Arrival in Alaska: First Glimpses of the Last Frontier

I had never been good at writing. In fact I think I had only ever written for school. That summer in Alaska might have been my first journal entry ever. My memory isn't the best, so let's just say it was.

Before I arrived I had many mixed feelings, but I kept a nonchalant front. A blasé attitude. Even though I had never done anything like this before, I was used to new things. I enjoyed novelty. More of those emotions were excitement than anything else, but there was nervousness too. I was a 28 year old man, I should have been able to do anything. But the only thing I could compare this to was camping and working with horses. Life is what you make it though, so fuck it. I only had so much time, might as well learn and try new things.

Landing in Anchorage

My first new memories began when I landed in Anchorage. My flight was delayed so I had some extra time. I ate a reindeer hot dog. There might have been a mild difference from a regular one, I couldn't really tell. I walked to one of the wings of the airport where I didn't have to go through inspection to get to my connecting flight.

The plane held maybe 30 people. From outside the gate you could see this small aircraft and some beautiful mountains in the background with snow covering the tops of them. It was very picturesque.

As we flew through the air I got my first glimpse of what the landscape looked like. If Minnesota is the land of 10,000 lakes, then Alaska is the land of 10 million ponds at least. The area near the ocean seemed like some mixture of land and water, maybe full of marshes or swamps. But what did I know, all I saw was little water pockets everywhere.

The tide shift was immense. From the plane I couldn't tell where the ocean began and what was mud, or where the shoreline was. If it even existed since it changed so much. But from above you could see the fractals in the mud, these little crevasses that formed the same pattern over and over again.

Trial by Fire

I landed and tried to find my crew. Since my flight was delayed it was a trial by fire. We rushed to the locker where all the boats were stored and where the crew had slept while setting everything up. Where they slept looked like a refugee area, inside a shipping container. I was glad I arrived days later.

They dropped me off to get my fishing license. I met someone from Tucson and had to run back to the locker. We packed the truck up with supplies and rushed to the docks where our boats were. We had to pack everything and get to the other side of the bay.

As we were about to head off we had to wait for a large drift net fishing boat to get in the water. It was a fairly impressive size and departure. The bay was fairly large, it took about an hour to get across, and the crew seemed friendly and nice. I was the only new person, so since everything was so foreign to me I really didn't even ask questions. Just did what I was told.

The Point

We arrived at our point. We unloaded and brought our stuff to the "shack." There I met the rest of the crew. There wasn't much time for chit chat. We began fixing and setting everything up.

There was a waterfall full of melted ice or glacier water that ran down near our "town" of maybe 100 fisher humans. A rubber line provided water for everyone from this waterfall. We made sure the water got to all the sinks, showers, and anything we needed it for. We organized the food, which was substantial since everything had been bought beforehand and shipped there. Everything is expensive in the middle of nowhere. We organized dishes, swept, and tried to make our temporary home back from nature.

Small problems kept popping up. The shower pump wasn't working. The copper gas pipe was leaking. Thankfully nothing huge. We made food around 10 PM and tried to sleep at midnight.

Midnight was just a word that shouldn't have been taken literally. I remembered the few days I had spent in Iceland where there was what some people would call light at about 11 AM till around 2:30 PM and then darkness around 3 PM. Once we saw the sun for 30 minutes in 5 days. This was of course the summer so it was the reverse. Although I had seen short glimpses of the sun, it was light most of the time. By midnight it was still light enough to walk around without needing a headlamp.

The night was cold. I should have bought an expensive sleeping bag.