The Alaska Chronicles: Earthquake Awe
Our first day in Anchorage felt like it started two minutes after we’d arrived. We slept for about five hours before the time zone change and jet lag and sunlight jarred us awake.
Around midday, we ventured downtown to be proper tourists aboard the Anchorage Trolley Tours. We were driven around by a sweet young guy named Ace, who assured us he was the only ginger Alaska Native we were likely to meet.
The street on which the tour started was significant for numerous reasons, he said. He showed us the statue of the sled dog Balto, the tip of its nose marking the ceremonial starting point of the Iditarod.
The street was also the site of significant damage during the Great Alaska Earthquake of 1964. Ace told us the double yellow lines on the street weren’t just traffic guides; they marked the fault line.
The quake last more than four minutes and registered over 9.0 on the Richter scale; it was the strongest in North American history.
One of the stops on the tour was Earthquake Park, which is now a city park but also this relic of that fateful day.
We stepped off Ace’s trolley, and the break in the fault was obvious: the parking lot at one level, the edge of the forest just shifted downward.
That forest contained numerous homes on the day of the quake, Ace said. And the earth just swallowed them. The trees were skinny, relatively young compared to their Alaska neighbors.
The most striking element of the forest were the hills. Ace described them as seismic waves, rippling the earth and frozen in time.
They looked like a BMX track built in thick woods. In the grand scheme, there are surely more awe-inspiring views in Anchorage, but paired with Ace’s storytelling — a mix of the human and science — made these rippling hills one of the most lasting images and experiences of that entire tour.
There’s a ton of reading out there about the Great Alaska Earthquake, but I can personally recommend Jon Mooallem’s This is Chance! I want to go back and revisit it after visiting. Here’s a good article from the New York Review of Books.
Jonathan Mingle
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