Summer in Alaska 2013: memories on film

I just realized I never posted this film I created of my last summer in Northwest Alaska. It seems rather fitting now, as I prepare to begin a new chapter on the Last Frontier, to look back and see everything I've done and anticipate all the wonderful things to come.

Back to Alaska!

Time to dust off the old blog, shake it out, and open it up to a fresh new page, because I'm headed back to Alaska. Just as I'd hoped for this summer, I have been hired to work as a park ranger again, this time for Sitka National Historic Site.

Located on Baranof Island in southeast Alaska, Sitka is a fishing town of about 9,000 people steeped in a rich background of Tlingit culture and historical Russian rule. This history is precisely what my new national park unit commemorates, so I can't wait to start learning more and teaching others about this area.

As for my new job, I will have many of the same duties I had in Bering Land Bridge, such as leading ranger walks, developing programs, contributing media work, and running the visitor center, but this time with a focus on the Tlingit and Russian history of Alaska. I'm especially looking forward to doing all this in a brand new place with new people and new (epic) environments to explore.

So, in the next month or so, keep an eye out for regular updates on my new adventures in Alaska!

Allons-y! A Summer in Review

It is with mixed emotions that I am here to report that I now know where I'm going. For the short term, anyway. After much hemming and hawing and budgeting on scrap pieces of paper, I bought myself a ticket back to Florida until the end of October. It turned out to be about $500 cheaper than my other travel schemes, and I need to see my family anyway. From there, the plan is to head to Spokane, WA, to seek out a new life, yet again. 

Adventures at the Top of the World

A steady snowfall of big, fat clumps of flakes descends from the gray, mid-afternoon sky, mixed with cold rain, and illuminated by an industrial floodlight on an adjacent building. The ground is muddy with puddles the size of small ponds outside. A faint aroma of gasoline and burning fuel wafts in through the slightly opened window pane, an ironic contrast to the soft touch of the Arctic ice crystals floating down from the heavens.

I am in Deadhorse, AK, sitting in a shipping container-turned-bedroom at an oil company work camp. I came here originally to visit someone for a few days, but that stay has turned into over a week, thanks to my flight getting canceled for foggy weather. I don't mind too much. It's been an interesting soul searching sort of experience here at the top of the world, I suppose.

Deadhorse: almost as far north as you can get in AK

A taste of culture

First, I want to share the video I made from the footage on my lost GoPro. It's basically a shortened version of everything I said in my last post. Enjoy!

In other news, yesterday I got to go shoot photography for a local cultural fall festival in the community. Almost as soon as I walked in, I was handed an Eskimo yo-yo made out of duct tape that said "I ♥ bacon" on it (SO random, right??). The woman tried to show me how to do it, but I was pretty hopeless at first. 

Paying it Forward, GoPro Style

This morning as I was getting ready for work, I was casually perusing the community Facebook group, Nome Post, to see what sort of things were going on. Something caught my eye:

My father-in-law found a GoPro Hero 2 camera on Dexter Creek (behind Anvil Mtn.) with winter outdoor footage from January of 2011. If it's yours or you know whose it is, post or call [Name and number]. We hope to reunite it with its owner! Thanks!

My heart stopped. Could it be? I had a flashback to this past winter when I devastatingly lost my GoPro Hero2 while snowshoeing in that same area. I had felt horrible about it for days, having saved up for months and had just bought it for myself. 

Pilgrim Hot Springs

Only in Nome, AK, does it make sense to drive 2 and a 1/2 hours north at 6 o'clock at night after work on a week night to visit a hot spring that you were told not to go to.

Well, on that flawless logic, that's exactly what I did with a group of friends.