T R A NSP O RTAT I O N
Urban Aviation Anchorage airstrips tie the city to the sky By Katie Pesznecker
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reas of Alaska accessible only by airplane have elevated Bush pilots into heroes and contributed to the state having the most aircraft per capita, by far. One in fiftyeight Alaskans holds a pilot’s license, practically a necessity when 82 percent of communities are isolated except by air. Rural Alaska’s dependence on aviation is well understood, yet air travel has also shaped the state’s biggest city. Downtown Anchorage is literally defined by the edge of Delaney Park, formerly the city’s first airstrip. Beyond its reputation as the Air Crossroads of the World, Anchorage also sits at the crossroads of general aviation. “The Anchorage airspace is so complicated that the Federal Aviation Administration has come up with special rules and procedures just to operate inside the Anchorage airspace,” says Adam White, who manages government and legislative affairs for the Alaska Airmen’s Association. “We’ve got F-22s and Super Cubs in the same air space as 747s coming in. It’s crazy!” Fighter jets zoom over Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson. Merrill Field, the city’s first airport in 1930, is now the second busiest in the state. Alaska’s busiest, of course, is Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport (ANC), adjacent to Lake Hood Seaplane Base, the most active of its kind in the world. Apart from those major hubs, grassy airstrips and floatplane slips dot the Anchorage Bowl and outlying areas. The landscape shows a history where runway-ready aviators took advantage of existing geographical features or, in some cases, took matters into their own hands. “Dunkle’s Ditch” was the moniker assigned to the runway canal 60 | June 2022
completed in 1940 that joined Lake Spenard with Lake Hood to create the seaplane base. The canal concept came from geologist and aviator Wesley Earl Dunkle, who walked away from a crash in 1936 while taking off from Lake Spenard. Many Anchorage lakes used by pilots were less than ideal, according to historian David Reamer. Another man-made water option today is Campbell Lake Seaplane Base, dammed into existence by developers in 1959, known for its lavish lakeside homes.
“There’s another phrase pilots use, that airplanes are time machines because they save so much time… Those little airstrips help even more with that.” Adam White Government and Legislative Affairs Manager Alaska Airmen’s Association
Anchorage hosts two neighborhood airparks: the grassy Flying Crown Airpark in Oceanview, paralleling Alaska Railroad tracks, which dates to the ‘50s; and Sky Harbor Airport, a residential runway alongside Cange Street, between Huffman and O’Malley roads, where taxiways double as driveways. Both are tended by homeowners’ associations and lightly used by residents.
Elsewhere in the municipality, Eagle River has a couple of smaller, private airstrips, and also Fire Lake, between the Old and New Glenn Highways, a seaplane base for aircraft on floats and skis. The Birchwood Airport in Chugiak is a World War II remnant, as is the Campbell Airstrip in the Chugach Range foothills (though pilots may only access the Campbell Airstrip with permission of the US Bureau of Land Management). Birchwood, with 200 takeoffs and landings daily, is a state-owned airport, but talks are underway to transfer the property to the municipality. The state also operates Girdwood-Alyeska Airport, a base for heli-ski and sightseeing flights in the resort town.
One Mile from Anywhere “Merrill Field is the gateway to the Alaska Interior,” says airport manager Ralph Gibbs. “We are the second busiest airport in the entire state—not Fairbanks, not Juneau.” The airport bears the name of Russell Hyde Merrill, an aviation pioneer who died in 1929 on what was his third flight that day, en route to deliver supplies to Bethel. Today some 30 percent of the estimated 800 planes based there are commercial pilots who shuttle materials, services, and passengers to rural Alaska, says Gibbs. “I don’t know that Alaska would have developed in the way it did without aviation,” he adds. “It’s obvious to me that the history of Alaska was enabled by aviation.” White, a licensed pilot since 1990, agrees: “Aviation is the way to get around. You’ve probably heard the saying, if you build a mile-long road,
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