ALASKA REVISTED: The Call of the Mild

Last summer I boarded a ship with 3,000 strangers and invaded Alaska. Turns out, the Last Frontier is big enough to contain multitudes. WRITTEN AND ILLUSTRATED BY PETER MOORE

FOR A COUPLE OF DECADES my wife and I listened as friends and family members announced their exciting plans to travel to Alaska. Mind you, they didn’t invite us along. No. Instead, they enthusiastically expressed their intention to go have a wonderful time without us. And they did, voyage after voyage, year after year. With time’s winged chariot hurrying near, we decided it was maybe now or never. So we booked a cruise on Holland America’s Nieuw Amsterdam, and invited our niece along. She accepted!

We had a wonderful time, as I hope you’ll see below.

Then one thing led to another, and I wrote this story about the Alaska ferry system for BACKPACKER.com, and I was invited to join the hosts of the Alaska Uncovered podcast to talk and talk and TALK about it. It’s amazing how much I don’t know about Alaska, and now the evidence is fully laid out for all to hear! We did have a few laughs over the course of 1h, 12m, and 25s, so give it a listen when you’re cleaning the bathroom, driving a long way to some boring place, or waiting for Godot.

On our cruise, I had all the time in the world to sit on the postage-stamp veranda of our suitcase-sized stateroom, and stare at the enormous Alaskan landscape. Very often, it stared right back at me.

So I pulled out my pencil and got busy.

Here’s hoping your friends and relatives invite you to head north, before it all melts.

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A GUY FROM TEXAS IS SITTING IN A BAR, bragging about his state. How it has the biggest this. The most of that. The longest whatever.

Two seats down, a guy from Alaska patiently listens.

Finally the Last Frontiersman can take no more, and tells the Lone Star Bigmouth:

“If you don’t stop bragging,” he says, “we’ll tear Alaska in half, and then Texas will be the third largest state.”

I heard that joke twice while I was visiting Alaska, delivered by tour guides who had identified Texans in our midst. When I got back home, my friend Mark texted the joke to me.

It was still funny, because like all great comedy, it was true.

Alaska is indeed huge, as I know after trying to stare it down for two weeks. The landscape was simply too enormous to comprehend. But I did try to stuff as much as I could into my sketchbook.

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THE LANDSCAPE THAT LOOKS BACK. I spent hours on the balcony of my cabin, trying to pencil in all that was passing by. And some stuff that wasn’t passing by, but I wish would. I saw sea otters (cute!) and the whale’s tail (whoa), and I swear that mountain was looking back at me (yikes). Hey Ariel!

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JOHN MUIR WOULD BE PISSED. In the 1879, the United States’ proto-naturalist cruised Alaska to study glaciers. There’s fewer of them to study, now. The ice flow named after Muir, in Glacier (not so much) Bay, has retreated thirty-one miles since his visit.

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“I FEEL LIKE I’M IN FUCKING DISNEY WORLD,” said the crabby guy in a ship-board restaurant, as the patrons (and I) rushed the window when a whale cruised past. I cut the guy dead with sarcasm: “Cheer up, pal. We’re in Alaska.” But actually, it was a bit of Tundra World™ up there, with landscapes that caused eyestrain, animals that run the gamut from fuzzy to scary, hair-raising rides in kayaks and canoes, and trinket stores where your memories are cast in forever chemicals. I bought this cool hoodie from Alaska Geographic, if you’re wondering.

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IT’S JUST ONE BIG ICE BUCKET. Care for a beer?

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THE SALMON ARE RUNNING…from bears, from canneries, and from me. Thank goodness some actually manage to spawn, too.

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FLOAT-PLANES ARE EVERYWHERE. When I was a kid, I dreamed of 1.) becoming a pilot and 2.) moving to Alaska. I’m 0-2 on that. So I was wistful as I watched float-plane after float-plane explore the fish-bird continuum.

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OUR SHIP WAS BIGGER THAN ONE TOWN WE VISITED. Skagway, Alaska: Population 1,191. Holland America’s Nieuw Amsterdam: Population 2,881. This was the view from the Crow’s Nest, where I sipped a latte while my ship overwhelmed even that landscape.

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MY TRIANGLE OF SADNESS. Have you seen Ruben Östlund’s film about a bunch of disgusting rich people as they abuse the workers who serve them aboard a megayacht? Go for the social satire, and enjoy the ten-minute vomiting scene as a bonus! The movie’s plot hinges on an orange lifeboat just like the one visible from my little balcony. It made me nervous—and a little sad—every time I looked at it.

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THE SCARIEST CATCH. I’ve always had it in for crustaceans. Give me a bowl of drawn butter, a few lemons, and a boiled exoskeleton (lobster, king crab), and I can be happy for hours. But in Alaska, I finally realized just how big and scary these Tarantulas of the Deep are. Glad somebody else catches them for me.

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THE END OF THE (SHIPPING) LINE. As we approached Vancouver, two other tourist behemoths fell in line behind our ship. It was time to have my last few unlimited drinks, and eat once more at the infinite buffet. I gained five pounds, and a whole new perspective on size.

Note to Texans: Alaska really is that big.

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Many thanks for joining me on this trip!

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