I've spent two summers working in Alaska's tourism industry.
My second post on this blog was kind of a rant about a futile pursuit for an ideal that is seemingly lost. It was full of cynicism. At times I think my cynicism is a positive attribute, because it is a great way of looking at things from an angle that could lead to some really great comedy, but usually, and this is why cynicism can be more of a negative quality, it just comes across as rudely apathetic.
The two summers I spent in the Northernmost State had their similarities. The landscape was beautiful, the air was clean, and the days off were generally spent outdoors enjoying the world. And the job of a tour guide - the first year as a bus driver with a headset microphone, the second behind the wheel of a Jeep at the lead of a caravan of Jeeps each equipped with a radio to receive my tour - is what led to my cynical attitude towards the middle of each summer. A person can only be expected to give the same speech, drive the same road, tell the same jokes and take the same photos of the same kinds of people, cruise vacationers, so many times before he grows to despise his day-to-day routine.
And so if I came across as someone who hates Alaska and turned you off to the idea of visiting what is really a fantastic place, then I urge you to reconsider. Just because I have vented my distaste to the tourists that frequent the cruise-ship ports of Alaska, doesn't mean I didn't give a genuine tour every time. Because when it gets right down to it, I always remembered that most of the vacationers I met had probably worked all year in jobs they hated, even more than I only occasionally did my own, just to be able to get away for a week or two in the summer and enjoy themselves for once.
Last summer, by mid-August I couldn't wait to get out of
Skagway,
AK. This summer I kind of wish I could go back for a couple months, but I've already committed and prepared for school year-round for the next little while.
I'll just have to settle with my favorite photo. This was from the first summer I was in the town of
Talkeetna. You can see Denali way off in the distance. (or Mt. McKinley, whatever you wanna call it. I prefer its original name.) For having been taken with an old disposable camera, I'd say its a great picture of the peace you can find out in the wilderness.
Come to think of it, summer semester does end early July, and the fall semester won't be starting until late August... Maybe instead of trying to have my own Kerouac experience, I'll pursue a
John Muir sojourn in nature.
www.nps.gov/discovery2000/photo-leader.htm
(Library of Congress photo)
