishmash of different colors, sizes, and breeds. What we'd seen in the kennels were the dogs in their relaxed off-duty mode. Their goal is to protect the wilderness, as the Wilderness Act prohibits motorized vehicles off-road in the park.

Interesting facts about dogs: The dogs' large feet distribute their weight evenly as they run through the snow. Their furry, compact paws keep snow out as they run through it. The dogs have straight ears, which allows them to better listen to the mushers. 

A double-layer fur coat insulates a dog's body, allowing it to withstand temperatures as low as -40 degrees. When curled up in the cold, the dogs routinely cover their noses with their long, bushy, perfectly round tails to trap warm, moist air to protect their sensitive noses. 

It was impossible not to be awed by how the dogs were absolutely quiet until they all howled on cue, then began running around the track in front of us. Chris mentioned that summer dog sled demonstrations began in 1939.

While blue eyes are more common in Alaska huskies, it is possible to not only see a variety of eye colors among sled dogs, but even between one dog's eyes. Pound for pound, sled dogs are the strongest draft animals on earth, with the weight of a Denali sled dog ranging between 60 and 95 pounds. The dog's job is to break trail and pull heavily-loaded sleds over rough terrain. While doing that, the dogs average 5-6mph and cover 20 miles a day, though it is possible to run 60 miles a day if the conditions are ideal. During summer demonstrations, they may run as fast as 20mph. 

Sled dogs, like wolves and some other animals, have "counter-current circulation" in their legs. That means their arteries and veins are intertwined, so the warm blood traveling away from the heart loses heat to the cooler blood returning from the paw. That allows the dog's core to stay warm while the paws can be close to freezing. 

Chris emphasized that each dog has its own personality.

We found out that dog transportation will always remain the preferred method for certain kinds of work in Arctic and subarctic areas. Chris told us that most dog teams consist of 10-12 dogs, with the dog in the middle being in the swing position.

Once Boomer and Summit were released by the handler, they ran like crazy, as if shot out of a cannon, right back to the kennels! 

Not only were we there for the first sled dog demonstration of the day, but it turned out to be the first of the year, since it was so early in the season.

Buck was the only dog we could pet. He also accepted green paper and silver coins as a thank you!

We learned at the Visitor Center that Dall sheep are the park's symbol, in part because their overhunting inspired Charles Sheldon and others to lobby Congress to establish a park and game refuge to protect them. Their lobbying led to the establishment of Mount McKinley National Park, which President Obama renamed Denali in 2015.

I found it fascinating that the park's borders existed only on maps, as there were no fences to either keep in wildlife or keep out change. On a clear day, the Denali massif can be seen 130 miles away from Anchorage, thanks to the state's exceptional air quality, which is due to relatively little industrial activity and fewer human residents than caribou. 

But summertime wildfire smoke and small amounts of intercontinental pollution can make Denali look hazy. We had been fortunate that no cloudy weather obscured our view of Denali on our approach a couple of days earlier. The weather in the area can change so quickly that the mountain may appear and disappear many times throughout the day. 

The park's rangers don't play favorites with either the hunter ot hunted. Predator-prey relationships unfold with minimal human interference. For example, wolves hunt old, sick, weak, or newborn animals as they have for thousands of years.  As they feed themselves, they provide food for other carnivores and help to keep prey populations healthy.

The park's stance wasn't always neutral. Fears that park wolves were decimating Dall sheep populations in the 1930s led to a program to reduce wolf numbers. Once the role of wolves was better understood after years of study, the park stopped favoring some species over others. However, the relationship between predators and prey in the Denali ecosystem is still being studied. 

Views from the park's Spruce Forest Trail:

On the Morino Trail, we learned that entrepreneur Maurice Morino came to the area to prospect for gold and stayed to provide services for many park visitors. He built a roadhouse near Riley Creek and a second one a stone's throw from the railroad, hoping to profit from the railroad construction trade. He provided lodging, meals, and supplies to railroad workers, prospectors, travelers, and some of the men who built the 90-mile-long Park Road.

An Italian immigrant, Morino described his roadhouse as in the Italian Villa style, with a two-story log building featuring open verandas like those in his homeland. Morino's Roadhouse became the park's social hub, where members of the frontier community gathered to celebrate. Most people decided to come together and hold a community dance to make isolation more bearable. 

The trail was surprisingly devoid of fellow hikers, perhaps because we were there at the very beginning of the season. 

Savage Cabin, built by road crews in 1924-25, symbolized the continued importance of roadside cabins in protecting Denali's unique wilderness character. Efforts to preserve and protect the wilderness continue, with today's rangers facing some of the same challenges as the park's first rangers. All the roadside cabins are used by rangers during the summer to patrol the park road and backcountry. Savage Cabin is used in the winter by rangers who patrol using dog sleds. 

The cabin's dog kennels:

What a shame that the park's road wasn't wide enough to allow cyclists or pedestrians their own lane. We continued driving a few more miles to the end of the park's paved road, which was also the limit for visitors beginning that day.

Savage River:

I'm sure the day's 60-degree weather and bright blue sunny skies contributed to how extraordinarily lovely the park looked!

I'd never seen a sled dog walking sign before!

Almost a dozen miles north of the park's entrance was Healy, the closest community with year-round services, and where we stayed. One of its biggest attractions used to be the so-called Magic Bus, made popular as the site where Into the Wild author Christopher McCandless, aka Alexander Supertramp, died in 1992. But, as people made a 20-mile pilgrimage down the Stampede Trail to the bus, they encountered hazards, including two challenging river crossings and long stretches of flooded, muddy trails. Given that some had to be rescued every year, the bus was eventually moved to the University of Alaska's Fairbanks Museum of the North. Located outside a local brewery pub was this replica, which was used in the film. 

McCandless's last journal entry was made on August 13, 1992. The remaining entries were time marked with a single line until the end. His final missive was written on a blank page torn from Louis L'Amour's memoir, Education of a Wandering Man.

Though the restaurant's food was forgettable (including at its second location, which we later discovered in our hometown of Littleton!), the area off the main road, with mountain vistas in every direction, had to be among the most stunning anywhere. 

Next post: The aforementioned museum and Creamer's Field Refuge, both in Fairbanks.

Posted on December 26th or Boxing Day, 2025, from San Francisco, where we're thrilled to be visiting our older son and his family for the holidays! May peace and goodwill be with you and your loved ones as we near the end of the year.