VACATION DETAILS

Fairbanks is the focal point for tiny villages scattered throughout the surrounding wilderness and a staging point for North Slope villages such as Barrow and the oil fields of Prudhoe Bay. Fairbanks is called "The Golden Heart of Alaska," a reference to the character of her people as much as to the location of Fairbanks in Alaska's interior, or to the discovery of gold in 1902. The Interior has temperatures ranging from 65 degrees below zero in the winter to 90 degrees above in the summer. Gardening is big in the Interior. Alaska Gardens abound. Fairbanks also has very long summer days. The shortest winter day of the year has less than three hours of sunlight, the longest never really ends, though officially it has over 21 hours.

Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, 600 mi/966 km northeast of Anchorage, is the largest in the U.S., covering more than 18 million acres/7.2 million hectares. It's often called America's Serengeti because of the variety of animals within its boundaries: lynx, caribou, grizzly and polar bears, arctic fox, wolves, Dall sheep, musk oxen and many species of birds.

Controversy continues following the decision to open the reserve to oil drilling. Many Alaska residents—including some of the Alaska Natives on the North Slope—are in favor of allowing oil exploration in the area. On the other hand, environmentalists as well as the Gwich'in people, who subsist on caribou that bear their calves in the refuge, oppose drilling.

Located in far-northeastern Alaska, bordering Canada and the Arctic Ocean, the reserve offers spectacular scenery, including the tallest peaks of the Brooks Range. Camping and hiking are unrestricted, but mosquitoes and black flies can be almost unbearable in midsummer. (Be sure to take along a head net.)

The area is normally reached by air. The largest village within the reserve is Kaktovik, on Barter Island in the Arctic Ocean. The brief summer ranges from cool to warm, but dry. Winters are relatively dry, but severely cold.