From the window of the Denali Star, we saw our first stand of fireweed (Epibolium angustifolium). The tour guide on the train pointed out that the plant blooms from the bottom up and told us a local legend claims that summer is over when the blooms reach the top.

I later read that the plant is called fireweed because it is one of the first plants to bloom after a fire. It seems to grow everywhere in Alaska. I saw it from Denali to Fairbanks to Tok to Valdez and back in Anchorage, mostly wild but sometimes cultivated. By the end of our trip, it seemed to me that it was as ubiquitous as sunflowers are here in the western part of the Lower Forty-Eight.

Photo: Fireweed, Denali NP, AK
2024

Two weeks before our mid-July trip to Denali National Park, the Riley Fire started near the visitor center which is just across the road from the Alaska Railroad station. Within hours the park was shut down. The fire burned 432 acres but was nearly 100% contained by July 10th when the park re-opened, and train service resumed. We saw stands of charred trees within the park, and as we departed on the train to Fairbanks, we saw areas that had burned right next to the tracks.

As Denali faded in the distance, I wondered how long it would be before the dormant, deeply buried seeds of the fireweed would sprout and make their showy comeback in the newly burned areas of Denali.

While visiting Denali I went on a short hike led by a Youth Conservation Corps ranger named Izzy. Just outside the back door of the visitor center was a stand of white spruce (Picea glauca) where we walked. The trees are tall, skinny conifers with spire-shaped tops. Like fireweed they grow in much of Alaska.

Sixteen-year-old Izzy’s enthusiasm for her topic was contagious as she talked about the importance of white spruce to animals and humans. Red squirrels (one of whom was keeping a close eye on us) build middens from the cones which provide both shelter and food. Moose browse the trees in winter when it’s hard to find other food sources. Athabaskans rely on all parts of the tree for a multitude of uses including shelter, medicine, and fuel. Before the group dispersed Izzy suggested that we all think about our role in protecting the forest.

We drove through miles and miles of white spruce on our trip from Fairbanks to Tok. I later learned about black spruce (Picea marianna) that looks (at least to untrained eyes) similar to white spruce. Both are widely distributed in Alaska but thrive in different conditions. So, I’m guessing some, or maybe many, of those white spruce I saw were actually black spruce.

The trees pictured at right are white spruce. They appear to range from about forty feet to sixty feet in height. It’s hard for me to guess how old they are since I’ve read they can grow anywhere from three to twelve inches in a year.

Alaska has always been about mountains to me–range after range of snow-covered peaks. But after this trip that image in my mind has been replaced with forests of stately spruce trees and shrubs filled with pinkish purple flowers blooming in the sun at their feet.

Photo: Bearberry Cabin, Tok, AK
2024

Postscript: Right after I published this post I discovered that the next chapter in the book I was reading about Alaska was titled “Fireweed”. Here the writer compares the plant to its namesake:

Fire: with weedlike tenacity, it ignites a fire of green on barren ground. Fire: it blazes across mountainsides in mid- and late summer, blooming profusely and then bursting white cotton-swathed seedpods that look like wisps of smoke as they quiver and release to the winds.

The book is called The Heart of the Sound: An Alaskan Paradise Found and Nearly Lost by Marybeth Holleman.

This one is a slow read but well worth the effort. I read it once before and have only made it through the first of three chapters/books this time around.

So much detail here, it’s hard to choose a favorite paragraph. From bush pilots getting lost to grizzly bears that can be shooed to this bit about trees:

“The forest around us, to the extent that it could be called forest, consisted of bands of spruce and cottonwood. Occasionally, it made sallies up the hillsides onto protected slopes or into dry ravines, but mainly it pointed north like an arrow, and gradually it widened as we moved downstream. Close to the river edge, much of the way, were clumps of willow and alder, backed by the taller trees, which in turn had bands of alder backing them, before the woods gave way altogether to open, rising ground–to the lichens, the sedges and mosses of the high tundra. The leaves of alder chewed to break out the sap, relieve itching when rubbed on mosquito bites. The forest Eskimos make red dyes from alder bark–American green alder, the only species that grows so far north. Willow, as a genus, is hardier. The Sitka spruce is the state tree, in recognition of its commercial distinction, for Sitka spruce is the most negotiable thing that grows from roots in Alaska. It grows only in the south, however, and while the Sitka spruce goes off to the sawmill, the willow vegetates the state. There are only a hundred and thirty-three species of trees and shrubs in all Alaska, and thirty-three of those are willows. . . “

Amazing how much there is to learn in this half, yes, half a paragraph: there are only 133 species of trees in Alaska; Sitka spruce is the state tree; and you can chew on alder leaves and apply the paste to relieve the itching from mosquito bites–that’s the one that caught my eye. I have yet to meet my first mosquito in Alaska and have my cortisone cream in my suitcase, but now I know.