I Did Alaska Wrong
One of my favorite places I’ve ever been. That was my answer when asked how I liked Alaska. And the answer didn’t come straight away; I had to think about it for a minute or so, and I was surprised by my answer. Alaska had been high on my places to go for many years and had just never made it to the “next trip” until now. And having been, it’s surprisingly hard to describe because it’s, everything.
Alaska’s got that perfect balance of wildness and epic light that draws me to the extreme latitudes again and again. It’s covered in ice fields and glaciers, which gives life to beautiful glacial braided rivers. And no matter where you go, you’re constantly surrounded by giant mountains. The colors were so vibrant I had to desaturate all my photos to make them look more realistic. Everything was an adventure, whether it was getting tossed around in a small boat in an almost-small-boat-weather advisory, flying in a small plane through the largest national park in the United States, or hiking across a glacier in crampons.
One surprising bit was that Alaska isn’t crawling with wildlife, or at least not around every corner. I always thought, or maybe dreamed, I’d see moose, caribou, or bears every few hundred feet driving. Lo’ and behold, the only animal I actually saw while driving was my mortal enemy, the porcupine. And I was unlucky enough to cross their path two different times. Iykyk. I DID have luck when visiting some wildlife-rich locations. The Kenai peninsula was swimming with sea otters, puffins, bald eagles, and Dall’s porpoises. Denali was crawling with grizzlies and caribou, and the occasional moose. And best of all, Chinitna Bay was one of those rare animal kingdoms where there is very little human footprint and you can just feel that you are in their world and the animals can just be, animals.
When I decided I’d go to Alaska this year, I started with a vague idea of a roadtrip which eventually lead to me stringing together four new national parks for my national park project: Kenai Fjords, Wrangell-St. Elias, Denali, and Lake Clark. And this was quite the investment emanating in a massive driving loop that covered just a dot on the Alaskan map. I couldn’t help feeling like my two weeks in Alaska resulted in too much “seeing” and not enough “experiencing”. Don’t get my wrong, watching puffins flying through the air and grizzlies fishing in the river, jumping into a blue pool on a glacier, and flying around the tallest mountain in North America were quite the experience.
But this is where photography comes in. Capturing a single moment in time gives you something to look back on, a reason to feel that moment all over again. When I think about Alaska, the first things that come to mind are the rain that chased me out of the Kenai, hours and hours of driving, and the disappointment of my flight being cancelled for the thing I looked forward to most. But when I look back at my gallery, it fills me with memories of braving rough waters with strangers, of seeing animal kingdoms untouched by human development, and an immense feeling of freedom. And a reminder that no matter how many cool things you do, there is still so much left to experience in this world.
