a wise man once told me that alaska is the most beautiful place on earth.

he could be right.

its beauty is in the alpenglow that bathes the snowy mountains in pink and orange light for as the sun casually makes its way back behind the horizon from whence it came; its beauty is in the churning chunks of ice that tumble and crunch, together and apart, forming and reforming as they respond to the influences of the alternating currents, the fishing boats, and the dynamic weather;  its beauty is in the plenitude of the massive animals that make these cold waters and this barren tundra their home, and in do doing teach the people what is necessary for survival in a frozen world, the symbiotic relationships among beings and beasts, and how to adapt to an ever-changing homeland.  its beauty is in its remoteness, in the imposing silence that blankets the land, in its demand for ruggedness from its inhabitants.  it's unforgiving land.  here, you don't get a second chance to mistake nature's power.  

we lived in anchorage.  some say you can see alaska from anchorage, which starts about 30 miles out in any direction from the city. we lived downtown; we had a nice private room  in a hostel that offers a winter community, mainly for folks coming in from the bush (alaska-speak for most of the land, that which is off the road system), coming in from the boats (fishing boats), the north slope (oil workers) or coming in from the parks (tourist season in denali, for example). 

anchorage is a utilitarian city.  it was built over its original tent city some years ago, and just left that way.  it's been a state for less than fifty years, and up here at the end of nowhere, they aren't bothered with too much, and so the adage of, 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it' has really held on in anchorage. all the buildings are square, blocky numbers with no ornamentation.  all are weathered and worn, darkened with years of exposure to the harsh elements.  the roads don't really get plowed as most folks would define it.  it's more like the snow gets brushed off so you get an idea of where the sides of the road are.  at times it seems to say, "what, you want it clear?  you live in alaska, don't you  have four-wheel drive?"   the sidewalks  in some areas are apparently just for summer use, while downtown they are better maintained than the roads. 

downtown is an overstatement.  it's a quaint little collection of buildings a few blocks by a few blocks, with more furriers than restaurants.  yes, i said furriers.  apparently p.e.t.a. hasn't made it up here lately. fur coats, boots, mittens, hats, dolls dressed in fur, and even good old-fashioned pelts hanging upside-down in shop windows.  and then there's the ivory trade, alive and well.  miniatures and statues of walrus tusk ivory, from a figurine of a seal or a fisherman to a chess set of ornately carved ivory pieces.  my sister asked me to bring her a wall decoration, something fabric, not a photograph or painting (she's been a bit spoiled by my forays in asia, clearly).  i thought about it, and said, "well, i could get her a fox pelt." 

no, i didn't, but she was well-horrified at the thought.

the thing is, though, all of this work in fur and ivory is a reflection of the land and its people.  the alaska natives have long lived in symbiosis with the great creatures of this land, and it is only through this relationship that they have survived for thousands of years.  alaska natives are afforded fishing rights and hunting rights in support of maintaining a subsistence lifestyle, access to free medical care, and other benefits we could only wish our forefathers had had the acumen to offer to the native peoples of the rest of the continent and to hawaiian natives.   and so, i understand why all of this is for sale in anchorage.  i get it.  but there is a big difference between several village fishermen bringing in a seal, cooking its blubber for oil, its meat to feed the dogs that drive the sleds and protect the homes, preparing its gut for waterproof clothing for seafaring voyages, and using its bones as well...there's a big difference between that and an ivory chess set.

ehem.

so, back to anchorage...the city is surrounded by snow-covered mountains, resplendent with little sanctuaries of nature, and filled with hidden delights. where else can you be scurrying around in the freezing cold, walking across the wind-whipped parking lot of the shopping place and see the big box store with the backdrop of snowy peaks in alpenglow?  i used to walk from the restaurant where i worked to my favorite little spot, resolution park.  in winter it is a simple affair of a wooden-planked deck overlooking the cook inlet.  it had a little (big) sign explaining which mountains you could see across the inlet.  i just liked it.  it was my main motivation for getting out of one shift on time before arriving to the next, that i would have time to go to my park.  and on the snowy days, you bundle warmly and walk....down to the shipyard was my favorite, out to the point on the docks...so incredibly cold out there, but so beautiful. 

and nature offered a gift i was always grateful for...the crystals of hoar frost that coat every branch of every tree...in the weak  sunlight, they glow, midday they sparkle. and in the darkness, they remain starkly beautiful and bright.  and, they are everywhere. 

the alaska natives are kind and gentle people, friendly, fun, committed to family and village and tradition.  they come into the city by float plane for supplies, for conferences pertaining to their land rights and the preservation of their ways of life, for medical care.  it feels a bit funny to try and talk too much about the natives, because i wasn't in the villages, i was in the city.  i met the people from the villages and the bush when they came to town and ate in my restaurant or i met them at the conferences or markets selling their hand made crafts.  there are opportunities to live in the villages, to work with the native people and learn their ways of life.  this is the true experience of how they live and what it takes to live in this land.  this, at some point, i hope to do.

but, for bright light there is always a shadow, and for the alaska natives that shadow is what alcohol does tot heir bodies.  it is poison to their bodies.  it is not metabolized properly.  it ruins them.  you see natives in town, stumbling drunk, bleary-eyed and aged beyond their years.   they become incapacitated. there is a police unit, i think it's called dps, designated just to this alcohol problem, and daily you see the officers collecting people from the street and putting them into the van.  if i understand it properly, they go to the dry out center, stay for up to thirty days, and then are released.  among the homeless, native or not, there's a system:  you stay at one of the shelters for the time you're allowed, again, i think it's thirty days, and then you're out for a period of time.  but if you get picked up by this alcohol police unit, you can get thirty days in dry out, so even a guy who doesn't drink anymore will throw back a bottle of whiskey to get himself inebriated, get picked up and taken in for thirty days.  if you take the bus or walk around downtown, you become quite familiar with this story.  it's common to see the van pull up and the police to come out and help an inebriated person into the van.  what impressed me was the compassion.  every time i saw the officers helping someone, they were patient and kind, they seemed genuinely interested in helping. 

one afternoon walking home, i saw a young native man struggling to stand up, his duffle bag on the ground and his hands on his bag, his body bent over with great effort.  as i walked toward him to help him, he fell, face first onto the icy pavement.  i helped him to roll over, his face scraped and bloody, and his whole large body now lying in cold slushy puddles on the side of the busy road.  i called to some guys on a smoke break for help, and one came while the other called dps.  within minutes the van was there, along with five or six local people, and the young man was lifted into the van. 

when i got home, i was sharing the story with alec.  right away he asked, "who was it?  what did he look like?"  i jsut stared at him and repeated, "young alaskan native..."  he explained, "i want to know if he's one of my mates."  alec went most mornings down to beans cafe to see about day laboring.  people needing help moving furniture, cleaning up junk, or loading a truck pull in and pick up a few guys as they need them.  beans cafe is the soup kitchen, next door to the brother francis homeless shelter.  the shelter let out at 6:00am and beans opened.  folks went in for their breakfast, and those interested stood outside waiting for opportunities for day labor.  in this, alec met lots of beans' characters and learned a lot about the homeless story in anchorage.  it's from him i learned about the shelters and the dps dry out center.  he reiterated the schedule shared by at least one man of each place to get a meal in the course of a day and at what times they were serving.  and one evening, when walking home we found a man passed out in a doorway, it was through alec explaining to me the shelter story that i was able to understand the importance of learning from the man at which shelter he was staying before putting him in a cab, because if he was registered to be at one and we sent him to another, they wouldn't be able to take him in.  and, as it was about 7 degrees farenheit that evening, being out on the street for the night wasn't an option.

out in the bush, the alcohol problem is handled a bit differently.  there are about 200 villages in alaska, and 136 of those have voted to be dry.  dry villages maintain a prohibition on alcohol sales, importation, production, or consumption.  there are also damp communities, usually larger hubs providing municipal services to the villages. in a damp community, limitied amounts and kinds of alcohol can be imported for personal use.  the laws, however, are strict.  in many damp towns, a violation of the ordinance can result in a class c felony.  this isn't to say there isn't alcohol coming in to damp towns and even to dry villages.  bootlegging and smuggling are prevelant.  it is, however, a strong recourse state wide to combat this poisoning of the alaska natives.

alaskan people, native or not, are as rugged as the land. the non-natives may or may not have been born and raised in the last frontier, but each has a frontier spirit, a love of the land, a respect for nature.  many came as wide-eyed young backpackers on a holiday and never left.  many more came later in life, to get away from the hustle and bustle of more modern and complicated living.  still others simply followed their hearts, and their hearts lead them to alaska.  none see any reason to leave.

people here are down to earth, back to nature, and living simply. it's common to have a remote cabin in the bush, accessible only by float plane, with no electricity and no running water.  people spend their time hiking, boating, fishing, skiing, and gardening.  people are warm, friendly, and easygoing.  there are no pretenses, no reasons to impress, and folks will help you out before you could even think to ask for it. 

i was homeschooling an autistic boy in eagle river.  i took the bus, and his mom picked me up at the bus station, then dropped me off again in the afternoon (!).  one day, while waiting for the bus, chris was still there waiting to ensure the bus arrived, as she knew i had to go straight to the restaurant for my next shift.  after ten minutes she called dispatch and learned the bus would be 20 minutes late, and quite matter-of-factly she said, "well then, i'll just drive you.  ask those other folks waiting if anyone needs a ride to town."  minivan loaded, chris drove us all to anchorage. 

just because.

our one venture out was through the kindness of a local. alec helped a guy move some things from his house, and they hit it off.  by day's end, demitri had offered alec the keys to his extra car and his cabin on kenai lake.  it was an amazing trip.  the silence was deafening, as i heard my own breathing.  it was broken only by the sound of alec chopping wood.   we cooked and read and played scrabble by the light of the oil lantern.  we walked in the new snow along the shore of kenai lake and gazed out the window at icicles forming on the eaves.  we wished we could stay forever.

so, yeah.  gotta return.  and we have plans for this.  soon.

see you there?