Bucketsful of Magic

Bucket list. Silly term for the ideals, aspirations, and experiences that have shaped our lives. You know, things to do before we kick the bucket.

You can read about them, gaze with curiosity into the vast potential of “things to do before I die”, or count the blessings of the wonders I have discovered—and they weren’t all things.

Yes, I danced with the goddess Aurora, trailing her borealis beneath a gazillion stars; mushed through a midnight forest aglitter with hoarfrost; and bathed in hot mineral waters that gushed from ice-bound rocks.

But I also met everyday people in and around Fairbanks, Alaska, who were checking off their own bucket-list items. I began to realize that accomplishing a life goal triggers a humble confidence that can affect others’ lives. When I glimpsed that same transformative power in myself, I began to understand what makes bucket lists so magical.

Take, for example, Michi Konno. Born and raised in Japan, he moved to Alaska in 1999 to mush dogs. After checking off his goal to race in the grueling Iditarod, he now opens his home to aurora seekers to share with them the glorious night sky.

Kathleen and I met him when he fetched us—and 10 other seekers—at our downtown hotels at 9:30 p.m. and drove us 35 miles to his remote A-frame with a 360-degree view of the Alaska Mountain Range. At least that’s what he claimed. All I could see was an obsidian sky sprinkled with countless stars. No northern lights.

“There,” a fellow trekker cried, jabbing a mittened finger northward. “Below the Big Dipper. Can’t you see it? Use your phone. It can pick up what your eyes can’t.”

I wanted more than the illusion of light recorded through the lens of my phone’s camera, but I followed his advice. Sure enough, the phone captured a pale green light over the horizon.

“Okay, God,” I prayed. “If this is what I was meant to see, thank you. But this was not what I had in mind.”

“Be patient,” God whispered through Michi’s soft voice.

Patience is hard, especially when awaiting a bucket-list experience. But Michi knew that. So he offered his guests cocoa, cookies, and chocolate. Then, as if to illustrate that elusive yet discernible confidence that can transform lives, the former musher sat back and played a documentary on the Iditarod, which had just commenced hundreds of miles to our south.  

I’d heard about the brutal thousand-mile, multi-day race that commemorates the 1925 dash to transport lifesaving diphtheria drugs from Anchorage to Nome by dogsled. It also showcases the athleticism of Alaska sled dogs.

All very interesting, I thought as I paced between the warmth of Michi’s lodge and the frigid outdoor deck. But I wanted aurora.

Then, shortly after 1 a.m., Michi shattered the frozen ennui with a booming voice that sounded like a musher spurring his sled dogs into action.

“Now!” We reacted like sled dogs. “Everyone. Out back. Now. Now.”

Before our wonderous eyes, the lazy green streak began to pulsate, then dance. Like smoke breathing through the sky, it swooshed into a diagonal band, then bloomed like a feathered plume up to the zenith. For nearly an hour, it consumed the boundless sky swaying and shifting this way and that.  

It’s one thing to understand the science, or to conjure the ancient myths. It’s another to stand in wonder beneath a roiling green maelstrom tinged with purple, neither feeling nor hearing wind. I pocketed my camera and absorbed its magnificence. “Awesome” means “terrifyingly beautiful.” Salads are not awesome. The aurora borealis is.

So was dashing through the snow in an eight-dog-open sleigh two nights later, again commencing at 9:30. Our guide was another bucket lister. Like Michi, Ron came from elsewhere—Pittsburgh—to run the Iditarod.

For our midnight run, Ron selected 8 of his 20 prized Alaskan huskies. Unlike the stereotypical sled dogs associated with fluffy fur, blue eyes, and curly tails, Alaskan huskies are pedigreed mutts with lineages that include huskies, hounds, setters, spaniels, shepherds, retrievers, border collies, and, of course, wolves. Well-conditioned athletes, they can burn 10,000 calories a day, so they eat a high-quality, high-protein, high-calorie diet. Specialized veterinarians oversee their wellbeing. They are bred for speed, tough feet, endurance, and an unbridled love to run.

In fact, when Ron hooked his team to their gang lines, they yelped and howled in excited anticipation. So, I joined in. At which point, they all abruptly stopped, as if to ask, “WTF?” After a moment of silence, they resumed. I’ve never seen such happy dogs. Dog mushing, is after all, not only Alaska’s official sport, but its obsession.

Atticus and CiCi were the lead-dogs that night. Leads must be intelligent to sense the trail, follow commands, and set the pace. Behind them, swing- or team- dogs maintain speed and help with corners. Wheel-dogs, generally the strongest, are positioned closest to the sled.

“Ready?” Ron asked us, as he flicked on a powerful lamp clamped to his head. We were. “Hike!” he commanded his team. And with that, we bolted into the arboreal forest aglitter with what looked like millions of diamonds spilling like fairy dust amidst branches of spruce and willow. A golden crescent moon waxed on the horizon.

Ron steered the dogs with Gee (right)and Haw (left). And when he switched off his headlamp in search of the northern lights, we hurled straight ahead at 10 mph through utter darkness in zero-degree air. Although we had layered our clothing appropriately and stuffed mittens and boots with warmers, the ride was bone-chilling.

So, when we arrived an hour later on Chena Lake, we rushed into a warm ice-fishing hut to crowd the fire and drink hot cocoa. Our companions were a family from Minnesota who were catching chinook salmon for their bucket-list adventure.

Once thawed, we went back out to seek Aurora. Although she didn’t bloom like she had at Michi’s, she brushed the horizon with neon strokes that provided a delicate backdrop for resting dogs and an idle sled.

A few hours later, and after another frigid sled ride, Kathleen and I got back to the hotel, where we slept like dogs.

Our third bucket-list tour guide, Aaron, with Northern Alaska Tour Company, also had an Iditarod connection. A grad student at the University of Alaska studying rural economics, he had been a photographer in Los Angeles when he gave it all up to live in a dry cabin (i.e., one with no water) and work with a kennel of sled dogs. He was, in fact, scheduled to photograph the Iditarod—an item on his own bucket list—when the opportunity fell through.

Driving a tour bus (a diesel truck equipped with CB radio, satellite telephone, safety kit, and spare tires), Aaron led 20 of us on an 18-hour trek from Fairbanks to the Arctic Circle and back along the Dalton Highway.

The Dalton Highway is the road that built and now services the Trans-Alaska Pipeline. Many people are familiar with it from the History Channel series Ice Road Truckers. Not a road for the meek, it’s a 414-mile stretch of gravel and dirt with steep grades up to 12%. It runs from north of Fairbanks through the wilderness to the Prudhoe Bay oil fields within the Arctic Ocean.

Our tour went as far as the Arctic Circle, which marks the northernmost point at which the sun is visible on the December solstice and the southernmost point at which the midnight sun is visible on the June solstice.

Aaron’s nearly non-stop narration was full of history, engineering; geography, botany, culture, and recipes—to cook moose, marinate it first.

We passed through Joy (population 2), which now serves as a rest station, complete with “dry” facilities, i.e., outhouses. We stopped for pictures at the Enchanted Forest, Yukon River, and the iconic Arctic Circle sign. I met a middle-aged woman working at the Yukon River Camp. She had just driven from her home on the east coast of Florida to fulfill her own bucket list to work in the Alaskan wilderness.

Not all of our adventures were cold. Or involved stories of the Iditarod.

Two artists at the UA Museum of the North, were bucket-listers who warmed my heart. Michio Hoshino (1952 – 1996), was a Japanese-born nature photographer who fell in love with Alaska as a high-school student on vacation. A renowned wildlife photographer, he was killed by a brown bear while on assignment. Claire Fejes (1920–1998) moved from the Bronx to Fairbanks in 1946, where she painted self-portraits, neighbors, and landscapes. After a stint in an Inupiat whaling camp, she mounted a one-woman show back in New York.

Chena Hot Springs was hot. Like 150 degrees hot—the temperature of the water when it steams from snow-covered rocks. It’s cooled to an average 106 degrees for bathing purposes.

And far from hot, the Castner Glacier ice cave was definitely cool. So was getting there. It’s an easy 144-mile drive from Fairbanks on the Richardson Highway. The Alaska Range soared to the west, with Denali anchoring its southernmost reach.

The crystal-blue day attracted all kinds of day-hikers to the level, mile-long, hard-packed snow trail. Yet it wasn’t crowded. We greeted each other with smiles, like fellow travelers upon a mystical labyrinth. When I inadvertently stepped into a hip-deep snow drift, a couple of young men hoisted me back onto the trail.

“I used to be an accomplished hiker,” I said, humility kicking in as I brushed snow off my leg.

“And I’m becoming one,” the one named Sean replied. He asked if he could walk with me.

“Ah, so you can help an old lady across the street,” I joked.

“No. Just across a frozen river.”

A few hundred yards later, we arrived at the blue-ice cave of Castner Glacier. Its walls were like a giant uncut aquamarine—both Kathleen’s and my birthstone. Gold-like sediment threaded through its facets.

I have my photographs—and plenty of them. But that giant jewel is a souvenir I now wear close to my heart. It reminds me that in traveling from the top of the world to the depths of my soul, I had stumbled—quite literally—upon a humble confidence that holds transformative power.

I am humbled to share the wonder of aspirations. And the joy of achieving them. That’s what makes bucket lists so magical.