Letter to myself from midlife . . .


Somewhere at the jumping off point at the north end of the earth . . . the edge of what's known.  Where I'm going is another plane ride away on Kodiak Island, where there are 3,000 brown bears and around 10,000 humans.  I’m going to look at a project there to bid work on the Coast Guard Base.  I’m hoping to find the time to explore this area as one may quickly get away from everything almost without realizing how fast you find yourself in no man’s land.

I had flown into Kodiak Island a couple of years ago and had written down some thoughts and filed them away.  It’s funny sometimes how you come across a few things here and there that are bits and pieces of times past. 

Do you also do this?  Put a few things on paper and put them away so that later on when you find them it will trigger a memory or event.  It is nice sometimes as the surprises they bring can almost put you in the mind frame as if you had returned there . . . if only for a brief moment.

Here in Anchorage I'm four time zones from Peachtree Street where I used to hang out, 1,500 miles away from Seattle, as far north as Helsinki, and farther west than Honolulu.  It’s true, look it up on a map as it is a great trivia question. 

So different from our everyday life is the life in rural Alaska.  No roads or conveniences that we have in town.  It is a very different lifestyle for the natives and in some ways a quieter more self sufficient survival than those of us living in more populated areas.  Out in the bush are dog sleds and the mushers with mail planes that drop from the sky to land bringing supplies or much needed items on permafrost and ocean surf landing surfaces.

The Lower Forty-Eight has 6,000 miles of coastline; Alaska has 33,000.  Alaska is water, glaciers, mountains, muskeg and, every second, ice melting beneath a warming planet. 

Brief thoughts . . . just glimpses into a life so different than most could even imagine, ideas that spring forth from a chance encounter or sighting of a majestic animal, this is Alaska . . . the one I have come to know and explore.

Ice

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