Alfred Brooks in Alaska around 1899.

Photo courtesy of the U.S. Geological Survey archives.

Alfred Brooks was a geologist who traveled thousands of miles in Alaska and left his name on the state’s northernmost mountain range. Twenty years before his death in 1924, he also left behind a summary of what Alaska was like over a century ago, when “large areas (were) still practically
unexplored.”

To see what Brooks had to say about the Alaska of 1906, I pulled a copy of his Geography and Geology of Alaska: A Summary of Existing Knowledge from a shelf of rare books in a Fairbanks library.

Ice fog envelops the control tower at Fairbanks International Airport during a cold snap in November 2011.

Photo by Ned Rozell.

For many Alaskans, January 1989 is a month that still numbs the mind, because of the cold snap that gripped much of the state for two weeks. In Fairbanks, fan belts under the hoods of cars snapped like pretzels; the ice fog was thick and smothering, and the city came as close as it ever comes to a halt, with many people opting to stay home after their vehicles succumbed to the monster cold.

Mycologist and author Lawrence Millman gives a presentation at Creamer’s Field in Fairbanks.

Photo by Ned Rozell.

Alaskans love fungi. This was evident on a recent Saturday when
author and mycologist Lawrence Millman offered a mushroom walk at
Creamer’s Field on one of the wettest days of the yellow-leaf season.

“Eighty people showed up in the rain, all eager to
learn about fungi,” Millman said by email after returning to his home in
Massachusetts. “I dare say the hunter-gatherer instinct is alive and
well in Fairbanks.”