JUST DO IT YOURSELF, OKAY? [from Alaska magazine February 2003 issue, and one of sixty or so columns and articles I wrote for Alaska magazine, now collected in Alaska Traveler. Click on the cover below to buy your copy.] [N.B. I try to keep the recommendations and the links current but if I’ve steered…
It is a scene repeated over two thousand times a year from Icy Bay to Kodiak, from summer, when the sun never sets and the volume of ship traffic in SWAPA’s service area triples, to winter when Knik Arm and Valdez Arm fill with ice. SWAPA pilots are responsible for the safe delivery to the…
Dana Handeland already has one lodger, a Norwegian tourist and “I get five people tomorrow, four volunteers who are working their way up the trail and a guy who says he’s a stand-in on NYPD Blue who is bringing a lot of camera equipment.” “The Iditarod traveler is a different kind of traveler,” Dana says.…
The scow is moored on the north-facing shore. A hand-painted sign which reads “Espresso!” sits in a skiff anchored in the middle of the cove. “It marks a reef, too,” Jim says. Good to know. Inside, the tiny house looks like any other espresso stand, black and chrome espresso machine, refrigerator, soda water dispenser, and…
Okay, who wants to make the Bush Caesar salad? This is the one made with the least desirable products off the shelf, according to my recipe.” Well, I’m a Bush girl. I raise my hand, and take my place at the salad table at the head of the room. We start with powdered garlic and…
The phones, in fact, were ringing constantly in the Fly By Night Club the morning after Keys announced the last performance of the Whale Fat Follies, that iconic Alaskan revue featuring tap-dancing moose, spawning salmon, and the show’s signature piece, the reverse strip tease. It ranked right up there along with grizzlies and Denali on…
Read more “The whole point was to make people feel better when they left than when they came in.”
“You have to make Auntie Dana’s famous spaghetti,” Kathy told me. “For how many?” I said. “Thirty-six.” The next voice I heard was Marie’s. “Mom said I have to hold the phone until you stop screaming.” Dana Stabenow. Alaska Traveler (Kindle Locations 1742-1744). Gere Donovan Press. On Amazon US. On Amazon UK. On Barnes &…
“We want a lot of Dana in it,” I was told, so I wrote in the first person and never missed an opportunity for the reader to have fun at my expense. I have extraordinary memories. The hike over the Chilkoot Trail was a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and it’s going to stay that way. I’m still…
FRIDAY WE PICK UP Peggy Fagerstrom, who describes herself as “our trusty Native guide” to everyone she introduces us to, to the great hilarity of all, and we drive east down the coast to Solomon next to a wide sand beach littered with silvery gray driftwood and handfuls of tiny cabins and shacks and tents,…
We stop by the visitor’s center to get a map of the roads around Nome. Don’t laugh. There are over 250 miles of road out of Nome, far more than any other remote Alaskan town I’ve ever been in. You can drive 72 miles to Teller, an Inupiaq subsistence village, 73 miles to Council, a…
Read more “I’ve been having a very king crabby year. Just so you know, I’m not complaining.”