I wrote this column the Fourth of July 2002, the year after 9/11. It was published in Alaska magazine in September 2002, is collected with all my other columns and features in an e-book, Alaska Traveler: Dispatches from Alaska’s Frontier, and is now available in audio. I’ve been thinking a lot about freedom of late,…
JUST DO IT YOURSELF, OKAY? [from Alaska magazine February 2003 issue, and one of sixty or so columns and articles I wrote for Alaska magazine, now collected in Alaska Traveler. Click on the cover below to buy your copy.] [N.B. I try to keep the recommendations and the links current but if I’ve steered…
It is a scene repeated over two thousand times a year from Icy Bay to Kodiak, from summer, when the sun never sets and the volume of ship traffic in SWAPA’s service area triples, to winter when Knik Arm and Valdez Arm fill with ice. SWAPA pilots are responsible for the safe delivery to the…
Dana Handeland already has one lodger, a Norwegian tourist and “I get five people tomorrow, four volunteers who are working their way up the trail and a guy who says he’s a stand-in on NYPD Blue who is bringing a lot of camera equipment.” “The Iditarod traveler is a different kind of traveler,” Dana says.…
The scow is moored on the north-facing shore. A hand-painted sign which reads “Espresso!” sits in a skiff anchored in the middle of the cove. “It marks a reef, too,” Jim says. Good to know. Inside, the tiny house looks like any other espresso stand, black and chrome espresso machine, refrigerator, soda water dispenser, and…
Okay, who wants to make the Bush Caesar salad? This is the one made with the least desirable products off the shelf, according to my recipe.” Well, I’m a Bush girl. I raise my hand, and take my place at the salad table at the head of the room. We start with powdered garlic and…
It’s about eleven-thirty, most of the ship has turned in. I’m brushing my teeth and Engineer Officer Lt. Tony Erickson knocks on the door to tell me we have a SAR case. I shoot up to the bridge. A fisherman on a longliner about 25 miles away has got a fishhook through his eye. His…
Traditionally Bad Girls opens Fridays from 4-9 p.m. and Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. I’ve never been to a Friday night Bad Girls opening that doesn’t make a salmon spawning stream in July look positively roomy. It might have something to do with the fact that they serve wine and hors d’oeuvres opening…
The Great Alaska Beer Train, the product of a brainstorming session between the people at Glacier Brewhouse, an Alaskan restaurant and brewery, and the folks at Alaska Railroad is an annual four-hour train ride from Anchorage to Portage and back, with beer and food served on route. It is also the answer to any Anchoragite’s…
From Chapter 15 of Alaska Traveler: The Aleut visor is one of those marvelously ambidextrous Native traditions that work on both a practical and an aesthetic level. A wooden cap with no crown and an extended bill, a visor protects the hunter from the glare of the sun, the splash of the sea spray, and…