“There’s a land where the mountains are nameless, and the rivers all run God knows where, there are lives that are erring and aimless. And deaths that just hang by a hair, there are hardships that nobody reckons; there are valleys unpeopled and still. There’s a land-oh it beckons and beckons, and I want to go back and I will.”
~~Robert Service
There's something about this place that gets in people's blood. It makes them never want to leave, and if they do, it makes them want to come back. At least that's what everyone I've met has been telling me. There's no doubt in my mind that I will make it back to AK...it's just a matter of time. Oh yes, I will be back.
Although I consider myself to be a fairly articulate person in describing what I think and feel, I just can't explain what, exactly, it is about AK that makes people never want to leave. I guess there's just a feeling you get when you're here. It's part awe at the unbelievable landscape. It's part relaxation in the midst of people who adhere to a relatively simple lifestyle. It's part disbelief that you're actually here...in this place that seems nothing like the rest of the lower 48--it seems like I should need my passport to get here. It's part humility in realizing that nature and the world are so much bigger than oneself. And the rest is something that is perhaps unknowable.
My friend B has been such a good sport at putting up with my touristy desire to take a picture of absolutely everything. (I think I have taken 160+ pictures on this trip!) However, one thing that he said to me about pictures has stuck. On our adventures to Homer, AK, he described how one of his friends said that he had stopped taking pictures of scenery or life events because he wanted to keep them only as mental images. He wanted to rely only on his memory to capture the essence of various life moments and that pictures would pale in comparison to the richness his memory could preserve. Although I didn't really adhere to this sentiment on my trip, this idea has stuck with me. As I look back on my pictures from this trip, I realize that no picture (no matter how many megapixels it has) can capture the feeling I had in each of those moments. Sure, the picture can capture it as a reference point to jog my memory in the future, but I don't want to rely on the megapixels to recreate the moments I've had in AK. There will never be a way to recreate these moments, these overwhelming feelings of awe, joy, and serenity. There is no way to recreate the feeling of wind and sun on my face 2,000 ft up a mountain, the sounds of nature in the dead of night (or of the horse galloping around our tent!), or the smell of trees or melting snow in AK. Perhaps I shouldn't even try; to do so would cheapen them. Instead, maybe I can relive these moments from time to time...relive a little of AK in my daily life. I have no doubt that there's a little AK in my blood now, and it's only a matter of time before it calls me back...
Alaska...fuck yeah!
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