Aerial.America.S05E10.Alaska's.Call.of.the.Wild
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00:00It's where humans first set foot on American soil, a wild land that's been beckoning to outsiders ever since.
00:11When lakes glisten like windows into parallel worlds, giant creatures rise from the depths, and others thrive in its Arctic air.
00:23For centuries, thousands have been answering Alaska's call of the wild.
00:30In the 18th century, it was Russian traders seeking riches from fur.
00:35A hundred years later, hopeful prospectors were hiking up a trail known as the meanest 32 miles in the world.
00:43And today, modern-day treasure seekers are arriving by helicopter to search for copper, silver, and gold.
00:51Many come to Alaska just to be left alone, others to unlock the secrets of our warming planet,
00:58or to soar across the landscapes that they just can't find in the lower 48.
01:05But Alaska's postcard perfect wilderness holds great danger, too.
01:10It was here that a young survivalist met his fate after crossing a river of no return.
01:16The number one couple's experiment living with an apex predator came to a grisly end.
01:22But today, some still dare to try and cross a thousand miles of frozen wilderness, hoping to win the last great race on Earth.
01:32All this to answer Alaska's call of the wild.
01:47♪♪♪
01:57♪♪♪
02:13Every year, Alaska's call of the wild lures a few reckless adventurers further into danger than they're ready to go.
02:22And they're not all climbing the state's snow-covered peaks.
02:27Peril often awaits those who explore Alaska's valleys, too.
02:32♪♪♪
02:37In 1992, a young survivalist named Christopher McCandless hitchhiked into Alaska on a quest for self-discovery,
02:45inspired by writers Henry David Thoreau and Jack London.
02:50On April 28th, his last ride dropped him off at the beginning of a rugged wilderness road known as the Stampede Trail.
03:00It was first blazed across this valley in the 1930s by a prospector named Earl Pilgrim.
03:08Thirty years later, the state of Alaska turned Pilgrim's Trail into a road.
03:14But a bridge was never built over one of the valley's biggest obstacles, the wild Teklanika River.
03:22When McCandless forded the Teklanika on foot that April, the water level was still low.
03:27Snow and ice in the surrounding mountains hadn't yet thawed.
03:33He made his way across and continued west on the old mining trail,
03:36hoping to walk all the way to the shores of the Bering Sea while living off the land.
03:42But as he reached this clearing, he discovered Bus 142.
03:48Workers building the road had used this 1946 International Harvester bus as a mobile shelter.
03:55McCandless also decided to use it as his base as he prepared for his journey deeper into the wild.
04:02♪♪♪
04:08He arrived here with not much more than a few books, a 10-pound bag of rice, a gun, and 400 rounds of ammunition.
04:17Over the next few weeks, he made forays across the valley to test how far into the wilderness he was willing to go
04:23and to find food that could keep him alive.
04:27He shot and ate squirrels, porcupines, and quail, and even a moose.
04:32When the moose meat spoiled before he could cure it, McCandless began to realize he might be in over his head.
04:38♪♪♪
04:41After two months in isolation, he decided it was time to leave.
04:46But when he headed back down the Stampede Trail, he discovered he had waited too long.
04:52Summer snowmelt had flooded the river that he had forded in the spring.
04:56The Teklanika was now a raging torrent.
05:00McCandless knew that if he waded into its dark, turbulent waters, he would be swept away to his death.
05:06So, he returned to the safety of bus 142, with no choice but to continue his experiment in wilderness survival.
05:15♪♪♪♪
05:20But over the next few weeks, McCandless started running out of things to eat.
05:25His body grew weaker and weaker.
05:28Some say he may also have been poisoned by potato seeds that he ate in his desperation to stay alive.
05:35Slowly, he began to starve to death.
05:39As he faded away, McCandless scribbled his thoughts and emotions into a diary,
05:44in brief notes about his loneliness, hunger, and growing fear of death.
05:50Extremely weak, he wrote in one of his last entries on July 30th.
05:54Much trouble just to stand up.
05:56Starving. Great jeopardy.
06:00In his final entry, McCandless wrote,
06:02I have had a happy life, and thank the Lord, goodbye, and may God bless all.
06:10Hunters discovered his body inside bus 142 a few weeks later.
06:15His journal was by his side.
06:18The story it told inspired John Krakauer's best-selling book, Into the Wild,
06:23and a movie by Sean Penn.
06:26They transformed the wayward hiker's folly into legend,
06:30and turned bus 142 into a magnet for misfits and dreamers.
06:37As many as 100 pilgrims come here some summers to see where McCandless perished.
06:42Many don't seem to realize they're risking the same fate.
06:46In 2010, a woman who had come all the way from Switzerland to visit the bus
06:51drowned in the Teklanika in the very spot where McCandless tried to cross in 92.
06:58That hasn't stopped a steady stream of curiosity seekers
07:01from making the trek to see the abandoned bus.
07:04They risk everything just to experience Alaska's call of the wild,
07:08just as others have for thousands of years.
07:13Scientists believe that the first humans to set eyes on the Alaskan wilderness
07:17arrived here as early as 20,000 years ago.
07:22They came from what's now Siberia and traveled east on foot for more than 1,000 miles
07:28across what is known as the Bering Land Bridge, or Beringia,
07:32that once linked Asia and North America.
07:35But at the end of the last ice age, the water from massive melting glaciers
07:39covered Beringia with the Bering and Chukchi Seas.
07:45Those early travelers became the first humans to explore the North American continent.
07:51Their descendants would eventually make it all the way down to the tip of South America.
08:02Today, Alaska is still home to some of their closest kin.
08:07Here on Admiralty Island, in the little town of Angoon,
08:10members of the Tlingit Bear Clan still live in a spot their people have called home for thousands of years.
08:17Some continue to make their living by hunting and fishing, just as their ancestors did.
08:22Ancient Tlingit stories tell of a world full of spirits,
08:26and of a figure called Raven that gave them many of their traditions.
08:32But in the 18th century, some ambitious newcomers from the West
08:36turned the Tlingit's traditional world upside down.
08:41Russians began settling Alaska's shores in 1784,
08:45on a search for pelts for the European fur trick and new territory for Russia's czar.
08:51In 1799, they arrived here, in the Tlingit community of Shiatika,
08:56now the site of the Alaskan town of Sitka.
09:01After two years of uneasy coexistence, the Tlingit people turned on the Russians,
09:06killing most of them and driving the rest away.
09:10In 1804, the Russians returned and went to war with the Tlingit.
09:15Here in Shiatika, members of the tribe stood their ground inside a fort,
09:19on a site that's now marked by this single totem pole.
09:24After a six-day siege, the Russians finally forced their way in,
09:28only to discover that the Tlingit had escaped under the cover of darkness.
09:37The victorious Russians renamed the Tlingit village New Archangel.
09:42For the next 60 years, it served as the capital of Russia's growing North American Empire,
09:47which stretched all the way down to San Francisco.
09:51But in the 1860s, Tsar Alexander II decided to sell Alaska to raise some extra cash.
09:57He found a buyer in U.S. Secretary of State William Seward,
10:01who agreed to purchase it sight unseen.
10:05On October 18, 1867, here in Sitka, Alaska was officially transferred to the United States.
10:16At a price of just over $7 million, it was quite a bargain, even at the time.
10:23That didn't stop critics who had never seen Alaska from dubbing it Seward's Falling.
10:29But those who'd actually been here knew the Secretary of State had made a very shrewd deal indeed.
10:36Covering more than a half a million square miles, an area twice as large as Texas,
10:41it includes some of the wildest and most dramatic landscape in the nation.
10:46From pristine fjords, where towering mountains tumble right down to the sea,
10:51to an island where the largest brown bears on Earth gather to feast,
10:56to mile after mile of remote inland tundra,
11:00to the highest peak in North America,
11:04an icy world that only the hardiest adventurers dare to enter.
11:09It's easy to see how getting all this for just a few million dollars
11:13was likely one of the best investments the United States has ever made.
11:18Alaska has been a stunning jewel in America's crown ever since.
11:27Almost 40 years later, in 1906, the capital of the Alaskan Territory was moved from Sitka
11:33to a booming mining town on the mainland, known as Juneau.
11:39In 1912, a new mansion was built here for the Territorial Governor, on this bluff overlooking downtown.
11:46With 14,400 square feet to roam,
11:49it was designed to shine like a beacon over the Alaskan Territory
11:53at a time when most people up here were still living in miners' cabins.
11:58Strangely enough, there are no roads in or out of Juneau,
12:02making it the only U.S. capital that's not accessible by car.
12:07For thousands of tourists who arrive here each spring on a fleet of giant cruise ships,
12:11Juneau's isolation is part of its charm.
12:17But there's something else that makes Alaska's capital unique.
12:21Soar over the green hills just above town, and suddenly you're in another world,
12:27flying over the massive Mendenhall Glacier.
12:31This giant river of ice stretches 12 miles.
12:36Water from melting ice at its edges cascades down into rivers below,
12:40just as it has for thousands of years.
12:44Today, the Mendenhall is one of Alaska's most visited glaciers,
12:48probably because it's so easy to reach.
12:51But travel up to its source, and it feels like you're on another planet.
12:55This is the Juneau Ice Field,
12:58a 1,500 square mile expanse of snow and ice
13:01that feeds the Mendenhall and 37 other glaciers in the region.
13:06Amazingly, the majority of this ice field is within the Juneau city limits.
13:11But there's more to see up here than just snow and ice.
13:15These tiny specks are the residence of an exclusive training camp
13:19for some of Alaska's most elite athletes, sled dogs.
13:24The extreme weather and seemingly endless snow here
13:27make the Mendenhall a perfect spot to get these dogs used to freezing conditions
13:31and prepare them for Alaska's most famous sporting event,
13:34a contest that sends dogs and humans tearing through
13:37hundreds of miles of Alaskan wilderness
13:40in a battle of endurance, strategy, and stamina
13:43they call the Last Great Race on Earth.
13:53It's March 3rd, 2013,
13:55and hundreds of Alaskans and visitors from around the world
13:58are already gathering on a frozen lake northwest of Anchorage.
14:01They're here for the start of one of the most famous sporting events in the world,
14:05the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race.
14:08Over 60 drivers, or mushers, have signed up for this year's competition,
14:13a brutal 1,049 mile race across snow and ice.
14:18Here at the staging area, they're preparing their teams.
14:22Before they start, they have to check and double-check
14:25every part of the harness that ties the dogs to each other
14:28and to the sled.
14:30Any hint of a cut paw or sore leg will get a dog pulled from the team.
14:34But the mushers know it's better safe than sorry
14:37when it comes to the grueling test of stamina and endurance that lies ahead.
14:43By the time the dogs make it to the starting line, they're raring to go.
14:47Volunteers have to keep them steady.
14:50A lottery determines in which order the mushers start the race.
14:54Finally, the countdown is over.
14:57The race is on.
15:03Clouds cheer as the first musher of the 41st annual Iditarod heads out across the lake.
15:10For many here, this is the last chance for them to cheer the mushers on
15:14before they head into the wild.
15:19The mushers' starts are static,
15:22The mushers' starts are staggered by two minutes
15:25so the dog teams don't get tangled early on the trail.
15:30Another musher heads out of the gates
15:32as rock music blares and the crowds cheer.
15:39The men, women, and dogs that compete in the Iditarod every year
15:42are joining in a long tradition.
15:45The first Alaskans used dog sleds long before Europeans arrived here.
15:49Later, Russian invaders used them too.
15:52In the 1880s, American prospectors rode dog sleds into snowy regions
15:56they couldn't get to any other way.
15:59Pioneers soon followed, settling Alaska on dog power.
16:03Today, the mushers in the Iditarod honor those days.
16:07They follow a route that was forged during a famous Alaska rescue.
16:12It happened in January 1925.
16:15The western Alaskan city of Nome
16:17was in the grip of a deadly outbreak of diphtheria.
16:21Thousands of people could die
16:23unless an antitoxin serum hundreds of miles away in Anchorage
16:27could reach them in time.
16:30To get the serum there before it was too late,
16:3320 mushers banded together to drive their dogs
16:36across Alaska's frozen wilderness in a daring relay.
16:40They managed to deliver the serum to Nome in just 127 hours,
16:44saving the people of the city and making headlines across the nation.
16:50Today, every musher who races in the Iditarod is honoring that achievement.
16:57But this race is not a relay.
17:00Each musher has to drive his or her dogs all the way to Nome.
17:06The race begins northwest of Anchorage, at Willow Lake.
17:10From there, the teams head west.
17:13Up and over Rainy Pass.
17:16Then, depending on the year,
17:18the dogsleds take a southern route via Anvik
17:21or a northern route via Galena.
17:24All teams head north, past the coastal town of Koyo.
17:28And then, after racing for almost a thousand miles,
17:31they arrive at the finish line in Nome.
17:38Early on in the race, friends and fans line the route
17:41to encourage the musher teams as they pass in a celebration of Alaskan pride.
17:47But as the crowds thin, the mood starts to change.
17:51It's time for the mushers and their dogs to begin their journeys
17:54into the state's lonely backcountry.
18:00It will take the fastest teams 9 to 10 days to make it out again.
18:05The slower ones will likely take up to 17.
18:08The slowest musher in Iditarod history took 32 days to complete the race.
18:14Each musher has his or her own strategy
18:17and has to make careful decisions about when to rest and when to race.
18:23This one has decided to sleep during the day as other teams pass him by.
18:28But later, he'll race into the night.
18:32To make sure their dogs get rest too and to save them from frostbite,
18:35mushers put out straw to keep them off the snow.
18:40With wind chill, temperatures out here have been known to reach minus 100 degrees Fahrenheit.
18:46But this year, unseasonably warm weather threatened to leave much of the course without snow.
18:51Many fear that global warming might force the cancellation of the race.
18:55But in the end, just enough snow finally fell to make a go of it.
19:00Out on the trail, special booties protect the dogs' paws from jagged ice.
19:06The team may use as many as 2,000 of them in a single race.
19:11Any dog that's injured is pulled from the team and carried on the back of the sled, like this one,
19:16until it can be handed off to vets or volunteers.
19:21Every team has to finish the Iditarod with at least six dogs,
19:24or else they're automatically disqualified.
19:28Fortunately, the dogs have been bred to meet the challenge.
19:31Most are a mix of indigenous Alaskan breeds, Siberian Huskies, Malamutes, and others.
19:39They rarely weigh more than 55 pounds, and most of that is pure muscle.
19:45They all have an inborn eagerness to run.
19:51Those who race the Iditarod experience parts of Alaska few others ever get to see.
20:02They wind through the quiet stillness of great pine forests covered in snow.
20:09They cross ice-choked rivers and discover what it's like to really be out in the wild in Alaska.
20:17They often find themselves all alone, tiny specks racing through an epic landscape.
20:31But every musher knows that Alaska's wilderness holds great danger, too.
20:37Sudden windstorms can bring blinding snow.
20:41When the going gets tough, mushers run alongside the sled to lighten the load, or use poles to help the dogs out.
20:5027 checkpoints line the trail to provide support.
20:54Each is staffed with a volunteer vet to check the dogs' condition and make sure they're fit to continue.
21:01Here, at Finger Lake, mushers check in with race officials, feed their dogs, and then head to these tents to rest up for the next leg.
21:1130 miles up the trail, the Rainy Pass checkpoint awaits on a frozen lake.
21:17Here, the teams pick up supplies flown in by a group of gung-ho volunteer pilots who call themselves the Iditarod Air Force.
21:24These men and women risk their lives to keep the mushers and their dogs safe in an area that's been called the deadliest place in Alaska to fly.
21:37From here, the teams head for the top of Rainy Pass.
21:40At over 3,100 feet, it's the highest point in the race, but still 800 miles from Nome.
21:47The winner of this year's race was 53-year-old musher Mitch Seavey, who made it to the finish line in 9 days, 7 hours, 39 minutes, and 56 seconds.
21:57The oldest musher yet to win the race.
22:00But racing a dog sled across 1,000 miles of frozen wilderness is just one way people here in Alaska get out into the wild.
22:08Others do it by scrambling up high peaks, or skiing down them.
22:13But one legendary Alaskan bush pilot created his own unique experiment in wilderness survival,
22:19by building a house perched on a rocky tower right in the middle of the highest mountain range in North America.
22:29A bush pilot soars across a massive glacier flowing out of the Alaska Range.
22:34This tiny speck of a machine is saving its passengers from what would otherwise be a very long and very difficult climb across one of the coldest areas on the continent.
22:47But in the high, icy reaches of Alaska's mountains, one species has evolved to be amazingly adept at survival.
22:57Mountain goats.
22:59Here, more than 1,000 feet above Juneau, these goats are right at home where most humans would be running for cover.
23:07Tens of thousands of years of evolution are responsible.
23:11These goats live only in the rugged mountains that stretch from the northern Rockies up through Canada and into southern Alaska.
23:19They follow the seasons up and down the slopes in search of food, shedding last year's coats when spring comes.
23:25And then fattening themselves up for the cold of winter.
23:30Between mating seasons, males stick together in bachelor groups.
23:35The babies, or kids, arrive in late May and stay with their mothers for at least a year.
23:40Most remain high in the mountains, on steep slopes that predators like wolves have a hard time climbing.
23:48One reason mountain goats are so agile is that they can climb up and down the slopes in no time.
23:53One reason mountain goats are so agile is because they have an area of soft skin in the middle of their hooves that can act like a suction cup to help keep them attached to the rocks they climb.
24:05That is, when they're not fighting with each other.
24:09This species of goat is known to be highly aggressive.
24:13One year-long study revealed that they fought or poked each other with their horns five times an hour on average.
24:20So not only have they learned to survive brutal cold and packs of hungry wolves, but also the injuries caused by conflicts with each other.
24:33Trying to survive while climbing Alaska's highest peaks has been a challenge humans have been undertaking for more than a century.
24:41And still today, every year, more than a thousand climbers set out to try and reach the summit of Mount McKinley, also known as Denali.
24:50At 20,237 feet, it's the tallest mountain in North America.
24:55Less than 70% of those who attempt the summit every year actually make it.
25:00As with much of Alaska, the easiest way in and out is by plane.
25:04Thanks in part to the pioneering work of a legendary bush pilot named Don Sheldon.
25:12As a young man, the Colorado native kept traveling north until his money ran out.
25:17He ended up in the tiny Alaskan town of Talkeetna, where he would spend the rest of his life.
25:23In 1955, a scientist named Bradford Washburn from Boston arrived in Talkeetna to map Mount McKinley and the surrounding mountains.
25:31The problem was, he needed a pilot who could drop him off on Denali's glaciers and work for him over the years it would take to complete the survey.
25:40It just so happened that Sheldon, who was now a pilot, had recently attached a pair of special skis to the wheels of his bush plane so he could land on snow.
25:49He offered to work with Washburn and was soon teaching himself how to land and take off on glaciers,
25:55a technique that's still used today by Sheldon's daughter, Holly, and her husband, David Lee, when they ferry climbers up to the 7,200-foot-high Denali Base Camp.
26:08Sheldon's skill at glacier landings enabled Washburn to conduct the first-ever survey of Mount McKinley, which took 15 years,
26:16and helped make Sheldon one of Alaska's aviation legends.
26:20In 1966, Sheldon decided to build himself a cabin high up on Denali's flanks.
26:26He chose this rugged outcropping 6,000 feet above sea level in the glacier-filled valley known as the Great Gorge.
26:39He flew in every part of the cabin and every tool he needed to build it,
26:43Strapping the larger timber to the outside of the plane, he simply dropped it off into the snow below as he flew by.
26:49It took dozens of trips, but he finally welcomed his first guests in 1966.
26:56Almost 60 years later, visitors pay up to $600 a night to fly in and rough it in Sheldon's unique retreat,
27:04a place with no room service and few amenities, but plenty of solitude and a place to relax.
27:10Thanks to this cabin, this area of the Denali National Park is now called the Don Sheldon Amphitheater in honor of the famous pilot.
27:23Still today, the only way into and out of here is by plane, just as it is for many places in Alaska,
27:30especially for those who really want to test the limits of surviving in the wild.
27:34In the spring of 2003, two amateur zoologists named Amy Huguenard and Timothy Treadwell were dropped off by a bush plane here on the Katmai Coast.
27:43The horrifying events that followed would make them the main characters in director Werner Herzog's documentary,
27:50Grizzly Man, and provide a cautionary tale to others about testing the raw power of Alaska's wilderness.
27:56Huguenard and Treadwell had come to try and find a way out of Alaska,
28:01Huguenard and Treadwell had come to try and coexist with the bears of Katmai.
28:06They lived among them and tried to become their friends, but it didn't go as they planned.
28:12The bears ended up eating both of them alive.
28:15Treadwell's video camera happened to be rolling at the time and captured six horrifying minutes of his agonized screams.
28:22For thousands of years, bears have reigned at the top of the food chain as Alaska's apex predator.
28:28Usually, they are fine being around humans, as long as the humans don't push their luck.
28:34Brown bears are known to eat caribou, elk, and moose.
28:38Most of the time, they feast on berries, roots, and of course, fish.
28:42Some of these grazing giants get as much as 80 to 90 percent of their nutrition from vegetation,
28:48and when the tide is out, they dig for clams, as opportunistic gulls wait to feast on their leftovers.
28:55Even birds know to keep their distance if they don't want to be added to the bear's buffet.
29:00The cubs are born between December and March.
29:03As soon as they leave their dens, their mothers begin teaching them how to find food.
29:08When mature, the males will weigh up to 1,000 pounds.
29:12In the 19th and 20th century, fear of these bears was rampant.
29:16In the 19th and 20th century, fear of these giant predators drove pioneers to hunt them to near extinction in the lower 48 states.
29:24Today, more than 95 percent of surviving brown bears in the United States, about 30,000 in all, live in Alaska.
29:32The park is dedicated to preserving this Eden for bears and humans alike.
29:41But not everyone comes to Alaska just to look at the wildlife or the views.
29:46Some come to search for buried treasure, daring men and women willing to risk it all to find their fortunes on America's frozen frontier.
30:00Sometimes, out in Alaska's vast wilderness, the morning commute can be extreme.
30:08The pilot of this helicopter is on his way to pick up a mining executive waiting for a ride to work.
30:13Geologist Darwin Greene is here to check in on an exploratory drill that's plumbing this mountainside for traces of precious metals.
30:22But to get there requires a hair-racing descent by helicopter.
30:27He needs to reach this tiny platform perched on the edge of the mountain down below.
30:33It's one of many such drilling rigs that dot the cliffs here.
30:36They're part of an operation called the Palmer Project, a search for copper, zinc, silver and gold in Alaska's Coast Mountains.
30:47It takes skilled Alaskan mountaineers to build these platforms on such steep, rocky terrain.
30:53A century ago, prospectors would have clambered up peaks like this one on foot in the search for precious metals.
31:00But today, Darwin and the other members of his drill crew start and end their shifts by helicopter.
31:07It's not a job for anyone afraid of heights or nerve-wracking flights.
31:13And flying these kinds of missions requires a lot of skill, especially in the mountain's tricky updrafts.
31:20Today, this experienced pilot swings down over the valley, then back around to get the right angle for the approach.
31:28Once he's in position, he starts his descent to a tiny landing pad.
31:33If a gust of wind pushes him off course, the landing will have to be aborted to avoid a potentially deadly crash.
31:39But this pilot manages to make a feather-light touchdown on his very first try.
31:48It's too dangerous to park a helicopter on this temporary pad, so the pilot lifts off to seek solid ground.
31:57Now, on his own, Darwin hikes the rest of the way down to the drill site.
32:02His team's hard work is already paying off.
32:05Core samples from these drills have shown that this mountain range holds great potential riches below.
32:11Once those minerals have been carefully mapped using surface drills like this one,
32:16the mining company Darwin works for hopes to be able to extract it using underground mines.
32:21Drill crews on the Palmer Project work 24 hours a day here, in 12-hour shifts, five months a year, no matter what the weather.
32:28Just the latest in a long line of hard-working men and women who have come to Alaska
32:33to seek their fortune in daring and often thrilling quests for copper, silver and gold.
32:41And the state's most famous gold rush of them all happened just a few miles away.
32:46In 1896, gold was discovered just over the U.S. border in Canada's Klondike Territory.
32:53The easiest way for miners to get to the Canadian gold fields was through Alaska.
32:59Over the next three years, 100,000 would-be millionaires made the trip.
33:04It was called the Klondike Stampede, and the men who joined it were known as Stampeders.
33:10A little harbor outpost called Skagway became one of their main points of entry.
33:15Today, Skagway is a major stop on the Alaska cruise ship circuit.
33:19But back in the days of the Stampeders, one Canadian Mountie called it Hell on Earth.
33:25The Klondike Stampede transformed Skagway from a two-man camp into a lawless boomtown of 10,000, almost overnight.
33:33Thieves, conmen and prostitutes prowled its streets, preying on the hopeful miners
33:39that arrived here with dreams of the riches that they hoped would soon greet them across the border.
33:44Future author Jack London was one of them.
33:46His time here inspired his best-known book, The Call of the Wild.
33:51He might recognize many of these storefronts if he came back today.
33:55And he might also be surprised at how much it's been cleaned up.
33:58But London and the rest of the Stampeders weren't just here to sample Skagway's debauched charms.
34:04They were here to start what was well-known as a brutal journey to get to the gold.
34:10The shortest route from Skagway to Canada's Klondike gold fields
34:15was a narrow trail that headed west out of town and then north, up a vertical incline.
34:22This grueling route was called the Chilkoot Trail
34:26and brought the hopeful prospectors to the 3,500-foot-high Chilkoot Pass at the Canadian border.
34:32To prevent starvation, Canada required prospectors entering the Klondike
34:37to bring a year's worth of supplies along with them, about a ton per person.
34:42If they showed up at the border crossing with anything less,
34:45the Canadian Mounties stationed here forced them to turn back.
34:50Toting all that stuff over the top of the Chilkoot's 3,500-foot summit in backpacks
34:55took multiple trips up and down the Chilkoot Pass.
34:58The stampeders called it the meanest 32 miles in the world.
35:03Today, remains of abandoned canoes still lie near the Chilkoot summit,
35:08just part of the extra baggage discarded along the way.
35:14Only about a third of those who tried the trip made it to the gold fields.
35:19The rest gave up, turned back, or died on the trail.
35:23Many minors were left behind,
35:26Many minors chose an alternate route out of Skagway.
35:30This one, which headed up and over White Pass instead, was only slightly easier.
35:36Here in this valley, pack horses, not humans, paid the greatest price.
35:41Eager, inexperienced prospectors drove the horses relentlessly,
35:45then cast them aside in places like this gulch when they became crippled or ill.
35:50Their rotting carcasses were why Jack London referred to this route as Dead Horse Trail.
35:56To ease the suffering of both man and beast, and to make a tidy profit in the process,
36:02a group of investors decided to build a railroad over White Pass in 1898.
36:08The steep slope of White Pass made it a nearly impossible project,
36:12but the potential profits drove them on.
36:15Give me enough dynamite, one engineer bragged, and I'll build a railroad to hell.
36:23Dazzling feats of 19th century engineering, like this steel bridge,
36:27had to be built to carry the trains across the canyons that stood in the way.
36:31But by the time the line opened in 1900,
36:34the stampeters it was built to carry were already gone,
36:38and 1899 gold strike near Nome had sent them northwest instead.
36:42Fortunately for the railroad's investors, settlers and sightseers soon took their place.
36:48Today, the White Pass and Yukon Railroad's trains
36:52still carry nearly 400,000 tourists into the mountains every summer.
36:56And over 100 years after the Klondike Stampede,
37:00prospectors are still fanning out across Alaska's backcountry to search for gold.
37:07And few are finding something else out here too.
37:09They're 15 minutes of fame on various gold mining reality shows.
37:15But they're hardly the first ones in Alaska to have the TV cameras come knocking,
37:19or move in next door.
37:22That's what happened here at the home of former Alaska governor
37:25and Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin.
37:29In 2010, unauthorized Palin biographer Joe McGuinness bought the house to the left
37:35and announced he was moving in.
37:37So Palin built a 14-foot fence to block his view.
37:43But no fences were needed on the other side,
37:46after Fox News built Palin her own TV studio in this building to the right.
37:51For three years it kept Ms. Palin in the spotlight,
37:54a position she seems to adore, but one a lot of other Alaskans don't envy.
38:01From its earliest days, Alaska has been a magnet
38:04for a contrary brand of outsiders looking to be left alone.
38:09Today, their 21st century heirs still resent any intrusion into their lives.
38:15Distrust of the lower 48 and its federal government
38:18thrives in this individualistic and libertarian crowd,
38:22along with conspiracy theories.
38:26In 1993, the Department of Defense selected this lonely spot
38:30175 miles north of Anchorage,
38:33to build its High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program, or HAARP.
38:38Soon after, Alaska's conspiracy blogosphere exploded.
38:44The U.S. government was accused of using HAARP's array of 180 72-foot tall silver towers
38:50for everything from disabling satellites, to causing earthquakes,
38:54to controlling the weather, to controlling mines.
38:57The DOD's promises that the array is actually being used for a benign study of the outer atmosphere
39:02did little to stop the chatter,
39:04even though it's not the first time space-minded scientists
39:07have been drawn to Alaska's unique environment or its unique position on the Earth.
39:16Here on Kodiak Island's narrow cape,
39:19scientists even found a perfect spot to build a gateway into space.
39:24The Alaska Aerospace Corporation's Kodiak Launch Complex.
39:29This spaceport was built by the state of Alaska itself,
39:32and is used by both the U.S. government and private corporations
39:35to launch unmanned rockets and satellites.
39:38First, they are loaded inside this 17-story tower,
39:42and then moved outside just before launch.
39:45Since the Kodiak Launch Complex sits right next to the Pacific Ocean,
39:49it's the perfect and safest place to launch satellites into polar orbits.
39:53Like many of the weather and communications satellites we rely on today.
39:59But not all scientists come to Alaska to train their eyes on the skies.
40:03Some are here to learn survival skills,
40:06for an epic journey across miles of ice.
40:13High in the mountains above Juneau,
40:15a group of young scientists is preparing for a very cold scientific quest.
40:20They're about to embark on a 90-mile, 8-week research trip
40:24through the Alaskan wilderness to Atlin, British Columbia.
40:27But they're going to get there on skis, by crossing the Juneau Ice Field.
40:32Since 1948, the Juneau Ice Field Research Program
40:36has been sending young scientists like these out onto the ice.
40:39They're here to pursue wilderness studies in fields such as
40:42geology, climatology, biology, and glaciology.
40:46This is their first stop, known as Camp 17.
40:50They will spend the next few days in this rugged outpost,
40:53learning the techniques that will help them to survive the rest of the trip.
40:56Like how to avoid falling into a crevasse,
40:59and how to climb back out if you do.
41:02Out here, teamwork and strong arms are the key to survival.
41:06Once they finish learning the ropes,
41:09these hardy apprentice researchers will move on across the ice field.
41:12They'll join the ranks of thousands of other adventurous scientists
41:15drawn to Alaska over the years,
41:18eager to explore and understand the state's wonders.
41:23From high in the mountains, to sea level, and even below.
41:28Southeastern Alaska's rugged coastline,
41:31with its mix of mountain, ocean, and shore,
41:34has long been a favorite destination for researchers from around the globe.
41:38Britain's Captain Cook was one of the first Europeans
41:41to chart these waters in 1778.
41:44More detailed scientific studies were carried out in the early 1800s,
41:48when Russian scientists recorded data about tides and weather here.
41:52Their work led to the first maps of Alaska's confusing coastal regions.
41:57A tangled network of straits and channels,
42:00with thousands of miles of shoreline and hundreds of islands.
42:03A few of them, like this one called Chickakoff, are huge,
42:06and cover more than a thousand square miles.
42:10Others aren't much bigger than rocks.
42:14For centuries, people have been using the waterways around them
42:17to travel up the coast.
42:20This inside passage allowed them to avoid
42:23the northern Pacific's dangerous waters.
42:28But the region's winding 10,000 mile shoreline
42:31brought dangers of its own.
42:34Hidden shoals and jagged outcroppings
42:37caused 300 maritime accidents in 1898 alone.
42:40The next year, Congress responded by authorizing
42:43the construction of a series of lighthouses.
42:50One of the first to shine its beam stood here, on Sentinel Island.
42:54It's been leading sailors away from disaster since 1902.
42:58But its original wooden building was replaced
43:01with this sturdier concrete art deco tower in 1935.
43:05Today, only one of the inside passage's
43:08original 20th century wooden lighthouses survives.
43:11This lonely octagonal tower on Eldred Rock.
43:16It stands near the spot where the passenger ship Clara Nevada
43:19ran aground and sank on a stormy night in 1898.
43:23As many as 40 people lost their lives here that night.
43:27The Eldred Rock Lighthouse began operation in 1906
43:30in an effort to make sure it never happened again.
43:35Its beacon still lights the way for ships sailing
43:37through the inside passage today.
43:44Up to a fifth of those are cruise ships.
43:47450 in the summer of 2012 alone.
43:50Hundreds of passages by tankers, barges and fishing boats
43:53help add to the total.
43:56But no ships make more journeys along Alaska's southern coast
43:59or play a more vital role here
44:02than the ferries they call the Blue Canoes.
44:04For many rural residents, they provide the only dependable link
44:07to the outside world.
44:10Private operators ran the first ferries here
44:13until the territory bought them in 1951.
44:16After statehood, a new federal law transformed these waters
44:19into the Alaska Marine Highway,
44:22qualifying the now state-owned ferries for federal support.
44:25That support keeps the ships chugging along
44:28from Bellingham, Washington to the tip of the Aleutian Peninsula
44:30and back, 3,500 miles each way.
44:33They carry 312,000 passengers
44:36and 98,000 vehicles in an average year.
44:40Cabins are available, but a lot of travelers prefer the view
44:43from the ferry's upper deck.
44:46From here, they can watch the spectacular scenery go by
44:49and look for signs of the birds, fish and marine mammals
44:52that call the inside passage home.
45:01These sea lions rely on the passage's shoreline
45:04to rest and rear their young.
45:07They also depend on its water for food.
45:10A male can grow up to 2,500 pounds
45:13and rule over private domains
45:16where he awaits the arrival of 750-pound females
45:19willing to mate, if he's lucky.
45:22This fortunate bull's harem
45:25can barely squeeze onto his tiny beach.
45:27But despite their numbers here,
45:30Alaska's sea lions are actually struggling to survive.
45:33Once, these beaches in the Barren Islands
45:36would have been covered in a carpet of blubber and fur.
45:39Today, there's more sand than sea lion.
45:42Between 1960 and 1990,
45:45their population declined from around 140,000
45:48to less than 31,000,
45:51which is why, in 1997,
45:54they were added to the list of endangered species.
45:57Today, there are about 46,000 left.
46:04Farther from shore,
46:07the still waters of the inside passage
46:10hide another species on the endangered list, humpback whales.
46:13Gliding below the quiet surface
46:16where they can stay for up to a half an hour at a time,
46:19they reveal their presence only when they come up for air.
46:22Humpbacks are part-time residents in these waters.
46:24They spend their winters around Hawaii,
46:27where they mate and give birth to their young.
46:30When summer comes, they head to Alaska to feed.
46:33It's the only time of year when they eat.
46:36Each one can consume up to a ton of fish and krill a day,
46:39but their predictable movements
46:42make them easy to track and kill.
46:45In the 19th and 20th century,
46:48whaling drove their numbers here down by 90%.
46:51Protected status has helped bring them back,
46:54but scientists long feared
46:57that growing ship traffic along Alaska's coast
47:00could interfere with the whales' revival.
47:05On March 24, 1989,
47:08their worst fears came true
47:11when a huge oil tanker called the Exxon Valdez
47:14ran aground on a reef here in Prince William Sound,
47:17where this buoy marks the spot.
47:20The impact tore a hole in the ship's hull.
47:22Crude oil poured out.
47:25It's been called one of the worst human-caused
47:28environmental disasters in history,
47:31but it was hardly unexpected.
47:34Environmentalists had warned of this kind of event for years,
47:37ever since the 1977 opening of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline.
47:40The 48-inch pipe carries crude oil south
47:43from Alaska's Prudhoe Bay.
47:46It's specially built to be earthquake-resistant.
47:48The pipeline itself is not bolted to its supports.
47:51Instead, it rests on sliders.
47:54If the earth starts to rumble,
47:57the pipeline is designed to slide side to side
48:01and literally wiggle like a giant snake,
48:04instead of cracking and spilling its cargo of crude.
48:10The Trans-Alaska Pipeline runs for 800 miles across the state.
48:14Up to 15% of the United States' domestic oil production
48:16flows through it every year.
48:19And into these tanks at the Marine Terminal at Valdez
48:22in Prince William Sound,
48:25Alaska's northernmost ice-free harbor.
48:28From here, the oil is loaded onto giant tanker ships.
48:32Just after midnight on March 24, 1989,
48:35the Exxon Valdez left the terminal,
48:38passed this buoy at the mouth of the harbor,
48:41and headed out into Prince William Sound
48:43with a full load of crude,
48:46when it suddenly ran aground.
48:49It was the largest oil spill in U.S. history at the time.
48:53Environmentalists on the scene predicted
48:56Prince William Sound would never be the same.
48:5925 years and a $2.5 billion cleanup later,
49:02they've been proved right.
49:05Things look great on the surface here,
49:08but oil still lurks under almost every rock.
49:10Some areas are still as toxic as they were right after the spill.
49:14They may stay that way for hundreds of years,
49:17but that doesn't mean the cleanup efforts have all been in vain.
49:20Without them, things here would be much worse.
49:31But nothing in Alaska symbolizes nature's rejuvenating power,
49:35or the value of human action to save the environment,
49:37more than this.
49:40A once-rare bald eagle standing sentinel beside the sea.
49:45In the 1960s, the unintended impact of a chemical known as DDT
49:50drove these great birds to the edge of extinction
49:53by making the shells of their eggs too thin.
49:56Public pressure forced the government to ban DDT.
50:00Today, the bald eagles are back,
50:03inspiring reminders of what we can accomplish when we work together,
50:08stirring symbols of America and living icons of Alaska.
50:13The great state, where adventurers still pit themselves against nature,
50:18dreamers still come to seek their fortunes,
50:21and the call of the wild still echoes through the mountains.
50:24The great state, where adventurers still come to seek their fortunes,
50:27and the call of the wild still echoes
50:30across America's last frozen frontier.
50:54For more UN videos visit www.un.org