| August 18, 2006 Alaskan in Exile by Neil Zawicki Note: This installment involves moose, a bear and vapid party bimbos. It is meant as a recollection and nothing more. I should have known at the time, but I was new, so it didn’t seem special. I’d been in Alaska for a week, and already I had interviewed the mayor for the Anchorage Press and skipped out on my pizza delivery job in favor of hiking Crow Pass. Selbig set up the trip, and we brought Ryan Laine along. He was from Chico, California, and probably still is. We filled our heads with Black Sabbath on the way out to the trailhead, and then struck out for the Eagle River Nature Center at the other end, 26 miles away. It occurred to me how perfectly Alaskan the trip was while I was telling the story to a friend recently. I generally tell stories of things I’ve done and places I’ve been, which is what lead me to journalism. And if Selbig knows anything about me, it’s that I tell stories. In fact, I do it so often that he refers to my collective battery of tales, no matter what the yarn, as “Neil’s fishing boat story.” He rolls his eyes when he says it. Here’s a standard way to begin the story I’ve been trying to start since the beginning of this column: It’s important for you to erase any real knowledge of Alaska before reading on, as the format is meant to hook Lower 48ers. It starts like this: “We were waiting at the Nature Center for our ride. We were filthy. We’d just come 26 miles through alpine tundra and ice fields and glacial rivers and swamps. We saw a black bear and four moose, and Aaron had forgotten the crab meat, so we ate ramen with cocktail sauce. And then a car drove up and out popped two genuine party girls. They lit up smokes and sauntered over to the three of us and asked, ‘So, do you guys burn it?’” Burn it? I’d seen a massive bull moose while alone just an hour earlier, and he was so still on the trail that my novice brain thought he was a statue erected by the Nature Center. Really. That is how new I was. But now there were two silly Chilkoot’s mascots standing over us, and we were covered in mud, and smelled like smoke. Strangely, it didn’t occur to me that the girls could be fake, but I thought the moose was. That, again, is how new I was. Once our ride arrived, we mentioned to Ryan from Chico that it just wouldn’t be Christian not to go over and ask the girls for their phone number. He did, of course, and later in the week, Sam and Kelsey came by Selbig’s apartment to “hang out.” They sat on the love seat, side by side, and did nothing but laugh, and whisper to themselves. That’s when Vickie, who taught me about “termination dust,” gave Sam and Kelsey a proper label. She called them “giggling wallpaper.” Nowhere. Not in Yellowstone or in Montana or in Joshua Tree can you traverse real, dangerous, unforgiving wilderness ranging from ice to muskeg and then bump into two party chicks out for an afternoon drive. Nowhere but up there. And it is all but impossible to explain such a thing to a person who hasn’t been. Neil Zawicki, exiled Alaskan, is Editor at Large for Insurgent49, a former reporter for the Alaska Star, and winner of the Alaska Press Club's 'Best Columnist' award. He is now living out the rest of his days in an undisclosed location in Oregon. He can be contacted at - hondo23@gmail.com |
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August 11, 2006 August 4, 2006 July 28, 2006 July 21, 2006 July 14, 2006 June 30, 2006 June 23, 2006 June 16, 2006 June 9, 2006 June 2, 2006 May 26, 2006 May 12, 2006 May 5, 2006 April 28, 2006 April 21, 2006 April 14, 2006 April 7, 2006 March 31, 2006 March 24, 2006 March 17, 2005 March 3, 2006 February 24, 2006 February 17, 2006 February 10, 2006 February 3, 2006 January 27, 2006 January 20, 2006 January 13, 2006 January 6, 2006 December 30, 2005 December 23, 2005 December 16, 2005 December 10, 2005 December 2, 2005 November 25, 2005 November 18, 2005 November 11, 2005 November 4, 2005 October 28, 2005 October 21, 2005 October 14, 2005 October 7, 2005 September 30, 2005 September 23, 2005 September 16, 2005 September 9, 2005 September 2, 2005 August 26, 2005 August 19, 2005 August 12, 2005 August 5, 2005 July 29, 2005 July 22, 2005 July 15, 2005 July 8, 2005 July 1, 2005 June 24, 2005 June 17, 2005 June 10, 2005 June 3, 2005 May 27, 2005 May 20, 2005 May 13, 2005 May 6, 2005 April 29, 2005 April 21, 2005 April 14, 2005 April 7, 2005 April 1, 2005 - also by this
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