Wedgewood Wildlife Sanctuary, Fairbanks, Alaska

Good morning, my friends. It's our last morning in Fairbanks. We'll be heading to Cantwell, Alaska, next, where we're told we'll have the best views of Denali. The weather is looking a little iffy over the three days we'll be in the area. Also, smoke from Canada's wildfires (I'm so sorry, Canada) has drifted to our part of the world. I guess we'll see what we'll see and be happy to have seen it.

For now, let's talk about the wildlife sanctuary visit from yesterday. It was a peaceful and cool environment for warm and humid weather. The wildlife sanctuary was right beside the Fountainhead Antique Auto Museum, and so we used the museum parking lot. It meant passing by several antique vehicles stationed outside the museum doors. The only one I photographed was this one:

Here's some information about it.

The one above seems to have found a new job as a flower box.

Of course, I took pictures of every blooming thing along the way. This is lupine.

This one is called "Blue Flag."

It was growing in abundance along the lakeshore.

My phone tells me this next one is senecio flaccidus, also known as threadleaf ragwort.

This one is called labrador tea.

This one is creeping dogwood.

Columbine. First we've seen on this trip.

I took this one to show you how the wild roses are growing virtually everywhere. We've seen them all along our trip through Alaska, and in Canada as well. They are extremely fragrant and sweeten the air.

Before we go any further, let's get the rules straight, shall we?

Put those peanuts away, please.

Also, please stay on the trails. And no woofies.

Finally, no ATV's or motorcycles. This is a trail for feet only.

Here's a map of the trail(s) we'll take. We walked both the red trail and the yellow trail, a distance of 1.4 miles.

Right this way...we'll just pass through this gate.

It was an easy trail, well-maintained and graveled.

Early on, we crossed over a dry creekbed.

Aside from birds, this was the only wildlife we saw. These two red squirrels cracked us up. One was chasing the other around and around and around and up and down this tree trunk. I took several pictures trying to get them both in the shot.

 I have an idea one was interested in...you know...while the other one was just saying no.

This sign gave some interesting information about wildfires and forest recovery. Also, I mentioned in an earlier post I thought the tall skinny evergreens we were seeing were cypress. Actually, they are black spruce.

I split it into two pieces to make it easier to read.

Here's a sign we passed along the way, describing this area as a "boreal wetland. 

Looking past the sign, we saw this:

Walking on just a little way, we came to the portion of the trail that encircled Wander Lake. It was so peaceful here.

Across the lake and near the island, we watched and listened to gulls flying and calling. Their flying and calling was cyclical with lots of flight, and then lots of calling. We believe they were feeding young. You'll want to turn up your volume to hear what we were hearing. The video is about 10 seconds.

If you can't see the video, then click right here.

We slathered on insect repellant to avoid being eaten alive. 

And we saw both of the butterflies listed here. Butterflies being butterflies, none of them ever lit anywhere so that I could get a picture.

That's okay because I found these pictures in the public domain. This one is the mourning cloak.

(Image credit: ".Mourning Cloak butterfly (Nymphalis antiopa)" by J. N. Stuart is 

licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

This next one is the Compton tortoiseshell.

(Image credit: "Compton Tortoiseshell" by D. Gordon E. Robertson is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.)

About halfway around the lake was a blind where we could get closer to the birds and see them a little better.

Walking out to the blind, we passed by this Mew Gull.

I'm pretty sure this is a Northern Pintail.

When the gulls flew close to the water, we could see their reflection on the smooth surface.

We were on the far side of the island here and we could see more gulls.

Here's a little more information about the bird migration.

And these are the birds you might see here. Sorry about the shadows.

Nesting boxes were posted at intervals around the lake.

And I've heard about these frogs before. What an interesting adaptation.

We didn't see any of the frogs, but here's a picture I found in the public domain.

(Image credit: "Wood Frog (Rana sylvatica)" by DaveHuth is licensed under CC BY 2.0.)

This guy thought he could hide from my camera. Nothing doing.

Looking up...

And that was pretty much everything we saw on our hike. We’d also planned to go to the Fountainhead Antique Auto Museum. It didn’t open until 11:00 a.m., and we’d finished our hike at 10:10 a.m., so a 50 minute wait. We’d already seen the dozen or so antique automobiles and tractors stationed outside the museum. We were stinking with insect repellant, and so we decided not to wait and headed back to the camper for showers. The rest of the day was for lunch, naps and relaxation.

We received a text message from our neighbor, Genny. She was kind enough to check on our sprinklers to make sure everything is working properly and upright, as we left it. (Mike put our sprinklers on risers to keep them above the grass as it grows taller.) She also sent me a picture of the Edda clematis. Oh my goodness. I've never seen it produce so many flowers.

It's nice receiving these images from home, so thank you, Genny.

As I mentioned we'll move on this morning. We'll be staying in Cantwell, Alaska, which is just south of the road that leads to Denali National Park. We're aware of some road closures at the park, and we'll only be able to drive into the park about 15 miles. We discussed paying for a bus tour, but decided against it. Really, we're just there to see the mountain. With the weather being what it is, we may miss out. In any case, we have three days in Cantwell. We'll also visit Alaska's Denali State Park, and we're told this is actually the best place to see the mountain. Hopefully, we'll see something. The smoke from Canada may also thwart our plans.

Also, our next stop after Cantwill will be Talkeetna, and there's a good view of Denali from there too. There's also a quilt shop in Talkeetna. And the mayor of Talkeetna is a cat! We're definitely going to try to get a meeting with the mayor while we're there. 

So that's all I have for you today. Time to get busy buttoning things up. I'll have more for you down the road.