David R 5
04 Sep 2021
Northern Alaska Tour Company (NATC) offers several tours traveling at overlapping and interconnected ways. This includes fly drive, aurora viewing and arctic circle tours. Our particular tour was a fly drive with aurora viewing, which seems to be the most popular in September, but I’ll try to explain how alternative tours are related.
The tour gathers at the NATC office, which is on the side of the Fairbanks, AK, airport opposite the main passenger terminal. At the office meal preferences were taken - meals are an extra, but reasonable, fee. We were given a fifteen minute lecture on the itinerary and safety regulations. The plane was a 9-passenger Piper Chieftain with a single pilot. Our group was actually 18, so two planes were flown, one just behind the other. Each passenger is limited to a single bag, smaller than a backpack, as it must fit in the wing’s storage compartment.
The flight to Coldfoot took just over an hour. Provided headsets served to reduce noise and allow the pilot to narrate. Air traffic control chatter was a bit annoying while near Fairbanks. In flight the pilot did a good job of banking the craft for views of notable landscape features. The pilot was also careful to smooth the ride by increasing elevation when low clouds were encountered.
Coldfoot is a camp roughly in the middle of the Alaskan Pipeline, and therefore the Dalton Highway. It consists of a restaurant/gift store, a U.S. Post Office shack, open on selected days of the week. A handful of trailer house-like buildings remain. These were originally used in the 1970’s when the pipeline was built, but now house Coldfoot residents. Coldfoot is located approximately at magnetic north, so the aurora borealis is said to be centered overhead. One of the tour options (admittedly rare) is to overnight in Coldfoot in order to watch for northern lights in town,
The previously ordered hot lunch was prepared and served in Coldfoot. The restaurant (See photo) had both indoor and outdoor seating with a secondary room that was frequented by the few more permanent residents. Water was provided. Other drinks were an extra charge.The Coldfoot stop was about an hour.
Since we were on the fly drive tour, another option was a cold lunch box to be prepared at the restaurant. Cold box dinners could be eaten about anytime during the return ride.
One tour variation would have been to fly back from Coldfoot to Fairbanks, but our eighteen were all in the fly drive/aurora group, which meant a roughly 9-hour drive back via the Dalton Highway to Fairbanks. The first couple of hours were in vans. Three large vans were used which gave all travelers plenty of space. The vans first stopped to provide a close up view of the Alaskan Pipeline.
The ultimate destination of this 3-vehicle caravan was the spot where the Dalton highway crosses the arctic circle. After shooting photos and using restrooms passengers switched vehicles. This is where various tour options intersect. Some people had traveled to the arctic circle by bus. Among those travelers, some were heading to Coldfoot in the vans and others were going back to Fairbanks on the bus. The fly drive folk switched to the tour bus, while northbound people switched to the vans.
The tour bus is a new vehicle with comfortable seats. AC, and seats about 30 with overhead backpack storage. The bus toilet is for emergency only use. The Dalton Highway is a rough ride, and it’s a long way back to Fairbanks. We had the advantage of fall foliage and north of the Brooks range provides nice vistas for the first couple of hours.
The bus makes two significant stops on the arctic to Joy segment. Stop one is on the tundra. Travelers can walk a few awkward steps on the thawed layer above permafrost and reach into a hole to the frost line that was dug by the bus driver/guide. The second stop is at the Yukon River bridge where there is a trading post with bathrooms, refreshments and a tiny gift shop. The guide provides complementary coffee, tea, hot chocolate or hot cider.
As the sun goes down the bus bounces for a couple more hours until Joy, AK. At Joy NATC provides a warm cabin with out houses for waiting to view the northern lights. All of the fly drive people were part of the aurora tour, so we stopped at Joy. There were also a few people that had been driven to Joy from Fairbanks, then joining our group. The Joy facility works well for a viewing site minimal ambient light sources, a large enough flat area for viewing and even a few close-by trees to the north to improve photos. The NATC host provides free coffee, tea, hot chocolate, apple cider and hot noodle soup. There are adequate lights for safety. The inside of the cabin is inviting in a rustic sense. It might have been wise to bring a deck of playing cards or some other entertainment.
Sundown is about 9 p.m. in early September, but the light falls slowly to get dark enough for seeing the northern lights. The peak viewing time is 2:30 a.m. in Joy, so the wait is scheduled to last from 10:30 p.m. until 4:30, or until the show ends. The lights will not be visible in the event of cloud cover, and even without clouds, it all depends upon the sun’s solar winds. We were lucky that the clouds were light, but unfortunately the aurora did not appear. It is sixty miles back to Fairbanks with everyone exhausted from the late hour. The return trip driver was our host at Joy. Some tour descriptions say there is a fee for hotel drop off, but our driver provided this service at no charge.
In the end, one NATC employee handled initial preparations, another was our pilot and each of us had three different van/bus drivers. Everyone was polite, friendly, knowledgable and helpful. NATC has been doing these tours for several years and they do it very well. It’s a long day/night with a challenging ride, but you get to say you saw the Brooks Range, visited magnetic north, walked on arctic tundra, crossed over the arctic circle and back, and saw the northern lights (if lucky). Compared to the Alaskan coasts, the interior is seldom visited, but well worth the time.
