When I was young, I acted as though I was immortal. As I aged, I traded physical vulnerability for social and political strengths.
I moved to Alaska with my little girl on my 21st birthday to study geophysics. During my 4-year tenure as an Alaskan, I found more grit than I ever thought I had. Perhaps the most intimate moments spent at my Fairbanks cabin can give you a visceral feeling about my time there. We lived in a waterless cabin up on stilts with a loft for my daughter to sleep in. It had to be on stilts for the same reason there was no water – it was built over permafrost.
You find out what kind of person you are when it drops to minus 60 degrees Fahrenheit in the dead blackness of winter when living near the Arctic Circle.
• For instance, where else would you allow little girl to use the kitchen bucket for a toilet during a late night potty call?
• On a more practical level, you become deeply reliant on an electric timer that has three heavy duty, orange cords paired to three plugs hanging out the front grill of in your car. When it’s far below zero, you set the timer to go on 4 hours before you need to leave so it has time to thaw your battery, oil pan, and radiator.
Every parking lot in the area is lined with rows and rows of 4-way electric plugs. You leave your car key in the ignition because it's too hard to manipulate keys with heavily mittened fingers. Did you know when it 40 below or colder you can throw boiling water into the air and nothing hits the ground? It's just a party trick, but it's really cool to hear the sound of water vanishing into the darkness, FFTT!
I moved to Alaska with my little girl on my 21st birthday to study geophysics. During my 4-year tenure as an Alaskan, I found more grit than I ever thought I had. Perhaps the most intimate moments spent at my Fairbanks cabin can give you a visceral feeling about my time there. We lived in a waterless cabin up on stilts with a loft for my daughter to sleep in. It had to be on stilts for the same reason there was no water – it was built over permafrost.
You find out what kind of person you are when it drops to minus 60 degrees Fahrenheit in the dead blackness of winter when living near the Arctic Circle.
• For instance, where else would you allow little girl to use the kitchen bucket for a toilet during a late night potty call?
• On a more practical level, you become deeply reliant on an electric timer that has three heavy duty, orange cords paired to three plugs hanging out the front grill of in your car. When it’s far below zero, you set the timer to go on 4 hours before you need to leave so it has time to thaw your battery, oil pan, and radiator.
Every parking lot in the area is lined with rows and rows of 4-way electric plugs. You leave your car key in the ignition because it's too hard to manipulate keys with heavily mittened fingers. Did you know when it 40 below or colder you can throw boiling water into the air and nothing hits the ground? It's just a party trick, but it's really cool to hear the sound of water vanishing into the darkness, FFTT!
After 4 years at UAF, I had one more course to take before I could graduate: Alaskan Geology Summer Field Camp. That’s where you spend 6-weeks in a tent in the Alaska range with 30 other geology and geophysics undergraduates, one graduate students, and one camp cook. In field camp, we each took a field partner and had to collect rock samples from areas of study to determine the geology. The basic rules were:
The most terrifying event, expressed only through the screams of my hiking partner, was one of the most exhilarating moments of my time in Alaska. We had hiked a couple of hundred feet up to the top of a crest collecting samples along the way and decided it was time to get back down to the creek below. Between the crest top and the creek was a 40-foot thick coal seam the middle of our descent. We knew about the coal seam because we collected from it on the way up. The way down was over layers of weathered rock – your basic scree slope.
One of my favorite things to do living in mountain areas, was to slide down a sedimentary slope like your skiing, so the bits of gravel and sand provide a sliding surface under your boots. My hiking partner decided to wait for me to first define the path down. I started to ski down the scree slope. I had planned to stop at a tree clump many meters before the coal seam drop. However I had picked up too much speed and couldn't stop. I started scrambling, first sliding on my back, then flipped to my stomach and clawed the loose ground. I kept sliding. I tried grabbing the trees, but the small branches bent and slipped out of my grip. I looped my hands into the tree roots sticking out of the slope.
That slowed me down, but they broke and I swung over to the side, like Tarzan and started sliding down on my back again. I was out of options until, by some miracle, I stopped fast as I rammed into a large rock jutting up from the slope like a saddle. Surprisingly I was uninjured.
I said, “Hey Barb! Come on down! Just don’t go as fast as I did!” I really meant it too, but that advice didn’t inspire her to move one inch. The problem I had now, was how to get her down and get back to base camp together, but she was frozen in fear. I’m not sure what I eventually said or how she mustered up the courage, but I do know we hiked out together in time for dinner and got a loud cheer when we arrived back at base camp.
- the more rock samples the better
- stay with your field partner
- get back in time for dinner
The most terrifying event, expressed only through the screams of my hiking partner, was one of the most exhilarating moments of my time in Alaska. We had hiked a couple of hundred feet up to the top of a crest collecting samples along the way and decided it was time to get back down to the creek below. Between the crest top and the creek was a 40-foot thick coal seam the middle of our descent. We knew about the coal seam because we collected from it on the way up. The way down was over layers of weathered rock – your basic scree slope.
One of my favorite things to do living in mountain areas, was to slide down a sedimentary slope like your skiing, so the bits of gravel and sand provide a sliding surface under your boots. My hiking partner decided to wait for me to first define the path down. I started to ski down the scree slope. I had planned to stop at a tree clump many meters before the coal seam drop. However I had picked up too much speed and couldn't stop. I started scrambling, first sliding on my back, then flipped to my stomach and clawed the loose ground. I kept sliding. I tried grabbing the trees, but the small branches bent and slipped out of my grip. I looped my hands into the tree roots sticking out of the slope.
That slowed me down, but they broke and I swung over to the side, like Tarzan and started sliding down on my back again. I was out of options until, by some miracle, I stopped fast as I rammed into a large rock jutting up from the slope like a saddle. Surprisingly I was uninjured.
I said, “Hey Barb! Come on down! Just don’t go as fast as I did!” I really meant it too, but that advice didn’t inspire her to move one inch. The problem I had now, was how to get her down and get back to base camp together, but she was frozen in fear. I’m not sure what I eventually said or how she mustered up the courage, but I do know we hiked out together in time for dinner and got a loud cheer when we arrived back at base camp.
It turns out we were the only ones to physically examine that ridge-line and slope. The others simply walked along the creek bed and took notes while looking up and guessed at the geology. I didn't really give a second thought to how I narrowly escaped a crushing death, in an isolated creek, deep in the Alaska range. The important thing for me at that time in my life, is I accomplished something physically extraordinary that others hadn’t done – at least at that geology camp with those students - I won!
But what did I really win? I didn’t get a better grade or better job because I took a risky hike. My daughter could have been an orphan and I had done nothing to make the world a better place with my imagined immortality. Over the ensuing years I gradually lost my feeling of immortality and bravado.
As I turned away from external challenges I turned towards internal ones. I searched for paths that opened my heart and mind, seeking answers of the timeless questions. For as long as I can remember, I have wondered about my place in the world and what I should be doing here, but the challenge grew to a deeper level as I matured.
As I began reaching out in my community, my community grew. Other broader social issues found their way into my actions and repertoire. This is the real change during adulthood when I replaced my external feelings of immortality with an inner quest to do something memorable.
That is to leave the world a better place with thoughts, art, and civic actions for social and political good.
But what did I really win? I didn’t get a better grade or better job because I took a risky hike. My daughter could have been an orphan and I had done nothing to make the world a better place with my imagined immortality. Over the ensuing years I gradually lost my feeling of immortality and bravado.
As I turned away from external challenges I turned towards internal ones. I searched for paths that opened my heart and mind, seeking answers of the timeless questions. For as long as I can remember, I have wondered about my place in the world and what I should be doing here, but the challenge grew to a deeper level as I matured.
As I began reaching out in my community, my community grew. Other broader social issues found their way into my actions and repertoire. This is the real change during adulthood when I replaced my external feelings of immortality with an inner quest to do something memorable.
That is to leave the world a better place with thoughts, art, and civic actions for social and political good.