20 March 2016 / leggypeggy

Visiting a village in the Arctic Circle

bird, Coldfoot, museum, outhouse, post office, RoadScholar, village, winter, Wiseman

Post office

Yes, that’s us under the parkas!

Wiseman Alaska is 63 miles north of the Arctic Circle. It was originally settled in 1919 as a mining community. History indicates that when gold ‘ran out’ around Slate Creek (now Coldfoot), the miners moved on to create Wiseman.

Even though the current population is a mere 13, Wiseman is thriving. That’s most likely because it’s Alaska’s only place north of the Arctic Circle where a person can actually own property.

Jackie lifts the lid on the root cellar for food storage

Harry Leonard’s cabin

Jackie, our guide for the day, has even purchased a dry (meaning no running water) cabin there. Ten years ago she visited Coldfoot and Wiseman as part of a RoadScholar tour (the same program we were on this year), and fell in love with life in the Arctic Circle. Now she spends about 75 per cent of her time there. She and her husband have plans to fix up their ‘handyman’s dream’.

They are looking forward to the renovations because someone found a hidden gold nugget in this cabin some years back.

This handyman’s dream may be beyond repair

Many cabins in Wiseman look like handyman’s dreams, but others have been modernised and new ones have been built.

Today Wiseman has a post office, museum (some exhibits shown below) and chapel, as well as a bed and breakfast.

Historic outhouse

There’s even a community outhouse with a short history (compiled by Jacqui) posted inside. In a nutshell, carpenter and woodsman Ernie Johnson built it in 1945. Clutch Lounsbury moved it from Fairbanks to Wiseman in 1983.

Dall sheep horns

Moose antlers

Caribou hoof

Skin coat

Skin boots

Sled

Wiseman’s resident guru is Jack Reakoff. He was born and reared in Wiseman. He was in Anchorage for meetings when we visited, but we ‘saw’ him several times on documentaries on Wiseman, Coldfoot, the Trans-Alaskan Pipleine and more.

Wiseman is also where we got our best views of the aurora borealis (the Northern Lights. That night we ‘camped out’ in the cabin that belonged to the late Harry Leonard, an earlier authority on Wiseman.

P.S. If this post makes you feel cold, why not try out one of the stew recipes on my cooking blog. Especially good options are lamb stew and coq au vin.