Monday, July 30, 2007

Moose Misery


There is a moose outside my window at 5 am every morning. I named her Bridget. I know she’s there because the dogs start an off-key howling choir that can wake up any dormant bear in the vicinity. Bridget comes around and samples the brush, which apparently is more tasty than any other in the area because she stays, despite howling dogs and our feeble attempts to chase her away by throwing pebbles at her. Bridget stands firm. She weighs about a thousand pounds. Sometimes she’ll look at us and grunt loudly, sometimes she’ll charge towards her, but no times will she leave. We have good grass, what can I say. It’s a problem, though, as nice as you want to be to the locals, especially Bridget, she is, after all, a wild animal. Bridget is a mother, in theory, and with that comes the instinct to protect. In Bridget’s mind the dogs are actually wolves, and we are all there to kill her and her non-existent calf, therefore we deserve to be attacked with all the force her thousand pound body and flailing legs can muster. This makes her a dangerous animal when we run the dogs at 6 am. Which in turn makes her unwanted around our house, which is why we pebble her with gravel. But come September 1st we’ll bring out the big guns, and then Bridget will have to find other grazing grounds.

Wednesday, July 25, 2007

Title Track

To people in the world who care:

I completely forgot I was supposed to tell everyone where I am, and what I’m doing. It seems in my haste to be away I forgot that there are certain obligations to that effect. Apologies for my rudeness.

Here’s the deal. I’m in Alaska. Yes. AlasKa. It’s where they call the states the Lower 48, or just The States, as they themselves don’t really consider themselves a part of it. They’re a red state, not because they’re particularly conservative, but because they don’t want Alaska to change from being what it is to what the Lower 48 has become. It’s just in their best interest to keep liberal hands away, so they can continue with their refusal to join western society. Liberals want change, they see potential. Alaskans want to keep Alaska as close to the Gold Rush as possible, change is not on their agenda.

Alaska is where the Lower 48 go to get away from the Lower 48, where you successfully can hide away in the Bush from taxes, bills and lead a subsistence lifestyle equal to that of 100 years ago. Unless you're getting drunk on hairspray while watching soaps on TV. Phones aren’t used, if you want to see your neighbor for coffee you dial up the local radio station and tell them. They’ll send out the message. “Today’s forecast will be cold with some freezing temperatures down to 50 below, and if anyone’s seen Sidney in the last week, please tell him his presence is requested at Boothill Tom’s Thursday at 4 pm for coffee and caribou stew.” Bush radio.

It’s also where those who didn’t quite fit into the Lower 48 cities make their own here. Talkeetna is a city which is a village of hippies, who moan over the tourists that invade them during the summer, but live off the profits of the visit all winter, giving them ample time to spend hitting their drums and smoke their weed. It’s where people have come who’ve read books like Into the Wild, and any number of Jack London books, people who romanticize living off the land, killing squirrels and cutting trees, fishing and communicating with wolves and bears, all while suffering hypothermia and frostbite. It’s where people come to be different.

Alaska is the only state which has the same concept of time as a third world nation, things will happen sometime in the future, as long as the wood is cut and fish harvested before winter sets in. Things don’t carry much haste around here. In all their spare time they like to set records. For example, they have the most records per capita than any other state in the nation. They drink the most coffee, eat the most ice cream, have the most STDs, most space, worst teeth, most suicides, most plane crashes, most dogs, most mosquito bites, most fuel consumption, worst cars, the list is endless and all true.

So this is where I am, in case anyone was wondering why? I don’t know. But in the meantime I’ll continue to put some meat on this blog with all the wonders of Alaska I encounter while I ponder the reasons I’m here. Stay tuned for more bush radio.