A Whale of a Time

Life has a way of screaming at you to pay attention. Particularly while dreamily conversing on a boat bound for a halibut fishing hole, sipping a beer, chuckling at a goofy looking otter tracking your progress as it reclines on its back. Seriously, while surrounded by mountains, facing a frigid headstrong wind, it is easy to miss the awe inspiring.
Which is why you need life to snap you out of it with an otherworldly scream. It is a sound of which never heard before and probably never again that trumpets the emergence of a whale across the bow of the boat, not 10 feet from where you sit. There is a moment of exhilaration followed by terror that it will capsize the boat. The captain cuts the motor and runs from the cabin screaming that is as close as he’s ever come to hitting one. As he lights a cigarette to relieve the tension, you run around the starboard side of the boat laughing hysterically as you look on the poor soul who took the brunt of the snot that had just erupted from the great beast’s blowhole.
Now it can’t be said the obsession become Ahabian, but for the next half hour the passengers of the boat relentlessly scan the Kachemak Bay waters for more whales who oblige by cresting all around, blowholes spouting, tails flopping, though now at a much safer distance.
As the boat resumes its trip out to sea, you sit hyper-aware of the puffins and seagulls that fly all around and ponder the moment you already know will be with you for the rest of your life. You sit and wish your camera’s battery hadn’t given out a few minutes before and begin thinking about purchasing life insurance, probably from Pacific Life.

Best of Photos from the Drive

On the Shoulders of Giants

The devastation inflicted upon the First Nations of the Americas by the incursion of the Western world is one of the great tragedies of history. The plight suffered is long and varied, extending into today as native culture and language erodes while alcohol and drug abuse continues to be a major problem. Generation upon generation have been relegated to the fringes of society by central governments paying to keep them there with no means or direction to improve their lot in life.
This relegation happens all over the Western Hemisphere, but in Teslin, in the Yukon Territory of Canada, the Tlingit Nation has begun to retake its destiny. They have a self-governance agreement with the Yukon and with Canada that redirects power back to their clan system of government. The clans, Raven Children, Frog, Wolf, Beaver, and Eagle stand in representative Totem Poles in watch outside the magnificent Tlingit Heritage Centre just beyond Teslin.
The centre comprises the past, present, and future of the people. Visitors receive a museum style history lesson on the traditional lands, way of life, and plight of the Tlingit. There are examples of classic works of art as well as contemporary pieces by artists reintroduced to the skills by their elders. In a boathouse, fiberglass canoes, a nod to modern ways, sit painted, in stunning Tlingit artistry, awaiting their next ceremonial use.
Though fiberglass, a modern necessity, is the way of the future, traditional dugout canoes provide a path for that future. Two years ago, Tlingit Master Carver Wayne Price took 19 tribal youth with drug and alcohol problems to a remote Yukon River island with nothing but carving tools and a very large log. Over the next ten weeks, with no modern conveniences or chemical crutches and with no way off the island other than traditional knowhow, the youth learned how to and carved a 30-foot dugout canoe out of a 13,000 pound red cedar log and carved a path for their own future development.
The Tlingit Heritage Centre is but a drop of restitute water for a culture that once lived off of the vast Northwest waterways, but it is a significant step. With no way to undo history’s gross injustices, there is no way to go but forward. These First Nation people are taking the steps to preserve their past, address and solve their present issues while building a better future that is tied to a proud heritage.

A Pot of Yukon Gold

We were tempted to chase down the pot of Yukon Gold at the end of this rainbow. Tempted till the realization hit that the terrain is a bit too daunting to chase down that dream along with the realization that just being dwarfed by that terrain is a pot of gold in and of itself.
The mountains of the Yukon are majestic and the lake waters blue. Life is alive in the Yukon. It is a zoo without borders and a naturalists dream. Bison, bear, moose and caribou exist unabated as they did before humans overtook the continent and drink of sparkling without motorized pollution.
For those who need that touch of civilization, the territory’s capital, Whitehorse, is a vibrant city of over twenty thousand that time forgot. The downtown is filled with life, free of urban sprawl that has ruined countless city centers. It is a glimpse of the way populations once congregated to a center surrounded and supported by the bounty that attracted it in the first place.
Of course the Yukon is not for everyone and it does have its share of problems, the native population for instance is blatantly impoverished and relegated to the fringes of the society. But for those drawn to nature’s beauty and a civilized, simpler life, a pot of Yukon Gold just may be the treasure that allows us to start over and continue working on the ills of modern life.

Marked For Home

Fairy Tales will tell you it is always good to be able to find your way home. Hansel and Gretel left markers of bread that were a great idea until they were consumed by wild animals. Consider the lesson learned because in the adult world, markers left to guide the way home are made with materials that will stand the test of time.
The Inuit people of the North built stone markers called Inuksuit to point out features important to their civilization. There were specialty ones as well, turaaqtilt, that were meant to point you home in the best direction. These Inuksuit can still be found dotting The Alaskan Highway speaking to you in an ancient form of communication for anyone still capable to read it.

For those who can no longer decipher their meaning, a more modern way of marking home was started by a U.S. Army soldier during construction of The Alaskan Highway during World War II. Carl K. Lindley posted a sign marking his home and travelers have been leaving their own signs in the town of Watson Lake ever since.

The Watson Lake Signpost Forest appears to be as dense with signs as the forests along the highway are with actual trees. The signs are markers to our civilization and how far we have spread. The travelers who have left the signs that now totals over 61,000 remind us that no matter where we go in the world, it is always important to remember where we’ve come from.

The Alaskan Highway that's the best

Born of rushed military ingenuity to provide a route for combat equipment necessary to battle the Japanese during World War II, The Alaskan Highway was turned over for civilian use after the war and has now given birth to countless adventures in search of North American majesty.
Embarking on the highway in Dawson Creek, BC, the sense of adventure remains though the danger implied in the term “adventure” has diminished as roads have been better paved, guide books have been written, gasoline mile markers provided and visitor centers built. The newfound convenience immediately pays off at the first visitor center when a cheerful employee calls ahead to reserve a campsite while you are free to surf the Internet and connect with the modern world you are attempting to leave behind on this trip. What thrill is lost is more than compensated by the piece of mind received when traveling with a wife, two small dogs and a car chalked full for a three month stay in Alaska.
What is to be found along the highway was largely inaccessible and new to most of the Western world’s eye not even one hundred years ago. A landscape appearing to be ancient, but young in geologic time, houses wildlife virtually nonexistent to a highly developed North America.
It is a landscape of apparent, abundant beauty that was hiding in the open waiting for technological innovations to make it available for the rest of us. Soul crushing war with an ancient country opened some of the West’s youngest lands to the possibility of tourism. Along the Alaskan Highway you’ll find your soul, fractured by modern life, soothingly reminded of its connection to the natural world.

Our Prairie Home Companion

Several years ago my father, through the magic of the Internet, found a late twenties pickup truck rusting of disuse on a Dakota farm. Rescued to Dad’s garage, the soul of its past echoed through the hand-rigged gun rack that housed the instrument a long dead farmer undoubtedly used to feed and protect his family. Reincarnated as a hot rod that now rolls through my hometown, the truck is a reminder that the past can never be blown away.
I’m reminded of that ancient vehicle while watching the winds catch the tall grasses of the Northern prairie states that brings “amber waves of grain” to life, as they hadn’t been since childhood. Those winds swept life back from history and tied it to a largely unchanged land. Waves of vegetation crash against rusting vehicles and tractors that served a life of purpose until finally giving out, dying on its still unmoved resting spot amongst the swaying grasses and tying its past to the visual present.
All through Western Minnesota, North Dakota and into Saskatchewan, Canada there are these ghostly reminders in the form of vehicles and homes long since abandoned. The presence of these markers allows the laughter of former inhabitants, in a land of Scandinavian decent, to emerge through the winds while life passes by and reminds us to pause like the knight in Bergman’s “Seventh Seal” and enjoy a moment with friends because life is fleeting.
Of flesh and blood those who lived here are gone, but upon their toils the present and future thrive. North Dakota is awash in its farming and fossil fueled past while also appearing to be ground zero for emerging technologies. Ethanol advertisements dot the windswept landscape that is shaded by the shadows of windmills harvesting a renewable resource.
Those who continue to call this land home are sparse but hearty stock. They live amongst whispering ghosts and build upon their heritage. In Southern Saskatchewan we refill at a small family owned, full service gas station that looks to have been around for generations. Dust from the wind is washed from our car’s windshield while Ethanol laced gasoline is pumped into our gas tank by an attendant undoubtedly descended from one who on that very spot serviced myriad late twenties pickup trucks.