Alaskan Wilderness

By: Emily Mehlman

Colorado State University, Class of 2012

For my last official summer, I wanted to gain vet experience while also seeking adventure and travel.  Alaska was the perfect place, having a paid externship opportunity in small animal emergency and miles of wilderness to explore. 

Anchorage was our base-camp of sorts and where we spent 4 weeks working at P.E.T. Emergency while hiking/running/biking around the area.  Even close to Anchorage there was much more exploration than one could do in a single month.  Every day I either ran in nearby Kincaid Park, biked to the Aleyeska (the local ski area), or found a good day hike around nearby glacier lakes.  Without having the limitations normally dictated by the nightfall, any hour was a fine time to enjoy the limitless outdoors. 

Even better, in my opinion, was the fact that most people were far less active than in Colorado.  Why was this so great?  Because we had all the trails to ourselves: over 300 miles of unpaved trails and 100 miles of paved trails.  The only caveat was the added danger of running into bear and moose on the trails.  I probably encountered moose on 25% of my runs.  The only Grizzly bear we encountered was in Denali National Park.

There was far too much recreating to be talked about in this blurb, everything from watching wolves and caribou near the base of the tallest mountain in North America (Denali National Park) to catching a 54-pound halibut while watching Orcas breeching around our boat outside of Ninilchik. 

The externship was exciting too, at least from 4-midnight (I don't recommend the slow dayshift).  The experiences ranged from a cat with chylothorax to a dog with a machete-induced open skull fracture.  At times there were multiple dogs having CPR performed at once.  There were a few wildlife encounters in the clinic too.  One of the vets at the clinic also worked part time at the Sealife Center.  Thus, locals brought her everything from baby musk ox to newborn seal pups.

All in all, this was an amazing externship and adventure.  I highly recommend a summer externship in Alaska, just make sure to leave enough time to thoroughly enjoy everything else this incredible state has to offer.