Words Haven’t Been Invented

Alaska - Day 1
Old Jack is an Eskimo who owns a shop in downtown Anchorage that sells caribou hides. He says I should really get out of town and see the real Alaska. This is something I’ve read, that locals don’t consider Anchorage part of Alaska. It’s only when you get out into the country that you see what’s real. Alaska begins in a mile or so in any direction. Old Jack says, “the English language cannot express what there is out there.” He said it over and over. At first I thought he was just a talkative salesman, as soon as I walked in he said he liked my beard. He just started talking like I was the first person he’d seen all week. But this guy is a real character, he’s educated. He’s been a bush pilot for 40 years, flying to villages in the Interior to get the hides he sells in his store. He has a son who went to Oxford. He knows the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, the National Gallery in London, and the Louvre (he pronounced it correctly).

We talked about art and nature and Hollywood. I told him that I was at the museum earlier and I’d seen some paintings by Sydney Laurence. He said again that I have to get out into the wilderness. The wilderness hasn’t changed in a thousand years, he said. You can’t hear cars, your senses become heightened. I know what he’s talking about. He says it will change who you are. Words cannot express. The English language is not capable. He said maybe the camera could capture some of it, but he wasn’t sure.

But, I’m getting ahead of myself…

I woke up in Anchorage at 7:30 on Wednesday and was out the door by 8. I didn’t get to my hotel until about 1:30am the night before. All my flights were delayed so it was the middle of the night driving in, and I didn’t get a good view of the town, so this morning was my chance to get some bearings. I walked up to 5th St and hung a left. At the end of the block was the Cook Inlet. I found Captain Cook’s statue overlooking the creaking frozen tide where 200 years ago his ships were anchored. That guy really got around. He was up here looking for the Northwest Passage, he sailed along the Aleutian chain of islands, hung a right and went 250 miles north of the Artic Circle before heading south to Hawaii where he was killed by the natives who apparently didn’t appreciate being "discovered."

After paying my respects I went back to 4th St. to the Snow City Café where I could thaw out and eat a huge breakfast. It is icy up here and my LA blood had yet to thicken up. In the café was the Italian musher, Fabrizio Lovati. So, that was cool, my first musher sighting. The Iditarod is in the air.

A few blocks down 4th is the Alaska Visitor Center, where I met another CA traveler up here to see the race. We loaded up on maps and info before heading out into the cold again. It was still early and nothing was quite open yet. I did find a great bookstore though with a ton of Alaska books. I got a great collection called The Last New Land. This added to the collection of Robert Service’s poems I picked up in the Seattle airport on my way up the night before.

This is the law of the Yukon, and ever she makes it plain:
Send not you foolish and feeble; send me your strong and
your sane…

By now shops were opening and the mall was across the street. I found the Iditarod store where I gathered more bags of loot. Yep, there’s a mall. Downtown Anchorage is filled with tiny shops with names like Once in a Blue Moose, that are filled with the inevitable Crap for Tourists - fridge magnets, wind chimes, fish platters. I did my best to resist.





From the mall I went to see the real stuff at the Anchorage Museum of History and Art – history upstairs, art downstairs. What a treasure trove! I saw stone carvings and bone needles and baskets and kayaks and seal-gut waterproof parkas (parka is a Russian word, I learned), and I read about Cook and his expeditions. I love that in all the signs when they’re describing dates they say 10,000 BP (before present), there’s just no reason in this frozen land to bring a religion from the deserts of the Middle East as a point of reference.

Then downstairs was the art. I was brought to tears by a landscape of snow and mountains by moonlight. That’s majesty! There’s some serious art that’s been done up here. I stood in a room full of paintings by local legend Sydney Laurence, each one a different view of Denali. This guy loved to paint that mountain. I can only imagine how well he knew it, painting it over and over again throughout his life.







I spent a ton of time (and money) in the shop, but came away with a nice book on the collection and one of native stories. Then it was off to the cemetery where, just like the guide book said, I saw Russian crosses, Eskimo whale bone grave markers, and Laurence’s headstone. It was a pretty amazing mix of cultures all covered in a foot of snow. I tromped around taking pictures of raven wing imprints in the snow. I had the place to myself – except of course, for the long-term residents.

After the cemetery I came back into town to find a coffee shop, and that’s where I walked into Old Jack’s and he said the thing about the English language not having the words. This was all a bit much. It had been a pretty full day already - excitement, tears, wonder, slipping on icy sidewalks, an encounter with an Eskimo. I was loaded up with books, gifts, post cards, my souvenir Iditarod hat. I had to thaw out in a coffee shop and take it all in. It was pretty damn cold. My breath was frozen in my beard. As long as I kept moving I seemed to be OK, except my knees were freezing in my jeans. I knew I’d have to really bundle up on Saturday because I’d be outside all day for the race start. I sat in Kobuk, a Russian tea house/coffee shop and wrote post cards till my nose stopped being numb.

After I dropped off my bags of loot at the hotel, I headed out again for some dinner. I found Humpy’s, where the only seat was at the bar. There ain’t no no-smoking section here. I sat between two locals, so between the recommendations from both left and right I got quite an education on the microbrews of Alaska. Turns out there’s some good stuff up there. A band started up a little later and through the haze of my exhaustion I knew I was beginning to find what I’d come up here for. I’d been in Alaska less than 24 hours and I’d already experienced more than I’d dreamed of.

What a day, what an introduction!

Check out more photos here!