n your way into Tok from Canada, you'll pass Northway Junction. Northway Village is 7 miles off the road, and is named after Chief Walter Northway, who lived to be 117, and died in 1993. (Its Athabascan name is "Naabia Niign," which means "Our Village Along the River.") Chief Northway saw his first gold miners as children, and is said to have helped save their lives. (Contrary to popular belief, many of the gold rush stampeders of a hundred years ago were not particularly good woodsmen.)

Northway and nearby Tetlin are Athabascan Indian villages. The town of Northway itself has some of the coldest winter temperatures in Alaska. There are many advantages to living so far north, however.

For instance, as the photo shows, living close to the Tetlin National Wildlife Refuge gives young people from Tetlin Village a chance to participate in banding osprey with state and federal agencies.

Northway has a post office, a school, an airport, and a population of about 350 people. Two miles south of the village, there's an airport with a U.S. Customs Office. Photo: H. Timm, Tetlin National Wildlife Refuge