Arctic Circle

It was a busy day as we spent the day traveling to and from the Arctic Circle! We started at the tour company's office which is located at the Fairbanks airport for a briefing. Our original tour was to drive up and back but there was not enough signed up for that tour so they upgraded us to a fly and drive tour which worked out even better!

Our plane was a 10 passenger Navajo Chieftain piloted by Tod. We were asked our weight and our camera bag and backpack were weighed. Rod was able to sit next to the pilot. Our one hour flight took us to Coldfoot, Alaska which is an oil pipeline camp and about 60 miles north of the Arctic Circle. Coldfoot Airport, on the west side of the Dalton Highway, is a 4,000-foot gravel strip. There, we were met with our guide, Sabrina, for the remainder of the trip.The rest of our trip back to Fairbanks was in a passenger van on the Dawson Highway. Our first stop was to the Coldfoot camp which is right outside of the airstrip and then to the Visitors Center. This Center is unique as it has 3 federal agencies under one roof - the National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management and Fish and Wildlife. There was no cell service for the next 10 or so hours.

Along the way, Sabrina gave us the history of the area, pipeline and the area in general. The town of Coldfoot is said to have gotten its name when between 1899 and 1908 gold miners had been mining for gold in the Slate Creek area and not finding much got 'cold feet' and left. Coldfoot primarily serves as a truck stop on the Dalton Highway from Fairbanks to Prudhoe Bay. North of Coldfoot, there are no services for 240 miles until Deadhorse. It has a restaurant and a small number of overnight accommodations that are converted pipeline construction camp quarters. The stop actually started as a summer mobile food truck. Eventually the truckers wanted something year-round and asked the person running the food truck if they helped build a building would he become year-round. Of course, the answer was yes. The truckers provide everything for the approximately 8000 people working in some capacity at Prudhoe Bay.Read more