"Lure of Alaska”
Alaska still issues a siren call of inducement...of seduction…at least for some. A seduction that resonates at several levels, of course. Some people come only for the money, immune and indifferent to the primal appeal this land has for many others.
Alaska is one of the few places where sizable fragments of the natural world still exist, unfettered by any human influence. It is also a challenge. Alaska is a place where men come to test themselves...against the land, against the weather, and against themselves.
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Alaska is one of the few places where sizable fragments of the natural world still exist, unfettered by any human influence.
It is also challenge. A place where men come to test themselves...against the land, against the weather, against themselves.
It sometimes draws men like Phil Koontz. Phil was an engineer, and for a while, an attorney. He followed his dream to ‘live in Alaska’ 12 years ago and implemented that dream by building his own log house. It’s a dream that still resonates within the minds of many men in the ‘lower 48’. Even though it is a cherished dream of many, it’s a tough thing to do.
This is not the Alaska frequented by tourists, but it is an Alaska which is more like the way it once was everywhere in this State.
Wildlife is still here, but more reclusive...not easily seen along the highways, which is a disappointment to casual tourists. But in “Lure of Alaska” we will see grizzlies fishing for salmon, and competing with each other for the best places. Black bears also relish salmon when conditions permit, and we will see them feeding in an amazing profligacy of fish, the bears choosing to eat only the caviar.
Anchorage is now a city of 300 thousand...almost half the population of the entire State. Forty miles north of this city is the Matnuska Valley, and a surprising agricultural region with about 900 farms. They produce some amazing crops in 22 hours of sunlight every day. Cabbages that weigh up to 127 pounds.
Denali National Park is the ‘crown jewel’ of Alaska’s park system, to use a cliché. But it is not the largest. The Wrangel-Saint Alias is thirteen million acres...America’s largest. It contains the abandoned Kennicot Copper Mine which flourished in the early 1900’s, a fascinating story of Alaska.
There are moose, people, cities, fishing, the Marine Highway, receding glaciers, and more, in a gigantic land that maintains an aura of mystical in the psyche of many people still yet.