Monthly Archives: August 2015

One of the weird aberrations about Fairbanks is that despite her remote location (just a hundred miles from the arctic circle, and the northern most city of her size and stature on earth) and relatively small size (the city population sits at just 32,000 and the surrounding area – the size of New Jersey – has only 100,000 souls) she has some fantastic food. There are more Thai food establishements than we have ever even bothered to try, with more seeming to pop up all the time, the pizza is fantastic and the fine dining is just as good. There are steak dives, American food fair, a falafel and delectable sandwich place in the summer, local (but overpriced) ice cream, and relatively few national chains to crowd the picture.
One of the best finds I’ve made is Big Daddy’s BBQ, right downtown. They have the best hotwings that I have ever tasted (granted, I have never been to Buffalo, NY … but I have also tried a LOT of hotwings.) The wings are fantastic – they are whole three-piece wings left together and are slow-barbecued before being tossed in a just-hot-enough sauce that is tasty and hot in perfect balance. I dream about those wings when I am away, and they are usually the first and last meals (and several in between) that I get when I come home. There is a Wing Wednesday special, and when I was here last fall, I dragged Toni to the place every Wednesday afternoon all winter long to satisfy my cravings and shore up against the long absence to come.

It is still a mystery to me why this place so far removed from most of civilization and culture has such damned good food. We lived in the Des Moines area (500K people) for two years, and found the food there largely unexceptional (with the notable exception of Zombie Burger, god bless her brilliant, witty menu, homemade burger buns and cheap margaritas). Even Minneapolis and Saint Paul, with much more to offer, has disappointed as much as it has delighted. Some places have been fantastic, but others have fallen well flat.

Food, unfortunately in some ways, has always been incredibly important to me. Not only as a social venue, but for the aesthetic of good taste in and of itself. I am no gastro-snob, and I’m sure some of the delicacies of France or New York City would be far over my head. But I am all for a solid Pad See Ew and a good home made dipping sauce, inventive wood-fired pizzas and solid, hometown barbeque.In fact, I find myself restless and discontent when they aren’t readily available.

One of the reasons that I am content with the idea of settling in Fairbanks for good is her culinary offerings. She may not have the flair of the big cities, or quite the diversity in offerings, but there is plenty that I crave here when I am away, and there certainly hasn’t been time to visit all the places that I love (and dream about) on this short summer visit.

A replica of the old Fairbanks city bus where Chris McCandless starved to death is parked in front of the 49^th State Brewery in Healy. It is a weird icon, serving both as a testament to adventure (how many thousands have come to Alaska inspired by the rambling writings and story of wanderlust that filled the pages of Into the Wild) and a warning to those that would test the wilds of Alaska and themselves, and come up short. There is a going theory that McCandless was not just a philosophizing wanderer, a lost soul in a world where he didn’t fit, but that he was suffering from schizophrenia and that the detachment from reality contributed to his eventual death in the wilderness just west of the little mining town.

Alaskans like to whine and complain about how the story of that troubled kid traveling the country and eventually ending up in Alaska inspires unprepared greenhorns to come up every summer and attempt a pilgrimage to ‘the bus’ out the old stampede trail. The summer I worked in Healy as a medic, the fire chief was quoted in the paper claiming that dozens of inept tourists had to be rescued from sure death after attempting to retrace the steps of their hero, taxing the resources of the small town. The reality that summer was that the only people needing rescue were a couple of local boys who got their four wheel drive truck stuck halfway out the trail on a mudding tear after a weekend party.

Tonight I stopped at the brewery on my way back to Fairbanks, and walked around the iconic bus prop from the movie, now turned into a museum of sorts with photos and quotes from McCandless’ last weeks trapped on the far side of the river and starving to death in the wilderness. I didn’t go inside this time, as I’ve seen it all before and I find the whole display in questionable taste, especially next to a Frisbee golf tee and bocce ball court outside a rowdy summer brewpub. The story sticks with me still, though, as it has with so many. I came up to Alaska in my twenties, as well, and made some poor choices in adventure and trajectory. I managed to come out of my scrapes alive, with a combination of luck and overcautious paranoia, but I was no less naive to the dangers of the bush than he was and no less in a state of idealistic reverie when I traipsed across the border starry-eyed and oblivious at the age of twenty four. I have only fate to thank that I’m still wandering these roads and trails, a decade later, a little more savvy and a little less idealistic about the wilderness and what she has to offer than I was back then.

And yet I still find myself wandering the trails into the mountains, feeling a connection and a place that I have never felt in the world of the people I come from. There is still that magic here in the hills, wild and uncaring, that gives me chills and draws me back year after year when I could be spending my precious weeks off elsewhere. And there are still days when I wonder if I will yet be drawn in a little too far, a little too deep, to come out on the other side.

The coffee shop in town is tucked into an old Methodist church. The wood floor is stained and scarred, none of the chairs match, the tables have bright, incongruous south American cloths covering them in this otherwise muted-tone place. The walls are filled with northern inspired art and the shelves with knickknacks for the tourists. The choir loft holds a handful of comfy chairs. There is nowhere to plug in a computer, but there is, miraculously, wifi in the air. Geriatric dogs wander through the tables soliciting ear scratches and the tables themselves are filled with the elderly residents of Seward, boat captains, lodge proprietors, small business owners. On days the cruise ships are docked, bevys of onlookers filter through in bright rain jackets and squeaky new hiking boots. There is never any room at the few tables, and the locals never wear rain jackets despite the ubiquitous coastal drizzle.
It is drizzling now, as I sit here. Devon, a sailing captain and old co-worker of mine, called me over to his table when I walked in to get my morning fix of chocolate and coffee (they steam Ghirardelli’s into the milk here, and it is divine) and so I got a table despite my status as an outsider. Although I do not, of course, have on a rain coat, hoping as always to blend into the background of these places.

Devon is gone to “see about a boat” at the harbor, and I am left at a coveted table watching the slow rain coat the town from the huge arched church windows. I am scheduled to leave paradise today, and despite the fact that the last two days of unaccustomed sunshine have faded into damp and the mountains are veiled in mist, I am loathe to leave. These last days and hours have been a balm, between paddling and hiking up into the hills around town. Yesterday, I headed up Lost Lake trail and trekked about three miles up into the mountains before I turned around (the lake itself is seven miles in, a round trip I am neither conditioned for nor committed to this time). When I did finally turn to head back, the bay and her islands were spread out in the distance, beckoning, and the mountains jutted up on every side, snowpack and the telltale blue glow of glaciers peaking out in the sheltered bowls impossibly higher than my little goat trail through the alpine tundra. I sat in the cool afternoon breeze until I was well and cold, relishing the place, content, again, to just be in the mountains, feet on the earth, even on a relatively well traveled path like this one.

Last night, in another small-town moment, I met the sister of a friend and she exclaimed “oh, I saw you out Lost Lake this afternoon!” because even wilderness is well populated around towns and communities, even here where there is wilderness in every direction. I did some thinking about my little treks this trip so far. I am in no shape for expeditions these days anyway, and the thought of traveling utterly alone into the deep wilderness, although filling a place in my idealist’s soul, still leaves me with the anxiety of a pragmatist. On this trip north, I have made no plans for treks into the trackless tundra of the Alaska range or the Brooks further to the north. I did not map out an epic journey into Aialik or Northewestern Fjord with kayaks and bear cans and food for days, out of even radio contact with the outside world for as long. I am doing little day hikes, granted in spectacular wilderness, but all within an hours’ drive (to a few hours’ paddle) from towns along my route visiting friends across the state. These are the little adventures, the ways that these places are accessible even to me, just getting my sea-legs back into day trekking after several years of stagnation. Those trips are still on my horizon, I hope, but I am also relieved to find that the little forays into wild places can provide balm as well as the big ones.

Slipping into the little red kayak was like falling into the embrace of an old friend. Rick has his own outfitting business now, and he hooked me up with a boat to take out on they bay yesterday. Unbeknownst to him, the boat he set me up with was the exact make and model that I used as a guide. It felt to so good to slide into the familiar seat, peddles adjusted, skirt clamped down against potential chop. It was a whole new kind of homecoming, and I relaxed into it like an old worn-in recliner.

I launched off the end of Lowell Point, with Cain’s Head and a hike up to the old WWII fort as my destination for the day. It wasn’t the epic paddle I had planned, but I was still feeling wary of being out on the water alone after so many years. It turns out, of course, that I needn’t have worried. The old boat was steady under me, rocking over the slight swell and tracking south towards the end of the bay without the need for a rudder. I paddled two hours down the coast and landed on the beach below the fort. The ruins of the old dock still stood sentinel there, marking the beach and trailhead, gulls nested on the tops of the old pilings far out in the water. The paddle out was smooth and easy, and I skirted the shore watching for birds and sea otters in the water. On the beach, there were several other kayaks pulled up above high-tide line. I knew one group was with Rick’s outfit, a guided hike-and-paddle trip that had caught a water taxi out to the trailhead and was probably up at the fort already. I stashed my lunch in the bear box and headed up the trail myself, cursing my still-sore legs for their protest.

I ran into a couple of small groups on the two mile up-hill hike to the old fort, one of whom was an old friend from my guiding days – small world indeed – out for a hike and raspberry picking with his visiting family. I found out from him that a few other people from that summer were in town this week on various projects. One, now a film-maker for national geographic, is heading out to film orcas on Monday.

I passed all the groups headed down, and had the old fort to myself. I had forgotten a flashlight, but wasn’t too disappointed as I’ve explored the old cement bunkers before and frankly I find them a little creepy even with broad daylight outside. Instead I climbed up to the top where the view was best and laid down under the noon sun to enjoy the view. I knew better, of course, even the sun in Alaska can burn you and my cheeks are smarting from it today. But the day was too nice to sit in the shade. A breeze had picked up. I had a picturesque view of the other side of the bay from there; the old cove where I used to paddle guided trips day in and day out, the stretch of coastline where I have spent cumulative days exploring the little inlets and coves. Hiking back down towards the beach, I found myself feeling overwhelmingly content for the first time in a long time. A deep-seated feeling of peace and well-being, of joy, even, permeated to my core. It was unfamiliar, at least in the near-term. But I recalled it as a feeling I had a lot that summer years ago, the feeling that convinced me after just two weeks here that I wanted to make Alaska my home forever. A feeling of communion with the earth and the water, of closeness to the elements that make us all up. A sense of hope and excitement for the future, not a specific future with plans and schemes, but a future where there was peace and belonging. The startling realization that I had finally found a place that felt like home, at a time when I thought home was something I would never feel.

And I realized that this was the feeling, the sense, that I was hoping to feel in Fairbanks. And I did to some extent. But the academic hangover, the rushing around trying to see friends, the stress about the ominous truck noises, the anxiety about keeping up with my running schedule while on vacation, the cloud of homesickness that hovers over every interaction there, knowing it is all temporary now, all made Fairbanks and her aftermath feel a little less like a homecoming. It took a two hours paddle and hard hike to get my mind to catch up with my body and finally be here, be in this place that I love so much, without holding on too tightly, letting my feet sink into the stones, my paddle sink into the water. To remember that for me, finding home is finding the earth and my precarious and momentous place on her. This is what I had been missing, and this is exactly what I needed from this magical place at the end of the road.

I finished the hike and sat on the beach munching on an apple, crackers and cheese. I watched as the kayak tour launched and took my time finishing and launching myself, to give them a head start down the coast ahead of me. I felt the wind kick up, the regular afternoon wind that comes in from the ocean and kicks the bay into little white-caps like clockwork any time there is a rare sunny day on the coast. By the time I started paddling north towards town, there was a good chop and my boat was fishtailing and bucking with the following seas. I could see the little tour in the distance, and decided to make a game of catching them before they reached the beach so I could catch a ride back into town with them and avoid having to wait for an hour or two for my scheduled ride back in. I caught them about half an hour from landing and chatted the group up some as they struggled with the waves in their big steady double boats. On shore, I helped gather gear and trailer the boats to be hauled back into town. And all of the frustrations and irritations of guiding, the impracticality of making a life of such endeavors, faded away in my mind and all I wanted to do was quit school, move back and finish out the season on the water, under the midnight sun, doing what I love in a place I adore. Nevermind, in that moment, that sunny days are few and far between here, that clients are fickle, tips can be stingy for a long day’s work, that gear and books and equipment molds in the ever damp costal climate. Nevermind that there are no benefits, no retirement, no guarantee of work from year to year, or even season to season. Nevermind that the community is nomadic and sporatic, that finding close friends that stick is nigh well impossible. Nevermind the reality of this life. In that moment, shoulders burning from four hours of hard ocean paddling, yanking straps tight to hold boats to trailer, all I wanted in the world was that life back, that idealized life that let me be in a place I love doing what I love.

And, as a matter of course, I began questioning everything. Why am I in a graduate program that I’m so ambivalent about anyway, trying to secure a future working in a field that will keep me indoors and away from the woods? Why am I not following my dreams now, in this moment, building a kennel and running dogs and instead continue to do the adult thing, the practical thing, and build foundations that I’m not sure I want to stand on. Some people make a life of being outside, of being on and with the earth and the woods and the ocean, and teaching and leading others to that place. Why am I so convinced that path was not for me? Should it have been? Were the voices of practicality and convention too loud in my ears? Or did the damp and mold and nomadic people convince me, at some point, to go a different path, and I’m just having a damn hard time remembering that in all this sunshine.

My first day back in Fairbanks, I figured out that my body was not accustomed enough to hills, and that my newly-running-again legs would not tolerate the inclines without pain. I have been running again for over six weeks now, and was nearing the end of the couch-to-5K program I’d committed to. But with the hills, there was no three mile run happening that day. I walked the mileage instead, running only on the flat bits, and for the next two days went hiking instead.

Last night, in Seward, laying beside the bay an hour before the sun set behind the high peaks, I was suddenly taken with a desire to run; something utterly unaccustomed in these last days and weeks of forcing myself out of the house every morning to pound out the beginnings of mileage along the sidewalks of Saint Paul. I scrambled back to the truck, not wanting to lose the impulse, and dug out my running clothes. Changing in the dank, public-park bathroom, I cringed as my other clothes hit the floor, but then remembered they were already filthy. Emerging into cool dusky sunlight, I left my earphones in the truck, hid the keys behind the gas cap and hoped the truck would still be there when I got back.

I am a slow, shuffling runner on the best of days and running alongside the ocean did nothing for my usual gait. But the cool breeze off the water in the shade of the mountains was refreshing and I found that I wasn’t sweating nearly as much as I do on my dawn runs through the city. I passed wheeling seagulls by the fish packing plant, then there were eagles overhead and salmon jumping out of the bay just feet away from where I plodded my way along the winding road to Lowell Point. The flat oceanside road was perfect without a hint of elevation gain or loss, and for the first time in weeks I found I was running without the screaming pain in my legs that I’ve accepted as payment for trying to run through the mystery injury that’s kept me sidelined for several years.

It wasn’t a perfect run, but I clocked in longer than I’ve run in years and felt fantastic at the end of it. A true runner’s high, finally. Payoff. The only problem is that showers are hard to come by in this town, and I forgot to grab a towel before I left Toni’s in Fairbanks. At least nobody is sharing the back of my truck with me at night. Hopefully that lovely, fresh ocean breeze will keep the worst of it at bay.