For approximately 30 years, (1906 – 1936) men bore tunnels deep into the earth in search of copper and the Kennicott Mine flourished. It was a town of 5,000 souls, the ultimate company town 100’s of miles from nowhere, and in the early part of the last century, when transport was by horse or walking, nowhere was really far away. The copper was not always easy to find, the mine and associated housing may be thousands of vertical feet up. You need to be a Billy goat to get to work.
Today, the Wrangell – St Elias National Park, encases Kennicott Mine. The Park Service is restoring the old buildings and celebrates the remote location, the surrounding glaciers and the gritty folk who worked here. Also, the Park became a national holding in 1980, so it is actively homesteaded, and mountains private commercial business. The old boarding house is now a lodge, so once you survive the 30 miles of “paved” road and another 60 miles of dirt covered post railroad tracks, you arrive at the most amazing little place. We included a picture of frost heaved road; I had previously thought it would resemble potholes, but no, it is more like miles of roller coaster. When towing, the truck is up and the house is down and when the truck is down the house is up – you feel like a buckaroo on a wild ride at 30 mph. The drive took us past the Copper River where fisherman were catching and gutting Salmon. Since the copper is very murky the conventional way of fishing does not work, instead they use fishing wheels or dip netting.
The side trip (we left the house at a nearby campground) was 2 nights, and this town offers historical mine related tours, lots of hiking with glaciers at the end (yes we brought our fleece – wind off a glacier is COLD) and an abundance of wildflowers (clearly we brought our cameras) and flight seeing over the glaciers. The glaciers were easily recognizable as the large moving white masses, but the interpreters explained the big brown acres were also glaciers that had sufficiently melted such that the embedded dirt, and rubble (which does not melt) create an “earthen crust” over hundreds deep feet of ice. You can see caves and tunnels created by water flowing through, and around the earth glacier. The lodge setting and family dining room encouraged interaction from people all around the world. The first night we sat with folks from the Netherlands and China. I love this sort of setting.
The flight seeing was a highlight for us, so much so, we made it into its own posting.
