Northern Lights Experience and Cabin Dinner

The experience was phenomenal. I would recommend it to anyone. The tour guide Paul was very knowledgeable and very thoughtful on time and kept us entertained for the entire trip. Joe was our cook. The food was sensational. Jerry was our dog guide. He was very knowledgeable about the area and the dogs. I felt safe as we were on our sled ride.

The tour, salmon dinner, and Elijah’s guiding were great. Elija told us stories based on local lore (including Big Foot, he neither accepts nor denies seeing it ;-) ) and his travels to Arctic circle and other places. He was our driver as well. Overall we had a great experience, it was a great tour. Thanks 1st Alaska Tours, Elijah, and Joe who prepared our dinner. I recommend this tour.

Our guide Joe was very informative,down to earth,personable,friendly,definitely would take another tour with him.

I’m going to be brutally honest here, so buckle up. There was ONE good thing about this tour and that was the communication between the scheduler and us. They kept us updated about the tour and the times of pickup. Pickup was on time and then the tour went downhill from there. Our tour guide was Paul who was polite, but told stories that were inappropriate, and crass. He told us of a dare he took to slap a moose on the rump, thought it was funny, and compared slapping a moose’s rump to all of the other butts he’d slapped. When we reached the “lodge”, a yurt, another guide, Joe, was there with his group. He talked non stop and showed us pictures on his phone of some moose by his place for an hour. No one was interested and he just didn’t get it that we weren’t there to look at his phone pictures. While he was “entertaining”us, Lisa, our cook was preparing our meal of “charcuterie, a stale cracker with salami and sweaty cheese, a very limp green salad and ranch dressing, and a pretty presentation of dry, overcooked salmon and rice. We were the first table served and it took about twenty minutes to serve the rest of the salmon to the other guests. MEANWHILE, Joe and Paul were tag teaming telling us stores, showing us more pictures from the phone, and Paul reciting a decent, but long, poem about a gold miner. Paul then brought out objects from a ziplock bag, including a oosik, a walrus penis bone and excitedly told us about it and asked us if we wanted to hold. There were three teenagers in the room and this seemed inappropriate and vulgar. Paul and Joe kept going outside to see if there were any northern lights, and there weren’t, but we knew that there was a risk of not seeing any, and that was not their fault. When we left at 2:00 after sitting there since 10:30, we then had to listen to more of Paul’s inappropriate non stop talking until we got back to our hotel. I WOULD NOT recommend this tour to anyone . I would give this experience a terrible review even if we had seen the northern lights. It was a long, painful night!

What an incredible experience seeing the Northern Lights for the first time! It was a jaw-dropping experience to watch the dancing light show caused by the solar wind. And to think we were just about to leave but Ash, our tour guide with 1st Alaska Tours, caught it and it was an experience I will never forget! I can't say enough good things about Ash. From the time he picked us up until the time of drop off, he was so accommodating and considerate of the needs of the entire group. He had boundless positive energy, and shared his passionate and unique perspectives of life in Alaska. We also opted for the dinner as well and it did not disappoint. Overall, I highly recommend this tour, especially if you get Ash as your guide!