Living & Working in Great Places

My Story is that I'm crazy, what's yours?

There are two kind of people, those who come to Alaska and never come back, and those who come to Alaska and never go back.

I’ve always felt that Alaska is like a bar: everyone who comes here comes for a reason. I came to Alaska to get away from home, to be free of my parents and go to college in someplace new and different. But Alaska is never the end of the story; it is always the beginning and it teaches everyone a little bit about themselves. Some people discover a home they never knew they were looking for, and they stay. Others find that the future they thought they had here is in fact somewhere else, that there are things they value in their heart of hearts that Alaska can never provide. Alaska was the beginning of my story, a story that is still being written.
They say that at 40 below no moisture remains in the air, that even the ever-present microscopic bits of water vapor we breathe in and out have frozen into tiny motes of ice. It seems to have the same effect upon ideas; vague, half-understood feelings and values crystallize and become clear and sharp lessons, impossible to ignore no matter how much you might like to. My lesson, my fortune-cookie sentence delivered by the singular harshness of Fairbanks in December, was that I am a creature of habit. I learned that the sun means more to me than I’d ever dreamed, that Earth’s daily ritual of spinning around to bake all surfaces evenly is a sacred and beautiful thing that should not be messed with. And though I may curse that horrible blazing ball of searing light that wakes me in the morning, deep down inside I really do savor its cancer-inducing radiation, and I’m utterly lost when it decides not to come up for a few days. And a little cold, too.
But Alaska also taught me that it is possible for the heart to yearn for something the brain has never known, and that it is possible to recognize something you have never seen before, to recognize it in your soul. Now I know what home really is. You may travel anywhere and even stay for a long time, but home is a place, and a piece of your heart will always live there no matter where you put your house. It didn’t come to me all at once like some people; there was no magical moment when I suddenly knew I was going to spend the rest of my life in this place. I didn’t even know I liked Alaska until after I’d left that awful, horribly dark winter in Fairbanks vowing never to return, until I’d stepped off that plane into familiar, winter-cloaked Idaho where all my family and friends were, and realized that Idaho was no longer my home. That Idaho never really was my home. It may not make any sense to anyone who reads this (it doesn’t even really make sense to me) but when I stood on my back deck, dressed in a light t-shirt and marveling at the unfamiliar warmth of the 20 degree winters of Idaho, when I sipped my cocoa and watched the breathtaking Idaho sunsets I’d been missing so much, I knew deep down in my bones that even though this was my house, my deck, and my country, Idaho was not my home.
So that’s my story: I came to Alaska, left, and was sucked back by that weird magnetism that draws compass needles and Idahoans north. What is yours? Why did you come to Alaska? What has it taught you? Have you found your home yet, or is it still out there on the horizon somewhere?

Tags: alaska, home, story

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Comment by akscootr on July 24, 2008 at 4:22pm: Especially gas prices :0(...
I love this blog... I thought that I would spend the summer in the city and things kept working against me. I now know it was fate... Alaska is home no matter where I travel to. There is no place like it. Experiencing the sometimes daily wind/rainstoms while camped on Homer Spit to taking a boat ride across the bay to Otter Cove for a dinner (they are an excellent restaurant) just makes my heart feel at peace. Yes indeed, Alaska is home.

Comment by Kari Quaas on July 20, 2008 at 3:13pm: I had to do some researching since my camera date wasn't sent properly. That photo was taken in late January 2004. A lot changes in 4 years!

Comment by AlaskaBound! on July 20, 2008 at 2:49pm: 1.67 a gallon!!!!!!!!!!! how old is that one? we hit 5.08 here in cooper landing today.

Comment by Kari Quaas on July 18, 2008 at 2:46pm

Well, I never lived up there, but I've been probably 20 times visiting either the Gray Line of Alaska or Princess properties all over the place. I always treated my trips up there as a gift and never took them for granted. Here are just a few of the things I have been lucky enough to do.

I have taken one cruise up there in Southeast Alaska and loved it.

I've touched the Yukon River at Fort Yukon. (I'll have to scan the photo - it was back in the days of film!)

I've ridden a sternwheeler on the Tanana and Chena Rivers. (Ditto for this one.)

I've been in a helicopter that landed on a glacier outside of Skagway.

I've been on the train between Anchorage and Fairbanks and the White Pass out of Skagway to British Columbia.

See a moose up close and personal (safely from inside a car).

Gosh what else? A catamaran ride from Skagway to Juneau. Whale watching out of Juneau.

Biking and the Alaskan Brewery in Juneau.

A jet boat trip to a trapper's camp near Denali where I got pan for gold and touch a lynx paw.

Fishing on the Kenai or Russian River.

Kayaking out of Ketchikan.

Motorcoach trips here and there.

Fifty-five degrees below zero in Fairbanks.

And, I've even been on the Denali Highway.

I guess you could say I love Alaska. I don't consider it home, but I sure do love to visit and treasure every opportunity I get to go. Next trip: ATIA (Alaska Travel Industry Association) conference this October. I'm psyched.

Comment by Ben & Jari on July 18, 2008 at 1:37pm: Why thank you! But...what about you? I know you came to Alaska at least once...what was your story? Or are you gonna blow a hole in my theory and say you threw a dart at a dartboad and it hit Alaska?