Off the Page

The day has arrived. Today I fly to Alaska, or, as Chris MacCandless put it, “Today I walk into the wild.”

I’m setting out to clear some of the carbon monoxide from my spirit, and play in the snow. I’ve got all the gear I need (for now), the camera batteries are charged, the boots newly sealed. Of course, my adventure might be closer to what another writer said, “Going where a lot of other dudes with really great equipment have gone before: the call of the pseudo-wild.” But this is all new to me, and definitely feels like a Big Deal.

And, to keep the quotes flowing, Jon Krakauer says, “The test of literature is, I suppose, whether we ourselves live more intensely for the reading of it.” I’ve read some great stories about Alaska and the Wild in the last few months, and today I get up off the couch and take a step off the page.

Check back next week for photos and stories of my time in the Last Frontier and the Iditarod…