It's the longest day of the year.   It's 12:15 AM, and the sun still hasn't set.
I haven't worked on the website in a few weeks due to the illness and death of one of my dogs.  :(  This last month has really taken a toll on me.  
However, the summer is good medicine--Thank God for the sunshine!  The raspberry blossoms, bedstraw, single delights, low-bush cranberry blossoms, pink pyrola, and Eskimo potato are all blooming now.  I've also found the labrador tea to be blooming on my property for the first time.  (I noticed the plant here a year or so ago, but hadn't seen it blossom.)

Spent the weekend at Harding Lake (a ways south of here, near Salcha) with friends for the interior Alaska Seventh-day Adventist Campmeeting.  I didn't get much chance to look around at the wildlife and flowers due to a stomach ache on Sabbath (Saturday) and rain on Sunday.  But I saw labrador tea and wild irises.  While on the beach, a friend of mine discovered a wood frog (these are easy to identify since they are the only kind of frog in this part of the state).  I think this is the third time I've seen one.  (I don't live in a marshy area, so it's a mystery how I ever saw any near my house).  
Also, some other friends reported that a young bear came into their campsite.   

My sister and I took a drive up to the Arctic Circle--took about 12 hours to get there from Fairbanks and back.  It was an amazing and relaxing drive.  We were surprised by the good condition of the Dalton Highway.  The paved sections were extremely smooth, and the dirt portions were clear, void of potholes, and wide.  I wish the roads around home were so good!

The roadsides were graced with arctic lupine, bluebells, cinquefoil (I still need to identify the variety), a yellow daisy-like flower (possibly a variety of arnica), cotton grass, prickly roses, as well as other wild flowers.  We took pictures of several of the flowers, and hopefully I can get them posted up here soon, and identify them, as well.

All along the way, we saw ravens and a few robins.  It's funny to realize that birds that are so at home in the city can also be such a big part of the wilderness.  The swallowtails were abundant, as well.  (Fairbanks area residents have noted their abundance this year, as well.)  

We must have seen at least ten or more snowshoe hares.  They have mostly changed to their summer brown and gray colors, but their feet were still mostly white, making them look like they were wearing their big brother's running shoes.  A comical and cute effect!  

The most shocking sighting was actually within the first hour of our trip--before we even got to the Dalton Highway.  A little brown creature--bigger than a cat, but smaller than border collie half ambling, half scurrying into the woods from the road.  Unfortunately, we had just rounded a blind corner, and knew there was a car not far behind us, so we couldn't stop or slow down.  There was nowhere to pull over, either.  But the picture is forever etched in my memory.  I've revisited it over and over again and the only thing it could have been is a wolverine! 

It was a stocky light brown mustelid, and bigger than a marten (which is not stocky in the least--I know; we had one living in our roof for several months this last winter).  Now wolverines (from the pictures I've seen) usually have very dark fur, especially on their muzzles.  However, this one was probably shedding.  As anyone who has a furry pet knows, the under coat is much lighter than the overcoat, so when an animal sheds, the fur that is seen is lighter.  I have actually just found some pictures of wolverines who had lighter faces.  I didn't realize before how much their color and patterns vary.  Forgive me, I'm rambling.... :)

Seeing a marten and a wolverine in the same year--if someone else told me that, I'm not sure I'd believe him!  These are two elusive animals. 
 
At the Yukon River, I discovered how big the river is!  I had no idea before how big it was.  I didn't really think about it, because I just...hadn't seen it.  It is far wider than the Chena River, and I am pretty confident that it is significantly wider than the Columbia River (in Washington and Oregon, near where I used to live).  The Yukon River is HUGE!
It has a very interesting bridge going over the river.  It has a northward downhill slant.  I think it's because of this slant that when you're down by the river and a car goes over the bridge, it sounds like one of those toys--a wand that has a part inside of it that when you turn the wand upside down, the inside part slides down and makes a...kind of "Wwwat" sound.  I'm not sure if I'm giving a very good description--I wish I knew what those were called.

While at the Yukon River Camp, we saw a lot of swallows, and discovered two swallow nests up on a building.  I also enjoyed some of the best strawberry ice-cream I've ever had!  :)

To keep from becoming to rambling and tedious in boring details, in short:
Birds seen:  Canada Geese, American robins, Mallard duck, unidentified duck, cliff? swallows, common ravens., and white-crowned sparrows (we think--they were hiding in the shrubs and hard to see).
Mammals:  Squirrel (red?), wolverine, red fox (which was black and grey in color),  snowshoe hares, possibly a young (maybe yearling) caribou, and humans.
The wildflowers were numerous, and I haven't identified them all yet, so I'll try to fill them in later.  

My favorite place on the trip was Finger Mountain.  This is a hill with many large rocks on and around it.  Close by is a huge rock that looks like a finger.  Apparently, it points straight to Fairbanks and has been used to aid travelers in direction--particularly bush pilots for years.  This holds special significance to me since Fairbanks is my home.  

The hill/mountain was great fun to run around on, and jump from rock to rock.  When I was a kid, I lived in a place where  we had a big hill behind our house that was covered with rocks like this.  It was fun to revisit my childhood and remember what it was like.  Funny that I had to go north to find something so much like what I had far south of here in the lower 48.