Chicago -
By Timothy Inklebarger
Living in Alaska provides plenty of opportunities for new experiences: Hiking through old-growth rainforests; viewing grizzlies in the wild; walking across ancient rivers of glacial ice. But it is only on rare occasion – even for Alaskans – that one gets the chance to behead a beached whale. When I was invited along on this gruesome expedition it was like winning the wildlife lottery from hell.
Posted on April 12, 2006
By Timothy Inklebarger
“You can’t just let nature run wild.”
This quote by former Alaska Gov. Walter J. Hickel popped into my head last week when I spotted a raccoon trotting along the rooftops in Wicker Park. Hickel made the comment to reporters in 1993 after the state launched a controversial program allowing hunters to shoot wolves from helicopters. He argued that the big bad wolves were procreating too quickly and killing moose and caribou faster than the human predators could. And shooting at stuff from a few hundred feet in the air just sounded like a mess of fun.
Posted on March 25, 2006
By Timothy Inklebarger
In Alaska, you have to survive a couple of winters before you’re considered more than just a tourist. I had been living in Juneau a little under a year when I had crossed that threshold.
As a transplant from Austin, Texas, I realized something had changed in me when I got the news that the Juneau Kmart, along with more than 300 others across the nation, was going out of business. “Damn! They have the best produce in town,” I thought. I was told the freshness was due to Kmart flying in their fruits and veggies rather than shipping them up on barges. I experienced genuine anxiety over the closing of a store I wouldn’t have been caught dead shopping at when I was a teenager. What was happening to me? Was I a real Alaskan now?
Posted on February 24, 2006
