Reality Living; Living Reality

 

 When I think of all the reality shows out there that are based in Alaska, I inwardly roll my eyes and groan.  Sure there are some extreme jobs and people in Alaska, but there’s just nothing inherently dramatic about sifting through a creek looking for gold for weeks on end, driving a truck on an ice road, flying a small plane, or pulling over drunk snowmachiners at Arctic Man.  Moments of drama? Perhaps. Potential danger? Sure, but before this craze for all things Reality, nobody in any of these professions went around bragging about how extreme they were because of their jobs.  There were just miners, slope workers, pilots, and State Troopers. 

I could tell you a story of being charged by two grizzly bears in Denali National Park while on patrol as a backcountry ranger there that would curl your toes, scare the dickens out of you, and cause you to vow never to get off the bus in this 6 million acre park.  In reality, much of the duties of being a backcountry ranger take place in a small visitor center mindlessly reciting procedures, rules, and safety concerns with park visitors.  I have not worked in the capacity of ranger since 1999 and to this day could competently issue a backcountry permit with confidence and accuracy. We called going over the permit and rules our “spiel” and we each had one and said it over and over and over. And in the miles and miles of backcountry patrols that I conducted, this one incident was the only dramatic event that I can recall. Sure, you could probably round up a few interesting incidents from several rangers that have occurred over several seasons, but for the most part things are fairly pedestrian.
  My point is, properly edited, cut away, and voice-overed, nearly anything can seem exciting.  Yes, from time to time there is excitement or accidents, but those shows make all of Alaskans out to be daredevil adventurers whose lives are at risk every time they clock in at the job or leave the house/camp/tent.  I had some folks say to me that a reality show should have been made out of me working at a ManCamp. All I can say is that I would be horrified to have America watching me wipe down hairy showers, scrub toilets, and make the beds of grown men.  Nope.

I guess what I’m getting at is that in this day and age, when no one has to drive an unpaved Alaskan Highway full of potholes to get here; people flock here in droves during the summer arriving on boats, planes, and railroad…and yet, Alaska is still a mystery; it has mystique; it’s a wonder despite the fact that it is easily accessible to anyone with a ticket or a remote control.  And though you can tune in to a reality channel or a nature channel on your TV for a slice of life here, you can’t really capture the true essence of Alaska. The real essence of Alaska is the cold, beautiful reality of it: every day, every moment, no voice-overs, no editing, and, a lot of the time, drama-free in a traditional, televised sense.

The ski conditions in my neighborhood have been phenomenal lately.  The way the rivers froze, our wind conditions, snow conditions, all of it, has created some of the best, most consistent backcountry skiing I’ve experienced here in all my years.  Every day is a new thrill on trails I’ve been skiing extensively for the last 11 years and I’ve been supercharged by it.  To me, going out the front door with a couple of boards strapped to my feet is reality “TV”.  I can follow the same trail I skied the day before and recreate the story that is happening in the real Alaska while I’m tucked away in my warm cabin at night.  On tracks I’d created the day before I may see petite fox tracks carefully staying in the narrow rut of just one of my skis.  Or I might find large canine prints the size of my hand covering yesterday’s path.  I’ve never been so excited to find a fur-filled turd as I was when I knew that a wolf had left it on my route within the last 24 hours. That really happened!

Just today I headed north on the Jack River, where I’d skied yesterday, and because today felt like I was inside a snow globe—beautiful, gently falling huge flakes of glorious snow—there was absolutely no sign that I’d been there the day before. Today’s reality would be written in the snow. I was with one of my best friends and was excited to share the experience with someone. I realize I spend a lot of time alone and to have someone to share the joy of discovery with was invigorating.  I normally just absorb all my thoughts and gratitude and amazement and dorky comments, but today I had a partner in crime.  And while we skied north in amazing, perfect ski conditions we praised the pristine nature and ease of the river travel; the warm weather; the dumping snow; the newness of it all. After skiing as far as we felt we could, knowing we had to ski back equally as far to return home, we turned around on the Nenana River and headed into the snow.  We hadn’t seen any signs of animals, but thrived on the ease of travel and splendid conditions. 

As we left the Nenana and veered south back onto the Jack River I halted in my tracks.  My eyes wide, I looked back at Cyn to make sure she’d seen what I’d seen, and I swung my head back to look at the nine tiny reindeer standing in the middle of the river.  When I say “tiny reindeer” I’m only making ironical reference to the Christmas poem, which actually only mentions eight tiny reindeer, if I’m not mistaken.  (But we all know that’s foolhardy, because Rudolph is the most famous reindeer of all…<--another reference there).  Beyond that, they were not tiny at all…they were gorgeous and majestic.  Only two days after having a showdown with two moose on Windy Creek, Cyn and I were waiting to find out which direction this small herd of caribou would go so that we could pass by.  After several minutes of silence and eyeing each other from a distance in the falling snow, the herd moved west and I could hear, even at a distance, the click-click-click of their ankles moving and the swooshing of the snow making way for them.  It was a moment of magic disappearing into the willow and alder… As we made our way upriver and across their tracks I thought to myself: this is reality.  This just happened. Whether I saw it or not—and I’m happy I did—this is reality and it’s always happening: the tracks were here to prove it. There are no ads and it doesn’t happen in quick cuts. It’s slow and purposeful. And the way it’s meant to be.

Skiing on in companionable silence, periodically sharing thoughts and laughs, Cyn and I headed upriver on the Jack, both aware of the gift we’d just been given. Not ten minutes later I catch sight of a canine standing out in the middle of the river before us.  Again, eyes large in a “can-you-believe-this” kind of way, I look back at Cyn to make sure she sees it.  I look forward again and the animal is just as aware of us as we are of it.  I’m trying to figure out if it is a wolf or a coyote.  With our distance from the animal it’s difficult to tell, but it is easy to see it is a healthy specimen with a big bushy tail.  We were able to observe it for many minutes while it watched us, moved, watched again, moved again, until it was eventually out of sight.  I had perma-grin the entire time.  It didn’t matter if it were a wolf or a coyote, a canine sighting is rare and a treat…I could wait until I got to the tracks to find out.  I skied in perfect balance until I saw the tracks and determined that they were far too small to be wolf tracks…it must have been a coyote we saw.  I’d had my gut feeling when it seemed to have a fox trot to it rather than a more dog-like movement, but despite my years of experience here, I like to see evidence.  This is the reality of here. I see it and I believe it.

I don’t know what is going on with me.  Am I high on daylight?  Am I crazy about skiing?  Am I so simple-minded that I don’t need more stimulation than this? Or is the rest of the world so fast—too fast—that these events would not deem them Reality TV worthwhile?  A show based on seeing prints in the snow, perchance a real animal, would never be a hit.  I didn’t even feel an urge to eat the caribou, despite how tasty I know they are.  OK, maybe a little urge. But the reality of Alaska is that things happen how they happen, at their own pace.  The pace of my reality show is particularly slow and deliberate and not without a keen eye….Fairbanks has it’s own flairbanks, Talkeenta has a community to envy, Anchorage is the smallest big-city there ever was, Homer has it’s own pace.. Reality happens at it’s own pace all over the place.  But it never happens with the editing and cut-aways and drama-inducing craziness that the TV producers create.  Alaska has many, many faces and I just accept, and am grateful, that my Alaska goes unnoticed to the commercial eye. Reality is so much richer, and worth the wait, than what you see on TV.