Poet T.S. Eliot said, April is the cruelest month. In Alaska, August is the wettest month. Along with the damp weather comes cooler temps and leaves turning color. My birch trees are starting to show a hint of yellow. Before you know it we'll be getting out the boots and parkas.
The tourist shops sales are beginning to rev up all over Alaska. Now is the time for deals. I bought a few wooden postcards showing Humpback Whales on sale last year at this time. The ink on wood (balsam, most likely) softens the image and gives it almost an airbrush look. The wood is odorless, unlike the birch and cedar postcards in my collection.
The "card" was produced by National Novelty Products, Inc,. U.S.A. in Los Angeles. They appear to be out of business. The card mails with a first-class stamp.

Birchwood Postcard

This week the Ken Burns historical documentary on the U.S. National Parks is being broadcast on the Public Broadcasting Network, so I thought I would present this wooden postcard to remind people what a wonderful resource we have in the national parks. I also thought I might offer a note of caution to prevent my readers from getting burned while visiting the parks. Whether shopping, booking your bus tour or making lodging reservations, you need to pay close attention to details.

When I was a very small boy, my father used to remind me each time I walked out the door not to take any wooden nickels. At the time, I took that to mean don’t accept anything fake, including raw deals from shysters, overpriced goods from unscrupulous merchants or BS from friends or acquaintances. I still heed his advice and thought about it when I saw wooden postcards for sale this summer.

I have postcards made of tin, copper and cedar but did not have a birch wood postcard. Midway through summer, I saw some on a rack in one of the many tourist traps along what it known by locals as “Glitter gulch,” located just outside the entrance to Denali National Park. Though there are no glitter from lights or fancy architecture, the shops along the boardwalk-lined, rustic, boomtownesque, commercial village always advertise season ending sales in the midst of the tourist season, so I waited for the authentic 50 percent off sale, the second week in September, to pick up my cards. As a local, I do not like to pay tourist prices (wooden nickels). OK, I admit I am a cheap skate but my grandmother, who grew up during the terrible depression of the 1930's and fed my early appetite for postcards, would be proud of my savvy shopping skills.

This birch wood postcard is very well done and sports an image on canvas which is glued on the wood. The style and name of Mt. McKinley National Park show that it is a reproduction of an historic painted postcard. (The park's name was changed to Denali National Park in 1980.) The color contrast of the composition gives the white mountain, which is intended to represent Mt. McKinley, an almost three dimensional effect. Yet the image combined with the words take some poetic license. I do not mean to sound like the artistic police here but there are no tourist cabins in such close quarters to Mt. McKinley. In other words, if you see the card and think you can stay in a cabin so close to the "great one" you will have accepted a wooden nickel.

Perhaps the source of inspiration for this image are the cozy cabins at the Camp Denali & Northface Lodge located in the Denali National Park Wilderness Preserve in Kantishna, still some 30 miles from the mountain. The rustic yet elegant cabins (for which you will pay more than 4 c-notes a night) enjoys a spectacular view of the Alaska Range and Mt. McKinley's northface. Along with the Kantishina Roadhouse, Denali Northcountry Lodge, and the Aramark/Doyan Joint Ventures, Camp Denali & the Northface Lodge is one of a handful of authorized concessionaires that offer wilderness accommodations and transportation in and around Denali National Park.

A 1,000-Mile Sled Dog Race on Valentine's Day

This postcard of lead dogs in harness is a very accurate representation. Not only does it show a typical pose of leaders while the rest of the team is hooked up, it includes booties on the dog's paws and a common x-back type harnesses.

Today is the start of the 1,000 mile Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race. This year the race runs from Whitehorse, Yukon Territories, Canada, to Fairbanks, Alaska, my home town. The race direction alternates each year. The views along the trail are spectacular because so much is run over the tops of mountains and 500 miles along the mighty Yukon River. It is billed as the toughest sled dog race in the world because the distance between check points are long --- one stretch is 200 miles ---, and the trail follows many of the old trapping and gold rush trails of the last century where temperatures often plummet down to minus 40 degrees Fahrenheit.

The race has begun on Valentine's Day many times, as it did in 1996, the year I ran the race and finished 11Th. That year the race began in Fairbanks. The first checkpoint was at Angel Creek Lounge, 90 miles into the race. After arriving I opened my drop bags and found a Valentine surprise from my wife packed in among my supplies. Months earlier she slipped chocolate kisses and a handmade card inscribed with loving words. It was a welcomed surprise in the cold and dark on the first night of the big race.

Despite the title "Alaska," this wooden postcard was made by Vandercraft of Prineville, Oregon. According to Postcardy's blog, "Vandercraft used to have a website showing many of their cards, but their website is not currently active." Postcardy has several examples of wooden postcards. I bought this card in the 1980's.