Teresa's Alaskan Adventure: The Sun Sets over the Tundra--in the South!

November 23, 2014

One of my dear friends told me a couple of months ago that she liked reading my blog posts and seeing my pictures, but that she wanted to know how I personally am doing. So I guess I’ll give that a few paragraphs; I haven’t taken a whole lot of pictures lately anyway!

It’s not a simple thing to describe, really. I miss my family and my friends, and when I was backpacking with Blake and Kristin in the Selkirk Mountains in September I realized that I miss the trees and the Idaho woods. But at the same time, I can’t explain why I feel so at home in Alaska and why I love it so much.

I can say a few reasons: this is a very warm, active, friendly community that has accepted me ad taken me in very quickly. It’s a nice size, although I find myself wanting to live in one of the smaller villages for a while to see what that’s like. Priest River, much as I love it, has been feeling increasingly too big and too contentious. I’m not so naïve as to think that there aren’t the same problems here—there are certainly drug and alcohol problems, theft, family problems and some poverty, but honestly—not as much as in Priest River and Newport. I have only had one or two drug seekers in the clinic and those were cannery workers from outside. All the kids go to one school and the whole community cares for and about them; the kids are really the center of this community. I don’t hear any wrangling that uses the school to push any political point of view or stance. Maybe it’s that the schools are better funded, but it’s also a cultural difference in attitude I think. Everyone is related in a dozen ways to everyone else (except for us newcomers), if not by blood then by history and proximity.

I was really struck when I first got here and went to some high school basketball games by how polite and well-mannered everyone was; there was no yelling at the refs, there was no protesting calls, there was only rooting for all the kids, and the kids always helped up anyone who fell down, even the other team, and congratulated them on good plays and commiserated with them on errors made. I think that kind of attitude and behavior is largely due to the native culture that is still woven through everything. It seems like the fewer people there are in a place and the more the environment makes you need each other, the better people tend to get along, in general. And there is still generally respect for elders.

I also like the way this is, in a lot of ways, still the frontier despite airplanes and cell phones and the internet. Like everywhere, there is the relentless intrusion of bureaucracy, rules, checklists of checklists, etc., but in a very real way we have to do what has to be done regardless of whether we have the exact right tools or credentials to do it with. Don’t get me wrong—I believe in the wisdom of guidelines, but not when it gets to the point that they make it impossible to do the RIGHT thing. For the most part, we are still allowed (and expected) to use common sense and do the right thing, and if you are dumb enough to get hurt by doing something stupid, we’ll help you out but don’t even for one minute entertain the idea of suing someone.

This is a big place, Alaska, and until you’ve flown over some of it it’s impossible to really begin to comprehend the incredible size and scale of it. I love the openness, the wildness, the freedom, the solitude here. I don’t feel crowded or claustrophobic. I love it that most everybody here lives a subsistence life, at least to some degree, even though we also can order just about anything on Amazon Prime. Most people still fish and hunt and gather berries to feed their families and dogs. It’s really given me a different point of view about those things; an older native man, when the well-healed tourist industry based on catch-and-release fishing was explained to him, said scornfully, “We don’t play with our food!” For the locals, fishing is not a sport, its part of feeding yourself and the family and for many is also a large part of their income.

So there is an undefinable but undeniable feeling of belonging here and coming home since I first visited Alaska in 2004 with my fire team. I was notified in Sept. that I have been accepted into the student loan program, which is unfortunately not retroactive to the date I was hired here, but still will be a very welcome respite from some of my astronomic student loan debt. I plan to be here at least 3 years from the end of Sept. (unless something completely unforeseen happens), and then I’ll reevaluate. I’m very happy here, and I feel very fulfilled. I love my job, finally, as well as my work. And I’m pretty busy most of the time, but much less of that is time working and much more is a social life and doing the things I love; very different from the last two years in Priest River.

So I guess I just went on and on about me and didn’t write anything else this time—this is for you, Maria! I will leave you with some pictures and the always-entertaining Unalaska police report (which is for you, Cassie).

Unalaska Police Report (Unalaska is the town at Dutch Harbor down the Aleutian chain)

Oct. 16 Suspicious Person/Activity

A man with a swollen toe told the officer who stopped him as he was trundling along the roadway that he and his erstwhile companions had liberated a wheelchair from the hotel, to more comfortably enable his return to his vessel. The thief whose license was suspended, was dispossessed of his stolen wheels and made to walk to his boat. The hotel did not care to press charges.

Oct. 17 Robbery

The wheelchair thief, accompanied by his two erstwhile companions, stole a wallet fom a taxi driver's purse and then refused to pay the fare when the driver demanded that he exit the vehicle and return her wallet. The driver had no interest in pursuing charges and wished only to have the cab fare recovered.

Oct. 24 Harrassment

Taxi Driver B complained that Taxi Driver A is harassing her by approachig her taxi and taking photos of her. An officer explained to the various involved parties that continuing this pattern of behavior could result in the suspension of their taxi permits.

Nov. 3 Animal

Caller asked for assistance removing what he believed to be a fox in his attic. He later determined it was perhaps not a fox after all, though its true identity remained a mystery.

Nov. 5 Criminal Mischief

An inmate who was hanging on to the bars of his cell and screaming that he was dead and had no pulse was able to find the energy to throw a remote control down the corridor, breaking it into several pieces.

Nov. 8 Civil

Caller spoke with an officer about the legality of his wife having turned his dog in to an Anchorage-based shelter after it bit her dog.

Guess the holidays bring out the best in all of us!