Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
— 27 —
The Northern Lights Have Seen Queer Sights…
HAVE YOU EVER NOTICED
what a puny little star Polaris is? If you didn't have the Pointer
Sisters on the Big Dipper steering you directly to it, you'd never find it. Except, of course,
that it's the only star that doesn't move. Not to mention which it's on the Alaska flag.
I was standing outside the yurt on a hill overlooking Chena Hot Springs, and on this
March night there were so many stars crowded into the sky that I had a hard time picking
out the constellations.
After that, you'll understand why the northern lights were just an anticlimax.
Chena Hot Springs is what you might call in the parlance of the travel trade a single-des-
tination resort. Tucked into rolling hills fifty-plus miles east of Fairbanks, it is 440 acres of
fun in the sun, winter or summer. Your only problem is going to be stamina, trust me.
“People tell me they find peace here,” says Joe Juszkiewicz, the Springs' manager. “We
had a couple of high- powered doctors from New York City. They lit into me when they
found out their cell phones and pagers didn't work here and that they couldn't get faxes. I
said them, 'What did you come here for?' They wound up staying an extra three nights.”
Chena Hot Springs has been a vacation destination for Alaskans since 1905, when ex-
gold miner Robert Swan, looking for a cure for his rheumatism, followed up a rumor of
steam rising from a valley up the Chena River and found hot water with just a touch of
sulfate, chloride and bicarbonate of sodium bubbling up out of the ground. I don't know if
the hot springs restored Robert Swan to health but Chena Hot Springs itself is alive and
well today and welcoming visitors from all over the world. Even from Alaska. “We have
this joke,” Joe says, with a pronounced twinkle in his eye. “When people come from An-
chorage, we say, 'Oh. You've come to see Alaska.'”
