Alaska Archives | Carol L. Douglas

July 27, 2022July 27, 2022

From the archives: Extreme painting

My guest expert (my daughter) wrote this post in 2018, because I was indisposed due to medical tests. I’m having tests again today (one of life’s eternal verities) and was reminded of this classic.

The Road to Seward, Alaska, by Carol L. Douglas

Dear Carol,

Last week, you mentioned the wild turkeys near your residency. I am, unfortunately, afflicted with both hoplophobia and meleagrisphobia – fears of guns and those creatures most fowl. When is it appropriate to pepper spray a turkey?

Yours, Allie N., New Mexico

Allie,

I have good news and I have bad news. As of 1992, the EPA was still looking for data on the effectiveness of capsaicin (the active spicy spice that makes spices spicy) against birds.¹They accepted that it was probably effective against birds, in addition to other animals. Obviously, it has been several years since then. Two scientists at the University of California, San Francisco, discovered in 2002 that, while birds have the vanilloid receptors that taste capsaicin for us, theirs are immune to capsaicin.² In conclusion, you could probably pepper spray a turkey and it would irritate and startle him. However, you’d get the same effect by shrieking and flapping your arms wildly. In my opinion, the perfect time to pepper spray a turkey is directly before he goes into the oven.

Mary Helen

The Alaska Range, by Carol L. Douglas

Greetings Carol,

It’s my favorite time of year here in Success, Saskatchewan – the air is crisp and clear, the leaves are changing, and it’s finally moose season. I can’t wait to make all my favorite moose recipes once my wife comes back from hunting. Moose chili, moose enchiladas, moose tartare, coleslaw with moose meatballs, moose bulgogi – you name it, I’ll eat it! I love going with my wife on her hunting trips all around the wilderness of Saskatchewan. You’ve been there. You know how it is! It’s a great time to do some plein airpainting while enjoying some quality time with the missus. How can I best keep myself from getting mistaken for a moose? You know, we share so many of the same features.

Bill Winkleman, Saskatchewan

Bill,

Moose season in Saskatchewan this year is from October to December. Soon it will be too cold to do much painting en plein air. However, here’s good advice on how to avoid being mistaken for a large ungulate:

Wear brightly-colored clothing when out in the woods. I recommend a large, heavily starched tie-dye wizard’s hat.
Try to sing as loudly as possible at all times. It’s common knowledge that moose are fans of jazz and Scandinavian black metal, so stick to old pop standards and famous Canadian sea shanties.

You may find that when you’re painting en plein air, you may find moose walking around en trails. Worse than that, you may find that some enterprising hunter has left moose entrails en trails and you have to walk gingerly. I recommend wellies.

Mary Helen

Confluence, by Carol L. Douglas

Carol –

My Oma and I are planning a cycling trip up the Alaska Highway next summer. We’ve already begun shopping for a truly inspiring collection of very tight, padded shorts and we’ve got our cameras ready to see all the wildlife. How do you get your best photos of bears?

Hildegard

Hildy,

It’s GREAT to hear from you again! My advice for taking photos of bears from your bicycle from the shoulder of the Alaska highway is, uh, DON’T!

Black bears can run between 25 and 30 miles an hour and brown bears can run even faster. A ridiculously lost polar bear can run even faster than that! For comparison, your 97-year old grandmother can probably only manage about ten miles an hour. Just put something to make noise in the spokes of your bike and leave the bears alone. Instead of stopping to photograph them as they forage on the roadside, why not take a quick snapshot of the other tourists taking their picture as you zoom by to safety?

Laird Hot Springs, by Carol L. Douglas. This was the site of a fatal bear attack in 1997.

In July 2018, conservation officers in British Columbia responded to 25 calls about grizzlies and 179 calls about black bears.^3,4The Yukon Government reported that at least 63 bears were killed in Yukon,⁵a five-year high. Human interaction with bears is not only dangerous for the humans, but dangerous for the bear. Remember – a fed bear is a dead bear.

Mary Helen

R.E.D. Facts – Capsaicin. (1992, June). Environmental Protection Agency.
Jordt, S., & Julius, D. (2002, February 8). Molecular basis for species-specific sensitivity to “hot” peppers. Cell, 108(3), 421-430.
Predator statistics: black bear. (2018, September). Conservation Officer Service of British Columbia.
Predator statistics: grizzly bear. (2018, September). Conservation Officer Service of British Columbia.
63 bears destroyed in Yukon this year because of human conflict. (2017, November 29). CBC News.

October 1, 2018July 26, 2022

Monday Morning Art School: Extreme painting

Hunting season is approaching, posing unique issues for the plein air painter. I’m having (routine) medical tests this morning, so I asked a guest expert (my daughter) to answer my mailbag.

The Road to Seward, Alaska, by Carol L. Douglas

Dear Carol,

Yours, Allie N., New Mexico

Allie,

Mary Helen

The Alaska Range, by Carol L. Douglas

Greetings Carol,

Bill Winkleman, Saskatchewan

Bill,

Wear brightly-colored clothing when out in the woods. I recommend a large, heavily starched tie-dye wizard’s hat.
Try to sing as loudly as possible at all times. It’s common knowledge that moose are fans of jazz and Scandinavian black metal, so stick to old pop standards and famous Canadian sea shanties.

Mary Helen

Confluence, by Carol L. Douglas

Carol –

Hildegard

Hildy,

It’s GREAT to hear from you again! My advice for taking photos of bears from your bicycle from the shoulder of the Alaska highway is, uh, DON’T!

Laird Hot Springs, by Carol L. Douglas. This was the site of a fatal bear attack in 1997.

Mary Helen

R.E.D. Facts – Capsaicin. (1992, June). Environmental Protection Agency.
Jordt, S., & Julius, D. (2002, February 8). Molecular basis for species-specific sensitivity to “hot” peppers. Cell, 108(3), 421-430.
Predator statistics: black bear. (2018, September). Conservation Officer Service of British Columbia.
Predator statistics: grizzly bear. (2018, September). Conservation Officer Service of British Columbia.
63 bears destroyed in Yukon this year because of human conflict. (2017, November 29). CBC News.

December 22, 2017

Be specific

Yes, you can paint and sell generic landscapes, but what’s the point?

Keuka Lake vineyard, by Carol L. Douglas

If you were to blindfold me and drop me somewhere in New York, Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont or, I suppose, parts of Connecticut or New Jersey, I could, after an hour or two of hiking, tell you approximately where I was. (Please let’s not try this game in winter.) I could approximate the latitude and longitude by experience.

Chugash Range, Alaska, by Carol L. Douglas

I’ve spent a lifetime observing the rocks, the trees, the understory plants, the architecture, the old businesses, and even the smells of these places. This is why I am so emphatic that Linden Frederick’s Night Stories are a portrait of Amsterdam, NY and not the Maine coast. It’s why I yammer away to my students about the cleavage in granite. There’s nothing less convincing than a shale outcropping on a supposedly-Maine coast.

Now, if you were to play the same game and drop me in the Kit Carson National Forest or somewhere in the Florida Keys, I’d be wandering around confused a week later. I don’t know the places well enough.

Parke County, Indiana, by Carol L. Douglas

Places are defined by their political boundaries. These don’t represent their geographical realities. Consider Indiana, for example. If you haven’t been there, you probably think it’s flat, ‘fly-over country,’ and post-industrial rustbelt. Those are all true, but limited, descriptions. Much of the state is rolling farmland, dotted with hardwood forests, marshes, and flood-prone, mud-banked rivers. Southern Indiana is downright hilly in places. In the north, the soil is made of glacial till left over from the last Ice Age. In the south, there’s limestone.

New England towns are topsy-turvier than New York towns because there’s nowhere flat to draw a street plan on. New England is forested until it breaks out into beaches, as at Cape Cod. I visited tiny Williamson, NY, yesterday. Its main street marches in a straight line for blocks. Large square houses line the streets, now somewhat recovered from the bad years. There are long, rolling, mowed lawns and cobblestone houses. Its orchards are filled with old, severely-pruned trees, which are characteristic of the apple-growing regions of the state.

Rachel Carson refuge, Ocean Park, ME, by Carol L. Douglas

Then there’s weather. As you head west into the Great Lakes region, you frequently hit a wall of clouds. They are often angry, sometimes morose, but never static. If you’re painting in that place at that time of year, you need to tone down the contrast, because part of the sense of place comes from the consistent low light. Conversely, if you’re from the Great Lakes region, the clear blue skies of coastal America may come as a surprise.

If you’re a landscape painter, you’d be smart to observe these differences. Mary Byrom is one of the finest painters I know. Her work is simplified to the point of abstraction, but its still immediately identifiable as the southern coast of Maine, with its rocks, surf, and marshes.

Yes, you can paint and sell generic landscapes, but what’s the point?

Have a blessed holiday! There will be no Monday Morning Art School on Christmas. Your assignment? To eat, drink and be merry.

January 20, 2017

How to paint something that makes no sense

“Coal Seam,” by Carol L. Douglas

We’ve all had the experience of loving an abstracted landscape painting, only to finally visit the site on which it was painted and realize it was much more realistic than we’d thought. Visiting Ghost Ranch with Georgia O’Keeffe in mind is an excellent example. There are iconic views that make sense no matter who paints them, like Motif Number One in Rockport, MA. On the flip side, there are things that wouldn’t be believable even in the most realistic of styles.

This was the case with the coal seam I painted along the Red Deer River in Canada’s badlands. It’s small, it’s odd, and I like it, even though I’m still not sure I’m finished.

This is what my camera saw of the coal seam. It’s an excellent argument for plein air painting.

I didn’t finish the painting on-site because the vibrations from the high winds were making my easel unusable. I was shocked to look at my reference painting and see how bleached the place looks in a photo. Those seams of rock were a beautiful cross-play of color in real life.

“Goosefare Reflection,” by Carol L. Douglas

This summer I painted Goosefare Creek in Ocean Park, ME, which ended up being a similar abstraction. The Goosefare’s mouth changes course with every nor’easter that blows through. That means you can take any artistic liberty you want. I was interested in the sand and its reflection in the wide arc of the stream.

“Sunset off Stonington,” by Carol L. Douglas

Sunrises and sunsets sometimes seem artificial to me. The one above was painted from the deck of the American Eagle off Stonington, ME. I threw it down in disgust after touching up the colors last week, complaining that I had ruined it.

“What do you do with the ones you don’t like?” a friend asked.

“Swear and get back to work on them,” I answered.

In fact, after a few days not looking at it, I think the light and color are really quite accurate.

“Rain squall on Lake Huron,” by Carol L. Douglas

I had about fifteen minutes to limb out this storm on Lake Huron before the blowing rain emulsified my paint. Finishing it was just a matter of adding some final coverage. I wouldn’t do more with it, because even though it’s just a few brushstrokes, it tells the viewer everything he needs to know.

There’s something to be said for not jumping in too fast to ‘fix’ a plein air piece. You can easily destroy what’s quirky and wonderful about it because to your tired eyes it looks just wrong.

September 16, 2016

Top of the World to you

“Early morning at Moon Lake,” oil on canvasboard, by Carol L. Douglas

I got up at dawn to paint the Alaska Range peeking over the fall foliage. My practice is to set out my wet paintings to dry. The forest was absolutely still. I could hear the susurration of wings as the occasional bird flew overhead.

The first night that we spent sleeping in a lay-by, I was unnerved by the silence. Now, I like it. I could easily become a backwoods prospector. The first thing that would go would be the socially mandated feminine foundation, however. A muddy bra is a terrible thing. So is a muddy nightgown, and I now have both.

Wildfires are common in Alaska. This one is in the Nisling Range. Blueberries and cranberries grow here.

I was startled by a ruckus directly behind me. A woodpecker was testing the surfaces of my drying paintings. He was as rattled as me by the encounter, and flew into a nearby spruce to complain.

After Tok, we chose to take the Taylor Highway, instead of the Alaska Highway. There are parts of the Alaska Highway I’d miss seeing, but I went that way just last year.

Chicken, AK. Yep, that’s it.

The only real town, if you can call it that, on this route is Chicken, AK. Prospectors noted the prevalence of rock ptarmigan in the area. However, they couldn’t agree on the spelling of “ptarmigan,” so they chose a similar bird to avoid embarrassment.

With a total land mass of 115 square miles, its population is exactly seven. This is caribou season, however, and every lay-by is filled with hunters’ pickups and makeshift camps. There are still small-scale gold mines in the Chicken area.

The equipment is bigger, but it’s not much different from placer mining.

At Boundary, we were above the tree line. I’ve driven the Trail Ridge Road in Rocky Mountain National Park, but this was more terrifying. The SUV slid on the gravel, and there were no guard rails next to sheer drop-offs. Mary stared straight ahead and mumbled about high rollover rates.

The US-Canadian border crossing near Boundary, AK is above the treeline.

This high border crossing is also the most northerly one in the United States. It is manned by three Americans and four Canadians. When the snow flies—which is imminent—it will close and its personnel will return to their winter homes.

There is no bridge to Dawson City. Instead, there’s a ferry.

In Canada this becomes the Top of World Highway. It has no bridge across the Yukon River, so we were ferried across. This is a fast-moving river, and the ferry pilot needs immense skill to bring the boat around in the current and slam her against the mud banks on either side.

Mary and I both have head colds, so we decided not to camp. Instead, we took rooms in The Dawson City Bunkhouse. A wood frame building, it’s either masquerading as old, or it’s old and completely redone. Open landings surround each story of bunkrooms. You scurry down these to the toilets and showers. But it has heat and hot water, and we reveled in them.

September 15, 2016

The Alaska Range

“The Alaska Range,” oil on canvasboard, by Carol L. Douglas

Neither rain nor snow nor threat of sleep deprivation shall keep us from our appointed rowdiness.

Mary and I coined that as our trip’s slogan. It’s insane. Mary has a cold and I’m feeling an irksome scratchiness to the throat. We can afford for one of us to be ill, but if both of us are down, who’s going to drive?

These long days are taking a toll. We are up at 6:00 AM, and in bed late at night. Even with this, we’ve made little forward progress, at least on the map. Still, we’re making some progress. One more day to clear Alaska and be back in the Pacific Time Zone.

16th century illustration of placer mining. The Gold Rush prospectors used essentially the same technique.

Yesterday, we followed the Richardson Highway south and east from Fairbanks. This road tracks the Tanana River through the richest gold strike area ever found in Alaska.

Gold was first found here by Russian settlers in the 1850s. Sporadic attempts to prospect and mine were made throughout the 19^thcentury but it was not until the Klondike gold rush of 1896 in neighboring Canada that the madness was on.

At Big Delta, the Tanana River spreads into myriad fingers of water and gravel bars stretching into the far distance. This area must have seemed irresistible to placer miners trying for the next big strike. In 1902, gold was discovered here. It would end up being the most lucrative strike in Alaska history.

A spur trail was built from Gulkana on the Valdez-Eagle route to the new mining areas around Fairbanks. Rika’s Roadhouse, north of Delta Junction, is one of the few tangible remnants of the Valdez-Fairbanks Trail.

Enterprising men panned for gold, and other enterprising men and women provided support. Rika’s was built in 1910 by John Hajdukovich, who sold it to his manager, Rika Wallen, in 1923. She paid “$10.00 and other considerations.” We might conclude that John owed his manager money, or worse. Wallen ran the roadhouse into the late 1940s and lived there until her death in 1969.

Swank digs: a picnic table and a fire pit!

Compared to the Dalton Highway, the Richardson Highway is downright luxurious—it’s completely paved, and there are occasional gas stations. Still, it’s easy to see how miserable conditions were for those old prospectors. It’s still summer and temperatures are dropping into the 30s overnight. As calm as the Tanana looks from a distance, walk down to its edge and you realize that line of shadow on the closest bar in the river is actually a high, overhanging bluff. The river is large and boils along like milky chocolate. Those men deserved every penny they wrested from that inhospitable earth.

We resolved to not drive at night any more in moose country, so at twilight we stopped at Moon Lake and paid the princely sum of $18 for a camping site. Ah—the precious luxury of a chemical toilet and a fire pit! Still, both of us are feeling a bit gamey right now and a hot shower is starting to seem like the Holy Grail.

Just set it and forget it! Campfire risotto.

At dusk, I painted a small study while Mary cooked dinner. The only other visitors in the park were four young German tourists. After we exchanged greetings, they ambled off and got high by the light of the setting sun. Marijuana is legal in Alaska, and evidently it’s a tourist attraction.

“No Northern Lights tonight,” oil on canvasboard, by Carol L. Douglas

My goal for this trip was eight hours of painting and driving per day. That was not very realistic, and the pace is part of the reason we’re flirting with head colds. After my summer in Waldoboro, I should have remembered that everything takes longer off the grid.

September 14, 2016

Above the Arctic Circle

Light snow above the Artic Circle, by Carol L. Douglas.

I didn’t even know I had a bucket list, let alone that painting above the Arctic Circle was on it. But as I crossed the Yukon River, I realized that no amount of bad road was going to stop me from seizing this opportunity. My daughter asked me whether the Dawson Highway or the one-lane roads in the Hebrides were more terrifying to drive. It’s a draw.

The Dawson Highway is muddy and slick this time of year.

Northerners know that 25° F and damp feels colder than below 0° F and dry. It hovered in the freezing range all day, with bands of snow. It was beautiful, but not that comfortable.

The Alaska Pipeline near Yukon River.

We followed the Alaska Pipeline north from Fairbanks into the Arctic. It snakes from Prudhoe Bay to Valdez, and it’s a beautiful companion. It appears to be meticulously maintained; not only the pipe itself but the property surrounding it.

In some ways, Alaska has a “King Cotton” economy, based on oil. However, they don’t do much refining here. That’s part of the reason gasoline is pricier here; the other is the sheer distance between places. In Yukon River, I paid $5.59/gallon for unleaded.

Ice storm on the Dawson Highway.

As we approached the Arctic Circle, it got snowier and more desolate. The birch forests dwindled, leaving stunted black spruce forests and low shrubs on the higher elevations. The deep red of blueberry bushes covered the slopes.

A Mercedes people-mover played tag with us on the Dawson Highway. That’s a top-heavy vehicle and it worried me to see it slip-sliding in the deep mud at reckless speeds. We stopped at the Arctic Circle for the requisite photo op; it followed us in.

Un-mudding at the Arctic Circle.

We waited patiently while its load of Chinese tourists took every possible photo—the sign with each person, the sign with a hand puppet, calisthenics in front of the sign. A woman posed for a photo with our mud-spattered Maine license plate. At that, Mary and I collapsed in mirth, and they scurried away before I could say hello.

Visibility issues took a variety of forms.

After making a cup of hot coffee on our cook stove, we headed back south, intending to camp near Manley Hot Springs. The visibility was too poor, so we stopped where we were for the night. It was mighty cold when we woke up this morning.

It’s sunny this morning. We’re heading in stages toward Dawson City, Yukon, which was one of the base camps for the Alaska Gold Rush.

September 13, 2016

Up Ship Creek

“Up Ship Creek,” oil on canvasboard, by Carol L. Douglas

If you were to clone Aroostook County, stamp it out an infinite number of times, and suck out all the people and most of the potatoes and roads, you would have created Alaska. Oh, you’d need to crumple your finished drawing too, for Alaska is also very mountainous.

I know this because I am hundreds of miles north of Anchorage. Our intended starting point for this trip was the Arctic Ocean. I’m not sure we’re going to get that far north, because the paved road ends at Coldfoot. But we are heading north to see.

Nenana. The name of its river, Tanana, doesn’t rhyme with it.

I started the day at Buzco Automotive in South Anchorage. It is very unprepossessing but the owner, Jayson, is a very gifted mechanic. A replacement catalytic converter was $1000 and a day’s delay. Instead, he cut the pipe and cleaned out the mess. Presto, a smooth engine.

While Jayson worked on my car, I painted a little study of Ship Creek, which winds through industrial South Anchorage. (I was working from a tow yard and would have liked to add a few car parts, but the angle was impossible.)

The car ran like a top as we zoomed through the Matanuska-Susitna Valley. Mist shrouded the mountains and the autumn foliage stood out against the towering, jagged peaks.

And then we blew the muffler.

Reluctantly, I turned back to Wasilla and Googled muffler shops. We opted for the local one, Quality Muffler, and prayed it wouldn’t be busy.

Mike was waiting for us. He smiled when we said, “Bet you heard us coming!”

Ten Thousand Reasons (to bless the Lord) by Mat Redman was pouring out of his speakers. Mike replaced a gasket, a hanger strap, and the missing bolts. He pumped up our spare tire and sent us on our way with two jars of his wife’s home-canned salmon.

We have been moved along a chain of saints since arriving in Anchorage. Pastor Jerry and Heidie Godfrey, Jason Rowland and Debbie Paine, Jayson the mechanic and Mike the muffler guy all helped us because, as believers, they felt an obligation to the wandering stranger. It’s a powerful ministry and I hope I can do as well for others.

You may believe this is coincidence, or that Christians just like blessing other Christians. But I was there. We have been guided step-by-step by the Holy Spirit, and now we’re cruising north of Fairbanks in a car that’s purring like a cream-filled cat.

September 12, 2016

On a clear day, you can see Denali

Small study from Potter Marsh, looking at the Chugach National Forest across Turnagain Arm.

“The road to Seward,” 8X6, by Carol L. Douglas.

On Friday morning, I wondered whether I was stranded in Anchorage with a dead SUV. Since I wasn’t expecting this, I had no Plan B. It turns out that the engine misfire isn’t a fatal problem. The bad news is that we still don’t have a running car.

After the track bar was re-welded on Friday, our mechanic suggested we make ourselves scarce until he had time to work on the engine. My daughter Mary recommended Potter Marsh in the Anchorage Coastal Wildlife Refuge. Here, the Seward Highway runs along Turnagain Arm. Across the water are the blue peaks of the Chugach National Forest, shrouded in clouds. Any of these land features would send me hurrying for my paints; together they were overwhelming.

Painting with Plein Air Painters of Alaska members.

Gil, at right, gave me enough OMS to start painting. These are members of Plein Air Painters of Alaska.

At the first overlook, I met another plein air painter. He turned out to be Gil fromPlein Air Painters of Alaska. They were holding their weekly paint-out at the marsh. Chattering happily, I set up next to Gil, only to realize that I’d forgotten to buy odorless mineral spirits (OMS) and medium after my flight. Mary ran off to the art supply store, and Gil kindly poured enough OMS into my tank to get me started.

I painted until about 1 PM and returned to the garage. Eventually, the mechanic realized that he couldn’t diagnose the problem in the time left. Disheartened, Mary called her friends Debbie and Jason to ask if we could stay another night with them. Jason drove the car and listened to the misfire. He called a mechanic friend of his for help, who offered to look at the car on Saturday afternoon.

My impromptu drawing class on Saturday morning. From left, Kendra, Mitchell and Jason.

My impromptu drawing class. From left, Kendra, Mitchell and Jason. That’s Brodie supervising.

Meanwhile, Debbie cooked up a drawing class for me on Saturday morning. We spent a few hours at Westchester Lagoon learning how to measure, about perspective, and how to draw a tree and a house. It was a beautiful distraction from car trouble.

Jason’s mechanic friend turned out to be a born teacher himself. He reasoned through every step with us. By the time he’d spent a few hours puttering, he’d convinced me that the problem is a blocked catalytic converter. Trouble is, the work can’t be done until this morning, and there’s always the question of parts.

Very incomplete painting of the Chugach range from Anchorage. Struggling with the colors, my drawing is suffering.

Very incomplete painting of the Chugach range from Anchorage. I may work on it today while the SUV is being fixed.

Jerry and Heidie Godfrey met us in Anchorage for lunch. They were on their way to Costco; we convinced them that they really wanted to go up Mt. Baldy to enjoy the perfect autumn weather. They hiked; I painted Denali.

Another unfinished painting, of Denali and Foraker from Mt. Baldy in Eagle River, AK.

Denali is 250 miles north of Anchorage as the crow flies. The mountain is less a presence than a shimmering mirage floating above the horizon. How does one paint what doesn’t even seem possible? The picture isn’t finished, but I did work out some of the light and color questions that are so different than my native northeast vistas.

On Sunday I finally admitted I was tired. After services at Eagle River Church of the Nazarene, we had a midday dinner of Alaskan salmon and halibut, caught and cooked by the Godfreys themselves. The wind blew and rain spattered. Mary did laundry and prepped road food. I did absolutely nothing.

Anchorage is a beautiful and kind city. I’ve had the opportunity to meet people, eat fantastic food and work out the kinks in my painting kit. However, I’m keenly aware that we’re imposing on others. Each day is a day closer to winter. Saturday, we scraped frost off our windshield and Eagle River saw termination dust, heralding the end of summer. Summer—especially this far north—is fleeting. The open road is calling me.

September 8, 2016

Landed in Anchorage

Approach into Anchorage.

My friend once toured Alaska in a small plane. When my daughter moved to Anchorage in 2015, this friend told her, “You’re going to the only place that isn’t beautiful!”

Nothing in Alaska is ugly, of course. Anchorage looks conceivable, which in turn seems pedestrian compared to the impossible beauty of the rest of the state. The city is situated in a basin surrounded by mountains and the sea. It’s shockingly new, because it was all leveled by the Good Friday Earthquake of 1964. But it’s graceful.

Part of us, but different.

What Alaska is, is different. I chatted with a very peaceable man last night, a pastor in a Nazarene Church outside of Anchorage. “I’d like to see when the Lower 48 comes up here to enforce gun control,” he laughed. Guns are woven into Alaska culture, and the people are scattered across an enormous body of land.

Fly from city to city in the United States and you’ll think that we’re a pretty homogenized group of people, we Americans. But get past the Big Box stores, and you’ll realize how diverse we still are. I live in a maritime village on the East Coast that is popular with tourists. Seward, AK, is about the same size and occupies a similar economic niche. The two towns are vastly different in character.

Seward may be the same size as Rockport, but it’s very different.

Our perceptions from mass media are almost always wrong. Wasilla, AK, got intense media scrutiny in 2008. I’d read about it, and seen pictures of it. But I was greatly surprised by its real presence. It’s an American suburb that looks like it could be attached to Dallas or Boston as easily as Anchorage. Yet the Wasilla hockey team raises money by having a gun show at the high school.

My pastor friend and his adult son had been out hunting caribou last weekend. No, they didn’t get anything, but “even if I don’t get a caribou, I had such a good season fishing it doesn’t matter,” the younger man told me. He’d gotten 24 salmon and two halibut. What they catch or shoot, they plan to eat.

If this shocks you, I’ll just note that it’s about a trillion times more humane than factory-raised chicken, and it’s far better for your health.

My bedside table in Anchorage.

There are signs in bear country that read something to the effect that, if you are going to shoot, you’ve probably already lost. Although a grizzly bear can weigh 600 lbs., it can also cross a clearing in seconds. I don’t have the presence of mind to test my skill against that. Heck, I don’t have the skill to test against that.