Parks Highway Audio Guide

Boom­ing econ­o­my. Grow­ing pop­u­la­tion. Red­neck cap­i­tal of the state. Wel­come to Wasil­la! Home of relaxed rules, traf­fic con­ges­tion, and Idi­tar­od Head­quar­ters. Land is plen­ti­ful here for pri­vate homes as well as com­mer­cial enter­pris­es. Wasil­la is also home to politi­cian Sarah Palin.

When sil­ver salmon are run­ning up Mon­tana Creek by the thou­sands, fish­er­men are run­ning up the Parks High­way by the hun­dreds to go ​“com­bat fish­ing.” They stand elbow to elbow along the creek, cast­ing their lines and catch­ing every­thing from fish to coat sleeves. Up and down the creek, you can hear peo­ple holler ​“Fish on!”

Sur­prise! This bridge over the Susit­na Riv­er appears with­out warn­ing, so if you want to stop and see this huge drainage, slow down and pull off the road at either end. Alaskans call it the Big Su. We fish it, pad­dle it, and snow machine its frozen braids. Bush pilots even nav­i­gate by this riv­er. The Susit­na Riv­er winds its way over 313 miles of South­cen­tral Alas­ka; this old rail­road bridge cross­es the water on the east­ern edge of Denali…  ...more

Don’t miss the old trap­per’s cab­in at Byers Lake. Most Sour­doughs — that means old-time Alaskans — don’t even know it’s there. Hid­den in trees along the lakeshore trail, the old Bee­man cab­in stands as a reminder of sim­pler times. Peek in the win­dows and imag­ine liv­ing there all win­ter. Now part of Denali State Park, it’s an easy 10-minute walk from the main park­ing lot.

Blue­ber­ries and moun­tain views dom­i­nate Broad Pass. Watch for moose and cari­bou, too. And berry pick­ers in the fall. This is the high­est point on the Parks Highway.

Denali Nation­al Park’s pop­u­la­tion swells each spring with an influx of sea­son­al employ­ees. They work for the park ser­vice as rangers, vis­i­tor cen­ter and muse­um staff, groundskeep­ers, and oth­er pro­fes­sion­als, as well as in pri­vate tourism-relat­ed busi­ness­es. But a hand­ful live here year-round and they see a dif­fer­ent side of Denali in when most of the park’s vis­i­tors have gone. Con­trary to pop­u­lar belief the park does­n’t com­plete­ly shut down…  ...more

Boards cov­er its win­dows. The front door is locked. Weeds sur­round its perime­ter. No one ever slept in the now aban­doned igloo-shaped hotel. Sev­er­al peo­ple have tried over the years to make this project work, but all failed. Alas­ka has always attract­ed dream­ers and vision­ar­ies. But there’s a fine line between wish­ful think­ing and vision. The igloo is just one small example.

Men­tion Healy and inevitably the con­ver­sa­tion veers toward the Usi­bel­li Coal Mine. It lies just a few miles east of the high­way and employs near­ly 100 peo­ple year-round. They send their coal to pow­er plants around Alas­ka and export it to Pacif­ic Rim coun­tries. Healy school chil­dren nick­named the mine’s dragline ​“Ace-in-the-Hole.” The dragline is the largest mobile land machine in Alas­ka and moves mas­sive amounts of dirt.

This is the lot­tery, Alas­ka-style. To enter, just buy a tick­et and pick the date and time (down to the minute) in April or May when you think the win­ter ice on the Tanana Riv­er will break. Win­ning could mean a wind­fall: the pool has reached near­ly $300,000 in recent years. 

The U.S. and Rus­sia were allies dur­ing World War II. Alas­ka was a key exchange point for war­planes in the Lend-Lease pro­gram, which leant thou­sands of Amer­i­can-made planes to Rus­sia for use at the battlefront.

Fair­banksans don’t let a lit­tle cold stop them from going out to run errands. Some leave their cars run­ning while they shop. Oth­ers car­ry along an exten­sion cord and plug their car in to keep the flu­ids from freez­ing. That’s what the out­lets are for in pub­lic park­ing lots.