The problem with living in Alaska—well, let me rephrase that—among the bazillion problems with living in Alaska, is the fact that the longer you live here, the more you start to believe that what happens here is normal. I’ll start by setting the record straight. It’s not normal. It never has been and it never will be.
Just listen to what your friends say to you every day. I was on the phone with a lady who explained that she would be a little late that day, but the words she chose were, “I’ll be there as soon as I’m through washing the eagle.”
I happen to know that she volunteers for the Bird Treatment and Learning Center. I also happen to know that she takes care of a bald eagle that needs rehabilitation, so the whole thing makes perfect sense. Wrong!
You could live in Paducah for 100 years, and you will never hear anyone say, “I’ll be there as soon as I’m through washing the eagle.”
Nobody in Paducah would ever consider offering up their rumpus room as lodging for a bird that could rip your head off and then stick its beak down your neck in order to rip out your spleen.
The other day I ran into to my hippie buddy, Joanne, who lives in the woods without running water and has to haul gas in order to run the generator that keeps her freezer operating. All I asked was, “How’ve you been?”
What I got in return was: “Oh, it’s been awful. First I got that Taliban flu that’s going around, and I couldn’t even get out of bed for a week. So, I’m lying in bed and I hear this ruckus and there’s a grizzly bear on top of my freezer clawing his way through the lid trying to get at my salmon and meat. I was so sick I had to call a neighbor to come over and be the assassin, and when I finally got well enough to get up out of bed, I still had a dead bear on my porch.”
Every month, the snotty staff here at Alaska magazine forwards me letters from readers who are whining about my bad attitude toward Alaska. Holy Moly! I don’t hate Alaska. I just have enough sense to realize that human beings were never designed to inhabit this portion of the Earth. There are countries, regions and cities around the world that each claim they were the site of the original Garden of Eden. I’m just honest enough to admit that Fairbanks isn’t one of them.
It’s pure science. There are no snakes in Alaska. If the Garden of Eden had been in Tok, even Satan would have frozen to death. Adam and Eve would have needed a lot more than a fig leaf. There’s a reason Alaska is the only state in the union without a registered nudist colony.
We just need to readjust our thinking and realize that on the normalcy scale from 1 to 10, Alaska rates a minus 139. And it’s that very minus 139 that makes life in Alaska the hilarious treat that it is. Unfortunately, there’s a dark cloud on every horizon.
For decades, one of the best sources of un-normalcy in the Northland has been a chain of small bush newspapers that included The Cordova Times, The Seward Phoenix Log, Bethel’s Tundra Drums, The Bristol Bay Times, The Arctic Sounder, and the Dutch Harbor Fisherman. It’s a total cultural tragedy that Alaska Newspapers, Inc. announced that the weeklies would no longer be published after August. The papers were snapped up by new owners, and we can only hope and pray that they live up to their previous levels of glory.
The current star of the group is the Dutch Harbor Fisherman. Its police blotter is regularly quoted in Anchorage newspapers, and one highlight was recently quoted in the Los Angeles Times: “It was shortly after 7 in the morning when police spotted the man on a bicycle, a smear of blood around his mouth and more dribbling from cuts on his forearms. But he had an explanation.
“An ex-girlfriend ‘turned me on to vampirism,’ he told the officers, but he was ready to put all that behind him. Was there somewhere he could find a priest?”
For years, however, the small-town battle for police blotter supremacy was waged between The Seward Phoenix Log and the Valdez Vanguard. Valdez’s entries were nothing less than stellar:
“Tuesday, Jan. 18: It was reported that there are too many cats in the world, and they are all on Porcupine Street.”
Then there was the winter crime spree in which “a California man was arrested last Thursday evening after he was spotted walking down the street with a mounted halibut stolen from the Westmark Hotel. Officers stopped Tippett, who stated that he and his friends were using the 4-foot mounted halibut as a sled and that ‘if someone needed to be in trouble, it would be him.’ ”
An Aug. 2 entry read, “The giant Pixie fishing lure from South Central Hardware was taken and put into the mouth of the big salmon at (the) Hook Line and Sinker tackle shop.”
The horror! The humanity! This is Pulitzer quality material, and CSI Valdez will be premiering later this fall. These reporters are in the big time—they are not turning out disrespectful drivel on the last page of a magazine with spiteful editors. But if there were a cake to take, it would wind up in Seward:
“7:22 p.m. Caller advised his dog, Trixy, had run away after he removed her collar to give her a bath.”
“8:03 p.m. Trixy (from above entry) found hiding in the bathroom. She didn’t want a bath.”
“6:02 p.m. Advised a woman was possibly suicidal. Upon checking, officer was told the woman was OK, just camping and having a religious experience.”
Not all Seward incidents wind up on such a happy note.
“7:06 p.m. Power restored from 5:19 outage (at) Forest Acres. (We are minus one squirrel in Seward.)”
Unfortunately, not all cases achieve that level of closure. Sometimes, the mystery remains unsolved.
“7:44 p.m. Female called wanting to know if they would get into trouble and how much it would cost if someone wrote ‘Bob’ or ‘Cindy’ in the fresh cement at the Breeze (Inn). Also mentioned something about ‘butt’ and ‘boob’ prints. Not sure if they had already done it or if she wanted to do it.”
An informed public needs to know, and we can only salute those valiant public safety officers who protect us from dangers like this:
“Feb. 17, 3:10 a.m. Male advised he had given the victory sign to a cab driver who apparently took it for a different kind of gesture and stopped and yelled at the individual.”
The important thing in all of this is to remember that this is life in Alaska. You could live in Des Moines for years and never encounter crime like you face daily in Seward:
“6:42 p.m. 911 call. Male on Fourth Avenue said he was throwing crackers on his neighbor’s garage roof for sea gulls. Said the neighbor threatened to kill him for doing this. After officer spoke with him he admitted the neighbor did not threaten to kill him but hurt his feelings and he wanted to get back at him.”
—Mr. Whitekeys is a musician, composer, former proprietor of Spenard’s Fly By Night Club and worldwide bon vivant. His DVD, Alaska: The First 10,000 Years, is available wherever cheesy videos are sold. His Website is www.mrwhitekeys.com.