Thursday, August 30, 2007

The Mothership



I’m currently concocting a story about squatters in Fairbanks. People who live year round rent free on public land, much to government Bush’s dismay. But this is Alaska, and as I mentioned before, things take time here, so many of these cabins have seen three or more generations of people move through their doors before they actually get the boot. One such cabin is called the Mothership (they all have names passed down from squatter to squatter), and virtually everybody I've talked to has at one time mentioned this cabin. So I figured it was an important “historic” place to see and include in the story. A squatter I know took me into the wild, past the rail road tracks to visit the Mothership. She didn’t know who lived there, and she asked me not to make pictures right away, not until we'd talked to them. They could be jittery Alaskans with itchy trigger fingers, you never know. The trail was scattered with remnants of people, trash, bottles, the usual junk you find around cabins of nifty people who save scraps for future use. After a 10 minute hike we finally get to a clearing nestled between birch trees, the perfect spot for a cabin, only it wasn’t there. Only a gaping hole with charred wood remained. Unbeknownst to anyone, someone had burnt down the Mothership.

Friday, August 24, 2007

Permed White Hair




I check my email at the hotel right by our shack. It’s only a 15 min bike ride, so it’s the closest around, and I have to say I find great amusement watching all the tourists flowing through the lobby as I steal my way onto their wireless. There’s a comforting consistency in these people, mostly gray haired, with bellies overflowing their pants, held up by both belt and suspenders at the same time, wobbling around looking like acorns on stick legs. They also smell like the entire perfume section at Macy’s, and most of them talk about moose and northern lights with an overly excited enthusiasm so common in americans. I like to play the guessing game as to why they’re here, but judging by their age it seems most of them want to see the 49th state and all its vastness because they've already taken their mobile home everywhere else. Perhaps it is a last minute preparation for when they themselves have moved on to their own Last Frontier.

Wednesday, August 22, 2007

Conversions

Jesse the Bushman and Othello

Othello refuses to leave the dogyard, he sees the strange man standing at the other end and knows something is up. It is the day he is to go from being a racing sled dog to becoming a bush dog, one that helps pull a freight sled, which is crucial in a state with no roads. Othello is allergic to something, noone can figrue out what, and that makes him unfit for racing.

The previous owner, Sigrid the Iditarod musher, stands next to the new owner, Jesse the Bushman, and carefully asks all the questions a good caretaker would ask; do you have enough money for food, will he have a house, will you mind his food allergy? Translation: will you love him as much as I do. Jesse the Bushman promises to take good care of this special dog, which means so much to Sigrid the Iditarod musher. It is the third dog she ever got, he came out of a kennel and from a musher she admires. He is a happy dog who doesn’t get into trouble, eats well and never complains. Othello is getting a Shakespeareian end to his racing career, sealed by a tearful farewell.

Fall time in Alaska is like dog musical chairs. They go from being racing dogs to bush dogs, from bush dogs to racing dogs, race dogs to pets and pets to race dogs. It’s a merry-go-swap with all the mushers minding the juggling act by bardering anything and everything, or sometimes just giving them away for free. It seems the trade winds have missed their latitude and hit the arctic.

Saturday, August 18, 2007

The First Aurora


She came to visit on August 15th, a rarity this early. Caused by the interaction of particles from the sun with the upper atmosphere near the North Pole, she dances across the sky and causes everyone to freeze and stare. Many traffic accidents can be attributed to the appearance of AB. On the South Pole she's called Aurora Australis, but that's far away and another blog altogether.

The Romans named their goddess of dawn Aurora, so that's how she got her name. Borealis has something to do with the north wind, slap them together and you have the official name for nothern lights. The eskimos believe that she is the result of torches held by spirits already in heaven guiding new spirits through the holes in the sky. Whatever the case, she's a definite sign that the sun is leaving, the winter is coming, and it's time to get out the wool clothes.

Thursday, August 16, 2007

Things You Hear In A Small Town



Did you hear that Billy’s cousin’s friend’s daughter’s boyfriend’s sister went behind her best friend’s sister’s back and dated her boyfriend on the side? And if that’s not enough she also stole her dog, and borrowed her truck one weekend she was away for work. Can you IMAGINE! The nerve of that girl. And we all thought she was a lesbian, what was she doing having an affair on the side while she so obviously was dating that girl that no one likes with all the tattoos on her arms? Better keep your boyfriend away from her, she’s obviously is a thief of men...oh, hold on here she comes...hiiiiiiiiiiiii, how aaare youuuuuu?

Friday, August 10, 2007

They cut the cable

Earlier today I went to the local university to do my weekly dilly-dallying on the internet, only to find that nothing was connected. No email, no nytimes.com, no norwegian newspapers, nothing. Strange, I thought, this is usually such a high speed connection, it has never let me down. I nervously wonder if they finally caught me surfing for free, I am after all visiting the network without an invitation. I try all the tricks I know, and make up some new ones, but finally bite the dust and go to the information counter. Why is it that the internet has seized to work, I ask, nonchalantly in case they are on to me hacking their system. Oh, they cut the cable in Anchorage, was the swift reply, as if this was a daily occurrence, one which doesn't affect anyone at all, when in fact all internet connections in the state seem to come via the two universities in Anchorage and Fairbanks. They cut the cable in Anchorage, a visual comes to mind of some drunk hobo deciding that he’d finally had it with the way of the world and elected himself leader of the coalition to end NASA’s great invention of the Web, starting in Alaska, subsequently digging up the cable that connects the whole state to the world and cutting it with one great snap. They cut the cable in Anchorage. Ohwell...

Wednesday, August 8, 2007

Visitors



We had the good fortune of four boys visiting from Norway. They’re on somewhat of an adventurous trip to the Brooks Range where they’ll be setting off down the Noatak River all the way to Kotzebue. This is a part of Alaskan recreation. People pay thousands of dollars to have a bush plane set them off in the middle of nowhere equipped with a canoe, guns, some food and a burning desire to join the wilderness for weeks on end, perhaps even becoming a part of it. Then, at the end of said trip, packing up the canoe, and returning to the obligations of civilization, nestled under florrescent lights and cozy computer screens, remembering that time and place when life was dependent on the ability to hunt their food, if only for a few weeks.

Tuesday, August 7, 2007

Falling Water and Another Moose


I never thought I’d admit to this, but my average shower these past three months have been something like twice a week. If that. There’s no running water here, people fetch water in huge water-tanks on the back of their disintegrating pickups, which leaves for a smelly town where stinky applies to all and no one cares. I have to say, not showering makes you appreciate the greeks for coming up with something so wonderful as an in-house waterfall. The lightness of your hair afterward, the smell of shampoo, soap and clean armpits, stains you hoped were bruises turning out to be just dirt, things I had no idea to put on my top-5 list is now my entire top-5. I salute you, shower, as my new salvation from being sullied.
Cleanliness is next to godliness. Or so I like to think.

In other news Bridget The Moose has sent reinforcements to the ongoing war, and now Ophelia has appeared with a calf in tow. I think we've collectively thrown our hands in the air and declared this to be a moose state.