| Baked Alaska: The Last Chillderness |
| At least Bush isn't stalking me through the northwest anymore. Something about Alaska must have sent him back to Texas. Instead, we're being followed by the Greenpeace ship "Esperanza," the far north version of the flying dutchman. In Ketchikan, there was no room at the dock for them and they sat forlorn and miserable in the middle of the channel. Now in Juneau, it's the same story. Those big, bad tree huggers--sailing to save the roadlessness of the Tongass Forest--were too feared by the city fathers to be allowed space next to the giant white behemoths disgorging the tourist plague unto the land. Juneau in late August is as sick of the walking wallets going down gangplanks as they were happy to see them in June. Joey guides me away from the docks before my misanthropy bursts my head. We visit the Mendenhall Glacier, which looks like a giant ice cube that's been left in the freezer a month too long. I hang out with him and his University of Anchorage friends, hiking the springy soil of the tundra behind their house, greener than a dollar bill. The variety of grasses and mosses make up for the monotonous spruce and hemlock forests, second or third generation growth so close to Alaska's capital. The Greenpeace boat and its message of environmental doom seems silly here in this land of abundance, with bald eagles swarming like locusts on the high trees, traffic jams of salmon swimming to glorious deaths, dall porpoises playing off the port bow, white mountain goats reflecting sunlight like blocks of quartz on the high mountains. Yet if there is one thing man has proven in the last few centuries, it's that no amount of abundance or plenty is immune from our rapacious appetites. So the flying dutchman ship is more like a roaming holocaust museum that even liberal Juneau doesn't want to see every morning when it wakes up. The rape of flora and fauna that was so much a part of the hideous 20th Century might have paused for a moment, but it could happen again. But we won't let it, will we? Many of the great battles of the environmental movement, from nuclear test bans to anti-whaling treaties, have been at least temporarily won. The giant political causes are becoming a thing of the past. With electronic ballots using proprietary software safely in the hand of Republican corporations, at least for the moment, and much of the nation loving the feel of the boot heel on its neck, it's up to individuals to change their own lives without guidance from above. Juneau is no friend of the shrubbies. It looks a bit like San Francisco too, sprawling up green hills, small houses painted primary colors, coffeeshops, fog. Then your eyes gravitate upwards to the ring of stark mountains surrounding the town of 30,000. The downtown is geared for industrial Tourism, as 12,000 passengers swarm into it on an average summer day. I climb Mt. Roberts, which overlooks Juneau like a teacher looking over students shoulders during exams, with Lenny from the north Bronx. "I don't like dese cruises, I'm telling ya!" he kvetches. "Dere always tellin' us what to do and where to go. Screw dem!" He is almost 70, dressed in red dress boots and looking like he's going to tumble down the cliff. I underestimate his strength. "I've been down the Amazon with canoe Jim," he tells me. "This ain't nothing." A grouse, or is it a ptarmigan? squeaks by us. I am hoping that I'm not guiding Lenny on his last journey, and that the cruise ship is waiting for him when we come down. The sun still isn't down here until almost ten at night, and it makes circles in the sky instead of just traveling from east to west. Sunsets last a very long time. "Some guy on the news yesterday said 95% of all creative work is done by men between the ages of 25 to 40--so they can impress women. I think he's full of it. I'm just getting started." Lenny says.. And after we cross the low timberline, at 2500', he gets to the summit before me. |
 |
| for more about the great work of greenpeace, click here! |
| greenpeace boat off ketchikan |
| more alaska news... |