From Alaska, With Love

Letter 1 Letter 2

The minute he stepped foot onto Alaskan soil, Dad’s heart would belong to the wilds of the Last Frontier forever more. In the following decades that Dad made Anchorage and Puffin Inn his home, he chronicled poetic impressions and experiences in letters addressed to me and my sister living in the lower 48. We hope that you enjoy reading Dad’s letters as much as we enjoy receiving them.

Letter 1
Lauren & Shannon

          Hello from Alaska!!
          I’ve just returned from my trip to Alaska and would like to share a few pictures with you. The 4 enclosed photos are ones that I took from the plane on my trip back down to Seattle the day before yesterday.
          As you can see, it was an absolutely spectacular day and after departing Anchorage I spent the first hour or so with my face glued to the window. I was positively mesmerized by an endless scroll of snow covered mountains laced with huge winding glaciers.
          Glaciers, Glaciers, Glaciers!
          Everywhere I looked I found another glacier.
          And so intrigued was I that I quickly found myself purchasing a book on glaciers, and not just any glaciers but more specifically, Alaskan glaciers.
          A keen buy, I quickly discovered because, according to this book, this is what Webster’s dictionary says about glaciers

1. A large, perennial accumulation of ice, snow, rock sediment and liquid water originating on land and moving down-slope under the influence of its own weight and gravity; many of the most spectacular glaciers on earth occur in Alaska.
2. A dynamic river of ice.
   Glacier ice constitutes the largest reservoir of fresh water on earth, and aside from the oceans, the second largest reservoir of water. Three times more water exists in frozen glacier ice than all of the liquid fresh water on and in earth.

                    Now to focus on Alaska’s glaciers for just a moment, try this on for size.
          Alaska has a glacier cover of approximately 29,000 Sq. miles. The rest of the United States has a glacier cover of less than 200 Sq. miles.
          No one knows the exact number of glaciers in Alaska, but it may exceed 100,000. Only about 650 of them have names.
          Glacier ice is different from all other ice on earth. Unlike lake ice or sea ice or even refrigerator ice, which form by the freezing of liquid water, glacier ice evolves through the metamorphism of snow. This metamorphism happens not over night, but rather over a number of years, as each successive year’s snowfall creates a new layer on top of the older layers, weight and pressure increase, and transformation takes place.
          As a glacier builds and grows, it can actually begin to “flow.” Typically glaciers flow at a rate of inches per day up to two to three feet per day, often snaking their way down long mountain valleys before dropping off into a lake or ocean. These features can be seen in the enclosed photos – massive icefields, ribbon glaciers, and also those that met their demise at the ocean’s edge.
          I hope you enjoy these pictures.
          These glaciers, these mountains, this stunning beauty!
          Alaska – land of incredible proportions.
          Quoting directly from my glacier book “The Juneau Icefield is the best studied in Alaska and one of the most studied in the world. It includes one of the most accessible glaciers in the state, Mendenhall. The Alaska section of the icefield covers more than 1,215 Sq. miles with more than 30 valley glaciers that descend to near sea level. Taku Glacier, at more that 30 miles long, is the largest that descends from the Juneau icefield.”
          Geophysical studies determined that Taku has a maximum thickness of about one mile and reaches nearly 2,000 feet below sea level.
          Yes, incredible proportions!
          And incredible majesty, this land of Alaska!

          Much love to you both,

          Dad  [Top]

Letter 2
Lauren & Shannon,

          Hello from Alaska!
          Home of the snowy snouted moose!
          This comical jester periodically wanders into town to amuse us with is unassuming and endearing nature.
          Just the other day after a relatively heavy snowfall I discovered this buffoon snorting around in the new fallen snow behind the Puffin Inn. He was soon alerted to my presence and raised his frosty muzzle to reveal his proud new look.
          I was laughing so hard that I has some trouble focusing on this nimble nosed clown but was finally able to stay steady long enough to snap a couple of acceptable pictures.
          Hope you enjoy ‘em!

     Love to you both,

          Dad  [Top]