Hard to believe this was 10 years ago, Jack says. This is a mod lift at the Alpine oil fields (mod is short for modular), back when he was doing heavy haul. Since it’s been so many years all he had to say about it was that he hauled this prefabricated unit to Alpine from Valdez and the workers there got busy lifting it off his truck. It took all day actually. That was one part of heavy haul he doesn’t miss.
A few years ago Jack and some other truckers took these pipe rack units from Fairbanks to Alpine, an area of Prudhoe Bay owned by Conoco-Phillips. You’ll see the units being loaded, then Jack driving behind other units. You can see the pipes in the middle of the structure as well as the valve controls on the top. These units are lined up next to each other and connected as part of the process of extracting oil and getting it into the pipeline to go south. In one of the ice road photos you can see a pipeline on the right.
They drive through tundra, over mountains, and finally on the ice roads of Prudhoe Bay. The last couple of photos, the ones where the road doesn’t look particularly icy, they are passing over a river. If you are also rather astute (and here I am giving you a clue) you can also see Jack’s reflection in the mirror, as well as a reflection of the small fan that he had mounted on the dash that could turn toward the windshield to defrost it or toward him on hot days.
(The best way to view the photos is to click on the first one and then click on the right arrow.)
Jack finally took a video of driving down the road. It seems like a silly thing to do but people have requested more videos and this one shows what most of his job is like, on the good days. 🙂
(If these appear blurry change your resolution settings on the bottom right side of the player.)
Happy New Year!!
Some memories are dictated much by the weather. Storms, wind, rain, and very often, sun. Sometimes the sun falls just right, and the breeze is peaceful, and you’re in a good place. It might so happen that it’s 40 below, but some things can’t be helped.
This is my single favorite photo of Jack. It is November 2006. His face is a little stiff from the cold but the afternoon setting sun shows how much he enjoys this crazy job of taking big things to faraway places.
In this case he gets to bring bridge beams to the Donjek River in Yukon Territory, Canada.
The old bridge is behind Jack.
Jack actually helped haul the bridge beams in the summer and is now (November 2006) back in the winter to pick them up again and bring them down to the crane on the ice.
There are two cranes used to pick up the bridge beam. The yellow piece that is at the right in the photo above is hanging from the other crane which is behind the person taking the photo (Jack).
The trucks are awaiting another bridge beam to load.
This is the dolly used to haul the bridge beams.
Jack is wearing a face mask, but no gloves! No figure.
The arrow is pointing to the bridge beams already placed where they will forever stay.
Below is a Google Earth image of the Donjek River. You can see the new bridge and the old road leading up to the river but the old bridge has been dismantled and removed.
Have a great day!
A major avalanche happened very recently along the Richardson Highway, about 20 or so miles from Valdez. Below are photos Jack was able to acquire from a friend – taken by Alyeska (and we hope no copyright has been violated by posting them here).
You can see here where the snow has covered the highway and the river that runs alongside it:
Here is the same thing but farther away.
And the rest are from another angle, showing the pooling of river water that is covering a long stretch of the highway.
So needless to say the Richardson Highway is closed and people who live in Valdez can only get out of the town by water or air. Jack says the snow will be removed by loaders but that sure seems like a dangerous job…!
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Merry Christmas everyone!
The below two videos show Jack driving over Atigun Pass through an area of road the state has cleared a tunnel through after an avalanche.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MYzo645ffY
(You might have to click on the 2nd video if it doesn’t come up like the first one.)
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Snow was falling only 3 weeks ago and now we’re getting 70 and 80 degrees every day! What a crazy spring we’ve had.
The snow is finally gone and what now occurs in Fairbanks, Alaska (as well as in many other northern areas I assume) is that the veil of white puffy stuff is lifted to show gobs and gobs of TRASH!
Yes, trash everywhere. Wet cardboard boxes, broken pieces of Styrofoam, and all forms of plastic like cups, bags, kitchen utensils, food containers of all sizes. You name it, it’s out there. Beer bottles and to-go cups. It’s really sick. But it’s also entertaining. So a few years ago I decided to document this amazing array of trash on a website called www.trashoffairbanks.com. Take a look if you are interested! Here’s a sampling:
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A lady moose visited us the other day, wandering through on her search for bigger and better twigs to nibble. How an animal that size can sustain a pregnancy nibbling twigs, I have no idea. But you can see that she is big in the belly and really is on a search for the best most tender nutritious twigs. She makes her rounds daily I suspect, if our dog’s fear of going outside lately is any indication.
Moose and dogs are natural enemies since dog’s ancestors, wolves, are predators of moose. You would never see our dog trying to take down a moose though (lol). Somehow over the centuries the barking mechanism has taken over for the “try-to-eat” mechanism I guess. You can find examples of the moose-dog feud on You Tube.
Female moose with calves can be quite aggressive and believe it or not, violent. There have been quite a few moose tramplings in Alaska over the years, mostly in Anchorage. At least one man was killed by a moose protecting her calf in 1995.
So, this one doesn’t have a calf but it’s likely that her hormones have kicked in and she would probably not back down from a challenge. I stayed up on the deck totally out of her reach. When a person jogged by with their dog she was very attentive.
As they ran by, she didn’t take her eyes off of them until they were out of sight. And her ears were locked straight forward. I’ve never seen a moose so obviously aware of every movement in its surroundings.
She might be tough, but look at those beautiful eyelashes!
Nice beard, too! 🙂
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Hello Everyone – It looks like Jack is not going to be on the next season of Ice Road Truckers. Who knows what the future holds, but for now it doesn’t look like he is involved in filming in Canada for next season . We’ll keep posting though, so stay tuned!
Here is Jack a few weeks ago packing down snow so I can get out of our driveway the next morning. It was really coming down!
(Just so you know, one of the pleasures of living in Alaska is seeing the landscape after a heavy snow…beautiful!) 
We love New Years here in Alaska because you can actually see the fireworks! (As opposed to the 4th of July. Plenty of people celebrate the 4th of July with fireworks but it’s not the same with the midnight sun lurking along the horizon.)
Best wishes for the New Year!
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The Jack Jessee Blog 