Remembering a story told to me about a man who blew his nose on the bus´s window curtains during a Peruvian visit, I tried, as much as one can on a four hour journey from Lima to Ica, not to let any part of my body touch the window. Cruz Del Sur, the only company I actually tried to attain the prices for, was double everything quoted in my guidebook. I decided to just "show up" at Soyuz, a cheaper long distance bus generally well supplied for local Peruvians. My plan worked well, and in ten minutes My bag was stowed [View Full Entry]

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As I closed my truck door in the darkness, I could hear howling through the trees. First one, then two, until all had joined and the forest vibrated with the rise and fall of their voices. The night closed around me on the way to my door. I followed the faint outlines of my footprints in the evening snow, moving faster, pacing myself to the beat of the wild playing in my ears. Sunday was when I finally danced with these voices. Brent Sass, a Fairbanks musher and 2008 competer in the Yukon Quest, welcomed me to his home. I had [View Full Entry]

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I can’t believe it snowed in September. I remember my first fall in Fairbanks. I arrived October 11th in a 737 on a dark evening with one piece of luggage. The sky was still thinking about dropping snow and ice cracked beneath my shoes as I walked across the parking lot. A week or so later the sky finally made a decision and the brown earth was put to sleep. Two inches of the stuff fell Thursday night. It brightens the world, reflects the moon at night, and dampens the tips of my shoes. I love snow and the activities it [View Full Entry]

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“I thought you closed the lid before you got in the car,” I said, feeling myself panic as I stared at Peppi’s open Thule. “Um…I thought you did….I may have left it open when I got out the dog treats…” said Peppi. “Crap,” I replied, as I started to ruffle through the Thule looking for missing items. All my clothes, boots, and gear seemed present and accounted for—Peppi, however, was not so lucky, as if God had decided to teach her a lesson of responsibility by letting her winter boot escape. We were thirty miles from Cantwel [View Full Entry]

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Life changes after being away for a summer. But, in many instances, friends remain the same and you find yourself slipping cozily back into a routine like you had never left. In Fairbanks, among certain circles, rock climbing is considered to be a lifestyle choice, one that bleeds into mountaineering and ice climbing during the winter and spring months. Fairbanks itself has little in the way of climbing. The UAF gym has a decent inside wall for sport climbing and bouldering for students and the community (if the community doesn’t mind paying an $8 dollar entrance fee). Due to a lack [View Full Entry]

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I hate the moments when you know that an idea, or an event, a moment, needs to be caught and held for the world, yet to the act is entrenched in apathy. The impatient travel writer sits at his or her computer, or at a bench underneath trees with a journal in one hand and a pen in the other, and lacks the power to think cohesively. The ideas, the memories, chase each other and mix in a soup of tumbled acts behind the eyes. The brain tries to catch them, like so many rabbits, and put them in a cage [View Full Entry]

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Fairbanks, a town keen on community and participation in local events, not to mention a rabid interest in physical pursuits of any kind, has outdid itself again this year with the completion of the long and arduous Equinox Marathon. Last September, cajoled by a friend a week before the race and completely unaware about what I was getting myself into in regards to physical exertion, I had signed up and paid the forty-five dollar entrance fee. The Running Club in Fairbanks hosts various short races like the 15k or 10k, and supports training year round for individuals entered in the Equinox. [View Full Entry]

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Survival is a state of mind. Taking that comment into account, we can argue the pluses of having proper tools or gear while in a survival situation if one should find themselves up a creek without a paddle. However, survival, as many analysts or behaviorists have discovered, is an inward preparation of the mind. Staying calm and collected in a dangerous situation is difficult. Many admit that the best medicine for dealing with an incident is keeping a positive outlook. Sailors from shipwrecks or lost hikers generally survived due to an inward determination to live. With all this said, I fi [View Full Entry]

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I came to Fairbanks because I was curious. I came because I was asked. I came because there was nothing to go home to. I came because home was no longer where I belonged. Petersburg was not home. Neither was Juneau. Now I am here in Fairbanks trying to make memories and build, quite literally, a place for myself. I look into a mirror and see the world behind my shoulder. Perhaps if I press hard enough I can break through this glass world. My cabin, formally my brothers who has now moved on to bigger and better things such as [View Full Entry]

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Peregrination \pehr-uh-gruh-NAY-shun\, noun: A traveling from place to place; a wandering. I was conceived in Africa, a sign of my future. My travels first took place inside the womb. Oddly enough, I did not want to leave, or perhaps I always knew that I wanted to travel to places bigger than my immediate world. I have always been restless, pulled by an inward energy to know and find and seek. I was two weeks late, a cesarean baby flown from Alaska to Seattle to be born. Weeks later I took my first trip home to grow in the misty forests [View Full Entry]

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