Travel to Alaska

My parents live in Fairbanks, Alaska, and this weekend I'm up visiting them.  The flight up was relatively uncomfortable, as many full flights are.  The guy next to me was already seated when I arrived at my seat, and he had claimed the armrest.  He didn't give it up for the entire flight.  While I worked on a couple things on my laptop during the flight, I spent almost the entire time kind of leaning over to my right in response to my neighbor taking up some my space without even asking.  My dad pointed out there's a highly appropriate political metaphor there.

 

Most interesting was that as we were coming into Fairbanks, the smell of burning wood was suddenly noticeable on the plane.  For those that don't specifically follow what's going on in Alaska, there's been raging forest fires that have already consumed roughly five-and-a-half million acres that has blanketed the area with smoke.  (Just to throw in a little gripe about environmentalists with a size comparison, the area potentially affected by the rejected Arctic National Wildlife Reserve access to Alaskan oil would have been about 1000 acres.)

 

I've often read that smells provide the most potent memories.  It certainly seems the case because I was immediately flooded with memories from my teenage years as a Boy Scout in Alaska.  The smell of a campfire and the way that smell was left on my clothes and camping gear was always very pleasant while I was growing up, mostly because some of my happiest times were while on camping, hiking, canoeing and boating trips with my Scout troop, but also because it's just a very nice smell.  There's definitely a haze over the area in and around Fairbanks, although I'm told it isn't the worst it has been.

 

Coming here is always a bit odd, anyway, as it's been so long and I've spent so much more time in big cities or pretty busy suburbs since moving out of town.  Even as the town progresses and grows and adds new streets and buildings, it's still so... small town.  Alaskans also have a fierce kind of state patriotism and pride in their state you don't see everywhere.  I don't see people go on about Washington state most of the time, certainly not like here.  Even many of the business names push being Alaskan - the Anchorage airport had the Mosquito Bookstore and Sourdough Traders right by the gates, and I saw a shirt for sale in one of them with a design I recall from childhood.  It has crossed salmons and a skull with the slogan, "Spawn 'til You Die."  Classic Alaskan humor.