Winter, interrupted

It's 35 degrees here in the Goldstream Valley this morning.

But it's January.

Rising temperatures yesterday brought fog to the College Road area.

Yesterday, morning, freezing rain started to coat the world in a fine patina of ice. In the afternoon, Fairbanks Police were advising that certain roads were closed; the rumors had Ballaine Hill impassable and Ballaine itself marginally driveable.

I took the long way around to get home, via the University, Sheep Creek Road and Goldstream.  It was slow going in a line of vehicles (not led by a Subaru, usually the cliche) about 25-30 mph.

This a.m., state offices are delaying opening, a sled dog race is cancelled, and the kiddies have another "ice day" off from school. 

Fairbanks Icecapades: Part Deux

Well, we here at the FBH Compound are pretty thrilled to still have power after the night of freezing rain/drizzle/whatever-the-hell-that-was and heavy winds.

All night I regretted not dealing with that tree which hugs the power line. Every summer doing so is a solemn vow, and every time we get high winds and a bunch of ice, it is suddenly a recrimination.

This latest strange turn of an already odd, odd winter had, according to the News Minus, put 14,000 GVEA customers without power in the wee morning hours. Out here in our neck of the Goldstream we lost power a couple of times, but it was on after a brief time.

While sitting up and drinking coffee -- before heading out to the main road to see if it is worth trying to drive in to work as opposed to working from home through the magic of the Interweb -- we received word that some parts of Fairbanks proper still do not have power. Driving in to work to find that the building doesn't have power would be a fairly crap beginning to the day, I think.

The temperature here is hovering just above freezing, which means that where the roads aren't melting, they are likely getting coated in nice layer of frictionless surface just in time for a truly gnarly morning "rush hour."  (Such as it is here in Greater Redneckia). 

Never thought I'd say it, but I think I miss the normal cold. I'd be satisfied with a simple -20.

Redistricted Back Into the 'Banks

Funny how a committee gets to move the boundaries on a map, just draw some lines really, and it can alter the political landscape.

Yesterday, I woke up to the news that my little neck of the woods, Goldstream Valley, has been returned to the Fairbanks area.  We had a brief little interlude of being gerrymandered the hell out here, along with Ester.  Goldstream isn't an incorporated place, just a general location, and is just a shade less kooky, lefty, and out there than Ester.

This is a pretty much "live and let live provided you don't do anything too shady like running a meth lab or start the neighborhood on fire" kind of place with all welcome:  lefties, anarchists, homeschoolers, alpaca owners, Democrats, dog mushers, university kids, tradesmen, vegans, bluegrass fans, punk fans, Bible thumpers, atheists, yoga practicioners, chicken raisers, composters .... all doing their own thing, largely, and appreciating that their neighbors are doing their own thing, too. 

And that is just fine.

Let's just say there is a "Goldstream State of Mind" and pause for a moment to imagine the truly awesome country song that we might write if we had the time and didn't have to get to work this morning.

But removing Ester and Goldstream from the equation really meant it was going to be easier to elect the sorts of conservatives Interior Alaska is (in)famous for -- the Mike Kelly, Tammie Wilson sorts --- and that is really what the previous version of the map was all about with regard to the Interior.

Fairbanks, City of Whiners

Interesting.  Yesterday, the News Minus ran a headline on its online site about Fairbanks having the highest utility costs in the nation, and yet, today, I couldn't find it. Turns out the headline morphed overnight into "Survey: Fairbanks utility costs keep rising."

"Fairbanks paid 143 percent more than the typical U.S. household for its utility costs in the third quarter of 2012, according to a national survey of 304 urban areas in the country. Alaska's second-largest city had the distinction of paying the highest utility costs last year, with prices about 112 percent above average."

And there was much wailing about how hard we have it here.

Unfortunately, the News Minus didn't include a link to the the source of the data for the story, the Council for Community and Economic Research.

Has anyone noticed that the News Minus has been harping on this issue repeatedly this year? And yet, reality is a bit more complicated than that.

Yep, we don't have the cheap electricity they do in Anchorage.  Neither does most of the rest of the state.  And guess what?  Most rural areas pay far far more than we do for fuel oil and electricity in places where they use fuel oil to heat homes and diesel to generate electricity.  Of those communities, we have it really really good.  Want to feel the pinch of energy prices? Live in a place where they have to fly in the stuff that heats people's homes and feeds the electric plant where there aren't any damned trees to burn as firewood.

But the Council for Community and Economic Research doesn't survey those places... however, the University of Alaska Cooperative Extension does, getting a village or two occasionally, and most regional centers pretty often.  The most recent couple of data sets don't have all costs broken out, but one thing stands out: this is usually the cheapest place to feed a family of four of ANYWHERE in Alaska.

As I sat in front of the woodstove this morning coaxing a new fire from last night's embers, I remembered how lucky we are to have an adjunct heating source around here that just requires a chainsaw, some gas, and a bit of hard work to take the edge off the cold for those who have the ability to do so.

What were they thinking?

~The golden heart that greets visitors to Fairbanks ~

OK - it's no secret that the Fairbanks North Star Borough is hurting for money; after all they have had to reduce hours at the Shelter, and cut back on Parks and Recreation. And certainly, the tab to fill the Fairbanks Golden Heart with marigolds, as they used to do, must run upwards of $700 or $800.

But really....filling the heart with rocks painted yellow??? There's a word for that.

It's "Ghetto".

Maybe next year they will add in a few of these.....

~ Basic tire planter~

....to complete the look.

Interior Barbies

Can’t help it.  ‘Dweller’s sartorial post of a couple of days ago that included the very funny (at least to this blogger) list of Alaskan Barbie types set me to thinking of a few more that are particular to Squarebanks, its environs, and the Interior in general.

Compound Barbie:  This drab Barbie comes with bad teeth, lank hair and a sallow complexion.  Wardrobe consists exclusively of ankle-length denim skirts and plaid shirts.  Comes with a passel of kids so as to provide boyfriend End-of-the-Roader Ken with sufficient PFDs for yearly income.  Accessories include a drafty, dark squatter’s cabin illegally built on state land, or a retro-fitted miner’s cabin left over from the gold rush of 1908.   Special Edition Compound Barbie includes Little Sister Skipper as a two-fer for End-of-the-Roader Ken. 

Militia Midge:  Barbie’s cousin, Midge  has two blind eyes and a special audio feature.  Press the button on her back, and  Militia Midge will help you experience those  exciting moments when the FBI comes knocking, or put you through the paces of a prison visit.   Accessories include a trailer full of pineapple grenades and other weapons, plus a special AR-15 semi-automatic assault rifle to give to boyfriend Wingnut Brad for his birthday. 

Dog-handler Barbie:  Petite, pert and fit, this Barbie comes with blonde, brunette or red hair and hails from somewhere in the Lower 48.  Accessories include Carhartt overalls with several dog necklines strung through the carpenter’s loop and dog-shit caked bunny boots.  Comes with an attraction for 50-something men with a string of failed marriages and 150 dogs.  Can be found most often in Two Rivers doing an amazing amount of scut work  for free in the hopes that boyfriend Former-Iditarod-Champion Ken will let her drive the C-team in the next Iditarod. 

Ester Barbie:  This granola-crunchy Barbie proudly flaunts her aversion to showers, bras, and razors.  Equipped with Dial-a-Length arm pit hair, accessories include a personalized bar stool at the Golden Eagle, a much-worn library card for the John Trigg Ester Library and a lifetime subscription to the Ester Republic.  She and boyfriend Ken cohabitate in an artfully funky waterless cabin constructed from  an old bus, a wooden miner’s shack scrounged from Ester Creek, and assorted windows, doors and scrap metal scavenged from the dump (sold separately). 

Ski-doo Summer:  This big-haired Barbie gal-pal comes with tattooed eyeliner,  French nails and a variety of  outfits perfect for spending a spring afternoon in the Hoo-doos.  Accessories include an RV towing a trailer with 6 full-sized snow machines and four kitty-cats, a gas grill and a plywood condo at Summit Lake.  During summer months she is most often found at Pike’s cheering on Sledneck Ken as he races Arctic Cats across the open Chena River. 

Missionary Barbie:  Available only during the summer, this Barbie comes with  an assortment of poorly-fitting pant suits and other modest casual gear.  Missionary Barbie sports  wide eyes with a slightly glazed, crazed look and an audio feature that endlessly repeats “Praise Jesus” with a southern drawl.  Accessories include a well-worn Bible, a john boat, candy and Jesus trinkets.  Helpmeet to Pastor Ken, she can be most often found proselytizing in a remote Native village along the Yukon.  

Sometimes it's fun to be a tourist

~Typical Denali View

Just wrapping up two weeks of squiring dad around Interior.  To say that dad is spry would be an understatement of Denali-sized proportions.  Although 86, he gets around; not quite up to hiking the tundra,  nor scaling down the cliffs at Chitna as we did 11 years ago, but still - there was not much sofa-lounging here.

Yup.  He pretty much kept to the same schedule he maintains at home.  Within short order, he institutionalized himself at College Coffeehouse, worked out daily at Mary Siah and prided himself on learning all of the short cuts around town (including how to evade the overzealous campus cops).

And while we didn't do all of the tour-bus touristy things around here (to wit: Gold Dredge # 8 and the Riverboat Discovery), we did complete much of the liberalish, Valley-crowd punch list of Must-dos while in town, at least those that can be accomplished without a gun, hiking boots or dip net.

Thusly, the not-quite bucket list:

• The Big Kahuna, of course.  The sky was blue-bird blue, the mountain was mostly out, and there were so many grizzlies and Dall sheep grazing along the road (not together, obviously) that soon such sightings became ho-hum.   The only drawback was losing the bus lottery and landing on a bus with that bane of the Park trip:  the chatty,  mis-informed bus driver who has a pathological urge to wow the captive bus audience with ever-escalating Alaskana tales.   I actually envied my father's near total deafness on this one, but still the 8-hour round trip to Eielson Visitor Center and back was a trip of a lifetime for my dad as well as close to near perfect as one will ever get in the Park.  
• The Lodge at Black Rapids: Alaskan-elegant (if you have to ask, you wouldn't get it), homey, and altogether a great destination.  We drove down one rainy afternoon (and what afternoon hasn't been around here lately?), spent the afternoon drinking wine and kibitzing with the caretakers, and had some of the best meatloaf and mac & cheese around (a shout out to Casey).  Slept like logs under thick down comforters and enjoyed a sunny morning driving on down the Rich to Fielding Lake.
• Lunch at  Lil Richards AKA the Farthest North True Diner.  My dad is a diner-freak (he has asked that his memorial service be at Bob's Diner, his hangout at home), so stopping off there on our way home from Black Rapids was a given.  Decent (i.e. greasy and salty) diner food, and a good photo op for him (to show the waitresses back at Bob's).
• Chena Hot Springs (naturally).  This time I didnt fall off the bar stool, although my dad did nearly succumb to the heat of the rock pool.  A veteran of the turkish baths in Budapest, he didnt take the heat quite seriously enough.  When he started babbling about the "current" in the rock pool and how he couldn't move against it,  I along with a couple of Norwegians hustled him up and out into a lounge chair.  No apparent lasting damage that a cold Alaskan Amber didnt later fix.
• The Musk Ox Farm, where we saw the twins.
• Northland Wood - how can a two-storey pile of split wood not be a tourist attraction for anyone burning wood??? - where my dad helped fill my PU truck, managed not to get hit on the head by the occasional logs that bounce down the pile from the log splitter.  When I told him I needed four cords stored in the wood shed before August, he commented "no wonder women look sporty here".  (Sporty being the adjective he routinely applied to all of us out in the Valley).
• The Farmers Market, where we bought yet more pottery for my house and some cool painted rocks in the shape of chickadees (there is virtually nothing someone cant sell you when you are on vacation).
• Morris Thompson Cultural Center: my dad liked this one so much he went back twice.  The one thing that TCC actually has managed not to fuck up.  
• The UAF Campus and museum.  As an architect, he had sort of a sick fascination with the Museum - trying to figure out just exactly what it reminded him of.  None of my suggestions of whale, iceberg, monstrosity, ark,  and giant-white-thing resonated, so we just left it alone.

Fred Meyers was another favorite of my father's - I think he found some excuse to go there daily.  The chaos induced by the store gremlins responsible for the continually shifting aisles did not seem to faze him in the least; he was able to find items (such as Czech wafer cookies that we eat in Hungary) that I never knew even existed in Fred's.  

And there was of course, much wining and dining  at places likes Lavelle's, Lulu's, Sourdough Sam's, and at the homes of many friends - more invites than we could fulfill in too-short a time.  We even managed to stay home a few nights - and to spend a few afternoons doing yard work.  

It's been awhile since I played tourist in the Banks - and I have to say it was a blast.  Will have to try and do that more often.  Its always fun to see the place through a different set of eyes.

The end of the road for fashion, as well

I've been following the online conversation about Anchorage's lack of sartorial splendor with a great deal of amusement. Most the response seems to fall into the reverse snobbery of "We're Alaskan, hunting, fishing, practical, cold, mud, better-than-Lower 48, blah blah blah..."  I know the conversation, of course, having occasionally drifted into that tone of superiority, particularly when somewhat intoxicated and standing next to a bonfire.

If you've spent any time here out in Goldstream Valley, you'll notice a strange phenomenon that occurs (primarily to college age people) when they move in to our fair neck of the woods. The guys sprout beards and we're not talking neatly groomed ones -- more like a permanent napkin. Carhartt's and ripped lined flannel shirts flourish in the closet. Folks begin to look like they are living in a waterless cabin, or mushing dogs, or both, whether they are doing so or not. I guess you might call it shabby chic. But suddenly, if you're not dressed in our own particular brand of the Alaska Uniform, well, you are just uncool, dude. You probably don't know what biodiesel is. It's a lot like my teenage years, oh so many moons ago, when all the defiantly 'alternative' kids dressed exactly the same way in response to the overwhelming conformity of the suburban mall kids.

I found Andrew Halcro's blog over at Alaska Dispatch the most interesting of the recent bunch, because he was born here, grew up when it was a lot less, well, let's just say civilized, and he doesn't feel the need to conform to the strange idea of what "Real Alaskans" wear.  As he points out, marvelously:

The bottom-line: for a state that screams, preaches and promotes individualism, why do we insist on all looking the same?

Frankly, it's a good thing that Squarebanks was not one of the cities included in Travel+Leisure poll. When I go to Anchorage, I actually break out my nicer clothes and do what passes for dressing up:  The nice, shined pair of Fluevogs, jeans with no stains or rips, and shirts that button up (or at the least t-shirts that don't have a political statement or a liquor logo on them.) If it's a meeting I'm attending, I break out the khakis and the fleece jacket without dog hair on it. Let's call it "Fairbanks Smart Casual." Of course, there are exceptions to the rule. On occasion I see very well-dressed women in makeup, nylons and dresses. They are usually Russian.

All of this, however, brings to mind an old gem featuring stereotypes in Barbie form. It first made its way forwarded through the Series of Tubes and ended up on Alaskan blogs. Originally, it had about five entries, but it has since been adapted, tinkered with, and reposted (without attribution, natch, so I have no idea as to origin or who to credit.) The following differs slightly here and here. 

Anchorage Barbie:
This fit Barbie has a graduate degree in science, resources management, and/or is an environmental lawyer.
Comes with brand new Range Rover with roof rack holding skate skis and a kayak. Accessories include running tights, cross-trainer shoes, a husky named Kobuk, and a cell phone. Boyfriend Ken comes in seasonally employed climbing guide, fishing guide, or Girdwood bartender models. Sold at New Sagaya.

Wasilla Barbie:
This Barbie comes with big hair, country music CDs, a .44 Magnum and a bible.
Weekender Kit includes snow machine, 4-wheeler, and fishing boat. Brand new duplex dream house and lake cabin are also available (sold separately). Ken comes with a Ford F-350 Diesel pick-u truck with gun rack
and trailer, his own snow machine, 4-wheeler, boat, and .44 Magnum. Ken is available every other two weeks when he is not working on the Slope. Alternative Military Ken available by special order. Sold at Wasilla Wal-Mart.

Fairbanks Barbie:
This graduate school Barbie kit includes a tiny cabin with detached outhouse. This Barbie has hairy legs, hat hair, and a fleece jacket covered with dog fur. Accessories include extra long johns, shower bag, head lamp, case of Ramen noodles, and bug dope. Also available is a beater, 1979 model Subaru, complete with plug-in, ice scraper, shovel, and set of studded tires. Ken is either at the Marlin, the Howling Dog, the Loon, out hunting, doing field work, or is long gone. Sold at Big Rays.

Ketchikan Barbie:
K-town Barbie lives in an old leaky sailboat that is moored down in Thomas Basin -- in a slip that is conveniently located just off the ramp directly below the Potlatch Bar. For basic transport, she runs a beat up old 18' skiff that has a rundown Johnson 30 hp outboard that leaks oil. She can out fish most any old Norwegian bachelor fisherman; can cut down old growth cedars faster than most any drunken old Swede logger; and can shoot and skin black tail deer that foolishly wander down to beach at sunset faster than any alcohol fueled Finn bushwhacker. Her Ken can be found anytime, day or night, on the deck of the Alaskan Bar pontificating -- often with wild, exaggerated arm waiving and finger pointing -- as to exactly where the Bridge to Nowhere is going to land over on Pennock Island

Sitka Barbie:
Sitka Barbie has most of the same endearments as K-town Barbie except she recently shot her Ken in what is colloquially known as a Sitka divorce. She took the life insurance money and purchased a brand new 26' Hewescraft "Alaskan" with enclosed heated cabin and a 200 hp Honda outboard. Sold only at a kiosk on the cruise ship dock during June, July & August.

Barrow Barbie:
This Barbie comes with blonde hair with dark roots, kuspuk and parka. Accessories include a 650cc Skidoo snow machine, tiny ulu and baleen carving kit. Ken alternates between being a whaling captain and working
for the North Slope Borough. Available at the northern most KFC store.

Juneau Barbie:
This Barbie comes with membership cards for the Alaska Democratic Party, AFSME/AFL-CIO and Alaska Conservation Voters, little red X-tra Tuff boots and an un-used fishing outfit. She lives in tiny apartment above an obscure bar and works as a secretary in the State Office Building. Drives rusty Subaru Forester, but has peeled the "Forester" lettering off because she feels that logging is evil.  Ken claims to be a fisherman, but actually he is also a secretary in the State Office Building. Available in gift shop at the Baranof.

Valdez Barbie:
This Barbie was not born here, comes with an Alyeska modular or a brand new cookie cutter house by Stan Peterson. This Barbie is best accessorized with an Alyeska husband. She drives a brand new Chevy Suburban, or other large 4x4 vehicle, needs it to get her over Thompson Pass when it has snowed 5' overnight. Has 2.5 children and runs all over town shuttling them from event to event. She typically does not mind the snow or rain, but is always complaining about the weather regardless.Valdez Barbie also spends her weekends shopping in Anchorage although she could get the same thing at the Prospector or so the ad says.

Kenai Barbie
Kenai Barbie is just a weekend Anchorage Barbie that fishes.

Homer Barbie
Homer Barbie spends summers on the Spit and winters going from protest to protest, also hears voices in her head.

Circling the Drain

No posting since January. Another Alaskan winter about to begin – although its been slow in arriving and is still parked somewhere outside of the ‘Banks. There is fast ice on the creeks and skiffs of ice on the rivers – as discovered as I flew east and north to a village today. ‘Dweller has been out in the vil somewhere on the coast for god knows how long….I just got back from being overseas and then promptly turned around and headed out to somewhere on the Yukon.

So…to resurrect this blog? Perhaps. Life stuff has definitely interfered with regular postings by the both of us. Weddings, aging parents, house selling, traveling: all that plus the usual activities of putting food up, cutting and hauling firewood, and maintaining the respective homesteads in the Valley. I hear that 'Dweller and her significant other put up a woodshed this summer – the chicken coop is still on hold for a future date. I didn’t do much around my place this summer as 1) it was a darn rainy and cold summer and 2) I spent a significant portion of it moving my parents out of their home for 46 years and that cleaned my clock. I wasn’t good for much else upon return to the 'Banks but sitting on the sofa watching really bad movies – and the Tudors. Arguably some more bad TV, but kudos for the costumes – a weird mix of 16^th , 17^th and 18^th century styles that worked. Well – it might have driven a costume designer or historian mad, but I loved the mix.

We are certainly girding our loins for the slouching towards Gomorrah that will be the 2012 election year, though at least Palin is on the way out – with the fizzling of her little nova as it winks out to total irrelevance audible all over the media galaxy. There is also the disappointing (but not surprising) mauling that Prop 2 took in the local election – there seems to be an overabundance of dense individuals that just don’t seem to get it – that if we don’t regulate the particulates, the EPA will – and that one way or another at some point they wont be able to fire up their outdoor wood boilers and blanket -belch their neighbors with the choking fog of smoke.

I might be able to roust 'Dweller back into the hitch of regular posting on this blog - maybe we will focus on the homey aspects of life rather than venture back into the political cesspool.

Freezing rain has turned Fairbanks into a NO DRIVE zone

How bad are the roads, you ask? So slick that a Subaru with winter tires going 15 miles per hour can't come to a stop.

My first sign to turn around and not even attempt Ballaine Hill was sliding across Ballaine Road as I  made a low-speed right turn on to it.  But no, I thought driving cautiously and slow might be alright.

My second sign to turn around and not try Ballaine Hill, even slowly, came before the crest of the hill, when I asked a woman pulled over on the should if she needed a lift.  Her car couldn't make it up the hill, she said, so she had called for a lift home.

By the time I noticed and paid attention to the third sign not to attempt Ballaine Hill even at a near crawl -- the third sign being all the other vehicles off the road below me -- I was already sliding downhill, ABS fluttering away, into the opposite lane of traffic, trying to gain some control over my direction and not slide into any of the other cars off the road.  This was all happening very slowly, mind you, but that was little comfort.

Visualize, for a moment, a curling stone.  You know how it comes to a slow, graceful spiral as it nears the end of the lane?  That was my trusty, sure-footed little Soob. By sheer luck and maybe some decent steering, the Soob gently nosed into a mini snow berm on the shoulder. On my side of the road.  Facing downhill. In theory, I could have tried to get down the hill.  Problem was, there was no guarantee I wouldn't hit all the other cars half-in/half-out of the lane.  And there was no guarantee I wouldn't end up spiraling into the opposite lane of traffic again.  Which was a far sight better than most of the other 8-10 vehicles off the road around me.  Most are going to require tow trucks which are going to be hard to come by today.

I managed to get all of the Soob on to the shoulder and walked back home on the snowmachine trail by the side of the road.  As I was walking I watched two cars crest the hill going way too fast, lose control and almost hit the Soob and vehicles coming up from the other side.  

Still Weathering This Summer of Our Discontent

At right:  the dusty bee wasp graveyard that is my woodstove.

Still out here folks, only occasionally breaking my news/blog fast long enough to realize that the world is still in the handbasket.  If anything, it has picked up speed.

After each foray into paying attention to the larger world, or even statewide Alaskan news, I've been convinced that it is not yet time to once again wax bitchy about things. In my defense, I offer the following linked stories that drove me straight back into willful ignorance:

• Bristol's new job: Bad Actress 
• Palin to refund most of defense fund money 
• Tea Party Express fuels Miller-Murkowski fight 
• Advances in Oil Spill Cleanup Lag Since Valdez 

Nope, not yet time. In the meanwhile, it's been all about the house and yard, Goldstream Valley fixer uppers both.   This being Squarebanks, we can get away with keeping the yard large au natural, occasionally making a mad sweep of things with the weed whacker.  It's been a successful endeavor so far -- I found a missing dog dish and a few tools that had been lost in the knee high vegetation.  I'm telling you, if we could just find a way to explore the possibilities of bird vetch as a biofuel, we could cut heating costs dramatically around here.  An invasive species, this stuff freaking thrives if left unchecked, covering everything in a mat of ... vetch.  I've long since abandoned any illusions of victory in The War on Vetch, it was already well established on my little acre when I bought the property, but I've accepted the idea of a permanent stalemate.

The bees wasps, however, are another matter.  It's been another high bee wasp year at our house, the annoyance punctuated by my discovery that they are probably nesting in the pipe of the woodstove.  Earlier in the week, while finishing up some interior painting (trim, and what a pain in the butt that is), I noticed this extremely loud buzzing sound.  Loud, as in, amplified bees wasps coming to you straight out of a large empty room.  Which they were - that loud empty space being the stove pipe.  I finally figured that out when I kneeled down and peered at the glass of the door of the stove and saw them bumping up against it.  I was too chicken to open it for a few hours and figured I'd find a one or two.  Instead, there was a veritable mass grave, hundreds of them all covered in ash at the bottom of the box.

Yet More Reasons Why I Live Here

and not there...

1) The dog races. It's hard to find a better way to spend a Saturday afternoon than munching ham sandwiches watching the sprint races on a warm, sunny blue-sky day. And where else but Alaska would sled dogs be treated as centerfolds? This morning found my SO pouring over the FDNM's cheesecake photo-spread of Hans Gatt's winning Yukon Quest team as if it were a Playboy magazine he had surreptitiously hidden beneath the bed.

2) Taco King. Yes, my blogmate has already noted this authentic (and authentically cheap) Mexican restaurant. It deserves mention again. Because after a day at the dog races, I then went on to savor a south-of-the-border dinner with a friend, prior to going to...

3) Fairbanks Shakespeare Theater's production of the The Tempest. Not only it is a treat to be able to go to productions in the Empress Theater (one of the very few old buildings still left in strip mall Squarebanks), but it is not hyperbole to say that FST is rare treasure, not just here, but anywhere in the US. Their sets are always minimal, clever and evocative, and their stagings (with one notable exception, at least for me, of Richard the III set unfortunately in Nazi Germany) witty, bright and polished. This run is no exception. Ariel deserves special mention for his fantastic body paint and green contact lenses, as does the incorporation of the band Good Daze to provide both the mood setting for Prospera's island, and some lively musical interludes throughout the play.

Yeah, yeah, I know. Its February, when the light returns, and it is not such a stretch to envision green trees, gardens and near 24-hour daylight. Everything looks good in February - except inside the house, where once again the returning sun illuminates the incredible scrim of wood ash, dog fur, and other detritus I have been nesting in these past four months. But even so, dogs, the Bard and a darn good adobada - how can it be anything but all good?

Fizzle in the Schizzle?

Some in our audience may be wondering if the Fiery Blazing Handbasket has winked out like the tail end of the Hale Bopp comet (or the Heaven's Gate cult), or sputtered to a quiet sizzle like the occasional dud firework at the New Year's Eve Sparktacular (none this year, it was a great show!).

Nope, I think we are just in the lull of mid-winter, with perhaps a dollop of battle fatigue thrown in. The constant onslaught from the Christian Right crazies (bible verses on gun sights, palinography, Pat Robertson's mouth - need we say more???), the mega-corporations, and the insanely twisted body politic that is running amok has stunned us into blog interrupted.

I can only speak for myself, but I know these winter months, I have been in hermitage. It's one I frequently share with the S.O. (who has come in from the vil to escape for awhile that milieu's own version of crazy). Other times, its only me, the chickens, a few odd tropical fish and the snoring (sometimes greenly farting) dogs.

Unlike some past winters, there's no winter doldrums. I have been out nearly every day enjoying the roseate light that is steadily increasing - snow shoeing, skiing, running or ski-joring. I have cooked up a storm (which has caused the S.O. to imitate a bear and put on a healthy layer of insulation, soon to be worked off as caribou-hunting time nears), and finished many an unfinished sewing project.

And I have been reading up a storm.

My January favorites thus far:

• Republican Gomorrah: Inside the Movement that Shattered the Party; Max Blumenthal
• The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power; Jeff Sharlet
  
• Going Rouge - Sarah Palin, an American Nightmare; edited by Richard Kim & Betsy Reed (and an Xmas present from my blog mate & her S.O.)
  
• Methland: The Death and Life of an American Small Town; Nick Reding
  

Next on the list is Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army.

So, I expect that as the days lengthen and we head back up the seasonal bi-polar curve, 'Dweller and I should be revving back up in the blogging department - until then....

It's potluck.

Burning Man

Those who went before us were wise...especially about things outside the realm of the every day.

They knew the power of fire, and they never hesitated to use it. Its force is something I believe we tend not to think about too much in these days of other powers - like those that drive cell phones and computers, TVs and radios.

But when it comes down to dealing with evil, fire trumps all.

Many in life are lucky and pass their days without exposure to resident evil. Those who haven't encountered it may not truly understand its slyness. Evil's stalking grounds are more commonly the banal of everyday life: the chance encounter in a coffee shop, or a new colleague at work who seems really quite charming, until the mask is lifted. It excels at catching the unsuspecting off-guard, because while it is the expected companion of heinous crimes against individuals and against humanity, it is not expected to sit down at the dinner table in a quaint little restaurant. Sometimes resident evil is initially confused with abnormality, or a social or emotional dysfunction, possibly because it is pretty hard to get one's head around the fact that there truly does exist pure evil, even in neon-lit, box store-rich Squarebanks. And it's not always wielding an axe or a gun or some other very obvious and tangible instrument of evil.

For too long I left things in my house, stashed under my bed of all places, that carried the stink and contamination of the resident evil that had found purchase at one point in my life. Although these items had lain dormant all of that time, recently they came to life.

It was time to purify; throwing them out was insufficient, they were covered with the slimy slug trail evil leaves in its wake. Fire was the only route to protection.

Sure, burning at solstice is a cliche. But those ancients dealt a lot more with unseen forces than we think we do in this oh so modern and brightly lit time. Although often I think I would have preferred to give the whole experience a miss, most times I am grateful for what happened. Not only did I come out of it much stronger, but I gained awareness of the spirits and forces that are very much alive and cruising in our world. When science became a religion in the 20th century, its gospel of rational thought brought to us a dangerous myopia. It diminishes our abilities to discern that there is so much more walking these lands than what can be tidily explained by science.

It was a darn good fire, one of the best and the brightest I have ever tended.

'Tis the Season

For decorating the tree. For me, Christmas starts just about a week before Thanksgiving. I don't subscribe to the Walmart way of looking at the world, which is to say that Christmas stuff should go on display after the goblins of Halloween have been put away. Well, I do confess to lighting my Xmas lights around my front door and along the driveway right about the end of October, but that is mostly due to practicality...a way to see the moose waiting in ambush when I schlep home in the dark at 4:00 PM.

But, even without the Big Box store way of things, I have always felt that living in Fairbanks is pretty much like being in Narnia under the White Witch- where it was always winter - except that we do have Christmas. And we have a lot of Christmas.

Although for quite a number of years I put up a classic Alaska tree (all the better to showcase one's ornaments) - of late I have been buying the excellent (and relatively cheap) trees at Alaska Feed. Except that this source of cheap trees is no longer known to just a few, and if one wants to get a half-way decent tree, one has to rush off and select it sometime in the first week of December. This year, I did wait til three days ago, but the trees were getting picked over.

So, perforce, my tree is up and in the process of being decorated. It's an exhausting task - necessitating many pauses and rests in the easy chair by the fire - with a cup of real* eggnog at my elbow and three snoring dogs at my feet.

Come to think of it, maybe its all the eggnog refreshment stops that are exhausting, not so much the stringing of the lights and the placement of the Christmas pickle (no explanation of this needed for readers of German heritage), the sparkly Christmas stars, the cat-in-the-jack box, or, my most treasured ornament: the squid ball (a clear glass ball filled with squid beaks sold in Point Aransas as a fund raiser for the local sea life lab).

Every year, I sort of drag my feet initially about getting a tree, but each time after I haul out the Christmas totes and unpack the many boxes of ornaments collected over the years (each with its own story) its worth it. And taking the time to load the tree so full of these memories that it practically tips over (it doesn't help that I never seem to be able to get the darn thing straight in the tree strand), is wholly enjoyable. It never fails but that I come across a little chotka that jiggles loose some long-forgotten episode of a Christmas past.

Some seasoned readers of this blog may remember the Tannenbomb of last year - where my tree croaked brown dead less than a week after purchase. Ah, this year I babied this conifer. Whisked it out of the store and into the pre-heated, toasty cab of my truck. Practically constructed a hermetically sealed corridor from truck to front door so there never was opportunity for freezing shock. Sawed off a hefty chunk of its stump, and plumped it into molasses-laden water. This time, I did it up right, and I am pleased to report the tree is drinking thirstily - having sucked up a gallon of water since last night.

Now, its back to work. Time to hang the stuffed cow-in-a-parka ornament....

*not the sugar-ladened stuff sold in the dairy section of Freddie's. Nope, this one is one dozen raw eggs, a pound of powdered sugar, two quarts of heavy cream and at least a fifth of whiskey or rum to "cook" those eggs, or more like, the imbiber.

Seasonality

Forswearing originality and a bit belatedly, here is the list of things that I am thankful for:

That...

...this Thanksgiving, I have a friend who is going to professional cooking school, and wanted, nay, begged, to do all the cooking for our communal dinner (dessert pictured at right).

...I didn't lose my dog on Thanksgiving Day. Oh, he went missing for a couple of hours - spooked by a dog team on the Goldstream trails - but he found his way home.

... of the 22 dogs I have had over the last 22 years, I have lost none of them, thus being spared the horror of repeatedly calling the pound, putting up signs, combing the trails, roads and woods, and facing many months of wondering what really happened to my dog.

... despite all my crazy athletic antics over the past 20 years, my knees, hips and ankles are still intact and functioning, and I can ski jor with my dogs.

...I have yet to burn down my house, despite a few close calls with creosote and,

....I have a huge stack of dry spruce to keep the chill at bay.

...they invented LED Christmas lights.

...I live in the Goldstream Valley and can ski whenever I want among trees covered in snow or hoar frost, on afternoons that are every shade of the palest yellow, orange and rose.

...I have not-so-new extended family that has not only taken me in, but has given me incentive to learn their language. Ma'shii cho, shalak naii.

...Apple makes a "shuffle".

...I have the opportunity to experience aspects of Interior Alaska that many often do not, even if at times it has been chaotic, unsettling and, a few times, downright scary.

...'Dweller passed on the wireless headphones - those might just have saved a budding relationship.

...I have a job, home and lifestyle that has turned out to be exactly what fits me.

...I live in Fairbanks, because even though it gets a lot of shit for being the stripmall arm pit of Alaska, it has everything I need, and it is only one small airplane hop or trail ride away from hundreds of miles of remote country.

...I have a core of solid friends who are particularly adept (especially Dweller) at pulling my fat out of the fire. Thereby enabling me to do some crazy-ass things.

....twenty years ago, I accepted an old Singer sewing machine from a very elderly lady; this sewing machine is still working for me, so that I can quilt, sew beaver hats, and otherwise keep myself occupied through long, dark winters, and finally,

that health insurance pays for happy lights, thereby enabling me to really enjoy this time of year without fatal leg chewing.

The Mask of Ignorance (Part 2)

Had the new city police chief – Laren Zager – hailed from parts Outside perhaps he could be forgiven some of the ignorance he apparently possesses regarding Interior Alaska Natives and villages. In fact, if he had lived and worked only in Anchorage, it might even make a tad bit of sense. But police chief Zager has spent 20 years in Fairbanks.

Of course, there are lots of people born and raised in Fairbanks that haven’t a clue about that portion of our Interior’s population who come from a totally different culture and race. True, Interior Alaska Natives (like all Alaska Native and Native American groups) may be demographically small in number relative to the majority population, but their rates of incarceration, suicide and violence perpetrated against them by members of the non-Native population (especially by non-Native men against Native women) are disproportionately high. Much of this is tied to their perpetually lower socio-economic status. Disenfranchised as they are*, Natives lack the political and economic power to substantively impact the racism and prejudices that make them more likely to be victimized, rather than championed, by our western legal system.

Thus, I would argue, if you are heading up a law enforcement department that has a long (and in many minds deplorable) history of dealing with arresting Natives, some extra effort at personal education about village realities might be on order. It might also help the police chief overcome some of the banal (but dangerous) assumptions about Natives that he appears to hold.

Case in point: I return to my personal bug-a-boo of the moment, police chief Zager’s assertion that, since spring, the number of chronic inebriates downtown has doubled, if not tripled (from about 100 to as many as 300). Towards the end of the August 19 article, Zager is asked to give his opinion on why this sudden rise in chronic inebriates.

"As for what’s behind the increase in the chronic inebriate population, Zager said one theory is spring flooding along the Yukon River might have displaced many village residents who have turned to the streets of Fairbanks because of the city’s reputation as being accommodating to the homeless. "

Wow – that is jaw-dropping.

First off, no one in a village is homeless if they lose their home. Most people have several homes. These are the homes of their relatives and extended families. Even without loss of a physical structure, people tend to move around within households. Village home life is more like having different components of a “home” distributed throughout the community, than it is about one single residence that is dedicated for the specific use of an individual and their immediate family (as it is in our culture). So unlike our culture, where a misfortune can result in one being out on the streets, this is not the norm in Native culture. People are much more generous and communal about their living spaces than we tend to be on our side of the street – where the notion that one’s home is their castle is still very much alive and well, even in these times of underwater mortgages.

Natives don’t end up sleeping in cars – they end up sleeping on a relative’s couch.

So the notion that spring flooding would have resulted in droves of homeless villagers moving to Fairbanks to live on the streets is just – well – ridiculous.

Secondly, this so-called theory completely ignores the possibility that maybe, just maybe, Natives live in a contextual sphere that is totally different than ours. Westerners’ sense of place is tied to physical possession, chiefly embodied by our house/property. Thus, for us, the loss of a house does open up the possibility of relocation, especially for young single men.

However, the flaw in application here is the assumption that what works for western sensibilities works for Native ones. It ignores the absoluteness of connection to the country experienced by Natives. And it overlooks the fact that this connection is organically different than any bond, tie or other attachment a non-Native may have for a particular patch of land. There really are no English words that convey the essence of the Native sense of place and connection within the larger sphere of country – because in our world view this simply does not exist. And while people from the vil like to come into town to shop, go to the fair, visit and to do all of those town things that we all do, in very short order most become very homesick: for their families, for the village, for their way of life and for Native food, and most of all, for the country.

The metaphysical aside, Zager is talking collectively about a people that are supremely used to dealing with and rolling with the punches that nature can deliver. A spring flood, even one as severe as the one that just occurred this past spring, is not about to turn any villager’s life upside down, nor drive them out of the country.

Finally, Zager shouldn’t misconstrue the fact that most of these people can live very comfortably outdoors, whether in the woods or in the city, as evidence that villagers find Fairbanks “accommodating” (to homeless or others). Few Natives view Fairbanks as hospitable. Most see it as an unfriendly place filled with unfriendly people (who are always willing to take their money), as well as a place that is just outright dangerous for them.

Maybe instead of trying to shoehorn Native motives into the misfit of western thinking, Zager should think harder about what might be more likely the cause of increasing numbers of younger, angrier men drinking on the streets. Interior Natives have been experiencing and surviving spring floods for eons, but they have been dealing with the white man for a little more than 100 years.

A more plausible line of reasoning is that we are beginning to experience the full results produced by two generations of Natives who have struggled with the social, emotional and psychic impacts from contact and colonialism: the loss of language and generational disruption from boarding schools and disease, the sexual abuse by missionaries and priests, and all the other systematic attempts by the majority culture to eradiate Native language, culture and tribal structure. Post-traumatic stress syndrome, self-medication and violence born of unresolved anger over the historical trauma suffered by these men and their families are more likely drivers behind an increase in downtown alcoholics than are the spring floods.

But better for the police chief to turn to deus ex machina, in this case the mighty Yukon, than to lift the blinders of ignorance and confront the problem head on. Because to do so would require Zager, the Mayor, the council, and all of us to grapple with the fact that the alcoholism, violence and homelessness hopelessness experienced by these men are rooted in human-caused catastrophes, not acts of God. And that might mean we have a moral, ethical and spiritual obligation to acknowledge, address and attempt to make right the wrongs done.

Far better to put the solution on FEMA’s doorstep, than to look at what really is going on in the city of Fairbanks – in its police department, its treatment of Native people, and its ridiculously inadequate treatment facilities and social services resources.

* a status that is shared by other minority populations as well – such as inner city African Americans and rural poor Caucasians in Appalachia.

The Mask of Racism (Part 1)

Chronic inebriates. This is what the City of Fairbanks, its police department and all the rest of the public policy makers here like to call the people with drinking problems who drink downtown (and who happen to be, 99 out of 100 times, Native). Lately there have been at least two articles in the Daily News Miner about the "chronic inebriate" problem. This is a re-occurring theme. And each time it reoccurs, I get more and more disturbed.

The last time this term cropped up was on August 19, in an article that blatted the headline: Fairbanks police step up patrols as downtown chronic inebriates increase. The nut of this story was that, under new police chief Zager, the city police are increasing their patrol unit by four in response to business owners' complaints that "a larger, younger chronic inebriate population is becoming increasingly violent."

There is so much that is so wrong with this article as well as the persistent and shrill attacks on the so-called chronic inebriates that it is hard to know where to begin. But for starters - let's look at why the City, the cops and everyone else in power in these parts uses the term "chronic inebriate" as opposed to the medically-accepted term "alcoholic"*.

These two terms are not interchangeable. If there is any organization that is up on the lingo associated with alcohol abuse, it's the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, part of the NIH. The term "chronic inebriate" appears nowhere on its website or in its publications. It's not used in its research papers, press releases, FAQs, publications or fact sheets.

So, what is up with the persistent use of this phrase by Fairbanks' mayor, city council, and police force? The term itself is not formally defined in medical, sociological or psychological reference books, but is understood to mean a chronic alcoholic who is homeless and drinks in public. Thus if challenged, I suspect the city and its police chief would defend their usage of the term by saying that these are homeless drunks, and thus their use of the phrase is perfectly justified, racially neutral, and transparent. No man behind the curtain here.

Except for one troubling little issue ---- very few of the people that they are labeling as chronic inebriates are homeless. They have homes; most of them in villages, some of them in Fairbanks. They may be alcoholics, even very advanced-stage alcoholics, but they are not homeless.

A majority of this pool of downtown alcoholics (to call them what they are) are cyclical. Throughout the year, they come into town and for varying lengths of time end up on Two Street or along the river. They come in for a variety of reasons: to drink legally (if from a dry village), for medical, to shop, or to visit. The fact is --- people who suffer from alcoholism, no matter how good their intentions are when they get on the Fairbanks-bound plane, are going to have a hard time resisting booze that is $11 a bottle (the current going rate for R&R) and a virtually unlimited supply when bootlegging in the vil puts alcohol at anywhere from $50 to $300 a bottle.

Furthermore, even if these drinkers are from villages, they aren't homeless when in town either. The majority of village drinkers (even those with relatives in town) stay in hotels - and not flop hotels. There are quite a few hotels downtown that are all too happy to cater to the village alcoholic (and even tolerate the impacts that go along with that) who comes over and gets stuck in town on a bender. Thus, the chronic inebriates and their relatives contribute quite a handsome sum to the hotel industry, especially during the winter off-season --- something that is never mentioned by the troubled downtown business owners.

So, this is not really a chronic inebriate problem but an alcoholism problem --- the same heartbreaking disease that strikes so very many in the non-Native population. Yet if the city officials used the term "alcoholic", they would have to acknowledge that Natives are vulnerable to the same disease as non-Natives. And in doing so, they then would have to look at the ugly fact that Natives are denied, through widespread indifference, often willful ignorance (of the problem) and an abominable lack of resources, many of the options for help and support that the majority population can secure for its members that suffer this dreadful disease.

Better to use a different term. One that does not imply disease as much as the fault of the individual. The words chronic inebriate literally translate to always-drunk: a hopeless drunk. In other words, one that chooses to exist in a persistent state of drunkenness, with a not so subtle top note of insufficient moral and character fiber to snap out of their derelict and debauched state. Its baggage is the implication that this state of being arises out of the individual's agency (blame the victim), not through the conjunction of biological predisposition, personal choice and the roll of the cosmic dice as with disease.

On the surface, city officials talking about chronic inebriates appear to be engaged in a neutral and rational discussion of a problem that is vaguely medical in nature. Look deeper and what you see is a term that is being used to mask the same racial biases and prejudices that the majority population has nurtured against Native Americans since contact. Not so ironically, it is these same prejudices and stereotypes that are responsible for the chronic low socioeconomic status that contributes to the high alcoholism rates among Natives and restricts their options for treatment and prevention.

This type of code talking serves no one well. It is time for city officials and other policy makers to address the severe alcoholism problem that plagues this region as well as the rest of the state. Contrary to what police chief Zager said in the paper --- it is about social services (and medical and behavioral health services). Alcoholics of all backgrounds and races face significant challenges if they want to go into recovery here, particularly those living in small villages. It is not about adding more police or establishing alcohol impact zones or a do-not sell list. It is about taking a hard look at the reasons why the people in power (local, regional, state and federal) do not want to allocate funds for the prevention and treatment of substance abuse, but instead prefer to fund those institutions which punish and incarcerate rather than heal.

*Doubt this? A simple google search on both the web and the FDNM site comparing the two phrases will amply demonstrate the veracity of this statement.

Lost in a Haze of Daylight Induced Frolicking

And We Haven't Even Started Fishing Yet

Have you noticed that many of your favorite Alaskan blogs, not to imply that this is indeed one of them, have been a bit thin lately?

Most of us, I'd guess, have been burning brightly of late, cramming house/cabin related projects, garden work and as much quality time (read: outdoor with friends and beer) as we can into our short little season known as summer. As I explained to a recent transplant and Alaskan-in-training, you don't want to be regretting how you spent your summer a few months from now when the temperatures have dropped and the daylight dwindled. Nope, time to embrace the daylight and the manic affective disorder.

I'm so M.A.D. stricken that I haven't even been tempted to go off when Sarah Palin says something truly stupid:

America is digging a deeper hole, and how are we paying for this government largesse? We're borrowing from China, and when you consider that now we own 60 percent of General Motors or the U.S. government does, consider, but who is the U.S. government becoming more and more indebted to? It's China. So that leaves you to have to ask who really is going to own our car industry in America?

Where to start? I mean, given her obvious ambitions to higher office outside of Alaska, she must have some handlers by now. Either they are dumb as posts, too, or perhaps they don't read either. Psst! Guys - start doing something other than watch FoxNews. There's a whole world out there online. Start here.

I had the great good fun to attend a Goldstream Valley party the other night. It had the requisites: fire, beer, tons of potluck food, interesting people, beer, and a blue-tarp-as-rain-shelter with a spruce pole post that was tied off to all the trees around it. (There really is no end to the usefulness of a blue tarp, is there?) Lot of little kids running around, but strangely, no dogs, which is pretty much an unheard of occurance.

There were many highlights to the evening, including my conversation with an end-of-the-roader who kept announcing during breaks in the conversation that Obama was running the country into the ground. After imparting his plan to survive the coming collapse of near civilization as we know it (the plan is your basic stockpile food and weapons type plan) I went back to the main conversation by the fire. Somehow, all the guys had gravitated over to the forge (ya know, where people make stuff out of metal) leaving the remaining women and end-of-the-roader, who was by that time fixed in place by intoxication. Don't worry, he wasn't driving home.

Somehow, and I could not have predicted this, our conversation frightened our end-of-the-roader so much that he left after announcing that:

1. We scared him.
2. He would never reveal anything we had said.
3. He had never been married and never intended to try that state.

Cardboard Condo

But what will happen when the rain comes?

A few weekends back, on one of the first truly warm and sunny ones of this spring, I happened to swing by our local thrift store the dumpsters across from the University. There was a full scrum in progress as people rooted and poked and ferreted out treasures from the bins, which were piled sky high with a winter's worth of refuse and goodies.

My first hint that I should not have left the digital camera home came when I approached the transfer station on University Avenue only to find traffic slowed to a crawl in the right hand lane as cars and trucks queued to make the turn. Within, all was madness - dumpster divers mobbing loaded trucks even before their wheels ceased turning. Heads were bobbing around deep within the towering piles of junk, and clothes, cushions, and what all were being flung with wild abandon at the recycle platform (I use the word recycle loosely, because more and more the platform is just a plein air trash heap).

In the midst of all this chaos, parked over to the side, was the Cardboard Condo - the latest creation of one of the transfer station's more colorful, persistent and creative characters. The Prophet, as some call him, was comfortably sitting under an awning of cardboard, much as one often sees retirees resting in the shade of their scroll-out awning at the end of a long day of navigating the 35-foot land yacht.

This was the first time I encountered the Prophet's latest construction project. Since then, I have watched with interest, as no doubt many Squarebanksans have, as the Cardboard Condo develops into the Cardboard Train: a series of shopping carts filled with cardboard boxes and pieces that he wheels up and down University Avenue. The train appears to be getting longer and longer, but its longevity, either as art or as shelter, is tied to the current dry spell we are enjoying.

Certainly more durable was the willow wicket period he went through several years back. Then he fashioned a quite elaborate bent willow receptacle that he put on wheels and used to collect the odd bits and pieces with which he furnishes his digs in the woods behind the transfer station.

My personal moniker for him is Burlap Man, born of a time, oh, about 10 years ago, when he wore a burlap serape-like affair and burlap boots - even in the coldest weather. He is given to Biblical utterances and rantings - and can become agitated and aggressive if one approaches a dumpster that he has claimed as his own.

As in any place, there are untold stories in the woods of Fairbanks. Once upon a time a young child froze to death in a tent. It wasn't madness nor poverty that drove the parents to live in a tent on the edge of the city within a stone's throw of shelter, food and warmth. It was arrogance, hubris and self-aggrandizement - the conviction of a particular man that he had the skills and wherewithal to live off the land in a canvas tent through a harsh Fairbanks winter.

The irony is that, of course, now he does, and has been doing so for well over a decade.