Alaska: The word itself is beautiful, the idea of it too vast and faceted to be easily held. Alaska: largest of states, and in some ways the most varied, from shadowy rain forest to the most frigid, light-filled tundra. In my mid-20s, at a time when nothing was certain for me—indeed, when my I-can-do-anything bravado was crumbling—I had a dream about Alaska: a sky-blue sparkling landscape, a place of many colors, more beautiful than any I’d seen. Of tall, snowy peaks; of slanted sunlight and the clearest lakes; of vast meadows of wildflowers.
I awoke dazzled.
There was no question beyond when I would go. The timing was tricky, because I had what was considered a good job at a newspaper in Oregon, a position I’d worked hard to win. The pay was generous, the schedule relentless. To my dismay, I neither liked nor excelled at the work. So I kept my head down and saved money. When I had what I thought was enough, I quit the job, drove to Seattle, and caught a ferry north. I left my car with friends, figuring I’d improvise when I reached the end of the ferry line.
“Improvising” turned out to be hitch-hiking. On the ferry from Vancouver Island, I met a feisty German woman with laughing blue eyes who went by the nickname Mausie, and we decided to travel together. Standing on the road shoulder alongside her, I felt much safer. Mausie had no such fears. She’d explored much of the world with her thumb.
We hopped ferries as far as Skagway, threading through the islands of southeast Alaska, pausing on any whim. Most days were cloudy with spitting rain, the mountains appearing and disappearing like ghosts. North up the Klondike Highway, where mists closed thickly around us. “I sure wish you girls could see the mountains we’re passing,” lamented the kind truck driver who’d picked us up. I tried hard to envision them rising in every direction.
He let us out at Tok Junction, a sparsely traveled crossroads known as a brick wall for hitchhikers. But we were two women; it took us only four hours to snag a ride. Men waiting with thumbs out glared at us. We rode southwest, passed quickly through Anchorage, and turned toward the beautifully green, off-and-on rainy Kenai Peninsula, where I had a friend from school. North again to Denali National Park and patchy gray weather. The mountain revealed itself briefly on the summer solstice, more spreading and lovely than any peak I’d ever seen.
But where was the beautifully lit landscape of my dream, and the stretching fields of wildflowers? I had fun traveling Alaska, yes, and a sense of accomplishment for having struck out on my own. Still, sitting around a fire one night, when another camper said, “You should come back in autumn. It’s drier and the wildflowers are amazing!” my spirit gave a small, sad cry.
What is it about the places we hold dear that nourishes us and makes our souls sing? For me it’s the sense of being slapped alive by the beauty of the landscape. Many people find verve in cities, but I’ve always sought out natural places.
Decades ago on Hatteras Island and the North Carolina Outer Banks, I believed I’d found the natural and spiritual home where I’d live out my life. Climate change and overdevelopment derailed that plan. Now we have a new home in Maine, in a community that has graciously embraced us. These past pandemic years I’ve come to better understand the sentiment of a writer friend who’s given up travel, who’s content to stay close to his home landscape in northern New York.
Still, the restlessness I keep thinking I’ve killed off has a way of reasserting itself.
“You should come back in winter.” I couldn’t help remembering the words of a colleague in Anchorage, where I was teaching summers at the university.
“Really?” I’d responded. The idea of winter there, with its relentless darkness, was daunting.
“Come in March. There’s more light, and the snow is amazing.”
That was in 2019. Alaska in March: The idea echoed through my mind that autumn and early winter, until the global pandemic silenced it. A few months ago I found an opening: a plane ticket I could afford and a trio of friends happy to host me. So in early March I again boarded the ferry from Juneau to Skagway, retracing the first part of my route with Mausie.
The waters of the fjord were rough that day. Steep waves stirred up by north winds collided with the ferry, making it something of a dance exercise to walk to my seat. But the skies were clear, the snow-covered mountains fully in view. They rose straight out of the water, lining the eastern and western horizons. More snowy peaks awaited in the north. Through the ferry’s large windows I could see them all.
There were few other passengers on this cool, late winter day. A couple of women at a table laying out a jigsaw puzzle. A man stretched out in a sleeping bag. A group of Natives of varying ages. I relaxed into my seat as steep white mountains slid by on both sides. I imagined the precipitous plunge of their slopes beneath the ocean surface.
The Native kids were full of energy. Several adolescent boys threw open a side door and tried to fight their way forward to the open viewing deck on the bow. The wind had other ideas. Its force distorted their faces; they scrunched their eyes and pressed on, mugging comically for those of us in the cabin. One boy opened his coat and let himself be blown backwards along the side deck. Watching from inside, a little girl with pink footie pajamas and worshipful eyes ran to the window, laughing and waving to get his attention.
These kids were of the Tlingit tribe, which holds ancestral lands here, and they were well accustomed to the bright mountains we passed, with their rocky shoulders sliding toward the water. Snow-covered peaks above a beard-like covering of forest. Treeless white strips that showed old avalanche routes. There is a way of seeing a landscape in which you know exactly how the pieces fit together. I had that understanding on the Outer Banks, a much smaller tableau. I wondered how many of these kids would come to have it here. I hoped they all would.
The mountains slid by, and by. Even the rough waves couldn’t shake my feeling of being suspended in time. Six hours later, when we reached Skagway, I gathered my things and left the boat as if awakening for the first time that day.
Wonderful times followed: a trip with a friend to a small town in British Columbia, where the temperatures dropped to -25 F one night and the days were barely above zero. We stayed in a simple cabin, woodstove heat only; no indoor plumbing. Outside I was careful to cover my nose and mouth and to wear gloves, especially whenever I touched something metal. The threat to my skin felt slightly existential. But, oh, the crystalline clarity of the air! I felt as if I could see forever. We walked along a mostly frozen river and skied on a lake overlooked by mountains as high and snow-covered as any I’ve seen. With no wind and great gear, the temperatures were manageable. When the thermometer climbed to zero, we began shedding clothes.
I floated through the days, aware that they were too short but lengthening them by enjoying each moment. It felt a little like magic, like smoothly walking a balance beam knowing that at any moment I could topple off—but also knowing I would not.
Back in Juneau, two other friends and I hiked and kayaked along the rocky, forest-lined coast. We bought a king crab right off a fishing boat and drove past high rise buildings slam up against mountain cliffs. At my request we visited the Mendenhall Glacier. When I’d last visited the glacier in 1980, it had truly seemed like a river of ice, its front face a glaze of snow and dirt and rocks. It filled the river valley and towered over me. Here and there depressions revealed a core of glowing, electric blue. What I found this time was as third as wide, almost a half mile farther back, and clearly dying. Before turning away from it, I said a small prayer of apology.
There were, of course, no wildflowers. I didn’t miss them.
I found the landscape of my dream, and it was not just scenery. I know now that Alaska would never have revealed itself to me on its own. It did so thanks to my friends, all with deep ties to their home. They helped me glimpse its heart. It in turn glimpsed mine, changing me in a small but profound way. It kindled a glow within me that I feel even now as I move again through my daily life, here in pastoral Maine.
I close my eyes and see snow-covered mountains: rocky jumbles, merengue tops, cleaved white faces, long ridges running down to a wave-ruffled fjord. The tracks of my skis as I glide along a frozen lake, circling an island beneath snowy behemoths. A little girl in pink footie pajamas, laughing at her brother who’s outside on the deck, jousting against the wind.