. . .		Ports of The Spiral Sea   An Idea Exchange Vehicle for Contagious Concepts		.		Entire Site Copyrighted 2001 Spiral Sea Enterprises	Vol 1 No 1 Aug-Sep-Oct 2001		..
	.	The View		.	.	FROM 65 NORTH			.
	.	Page 1 of 1......................................Return to Vitae-	.						.
	.	.Larry Ledlow, Alaskan correspondent	.						.
	.	... March. Storms on the Sun brought avalanches of light into the skies of my backyard. Canon F1 and 28mm f2.4 lens, ASA 800 Kodak Gold, exposures 5-15 seconds. . Latitudes and Attitudes . Larry Ledlow	.       .		.	The Moon sails a river of auroral light Fairbanks Alaska. (C) 2001 Larry Ledlow	.	.	.
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	.	August 2001 Traveling gives me time to think... and lately I have done a lot of both. Maybe even too much. OK, definitely too much.   I feel trapped in a labyrinth of introspection, constantly exploring the nooks, crannies, and cul-de-sacs defining my feelings about where I live. Most days I consider myself fortunate to make Alaska home. She is a remarkable mistress in countless ways. Her grandeur seduces like no pheromone can. Her charming aloofness combines with a mean, deadly-dangerous temperament to yield a world-class love affair. Yet sometimes she is just a plain pain in the ass. Alaska definitely forces one to change their sense of scale. The Global Community grows much closer with each passing day, yet Fairbanks remains far away from any spot on the earth. Sixty-five degrees north and 147 degrees west place it squarely in Alaska's interior on a tattered-yet-civilized edge of a vast frontier. Seattle is our travel hub, at best three and a half hours away by air. A stop in Anchorage makes the trip five hours instead. A trip to the East Coast - a frequent destination for me - can take 14 hours or more. The crews of Asia-bound cargo jets enjoy a leisurely eight-hour hop over the pole from the heart of Europe. For passengers, a trip to the Continent remains a full day's zigzag journey. Australia taxes anyone's patience and stamina with a 24- to 36-hour marathon, depending on connections. By comparison, an 18-hour trek to Japan translates into a mere jaunt. During the past ten months I have done each of these trips at least once, and some nearly half a dozen times. In the past two months I have staggered through airports in Tokyo, Washington, DC, Sydney, and Los Angeles. All told, my trips tally 140,000 miles, which accounts for my present attitude that living in Alaska is a pain in my rear, literally and figuratively. Even as I write these harsh feelings from 31,000 feet, I can feel my sentiment softening. I can sense my lover nearby, and my edge dulls as we ease northwards along the Great Circle. The jagged coastline of Alaska's panhandle has suddenly given way to the rugged Kluane country of the Yukon Territory. The Wrangell-St. Elias Mountains spread before me, the peaks ringed with the largest ice fields and glaciers in North America. The rivers of ice are bifurcated with charcoal streaks of scree, and blue-green threads exposed by yawning crevasses weave magnificent embroidery. The jagged seracs present themselves as gnashing teeth, as if a wild animal lies in wait below the ice ready to leap forth and devour our jetliner. Threats and allure are at once discernible. Even in the height of summer Mount Logan and her sisters seem to scream, "Go away!" Their inhospitable stances and angry gestures are unmistakable, yet the seduction begins anew. I am less than an hour away from my mistress's bosom and the caresses of her warm summer breeze. My naïveté and enamor mark me decidedly nearer cheechako than sourdough in the spectrum of newness in the Arctic. My connection extends to 1973, when I spent my first summer in Aniak, an Indian bush town on the Kuskokwim River, where my father was an air taxi operator. Nearly 30 years on, I have just commenced a fourth year as a full-time resident of Fairbanks. Beauty attracts, but inner qualities, pragmatic considerations, and experience anodize - or shatter - a relationship. Fairbanks is not beautiful. Its low, "frontier industrial" buildings abut low hills rising to the north. Homes of every conceivable design dot the highlands, and those at higher elevations on the southern slopes enjoy the benefit of extended sunshine. During the winter, temperature inversions work to keep the ridges ten or 15 degrees warmer than the valley floor. Better still, hill dwellers like myself escape the blinding ice fog flat-landers must endure at 30 below. The Tanana River forms the southern boundary of development. The flats, populated with scraggly black spruce, willows, and the odd stand of birch, stretch southward nearly a hundred miles to the Alaska Range. Fairbanks is utilitarian, a working-stiff's town. For a few thousand bush residents scattered across an area the size of Texas, it is a place to get groceries, spare parts, sex, and booze. The Alaska Railroad terminates there. Heavily laden with jet fuel and heating oil, long strings of black tanker cars rock and roll southward from the refinery in North Pole. Tractor-trailers accept the cargo of pipe, earth-moving equipment, and other steel staples northbound for the oil fields at Prudhoe Bay over four hundred miles up the unpaved Dalton Highway. In return, the trans-Alaska pipeline carries the unrefined crude south to Valdez, every drop passing within 100 yards of my cabin in the woods. From May to September, the railroad carries far more fragile cargo, too. However, the tourists do not come to Fairbanks to gawk at magnificent scenery and abundant wildlife. For a vacationer, Fairbanks serves as a brief connection point before or after a journey of a lifetime through Denali National Park, the Kenai Peninsula, Prince William Sound, or the Inside Passage. The university's card-carrying PhDs in geo-science, environmental studies, and wildlife management blend in well with their heavy-booted, blue-collar brethren. Alaska is no place to earn a living peddling formal wear or even Oxford button-downs. This is the land of Carhartts, Helly-Hansens, Sorels, and bunny boots. Nevertheless, a deep, rich vein of culture winds through the northern latitudes, most of it interesting, much of it appealing, and some definitely downright distasteful. The dichotomies of survival in the far north yield many challenges. Each almost certainly is accompanied by important life lessons usually centered on gaining perspective, preparedness (or lack of it), and developing an intense, fulfilling relationship with our environment. We simply do not - and cannot - conduct our lives in the same ways others do at lower latitudes. We can rarely afford to luxuriate in complacency. The speed at which the seasons change leaves no time for inaccuracies in project planning. A flat tire at fifty below can become a life-threatening situation within minutes. The ferocity and determination of a sow grizzly with cubs are always on our minds during a leisurely walk through the woods. Even as a relative urbanite, I cannot take much for granted in terms of civilized comforts like reliable electricity and city water. Invariably, the question for all of us - participants and spectators alike - is this: "Is it worth it?" Therein lies the essence of my deliberations. There is no hesitation in my answer in the dead of winter when I am neck-deep in 100-degree hot springs, my companions and I bathed from above by Aurora's gentle and mystical lights. At other times, obviously, I am not so sure. I am happy to share my view from 65 north, hopefully illuminating for others the aspects of life and philosophy peculiar to the high latitudes. My intent is to educate and to entertain, not to drag readers through the mire of my particular brand of introspection. Thus, I will gladly entertain queries about Alaska or my life in it. Supporters and detractors alike will always agree on one thing: Whatever the topic, I am usually quite free with my opinion. Until that time... .. . . . . . . . . . . . . More follows...					.		.
		.Return to Ports-of-Call	.	.		.	.	. To Vitae	.

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