March 7-9, 1975: A Weekend in Boston
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On the 19th of January, I took the longest trip I have been on yet for Cullinane. Our EDP-AUDITOR client was the Bank of Alaska, and the installation and class would be in Anchorage.

At left is a large map (it had to be large so I could get all of the trip onto the same page) of the general flight path from Chicago to Anchorage. I think we actually went even further north than my red route indicates. That's the problem with flat maps that cover great distances; the curvature of the earth comes into play, and while the shortest distance between two points is still a straight line, if you drew a straight line between Chicago and Anchorage on a globe, and then flattened the globe out into a map, the straight line would appear to curve.

This effect of going much further north than you might think is particularly apparent when you fly from Chicago to, say, London, which is a few hours further away than Anchorage. On that trip, planes go quite close to the North Pole, and come into London from the north, rather than from the west.

Anyway, this was the first trip where I was really cognizant of this effect (although on my flight from McChord AFB over to Seoul six years ago, the same thing would have happened. But that entire flight was at night, so I really didn't notice what was happening. I also came to understand that the further north either your departure city or your arrival city are, the more pronounced the curve of the route; both Chicago and Anchorage are "northern" cities.

The best flight to Anchorage from Chicago is a non-stop one, on Northwest Orient, and it is the first leg of a flight that ends up in the Far East. For a flight this long, we can generally go in first class, and that would be particularly interesting since the equipment used on this flight was a Boeing 747, and this would be my first flight on one.

When I came on board, I set my bag down for a moment to snap a picture of the first class cabin; you can see the stairway to the upper deck lounge in the foreground. I should have taken my seat first and then taken this picture during the flight. I would have had time to compose it better and adjust the flash.

I'd hoped to experience real first class service on an "international flight", but, unfortunately, the flight left at 1:30 p.m., Chicago time, and got to Anchorage at 4:30 p.m. their time, after a six-hour flight, and so no big, fancy meal was served- only snacks and drinks (although they were very nice snacks and drinks). I did pass a pleasant flight reading in the lounge.

As we came into the Anchorage area and circled around for a landing, I took a couple of pictures out my window.

Cook Inlet and the Airport

The City of Anchorage

This being January, the weather was brutally cold although, I should point out, warmer than in Chicago, as Anchorage is located on the water, which is kept warmer than you might think by the Pacific current. Chicago, being inland, gets more temperature extremes than does Anchorage. This was my first time here, and I did bring the heaviest coat I had, and I was glad for that.

The Anchorage Westward

I stayed in the Western International Hotel here, the Anchorage Westward. It was an upscale hotel for here, although if it were in downtown Chicago, it would be nothing to write home about. It was expensive, as are most things in Anchorage not produced right here. The hotel is the tallest building in Anchorage, and I had a room with a nice view. I didn't take a picture of the hotel (and obviously, if I had done so, it wouldn't have been the one at left), so the photo at left is a stock picture from 1968. The hotel has changed hands a couple of times since my trip here, and has also been completely rebuilt.

The view at right looks out the window of my room towards the Cook Inlet. I was right downtown, and only a few blocks from the water, which was pretty much frozen over this time of year. In the distance, across the inlet, is much of the interior of the state, including Fairbanks. Although there was a lot of snow on the ground, the temperature in Anchorage was actually higher than it was at the same time in Chicago. Of course, in Fairbanks, about 200 miles inland, the temperature at the same time was 40 below zero. That picture was taken just before I left for work one day, but the early morning light looks much more like late afternoon. In fact, the sun hardly ever got more than an inch or two above the horizon even at midday. In the winter, this is as bright as it gets.

Anchorage has a couple hundred thousand people, and is Alaska's most populous city with more than 40 percent of the state's total population; among the 50 states, only New York has a higher percentage of residents who live in its most populous city. At 1,706 square miles of land area, the city is the fourth largest city by land area in the United States (and larger than the smallest state). The top three cities on the list, you may be curious to know, are Sitka, Juneau, and Wrangell- all also in Alaska. This takes some explaining. In Alaska, these four cities have officially extended to the boundaries of their boroughs (counties), even though only a small fraction of the borough is actually what you'd think of as urban.

For you trivia buffs, the largest American city outside of Alaska is in a state at the opposite end of the weather extreme- Jacksonville, Florida. But that city, too, actually takes up its whole county, even though most of the county is open land. If you are curious, you have to get down to the eighth city on the list to find the largest American city that is NOT coterminus with its county- Oklahoma City, Oklahoma (606 square miles).

Anchorage is at the end of the Cook Inlet, on a two-armed peninsula, and has won the All-America City Award twice- in 1956 and 1965. The city can trace its settlement to the 19th century, when Alaska was owned by Imperial Russia. In 1867, U.S. Secretary of State William H. Seward brokered a deal to purchase Alaska $7.2 million, or about two cents an acre. In 1888, gold was discovered near Anchorage, and Alaska a United States territory in 1912. But without significant a significant fishing industry, and no mineral resources to speak of, Anchorage stayed a sleepy hamlet.

This picture at left looks mostly north, directly towards Mt. McKinley, 125 miles from here, in Denali National Park. I am told that there are some days when it can be seen from Anchorage, but I find that tough to believe. Because the sun is so low in the sky here it is amazing how much the morning shadows look like those of late evening.

In 1914, Anchorage became the railroad-construction port for the Alaska Engineering Commission, and a tent city quickly sprang up. Townsites were mapped out and more substantial buildings constructed. Anchorage was incorporated in 1920. Construction of the Alaska Railroad continued until its completion in 1923. The city's economy in the 1920s and 1930s centered on the railroad, which for years dominated life in Alaska. Between the 1930s and the 1950s, the city experienced massive growth as air transportation and the military became increasingly important. Anchorage International Airport opened in 1951. Elmendorf Air Force Base and Fort Richardson were constructed in the 1940s, and served as the city's primary economic engine.

The temperature was actually surprisingly moderate, only about zero or so most nights, about the same as in Chicago. Even so, it was cold enough that once I returned to the hotel in the evening, I didn't do much save go out for dinner on those nights I wasn't with the audit group. Most of our work was done out at the bank's data center a mile or so outside downtown; that's where we did the short class I conducted and we worked on some audit reports. That area of town is just being developed, so the views from the data center were pretty amazing.

Just so you can get the lay of the land here, I've put a map of the Anchorage area at right.

On that map I've marked the locations of the hotel and the bank's data center, where we did most of our work. I have also marked the route northeast out of the city that the EDP-Auditor, Steve Wells, and his wife followed when they took me skiing one afternoon when the class wasn't in session. He brought along his two dogs, and skis for me to use to try cross-country skiing. It was on this excursion that I took most of my pictures of the scenery around Anchorage.

Steve was nice enough to invite me to a party one night that was a going-away party for someone at his bank who was changing divisions. I met a lot of friendly people, every one of which was into some kind of outdoor activity. It seems as if there are more recreational vehicles in Anchorage than there are cars.

I saw four or five moose wandering around while I was here- one just across the street from the data center. Steve said that they often have moose wandering through their housing development, which is heavily-wooded. One night, Steve had all the auditors over for dinner, and he served pot roast and spaghetti with meat sauce- both made with moosemeat. Had I had not known what it was, I would not have suspected I was eating anything other than beef.

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I think that the easiest way for you to have a look at the many pictures that we took here in Anchorage and on our trip out to do some skiing is just to put them in a slideshow; it will be easy for you to go through them at your own pace.

The slideshow is at left. There are 33 pictures in the show, and you can move from one to another using the little forward and backward arrows in the lower corners of each slide. You can track your progress through the show by referring to the index numbers in the upper left.

Not all of the pictures are really good; the light for our afternoon trip was low, as it is this time of year, and so many of those pictures have a dark blue appearance. The evergreens looked almost black most of the time, especially when put against the white snow that covered everything. Nevertheless, I think you will find quite a few that turned out really well.

Other than me (in the orange coat), you will see the bank auditor, Steve Wells, and his wife (and of course their dogs). Very handsome huskies, the dogs are where dogs should be- where they can run, not cooped up in an apartment like so many in Chicago are. Enjoy!

I enjoyed the cross-country skiing; it's not at all like the downhill kind, but rather a way of hiking away from trails and roads without getting exhausted. The skis are designed so that in the normal movements of walking the boots can come up at the back end so that one does not have to consciously slide forward. The natural walking movements cause that to happen. And with your weight spread out, you don't sink into the snow as deep.

One other thing that I saw was not far from my hotel in downtown Anchorage; from the pictures I took, you probably won't know what it is that I was looking at.

On March 27, 1964, the magnitude 9.2 "Good Friday" earthquake hit Anchorage, killing 115 people and causing $250 million in damages. The earth-shaking event lasted nearly five minutes; most structures that failed remained intact for the first few minutes then failed with repeated flexing. It was the world's second-largest earthquake in recorded history, and rebuilding dominated the remainder of the 1960s. There are still areas where the damage has not been cleared away, and at right you are looking out over one of those areas. This section of land sunk over twenty feet.

This area used to be homes and some small stores, all of which were almost totally destroyed. Steve tells me that the debris is still there, just hidden by the snow. The land became marshy after the quake, and thus the homes were not rebuilt. There was also a lot of damage done downtown, but it has been all cleared away and new structures are being built. The Anchorage Westward was right at the edge of the area that sank. Here are a couple more views, though not as good as the one at right.

All the people I met in Anchorage were what one would consider outdoor types, but also independent, referring to the rest of the United States as the "Lower Forty-Eight". (What happened to Hawaii?) I really enjoyed my trip to Anchorage; it is not a place I thought I would ever be. It is quite a different lifestyle here- almost totally focused on the outdoors. But what with the discovery of oil on the North Slope, I can only imagine that in twenty years Anchorage (and much of Alaska) will look entirely different.

You can use the links below to continue to another photo album page.

	March 7-9, 1975: A Weekend in Boston
	Return to Index for 1975