North to the Future

10 years ago my friend Emily and I road tripped from Alabama to Alaska. We were going to go up there for the summer and become wildland firefighters. See, Alaska had been on my mind for a couple of years and was calling me. Emily and I had been talking about going up there for years, but it was the kind of talking that dreamers talk and it wasn’t a definite plan. Then as my college days were coming to a close, the time that we always said we would go was getting closer, but we still hadn’t made any definite plans. So Emily asked me point blank if we were going and it made me have to commit, and I did. I was ending one chapter with a wide open slate, all I knew was that I wanted to go to Alaska and hike the Appalachian Trail the following summer. I wasn’t interested in a career. I wanted to explore.

So on May 22 we loaded up my car and hit the road. Along the way we stayed with friends in Illinois and Colorado. We found free places to camp on freecampsites.net. We entered Canada and they took my pepper spray. We followed the Great Alaskan highway and went through Alberta, British Columbia, and Yukon. We celebrated Emily’s 19th birthday and stopped to get her a legal drink at Buckshot Betty’s in Yukon. We crossed back into the US and the Alaska border near Tok. On the way to Fairbanks to meet up with my bf we stopped at North Pole, AK. We stayed in Fairbanks for a little bit and then made our way South to our end destination- Homer. I can’t really remember why we had decided on Homer besides that it’s where my bf recommended due to his past of living there. On the way down, we stopped at Denali NP and drove as far as you can into the park. We took a free tour to see the sled dogs. After leaving the park we stopped on Stampede Rd and got out to walk when my car couldn’t make it any further on the dirt road. We were in the same area that Christopher McCandless was in when he went Into the Wild [ Lots of folks have strong opinions about his story, but I fell in love with his story when I read the book and later when I saw the movie (which is one of my faves along with its soundtrack). Rather than thinking him stupid and ill prepared I like to focus on the fact he broke away from the norms and lived a life that he wanted, he went out and chased his dreams, which honestly is not something a lot of people can say]. ..We stopped in Anchorage briefly and slept at the fencing center there (that’s how I met Emily and the bf-a fencing club in AL). Then we finally arrived in Homer on June 7th. The moment when we reached the top of the hill on the Sterling Hwy and the vista opened up onto the Homer Spit, Kachemak Bay, and the snow-covered Kenai mountains across the bay I knew I was meant to be there. It was magical.

Alaskan Rhapsody -Fun spoof in honor of our trip to Alaska

road trip pictures

Once in Homer we set up camp at Mossy’s Seaside Farm prepared to stay there for the rest of the summer. We had an 8 person tent that we set up in the trees down the trail to the beach. We spent the first couple of weeks figuring out what to do next. We had taken the online firefighting courses before and during the road trip and was waiting to attend a field day and take the pack test (Why wildland firefighting? My bf was a wildland firefighter in AK and suggested that route). We tried not to spend money and ate beans and instant mashed potatoes. We showered at the local high school. We spent time at the library to check out local events where we could go and get free food (while only taking very little). I even grabbed some food out of a dumpster or two. Emily practiced piano at a local music studio (she was studying opera at IU at the time). We watched the world cup in the wee hours of the morning in a small room at the laundromat with my bf’s best friend. We met people from all over the world who were in town camping at the farm (we met a woman who I would later be in the same cohort in graduate school with in Flagstaff three years later. actually another women who was living at the farm ended up in that same masters program and we found out our common connection at a friend’s house five years after meeting briefly at the farm. crazy!). We went nearby to Soldotna to take our pack test and firefighter field day. We essentially did everything to get our red card, but for some reason that is still not clear till this day we didn’t get it (I eventually got one 7 years later when I worked for the Forest Service). Either we didn’t go back to pick the cards up or there was some confusion as to our online classes. But the plan was to get temporary jobs that we would could quit if we got a fire assignment, but we never really signed up anywhere. The local firefighters told us to go back up to Fairbanks if we wanted to work on fires, but we wanted to stay in Homer because it was so beautiful.

So we got jobs. Emily got one at a local grocery store where she worked in the bakery. Sometimes she would bring home burnt cookies. I did not get hired at the grocery store, due to some confusion on my part about unions. But good riddance because it led me to search on a local job database where I found a wilderness camp. I applied, interviewed with the owner in his home, and got the job. And that job turned out to be one of the greatest highlights of my life, and one that I returned to for four years. It gave me amazing opportunities, travel to the UK twice, and provided me with a home away from home, an Alaskan family.

The job was with Hallo Bay Bear Viewing, a small business operating day and overnight bear viewing trips in Katmai National Park on the Alaskan Peninsula. The owner had an in-holding in the National Park which allowed him to build an off-grid camp out there for overnight stays, which was extremely special and remote. You could only get out there by an hour flight in a bush-plane which would land on the beach at low tide. It is on no road system. This is bush Alaska. Photographers and television crews were common guests. Emmy award winning cinematographers and producers from BBC, Planet Earth, Disneynature, etc. all filmed out there (when I was working there in 2013, Dr. Jane Goodall came out to visit and I drove her around town. And my name is in the credits for DisneyNature’s Bears film, which was primarily filmed around camp). But that first summer I worked at their small little tourist office on the spit talking to interested tourists and answering phones. I also picked up groceries and supplies to send out to camp, met guests at the airplane service to send them out to Katmai, and more.

I was working pretty much everyday, not seeing Emily much anymore and the summer ticked by. We took a short trip to nearby Seward to go hiking on Exit glacier in Kenai Fjords NP. I sent Emily out on a day trip to see the coastal brown bears. And later on I went out to camp with my bf to stay a few days and we ended up getting weathered in. It just so happened to be the same time when Emily had to fly back home to go to school. I wasn’t there to say bye or to take her up to Anchorage, but luckily she was able to hitch a ride up there and made it work. After she left my boss invited me to move into his house up on the hill overlooking town and I did. [One of the other women working for him was living there too; it was a small business. He was older and had a serious disease and his wife was the lead guide out at camp so we helped take care of him, the house, and their three cats when she was gone.] Also, what might seem random to you, my boss sent me to a course to get certified as a muzzleloader by Fish&Game, but he was a gun collector and I figured, why not?

After the last guests left in September I went back out to camp to help with “take down,” which involved in taking down the weatherport cabins and storing everything for the rough winter ahead. It’s a laborious endeavor and took about a week. After take-down my job was done. My last days in Homer consisted of going halibut fishing in the bay with my co-workers. I first caught an octopus that we used as bait and then I caught some halibut (limit was two then). I ended up having them processed and mailed to AL (pricey). I also went across the bay with my bf and hiked up to Grewingk glacier. I said my goodbyes and hit the road with my bf, headed to Seattle where I would catch a plane to Colombia and stay with my friend Mary for a month.

pictures from around homer

pictures from hallo bay bear camp in katmai np

That first summer in Alaska was the beginning of everything. Beginning of a nomadic lifestyle. Beginning of living a life that I wanted, a life that wasn’t traditional but a life that fulfilled me. It taught me to stay open to opportunities and be flexible in my plans because you never know what might come up. It gave me self-confidence to know that I can make things work if I take a leap of faith. It showed me that moving somewhere can by scary, risky, and hard at first but it will all be worth it in the end. Now with ten years worth of time to reflect upon that summer, I can pinpoint it as the turning point in my life. I am very proud of how I chased my dreams and went to Alaska, and I will always look back at that time fondly.

I ended up returning to Alaska after my AT hike the next summer in 2011, summer of ‘12 & ‘13, and then in ‘15 to help take down the camp for good. I had planned to go back up to Alaska this summer for the 10 year anniversary of such a life-changing experience. I hadn’t been up there since 2015 and much has happened since. My former employer passed away and his wife and my close friend is still up there; Hallo Bay Bear Viewing closed it’s doors with his death. I wanted another magical summer up there biking and running the spit, eating halibut tacos and salmon burgers, thrifting at the local pick n pay and garage sales, indulging in Two Sisters Bakery sticky buns, and spending some much needed time with my friend. But alas the pandemic occurred and my plans fell to pieces. Yet, I know Alaska will always be there and I will return because Alaska is my magical place and the snow-covered mountains still call me.