Alaska. Part I

July 2...8, 2015

No cash? No problem. In the US you can leave a tip simply by slipping your credit card into the slot.

Alaska is best explored by plane. That’s exactly what we did: we all chipped in and rented a four- seater Cessna with our old friend Alexander from CaribEthnoExp at the controls.

Ketchikan

Any story about Alaska has to begin with a photo of some beautiful scenery.

Even a place of very little interest like Ketchikan deserves to have stunning surroundings.

This town isn’t a resort, it’s a hub.

There are three and a half buildings in the colonial style.

And streetlights of a pastel turquoise hue much-loved in the US.

Cruise ships carrying thousands of day-trippers dock here.

And the city has a hard time selling something to them on the double.

This is how the fortunate locals live.

But generally speaking, the locals live like this. Just to be sure, I even brought out the map to double-check that I was still in the US and hadn’t accidentally teleported myself to Stary Oskol.

Astonishingly, the abbreviated name of local bus service is KGB.

Petersburg

Initially we were going to fly all the way to Juneau, but a wall of rain and fog rose up before us, so we decided not to risk it and turned left, heading to the town of Petersburg, which wasn’t part of the original plan. Beauty all around us, as is right and proper.

There was no one there at Petersburg airport. In the US it’s very easy — land, park your plane, close the aerodrome gate behind you on your way out and off you go into the city. Everything is so stable and measured here that we found a copy of „Alaska“ magazine from November 1970 on a coffee table in the departure lounge. It seemed like it was still current. I flipped through it and eagerly read an article about the Alaskan village of Nikolaevsk, populated by Russian Old Believers. It was just begging to be added as a new stop along our route.

At first glance — just your typical America.

But it isn’t typical. It was actually founded by Norwegians, hence the Viking image next to the American flag.

And lots of Norwegian flags.

The selection at the local store is also themed — Norwegian folklore pieces and horned helmets.

A few old wooden houses are still standing.

Some of them on piles in the water.

Extremely ingenious concrete thingamajig that can be used as a partition. It resembles a puzzle: you join two of these together side by side, or you can stack them on top of each other — the structure stays sturdy.

Waste container.

A local catching raindrops on his tongue.

What I liked best about this place is the absolutely amazing outdoor food joint called „Inga’s Galley“. They serve up a lot of seafood, but I actually had the best burger in the world here. I can still picture it, and its taste still lingers in my memory. The place is run by young women who unabashedly keep a wellington with a „Tips for chicks“ sign on the counter.

Sitka

The inescapable scenic views.

The town used to be called Novo- Arkhangelsk and was the capital of Russian America. Heritage is carefully protected here. The main thoroughfare is named after the founder, Baranof.

There’s an Orthodox cathedral in the centre. The original burnt down in 1966. To the Americans’ credit, they stuck as closely as possible to the original when they rebuilt it. I just can’t imagine the reverse — an American cathedral burning down somewhere in Chukotka at that time, with the Soviet government then deciding to rebuild it from scratch so that church services could resume there.

This house, which belonged to a Russian priest, was not caught up in the fire. Today, it’s a museum.

What’s even more surprising is this school timetable, written in pencil right there, on the building’s interior wall, by one of the church school’s pupils. That was in the 1840s. It’s still there to this day. I wonder if there’s anything at all like it in at least one of the museums in Russia?

A wooden pavement! (Like in Arkhangelsk.)

There’s also a Russian cemetery here. You don’t notice it at first.

Then your eyes adjust and you start making out crosses, gravestones and hunched over border fences.

Yakutat

The environs.

This place is truly microscopic. For the most part, the people who stop here are all kinds of hunters and tourists in transit. The difference between a local’s plane and our plane is patently obvious: the local ones have wheels like an amphibious all- terrain vehicle, so that they can land on swamps.

The ceiling at the local bar is plastered with endless amounts of one-dollar bills bearing visitors’ signatures.

Seward

Here the village and the landscape fit in one photograph.

Fairbanks

What’s curious about the landscape in these parts are the very curly rivers with ever-changing courses. The old river courses have become overgrown, but always remain perceptible.

Alaskan airports are just as intriguing. As almost all of the locals fly seaplanes, they’ve put in special pools that serve as runways. You can see just how many seaplanes are moored along the shoreline here.

They city is moderately lively, but utterly unprepossessing.

The only pretty building here.

Nice bus stop — one in which it’s not too awful to wait in in a blizzard.

They have two exhibition spaces. One sprung up spontaneously — the classic car cemetery.

The second is „Pioneer Park“, dedicated to the history of Alaska. It displays various artefacts, from old airplanes to a huge paddle steamer, from natives’ huts to the house of a prostitute who worked near the railway construction works in the 1920s.