Can you believe the smell?

When I was in London, I used to walk around thinking “I can’t believe I live here.” I used to do the same thing in Superior, but the thought carried an entirely different tone. Amazingly enough, I haven’t had that thought at all in Alaska.

When I was little, I imagined Alaska to be this vast stretch of snow fields, perfect for dog mushing. In second grade, or whenever it was that I first learned about the Iditarod, I heard of places like Juneau and Anchorage and would think “I can’t imagine anyone living there.”

What would I have thought if I had known then that I would one day live in Alaska, and not even in one of the bigger cities? If someone had told me that, I would have simply said, “I don’t believe you.”

The interesting thing about being here is that it doesn’t feel that far away. I was looking at the Kenai Peninsula on Google maps the other day and scrolled a little to the left and got a real sense of how close Russia actually is. And you all thought Sarah was crazy. When I think about it that way, I think, “Wow, how did I get so far away?” But then I scrolled a little farther left and got to Europe. That’s close enough to home. At least it feels that way after having spent a semester there.

It’s like when you are driving home and it only requires two turns. Even though you still have most of the journey to go after you make the first turn, you can’t help but think “I’m halfway there.” When scrolling over the Earth, I can get to England from Russia, and from England I know what it takes to get home. It’s only a six-hour flight. That’s not bad. That’s not far from home…

I keep smelling the air here and am reminded of something. It’s so cold here most of the time that your snot freezes when you inhale. That always makes me think of ski club in high school, which produced some of the best memories of my Albany childhood. It was a time of inside jokes, throwing 360s off of big tabletops and not traversing down Ace of Spades or Whitetail. As my friend Zach once put it, “Ski Club is like a party on the mountain.” We were totally free.

I can remember many times popping out of my skis right before dinner at the summit lodge of Jiminy. Through frozen snot I’d breathe the smell of onion rings and burgers and fries cooking from inside the warm hut. It might actually be a disgusting smell, but my memories of ski club and its unbridled independence make me smile whenever it comes back to me.

It comes back to me a lot here. That smell of unbridled independence.

fire

hospital memorial

Comments welcome,

Andrew

Why I'm here

Just to be clear, I was never seeking Alaska. This was always a place that I thought might be nice to visit, but I never ever dreamed of living here. On our road trip from Montana, my mom asked me why I decided to take the job here.

“Was this the only job you thought you could get?”

Thanks for the demonstration of confidence, mom.

But in reality, that’s close. Just as with the job in Montana, I see this paper as a stepping stone sort of job. It’s a 10,000 circulation daily paper with a strong editor and covers an area of about 25,000 to 75,000 people (depending on the time of year). It seemed like a nice step up from a 3,000 circulation weekly.

Jobs like the one I have at the Peninsula Clarion exist all over the country and the world. I know because I have spent the past year and a half applying to them. I’ve applied to places real close to Albany, I’ve applied to places in Kansas, I’ve even applied to places in rural England. The Clarion, on the Kenai Peninsula, is the one that bit.

Now that I’m here, I can’t believe how lucky I am not to have gotten some of the jobs I applied to. What would my life be like if I had been offered the job in Gloversville, NY? It’d be safe, but limiting.

Now that I am here, I see why some of my coworkers (several of whom are from the Northeast. One, Mike Nesper, actually graduated from COM in ’08) sought out Alaska. They applied to several papers in this state because they wanted to experience this frontier.

So I’m here continuing my adventure. And just hearing about all the adventures to be had in Alaska, I might be away from the lower 48 for a good amount of time.

Tsalteshi

Veterans

City Council

Above are the links to stories I’ve had published. (Tsalteshi and City Council were Sunday Page 1 stories.) My editors mostly threw me softballs my first week, but week two begins with a story that involves me researching the process of how to impeach the mayor.

As my editor said of the pressure the Clarion has been putting on local government recently:

“We’ve been having some fun.”

Comments welcome,

Andrew

View from my yard

Welcome

Whew. Four days in the car, driving through snow and winding roads, and we made it without a hitch -- except for when we locked the keys in the car in Tok, AK and needed AAA's assistance.

Sometime this week I want to do a more reflective post about how I'm feeling at the beginning of this segment of my life, but for now I just want to give you a sense of of where I'm living. I think because it is so far away many of you are curious about the basics.










I'm not a great on-camera guy, but at least this gives you an idea of what the place is like. These pictures hopefully give you some idea of the terrain and wildlife we encountered.

Comments welcome,
Andrew