Tribute To Captain Phil

	Alaska magazine Oct. 2009 edition cover

When I opened the March issue of Alaska magazine and saw the letter from a reader in Florida taking offense that you used Capt. Phil Harris (from the Discovery Channel show Deadliest Catch) on the cover of the magazine in Oct. (“Letters,” March 2010, Page 6), I shrugged my shoulders and thought to myself, “It takes all kinds, and at least we still have the right to our own opinions.”

A few hours later, however, I heard the news of the captain’s death from stroke complications. Most of us only knew Capt. Phil as a TV personality; someone we get to see in a brief snapshot of his life for an hour a week. But if we could look into his real life, maybe our friend in Florida would not be so quick to judge. Capt. Phil fits on the cover of this magazine. He is the spirit of Alaska we want to see on the cover of Alaska. He did a tough job in a tough place and lived to tell about it until his body just could not take any more. Most of us armchair adventurers lived vicariously through him for one hour a week, then went back to our mundane jobs and talked to our fellow workers about last night’s adventure. Not Capt. Phil.

He lived it. Yep, he smoked and had a foul mouth at times but, in the real world, these things are a part of life.

So, to the reader in Florida, every time you sit down to dinner or buy something that was shipped there by boat, truck or train, think of the Capt.

Phils in the world that brought you those products. They supply you your life.

—Larry Hart Lindenhurst, Ill.

Supporting Bob Gillam Bob Gillam may be numbered among the few wealthy individuals who put their money on the line to preserve wild places and natural treasures.

Teton National Park might never have come into being, thus saving a national treasure for the American people, if it had not been for John D.

Rockefeller buying the land and redeeming it from developers and cattle interests. I, too, have a great interest in wild unpolluted Alaska.

Gillam may be rich beyond what I, as a professor of philosophy emeritus, can ever hope to be but, like him I have always had one foot in the wilderness and I have visited Alaska several times. I have signed every petition sent to me to stop the proposed Pebble Mine, and if Gillam will set up a nonprofit fund for the preservation of the area from mining exploitation, I will contribute the first $100 to it.

There must be thousands, perhaps tens of thousands like me who will respond to his leadership. And the propaganda from mining interests be damned!

Good Luck, Bob.

—Joe Greig Berrien Springs, Mich.

The Best Yet The February 2010 issue was the best issue I have read. Really great! Keep up the good work, and thanks in advance; I am looking forward to more great issues in 2010.

—Bill Smith Overland Park, Kan.

Reading Alaska With a Map I’ve had the pleasure of visiting Alaska twice, once as a soldier in 1959 at the Fort Richardson Cold Weather Survival School, and once in 2000 when my wife and I came as tourists. I may have more geographical knowledge of Alaska then I do of my home state of Florida because I have a road map of Alaska and I look up every place that is mentioned in Alaska magazine. I even found Kasatochi volcano, north of Great Sitkin Island.

—Steve Black Melbourne, Fla.