Surprise!! Hello, friends! It’s been a LONG time, but we’re back in action! I must say, I’ve missed this. I’ve been feeling for a while like I wanted to get back to blogging, and hey, 2025 is the year! The real question – what am I going to write about? Yes, I’m a “normal” person again. You know, working a job that actually pays me (weird) but that also limits my vacation time (boo). Despite that, I have taken some fun trips since reentering the real world, and I’ve been itching to write about them. So, here we are! We’re going to talk about some new(er) travels and maybe hopefully someday get back to some unfinished adventures from the past. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, though. For now…
Welcome to Alaska!! Actually, getting back into things by talking about my Alaska travels is kind of perfect. How did this trip even come about? SO GLAD YOU ASKED. I was catching up with my friend Olivia who, fun fact, you already know! (Well, my faithful readers at least.) Olivia and I met in Armenia while we were both volunteering at Aleppo-NGO. We hit it off, and that was the beginning of a friendship that has survived the six (SIX?!?!) years that we’ve been on opposite sides of the world.
Olivia still lives abroad, and we’d been trying to coordinate a trip together. Schedules are tricky things, and we couldn’t nail anything down. Olivia said, “The only thing I know for sure is that I’ll be on home leave at the end of August.” We paused. I thought, “Wait, her home is…” just as she said, “Wait, my home is Alaska. Do you want to come to Alaska??” I think the “yes” was out of my mouth before she even finished asking. I looked at plane tickets. I bought plane tickets. And 6 weeks later, we were reunited! In Alaska!
I don’t know if you remember how we do things here (I don’t know if I remember how we do things here…), but a new place means a new list of first impressions. And so, here we go! My (very long-winded) Alaska (mostly Anchorage / some season-specific to the end of summer) first impressions…
(I promise all of my posts aren’t going to be this long, but I guess I had some pent-up writing energy after all these years.)
1. Flowers
There. Are. Flowers. EVERYWHERE. In people’s yards. In planters. In hanging baskets (we’ll come back to this). In landscaped medians. Sure, flowers aren’t unique to Anchorage, but I’m telling you, whatever people plant other places, there it’s more. It’s like people know that they only have a few months to enjoy them, so they’ve decided to make the most of it.
That’s the other thing. Having that many flowers with the climate what it is… that takes effort and planning. You can’t just wait for nature to make things happen because there’s not enough time. Growing season is late May to September. Those flowers are greenhouse and garage started.
Also, apparently the long daylight hours and summer temperatures make it so that the plants are especially large and vibrant. I believe it.
2. Hanging Basket Capital of the World
I think Olivia made this up. What does it even mean? Who is responsible for handing out this honor, and how is it calculated? Quantity of hanging baskets per person? Per square mile?
Questions aside, there is a great volume of hanging baskets, and they’re all filled with flowers. And the flowers are all still alive which means someone is taking good care of them… or, I suppose, many someones, because with 9.5 hanging baskets per capita (invented statistic), everyone needs to be pulling their weight.
Aside from the summer care, people also do the work to keep the plants alive through the winter, either paying to board them at a greenhouse (no joke) or wintering them in a garage or basement until it’s time to get them ready to go outside again.
3. Weather
I have been to at least 5 places where people claim that their weather is more unpredictable than anywhere else in the universe. “We can have all four seasons in one day!” they say. “It’s like nowhere else!” I’m sorry to break it to all of those people, but this situation is not unique. It is, however, annoying, no matter where it’s the case. Alaska makes the list.
In my opinion, weather predictions are semi-useless always (sorry, weatherpeople), but in Anchorage, I don’t know why we even bothered checking. The best plan is to ignore the weather reports, decide what you’re going to do, and do it – while being prepared to dress for every possibility (LAYERS, waterproof everything, sunscreen, etc.).
4. Long days
This one feels obvious, but knowing it and living it are two different things. I wasn’t even there when the days were longest. Our days were around 7AM – 9PM, whereas the longest day has nearly 19.5 hours of daylight with sunrise at 4:20AM and sunset at 11:42PM! We had some late starts, but even so, we still had plenty of daylight and plenty of time for activities.
The negative of this is that you don’t realize how late it is, and then it gets dark and you realize, “Oh no! I need to be in bed, like, NOW.” Which may also explain our leisurely starts each day. So maybe it all cancels itself out.
The flipside of the long summer days is, of course, the short winter days. I’ve been struggling with our 9ish hours of winter sunlight at home. On the shortest day in Anchorage, they only get about 5.5 hours of sunlight (10:14AM – 3:41PM), and apparently, even then it never really feels like full-on daytime because the sun is so low.
5. Comfy college student dress code
I remember when I was looking at universities, I was drawn to Penn State because I saw people wearing sweatpants to class, and that was exactly the dress code intensity I was interested in (is that pathetic? Oh well). Anchorage fashion is absolutely my vibe – leggings, hiking boots or sneakers, an outdoorsy fleece, a puffer jacket, a headband. Count me in.
6. Up close and personal with nature – bear trash cans
If you’ve ever been camping in a bear-y area, you are familiar with bear trash cans. I read somewhere once that the challenge with designing these trash cans is that there’s an overlap between the smartest bears and the dumbest humans… but I digress. The point is, these trash cans are used in areas where bears frequent, and they’re designed with the intent that humans can open them while bears cannot.
Now, I had never seen a bear trash can until maybe college, when I started getting out into the wild more. City trash cans at home are, well, regular trash cans. They’re wide open, just begging squirrels and raccoons to come and feast. In Anchorage, every trash can is a bear trash can. The bears don’t care that it’s a city.
7. Life with animals
The bear trash can thing is linked to another observation – people are used to life being somewhat dictated by wildlife. This was strange to me because there aren’t many wild animals at home that would cause me to change my plans. My presence strikes fear into the hearts of foxes and rabbits and squirrels. Deer flee from me in terror. Sure, if I saw a bear, I would stay out of its way, but there are no bears in my neighborhood. Bears live in the woods where “Be Alert for Bears” signs are posted.
The animals of Anchorage are poorly trained. The bears don’t seem to know that they’re supposed to stay in the woods. Olivia’s mom took me on a field trip to see a “neighborhood moose” (a moose… in the neighborhood). It was eating apples from someone’s tree. She had no sympathy, saying that if those people cared about their apples getting eaten, they would have put up netting around the tree. I guess that’s like having a garden with no fence getting eaten by rabbits. Like, what did you expect?
As we drove away, she rolled down the window to tell some people who were jogging with a dog that there was a moose up ahead. They thanked her and just turned around, rather than taking a chance with the dog/moose combination.
Olivia said that in the week before I came, she was jogging on the coastal trail (a path along the water in downtown Anchorage) and saw three black bear cubs on the trail. Her thoughts went from, “Oh, cute!” to, “Wait, where’s mom?” anddd she turned around and went back the way she came.
Okay, I mean, all of this makes sense to me. Of course you need to respect nature in a different way when you’re living with animals like that. But it’s just something I never have to think about, whereas there it’s a part of life.
8. “Lower 48”
This is another “makes sense but I’d never thought about before” observation. People are constantly talking about “the lower 48” aka the contiguous USA. I found this fascinating because down here in the lower 48, there is no catch-all term for the rest of the “mainland” states. “The other 47”, perhaps? But when would you ever use it?
I also felt bad (not really) because it’s like Alaska is constantly thinking about us down here, but how often do any of us think about them way up there? Poor Alaska.
9. Acting like Alaska is not far away
People in Alaska, at least the ones who travel to the lower 48, talk about traveling back and forth like Alaska isn’t really that far away. If I didn’t know any better, I would think that Alaska was located smack dab in the middle of the US. People are “just in town for the weekend” or are “back and forth”. So casual. Multiple times, I found myself listening to conversations where I felt like I needed to jump in and clarify, “I’m sorry, we’re talking about LA like Los Angeles? Like the LA that isn’t close to here? You’re going there? For the weekend?”
Anchorage to Seattle is a 3.5 hour flight with an hour time difference. Anchorage to Los Angeles is 5.5 hours. Anchorage to Philadelphia is a 4-hour time difference and at least 11 hours of travel. IT IS NOT CLOSE. Boggles. My. Mind.
10. Private planes and pilot licenses
Alaska has the highest percentage of licensed pilots per capita in the USA. A 2023 article said that 1 in 78 Alaskans is a licensed pilot which is 6x the number anywhere else in the US.
This makes sense because Alaska is not the most accessible place. Only 20% of Alaska is accessible by road. Juneau, the STATE CAPITAL, isn’t accessible by road, only by boat or plane.
This also means that there are a ton of small, private planes. On a nice day, it sounds like they are constantly flying overhead. There are even some houses with airplane garages and neighborhood runways! Many people have houses outside of Anchorage that they travel to via plane.
We also drove past the Lake Hood Seaplane Base… I should have taken a better picture but was too busy gaping. There are nonstop seaplanes and little plane huts. It’s wild.
11. Balto
If you’ve never heard of Balto, the sled dog that saved the town of Nome, Alaska from a 1925 diphtheria epidemic, you need to watch more animated movies.
To summarize, the doctor in town quickly raised the alarm and asked for antitoxin to be sent ASAP. Without it, the entire town could be wiped out. The nearest supply was in Anchorage, but the only way to reach Nome in the winter conditions was by using the dogsled mail route. (The port was closed for the winter, there was no train to Nome, and planes at the time couldn’t handle the trip.) A train took the serum north, but it still needed to travel 674 miles west by dogsled. It was estimated that it would only keep for 6 days on the trail, 3 days fewer than the fastest travel time recorded.
A relay was organized with 20 mushers and over 150 dogs. The conditions were horrible, with temperatures of -50°F and colder, blizzard conditions (snow and wind), and January winter darkness. Multiple mushers got frostbite. Many dogs died along the way. The journey was completed in 5.5 days, and thanks to the quick response, fewer than 10 deaths were recorded in Nome (though there were likely additional unreported deaths in the surrounding Alaska Native communities).
Many people think Balto gets outsized glory considering that he and his team traveled only the final 55 miles. Togo, another lead dog, led his team 170 miles to pick up the serum and then another 90 miles back to hand it off to the next relay team, covering one of the most dangerous parts of the journey. Most other teams traveled 25-40 miles.
ANYWAY, the point of all of that is: Balto gets a LOT of glory. You can find him everywhere! I have pictures with THREE Balto statues from my time in Alaska. I’m sure that’s only a small sampling of the full supply. If ever you see a statue of a dog (even in NYC Central Park), I bet you $1 it’s Balto.
Whew! Okay, that was a lot. I hope you’re feeling slightly acclimated to Alaska. There’s more to come! Until next time…
Sources
I decided to start including my research sources in case anyone is interested in some additional reading (or feel free to ignore if you’re not). Some are pretty entertaining. Also, now you can know that, when I post things that seem absolutely insane, I’m not making things up… I’m just believing and re-posting things that other people made up. (English teachers – I know these are improper citations, and I don’t care.)
Flowers/Hanging Baskets
Anchorage Parks and Recreation. “Frequently Asked Questions.” Municipality of Anchorage. www.muni.org/Departments/parks/pages/ghfaq.aspx
Lowenfels, Jeff. “Alaska is the land of hanging baskets. Here’s how to store yours in winter.” Anchorage Daily News, 7 September 2023, www.adn.com/alaska-life/gardening/2023/09/07/alaska-is-a-land-of-hanging-baskets-heres-how-to-store-yours-in-winter/
Planes (I barely used this article, but it was fascinating)
Johnson, Acacia. “The lifeline of flying: the pilots connecting remote communities in Alaska.” The Guardian, 22 May 2023, www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2023/may/22/its-almost-spiritual-the-female-pilots-connecting-remote-alaska
Balto
National Park Service. “Togo.” www.nps.gov/people/togo.htm#:~:text=Though%20Balto%20received%20the%20credit,at%20the%20age%20of%2016
Alaska Mushing School. “The 1925 Serum Run.” www.alaskamushingschool.com/learn/1925-serum-run-to-nome/
Note: These external links are not maintained. If they stop working at some point, sorry! They worked once upon a time.