Features > From Anchorage to the End of the Road
(From left) Barry Wolff, Flint Doungchak, the author and Chris Hartly
From Anchorage to the End of the Road- Part 1 of 2
by Chris Bilder, Generals Staff Writer
We are now at the end of our fifth day in the largest state in the US. This isn’t the first time we’re traveling here, but Alaska seems to get better with age. We have each logged over four hours in an airplane, ten hours in a car and four hours in a boat, but the experiences, and people, we have all encountered have been worth a journey twice as long. I could just leave it at that, but the time we’ve spent here deserves explanation.
By “we”, I am referring to the four of us that have made the trip north to find the next crop of Junior hockey players from the 49th state. Generals Head Coach Chris Hartly, Generals GM Flint Doungchak, and I (Generals Public Relations/Marketing person Chris Bilder) arrived in Anchorage just as the sun was getting ready to take its short three hour nap. We would later pick up our fourth on day two.
The three of us awoke the next morning, and walked out of the Nelchina Point Apartments that were so graciously provided by Weidner Apartment Homes and Kevin Kern. We were not met by blue skies, as we were last year, but the clouds were no indication of the hospitality we would be shown by Alaskans we would see over the next five days.
Our first stop was breakfast, followed by the first face-to-face contact we would have with a new friend of the Eugene Generals. Gordy Morgan, is a air traffic controller at the Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport, who also happens to contribute heavily to youth hockey in the area. Gordy’s son Tyler is coming to the Generals Open Camp, and Gordy decided to help us in our pursuit of having a successful camp. We met Gordy at a market that looked as if it was pulled from its foundation in Eugene and plopped neatly in Anchorage. We sat there talking about hockey in Alaska, and the group he is currently working with. It was a pleasant conversation, and the trend of helpful gracious Alaskan hockey parents we had found grew one larger.
We then made the trek to our stomping grounds from last year, the Peanut Farm. Last year we witnessed a town in celebration when the Alaska Aces captured the Kelley Cup (ECHL championship), and even had the pleasure of watching the team, along with almost every Anchorage resident, on the big screens at the Peanut Farm. This year, the Aces had been eliminated in surprising fashion by the eventual winners, but we were still there to watch the Anaheim Ducks pull out a victory over the Ottawa Senators. The crowd wasn’t as large as last year, but you could still feel the passion for hockey at the establishment.
While at the Peanut Farm we met up with former Generals and Generals parents. Tyler MacMillan (attending the University of Washington), Justin Kern (attending Concordia University), Ryan Schank (attending Concordia University), Steven Slattery (trying out for NAHL teams), Trent McKee (trying out for NAHL teams), Randy MacMillan and the aforementioned Kevin Kern all stopped by to see us and the Stanly Cup Playoffs. Food was eaten, drinks were drunk, times were reminisced and hockey was watched.
Early in the afternoon of day two we picked up the fourth member of our party. Barry Wolff is the Associate Coach of the Langley Chiefs. Wolffy, as many might know him by, was a big part of Open Camp last year, and signed on for this year as well. As soon as we were able to get back to the Nelchina Point Apartments we were off to our next treat. Kevin Kern was able to get us tickets to the Alaska Wild IFL (Intense Football League) game. It was the first time any of us had seen an arena football game in person, and it was one we won’t forget.
The Wild (0-7) were facing off against the Louisiana Swashbucklers (7-0) which appeared to be an already decided blowout. This was not the case, but I’ll get to that soon. The night started with VIP treatment. We were escorted to a special lounge courtesy of Generals sponsor GCI. There we were given free food and soda, and the chance to meet and greet with Kevin Kern. The free food and drink would have been good enough, but there still was a football game to watch. The night started with the National Anthem and a mock terrorist takeover of the game ball, in which the Alaska Army National Guard promptly jumped onto the field and performed a staged strategic maneuver while constantly firing blanks at the “terrorists”. After the game ball arrived in the proper hands, and group of local Polynesian dancers performed for the crowd, the game finally began. To our amazement, the cheerleaders didn’t leave the playing field. In fact, they were cheering where both teams were trying to get to, the end zone. That reason alone bumped up the excitement factor a couple of notches. Every one of us had our eyes glued to the action to see if one of the peppy girls in skimpy outfits was going to be taken out ala the Colorado State football spring game. That never happened, but it definitely kept our attention throughout the contest.
The actual game was quite low scoring for an arena football even (29-12 in favor of the still undefeated Swashbucklers), but the Wild missed three field goals and two extra points, one of which was returned the other direction for two points. All in all, it was a great experience, and demonstrated once again how much is shared with us from the people we meet from Alaska.
Day three was full of traveling. If we weren’t in our rental car, we were on a boat. This would also be a common theme for day four, but I’m not quite there yet. We woke early, and after a quick shower Flint, Hartly, Wolffy and I were in the rental car heading toward Whittier and the 26 Glacier Cruise on Prince William Sound. After an hour or so of trying to maintain every traffic law, we pulled up to the toll booth that led to the Anton Anderson Memorial Tunnel, which is the only possible way to get from Seward Highway to Whittier and Price William Sound. I know a tunnel doesn’t sound that impressive, but let me give you a little history lesson on this particular tunnel. The Anton Anderson Memorial Tunnel opened to vehicle traffic on June 7, 2000 after an extensive conversion from a World War II railroad tunnel. Before the tunnel opened to traffic it was just that, a railroad tunnel. That on its own is not all that impressive, but there is more. The Anton Anderson Memorial Tunnel is now the longest highway tunnel in North America. From beginning to end it stretches a whopping 13,300 feet, which is about 2.5 miles. The length has to impress you, but I must say that it is only a one way tunnel, and for a highway, the 25-35 mph speeds aren’t exactly setting land speed records. Okay, back to the impressiveness. The tunnel is the longest combined rail and highway use tunnel in North America, it is the first U.S. tunnel with jet turbine and portal fan ventilation, and it is the first tunnel designed to withstand -40 degree temperatures and 150 mph winds. Of course the tunnel won all kinds of engineering awards in construction and engineering in 2000 and 2001, and with that brief history lesson it is easy to see why.
After traversing the tunnel, we arrived in the picturesque city of Whittier. I’m not exactly sure if you can call it a city or not, however, as the population is only 182. Never the less, Whittier did have amazing views wherever one might choose to look, even though the clouds continued to loom overhead.
A short while later we found ourselves on the Klondike Express, which is a 137-foot high-speed catamaran, and our chosen method of transportation for the experience. We had a nice table on the second level of the three level Klondike Express, and were actually given a nice halibut meal before we came to our first glacier. It was very prevalent that this particular cruise was a favorite of the tourists. There were two very large groups from Asia, one from Korea and one from Japan, according to Flint. Both translators from the groups were even given their own air time on the loudspeaker.
The first ten or fifteen glaciers made us all feel that we were in the Northeastern U.S. Every glacier was named after some Ivy League school, or an all-female school from the Northeast. The glaciers had names such as Dartmouth, Yale, Harvard, Vassar, Wellesley and Holyoke. The funny thing about these glaciers is that every single glacier named after a male’s school of higher learning is receding, and their female counterparts are all advancing. One could say that this is a sign of the times, but I’ll chalk it up to a poor naming rights contract between the male and female explorers who named each one of these massive blocks of ice.
The best moment of the tour had to be Surprise Glacier. The glacier, named for the amount of calvings (pieces of the glacier falling into the water), was quite peaceful for the first ten minutes, which allowed us to view the sea otters and seals lying lazily on the frozen sheets of ice directly in front of the towering wall of ice. All of a sudden loud popping noises emerged from the face and a giant chunk of ice broke free of its restraints. The massive block made its way down the face, and crashed with a thunderous thud into the sound. It was a sight that you have to see to believe, and the proximity of where we were to the glacier makes everything pretty small. We had almost completed our 135 mile cruise, but we stopped one more time at a bird rookery. This rookery is home to thousands of Kittiwakes, and we were lucky enough to see two bald eagles try to pick up a snack by dive-bombing the Kittiwakes in mid air.
After that treat, we said goodbye to the Klondike Express and Whittier. It was now time to head back through the Anton Anderson Memorial Tunnel, and make the four hour trip to the End of the Road; Homer, Alaska.