Love + eMotion: When You Know Your Kids Are Alaskans

I woke on Sunday to the gentle staccato of rain against our tent. A thrush trilled a greeting somewhere far away. A squirrel answered. Then, the wind worked its way through aspen and spruce, drum rolling the leaves, scattering dew, and rocked my sleeping family.

A big smile stretched across Kyra’s face, the only visible part of her body snug in her new 20 degree Fahrenheit sleeping bag, which she had waited months to test. Ethan stroked my husband’s ear, rooting for comfort as he was too excited to sleep.

At 4 p.m. Saturday, I wasn’t even sure we were going to make the four hour drive to the Denali Outdoor Center (DOC) in Healy. It was harder these days to squeeze in at least one camping trip per year. Maybe, it was due to the kid’s busy schedules or after having kids, camping just seemed like a lot of work.

Our gear alone could barely fit in our truck. Plus, Ethan was still too young to raft or kayak or do a lot of the outdoor activities Alaska offers (very frustrating for outdoorsy parents who don’t own these fancy toys).

Louise, co- owner of DOC, tried really hard to make an exception for Ethan on her Scenic Wilderness Raft Trip. Unfortunately, their insurance company insisted on a five or older age limit.

Having guided since the eighties, Louise took her son on the water when he was four. Now as a nine-year-old, he mountain bikes, rafts, and kayaks with them. She raved about the benefits of taking young kids on adventure travel and encouraged us to rent a canoe and take the kids onto Otto Lake.

Even though, we did not get a chance to raft or canoe and we had to set up camp in a downpour, I’m glad we pushed ourselves to drive so far. For a July 4th weekend, I was surprised that we had most of the lake-side walk-in camp sites all to ourselves.

As advertised, it certainly is the most private camp site you’ll find in Denali National Park. I could hear no motorized vehicles or people milling about. I could give my kids the backcountry wilderness camping experience I craved. And if I quieted my heart, I could even hear the lake lapping against the shore.

Kyra woke everyone around ten. Fortunately, the rain had subsided enough for Thomas to build a fire and delight Kyra with s’mores. She finished off the third bag of marshmallows I bought this summer and didn’t get a chance to roast due to weather.

By the time, the kids danced around the fire, tested our new cooking set, polished off a breakfast of freeze-dried lasagna and beef stroganoff, and helped us break camp, it was nearly 1pm.

We hurried across the street to Black Diamond Resort for our custom ATV side-by-side and Treasure Hunt Expedition and discovered to our dismay that we had missed our tour.

“Why can’t we go on the ATV?” Kyra kept asking. At first, I couldn’t answer her. I had built up so much anticipation over the week, imagining the first-time my kids would ever get the chance to ride an ATV, that I felt crushed too.

Eventually, I snapped, “Next time, Mommy tells you to hurry up because you're going to be late, and you dilly-dally and insist on throwing one more bottle of water onto the fire or complain ‘I don't want to get dressed’ or ‘I'm busy playing with my cars,’ then you will miss your adventure and everybody's sad. Nobody's going to wait around for Princess Kyra!"

That squeezed a giggle out of Kyra. Ten minutes later, she asked again, “So, we can’t go find treasures on the ATV?”

I sighed and said almost to myself, sometimes things in life don’t happen the way you planned.

She stared at me with those big round eyes pooling with tears.

I looked at Thomas for help and he smiled and said softly to me, “I just set a low bar. It’s Alaska!” He reminded me about the time we spent lots of money on a king salmon fishing charter and came home with nothing.

Marilyn, the co-owner of Black Diamond, saved the day by getting us on their Horse Drawn Covered Wagon Adventure. With a seven-year-old of her own, she offers plenty of kid-friendly activities, including miniature golf. In 1995 she and her sister built this unique golf course on tundra with little topsoil and she now employs over seventy people.

She said that this resort is mostly a hobby, but it’s a wonderful worldly experience for her daughter. At the front desk, I chatted with Santana, a student from the University of Indies in Jamaica. On our Wagon Adventure, our guide Jan explained how he got here through a work study program from his Czech Republic University and Kellen from Massachusetts confided that he finished a job at a ski resort in Idaho, then flew up with some friends to Healy and got a tip about this job from a local bar.

After a ride on the covered wagon driver’s bench and a belly full of the juiciest barbeque chicken, salmon, ribs, and tri-tip steak, Kyra asked, “Now, do we get to go on the ATV?”

Hold on tight Kyra, here we go!

On our long drive home, I asked the family to tell me their favorite part of the weekend. I cringed, hoping they wouldn’t bring up the ATV trip again.

Ethan blurted out, “The tent!”

Thomas said, “Sleep.”

Kyra chewed over her answer for a while, then whispered in my ear, “S’mores!”