The Ski Journal • Volume 16, Issue 1 • THE NORTHERNMOST LIFT

A frigid ride to the top of the world aboard Ski Land’s Silver Star Express Lift. Just outside Fairbanks, AK, the northernmost lift in North America tops out at 2,435 feet. Photo: Jamie Kuhl

At 65 degrees north latitude, a cobalt blue bull wheel sits at the bottom of a spruce-lined basin. Its paint is badly chipped, revealing the age and tenacity of the steel underneath. The surrounding trees are spindly and stunted by extreme Alaskan winter, where temperatures commonly plummet to 40-below-zero, and midwinter daylight lasts no more than four hours. Yet the bull wheel seems unaffected, spinning slowly, steadily. This is the base of the Silver Star, the northernmost chairlift in North America.

Named after Silver Star, the British Columbia ski area from which it was purchased, the aging double chair makes a proud centerpiece for a sprawling network of forested runs at Ski Land, 20 miles north of Fairbanks, AK. On the grayest of days, its bright blue lattice towers and sunny yellow crash padding provide much-needed contrast. The 10-minute ride is cold—bitingly so if the wind blows. Gloves remain on, gaiters remain fastened, and blood pumps in anticipation of warming up on the next run. Skiers below travel in pods, hooting and hollering through secret stashes in the woods. Eventually, the low thrum of a combustion engine and the smell of diesel welcome riders back to the top of Mt. Aurora, about 1,000 vertical feet above the basin.

The Silver Star spins dutifully four days a week from December to April (barring temperature cutoffs of minus 36 degrees Fahrenheit), not only a pillar of the ski area for the last 30 years, but also a product of the community that rallied behind it.

In 1962, a group of friends acquired Ski Land’s then-virgin acreage from the state of Alaska as part of a free “industrial homestead” grant. They obtained gold-dredge equipment from nearby mining companies to power rope tows and cut Ski Land’s first runs by chainsaw. Driven by a shared love of skiing, they created what would become the longest-standing ski area in interior Alaska.

Jeff Fay started skiing at Ski Land in 1968 as a child, eventually serving countless operational roles during the ensuing five decades, from groomer to board member to the voice of the daily snow report. He explains that for the first three decades of operations, Ski Land was run on an entirely volunteer basis, functioning as one big family.

“You volunteered for an hour and a half, and then you got a free lift ticket,” Fay says. It was rare to see an unfamiliar face at Ski Land, and elaborate potlucks and Ski Lander of the Year awards united the community of hardy skiers.

But the used gold-dredging equipment that comprised the rope tows couldn’t be relied upon forever. When Steve and Brenda Birdsall acquired Ski Land in 1990, it was an opportune time to make historic changes. “There were lots of fixed-grip double chairlifts available for cheap because they were being replaced with fast detachable quads,” Fay says.

True to the shoestring nature of Ski Land, the Birdsalls purchased a retired 1976 Mueller double from Silver Star Mountain Resort, transporting the disassembled lift to Ski Land just in time for winter. “Steve put together a crew and installed it,” Fay says. “I own a Tucker Sno-Cat, and I helped him pull the towers down the hill. It was an exciting time. Steve had to be creative—dealing with the approach of winter, pouring concrete and installing the lift without roads or a helicopter.”

The two-seater chairlift may seem like a step back in time, but for Ski Land in 1990, the Silver Star’s addition was a leap into the future. Aaron Wilbur began skiing as a toddler about the time the Silver Star was installed, riding the chair with his dad’s ski pole across his lap as a makeshift safety bar. Though Wilbur and his sister would covet the fabled bubble lifts and bigger terrain of Alyeska in south-central Alaska in the ’90s, the Silver Star became a pivotal part of their ski lives, allowing the family to continue long-standing traditions at the beloved local ski area for decades to come. “You can see the world from up here,” Wilbur says. “It’s just that pure place.”

Around the hill, groms gather on granite boulders, looking for cliffs to drop in succession. Old-timers sneak off to well-known nooks among stunted spruce, regrouping with their friends at the bottom of the chair. At this latitude, a chairlift seems like an improbable gathering place, but thanks to a dedicated community, the Silver Star spins on, steel cables groaning, lattice towers standing tall and double chairs climbing into the dusty pink skies of winter in the far north.

The Ski Journal - Volume 16, Issue 1

THE NORTHERNMOST LIFT

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