Buh-bye Alaska

I'm back home, in Sitka, for a few weeks while I study up for my board exams. Probably the last time I'll spend here, perhaps the last time I'll be in Alaska at all. There are things I truly hate about this place. I hate the Alaskan (well, to be fair- it's the American) mentality that everything is here for us to exploit. That Alaska is full of resources for us to use, and damn the consequences. We want to dam, drill, fish, log, dredge and mine every last ounce of natural resources that we can get our grubby little hands on. Then, when we've extracted all the assets from the land, we'll go ahead and build 5,000 square foot McMansions and sell them off as vacation properties to wealthy businessmen who come here for the rapidly disappearing halibut fishing.

I hate that we ship everything (everything we eat, everything we wear, everything we use to clean our carpets or fix our vehicle) a thousand miles or more. I hate that after we've used it, we ship it back a thousand miles to a landfill in Washington.

But then. I lay in bed, where there are no sounds of traffic and I listen to the lap of the waves on the beach. I walk the dog along the river and watch the eagles pick their supper out of the salmon-clogged, shade-dappled pools. I won't find this anywhere else. Yeah, the weather is shitty and Alaskans are annoying. Still, I'm proud to have been here. To have seen as much of Alaska as I have (from Barrow to Nome to Bethel to Metlakatla). I had my Alaska adventure, seen caribou and moose and polar bears and grizzly bears. I've been lowered out of helicopters to mountainsides and sinking ships. I've attended potlatches and Native dances. I've been out with subsistence hunters and fishermen, camping in the mountains and lost the ocean. But, now it's time to move on. Thanks, Alaska.