I can’t get away from the state of Alaska. I’m not entirely sure why this is, but it has been haunting me for the past three years. Every time I turn around, there it is, with all of it’s gray icy mystique, persistent odor of fish and damp underbrush, drunk leering bearded men, millions of pairs of brown rubber boots strewn in millions of piles, and thousands of partially completed cabins wrapped hastily in Tyvek before the approaching winters.
When I first went up there to work for the summer my head was filled with the classic dreams of wilderness. Alaska. The very thought of it entices some people, and I counted myself among the enticed. I traveled north on the ferry, eagerly attempting to spot wildlife through the rain streaked windows and gray gloom. I spent ten weeks on Prince of Wales Island, a crummy, desolate place receiving over 130 inches of rain a year and popular amongst Texans who come all the way up there to blast away black bears and presumably hang them on their walls back in Texas. That ten weeks of camping in the rain quickly assassinated the Alaska mystique; in fact I cursed the state as I painstakingly set up big blue tarps over my campsites.
One pretty much needs gills to breathe in Southeast Alaska, and I found this out the hard way as I wiled away portions of three consecutive summers on the saturated forest service roads of islands in the Inside Passage. I was inventorying invasive plant species, and we would drive 0.25 mile, get out of the vehicle in our rustling rain gear, and walk 25 m in either direction as we wrote down every plant we saw. Back in vehicle, and repeat. 3000 times. Along the way we saw bears, moose, millions of Sitka spruce and hemlocks dripping with the weight of the incessant rain, muskeg, insane people residing in incredibly remote communities, totem poles, and the northenmost occurrence of a Douglas Fir (as far as I know).
Every year I come home to Portland, Oregon and kneel down and press my hands thankfully on the sidewalk, grateful for sidewalks and concrete and Tofu Scrambles and traffic lights and sunshine in the summertime and cultivated gardens and affordable apples at the grocery store.
And now I find myself faced with yet another work related trip to Alaska. I depart one week from today for several weeks of field work, looking for rare plants and wetlands along a proposed natural gas pipeline. It is time for me to put aside the thoughts of doom and gloom and gray liquid misery. I must grasp onto the good- the glittery Alaska gems that give people the itchy desire to go there in the first place.
Nobody can argue that Alaska is not beautiful. Come to think of it, I could maybe argue that parts of it are ugly (the rickety canneries, the vomit around every corner when the bars close), but I would be hard pressed to discount the majesty of the glaciers, the wild forests, the great expanse of tundra, the sight of a great turquoise iceberg against a emerald green spruce forest. So there I have it: Alaska is beautiful. It will be a privilege to feast my eyes on such sights.
Nobody can argue that drinking in Alaska is not fun. Particularly in fishing communities, when the men roll in and stupidly squander an entire week’s worth of pay on increasing the drunkenness tenfold of some small speck of a crusty bar, the only place in town. It never gets completely dark in Alaska this time of year: the sun goes down but a murky twilight remains for a few before the sun pops up again. The dark dive bar will be your solace, your escape from the relentless daylight and the endless hours of possible work time. When the bars close, the inebriated patrons spill into the streets, blink in the sunrise, and kick the living shit out of each other. In Alaska bar brawls are alive and well, and since I haven’t been directly involved in one, I enjoy them for the entertainment factor they provide.
No one can argue that Alaska is not tough. In a pansy city full of pansy city boys that wear Carharts to look cool and can’t even change their own oil, it is extremely refreshing to become surrounded by rugged hairy people who are rugged and hairy because they have to be, not because they are Gay Bears or indie rockers that don’t even own a tool box. There is something nice about capable people, and the people in Alaska are remarkably capable.
There I have it, Alaska is beautiful AND provides for some good quality drinking around extremely capable people. I will put aside my Alaska bashing until I return, once again extolling the virtues of sidewalks and incapably hopeless indie rockers.