As I launch into the writing of the Alaskan adventure novel, some might ask, “Why Alaska?”
As an outdoorsman, Alaska is one of the premier locations on planet Earth to explore. I’ve always been intrigued about the wildlife, the natural wonders, and the lifestyles of the people who live there.
Deep down, I’ve always thought that to live in Alaska, you have to be a hearty soul - someone who is self-sufficient and able to handle a life of adversity. That could be homesteading on the frontier - living off the land with the natural resources that abound there, or providing food for your family by hunting, fishing, or trapping in extreme circumstances.
Keep in mind that to venture out anywhere places you in wilderness conditions - filled with
predators, ranging from polar bears to grizzly bears to wolverines to wolves to coyotes, depending where you are located. Elk, moose, muskox, and caribou provide a large part of the sustenance for the predators there. If you want to go out onto the dangerous ebb and flow of the ocean, the topic of conversation could be seals, walruses, or whales. The balance of nature is clearly visible in Alaska, and "survival of the fittest" is a way of life.
To figure out how wild the country is, all you have to do is venture into a grocery store in Alaska (be prepared for exorbitant prices by the way). Half the customers will be carrying pistols open-carry on their sides, and half the customers will be wearing muck boots for their preferred footwear.
None of this even accounts for the extreme weather conditions that are constantly changing. You might be living in a tropical rain forest area (Juno), but you could be living in the oil rich area of the Northern Slope on the Arctic Ocean, or you could see Russian fighter jets flying by in the Behring Straights - out on maneuvers. And don’t forget about the 30’ tides coming in and out of the Turnagain Arm near Anchorage.
If you try to drive around Alaska, you will only be able to see about ⅓ of the land that’s there. If you’ve been through Texas, Alaska is 2.5 times the size of the Longhorn state. Even driving there is a challenge. Between the permafrost that constantly is creating upheaval in the roads or driving roads designated only for truckers on the Dalton highway up to Prudhoe Bay, the simplest of activities that occur in the Lower 48 can be a challenge. There are many many areas where posting a speed limit is completely unnecessary, because you can’t drive over the road conditions anyway - meaning that 35 mph could be the norm. Most people will go through at least one tire or windshield change driving through Alaska.
In 2018, my wife and I went for six weeks up into Alaska with three of our four kids to explore it for ourselves. Regarding the driving, it took 60 hours to get to Anchorage from our home. One of the common aspects we found there was the number of orange cones placed in the roads to mark potholes. Where I’m at in Michigan, everyone complains about the roads; let me just say that we have nothing to complain about when compared to Alaska. These cones didn’t just mark a little bump in the road; the cones were placed in the potholes - some of which were as deep as a person’s waist standing in it. Others were big enough to total a full-sized truck if you were to hit it straight on.
When you are in some of the small towns that are there… let’s pause there for just a minute. “Towns” is a relative word. A town in Alaska could be one building that has a gas station, a small restaurant, a party store, showers that you pay for, and a post office all wrapped up in one old weathered building. And when does the next town occur? Very likely 4-6 hours down the road, so always make sure to gas up and stay on the top side of your tank if possible. We carried with us an extra 5 gallon can of gas as back up, just in case we ran out somewhere. Paying for gas at the time
was about 2.5 times the price we experienced in the Lower 48.
So with such extreme conditions to drive on, many in Alaska opt to fly their own bush planes instead. Alaska has more pilots’ licenses issued than the rest of the continental United States. Alaska is so vast that it’s easier to fly back and forth to work than to drive. It’s more direct and may save a lot of time. In the coastal towns (Valdez, Homer, Seward), you hear a constant hum of bush plane motors being started, only to soon be followed by the revving of the plane taking off in the mornings. And for many visiting Alaska, this is the way to get into the bush for hunting or fishing. The bush pilots that run these services are a jack of all trades and have to be able to fix their planes on a mountain ridge, a gravel bed in a river, or on the ice-pack of the Arctic Ocean. Depending on where the guide takes their client, there may or may not be communication to the outside world. The winds that these pilots have to navigate can be treacherous. Most guides prefer to fly a certain region, because it allows them to become familiar with the wind sheers of a specific mountain range. It’s simply not prudent to fly areas you are unfamiliar with because of the varying winds and quick weather changes that occur.
Everything in Alaska is big! The mountains are big; the valleys are big; the rivers are big, and so are the problems that occur in its vastness.
There is a constant question that arises in Alaska, and that is, “Do I have what it takes to make it in The Last Frontier?”
This isn’t a question only for the people of Alaska to ponder; it’s a question that the characters in my upcoming book are going to have to figure out.
That’s why Alaska.
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