Playing Chicken

If you read True Course – Lessons from a Life Aloft (International #1 Best Seller, and IAN Book of the Year), you'll recall a chapter on the summer I spent flying around Alaska- the lure, the beauty, the wonder - 

 "There is just something about Alaska. For many people, it's on the list of places they want to visit before they die. For others, it's a journey ending with roots taking hold deep into the tundra. I was one of the former. Not wanting to wait until I got older, retired, had an empty nest, or lost those ten pounds, I just went. Why miss out because of “waiting.” You could miss the journey of a lifetime or the love of your life. You never know. Missed. Gone.

It's long been a beacon for dreamers and misfits, people who think somehow the unsullied vastness of the wild will fill in those gaps in the windows of their lives, where the cold slips in. The people who inhabit that great state are unique. Like the folks in Montana I spent time with as I grew up, and perhaps why I felt so at home up there. These are people who survive everything. Earthquakes, tsunamis, fires, and floods only take root deeper, growing stronger. They have found that handling such things is a lighter load than remorse.

I met some interesting people along the way. A retired Baptist minister who ran a trading post and made sure I had enough Diet Pepsi and beef jerky.  A couple of biologists for the state lived in a village inaccessible to automobiles, only snowmobiles and an airplane. Then, one day, I landed on a strip near a lake with a beautiful cabin. A friend knew the person living there, and they had invited me to stop in and visit. It was an older woman who lived there, the widow of a retired pilot; she'd never been to the state until she fell in love with a resident and moved. She offered me some gas and coffee, and I ended up staying for two days, sharing stories of life in the wild and learning just how deep love will lead you into the wilderness of your heart."

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