It was Fourth of July Alaskan style for the New Girl in AK this weekend. I drove up to Petersville area to join my husband at a remote cabin where he’s been working for the last 10 days.
I’ll be honest. Up to now, I didn’t get what the big attraction was to the cabin lifestyle that is a matter of pride for so many Alaskans. This winter, people would earnestly describe the 11 years they spent living in a 10-by-20 foot cabin out of Fairbanks with no inside plumbing and sporadic electricity and all I could think was “Why?” What’s more the accoutrement of this lifestyle didn’t seem appealing either—namely ATVS, diesel, and guns.
Here’s the lesson learned kids—don’t knock it until you try it.
Our hosts, a life-time Alaskan and her husband, were expert guides on a backcountry Alaskan weekend, immediately setting me up with my own pair of the omnipresent rubber boots that every Alaskan woman needs to navigate the marshy tundra.
Everyone agrees they are remarkably dry this year. In Alaska, remarkably dry means you don’t need full waders—just boots will do.
It took a couple of hours in a convoy of ATVs to shuttle me and some construction materials into the cabin after one of the ATVs pulling a trailer was bogged in deep hole that was hidden by grass. After a good deal of conversation, a stop at a neighbor's, one beer for me and some mechanical intervention, the trailer was freed and we were on our way.
The “cabin” turned out to be several times larger than my Anchorage home and was once run as a bed and breakfast before our friends purchased it for private use. There were two smaller cabins on site, one of which was home for me, my husband, and roughly two dozen mosquitoes at any given moment. It looked out on a gigantic meadow that was filled with alders and wild cotton.
After we settled in, we spent a large part of the weekend “visiting” with nearby residents—just stopping other cabins by for a few minutes to share some gossip on the latest with Sarah Palin, borrow coolant for the four-wheeler and check out the newest touches that someone has put on their abode. [Alaska writer Nick Jans had a fun article about his own experiences ‘visiting’ in the Alaska Magazine’s May edition.] While out and about, one neighbor let me drive his ATV, while another stopped to point out the footprint of what he guessed was a 7-foot-tall bear. We didn’t see the bear but I was given a lesson on where the guns were kept in case we did. (See my previous post about guns versus bear spray—our hosts had both on hand.)
When we weren’t visiting other folks, we had our own company that we attempted to ply with all the food we’d hauled in—but of course, they wanted us to come back to their cabin to eat their supplies.
On day two, I shot a rifle for the first time in my life and hit the target on my sixth bullet—I didn’t have to reload! We celebrated the Fourth of July with plenty of food and neighbors but no fireworks. The sun isn’t setting until close to midnight and full darkness doesn’t come for hours after that. We agreed to save the fireworks for New Year’s when night comes early and it only takes a few minutes to reach the cabin on a fast snow machine.
Of course, as I was standing in my rubber boots, with a rifle in hand and an ATV standing by, I thought of Sarah Palin, our soon-to-be former governor. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen photos of Sarah with a similar look. What can I say? She might not know politics, but she definitely knows how to have fun AK-style.
Will I head back to Petersville area this winter if I get the chance? You betcha.
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